Is there faith enough to dare to speak about Jesus and his God?

A born-again believer and follower of Jesus asks “Where is your faith?” and looks at the Nazarene master teacher who, according to him, did not have fear (though in the four gospels you’ll notice there were moments that Jesus had a lot of fear and even came to call unto his heavenly Father asking why He had abandoned him.) But looking at the other moments of his life it is true we can find a person who has given himself totally in the hands of his heavenly Father. Even when he was so afraid he asked his God to make him strong enough to be able to do the Will of Him.

Jesus was not afraid to give himself in the hands of his God, the God of Israel. His fear for that God meant he respected the power that God had over him. As a sign of his respect, Jesus did everything to please his heavenly Father, Whom he recognised to be greater than him. He knew he could not do anything without this Great God Who has all the Power.

Charlotte Creamer on her blog writes:

As followers of Jesus, we also have the same capacity to live as fearlessly as Jesus did while on Earth. But what made Jesus so fearless? What enabled him to live his life without fear of anyone or anything?

The answer is rooted in Jesus’ complete faith and trust in God, and in his understanding of God’s Kingdom on Earth. As soon as Jesus came out as the Messiah – the king of the Jews – the Kingdom was established. Jesus knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that he was under the protection of God’s Holy Spirit and holy angels while he was in the Kingdom. This was the safe place promised by God to his people: No physical or spiritual harm can come to those who live in the spiritual Promised Land. The physical protection lasts until it’s time to go home (when it’s removed to enable physical death), but the spiritual protection remains as long as the person being protected is in right-standing with God. {Where is your faith?}

When people have enough faith in a certain matter, they are not afraid of it. The same for Jesus. He fully trusted the One who had sent him here on earth. He knew that he had to fulfil a task, but trusted his heavenly father for providing the means to succeed. By the authority of God Jesus spoke and acted in the midst of people who were curious to see that miracle worker, but who were also interested to hear what that man had to tell about the one many prophets had spoken. Even when they saw that there were several people not liking him, they were not afraid to be around him. (This at least until the moment he was imprisoned, because than the fear caught many who were close to Christ.)

 

What about today?

Have you become afraid to talk about Jesus and his God?

Do you dare to speak about Jesus and his heavenly Father, the Only One true God?

Charlotte Creamer writes:

Faith is the opposite of fear. If you have faith in God, then you know God’s Kingdom has been established on Earth, with Jesus as King. If you know the Kingdom has been established and that Jesus is your king, then you know you are protected both physically and spiritually. This should give you the same level of fearlessness that Jesus had while on Earth.

So, if you find yourself being afraid of anyone or anything in this Age of Fear, ask yourself “Where is your Faith?” Then do everything you can to deepen your faith and trust in God and get a better understanding of his Kingdom. {Where is your faith?}

Apocalyptic Extremism: No Longer a Laughing Matter

Rabbi Brant Rosen wrote about: Anti-Semitism, Great Britain, Holocaust, Israel, Nakba, Palestine, Politics, and Zionism in two articles which I can recommend to read.

The American rabbi is convinced that many have been scratching their heads trying to figure out why on earth the government of Israel and writes in “Zionism’s Marriage of Convenience to Anti-Semitism” that so many staunch Zionists are just fine with the election of Donald Trump

– the darling of the anti-Semitic alt-right.

Zionism not being new he does find it having a

cozy, if somewhat Faustian relationship with anti-Semitism since its very origins.

He argues that

Theodor Herzl (born Benjamin Ze’ev Herzl) also known in Hebrew as חוֹזֵה הַמְדִינָה‎, Chozeh HaMedinah (lit. “Visionary of the State”) an Austro-Hungarian journalist, playwright, political activist, and writer who was one of the fathers of modern political Zionism. – in Basel, 1897

The founder of modern Zionism, Theodor Herzl never made a secret of his belief that his new movement would have to depend upon anti-Semitism and anti-Semites in order to create a Jewish state. In his pamphlet, “The Jewish State,” he suggested raising money for the effort by means of a “direct subscription,” adding that “not only poor Jews but also Christians who wanted to get rid of them would subscribe a small amount to this fund.”

Scholars such as Yehuda Bibas, Zvi Hirsch Kalischer and Judah Alkalai were already promoting Zionist ideas before him.

Herzl grew to believe that anti-semitism could not be defeated or cured, only avoided, and that the only way to avoid it was the establishment of a Jewish state where there would be place to co-operate with those anti-Semites he even thought could become their most dependable friends and allies. {his diary}

Russian imperial statesman Vyacheslav von Plehve, whose efforts to uphold autocratic principle, a police-bureaucratic government, minister of the interior and an infamous anti-Semite who encouraged the Kishinev pogroms on April 19 and 20, 1903, and a second, smaller riot that erupted in October 1905.

Herman S. Shapiro. “Kishinever shekhita, elegie” [Kishinev Massacre Elegy]. New York: Asna Goldberg, 1904. Irene Heskes Collection. The illustration in the center of this elegy depicts the April 1903 Kishinev massacre.

The most popular newspaper in Kishinev, the Russian-language anti-Semitic newspaper Бессарабец (Bessarabetz, meaning “Bessarabian“), published by Pavel Krushevan, regularly published articles with headlines such as “Death to the Jews!” and “Crusade against the Hated Race!” (referring to the Jews).

The Times published a forged dispatch by Vyacheslav von Plehve, the Minister of Interior, to the governor of Bessarabia, which supposedly gave orders not to stop the rioters.

Today it is again that same region in eastern Europe where again such hate against the Jews is growing and infecting the West of Europe, by mouth of the right wing neo fascist groups. As in the previous century Plehve’s would not have worried

as long as the Zionists encouraged emigration of Jews from Russia, the Russian authorities would not disturb them.

perhaps several living in the Balkan, East and West Europe would not mind giving them time to leave.

Rabbi Brant Rosen looks at British Foreign Secretary Arthur Balfour who is perhaps best remembered for his World War I statement (the Balfour Declaration) expressing official British approval of Zionism. Though he may be long been lionized as a Zionist hero, he wasn’t particularly well-known for his love for Jews or the Jewish people.

(see: 1917 Balfour Declaration, 1905 Aliens Act)

The rabbi writes:

Balfour spoke of the “undoubted evils which had fallen on the country from an alien immigration which was largely Jewish.” Balfour, like many Christians of his class, “did not believe that Jews could be assimilated into Gentile British society.”

In this regard, it is worth noting that the sole Jewish member of British government, Edwin Montagu, strongly objected to the Balfour Declaration, submitting a memorandum to the British cabinet in August 1917 that resonates with haunting prescience today:

I wish to place on record my view that the policy of His Majesty’s Government is anti-Semitic and in result will prove a rallying ground for Anti-Semites in every country in the world…When the Jews are told that Palestine is their national home, every country will immediately desire to get rid of its Jewish citizens, and you will find a population in Palestine driving out its present inhabitants…

When the Jew has a national home, surely it follows that the impetus to deprive us of the rights of British citizenship must be enormously increased. Palestine will become the world’s Ghetto. Why should the Russian give the Jew equal rights? His national home is Palestine. Why does Lord Rothschild attach so much importance to the difference between British and foreign Jews? All Jews will be foreign Jews, inhabitants of the great country of Palestine.

He also looks at the most troubling example of Zionist association with anti-Semitism which occurred in 1933, when the Jewish Agency struck a deal with the Nazis’ Economic Ministry known as the Ha’avrah (Transfer) agreement.

Today we may wonder how it could come so far that the Zionist movement came to negotiate with Nazi Germany in order to facilitate the transfer of German Jews and their property to Palestine.

(see also an essay for Yad Vashem’s Shoah Resource Center, Israeli historian Y’faat Weiss pointing out that the Nazi regime’s participation in the agreement was motivated both by a fear of the boycott and its desire to rid Germany of its Jews.)

For the rabbi

it is not difficult to understand why, on a practical level, the Zionist movement would find a perverse kind of common cause with anti-Semitic regimes. As a form of ethnic nationalism, Zionism has always been dependent upon the maintenance of a demographic majority of Jews in the land. It makes sense that Zionists have been willing to deal with nations that were more than happy to rid themselves of their Jews in order that they maintain their own national ethnic homogeneity.

Would there be a big problem that there was taken a “Faustian bargain” like Brant Rosen calls it?

I would not think that Zionism from its origin has

necessarily fed off the existence of anti-Semites to justify the need for a Jewish state.

because normally every Jews and sincere Christian would know that God had promised a Holy Land to the descendants of Abraham. What I well can see is that several secular Jews saw a good opportunity to enlarge their power and to get some own state where they would be really their own boss.

Even more tragically, as Edwin Montagu predicted, Jewish ethnic nationalism did indeed result in a “population in Palestine driving out its inhabitants.”

I think one big problem is that Israel has too many secular politicians who allow the extremist fundamentalist Jews to take in the land of others and are not worrying about the respect human beings have to show to other creations of the Most High Elohim.

Our Christian believe that Jerusalem shall have to become the capital of the Holy Land and God’s Kingdom should be known to all lovers of God and to be a reality the world has to cope with. In the end God His Kingdom shall anyway establish.

Like rabbi Brant Rosen writes Millenarianism has taken on many forms, most of which were rooted in the belief that the physical restoration of the Jews to the land would be a necessary precursor to the apocalypse and the eventual second coming of the Messiah. This religious dogma, brought by a.o. English Puritan colonists but also by very liberal non-trinitarian Christians to North America, could evolve into previous century and present-day Christian and Jewish Zionism.

John Charles Hagee, the 5th of 6 pastors in his family, all of whom were named John Hagee, dating back to the colonial era.

In his second article he looks a.o. at Pastor John Hagee, founder and senior pastor of Cornerstone Church, a charismatic megachurch in San Antonio, Texas. He also is the the CEO of his non-profit corporation, Global Evangelism Television (GETV) and founder and National Chairman of the Christian-Zionist organization Christians United for Israel (CUFI), incorporated on February 7, 2006, the largest coalition of Evangelical Zionists in the world.

Hagee, who believes the Bible commands Christians to support the State of Israel and the Jewish people, is one of those American ‘prophets’ and doom preachers who makes his apocalyptic religious views clear.

The rabbi also looks at Hagee’s 2005 book (and not 2007) Jerusalem Countdown: A Warning to the World, where Hagee interprets the Bible to predict that Russia and the Islamic states will invade Israel and will be destroyed by God. This will cause the antichrist, (for Hagee) the head of the European Union, to create a confrontation over Israel between China and the West, getting Israel to be covered in “a sea of human blood.” .

Hagee’s attack against Christian antisemitism in his book Jerusalem Countdown claimed that Adolf Hitler’s antisemitism derived especially from his Catholic background (calling Hitler “a spiritual leader in the Catholic Church”), and that the Catholic Church under Pope Pius XII encouraged Nazism instead of denouncing it (pp. 79–81)

[The book echoes predictions made in The Late, Great Planet Earth, the best-selling 1970 book co-authored by Hal Lindsey and Carole C. Carlson.]

Rabbi Rosen also looks at Hagee’s more recent book, “Four Blood Moons,” in which Hagee promotes the Blood moon prophecy, and states that a tetrad (a series of four consecutive lunar eclipses —coinciding on Jewish holidays — with six full moons in between, and no intervening partial lunar eclipses) which began with the April 2014 lunar eclipse is a sign of the end times as described in the Bible in the Book of Joel, Acts 2:20 and Revelation 6:12. The tetrad ended with the lunar eclipse on September 27-28, 2015. (see what Haggee wrote).

[In January 2014, Mike Moore, the then General Secretary of Christian Witness to Israel, wrote a lengthy article dismissing the claims of Biltz and Hagee. Moore’s view was that no significance can be drawn from the eclipses]

David Brog, Executive Director of Christians United For Israel (CUFI), an American pro-Israel Christian organization

Further the rabbi looks at CUFI’s Jewish Executive Director, David Brog, who clearly serves to give cover to Christian Zionists, painting them as “mainstream” and not nearly as scary as their beliefs would indicate.

Bannon at the 2017 CPAC

Next former naval officer, banker, radio host, research director, film producer and media executive, Breitbart editor Stephen Bannon, currently serving as assistant to the President and White House chief strategist in the Trump administration comes under the attention. His documentary “Destroying the Great Satan: The Rise of Islamic Facism (sic) in America” can give us an idea how his mind may be tormented by the fundamentalist evangelist teachings.

While most of the Jewish concern toward Bannon has primarily focused on his alt-right leanings and his personal comments about Jews, less attention has been given to his apocalyptic world view. Strongly influenced by generational theorists William Strauss and Neil Howe’s book “The Fourth Turning: What Cycles of History Tell Us About America’s Next Rendezvous with Destiny”  Bannon ascribes to the theory that American history has operated in four-stage cycles, moving from major crisis to awakening to major crisis.

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Preceding article

What to do in the Face of Global Anti-semitism

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Further reading

1. Zionism in Palestine
2. The relationship between Ariel Sharon and the Rebbe (Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson)
3. Israel loves wars.
4. Six Years Ago: The US-NATO-Israel Sponsored Al Qaeda Insurgency in Syria. Who Was Behind The 2011 “Protest Movement”?
5. Abby Martin and Eran Efrati on Institutionalized Israeli War Crimes and Oppression of Palestinians
6. From Washington to the Middle East, Should the World Brace for March 15?
7. Steve Cohen’s ‘That’s Funny, You Don’t Look Anti-Semitic’
8. Does Feminism Have Room for Zionists? – The New York Times
9. Emily Shire’s Zionist Feminism
10. From Washington to the Middle East, Should the World Brace for March 15? | James Perloff
11. The false teachings of Zionism & dispensationalism
12. How did the Talmudic “Noahide Laws” Become Part of American Law?
13. A Liberal Zionism for the Trump Era
14. The control-freakism of the CIA, UK and other western supposed “intelligence” organizations!
15. Origin Of The Oppression Of Palestine By israel
16. Canada offers tax deduction for promoting ethnic nationalism, war
17. Will the Royal Family Celebrate 100 Years of Shame by Endorsing Israel?
18. Pro-Palestinian activist: Zionism and feminism don’t go together
19. What Linda Sarsour Said
20. Zionism vs Islam – Which is More Dangerous?
21. The Millet System & Minorities in Israel/Palestine
22. The Charge of Replacement Theology is a Cover for Fuzzy Theology
23. Alliel – A Window Into Tribal Arrogance
24. “Many American left-liberal Jews believe that Israel only deserves to exist…if Israel serves as a ‘light unto the nations…’ and is ethically perfect”
25. The Rise of Anti-Seminism
26. What Type of Utopia Will Israel Be?
27. Italian rabbis accuse biblical conference of fueling anti-Judaism
28. On anti-Semitism, anti-Islam and fictitious alliances in U.S.
29. US 2018 Budget Guarantees Foreign Assistance Only for Israel, State Dept. Says
30. German newspaper backtracks after listing Netanyahu as a ‘crazy world leader’

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Related articles

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Shalom Rav

photo credit: Getty Images

In my previous post, I explored how Zionism has historically fed off of anti-Semites and anti-Semitic regimes to justify the need for a Jewish state. In this post, I’d like to discuss a phenomenon that has even more ominous resonance for the current political moment: the willingness of political Zionists, Israeli politicians and right wing Israel advocates to court the support of Christian millenarians and apocalyptic extremists.

Some history: In the century after the Protestant reformation, the religious ideology of millenarianism began to spread throughout Europe. Millenarianism took many forms, most of which were rooted in the belief that the physical restoration of the Jews to the land would be a necessary precursor to the apocalypse and the eventual second coming of the Messiah. This religious dogma was eventually brought by English Puritan colonists to North America, where it evolved into present-day Christian Zionism.

It is safe to…

View original post 1,326 more words

Leap

I do hope the author of the nice blog Reflections on Existence does not mind having my mind having gone wild by the dramatic photo on her site, bringing up a lot of thoughts in my whirling head. Often having to go over the edge, seeing many people not knowing where to jump over the stones lying on their path to somewhere in the future, I wondered.

Many may

skip and plummet into the void

Chasing the edge of an

Expanding universe.

Our lives are not agonizingly static,  stationary bike

Tires ceaselessly, maddeningly, spinning

Going nowhere. {When Words Fail}

Many roads in this world may be full of pitfalls and weeds growing everywhere. It looks like many do not want to go in the woods any more because it looking to dark for them and to much overgrown.

People have become afraid of taking risks or to show their inner being, letting know others what they really think or how they really feel. Lots of people do think they have to go with the mainstream and have to be popular, following the popularism of the present society where some politicians try to bring fear over the population, to enlarge their power and to exclude others to enjoy some of the welfare they might have.

Instead of trying to build up their own strongly funded future, many do hope others can do such building for them. Though those do not create the good pastures and many of those politicians have planted harmful weeds in the fields, infecting the wild and domestic horses. As such them jumping over the wild waters will not always bring them in the safe fields or bring them to good grassland.

Let us hope more people will have their eyes opened, not blinded by the low hanging sun of misleading politicians. That they take the risk jumping over the wild streams, daring to hang over the now and then, the between here and there containing all the risk
man could ever bear but has to do it for his own security and better life.

It is in the silent breaths between the lines we craft,

The mysterious space where words fail,

That our deepest truths are told, {When Words Fail}

that we may recover our deepest self and become pure again by a brighter light than the human being ever can present, making the grass grow and giving oxygen to the world, us being free again to run wild and to enjoy the life Allah has in mind for us, where all overs of God can be together in peaceful surroundings, giving each-other energy and hope to continue spreading the Good News of a coming Kingdom that shall be better than any human kingdom or republic.

Let us therefore look for words that may bring our heart to life, stirring our depths, carrying on the whisper of our clean breath. {read: Bread}

 

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• For Getting to know Jesus
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Sukkoth, Gog, Magog, Armageddon, a covenant and Jerusalem

Moadim L’Simcha (Appointed Times for Joy) and Shabbat Shalom dear readers!

The joyous holiday of Sukkoth (Sukkot or Feast or Tabernacles or Feast of Booths), one of the three Pilgrim Festivals of the Hebrew Bible, is observed on the Jewish calendar dates of 15-21 Tishrei and is immediately followed by the holiday of Shemini Atzeret and Simchat Torah. The final day of Sukkot is known as Hoshana Rabba (“Great Hosanna”) (In 2016 coming Monday and Tuesday) and with the eighth day should for Christians also be important, being it a day of Solemn Assembly, commemorating the completion of the annual cycle of readings from the Torah (the first five books of the Bible) and being called Simḥat Torah (“Rejoicing of the Law”). .

The seventh day of the festival of Sukkot, considered to be the final day of the New Year’s Divine “judgment” in which the year’s fate is determined; in addition to the Four Kinds taken on the preceding days of Sukkot, an additional willow is taken on this day; it is customary to stay up all night on the eve of Hoshanah Rabbah and study Torah.

During the week long festival of Sukkot (Tabernacles), the regular Parasha (Torah portion) for Shabbat is suspended, and a special Parasha pertaining to the holiday is read in synagogues around the world.

Readings for Shabbat Chol Hamoed Sukkot
Exodus 33:12–34:26; Ezekiel 38:18–39:16; Revelation 21:1–22:21

For lovers of God the Jewish reading for today is one which should concern all, being aware of the importance of the covenant made by the Most High.

“Behold, I make a covenant: before all your people I will do marvels, such as have not been done in all the earth, nor in any nation: and all the people among whom you are shall see the work of the Lord: for it is an awesome thing that I will do with you.”  (Exodus 34:10)

In this special Sukkot reading, Moses asks that God’s presence would go with Israel, and God agrees. The marvellous thing about God the Divine Creator is that He loves His creation so much, that when people ask Him to be with them and to go with them, God will do that. He is there for all who want Him nearby.

Encouraged by this positive response, Moses also asks to see God’s glory.  Once again, God graciously complies with his request and invites Moses to ascend Mount Sinai with two newly hewn stone tablets so that He can re-carve the Ten Commandments. Those mitzvah or commandments were given to be a guide for mankind, so that they could build up a good relationship with their Most High Maker.

It was there on that mountain that God revealed His glory to Moses in such a fearsome spectacle of power that God had to protect Moses from being destroyed by it.

“There is a place near Me where you can stand on a rock.  When My glory passes by, I will put you in an opening in the rock.  I will cover you with My hand until I have passed by. Then I will remove My hand.  You will see My back.  But My face must not be seen.”  (Exodus 33:21–23)

It’s clear that Moses, having experienced the power of the presence of God, understands that His presence is more than sufficient against any threat Israel might encounter inside or outside of the Promised Land.

This is a great prospect for God’s nation. We also know now that God promised Abraham that his seed and sons by faith, would come to live in the Holy Land. In the end all Jews, the children of Abraham, will find their Holy Nation there and find Jerusalem to be the capital of the nation of God’s people. They would be sent in exile and have to endure lots of problems throughout history, but there shall come a time when they shall be all united under God’s Kingdom. God will gather His People to their own land and the whole world shall come to know it.

The world shall have to come to hear that Israel shall be restored and that also others came to know the Law of God and shall be willing to live according the covenant also brought to them by the sent one from God, rabbi Jeshua, the son of man and son of God, who gave his life as a ransom payment for all sinners, so that all people could come back to God to be His children. He provided a new covenant, one of reconciliation.

But we should take heed, God has given a warning that terrible times shall come  over the world. The Restoration of Israel shall be challenged.

“This is what will happen in that day: When Gog attacks the land of Israel, My hot anger will be aroused.”  (Ezekiel 38:18)

In the Haftarah (prophetic portion) for this Shabbat Chol Hamoed (intermediate day of the festival) of Sukkot, the Hebrew prophet Ezekiel describes an end-time scenario in which formidable armies from the north, under the leadership of Gog, will challenge the restoration of Israel.

Gog (left) and Magog, wooden effigies in the Guildhall, London – Courtesy of the British Tourist Authority

Gog is a chief prince living in the land of Magog (Ezekiel 38:2).  Many scholars believe Magog refers to Russia.  The invading land of Gomer is often believed to be Germany.

Several lands in the coalition army are easily identifiable: Iran (Persia), Northern Sudan (ancient Ethiopia or Cush), Libya (Put), and Turkey (Togarmah).

Last year at this time, Russia made significant moves into the Middle East, reportedly to fight against ISIS.  Last week, however, it negotiated its first “permanent” air base in the region at Khmeimim, Syria and its naval base in Tartus, Syria will soon become “permanent” as well.

Russia also recently installed its S-300 surface-to-air missile defence system in Syria and completed the transfer of the system to Iran last month.

In effect, Russia has become a major military broker in the region.  It is right now on the doorstep of Israel, and it plans to stay.

The nations mentioned in Ezekiel 38 will unite and come upon Israel “like a cloud that covers the land” for the purpose of looting the wealth that she has amassed in what was a desolate land only seventy years ago.

Yet, God will not abandon His People.  He will utterly destroy the coalition forces of Gog so that all nations will come to know the holiness of the Lord (Ezekiel 38:18–23).

The forces that come against Israel will be so large in their day of defeat that Gog’s weaponry will provide fuel for Israel for seven years (Ezekiel 39:9).

“They will not need to gather wood from the fields or cut it from the forests, because they will use the weapons for fuel.  And they will plunder those who plundered them and loot those who looted them, declares the Sovereign LORD.”  (Ezekiel 39:10)

Moreover, so many soldiers will die in this battle that it will take seven months for Israel to bury them all and cleanse their land (Ezekiel 39:12).

A man carries a Torah scroll that is protected by a silver Torah tik (case) during Sukkot at the Western Wall.

The Jews read about this end-time battle during Sukkot, because according to Rabbinic tradition, this war will be waged during the month of Tishri, the month in which the holiday of Sukkot (Feast of Tabernacles) falls.

Interestingly enough, the war that is described in Ezekiel is similar to the war described in the 14th chapter of Zechariah, the Haftarah reading on the first day of Sukkot.  And in Zechariah we learn that the Gentiles who survive the war against Israel will be required to keep Sukkot annually by coming up to the Holy City of Jerusalem to worship the Lord.

“Then the survivors from all the nations that have attacked Jerusalem will go up year after year to worship the King, the Lord Almighty, and to celebrate the Feast of Tabernacles [Sukkot].  If any of the peoples of the earth do not go up to Jerusalem to worship the King, the Lord Almighty, they will have no rain.”  (Zechariah 14:16–17)

This should give us food to think about the matter of feasts and holidays we do have to partake.

Sukkot at the Western (Wailing) Wall.

 

 

Psalm 27 presents a clear connection between Sukkot and God’s protection of Israel and those who trust in Him:

“For in the day of trouble He will conceal me in His tabernacle [sukkah]; In the secret place of His tent He will hide me; He will lift me up on a rock.”  (Psalm 27:5)

The word translated here as tabernacle is the Hebrew word sukkah (סכה).  When evil threatens God’s people, He will hide them in His sukkah, inaccessible from the enemy on the rock of His presence.

Now that is a promise we can trust in during these last days!

 

The Battle of Armageddon

“When the thousand years are over, Satan will be released from his prison, and will go out to deceive the nations in the four corners of the earth — Gog and Magog — to gather them for battle.”  (Revelation 20:7–8)

Gog and Magog are also mentioned in the Brit Chadashah (New Testament) in connection with Armageddon and the final battle between the forces of good and evil.

This war with Gog and Magog is not the same war described in Ezekiel 38 but a final end-time battle after the thousand-year reign of Jeshua HaMashiach (Jesus the Messiah).

The Son of David, Jeshua, will come again — this time as our conquering Messiah to defeat the invading forces forever.  All who have believed in their Saviour, Jeshua, will inherit eternity in God’s Kingdom of which the New Jerusalem shall be the capital of a revived Garden of Eden complete with trees of life and pure living water that will be good to eat and drink forever.

Ancient ruins atop Har Meggido in Israel

Armageddon is mentioned only once in the Brit Chadashah (New Testament) in chapter 16 of the Book of Revelation.

“They are spirits of demons performing miraculous signs, and they go out to the kings of the whole world, to gather them for the battle on the great day of God Almighty….  Then they gathered the kings together to the place that in Hebrew is called Armageddon.”  (Revelation 16:14, 16)

The word Armageddon is derived from Har Magedon (meaning mountain of Megiddo) and is mentioned many times in the Tanakh (Old Testament).

Megiddo is derived from the Hebrew word gadad, meaning to penetrate, muster troops together, perhaps even invade.

In this end-time invasion, we once again see Israel’s enemies mounting a war against Jerusalem.  This time, however, we see the spiritual forces behind the rebellion against God:

“They had as king over them the angel of the Abyss, whose name in Hebrew is Abaddon, and in Greek, Apollyon.”  (Revelation 9:11)

The words Abaddon and Apollyon mean Destroyer.

And this time, God pours out on the Destroyer and all rebels the full extent of His judgment, including everlasting torment for Satan, the beast and the false prophet.

“They marched across the breadth of the earth and surrounded the camp of God’s people, the city He loves.  But fire came down from heaven and devoured them.  And Satan, who deceived them, was thrown into the lake of burning sulfur, where the beast and the false prophet had been thrown.  They will be tormented day and night forever and ever.” (Revelation 20:9–10)

With an Outstretched Arm

As we read how God will hurl His fury against Gog with pestilence and with blood, floods, giant hailstones, fire and brimstone, it’s easy to see from this Haftarah portion that God is furious with those who come against the Land of Israel(Ezekiel 38:22).

In fact, there are several parallels between God’s deliverance of Israel from Egypt long ago and His future deliverance of Israel from Gog in the end times.  In both, we see that God saves and rescues Israel with a strong hand and with an outstretched arm.

The phrase with a strong hand and an outstretched arm (בְּיָ֣ד חֲ֭זָקָה וּבִזְר֣וֹעַ נְטוּיָ֑ה) has special meaning in Jewish tradition.  It represents God using His power on behalf of His people.  The “arm of the Lord” also represents His salvation, which in Hebrew is Jeshua.

“You brought your people Israel out of Egypt with signs and wonders, by a mighty hand and an outstretched arm and with great terror.”  (Jeremiah 32:21, see also Deuteronomy 4:34; 26:8; Exodus 6:6)

As Russia expands its influence in the region and neighboring nations plot to annihilate Israel, there is certainly evidence that Ezekiel 38 is on the horizon.  Yet, this Sukkot Parasha reveals that God’s Divine Sheltering Presence over Israel has not ended but will continue past the end of this age.

God is not finished with the Jewish People and Israel.  This is plainly evident when we consider how Bible Prophecy concerning Israel is being fulfilled during these end times before our very eyes.

The Brit Chadashah (New Covenant) also tells us that God’s plan to reach out to the nations through Israel did not end with the death and resurrection of Messiah, but continues to this day and will in the world to come:

“For if their casting Yeshua [Jesus] aside means reconciliation for the world, what will their accepting Him mean?  It will be life from the dead!”  (Romans 11:15)

The Book of Romans promises that when the Jewish People come to know Jeshua, it will be like life from the dead for the world.

Before this can happen, however, they must first hear the Good News of Jeshua!

“How can they call on Him unless they believe in Him?  How can they believe in Him unless they hear about Him?  How can they hear about Him unless someone preaches to them?”  (Romans 10:14)

It is up to the followers of Jeshua to follow up the task given by this master, rabbi Jeshua. Therefore Christians, being aware that the times are coming closer, should make work of it, spreading the Good News of the coming Kingdom of God.

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With thanks to the Messianic Bible

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Additional reading

1. Ninth of Av
2. Festival of Freedom and persecutions
3. Jerusalem God’s City for ever
4. Glory of only One God Who gives His Word
5. Vayikra after its opening word וַיִּקְרָא, which means and He called
6. Holy land Christian exodus
7. How do we know the coming of Jesus is very near?
8. Armageddon, har and megiddo, an action or a place
9. Ember and light the ransomed of Jehovah
10. Ransom for all
11. Jerusalem and a son’s kingdom
12. Bringing into safety from Irak and Iran
13. 2015 the year of ISIS
14. This Week’s Developments in Weekly World Watch 15-21 July
15. The promise a guarantee of something and the heir that is going to have
16. Chemical warsite and Pushing king of the South

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Further reading

1. Understanding the Battle of Gog and Magog
2. Trend Update: Burden of Damascus/Russian Embassy Takes Fire, October 2016
3. Zork Nemesis – The Forbidden Lands
4. War is upon us!
5. Russia, Iran, and The War with Israel
6. The Coming War
7. Ezekiel blog: My version of the end of the world, part I
8. Ezekiel blog: My version of the end of the world Part II
9. Who are the real Gog and Magog in prophecy?
10. Less of Me
11. “My Relationship with Jesus Christ”
12. Trend Update: Ezekiel 38-39/Magog (Russia)/Golan Heights, Passover 2016
13. Alliance Formation

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• Ketuvim, Writings, Hagiographa, Five Megillot and Messianic Scriptures
• The Latest Foer Novel Is Too Jewish For Its New York Times’ Reviewer
• Who Were the Canaanites?
• The label libel

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The promise a guarantee of something and the heir that is going to have

Darren Sutcliffe from Calliope, QLD, Australia

The Kingdom of God is to be manifested at the appearing of Jesus Christ and those whom he approves will be welcomed into it and caused to inherit it. With this in view, James’s words are in harmony:

“Hearken, my beloved brethren, Hath not God chosen the poor of this world, rich in faith and heirs of The Kingdom which He hath promised to them that love Him” (James 2v5 )

Upon this passage two reflections suggest themselves: an heir is one that is going to have, not one that is in possession; a promise is a guarantee of something that is to be and not the bestowal of a present possession. The kingdom of God is a subject of promise; according to James, therefore, it is something future.

Come to follow

This year we remember that it was 2020 years ago that Jesus Christ was born. For that reason the ecclesia site of the Belgian Christadelphians or Brothers in Christ, brings a series on this special person who changed the world.

Please do find the first articles already published:

1. 2020 years since
2. Geneva Bible, Source text for our series on the beginning of Jesus
3. The 1st Adam in the Hebrew Scriptures #1 Beginning of everything

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Related articles

• We will take Jesus onto the streets, say Archbishops of Canterbury and York
• Jesus is the answer
• On Today’s
• Daily Mass: The birth of the Blessed Virgin Mary. Catholic Inspiration
• For Getting to know Jesus
• Hearing words to accept
• What do Christadelphians Believe About God? | John Ankerberg Show – John Ankerberg Show
• Finisher’s Crown
• Put on the garment of praise and prayer

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A Royal Rule given to followers of Christ

In our series of faith and works we also want to remind the readers to Jesus sermon on the mount and on the many accounts he gave how we should behave against others.

This painting is on display at the Kunsthistorisches Museum (Museum of Art History) in Vienna, Austria (site). (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

This week we will read in Mark 12 and must note Jesus’ comment about the second commandment

– “You shall love your neighbour as yourself. There is no other commandment greater than these” (verse 31).

In this present society it happens in places that people even do not know their neighbours. Hopefully you do talk to your neighbours. In case you believe in god, do you dare to talk about your faith?

Today many people feel ashamed of what they believe or do have the excuse to think that others would not be interested in their faith. From the gospels we get to know that rabbi Jeshua was not at all afraid to talk about his faith in the Only One True God of Israel. He asked his disciples to overcome their shyness and even to put their daily work aside to follow him and to go out into the world to preach the Kingdom Gospel.

From Jesus teachings we also get to know an other important work we have to do. Witnessing is an important task, but it has to be done properly with full seal. Each follower of Christ should, like Christ did, not putting his own will on the first place, but the Will of God. Real Christians should set their mind on the things of God.

Let us try harder to set our minds on the things of God. In doing so, we will recall that even in the Law God gave through Moses; there is the command

 

“’You shall not take vengeance, nor bear any grudge against the sons of your people, but you shall love your neighbor as yourself; I am the Lord.” (Leviticus 19:18 NAS)

We call it a Golden Rule or Royal Law
This has been a command for all ages. What a different world this would be if that command was carried out! And who can doubt but that it will be – by those who live in God’s kingdom.

Let us be in training for God’s kingdom now! What better way to show your love for your neighbour than by encouraging them to believe in the words of Jesus! We must try to speak to them in the spirit of love, a desire to share something precious; the pearl of great price!

This will be reflected in our attitude as well as in the words that we use, for we ‘communicate’ as much by what we do – as by what we say. The world has a word for it, “body language”. We must seek wisdom from above as we set ourselves to do this. Remember what James wrote,

“the wisdom from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, open to reason, full of mercy and good fruits, impartial and sincere” (3:17).

 

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Preceding

Letter to a Non-Christian Nation

The Mountain: Radical Love

The Mountain: Radical Obedience

Comments to James remarks, about Faith and works

He who knows himself, is kind to others

Our life depending on faith

 

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Please find also to read:

1. When having found faith through the study of the Bible we do need to do works of faith
2. יהוה , YHWH and Love: Four-letter words
3. Inculcate God’s words and speak of them
4. Guard well within yourself that treasure, kindness
5. Kindness
6. Angry but not sinning
7. God won’t ask
8. God loving people justified
9. Subcutaneous power for humanity 5 Loneliness, Virtual and real friends
10. We Are The Children Of God
11. Do not forget the important sign of belief
12. Christianity is a love affair
13. The Law of Christ: Law of Love
14. To be chained by love for another one
15. Clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience
16. A Living Faith #2 State of your faith
17. A Living Faith #3 Faith put into action
18. A Living Faith #5 Perseverance
19. Guard well within yourself that treasure, kindness
20. The first on the list of the concerns of the saint
21. The task given to us to love each other
22. The Greatest of These is Love
23. If we love one another, God lives in us
24. Agape, a love to share with others from the Fruit of the Spirit
25. Love turns one person into two; and two into one
26. Disciple of Christ counting lives and friends dear to them
27. Incomplete without the mind of God
28. Nurturing a close relationship with God
29. Our relationship with God, Jesus and eachother
30. Our way of life
31. Golden rule for understanding in spiritual matters obedience
32. Observing the commandments and becoming doers of the Word
33. Sharing a common security and a common set of values
34. Love and cultivate that which is pure
35. Right to be in the surroundings
36. Built on or Belonging to Jewish tradition #4 Mozaic and Noachide laws
37. Reflection for today: hating your brother
38. The one who has not had a taste of love
39. If You want to start winning the war
40. Engaging the enemy
41. What Jesus did: First things first
42. Love envieth not
43. No fear in love
44. Live …
45. Luck
46. Work with joy and pray with love
47. Blessed are those who freely give
48. When we love we do not need laws
49. The Spirit of God imparts love,inspires hope, and gives liberty
50. Self-preservation is the highest law of nature
51. Growth in character
52. Spread love everywhere you go
53. Love is like playing the piano
54. Love will cure more sins than condemnation
55. Tenderness and kindness are not signs of weakness and despair
56. Those who make peace should plant peace like a seed
57. God let my compassionate affection be tolerant and kind
58. He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him.
59. Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love
60. God demonstrates his own love
61. Unconditional love
62. Unarmed truth and unconditional love
63. A treasure which can give me everything I need
64. Life and attitude of a Christian

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Related articles

• Message to Pope Francis to End World Slavery!
• The Most Important Rule In Life [It’s Not What You Thought]
• Contemplating Love
• Right Obedience = Genuine Happiness
• Movement…
• A Group Study on Religious Ethics in Daily LIfe
• Non-Christians in Heaven
• Robo-evangelism

Justification – salvation is by grace through faith – JI Packer

Today there is still lots of commotion about works and faith. Still too many Christians do think they do not need any works.
The Catholic church, we must say, has from the beginning seen that certain works were necessary. One can not become a Christian without putting the previous life of sin away by having regret, asking for forgiveness of sins and taking steps to show regret (an act to be taken), opening oneself for remission by going for a baptism (a work).

Not only Rome sees baptism as a channel of sanctifying grace, as the primary instrumental cause of justification, and the sacrament of penance, whereby congruous merit is achieved through works of satisfaction, as the supplementary restorative cause whenever the grace of God’s initial acceptance is lost through mortal sin.

Not only for the Roman Catholics believers save themselves with the help of the grace that flows from Christ through the church’s sacramental system. Several other denominations request that people change their life once baptised (which sometimes demands lots of works). Other protestants groups do forget that it is impossible that a Christian would keep living the same sinful life as before his or her baptism. It is an illusion to believe that we are saved by the blood of Christ and would not have to do any works any more because we would go to heaven or always will be allowed to enter God’s Kingdom.

First of all the Kingdom will be here on earth for most of us. And Jesus showed us with his parables the danger of loosing the entrance through the small gate of life in eternity.

Justification may be given free, like people can win a lottery, but if they do not do anything with the price, they will be nothing with it.

For example if I would give you a limousine you are nothing with it if you do not use the key and turn the motor on (a work). Before you can go into the traffic you have to learn the road code and have to learn to drive. Then you will have to drive (doing a job) and shall have to be careful in traffic (taking attention), going to some place (trafficking).

Also with faith we do need to come into the faith (a work), trafficking, having to keep our faith (demands work), read the Word of God regularly and study it (demands work) we have to be careful to keep the code of God, His regulations and ordinances (keeping to the commandments requires work). Jesus also gave the order to go out in the world to proclaim the Gospel of the coming Kingdom (which demands a work) and to come together regularly, i.e. meeting with each other, which demands also some work.

For those who think they do not have to have self-control (which demands work) we must disappoint them. If they keep lying, bullying, stealing, fornicating, murdering, they shall miss the entrance of the coming Kingdom.
If they think it will be so easy in this system of things, we also must disappoint them, because also when baptised there shall be temptations, suffering and so on, which demand stamina to continue (work) in the faith.

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To remember

Clearly no one is justified before God by the law, because, “The righteous will live by faith.” Galatians 3:11

=> =  we do have to be righteous to be able to live by faith

The author tells us:

• doctrine of justification, storm center of Reformation = major concern of apostle Paul = heart of gospel (Rom. 1:17; 3:21-5:21; Gal. 2:15-5:1) shaping both his message (Acts 13:38-39) + his devotion + spiritual life (2 Cor. 5:13-21; Phil. 3:4-14).
• > other New Testament writers affirm same doctrine in substance => terms in which Protestants have affirmed + defended it for almost five centuries are drawn primarily from Paul.
• Justification = judicial act of God pardoning sinners (wicked and ungodly persons, Rom. 4:5; 3:9-24) > accepting them as just => putting permanently right their previously estranged relationship with himself.  > => justifying sentence = God’s gift of righteousness (Rom. 5:15-17) = his bestowal of a status of acceptance for Jesus’ sake (2 Cor. 5:21).
• God’s justifying decision = judgment of the Last Day, declaring where we shall spend eternity
• necessary means, or instrumental cause, of justification is personal faith in Jesus Christ as crucified Savior and risen Lord (Rom. 4:23-25; 10:8-13).
• As we give ourselves in faith to Jesus, Jesus gives us his gift of righteousness, so that in the very act of “closing with Christ,” as older Reformed teachers put it, we receive divine pardon and acceptance which we could not otherwise have (Gal. 2:15-16; 3:24).

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Preceding articles

Luther’s misunderstanding

January 27, 417, Pope Innocent I condemning Pelagius about Faith and Works

Our life depending on faith

Romans 4 and the Sacraments

Is Justification a process?

Letter to the Romans, chapter 3

Letter to the Romans, chapter 4

Additional comments to the 3rd Letter to the Romans

Additional comments to the Letter to the Romans 4

Comments to James remarks, about Faith and works

Restitution

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Additional reading

1. The business of this life
2. A god who gave his people commandments and laws he knew they never could keep to it
3. Believing in the send one and understanding that one does not live by bread alone
4. Faith Alone Does Not Save . . . No Matter How Many Times Protestants Say It Does
5. Not about personal salvation but about a bigger Plan
6. People Seeking for God 3 Laws and directions
7. People Seeking for God 5 Bread of life
8. Guard well within yourself that treasure, kindness
9. Christ’s ethical teaching
10. Being Justified by faith
11. A Living Faith #3 Faith put into action
12. Faith and works
13. Trusting, Faith, Calling and Ascribing to Jehovah #8 Prayer #6 Communication and manifestation
14. Trusting, Faith, Calling and Ascribing to Jehovah #16 Benefits of praying
15. Observing the commandments and becoming doers of the Word
16. The first on the list of the concerns of the saint
17. Running away from the past
18. Malefactors becoming your master
19. Be holy
20. She who sows thistles will reap prickles
21. Love for each other attracting others

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Further related articles

1. No Regrets
2. Day 19: Things to regret
3. Access: Denied
4. Giving our regret to God
5. Reminisce
6. Life is like a river
7. Questions & Answers About Lent
8. Godly Sorrow Leads Us on to a Glorious Celebration of the Gospel
9. A Threefold Malice
10. Reconciliation
11. Penance – Chapter One
12. Wednesday of Septuagesima week: O, Merciful God! Have Mercy On Me The Fallen One!
13. CFP: Discipline and Excess (Cambridge Friday, April 15, 2016)
14. That kind of Franciscan
15. The Savior of the World
16. (01/07/2016) Salvation Only Through Christ?
17. My Take on the Gay Marriage Bill.
18. Missing the Mark
19. Leading people astray!
20. Tips for Gracious Living: Bad Driving
21. Unfaithful fornicating adulterating Christians will perish
22. We don’t meet God 1/2 way.
23. The Salesman
24. Actions are the Megaphone of Words
25. The Justification of Abraham
26. (01/13/2016) How To Treat Unbelievers?
27. Tuesday Devotional: Revelation 2
28. Fashion advice?
29. (12/31/2015) By Faith, Not By Interpretation?
30. Faithfulness
31. Seeing Christ
32. Faith in Action

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• First-ever meeting between Pope, Russian Orthodox patriarch ‘prepared for 20 years’
• Roman Catholics vs. Sola Scriptura Pt.1
• Not satire: Pope and head of Russian Orthodox Church to meet for first time in 1,000 years… in Communist Cuba
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• New Vatican Document on Catholic-Jewish Relations
• ~ Public Notice ~
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Verlore seun

Clearly no one is justified before God by the law, because, “The righteous will live by faith.” GALATIANS 3:11

The doctrine of justification, the storm center of the Reformation, was a major concern of the apostle Paul. For him it was the heart of the gospel (Rom. 1:17; 3:21-5:21; Gal. 2:15-5:1) shaping both his message (Acts 13:38-39) and his devotion and spiritual life (2 Cor. 5:13-21; Phil. 3:4-14). Though other New Testament writers affirm the same doctrine in substance, the terms in which Protestants have affirmed and defended it for almost five centuries are drawn primarily from Paul.

Justification is a judicial act of God pardoning sinners (wicked and ungodly persons, Rom. 4:5; 3:9-24), accepting them as just, and so putting permanently right their previously estranged relationship with himself. This justifying sentence is God’s gift of righteousness (Rom. 5:15-17), his bestowal of a status of acceptance for Jesus’ sake (2…

View original post 433 more words

Additional comments to the 3rd Letter to the Romans

The Christadelphian Agora comments

Reading 3 – Rom 3:9,10

“What shall we conclude then? Are we any better? Not at all! We have already made the charge that Jews and Gentiles alike are all under sin. As it is written: ‘There is no one righteous, not even one’ ” (Rom 3:9,10).

“Our guilt is great because our sins are exceedingly numerous. It is not merely outward acts of unkindness and dishonesty with which we are chargeable. Our habitual and characteristic state of mind is evil in the sight of God.

“Our pride and indifference to His will and to the welfare of others and our loving the creature more than the Creator are continuous violations of His holy law. We have never been or done what that law requires us to be and to do. We have never had delight in that fixed purpose to do the will and promote the glory of God. We are always sinners; we are at all times and under all circumstances in opposition to God.

“If we have never loved Him supremely, if we have never made it our purpose to do His will, if we have never made His glory the end of our actions, then our lives have been an unbroken series of transgressions. Our sins are not to be numbered by the conscious violations of duty; they are as numerous as the moments of our existence” (Charles Hodge).

Peter Forbes comments:

3:2  If the Jews had a benefit simply because the Word of God was committed to them how do we view that same word? Do we feel privileged simply because we can read Scripture freely in our own tongue?

3:3 Paul (2Tim 2:13) develops the principles of this verse for the benefit of Timothy. – We have noted before that David’s Psalm (32) is used by Paul to speak of the way in which God forgives. Reflecting on what David had done – committed adultery and murdered a man – we probably cannot think of two more evil crimes. But it is these two crimes which God forgave which forms the basis of Paul’s encouragement to us.

David and Bathsheba, by Henry Bone (died 1834). See source website for additional information. This set of images was gathered by User:Dcoetzee from the National Portrait Gallery, London website using a special tool. All images in this batch have been confirmed as author died before 1939 according to the official death date listed by the NPG. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

3:4 The quotation ‘that thou mightest be justified …‘ from Psalm 51:4 marks the beginning of an appeal to the repentance of David after his adultery with Bathsheba – see the title of the Psalm. This incident in David’s life, as terrible as it was, marks the magnitude of the Father’s forgiveness towards a repentant sinner. More notes on this in Romans 4.

3:4‘that thou … art judged’ is a quotation from Psa 51:4 That Psalm is a Psalm speaking specifically of David’s sin with Bathsheba. Paul highlights that the Psalm, though specifically speaking to David, actually has a general application to all.

3:5 This is the first of a number of occasions when Paul asks a question which he then answers himself. The others are Rom 4:1,  6:1, 7:7

Painting by Rembrandt of Paul, one of the most notable of early Christian missionaries, who called himself the “Apostle to the Gentiles.” Paul, a Hellenistic Jew, was very influential on the shift of Christianity to Gentile dominated movement. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

3:7-8   The “lie” that Paul is thinking about is the charge laid on him by others that he said “Let us do evil that good may come”.

3:8  The charge laid on Paul is similar to the hypothetical question he asks in Rom 6:1.

3:9     The teaching of Paul that we ‘are all under sin’ is quoted by Paul later – Gal 3:22–This is one of many times where Paul quotes elements of this letter to the Romans to other churches. Thus we see that Romans seems to be a letter that many of the other churches were aware of.

3:19 The phrase ‘every mouth may be stopped’ echoes the sentiments of Psa 107:42 thus demonstrating that the teaching that all men are sinners is not confined to the New Testament but is a clear Old Testament teaching.

3:23,24 These adjacent verses are at the opposite ends of the spectrum as far as the mind of man is concerned. One has to recognise the situation outlined in v 23 before one can be in the state described in v 24. Justification is only available to those who recognise their own personal need for salvation.

3:25-26        We should reflect carefully on the fact that God’s righteousness is seen in the death and resurrection of Jesus. Our God is not a vindictive cruel God. Rather, as shown by the way He responded to Jesus’ obedience, He is merciful – which we should appreciate anyway because of the way in which He describes Himself –Exo 34:6-7

3:31   To the Jew the idea that the Law of Moses was no longer the route to pleasing God (if it ever was) was a major problem. So they needed to know that ‘faith’ did not remove the need for obedience

Peter Cresswell comments

manuscript of the Epistle to the Romans (fragment) (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

3:4 – Here we see a principle that we cannot ignore.  Let God be true is a clear instruction to us not to make God into what we think He should be – not to impose on Him what we feel are the qualities of a god, but instead to open our minds to let Him show us what he really is in truth.  We are still on the theme from the previous chapters which tell us how to avoid being like those whose worship is distorted.  Let us take heed, as through this we can be justified by faith, as we are being prepared to learn next.

3:20 tells us that the law can’t save because by it there is knowledge of sin.  This shows us that the law is inextricably tied up with the original curse – that we should know good and evil.  At the end this curse will be removed and we will know only good.  We do well to remember that this knowledge of good and evil is a curse, not a privilege.  One day, those who are saved, will leave it far behind.  One could argue that by God’s grace, we already have – 5:21, 6:7 – but in that day it will be actual.  Evil will no longer be remembered or contemplated or come into mind.  We must ask ourselves: Are we ready to leave behind the choice to do evil, without looking back, or do we still consider it a privilege?

Cliff York comments

Romans 3:9 – “for we have before proved both Jews and Gentiles, that they are all under sin” – in chapters one and two. Paul painted a word picture, first of the Gentile world – Romans 1 – then the Jewish world, which was even worse, for they had access to God’s righteousness – Romans 2.

v12-18 – Paul describes the cadaver of sin. As Paul’s scalpel opens up the body of sin, first the throat, then the tongue, lips, mouth, feet, and eyes are laid bare and examined – Hebrews 4:12-13. And Paul’s conclusion is given in v23 – “For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God.”  What does this tell us? We all need Jesus Christ. No-one will be in God’s Kingdom who has not entrusted his life and his salvation to the only name given among men whereby they might be saved – Acts 4:12.

John Wilson comments

Rom 3:25  “to declare his  righteousness.” Christ, the bearer of the sins of the people. Not that Christ might be punished for others, but that God’s righteousness might be declared for others to see that they might be forgiven.

David Simpson comments

Rom 3:9-20 has at least 7 quotations from the Psalms, and one from Isaiah. Then in Rom 4 we can find 7 times when Abraham’s name is written.  There is no doubt, is there, where the Gospel’s foundation is laid?

Valerie Mello comments

Rom 3:23: “For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God.”

A reader writes: “even though our Lord did not commit one single sin – even of omission, he still Came Short of the glory of Yahweh – by his very mortality that he inherited by his birth of a mortal woman – meaning he had to make atonement by his death for his ‘falling short’ of the glory of Yahweh by reason of his birth by a mortal woman who, wonderful as she was, still possessed a sin-prone nature herself.”

My reply: In Rom 1, Paul pointed out mankind’s refusal to acknowledge God and God’s truth and how God gave mankind over to their lusts and the practice of sin. Then in Rom 2, Paul describes God’s judgment on both the Gentiles and the Jews. In Rom 3, Paul sums up his argument and makes it clear that all of mankind is under sin and that “every mouth will be silenced and the whole world will be held accountable to God.” With regard to God’s judgment there is no difference between Jew and Gentile, rich or poor, priest or beggar, businessmen or drunk, churchgoer and atheist, all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. It does not say or imply that Christ because of his human nature fell short of God’s glory!

In Rom 3:22, we read that the righteousness of God is by faith in Jesus Christ to “all” – that is, mankind in general, Jews and Gentiles, “unto all and upon all that believe: for there is no difference” (cf. vv. 21,23). To fall short of the glory of God is to be in need of righteousness, a righteousness imputed to us by God through Christ (2Cor 5:21).

In Matt 5:20, we are warned that our righteousness must exceed those of the Pharisees. What Jesus is telling us is that it is not enough to submit to mere outward conformity as characterized by the Pharisees, but that it must be of both inward and outward conformity. Obeying the Law was more than just abstaining from killing, or stealing, etc., it also dealt with our inward being. So it is with us under the Law of Christ, and we can only exceed the righteousness of the Pharisees if we submit to Christ. Our own righteousness will never be good enough no matter how hard we try (cf. Isa 64:6).

Jesus was the only one who could lead a perfect life to the law of God in thought, word, and deed. Jesus’ mission was not simply to die on the cross. He had to be the Lamb without blemish, without sin. He had to live a life of perfect obedience, which he did and became the righteousness of God and, thus, could not have fallen short of God’s glory. Irrespective of Christ’s human sin-prone nature, he did not fall short, but continued in all things that were written in the book of the law to do them, otherwise, how could his righteousness be imputed to us, irrespective of our human nature (cf. 1Pet 5:10)? Christ was the perfect sacrifice and we can be made perfect only in him. We are to be Christ-like (cf. 2Cor 3:18).

Christ’s passive obedience (Isa 53:7) pays our sin debt and his active obedience of a sinless life gives us the perfection required by God if we submit (cf. Matt 5:48). What is required of us is active and passive obedience to Christ. Jesus came to undo what Adam did in committing and omitting, by which his character was tarnished and sin entered the flesh and passed on to his descendants – his sin was imputed to us (Rom 5:17-19). This was man’s fall from glory and made him in need of glory.  Man was created in God’s image for God’s glory (1Cor 11:7; Isa 43:7). Christ came to restore for us what Adam lost. We must have Christ’s righteousness, active and passive, transforming us from sinners who fell short of the glory of God to saints of God who fulfill the glory of God in Christ, or God will not accept us.

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Preceding articles

Elul Observances

To find ways of Godly understanding

Luther’s misunderstanding

January 27, 417, Pope Innocent I condemning Pelagius about Faith and Works

Our life depending on faith

Romans 4 and the Sacraments

Is Justification a process?

Letter to the Romans, chapter 3

Letter to the Romans, chapter 4

Continue reading: Additional comments to the 4th Letter to the Romans

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Additional reading

1. Creation of the earth and man #4 Of the Sabbath day #2 Days 1,7,8 and 50
2. Forbidden Fruit in the Midst of the Garden 4
3. Necessity of a revelation of creation 3 Getting understanding by Word of God 1
4. A god who gave his people commandments and laws he knew they never could keep to it
5. Imprisonment and execution of Jesus Christ
6. The seven last sayings of Christ discussed in the new edition of the Christadelphian
7. Trusting, Faith, Calling and Ascribing to Jehovah #15 Exposition before the Creator
8. God’s wrath and sanctification
9. Condemnation of the World and Illustration of Justification
10. Theologians and a promised Spirit to enlighten us
11. Atonement and the race been bought
12. Faith Alone Does Not Save . . . No Matter How Many Times Protestants Say It Does
13. 138) Cheap Grace
14. Christianity without the Trinity
15. Not trying to make the heathen live like Jews #2
16. A Living Faith #7 Prayer
17. Growth in character
18. Love is like playing the piano
19. Forgiveness is a blessing for the one who forgives
20. He who cannot forgive breaks the bridge over which he himself must pass
21. Forgiveness always possible
22. A man who cannot forgive others
23. Answering a fool according to his folly
24. Why we do not keep to a Sabbath or a Sunday or Lord’s Day #5 Not law binding
25. When not seeing or not finding a biblically sound church
26. Follower of Jesus part of a cult or a Christian
27. Breathing to teach

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Further readings

1. The creation of Earth and Man, the fall of Man, the cursed Earth, the redemption of Man, the resurrection of Christ, the resurrection of Man, the New Earth
2. The Justification of Abraham
3. Joseph and the justification of evil/sin
4. Law and Grace
5. Justification, Sanctification and Perseverance – By Grace through Faith
6. Justification is by faith
7. Why Justifying yourself is Destroying you!
8. Are Good Works Necessary for Salvation?
9. Faith itself not the cause of justification – Louis Berkhof
10. Theories of Atonement: Recapitulation Theory
11. Practical Theology
12. Michael Horton Differentiates Law and Gospel
13. Old and New Perspectives on Paul: A Third Way?
14. Why the Law? Part 2
15. The Justified Dead
16. It’s not about you
17. Reflective Paragraphs Week 4 – Romans 3
18. Romans 3
19. Daily Devotional – Romans 3:1-8
20. Romans 3:9
21. Daily Devotional – Romans 3:9-20
22. Daily Devotional – Romans 3:21-31
23. “And where does that leave our proud religious claim of having a corner on God? Canceled.” ~~Apostle Paul
24. The Best Way to “Stand Up” For Jesus: Revisiting Romans
25. What works was Paul talking about in Romans?
26. Nullify the Torah?
27. Under The Law
28. Psalm 57 – As a Deaf Adder; A Sermon Preached at the Amarillo Primitive Baptist Church – Sunday, October 18, 2015
29. Apart From The Law Of Righteousness
30. Confessions of a Hypocrite
31. You are without excuse
32. Are we good?
33. More Fashionable Fig Leaves
34. Elihu – A Word for young leaders
35. Salvation & Obedience
36. Would Your Faith Save You?
37. Let Go of the Ladder
38. The Playing Field Is Level!
39. My Utmost For His Highest: The Nature Of Reconciliation
40. Obedience apart from Christ won’t justify
41. That One Sin!
42. The Only Martyr
43. we’re all “heirs according to the promise” – but we all fall short
44. Everybody needs Jesus
45. Rub Your Eyes (Rondel Grande)
46. Romans Devotional- Day 25
47. The Anatomy Of God
48. When Perfect Is Not A Good Thing – Part 1
49. When Perfect Is Not A Good Thing – Part 2
50. Is just-as-if-I’d-never-sinned the true meaning of justification?
51. My Sinfulness
52. If you love yourself….
53. Good Behavior
54. God is righteous and just (God is good 4)
55. PT. 9 (The end) You are justified in Christ
56. Day 11: I Declare My Righteousness Is In Christ Jesus
57. Subjected For Our Sake.
58. Guilt & Shame Misapplied
59. God Glories in Making You Righteous
60. Our Comforter is our Peace
61. We Distinguish…(Part 5) — Active/Passive Obedience
62. We Distinguish…(Part 6) — Moral/Ceremonial/Civil
63. Those Who Practice Such Things Will Not Inherit the Kingdom of God
64. Do I seek approval?

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Related articles

• What shall we do?
• Who is the real enemy: Jews, Muslims or Christian Zionists?
• Give All Your Worries And Cares To The Lord….He’s Concerned About You
• Do you need to rediscover the gift of mercy?
• How Halakha Must Transcend Itself (Part 3 of 3)
• E Michael Jones: Protecting The Goy From Judaism Incorporated
• That New York Times headline about Catholics witnessing to Jews? Look again …
• E Michael Jones: Protecting The Goy From Judaism Incorporated
• The treasure of the Jews
• When Goyim Notice Patterns

Crisis man needed in this world

On Saturday the 10th of October Christadelphians come together at Dudley College in the United Kingdom to talk about the diminishing congregations in the United Kingdom. But it is not only there ecclesiae are struggling to make the ends meet and to have enough believers in Christ and in God in their meeting.

Many denominations in Christendom are victim of these times of ungodliness. It is also mainly that ungodliness that shows up in the families and in the behaviour of man. the difficulties people have in conversations and the wrong going communications have provided our world with many difficulties and lots of broken families and divorcees.

Lots of people who call themselves Christian are afraid to show others who they love and what they are standing for. Lots of Christians are afraid to let others know they are Christian. Less people are even willing to proclaim the Word of God and preach the Gospel of the Good News.

Our world urgently need men of God who are willing to go out in the world and preach that Gospel of peace and of hope in the future.

This world in crisis needs many “crisis man”. In this world where many want to be famous we need people who want to be more than a very well know figure and more than just a milepost-a marker on the road to destruction. A real follower of Christ should love it that people would be able to see Jesus in them.

Real followers of Christ should not be afraid to face the confrontation with non-believers or haters of God. They want them to be confronted with the decision to accept or reject the furious love of God.

A missionary to Ethiopia, Ramon Mayo, pastor of a multiethnic Vineyard church, has now become a writer/editor in the South Suburbs of Chicago and probably sees a lot of problems in the poorer communities over there. Being rooted in blackness, following Jesus and embracing the world he is very well aware that everyone in the world is not like him and that the Church may be a bunch of people who are not like him worshipping the same God.

Like him we should know that everywhere may be different cultures and that around us we may find people who are not like us, act and behave differently than us. But somehow we should come to see that we all part of this world and that we all come from the same origin, the Base and the same divine creation.

In this world we may live and come to do things. We also have feelings for those around us and even for the place where we live in. But we should not forget where we want to place our loyalty.

Is it towards your country of origin or towards the new citizenship you have in God’s kingdom? {Are you an American or a Christian?}

Too many people have lost track of the main or the right road. It would be best if we could see some more people who are willing to help others to get back on track. Guides are needed to show people the Way again.

When the rubber hits the road and the values and priorities of America (or whatever country. You fill in the blank.) clash with the values of Jesus who wins out.

For me my loyalties lie with Jesus. The hard part is sorting out which values are his and which ones are part of the current government and culture I live in.

It’s hard to be in the world but not of it. {Are you an American or a Christian?}

We have looked hard for interested people who would like to join this platform writing about the way of life and preaching about the future hope, the Kingdom of God. But no other preachers showed up, who did not want to get paid like the other writers presented from the start. Most people want to receive a reward now and want to get paid for their writings. But preaching demands the love of giving to others without willing to receive something for it. Preaching is a free gift, for the free gift of grace we all have received. It is a way of showing thankfulness and appreciation for what Christ Jesus has done for us. Preachers should know and continue the task Jesus has given his followers.

In this ungodly world it is high tie we get more preachers on their feet and that those who call themselves Christian really show to the world what it means to be a follower of Christ.

if I believe Jesus is the way,the truth, and the life and without Him our lives are condemned and we are doomed then easy or hard the choice is simple. {Make me a crisis man}

We wonder who wants to come up for Christ and show others the Way. How many want to answer the call of Jesus Christ? how many want to be an encourager?

Do you want to just be a milepost or a fork in the road? {Make me a crisis man}

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Continue reading: The Big Conversation

Preceding: 72 Synod Fathers on the topic “The vocation and mission of the family in the Church and the contemporary world”

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Additional reading:

1. World Agenda for Sustainability
2. Not many coming out with their community name
3. Atonement And Fellowship 3/8
4. Challenging claim 2 Inspired by God 1 Simple words
5. God who knows the heart
6. An anarchistic reading of the Bible—(1) Approaching the Bible
7. Why we do not have our worship-services in a church building
8. I remember you in my prayers
9. Meet the atheist … who believes in God
10. Called Christian
11. Be an Encourager
12. A Synod to speak freely and to listen without reservations
13. Let us make sure we are not stiff-necked
14. Many forgot how Christ should be our anchor and our focus
15. Preachers should know and continue the task Jesus has given his followers
16. Commitment to Christian unity
17. Fellowship
18. The Ecclesia
19. The Ecclesia in the churchsystem
20. The ecclesia or Christadelphian church
21. Who are the Christadelphians
22. Keeping an ecclesia in modern times
23. Christadelphian people
24. Christadelphians
25. Christadelphians or Messianic Christians or Messianic Jews
26. My faith
27. A Living Faith #8 Change
28. Priority to form a loving brotherhood
29. Small churches of the few Christadelphians
30. What Christadelphians teach
31. About the Belgian Free Christadelphians
32. 19° Century London Christadelphians
33. Faith and works
34. Breathing to teach
35. Breathing and growing with no heir
36. Perishable non theologians daring to go out to preach
37. Belonging to or being judged by
38. Good or bad preacher
39. Jehovah’s Witnesses not only group that preach the good news

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Related articles

• A Perfect Inheritance
• We stand together proudly
• Jesus Christ is not REAL to most Christians
• Victory
• Reflective Moment ‘The Greatest Gift Is Free’
• World Change
• Speech Paints Your Future
• Gospel group Iband Incorporated set for UK tour
• Are You an Unsalted Christian?
• I’m Sorry, Christian, But You Don’t Get to Make That Move

When believing in God’s existence and His son, possessing a divine legislation

When you believe today and now it is one step in the right direction. Once you have the right faith that can move mountains, you also need to act according to that faith.

The Numbering of the Israelites, as in Numbers 1, engraving by Henri Félix Emmanuel Philippoteaux (1815–1884) (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

It means you are convinced that there is an Existent complete in all the senses of the word ‘existence.’ It means you do not doubt any more that He is the cause of all existence. You not only know that in Him all else subsists and from Him derives everything, but you want to share this knowledge with others. It is like when you are in love, you feel bright and full of fire with butterflies in the stomach. You do not want to be quiet about it any more. You want to tell everybody.

The existing Supreme Being making you to exist makes you longing for Him and out of thankfulness for your being you want to share your life with other creations of this Most High. You know

“for should He not exist the existence of all else would he extinguished, and nothing could persist.”

Like the Israelites possess a divine legislation — laws, commandments, ordinances, rules of life, instruction in the Will of God as to how they should conduct themselves in order to attain temporal and eternal felicity, we as Christians also are willing to accept those ordinances of the Most High Divine Creator as the only just solution for mankind. therefore we do know it is necessary that more people get to know those rules and regulations.

Foster Bible Pictures 0067-1 Moses Is Holding Up His Rod (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Moses revealed to the Israelites propositions and prescriptions of this kind in a miraculous and supernatural manner, but no doctrinal opinions, no saving truths, no universal propositions of reason. Moses wrote everything down so that next generations could also get to know what to do and how to arrange their life.

We have to come to see that we are obliged to believe in God and to follow His Given Word by which his only begotten son came to declare his heavenly Father and to make it clear what we have to do. This Nazarene Jew asked his disciples to go out in the world and to preach the Good News of the coming Kingdom of God. In case we call ourselves Christian we should be followers of Christ. As followers of this son of God we should listen to his words and accept what he says. We should follow his teachings and follow up the tasks he has given his disciples.

Belief in God does not require us to comprehend the incomprehensible. It is impossible to know everything or to understand everything. But we should help each other. We should help each person around us to come to see more clear and to receive more wisdom in the works of God. The only way to do is when we are willing to share our knowledge and to accept more knowledge from others. Together we should exchange ideas.

From Guestwriters is one of those places where more than one writer, more than one believer can share his or her thoughts with others and give others the opportunity to think about certain matters.

When we truly believe in God and in His only begotten son to be the Messiah, it requires that we have a faithful life, living and behaving by our best understanding of God and the laws He has given us. It requires that we act honourably, with love and justice, with due respect for God’s creation, with humility before the Divine mysteries we cannot understand, and with loyalty to the God’s People, the Jewish people and to those who have chosen to follow Christ, the cornerstone of the new generation children of God.

Jeshua, Jesus Christ, opened the gates to the Kingdom of God for the gentiles, the non-Jews who are willing to come close to God and to accept Him as their Most High Supreme Master of everything.

Together we all should come united, embarking on a pathway away from the societal and cultural forces that lead us to such vile behaviour. For far too long American Jews and Israeli Jews have been wittingly and unwittingly nurturing the forces that encourage extremism and fanaticism to flourish and wreak havoc. As well as in the Jewish culture as in the Christian culture we have seen the right wing groups or very conservative groups bringing more fundamentalist groups in the foreground and protecting. Though those fundamentalists, Jews and Christians do much more damage to the Jewish religion and Christian religion, than good.

We have to show the world that Israel, God’s Chosen people shall have to get its nation, but this in respect to other people living in the surroundings of the future capital of the Kingdom of God (Jerusalem). We do have to let others come to understand that it are not the religious and the faithful to God who are misusing the Word of God to get their own agenda of having more power.

We must be glad that we see changes in Israel itself. The marching and speaking out against the terror of “price tagging” and religious fanaticism in Israel is a good thing we should applaud. We should also let others know this. As lovers of God we also have to show the world that Israel is God’s nation and that we all should work to it that we can come to a peaceful region where the lovers of God shall be able to live in unity. That unity is important. It is a matter of spirit and openness to the differences between each believer. Often it is misunderstood that we all should think and act exactly the same or should all follow exactly the same and only one worldly organisation. But we should follow a heavenly organisation, the one of God. For us Christians Jeshua (Jesus Christ) is that cornerstone of that ‘Church‘. He is the one we should follow.

With our different opinions we should not be afraid to let those different opinions exist one next to the other. We also should know there are lots of things we do not yet understand, so we may have different ideas about it. But when we trust God we shall come to see that in the end He will give guidance and insight and everything shall become clear. We only now, need patience, and that we should bring up, in the love for each other.

When we are prepared to share our knowledge and bring forth some interesting ideas, others can become stimulated and also get inspired. We should give one light to the other so that every next one can start a chain of lights which shall become brighter in the darkness of this world.

Therefore do not hesitate to become a preacher in the name of Christ. Let your voice be heard. Share your thought with us and others.

You too can become a co-author on this platform. You too can become a voice bringing support for the faith in Christ and in God. You too can show others ways of life. You too can open others their eyes so that it would be easier for them to make choices. Only when we understand what is going around us, we shall be able to place ourselves in the whole picture and be able to make the right choices.

We should help each other to see better and to go together on the path prepared by the Messiah, the sent one from God.

Lets unite and put the hands together, helping each other to move forward.

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Preceding:

God’s wisdom for the believer brings peace

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Background reading:

1. Genesis Among the Creation Myths
2. Believing in God the Rewarder
3. Jehovah steep rock and fortress, source of insight
4. Creation of the earth and man #3 Of the Sabbath day #1 the Seventh day
5. High Holidays not only for Israel
6. Days of Nisan, Pesach, Pasach, Pascha and Easter
7. On the Edge of Believing
8. Counterfeit Gospels
9. Bible in the first place #3/3
10. About a man who changed history of humankind
11. Entrance of a king to question our position #1 Coming in the Name of the Lord
12. Marriage of Jesus 5 Papyrus fragment in Egyptian Coptic
13. Marriage of Jesus 8 Wife of Yahweh
14. Marriage of Jesus 9 Reason for a new marriage
15. Marriage of Jesus 10 Old and New Covenant
16. Trusting, Faith, Calling and Ascribing to Jehovah #10 Prayer #8 Condition
17. Like grasshoppers
18. Illuminating our minds and watching out
19. The Best Bedtime Stories
20. People are turning their back on Christianity
21. Race, Skin colour and differences
22. More looking for similarities
23. Preparation for unity
24. Wrong choices made to get rid of Assad
25. Depression, Anxiety, Pressure and megachurches
26. Stepping Toes 2014 in review
27. Separation of church and state
28. The sin of partiality
29. Moving forward
30. Remember there’s a light in the next day
31. Structuur -structure
32. A visible organisation on earth
33. Looking for something or for the Truth and what it might be and self-awareness
34. Not words of any organisation should bind you, but the Word of God
35. To whom do we want to be enslaved Be enslaved to Christ
36. Disciple of Christ counting lives and friends dear to them
37. New Preaching Ideas website
38. Bringing Good News into the world
39. United people under Christ

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Further related articles:

1. From Whom Should We Seek Counsel?
2. The Messiah went to Many Places Teaching
3. What will make us ready to preach the gospel
4. How To Get Started In Sharing Your Faith As a Christian
5. Preaching the Cross of Christ
6. Quick Quotes: 25 Quotes from “Preaching” by Tim Keller
7. Speech
8. Why Being A Christian Isn’t Cool
9. Stuff My Church Does I: Preaching
10. Is Preaching Passé?
11. The Art of Preaching
12. What is preaching to me… and what it is for others.
13. Preach the Word by Alistair Begg
14. Preaching to the Reader
15. 10 Years of Preaching, 10 Lessons: Lesson 1
16. 10 Years of Preaching, 10 Lessons: Lesson 2
17. Lessons Learned from 25 Years of Preaching (3)
18. Life at the Church is Kinda Laid Back: How our Preaching Sounds to Newcomers
19. The earnestness of preaching
20. Tim Keller on the case for (usually) doing expository preaching
21. Bulldozer spirituality
22. Wisdom of Men or the Power of God – By Laurence Torr
23. The Word of God – Christ, Scripture, Preaching
24. The Gospel
25. Transformation through God’s word!
26. Bread of Life: Gospel according to Jesus, Martin Luther and Brene Brown
27. Expository Preaching / Haddon Robinson 1.
28. The purpose of preaching
29. Preach Christ to sinners
30. The Whole Counsel of God #563
31. “Imitating other Believers in Judea” – 1 Thess 2:13-16 [Sermons on 1 Thessalonians, Week 8]
32. 7 Ways for Men to help Women in Ministry
33. The Hope of Leaving 1 Peter 1:13
34. Eat Me, Speak Me
35. Sermon Verses Motivational Talk
37. Ending a Sermon on Time
38. How to listen to sermons when it is the last thing I feel like doing
39. More Than You Can Handle
40. Confessions of an Idolatrous Preacher
41. 
42. Topical Sermon vs Topical Series
43. Preaching (Book Review)
44. Catherine Booth Writes About Preaching
45. Frank Pollard on Preaching
46. Thunder Or Lightning?Preaching
47. Street Preaching & Something the Devil Doesn’t Want You to Know
48. Advice for Preachers
49. Called Not to Preach
50. Detroit Pastor Is Trying To Launch A “So You Think You Can Preach?” TV Show
51. Ever had a sermon which totally flopped?
52. Do you just sprinkle the Bible onto your sermons?
53. For Preachers and Bible Teachers: Make Sure The Work Of The Scripture Is Completed In Your Own Hearts
54. Are You Serving Slop In The Pulpit?
55. Consider When Witnessing
56. Preaching As The Plane Crashed
57. Is This What You Face Whenever You Preach? You Should!
58. Tim Keller’s Book on Preaching
59. How to listen to character study sermons
60. Sermon Post: For the Life of the World
61. Winning Converts?
62. Sow The Word
63. Religion of Man; Is this the greatest lie that was ever told?
64. The Great Duty of Family Religion – George Whitefield
65. 
66. Devotion: Your Word, not my words
67. Don’t Talk the Talk If You Don’t Walk the Walk
68. Preaching As Expository Exultation
69. Sermons That Do Not Just Settle For General Inspiration And Moralising (via Tim Keller)
70. “Let’s Go Throw Rocks At The Campbellite Preacher!”
71. Is Your Church–Or Are Your Sermons–A Waste Of Time?
72. Still Nervous When You Speak In Front Of Others?
73. Why do we Preach to People With Really Bad Memories?
74. Why Should I Not Continue To Preach?
75. Live that they might see
76. Street Evangelism
77. Is Evangelism for Everyone?
78. Are You Afraid To Witness?
79. Revolutionary Christianty
80. As We Go Through the World
81. Can You Help Me Become A Christian?
82. Struggling with the Spiritual but not Religious.
83. We are Agents for Expanding God’s Kingdom on Earth
84. Teach children about God’s blessings
85. Outreach On The Street Again
86. Preaching Christ Is Not Enough
87. Three Gifts God Gives Us to Conquer the Fear of Evangelism
88. Would You Speak?
89. God uses our work to put others in right relationship with Him. Makes sense!

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Related articles

• Off the Hook? (wsforchrist.com)
• What Must We Believe? (the-1000-year-view.com)
• Shooting Your Arrow By Faith (10kreasons.wordpress.com)
• “Where are you?” N:o 18 Faith is an ability to see the truth of God (docgreenlife.com)
• ‘I’m Insecure’ (jamaica-gleaner.com)
• Parshat Va’etchanan: The oneness of Israel and God’s love (blogs.timesofisrael.com)
• Only one person who has the power to cast the deciding vote that will kill your dream (christadelphianworld.blogspot.com)
• Psst! Spread The Good Word! (fromguestwriters.wordpress.com)
• Engagement in an actual two-way conversation with your deities (fromguestwriters.wordpress.com)
• God, Justice, and Genocide (godsbreath.net)

Commemorating the escape from slavery

In this day and age many like to play god, and often think they are able to do so. Lots of people do want to be in the ‘beams’ shining bright. They want to be in the centre of the ‘spotlight’ and love the attention. But at one point the attention becomes too much. Lots of people then loose control over their emotions.

twitter y macworld (Photo credit: juque)

To cope with all those little agonies today people have found Twitter as their outrage machine, where this medium will make its little idols, through its perpetual series of distractions, puffery and self-indulgence.

Twitter allows us to be like Gods, worshipped by our followers with retweets and personal messages. And then we do battle with other Gods. {Twitter, Outrage, and Jesus}

Lots of people think they do not need to seek healing, for we have these weapons in 140 characters.

If there is the hope of winning, we will continue to place hashtags. {Twitter, Outrage, and Jesus}

A 13th century book illustration produced in Baghdad by al-Wasiti showing a slave-market in the town of Zabid in Yemen. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

In the mean time they all have become enslaved by their little technological attributes like smartphones, tablets, i-pads, laptops and all sorts of brands computers, televisions and so much more.
They also have become the new slaves of this age, having to work with more than one in the household to survive. And the bosses do know they need that work to survive and use it to their advantage, not to pay to much, but just enough to keep the workers quiet.

What would be the difference with the slaves from old times?

The coming week millions of believers in the Divine Creator shall celebrate an historic moment when the People of God were liberated from slavery. First they were liberated from the oppression of the Egyptians. A later liberation was even to become more important for all those who still had to be born. It would be the liberation of something which catches us all. In the past and in the future it was and is something which has conquered the people always. But now there would have come an end to it. But people shall have to make choices to be part of the winners. It would not be a game of poker, or an other game of cards, gambling or trying your luck on the lottery game. It would become a matter of choosing the right way to go in your life at your own responsibility.

Jews and several Christians shall be celebrating next Monday and Tuesday the incredible offer the Divine Creator gave to the world. Many probably would wonder why they will tell again old stories to their children, for the so ‘many-est’ time in their life.
Even in far away countries where it all happened, parents shall remind their children of that special occasion, we all should remember.

Also at the Youth Group at Hillside Church they may get Corbin’s grandmother, Ruth Dudlay, coming to tell them stories about the Underground Railway with special Underground Railway quilts, actual slave irons, and other historical relics from the time of slavery in a place close to them, North America. They shall hear those old stories because they are important to know their past but also to know their future.

Those stories can be told in many ways, but they should not only give entertainment. They should get us to think about certain matters, perhaps hidden behind the words of that story. Stories are also told in many ways to help us remember them.

The coming week many people in the world shall look at the liberation from slavery remembered in the ritual of the Passover feast. The coming weekend and following days many shall take time to remember and to recall those old stories. We also should take up those ancient books like the Bible and read about those important moments in history of humankind.

By reading and studying those old stories we can get to understand more about our human way of living and get to see who we are. Where we came from and where we are headed.

It is significant that the ancient stories of the Israelite slavery were cherished by the North American African slaves. Because of these ancient stories, slaves over 3,000 years later had hope that like the Israelite slaves they would be liberated by God! It was reading the stories in the Bible and the teachings of Jesus that caused William Wilberforce to petition the British Empire (and its colonies of Canada) to abolish slavery. {Why tell old stories?}

The story of Exodus describes an enslaved oppressed people rising up from captivity and escaping through the desert to return to their nomadic ancestors burial lands in Canaan. If you believe this story, the Exodus is one of the most significant moments of history without parallel. Slavery has been a part of human civilization for time untold and continues to be practiced today. Throughout history many slave revolts have occurred, however they usually end with all of the revolting being killed (for instance Spartacus and his slave rebellion against Rome). That the tribe of Hebrew slaves were able to leave Egypt, the most powerful empire in the world, and survive wandering through the desert is a powerful story that has inspired many oppressed peoples throughout history. {Why tell old stories?}

Friday-night, this coming Sabbath, the Haftorah read shall refer to a day in the future which will be “great” – the day of the re-establishment of God’s Kingdom on this earth, as described in Malachi 3-4.

Mal 4:5-6 NHEBYSE  Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the great and terrible day of YHWH comes.  (6)  He will turn the hearts of the fathers to the children, and the hearts of the children to their fathers, lest I come and strike the earth with a curse.

The world should know that before the Day of Jehovah God, shall be there the world shall have receive the opportunity to choose for better things. We shall not be able to escape therefore the third World War, which shall be coming and be terrible, but we shall either be gone before or when still alive, shall be able to cope with it because we shall be prepared.

In the above verse the prophet speaks of the day of redemption in the future. Passover, which represents the day of redemption of antiquity, serves as the model for the future redemption of the children of Israel.

This Shabbat in Egypt was different from all other previous Shabbatot. This time, man joined God in His holy day. Ironically, the mode of observance was not “resting” as we think of it in the context of today’s Shabbat. Historically, the Shabbat before Pesach was the day when the children of Israel were commanded to take to themselves a lamb, a symbolic action that stood in opposition to the lamb-worshiping Egyptians. {Weekly Torah Commentary — Acharei Mot April 11, 2014}

The Sages note that by taking the lamb the Jews observed Shabbat in Egypt as never before. This was their first Shabbat as a people, a moment of passage in the national sense: They had reached the age of majority, became adult (“gedolim”), with responsibilities. This was Shabbat “HaGadol”. The most basic teaching of Shabbat is the acknowledgement that God created the world in six days. By taking the lamb the Jews rejected idolatry and accepted God. This was not merely an action which took place on the tenth of Nissan. This was a watershed of Jewish history. Now the Jews joined God in a Shabbat.  {Weekly Torah Commentary — Acharei Mot April 11, 2014}

All those who believe in the Creator God could better sometimes listen to those who are still in the old tradition of Hebrew teachings. then they should know and understand that it is perhaps because people always went in against the wishes of the Most High, that the better things did not yet come up to them. we should remember that God was very clear on which days had to be celebrated and to which Laws we should keep. But how many thought they could bring better laws into the world than the Maker His Laws? How many did not think they could make a better world than the world the Maker of the Universe had in His mind?

Our sages teach us that if all of Israel fully observe just two Shabbatot the Messiah would appear. {Weekly Torah Commentary — Acharei Mot April 11, 2014}

Interestingly, according to the mainstream Jewish approach the world was created in Nissan, which means that the Shabbat which takes place around the 10th of the month was the second Shabbat in the history of the world. Had those two Shabbatot been kept properly the world would have been redeemed back then. {Weekly Torah Commentary — Acharei Mot April 11, 2014}

In particular, the two Shabbatot which must be observed are Shabbat Hagadol and Shabbt Shuva. Each of these Shabbatot have a special power to them: One falls between Rosh HaShana and Yom Kippur, it is a Shabbat which teaches man how to return to God. The other Shabbat is the first Shabbat observed in Egypt, the one we are about to celebrate. It is a Shabbat which contains within it the secret of redemption. {Weekly Torah Commentary — Acharei Mot April 11, 2014}

If man could master these two Shabbatot, the Messiah would quickly arrive. Would that it would be this year. {Weekly Torah Commentary — Acharei Mot April 11, 2014}

Observing the Sabbath-closing havdalah ritual in 14th-century Spain. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

These days we should come to prepare to celebrate the Festival of our Redemption, past and future. We should take some time to examine our relationships and make sure that we have no ‘unfinished business’ in that area. Now has come the time that we should consider which relation we would like to have with others around us. In case we have something done wrong we should come to the point that we ourselves take courage to go up to that person and admit we were wrong. These coming days we should look at all those old stories where we have seen that even people of God could do something wrong but ask forgiveness, and that it was given to them. We are also in need to ask forgiveness for some offence or have to forgive others for their offences against us. Now has come the time to our doorstep that we do have to do it from the heart. If we need to forgive someone else, likewise let’s forgive freely as God forgives us.

Now is also the time we do have to remember that Nazarene Jew who had no fault but was killed. He was willing to give his body as a lamb for God, as a payment for the sins of all people in this world.

Next Monday night we should come together and be feeling united with many people all over the world. We should also let others know that all over the world people will be looking forward to this gathering. We could always invite others too to gather with us to celebrate Passover – the holiday that commemorates the Jewish people’s escape from slavery in Egypt. And Christians can look for some extra dimension to that feast. We should not mourn for the death of Jeshua (Jesus Christ), but should be pleased that he on the night before he was given over to the Romans, took his closest friends with him in an upper room in Jerusalem to present them with symbols, which were a sign of the New Covenant, our new connection with Jehovah God, the Father of Christ Jesus, Who is also our Father and Who is welcoming us all again, if we are willing to come up to Him.

The world should get to know the meaning of these special days and has to come to understand the meaning of the symbols of Passover which all point to the ministry, death and resurrection of that humble Nazarene man Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ is our Passover lamb.

On the 14th day of the month of Nissan Jesus was crucified, or sacrificed. On the very same afternoon that the Passover lambs were being killed as a sacrifice, Jesus – the Lamb of God- was being sacrificed for all of us. Just like the blood on the doorposts of the Hebrews caused God’s judgement to pass over them, so the blood of Christ causes God’s judgement to pass over us. Christ provided atonement, as well as redemption for us upon the wooden stake. To receive this forgiveness of our sins we must put our faith in this Nazarene man, who is the Christos or Christ, the Messiah for which many may be still waiting. But he has already come, has fulfilled the wish of his Father and sealed the New Covenant with his own blood.

For seven or eight days (depending on where you live), families and friends come together for festive seder meals packed with ritual foods and a few dietary restrictions (for instance, no leavened grains). We all could feel united with them and show the outer-world the connection those people from all sorts of tribes, cultures or countries may share with each other. they all are united under the blessings of the One and Only True God.

It is under His Wings that we shall be able to come closer to each other and will be able find peace in unity.

Festive Seder table with wine, matza and Seder plate. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

We look forward to be able to find many at the meetings held on Monday night. On the 14th of April 2014, it shall also be from sundown the moment to remember what Jesus has done. Therefore a “Memorial Meal” shall bring many Christians together all over the world, keeping “Christian communion”. Also known by many as “the Lord’s supper” we shall gather to pray and remember all the difficulties this world received, but also all the goodness which has come over it. We shall read the old stories of the exodus and of the last days of Christ Jesus. Together we shall celebrate our Passover remembrance of the body and blood of Christ. His body being broken for us and his blood being shed upon the wooden stake for our salvation. The Passover lambs had to be without blemish in order to be sacrificed for sin. Christ was the only man without blemish (sin) so he became our Passover lamb. Christ is the second Adam, the man of flesh and blood and bones. He could be tempted and sin, like any other man, but he did not. He was the only person who managed to keep to the Laws of his Father, the Only One God, Whose Name he made known and asked us to be made known all over the world. Being without fault he was the perfect offer humankind give to its Maker. Giving his life for many he succeeded to become the only one who could purchase our salvation and become the mediator between God and man. In him we can trust, like we can trust his Father, our heavenly Father, the Elohim Hashem Jehovah God.

Let us wish each other:

Shabbat Shalom and Chag Pesach Sameach!!! (A blessed Passover)

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Additional literature:

1. 1 -15 Nisan
2. Day of remembrance coming near
3. Another way looking at a language #4 Ancient times
4. Self inflicted misery #5 A prophet without a hedge around him
5. The Advent of the saviour to Roman oppression
6. Seven days of Passover
7. On the first day for matzah
8. A Great Gift commemorated
9. Jesus memorial
10. Observance of a day to Remember
11. A new exodus and offering of a Lamb
12. In what way were sacrifices “shadows”?
13. What does ‘atonement’ mean?
14. Why did Jesus say he wouldn’t drink wine again until the kingdom when he ate and drank other things? (Mark 14:25)
15. Children ate the OT passover so why not NT bread and wine?
16. Deliverance and establishement of a theocracy
17. 14 Nisan a day to remember #1 Inception
18. 14 Nisan a day to remember #2 Time of Jesus
19. 14 Nisan a day to remember #3 Before the Passover-feast
20. 14 Nisan a day to remember #4 A Lamb slain
21. 14 Nisan a day to remember #5 The Day to celebrate
22. Around the feast of Unleavened Bread
23. High Holidays not only for Israel
24. Festival of Freedom and persecutions
25. 14-15 Nisan and Easter
26. The Song of The Lamb #7 Revelation 15
27. Servant of his Father
28. For the Will of Him who is greater than Jesus
29. A Messiah to die
30. Anointing of Christ as Prophetic Rehearsal of the Burial rites
31. Death of Christ on the day of preparation
32. How many souls did the death of Jesus pay for?
33. Swedish theologian finds historical proof Jesus did not die on a cross
34. Why 20 Nations Are Defending the Crucifix in Europe
35. Impaled until death overtook him
36. Misleading Pictures
37. A time for everything
38. 2013 Lifestyle, religiously and spiritualy
39. Fixing our attention
40. Control your destiny or somebody else will
41. Allowed to heal
42. A secret to be revealed
43. Your Sins Are Forgiven
44. Slave for people and God
45. Liberation in Christ
46. Not bounded by labels but liberated in Christ
47. Holidays, holy days and traditions
48. A Holy week in remembrance of the Blood of life
49. Peter Cottontail and a Bunny laying Eastereggs
50. Bread and Wine
51. Around the feast of Unleavened Bread
52. The son of David and the first day of the feast of unleavened bread
53. Deliverance and establishment of a theocracy
54. Focus on outward appearances
55. Fraternal week-end at Easter in Paris

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• The people asked for a king: Selling ourselves (spiritharvestblog.com)
  God did not create man to dominate other men. Humans were created as sovereign beings with direct access to his and her Creator. We were created to be sovereign leaders of ourselves, partners in marriage, examples of right living to our children and upright representatives in our communities. We were created to live with the knowledge and understanding that God is our King, our Lord, our True Sovereign Leader. He occupies a throne no man can usurp.

  Until we attempted to take the throne for ourselves, or alternatively, put someone else upon the throne to rule us. No man can usurp our authority, but we can certainly surrender it.

• God’s Law; Your slaves (soipost.wordpress.com)
  The social laws of the Pentateuch were not designed for the modern world,
  They were clearly designed for a different kind of world, a mainly agricultural society.
  But since they were published in the name of the Biblical God, they can still throw light on his nature and intentions.
  Which gives us a new reason for reading this collection even if the laws themselves have been superseded.
  +
  Some scholars try to reconcile Leviticus with the other laws by suggesting that “Hebrew” was a wider social or ethnic category than “Israelite”.
  But since the word “brother” is also used to describe Hebrews, it is probably better to see the injunctions of Leviticus as representing an ideal which wasn’t always attained.
  +
  What can these laws tell us about the God who endorses them?

  They deal with the state of slavery as something which exists, but their purpose is to regulate the treatment of slaves and impose restraints on the power that is exercised over them.
  This God is apparently unwilling to allow slave-owners the kind of absolute control which would have been available to them in most other slave-holding societies of the time.
  The owner cannot hold one of his own people in slavery for longer than a limited period.
  There are laws to prevent the treatment of slaves from descending into brutality, and laws to rein in the exploitation of female slaves.
  Since most of the Israelite slaves would have been debt-slaves, all this can be seen as one aspect of care for the poor.
  It points to the same concern for the weak and vulnerable that can be seen in many other Israelite laws.

  In fact the general tenor of these laws is unfriendly to the very existence of slavery, at least among the brethren.

• Passover Primer (boiseweekly.com)
  Passover, a Jewish holiday celebrated for seven or eight days (depending on the branch of Judaism) that starts on the full moon in April, is a great opportunity to sink your teeth into Jewish history and culinary traditions. Why? Because each item consumed during the Passover seder–a ritual feast that’s hosted on the first night of Passover, this year Monday, April 14–is filled with thousands of years of meaning.
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  In addition to matzah, the Passover seder features six symbolic items displayed on a special seder plate. While some of these foods are eaten during the reading of the Haggadah–a guide outlining the order of the seder and explaining the significance of the meal–others are there for ceremonial purposes.
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  “What better way to entice people to really think about something than food?” said Lifshitz. “Food is intergenerational dialogue, which is what the Passover seder is about; it’s about a discussion.”
• Christ our Passover Lamb (daysofdaniel.wordpress.com)
  The week of Passover or Pesach will begin at sunset Monday, April 14, and ends at nightfall Tuesday, April 22. The Passover is a Hebrew commemoration of when the death angel passed over the homes of the Israelites that placed blood on their doorposts. The Lord struck the firstborn of Egypt dead in response to Pharaohs decree but spared the firstborn of the Israelites who marked their homes with blood. The Hebrews were instructed by the Lord to eat the Passover meal, as well as to celebrate this holy week throughout their generations. It is also known as the week of unleavened bread, because the Hebrews were instructed to eat bread made without leaven (yeast).
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  All of the events that occurred at that time, as well as the symbols of Passover all point to the ministry, death and resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ is our Passover lamb.
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  Cohen, a Los Angeles native with a dude-esque Southern California surfer dialect, has been a full-time investigator since 2000, identifying victims of human trafficking — often, young girls in the global sex trade — and gathering the evidence and money required to free them.
  +
  When discussing more recent experiences, he didn’t revel in the details of his operations. And he shied away from discussing any of his recent stings in the United States.

  He wanted, rather, to discuss Judaism, the Torah, Passover, and why he meditates and prays immediately before his operations, most of which begin with a simple interview of a trafficking victim. Cohen poses as a customer who wants the girl’s services, meets her at a hotel and simply speaks to her, gains her trust, and, usually after a few meetings, gets her and others on the record, providing evidence that the authorities demand

• Shabbat HaGadol (layacrust.wordpress.com)
  The Shabbat right before Pesach is called Shabbat HaGadol- The Great Sabbath. One interpretation is that “Moshiach”- the Messiah- will come on Passover, so this is the  Great Shabbat, the one before that great redemption.

  Another idea is that the days leading up to the Exodus from Egypt were days of unusual and overwhelming preparation for the Israelites. Those preparations  not only affected sacrifices and food but defined faith and self identification. That concept holds true today. Those who choose to prepare for Pesach and change their diet and behaviours for an entire week are declaring their faith in the God of Israel and defining themselves as Jews.

• Scripture Oppression in the Bible Part 1 (human2o.wordpress.com)
  As we interpret the bible in “Modern” times, many questions arise. Why has the world’s highest selling book,”the holy bible”, been used to justify oppression, of a specific group of people? Fear, political, and economic power, are the three main reasons to oppress people. Society uses fear to condemn, what is not understood, by controlling through opression keeping one subordinate. The majority, or the group in power uses scripture to maintain status, and build their retention of power. Humans sometimes use fear as a scapegoat for lack of their acountabilities. The word scapegoat originates from biblical days of atonement. Priests performed a ritual, in which the sins of people were symbolically placed on goats. The goats were then driven into the wilderness, along with the sins, and impurities of the people (Paul J Harpers Bible Dictionary). Its funny to see that people believed a goat running into wilderness, took accountability for their wrong actions, giving them instant forgiveness, with no apology, or correction.
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  According to academic literature, Rett syndrome is characterized by “normal early growth and development followed by a slowing of development, loss of purposeful use of the hands, distinctive hand movements, slowed brain and head growth, problems with walking, seizures and intellectual disability.”

• Happy Passover! (jewishvoice.wordpress.com)
  History repeats itself . . .
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• Tears of the Anointed (beautyfromchaos.wordpress.com)
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• The Unanticipated Passover Seder (ghostriverstudios.wordpress.com)
  If there are aspects of the Passover seder from which all people can learn, how much more so is this true for believers in Messiah? After all, our Master Yeshua chose the wine and the matzah of a Passover Seder to represent his body and blood.
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  The Unanticipated Passover Seder
  I cannot be considered as one of the members of humanity who marched out of Egypt and left behind my slavery, and certainly I cannot project myself into the masses who stood at the foot of Mount Sinai and personally received the Torah from Hashem, as does every person who is Jewish.
• The Unanticipated Passover Seder (mymorningmeditations.com)
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• PesachI imagine that the death of Jesus was still sad in heaven even though they knew the whole plan. Suffering is sorrowful. I don’t really know what was happening while Jesus was dead so I won’t try to guess here.
• “Christ Is Our Passover Lamb” / The Message of the High Sabbath beginning the eve of March 25, 2013 (owprince.wordpress.com)
  Remarkably, the celebration of Easter, one of the most holy of Christian holidays, cannot be found anywhere in the Bible. In 1949 the Encyclopedia Britannica in its article on Easter stated the following regarding this day: “There is no indication of the observance of the Easter festival in the New Testament, or in the writings of the apostolic fathers.”
  +
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• Jesus Christ, Our Passover (fredswolfe.wordpress.com)
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• Passover: A Time To Remember (jacksonandrew.com)
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• This Week’s Torah Portion – VAYIKRA (And He Called)(terri0729.wordpress.com)
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• The LORD Jesus Christ- Our Passover (zionsgate.wordpress.com)
  Pesach (PAY-sahk) means to ‘pass over’.  The Passover meal, seder (SAY der), celebrates this historic event.
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  The LORD’s supper is a remembrance of his sacrifice as the perfect Passover Lamb and the fulfillment of the new covenant between GOD and man (Luke 22:20; 1st Corinthians 5:7; Ephesians 2:11-13).  Prophecy of this sacrifice is found in Psalm 22.  The Hebrew prophet Isaiah also spoke of the sufferings and sacrifice of the Messiah, and how that sacrifice would be the ultimate atonement for the sins of GOD’s people (Isaiah 53).
• The Mystery of the Passover Wine Revealed: The Yayin HaMeshumar….Yeshua said, “I shall give you what no eye has seen and what no ear has heard and what no hand has touched and what has never occurred to the mind of man. (Gospel of Thomas 17) (guapotg.wordpress.com)
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  Not only is the Yayin HaMeshumar the blood of the Messiah, but it is more. It is the “mystery” of which the blood of Messiah is only part:
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  next time you partake of the cup of redemption in the Passover sader, realize that this cup is symbolic of the Yayin HeMeshumar, the wine that has been kept from the six days in the beginning, the blood of the lamb slain from the foundation which has been hidden and separated and prepared for those who love him.
• Passover and the Feast of Unleaven Bread (ourcommunityatfbcdc.wordpress.com)
  The Passover meal is eaten on the first day. God commanded that Israel keep this feast perpetually.
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  God offers us redemption through the atoning action of Jesus Christ, God’s son who came to the earth, and suffered and died for the sins of the world. He became the Paschal lamb. Under this judgment of sin and ultimate eternal death, God freely offers to all who will believe and accept His provision for us, forgiveness of our sins and life eternal.
• The Passover Type and Its Anti-type (compasschurchamman.wordpress.com)
  The Old Testament (Exodus 34:18, 25) distinguishes the festivals by using the terms “Feast of Unleavened Bread” and “Passover Feast”. The New Testament (Matthew 26:17; Mark 14:1; Luke 22:1) refers to both of these as “the Passover” and the “Feast of the Unleavened Bread. These festivals were held in immediate sequence. Passover was celebrated at twilight of the 14th day of the month (Exodus 12:6) and the Feast of Unleavened Bread for the seven days following, namely, the 15th to the 21st (Exodus 12:15; Leviticus 23:5f.; Numbers 28:16ff; 2 Chronicles 35:1, 17).
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  The timing of Jesus’ death in the Passover season and the conviction that his death was the atoning death of “blood poured out for many” (Mark 14:24) assisted linking his atoning death to the Passover sacrifice. As the Israelite was delivered from the bondage of Egypt through the blood of the Passover lamb, so the Christian is saved from sin through the sacrifice of Christ; but Paul further adds that continual victory over the sins of the world means a continual observing of the Feast of Redemption.
• Exodus, The Red Sea, and New Testament Baptism (thelifechurchofdesplaines.wordpress.com)
• Echoing Passover in This Worship (tbolto.wordpress.com)
  The word “Seder” simply means “Order.” Everything is done in a careful order in keeping with God’s instructions in the Old Testament or Torah, as it is known by Jewish people, and with traditions that have been added to keep alive the memory of the original Passover people.
• The Crossing of the Red Sea- A Picture of the Process of Salvation…..Just as the Egyptians followed the Hebrews into the Red Sea but the Hebrews alone emerged alive, when we enter into the death burial and resurrection of Messiah as symbolized by water im (guapotg.wordpress.com)
  When someone asks “are you saved”? the natural question is “saved from what?” “Saved” is a verb that begs for a direct object. Yet many who ask you “are you saved” cannot actually tell you what they mean.