You can read my article, You Gotta Serve Somebody – the Covenant of Salt, about what it means to be the salt and light Jesus said His disciples would be on earth, which includes America.  Yet, only 9% of those who call themselves “Born Again” live with a Biblical worldview and are being salt and light.¹ Can you imagine if more Christians today were to actually live their faith on an everyday basis?  If this took place, we would see the proper “change” take place in our country. If those who claim to love Jesus actually trusted Jesus and His word in their every day decisions, not only would their lives be changed for the better; but so would those around them.

How do I know this?  Because it was true of Europe and now true of China.  A non-believing Rabbi, Chief Rabbi Sir Jonathan Sacks, wrote the following article, Christianity’s Rise in China, which proves this very point.² Christianity, the biblical kind, when lived out can not only change a life, but a culture as well.

If those in America and around the globe, who profess Jesus as Savior and Lord, decide they want to change the culture in which they live for Christ, their first step must be to start living like He did – with a biblical worldview in their everyday thoughts, words and actions.³ There is no other way to taste the sweetness the Lord promises to give each believer than to do as the old hymn says, “Trust and obey. There is no other way to be happy in Jesus, but to trust and obey.”

Enjoy the article,

Pastor Chris

“China realizes what the West is rapidly forgetting: a civilization is as strong as its faith.

“Towards the end of his recent book, Civilization, the historian Niall Ferguson drops into his analysis an explosive depth-charge.  He quotes a member of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, part of a team tasked with the challenge of discovering why it was that Europe, having lagged behind China until the 17th century, overtook it, rising to prominence and dominance.

“At first, he said, we thought it was your guns.  You had better weapons than we did.  Then we delved deeper and thought it was your political system.  Then we searched deeper still, and concluded that it was your economic system.  But for the past 20 years we have realized that it was in fact your religion, Christianity (pc note: this is a Jewish man quoting a communist’s observation!).  It was the Christian foundation of social and cultural life in Europe that made possible the emergence first of capitalism, then of democratic politics.

“Equally arrestingly, Ferguson repeats the point made by the editor and Washington correspondent of The Economist, John Micklethwait and Adrian Wooldridge, two years ago in their book God is Back.  While Christianity is in decline in Britain and most of Europe, it is growing and thriving in China, where the number of people in church on Sunday is greater than the total membership of the Communist Party, in the land that in 1958 Chairman Mao had declared “religion free”.  The people flocking to the churches are not, as Karl Marx would have predicted, the poor and oppressed searching for the opium of the people.  They are the young, hard-working, upwardly-mobile entrepreneurs for whom Christianity offers an ethical framework, a structured view of life and its disciplines, in a society experiencing rapid transition.

“As a non-Christian, I find this fascinating.  Europe is losing the very thing that once made it great, while China, the world’s fastest-growing economy, is discovering it.  China: the home of Confucianism, Taoism and its own brand of communism.  That is something no one could have foreseen (pc note: to those who read and trust the Word of God it could be⁴).

“What has China realized that the West is rapidly forgetting?  That a civilization is as strong as its faith.  As a culture grows old and tired, as people borrow more and save less, as they value present pleasures over future growth, so they begin to lose the beliefs and practices that made their society successful in the first place.

“It begins to resemble the Roman Empire at the start of its decline.  The Roman historian Livy wrote, with great poignancy, about how ‘with the gradual relaxation of discipline, morals first subsided, as it were, then sank lower and lower, and finally began the downward plunge which has brought us to our present time, when we can endure neither our vices nor their cure.’

“A half-century ago, Will Durant in The Story of Civilization, argued that the decline of a civilization was the culmination of strife between religion and secular intellectualism (pc note: sound familiar to anyone?), which ended by weakening the institutions of convention and morality.  ‘In the end a society and its religion tend to fall together, like body and soul, in a harmonious death.’  The decline and fall of civilizations has been charted by the wise for many centuries.  They include the sages of ancient Egypt, the prophets of ancient Israel, the great 14th century Islamic thinker Ibn Khaldun, and the farseeing 18th-century Italian philosopher and historian Giambattista Vico.

“They all offer essentially the same analysis.  Civilizations begin by valuing austerity, courage and self-sacrifice (pc note: see Titus 2:1-15).  This sets them on a path to growth.  As they become successful, they grow more self-indulgent and self centered.  People are no longer willing to make sacrifices for the group.  Trust declines.  Social capital wanes.  There are no heroes any more.  Renown gives way to fame and then to mere celebrity.  That, Niall Ferguson implies, is the precipice we are approaching in the West.

“Societies start growing old when they lose faith in the transcendent (pc note: see 2 Timothy 3:1-5 – “a form of godliness, but denying its power”).  They then lose faith in an objective moral order (pc note: denying the absolutes of Biblical truth, which results in the false “God wants me to be happy” attitude) and end by losing faith in themselves (pc note: the lack of understanding in what it means to be a child of God).  But there is an alternative.  The West can rediscover what Jeremiah called ‘the devotion of your youth.’¹

“Judaism and Christianity share an astonishing capacity for self renewal.  That is what happened in Judaism after every tragedy from the Babylonian exile to the Holocaust.  That is what is happening now to Christianity in many parts of the world, and it can happen here too.

“We are as strong as our faith.  That truth, once the West’s unique selling proposition, now comes with a label saying, ‘Made in China.’  But it’s still worth buying.”

The first time this phrase is found is in Leviticus 2:13 where the order of the words is “salt of the covenant.”  The context of this passage is the grain offering, which was to have salt added to it.  But the Spirit didn’t stop with just the grain offerings.  He had Moses write in the same verse that the Israelites were to “add salt to all your offerings.”  Thus, all offerings made by the Israelites to the L-RD, not just grain offerings, were to have salt added to them.

The second usage, found in Numbers 18:19, is also in the context of offerings.  This time, however, the word order has been changed to “covenant of salt”.  In Numbers 18, the L-RD tells Moses to instruct Aaron and the Levites that it is their responsibility to take care of the Tabernacle.  Moses was also to let them know that “all the holy offerings the Israelites give Me I give to you and your sons as your portion and regular share.”  This was their allotment, as they were not going to receive any inheritance in the Land because G-d was their inheritance.  All the offerings, except for the burnt offerings, belonged to them.  G-d was letting them know that He Himself was going to provide for them through the offerings given by the people.  “Whatever is set aside from the holy offerings the Israelites present to the L-RD I (G-d) give to you…It is an everlasting covenant of salt before the L-RD.”  The Kohenim were to serve G-d and trust Him for their livelihoods.

The last time the phrase is found is in 2 Chronicles 13:5.  In this particular passage the L-RD gave the kingship of Israel to David and his descendants forever through a “covenant of salt.”  Although the previous two usages are found in the context of offerings, this one is clearly devoid of them.  The 2 Chronicles passage appears to be totally unrelated to the previous two usages, yet is it?  Since the Bible itself never directly defines the phrase in any of these passages, how does one discover what G-d is trying to tell us through them?  Equally important, what does it mean to the believer in Yeshua today?

Some scholars point out that salt was used as a preserving element.  It was added to the meat to help it stay fresh longer, until the priests could eat it.  Others point to the prohibition of eating meat containing blood; salt was applied to the offering (after it was killed and the skin removed) to aid in the removal of the blood from the carcass.  Salt was therefore seen as a cleansing or purifying agent as well.

I have only one problem with these two lines of reasoning.  Salt was to be “added to all your offerings”, including the grain offering, which had no blood.  The burnt offerings, which were to have salt, were never to be eaten by the priests as the entire animal was consumed by fire (Lev. 1). Therefore in those cases no preservation or cleansing agent would be needed.  Furthermore, it couldn’t just be related to the Kohenim, as the phrase “covenant of salt’ was also used with David, who was from the tribe of Judah.  Thus the meaning of the “salt covenant” had to mean something other than preservation, prevention from eating blood, or cleansing.

One scholar noted that “salt had an enduring quality and therefore in the Middle East salt was used in ceremonies to seal an agreement.  Hence, the idea may simply be that G-d’s call upon the Kohenim and their service should endure, i.e., overcome all things.”  I believe this definition is heading in the right direction, but it doesn’t go far enough as it is used in connection with the House of David and the Israelites who presented the offerings.  Something more is going on with this “covenant of salt”.  Could it be that the “covenant of salt” was all about a relationship with G-d based upon trust?

The people were to trust G-d by giving the salt that was put into their offering.  Their G-d would provide for them and they were to give back out of love and obedience.  The priests and Levites were to trust G-d by serving Him without a land inheritance like their brothers.  Their G-d would provide for their livelihood while they were away from their cities which were interspersed throughout Israel.  David and his sons were to trust G-d as the King and serve Him, believing He would keep the throne moving through David’s line long after David and his sons departed the scene.

When we break down the phrase into it’s component words and put them back together again, this is the truth I believe the L-RD is trying to convey in the phrase “covenant of salt”:  He desires a relationship with His people based upon trust that is seen in their actions and, eventually, through a changed life.

The first word in the phrase, “covenant”, is the Hebrew word “bĕriyth” (בּרית).  This word basically means an agreement or alliance between two parties where each party makes a pledge to keep their end of the bargain.  The first time this word is found is in Genesis 6:18.  Noah was to build the Ark and gather the animals.  If Noah would fulfill his end of the bargain, G-d would get them safely through the coming storm.  This took trust.  In order to go through the embarrassment of building a boat so far away from water, in order to start gathering supplies for animals which he had quite possibly never seen or even heard of before, Noah had to trust G-d to keep His end of the bargain.

This agreement was based upon mutual trust.  If Noah did his part, would he trust G-d to do His part?  The answer is given right after G-d writes up the contract.  Noah “did everything just as G-d commanded him.”  Noah showed his trust in G-d through his actions of living out the words of the contract, or covenant.

Now, sometimes these agreements are applied to both parties, as previously mentioned; at other times it was totally conditional upon one party.  This is seen in Genesis 9:9 when G-d made a deal with Noah to never destroy the earth again by water.  The passage never says Noah had to do anything but trust his G-d to fulfill His word.  One can understand why G-d said this to Noah too.  Noah had just gotten off the wildest ride of his life!  I believe G-d was calming Noah’s nerves a little here.  When Noah stepped off the boat he could have been thinking, “I sure hope I never have to go through that again.”  And G-d comes to Noah’s rescue, “Relax Noah, it’s over.  Neither you nor your descendents will ever have to repeat this heart-racing experience.”  Still, what would it take?  Trusting in G-d’s word.  Every time the skies started clouding up, Noah would need to remember G-d’s word – no more floods.  As He trusted G-d’s word, peace would replace the anxiety.  But first Noah had to trust.

More examples could be given, but trust is the basis of any “bĕriyth”, or covenant.  It’s an agreement between two parties, based in trust, to fulfill their end of the deal.

Now let’s consider the idea behind the Hebrew word for salt, “melach” (מלח), a noun that comes from the root word “malach” (מלח) which means to rub to pieces or pulverize, to disappear as dust, or to season or rub with salt.

Melach is primarily used for the Salt/Dead Sea (Gen. 14:3; Num. 34:3,12; Deut. 3:17; Josh. 3:16), which will one day be made fresh again – Ezekiel 47:11.  There is an important clue here for our understanding of the phrase “covenant of salt.”  Keep something in mind:  this body of water was once salty or dead, but will one day be made fresh or alive again.

What I find interesting about melach, however, is the first time it is used in the Bible.  In Genesis 19:26 Lot’s wife is turned into salt for looking back.  Though the word for covenant is not used in this story, the angel had an agreement with Lot.  The angel would only destroy Sodom and Gomorrah after Lot and his family was out of town and had safely reached the city of Zoar.  What did Lot’s wife do?  She did not keep her agreement to “not look back.”  It appears that she left her heart in Sodom with the accompanying lifestyle she left behind.  In her heart, she didn’t want to leave and thus was judged for it when she was turned into salt, or disappeared as dust.

This idea of pulverizing something in order to scatter it to the wind is also seen in Judges 9:45 when Abimelech destroyed the city of Shechem and poured salt over it.  In this story, the people of Shechem rebel against their leaders, Gideon’s sons.  The citizens of Shechem made Abimelech king, after which Abimelech wipes out every single son of Gideon, save one Jotham.

In order to right this wrong, G-d moves the citizens to rebel or break their agreement with Abimelech, who in turn wipes them out.  Again, it is the same as Lot’s wife.  Just as she rebelled and paid the consequence for it, so did the city of Shechem.

Melach is not only associated with death, destruction, and judgment.  It is also associated with the sacrificial system (Leviticus 2:13).  Now stop for a moment and ask yourself, “What was the purpose of the sacrificial system?”  According to Hebrews 9:11-10:18, sacrifices pointed to the One who would take the punishment or the negative consequences of all our sinful actions (death, destruction, and judgment) – Yeshua.  In Him we find forgiveness and restoration to a relationship that was broken because we refused to trust our G-d and His way of living.

Continuing on, Exodus 30:34-38 uses melach in the process of making the Temple incense.  David wrote in Psalm 141:2, “May my prayer be set before You like incense; may the lifting up of my hands be like the evening sacrifice”, both of which (incense and sacrifice) had salt added to them.  Is it possible that salt aids our worship to G-d?  Could every act of faith or trust/covenant (1 Corinthians 10:31) be an act of salting our worship?

Paul, as a Jewish Rabbi, would have known the above Tenach passages. In fact, Paul uses Temple and sacrifice images quite often in his writings.  So when he penned the words in Romans 12:1-2 that we are to offer our “bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God”, could he have been thinking of the salt added to all the sacrifices?  Paul goes on to say that once we offer ourselves to G-d, we are to let Him change our lives through changing our thinking, which in turn changes our behavior, glorifying and thus worshiping the G-d we say we love.

It’s interesting that Revelation 8:3 uses this same imagery – incense on the golden altar (meaning the incense altar in front of the veil between the Holies of Holies and the Most Holy Place, where the coals from the outside bronze sacrificial altar were laid and incense was poured on top of the burning coals causing smoke).  Do our lives smell (both the offerings and the incense) good to our G-d?

But there is more!  Ezekiel 16:6 states that Israel was not born with a right to be G-d’s child.  When they were born their cord was not cut, they were not washed with water, rubbed with salt, or wrapped in clothes.  No, G-d took them and made them His.  The context here is that Israel was still living like her parents, the Hittites and the Amorites, in full idolatry mode.  They were still tied by an umbilical cord to their mother.  In other words, their behavior hadn’t changed!  Israel was still acting like her parents.  And if her umbilical cord was not cut, she would die when the placenta started discharging from the womb after birth.

Again we discover that salt carries the idea of worshiping the one true G-d, the G-d of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, through Israel trusting their G-d by cutting her ties to her idolatrous parents/past.  Israel needed to make a covenant of salt with their G-d to follow Him and worship Him alone.

The next two places where salt is used are also very insightful.  In 2 Kings 2:20-21, salt was used to heal a body of water so it could be drinkable.  Now think about this for a second.  When salt is added to water, one gets salt water, not fresh.  You might use salt water to gargle, but certainly not to drink.  Now imagine what was going through the minds of those watching Elisha throw salt into their putrid water hole.

“Elisha, hold on!  You’re going to make the situation even worse!  Are you sure the L-RD said to do this?  It doesn’t make sense, Elisha.  Why would you waste valuable salt by throwing it into an already bad source of water?  You’re just throwing it away!”

Why would Elisha do it?  Trust.  After Elisha threw the salt into the water, it “became wholesome”.  How would the people know it was good to drink?  They would have to trust their G-d enough to dip their hand into the water and draw it to their lips.  Pouring salt must have seemed like a crazy thing to do to them.  But when it comes to walking with our G-d, isn’t this what it takes – going against the way we think to do what He tells us to do?

This is the same idea behind Job 6:6 when Job makes the point that salt is added to tasteless food to make it worth eating.  Again, isn’t this just like our G-d to make something tasty out of two things that don’t belong together?  The question is, “Will we trust Him?”

Furthermore, didn’t it take trust to give up the salt in the first place?  Where did the salt for the sacrifices come from?  The incense?  The healing of the water?  It came from the Israelites.  Look at it from their point of view.  Salt contained the very elements necessary for their survival.

During the Tenach times, Israel was primarily an agricultural society.  They worked out in the sun for a living, which brought on a good sweat.  Because of this, they would need to replenish their bodies with sodium and chloride, of which salt is a good source.  These two elements, along with potassium, are involved in everything you do from nerve impulse conduction to muscle contraction.  If these three elements get out of balance in your system, you’re not going to have a good day.

Now, here comes your G-d telling you that you must give Him some of your salt.  Would you trust Him?  Would you give your precious salt to Elisha to throw in your bad spring?  Would you trust your G-d and add salt to all your sacrifices?  This is why I believe G-d put the last usage of “covenant of salt” with the House of David.  It ties the two ideas of salt and covenant together.

The Talmud says, “The world can get along without pepper, but it cannot get along without salt.”  (Yerushalmi Hora’yot 3:5)  This tractate is referring to the 2 Chronicles 13:5 passage where G-d gave “the kingship of Israel to David and his descendants forever by a covenant of salt.”  Treaties were sealed in salt.   Covenants were based upon trust.  Giving someone your salt was a sign of that trust.  And G-d was making a treaty with David to have his children sit on his throne forever, no matter how good or bad they were!

So when we put the words “covenant” and “salt” back together, it stands for the idea of two parties making and keeping an agreement with each other based upon trust.  The word “salt” gives us the truth that we should trust our G-d enough to live with and for Him in our every day lives.  In the every day decisions we encounter, we are to sacrifice our way of living and thinking and trust His Word.

The covenant gives us the thought that when we trust our G-d and live His way – our part of the agreement – He will change our lives for the better, one where no judgment is needed – His part of the agreement.  He can make life come out of the dead areas of your life.  He can turn an unsatisfying life into a tasty one.  Where we were once alone, we can now communicate with the G-d of the universe.  Instead of fear and anxiety, we can have peace.

This covenant of salt is all about who you are going to serve: God or Satan?  Serve Satan and be judged, eventually die, and spend your eternity with him.  Serve God and be saved, and taste goodness both now and forever.

I believe we find this same meaning carried over into the New Testament.  The Bible is consistent throughout because it is one Book written by one Author with one Message.  In order to help us see this, we must use the Septuagint, the Greek translation of the Tenach, to follow our words forward.

According to the Septuagint, the Hebrew word for salt (“melach”) in Leviticus 2:23 becomes the Greek word “halas” (ἅλας).  “Halas”, or salt, is used in Matthew 5:13 where Jesus states that we are “the salt of the earth.”  Most Christian commentaries talk about salt as a preserving agent.  As believers live for Yeshua, they slow down the decay of this planet.   When believers are finally taken off the planet, the decay happens rapidly.   As Jesus said in Matthew 24:21-22, if G-d didn’t shorten the days of Jacob’s trouble no one would survive the tremendous evil being unleashed.

I used to believe and teach this same thought, but not anymore.  As I came to understand the Tenach concept of the Covenant of Salt, it made me re-examine this passage again.  I discovered that the immediate context of Jesus’ “salt of the earth” statement is being persecuted for righteousness.  He just got done telling those listening to Him on the mountainside they would be blessed over and over again if they followed Him.  One of those blessing was persecution!  If one lives for Yeshua as “the salt of the earth”, one should expect to be insulted, persecuted and falsely accused.  Jesus is telling His followers the reality of following Him – the good, the bad and the ugly truth of it all.

He continues this line of thinking in Luke 14:34-35.   In this passage, Yeshua also uses salt in the context of counting the cost of being His disciple.  He tells those listening to Him that they must love Him more than their family and their very life itself.  Then after talking about calculating the cost of building a tower and going to war, He states that once salt loses its saltiness, it’s not good for anything, even for fertilizer.  It has no value whatsoever, so He tells His listeners to listen up.  Living for Him will not be a walk in the park.  It will cost them something; so think about it before they begin the journey.

In Mark 9:42-50, Yeshua moves past counting the cost to actually living for Him.  Salt is now used in the context of living in such a way as to not stumble other believers (“little ones who believe in Me to sin”).  He goes on to emphasize His point by saying, “If your foot causes you to sin, cut it off.”  Notice Jesus changed the subject of the sentence from just anyone to you.  Believers in Yeshua are to live in such a way that their lives will affect others in a positive manner.

After saying this, Yeshua then makes the statement “everyone will be salted with fire.”  Wow!  Will you trust your G-d enough to live His way even during the trials of life?  Jesus finishes his discourse in Mark 9 with this, “Have salt (ἅλας/melach) in yourselves, and be at peace with each other.”

What’s the big deal about being at peace with each other?  It’s a sign a believer trusts and is living for Yeshua in their everyday lives.  Jesus said there would be three distinguishing marks of those who call themselves His disciples.  One, they would love each other (cf. Jn. 13:34-35).  Two, they would bear the fruit of a changed life (cf. Jn. 15:1-8).  And three, they would live in unity (cf. Jn. 17:20-23).  We are to be salted so others will know He is G-d!  We are to trust our G-d enough to live His way seven days a week.  When we do, the world will know we are His.

And guess what happens then?  It’s the point of Jesus’ next statement in Matthew 5:14, “you are the light of the world.”  A light doesn’t necessarily draw attention to itself.  Its real purpose is to shine on something else so it can be seen.  This is the context of His next statement, “Let your light shine before men, that they may see your good deeds and praise your Father in heaven.”  As we live a salty life, one based upon trust, people will see Yeshua in us and hopefully want a relationship with Him.

This is what the Spirit had written in Colossians 4:6, “Let your conversation be always full of grace, seasoned with salt, so you know how to give an answer to everyone.”  The context is sharing the gospel of Yeshua.  Paul told the Colossians to be wise in how they acted (trust in action) towards those who don’t know Jesus so they could make the most of every opportunity to share their Yeshua story of how He had changed their lives.

How does this happen?  It comes back to the point I made earlier in Romans 12:1-2, which I believe is the Covenant of Salt in action.  As we offer our bodies as living sacrifices (salt was added) you are dying to self and living for G-d.  How is this seen?  Trusting G-d’s Word (basis of a covenant) and allowing Him to change your life on a daily basis (“transformed by the renewing of your mind”).

As you agree to worship Him through your every day actions, even when it costs you something or goes against your way of thinking, you’ll become salty, which will make people thirsty enough to ask, “Where do you find your peace in the midst of tough times?  How can you live the way you do when everyone else is doing the opposite?”  Those who are the salt of the earth will automatically be the light of the world and will be ready to shine their light on Jesus.

It is your choice. You gotta serve somebody.  Your actions will tell whether you are serving the L-RD or Satan.  What do your actions say about you?  As a believer in Yeshua, if you don’t serve Jesus, your life will not only be unsatisfying, but it will also lose its meaning and purpose.  You’ll become what Jesus said happens to salt that is no longer salty, “Trampled by men.”  Why would anyone want to listen to you?

We are to offer ourselves as a living sacrifice – choosing to trust G-d, rather than ourselves in our every day thoughts, attitudes, decisions, words and actions.  We are to be salty, which in turn leads to being a light.  Yet, you choose whom you will serve.  And it’s like the song says, “You gotta serve somebody.”  Who’s it going to be?

If you have ever put up a metal shed, you know where I am going with this.  I had budgeted one day of about 10 hours to get this thing built.  Wrong!  It ended up taking my father-in-law and me over 17 hours to put it up!   Frustrating? Very.  I still have more work to do on it – putting up shelves and moving the junk, I mean “stuff” out of my garage and into it.  It seems like my work list is never ending.

But you know, I’m at peace right now.  I’ve just completed a huge task, got more to do, but here I am sitting on my deck soaking up the view and smells of why I love where I live.  This is a perfect example of what the Bible calls a ‘Sabbath Rest’ or what I like to call true peace – being comfortable in uncomfortable situations.

The other day I was going through my emails and ran across the most interesting picture.  The author of the article called this the “cat position”.  It is where you throw your legs over your head and place them on the floor.  It looks crazy!!  First of all, I don’t believe it can be done; it’s got to be a Photoshopped picture.  And second, even if it were possible, I can’t imagine it being comfortable at all (someone later emailed a YouTube of a dance group doing this!) .  But the author was simply illustrating that the highest success is “not in simply finding comfort, but rather in finding it in the most uncomfortable of positions.”

This got me to thinking about Jesus.  Isn’t this what He came to do?  He came to give us peace in the midst of challenges and trials, not get rid of them.  This thought led me to do two things.  One, I changed the author’s phrase to “true peace/rest is being comfortable in uncomfortable situations.”  And then I looked up the word “rest” in the Bible.  Wow, what an interesting study it proved to be.

The very first time the word “rest” is used is Genesis 2:2, “By the seventh day, God had finished His work He had been doing; so on the seventh day He rested from all His work.” The word Sabbath (Shabbat in Hebrew) is none other than the root of the word for “rest” in Genesis 2:2.  It means to cease, desist, rest, to put an end to, to sever, or to stop.  Therefore the idea behind the Sabbath day of rest is to stop doing something.  What did God stop doing on the Sabbath?

Psalms 74:12 states, “For God is my King of old, working (to do or to make) salvation in the midst of the earth.” This idea of God still working is echoed in the New Testament as well in John 5:17, “My Father is always at his work (to labor for, to toil, a trade) to this very day, and I, too, am working.” Guess what day Jesus makes this statement?  The Sabbath day!  Jesus was working on the Sabbath.  Whoa, wait a second.  I thought Jews were not supposed to work on the Sabbath?

Yes, that is right, but this has always been the question, “How do you define work?”  What we are going to see is that God didn’t cease all His work on the 7^th day, only His work of original creation, not His work of salvation.

We see this truth very clearly in Jesus.  During His lifetime, Jesus was seen as a healer, not just a rabbi.  Therefore the religious leaders of His day got on His case because He was healing on the Sabbath.  And if that were true, Jesus, being Jewish, would be breaking Torah (Ex. 20:8-12) by healing (aka a doctor) on the Sabbath.  Furthermore, Jesus would be sinning and thereby could not be God and die for all of humanity’s sins.

But, was Jesus just healing?  Or was He doing something else, like His Father’s work?  In Matthew 12, Jesus had a conversation with those accusing Him of working on the Sabbath.  He tells them, “Haven’t you read in the Torah that on the Sabbath the priests in the Temple desecrate the day and yet are innocent?” He is more than likely referring to Leviticus 24:8 where the priests were to replace the old Showbread on the Table of Presence with fresh hot bread.  This was done on the Sabbath.  They were doing the work God asked them to do and it was on the Sabbath.  So doing the work of God on a Sabbath was okay to do.

So here we are back at the same question, “What work is allowed on the Sabbath?”  I believe John 6:29 gives us the answer.  Jesus was asked, “What must we do to do the works God requires?” His answer, “The work of God (notice the definite article and singular noun) is this: to believe in the one He has sent.” The work of God is salvation, saving lives!  In that same conversation Jesus went on to hash out this principle, “If any of you has a sheep and it falls into a pit on the Sabbath, will you not take hold of it and lift it out?  How much more valuable is a man than a sheep!  Therefore it is lawful to do good on the Sabbath.”

He was not a miracle worker or a healer by trade.  He healed people to prove Who He was, “Even though you do not believe Me, believe the miracles, that you may know and understand that the Father is in Me, and I in the Father” (Jn. 10:38).  The miracles were to draw people to believe in Who He was – God in the Flesh.  This is what Jesus meant in Matthew 12 when He said He, as the Son of Man, was Lord of the Sabbath.  He was and is the Messiah of Israel.  He is the Savior of all mankind – Jew and Gentile.

There is more to this word shabat, however.  In Leviticus 16:31, Moses gives us the term “Sabbath of rest.”  Guess what day this takes place on?  The Day of Atonement.  “Atonement is to be made once a year for all the sins of Israel.” While the High Priest was sacrificing one goat and letting another one go for the sins of the nation, the people themselves were resting.  Someone was working for another to be at rest!  Someone was providing rest while others were enjoying it.  Whom could that be a picture of?

But wait there is more.  In Leviticus 23, the day of no work/the day of rest (though the word shabat is not used in this passage) was not on Passover, but the day after the lambs were sacrificed and eaten.  Rest comes after the work was done.

Now read Colossians 2:16-17, “Do not let anyone judge you by what you eat or drink, or with regard to a religious festival, a New Moon celebration or a Sabbath day.  These are a shadow of the things that were to come; the reality, however, is found in Messiah.” The entire Tanach, the Feasts, the sacrifices and the Days all are shadows, not the real thing.  The real deal is what causes the shadow.  In this case, Paul, a believing Jewish rabbi, tells us that Messiah is the reality, the one that casts the shadow.

So to whom was the high priest pointing when he provided atonement for the nation of Israel while the nation was resting on the Day of Atonement?  Jesus.  Who provided the forgiveness of sin for the entire planet through His work – Jew and Gentile – so people could rest?  The Passover Lamb of God, Jesus Himself.

So what do we learn from this word shabat?  It carries the idea of resting while there is still work to be done.  God still had a job to do while He was resting in Genesis 2:2.  He finished His task of creation, but He still had a work of salvation to do.  Jesus was resting while working on the Sabbath – proving Who He was so people would put their faith/trust in Him.  Shabat also has the idea of resting while someone else does work on your behalf.  Jesus provides for our rest.  He gives us the ability to be at peace, while there is work still to be done.

Jesus said, “Come to Me, all you who are weary and burdened and I will give you rest” (Matt. 11:28).  We love this part, but we forget to keep going.  Jesus further said, “Take My Yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.  For My yoke is easy and My burden is light” (11:29-30).

Rest in the midst of work.  Jesus gives us rest, but He tells us to be yoked to Him at the same time.  A yoke was a harness put on two oxen so they would work together as a team.  When the oxen were at rest, their owners didn’t yoke them!  So the yoke tells us that there was work to be done, but with Jesus yoked to us, there can be rest.  Notice He said, “My yoke is easy and my burden is light.” He didn’t say they were not existent.

This is what Philippians 4:4-7 is taking about.  In the midst of stressful situations, we are told to rejoice!  Why?  The Lord is near.  And instead of freaking out, we are to rejoice and hand over those stressful situations to the One who is yoked with us.  And when we do, “the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.” This is true peace.  Paul never said the stressful situations went away.  He simply said you’d have peace in the midst of them.  True peace is being comfortable in uncomfortable situations.

This is the essence of a Sabbath’s rest. Work is still to be done, but we are to rest in the midst of it.  I finished the shed, but there was work to still to be done.  In the midst of that, I could sit on my patio drinking my diet Dr. Pepper while taking in the sights and smells of relaxation.

And our Jewish brothers and sisters get a cool reminder of this every Sabbath day.  Come sundown on Friday, when Sabbath begins, they can let the past week go (their shed being done), and rest (sitting and enjoy a cool drink on their patio); yet knowing another week is coming (cleaning out the garage).  The Sabbath day, along with many other practices found in the Tanach (aka Old Testament) come alive in Jesus.  They make more sense and have a deeper meaning because they all point to Him and His work on our behalf so we can rest.

So let’s take this home.  We all have lists of things to do.  Can you rest in the midst of that to-do list?  Can you hand that daily to-do list over to Jesus and let Him give you peace while it is being whittled down?  Peace when it’s not?  This is peace that makes one comfortable in the midst of uncomfortable situations.

When new challenges come your way, how do you view them?  Do you view them simply as opportunities to rest as you see your God work (creation, Day of Atonement, Passover, etc.)?  This is true Sabbath rest – keep walking in peace in the midst of the challenge.

Are you taking a day off to rest and reflect on the fact that you can rest in the midst of work?  Think about when the Israelites were given the Sabbath.  They were primarily an agricultural society.  And they were told to take a day off each week in the midst of the planting and harvesting seasons.  This took trust!  Could they relax knowing that work was to be done?  Would they trust their God and His Word to protect them from invaders while the fields were full of fruit?

We in America hate to slow down.  Is it because we lack trust in our great and awesome God?  Tithing of money and time is a way to show that you trust God to meet your needs – even with the harvest, the huge debt, or the huge workload staring you in the face.  We can learn a lot from our Jewish brothers and sisters on this point.  They take a day off to rest.  Instead of bashing them for this (“You’re going back to the Law.”), let’s learn from them.

A Sabbath rest carries the idea of being at peace with God because He forgave your sins.  Are you resting in faith or still trying to work your way towards a relationship with the living God?   True peace comes from the work Jesus did for you so you can rest in the midst of trying times as well as the daily routine.  Are you resting as you walk with Him?  Oh come to think of it, my glass is empty.  It’s time I put a little more Dr. Pepper in it and enjoy the sights.

How many times have you been in a conversation where you have been misunderstood because you used a certain word that your listener took in a way you didn’t mean?  And then you find yourself saying, “That’s not what I meant.  Let me try again” and this time you use a different word.  The same is true of the word “church”.

The Greek word (the language in which the NT was written) behind our word “church” (by the way, this word didn’t come about until the 12th century) is “ekklēsia” which comes from two other words “ek” and “kalew”.

“Ek means the origin or the place or point whence motion or action proceeds”.  It means you are moving away from or out of one area into another.  It also denotes that the action is completed.  Bottom line, you are no longer at point A, you are now at point B. The other root is “kaleo” which means “to call, bid, call forth.”

The meaning of “church”

Now put these two concepts together and you have those are who called out, those who have moved from point A and are now at point B.

Acts 20:28 reveals that point B is God.  Romans 16:16 says that point B is Christ.  1 Corinthians 11:18; 14:5 states that it is other believers in Christ.

“Church” then is not about programs or buildings, it’s not about Sunday or Saturday morning services, nor is it about a place.  The ekklesia is about relationships—period.  Relationships between Jesus, who is the head of this group, and between other called out ones.

You heard me say this before, and you’ll hear me say it again, you can only take two things with you to heaven—your Christ-like character and people.  Sound like what the ekklesia is all about?

The moment we place our faith in Jesus as our LORD and Savior, the Spirit of God puts us into relationship with other believers and He expects us to walk with them, not in our old ways of dealing with people (point A), but with new ways (point B).

The movement from A to B

We are no longer to be like the world, copy what society tells us or live in the various lifestyles that we did before we put our trust in Jesus (point A or what Paul calls in Eph. 5:8 “darkness”).

No, we are “taught with regard to your former way of life, to put off your old self” (point A) and instead “be imitators of God as dearly loved children and live a life of love, just as Christ loves us” (point B—Eph. 4:22; 5:1).

A person who belongs to the called out ones should be on a journey to be like Jesus, which means getting along with other believers.  It is no coincidence that the Spirit has given over 30 different ways in which to walk with each other on this journey (i.e. the one-another phrases).

Stuck at A though Showing B

I hear it all the time, however, and you probably have as well, “I don’t like Church.”  What they are really saying is, “I don’t like the people that meet at such and such a place.”  In fact, I’ve heard this complaint go a step further, “I feel more accepted and loved by my non-believing friends than I do by those at church.”  This should not be!

I believe a partial answer to this problem is found in the infamous bumper sticker, “Christians are not perfect, just forgiven.”  This statement is true, but it’s also deceiving.

Because of what Jesus did for us on the cross, we are truly forgiven of all our sins—past, present and future.  So the statement is true.  I am on a journey to be like Him and will make mistakes, sin, along that journey.  Therefore, I am not perfect just forgiven.

But the statement is deceiving in that it leads people to believe that since I am not perfect, I can act any old way I desire because I will be forgiven.  This is from the pit of hell.  This is why people are turning away from the “church”  The called out ones at “church” are stuck at point A yet want to make others believe they have arrived at point B.  This is fake.  This is unhealthy and it is flat out repulsive to those who need real people to love and accept them on their journey to be like Jesus.

Be Real and in Process

Healthy ekklesians are in process, taking steps of faith on the high wire act of being like Jesus.  Sure there are risks of falling when you step out in faith, but don’t let that hinder you from walking on that high wire.  Why?  You have a safety net!

“Grace (aka the forgiveness on the bumper sticker) is the safety net of faith, not the license to be complacent.”  As we walk with Jesus by faith, by taking risks in trusting Him, we will at times stand and at other times will fall in the process of putting off the old and putting on the new, but grace is our safety net.  It will catch us and give us another shot on that high wire.  And just as we want that room to grow, let’s make sure we give that same grace to others on their journey to be like Jesus as well.

Healthy believers will be real with each other.  “Brother, I’m on a journey too.  Let’s walk together.”   Let’s not act church, but be called out ones—people moving together from here to heaven.

Love ya, pc

How do I know this to be true?  I recently read a statistic that only 4% of those who call themselves Christians live with a Biblical worldview.  In other words, only 4% live their lives through the lens of God’s Word.  4%!  This means that 96% of those who call themselves Christians will not be prepared when Jesus returns for His Bride.  They don’t believe He is returning anytime soon; therefore they can live anyway they desire.

But is Jesus’ return closer than they believe?  Are there ways to tell if He really could come tomorrow?  Absolutely.  When Israel became a nation again in 1948 in fulfillment of Ezekiel 37, the clock started ticking even faster.  From my article on “America in Prophecy – Where is She?”, you can get other markers showing the Lord’s return could be very soon.  The point is, the big hand on the clock is moving closer and closer to return hour.

The following story gives us another marker that His return could be closer than we think – the preparation to build the 3^rd Temple.  Jesus tells us in Matthew 24:15-15 that a Temple in Jerusalem must be standing when the False Messiah (sometimes referred to as the Antichrist) arrives on the scene to set up shop in it.  This event takes place after Jesus comes for His bride.

Keep in mind that Jesus makes this statement about 35AD when the Temple was still standing.  Thirty-five years later that very Temple was destroyed by the Romans in 70 AD who wanted to crush the Jewish revolt.  Since then, the Temple Mount has been without a Jewish Temple though the Muslims have done plenty of building on it themselves.

Having said all that, the Temple Institute in Jerusalem is dedicated to rebuilding the 3^rd Jewish Temple right on the spot where the Temple in Jesus’ day stood.  The Jewish people believe a 3^rd Temple must be built so the Messiah can come.  Therefore, they are putting that belief into action.  They are currently preparing the priests for service.  They have built all the major instruments for worship in the Temple – the Menorah, the Table of Showbread, the Incense Altar, the Laver for washing and now the last major piece – the Sacrificial Altar – is being readied.

Temple Institute to Build Sacrificial Altar on Tisha B’av

“The Temple Institute will begin building the sacrificial altar on Thursday, Tisha B’av, a fast day when Jews mourn the destruction of the Temple (ed. note: the one that stood during Jesus’ day) some 2,000 years ago.

The sacrificial altar was located in the center of the Temple, and upon it the Kohanim (priests) offered the numerous voluntary and obligatory sacrifices commanded in the Bible.

The Temple Institute, which has already built many of the vessels for the Holy Temple, such as the ark and the menorah, has now embarked on a project to build the altar.  Construction begins Thursday in Mitzpe Yericho (east of Jerusalem) at 5:30 p.m.

’Unfortunately, we cannot currently build the altar in its proper place, on the Temple Mount,’ Temple Institute director Yehudah Glick said.  ‘We are building an altar of the minimum possible size so that we will be able to transport it to the Temple when it is rebuilt.’

Gathering Stones (Israel news photo: Temple Institute)

Even a minimum size altar will work out to be approximately 4 meters tall, 6 meters long, and 6 meters wide.  Workers have collected around 10 cubic meters of rocks weighing several tons already.

The rocks were gathered from the Dead Sea area and wrapped individually to assure they remain whole and are not touched by metal, as the Bible requires.

‘The Torah says that no iron tools should be used on the altar’s stones,’ Glick explained. ‘The altar represents a connection to life and to the creation of the world.  Iron is the opposite – it is used to build tools of war, death, and destruction.’

The stones will be cemented together with a mixture of sand, clay, tar, and asphalt.  Researchers from the Temple Institute visited the Finish glass factory near Yerucham to learn how to create a mixture which would remain as cool as possible under the altar’s unremitting fires and protect the Kohanim, who always worked in the Temple barefoot.

Glick said that Tisha B’av, a day associated with mourning, is really the ideal time to begin to build the Temple. ‘People mistakenly think Tisha B’av is only a day to cry,’ he explained.  ‘It also has to be a day of action. We have the ability in our era to begin the construction of the Temple.  There are many positive developments recently with regard to the Temple,’ Glick added. ‘Hundreds of Jews visited the Temple Mount this week, and more and more continue to come, after undergoing the requisite ritual immersion.’”

Yehudah Lev Kay

http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/132630

Pastor Chris End Note

Events that the Bible talks about are coming true in our lifetime.  Many of the milestones pointing to Jesus’ return are already in place.  The time then to prepare for the earthquake is before it happens, not as it is happening.  The time to prepare for Jesus’ return is before He comes, not as He comes.

What does this mean for the person who calls themselves a Christian?  It’s time to get serious about your preparations for His return.  There are only two things you can take to heaven with you – your Christ-like character (1 Cor. 3:10-15) and people, nothing else.  In John 15, Jesus states that His Father expects fruit in your life.  Is there?  If not, I would check where your faith is – yourself or Jesus.  Do you really believe that Jesus died and rose from the dead in order to set you free from sin so you can enjoy a great relationship with Him and His Father?  If not, now is the time to put your trust solely in what He did for you, not what you can or did do for Him.

The Bible is clear on this point.  “For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.”  (Rom. 6:23)  And “if you confess with your mouth ‘Jesus is Lord,’ and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved.” (Rom. 10:9)  I challenge you to take a few moments now and put your trust in what Jesus did for you and let Him save you and make you part of His Bride, the one He will return to take home with Him.

Believer, Jesus tells us that He has given us resources to use to see Him change our lives and see others come to faith in Him.  Are we faithfully using those resources?  Or are you playing for more time?   Are you counting upon church attendance to make Jesus happy with you or are you living in such a way that Jesus will smile when He sees you at His return?  Will He say, “Well done good and faithful servant” at His coming for His Bride?  I certainly hope so.  If you believe that Jesus is Lord, it’s time to put that belief into action.

It’s time to prepare.  Jesus is coming sooner than you think!

Critics of the Bible must find discrepancies, inaccuracies or contradictions in order to discredit the Bible so they don’t have to listen to it’s message – there is only One Way to live and to have a relationship with God and it’s through faith in Jesus Christ.

Yet again and again, God’s Word keeps ringing true.  It is one cohesive, coherent and consistent book that can not only be trusted with one’s life today, but one’s future as well.  The truth that God would one day provide the means of salvation through the death and resurrection of His Son is placed throughout the Tanach (aka OT).  This truth didn’t originate with the New Testament authors, but was God’s design from the very first book of the Bible, Genesis.

This article also helps us in our witness with Jewish people, as it shows that faith in Jesus as their Messiah is not something far fetched or new to Jewish theology, but has been God’s consistent message all along.

Ancient Tablet Ignites Debate on Messiah and Resurrection

A three-foot-tall tablet with 87 lines of Hebrew that scholars believe dates from the decades just before the birth of Jesus is causing  quiet a stir in biblical and archaeological circles, especially because it may speak of a messiah who will rise from the dead after three days.

If such a messianic description really is there, it will contribute to a developing re-evaluation of both popular and scholarly views of Jesus, since it suggests that the story of his death and resurrection was not unique but part of a recognized Jewish tradition at the time.

The tablet, probably found near the Dead Sea in Jordan according to some scholars who have studied it, is a rare example of a stone with ink writings from that era — in essence, a Dead Sea Scroll on stone.

It is written, not engraved, across two neat columns, similar to columns in a Torah.  But the stone is broken, and some of the text is faded, meaning that much of what it says is open to debate.   Still, its authenticity has so far faced no challenge, so its role in helping to understand the roots of Christianity in the devastating political crisis faced by the Jews of the time seems likely to increase.

Daniel Boyarin, a professor of Talmudic culture at the University of California at Berkeley, said that the stone was part of a growing body of evidence suggesting that Jesus could be best understood through a close reading of the Jewish history of his day.  “Some Christians will find it shocking — a challenge to the uniqueness of their theology — while others will be comforted (pc note: I am of this camp as it again shows the consistency of the Book) by the idea of it being a traditional part of Judaism,” Mr. Boyarin said.

Given the highly charged atmosphere surrounding all Jesus-era artifacts and writings, both in the general public and in the fractured and fiercely competitive scholarly community, as well as the concern over forgery and charlatanism, it will probably be some time before the tablet’s contribution is fully assessed.  It has been around 60 years since the Dead Sea Scrolls were uncovered, and they continue to generate enormous controversy regarding their authors and meaning.

The scrolls, documents found in the Qumran caves of the West Bank, contain some of the only known surviving copies of biblical writings from before the first century A.D.  In addition to quoting from key books of the Bible, the scrolls describe a variety of practices and beliefs of a Jewish sect at the time of Jesus.

Oddly, the stone is not really a new discovery.  It was found about a decade ago and bought from a Jordanian antiquities dealer by an Israeli-Swiss collector who kept it in his Zurich home.  When an Israeli scholar examined it closely a few years ago and wrote a paper on it last year, interest began to rise.  There is now a spate of scholarly articles on the stone, with several due to be published in the coming months.

“I couldn’t make much out of it when I got it,” said David Jeselsohn, the owner, who is himself an expert in antiquities. “I didn’t realize how significant it was until I showed it to Ada Yardeni, who specializes in Hebrew writing, a few years ago.  She was overwhelmed.  ‘You have got a Dead Sea Scroll on stone,’ she told me.”

Much of the text, a vision of the apocalypse transmitted by the angel Gabriel, draws on the Old Testament, especially the prophets Daniel, Zechariah and Haggai.

Ms. Yardeni, who analyzed the stone along with Binyamin Elitzur, is an expert on Hebrew script, especially of the era of King Herod, who died in 4 B.C.  The two of them published a long analysis of the stone more than a year ago in Cathedra, a Hebrew-language quarterly devoted to the history and archaeology of Israel, and said that, based on the shape of the script and the language, the text dated from the late first century B.C.

A chemical examination by Yuval Goren, a professor of archaeology at Tel Aviv University who specializes in the verification of ancient artifacts, has been submitted to a peer-review journal.  He declined to give details of his analysis until publication, but he said that he knew of no reason to doubt the stone’s authenticity.

It was in Cathedra that Israel Knohl, an iconoclastic professor of Bible studies at Hebrew University in Jerusalem, first heard of the stone, which Ms. Yardeni and Mr. Elitzur dubbed “Gabriel’s Revelation,” also the title of their article.  Mr. Knohl posited in a book published in 2000 the idea of a suffering messiah before Jesus, using a variety of rabbinic and early apocalyptic literature as well as the Dead Sea Scrolls.  But his theory did not shake the world of Christology (pc note: and it shouldn’t!  As I have taught, the more we understand the Tanach, the more we will understand the New Testament as One Author wrote them both!) as he had hoped, partly because he had no textual evidence from before Jesus.

When he read “Gabriel’s Revelation,” he said, he believed he saw what he needed to solidify his thesis, and he has published his argument in the latest issue of The Journal of Religion.

Mr. Knohl is part of a larger scholarly movement that focuses on the political atmosphere in Jesus’ day as an important explanation of that era’s messianic spirit.  As he notes, after the death of Herod, Jewish rebels sought to throw off the yoke of the Rome-supported monarchy, so the rise of a major Jewish independence fighter could take on messianic overtones.

In Mr. Knohl’s interpretation, the specific messianic figure embodied on the stone could be a man named Simon who was slain by a commander in the Herodian army, according to the first-century historian Josephus.  The writers of the stone’s passages were probably Simon’s followers, Mr. Knohl contends.

The slaying of Simon, or any case of the suffering messiah, is seen as a necessary step toward national salvation, he says, pointing to lines 19 through 21 of the tablet — “In three days you will know that evil will be defeated by justice” — and other lines that speak of blood and slaughter as pathways to justice.

To make his case about the importance of the stone, Mr. Knohl focuses especially on line 80, which begins clearly with the words “L’shloshet yamin,” meaning “in three days.”  The next word of the line was deemed partially illegible by Ms. Yardeni and Mr. Elitzur, but Mr. Knohl, who is an expert on the language of the Bible and Talmud, says the word is “hayeh,” or “live” in the imperative.  It has an unusual spelling, but it is one in keeping with the era.

Two more hard-to-read words come later, and Mr. Knohl said he believed that he had deciphered them as well, so that the line reads, “In three days you shall live, I, Gabriel, command you.”

To whom is the archangel speaking?  The next line says “Sar hasarin,” or prince of princes.  Since the Book of Daniel, one of the primary sources for the Gabriel text, speaks of Gabriel and of “a prince of princes,” Mr. Knohl contends that the stone’s writings are about the death of a leader of the Jews who will be resurrected in three days.   He says further that such a suffering messiah is very different from the traditional Jewish image of the messiah as a triumphal, powerful descendant of King David.

“This should shake our basic view of Christianity,” he said as he sat in his office of the Shalom Hartman Institute in Jerusalem where he is a senior fellow in addition to being the Yehezkel Kaufman Professor of Biblical Studies at Hebrew University.  “Resurrection after three days becomes a motif developed before Jesus, which runs contrary to nearly all scholarship.  What happens in the New Testament was adopted by Jesus and his followers based on an earlier messiah story.”  (pc note: so!  If God had the plan from the beginning, which He did [Isaiah 53] then it should not surprise us at all!)

Ms. Yardeni said she was impressed with the reading and considered it indeed likely that the key illegible word was “hayeh,” or “live.”  Whether that means Simon is the messiah under discussion, she is less sure.

Moshe Bar-Asher, president of the Israeli Academy of Hebrew Language and emeritus professor of Hebrew and Aramaic at the Hebrew University, said he spent a long time studying the text and considered it authentic, dating from no later than the first century B.C.  His 25-page paper on the stone will be published in the coming months.

Regarding Mr. Knohl’s thesis, Mr. Bar-Asher is also respectful but cautious. “There is one problem,” he said. “In crucial places of the text there is lack of text.  I understand Knohl’s tendency to find there keys to the pre-Christian period, but in two to three crucial lines of text there are a lot of missing words.”

Moshe Idel, a professor of Jewish thought at Hebrew University, said that given the way every tiny fragment from that era yielded scores of articles and books, “Gabriel’s Revelation” and Mr. Knohl’s analysis deserved serious attention. “Here we have a real stone with a real text,” he said. “This is truly significant.”

Mr. Knohl said that it was less important whether Simon was the messiah of the stone than the fact that it strongly suggested that a savior who died and rose after three days was an established concept at the time of Jesus.  He notes that in the Gospels, Jesus makes numerous predictions of his suffering and New Testament scholars say such predictions must have been written in by later followers because there was no such idea present in his day.  But there was, he said, and “Gabriel’s Revelation” shows it.

“His mission is that he has to be put to death by the Romans to suffer so his blood will be the sign for redemption to come,” Mr. Knohl said.  “This is the sign of the son of Joseph.  This is the conscious view of Jesus himself. This gives the Last Supper an absolutely different meaning.  To shed blood is not for the sins of people but to bring redemption to Israel.”  (pc note: it was both!  Jesus’ death and resurrection was to bring redemption to the world, including Israel.)

Ethan Bronner

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/06/world/middleeast/06stone.html

Pastor Chris End Note

Critics come and critics go, but one thing remains the same – God’s word is true.  The Bible can withstand brutal scrutiny.  And the beautiful thing about it all, is that the Bible has always and will always prove to be true.  Jesus doesn’t expect us to blindly believe in Him.  There is ample proof from outside sources that prove the Book is accurate in what it states.  Therefore, go ahead and dive in and learn to trust Jesus and His Word.  You’ll be glad you did and refreshed when you do.

I want you to notice in that statement the definite article “the”.  Jesus is saying that He is the only path to take in order to have a relationship with the living God.  He is the One who could pave the path for us.  We couldn’t trail blaze our own path or choose among many paths to God.  No, He was, is and always will be the way or path one can take to the Father, to eternal life.

Ever wonder why the Bible tells us to never turn to the left or to the right when it comes to His commandments?  God wants us to stay on the path, the way to Him.  He knew that we couldn’t get on that path by ourselves so before He ever had Moses write down one law, God tells us it is about faith.  In Genesis 15:6, Moses writes that God credited or gave to Abraham righteousness simply because Abraham believed, not because he ever obeyed any rules.

Yet God knew we would stray from this path, so He put in forgiveness or the way to get back on the path, the sacrificial system.  The Law and Sacrificial system pointed to the one path to take, Jesus (Gal. 3:24).  Once you get on this path by trusting in Jesus and what He did for you, you’re on your way home.

But this begs the question, can I trust the hand that is guiding me home?  Can I trust the path laid out in the Bible to get me home?  Can I act upon the words in the Book to never lead off the path?  The following article by Chuck Missler, “Isaiah and Cyrus the Great”, will give you evidence that the hand you are holding on this journey home, the path that it lays out, the steps you walk in as you follow Jesus home are definitely trustworthy.

Isaiah and Cyrus the Great

In 539 BC, Cyrus son of Cambyses took Babylon without a struggle.  According to the Greek historian Herodotus, Cyrus diverted the course of the Euphrates River, making the river level drop and giving the invading forces the ability to enter into the city that night through the river bed.  Nobody noticed them coming in, and the city gates that opened up onto the river were not closed; the Persians were able to just walk into town.  Within a year, Cyrus declared that all the Jews captive in Babylon were free to return home to Jerusalem, as described in Ezra 1.

These two events – the taking of Babylon the Great without a battle and the magnanimous freeing of the Jews soon after – are both remarkable historical events in themselves.  What makes them even more notable is the fact that God told about them in Isaiah 44:26-45:1,13, appointing Cyrus by name 100 years before this son of Cambyses was born!

The Book of Isaiah is one of the most greatly admired and beloved books of the Bible.  The New Testament writers quote Isaiah more than all the other Old Testament prophets combined.  Isaiah’s book is filled with prophecies about the Messiah (7:14-16; 9:1-7; 11:1-16; 32:1ff; 42:1-7; 50:5-8; 52:13-15; 61:1-3; 65:17), even describing in detail Jesus’ crucifixion 700 years before it happened.

In Isaiah 44 and 45, remember over a 100 years before it happened, God not only describes the ease with which Cyrus would enter the city with the “two leaved gates” (gates that were not even shut against the invaders!) but also notes that He would “loose the loins of kings” before Cyrus – a euphemism regarding the fear these kings would feel and the mess in their pants they’d make as a result.  As a matter of fact, about the time Cyrus’ men were entering the city, King Belshazzar was being interrupted in his feast.  A hand began to write on the wall to tell Belshazzar that his time was up.  Daniel 5:6 puts in not-so-delicate terms how greatly the fear of this sight affected Belshazzar, saying, “his thoughts troubled him, so that the joints of his loins were loosed, and his knees smote one against another.”  Who says God isn’t detailed!

In circles of modern liberal criticism, though, it has become popular to dismiss the idea, held for some 2,500 years that Isaiah son of Amoz wrote the entire book credited to his name.  Old Testament scholars have found it fashionable to argue that there were at least two “Isaiahs”, perhaps even three or more.  These critics argue that it makes no sense for God to have foretold events that would not have taken place during the life of the prophet.  They attempt to argue that the character of God in Isaiah 1-39 is far fiercer than the gentle God of Isaiah 40-66, that the language is different in the two sections, and that there are two different views of the Messiah between the first part of Isaiah and that written by the alleged Deutero-Isaiah. Ultimately, they do not believe that Isaiah could have written about Cyrus the Great in 700 BC.  They cannot believe that the precise information in that prophecy could have been penned 150 years before it came to pass.

These criticisms can sound scholarly on the surface, but they depend far less on evidence than on a bias against predictive prophecy.  While these scholars may believe that a bias against the supernatural – and the power of God to speak through His prophets centuries in advance – is scientific in this modern world, the truth is, it’s still a bias.  It’s still just their opinion based on a humanistic worldview.

Honest scholarship strongly supports the historical view that Isaiah ben Amoz wrote the entire book with his name on it.  Historically, Isaiah has always been recognized as the author of all 66 chapters.

When the Septuagint (OT translated into Greek) was translated in the 3rd century BC, merely two centuries after Deutero-Isaiah was supposed to have been written, there was no indication that the book had more than one author.

The New Testament writers treat the entire book of Isaiah as one book belonging to one author.  In fact, in John 12:37-41, John quotes from Isaiah chapter 53 and chapter 6 back to back, giving Isaiah credit for both sections.

An entire copy of the book of Isaiah was found in the Dead Sea Scrolls.  There is no separation between Chapters 1-39 and 40-66.  In fact, chapter 40 starts on the last line of the same column that ends chapter 39.  As Oswald Allis notes, “Obviously the scribe was not conscious of the alleged fact that an important change of situation, involving an entire change of authorship, begins with chapter 40.”

Internally, Isaiah offers extensive evidence of one author.  Throughout all 66 chapters, Isaiah uses pure Hebrew.  Unlike Ezra and Nehemiah, which use terminology adopted from Babylon because they lived there, Isaiah’s Hebrew is free from the vocabulary that the Jews gained during the exile.

The destruction and future healing of Jerusalem are described in chapters 1-39, and Jerusalem is described as still standing in chapters 40-66, demonstrating distant prophecy in the first part of Isaiah and an early date for the end of Isaiah.  For instance, in 3:8, Isaiah speaks of Jerusalem as already fallen and destroyed in the context of a prophecy about the future.  In 6:11-13, which all agree is a passage by Isaiah son of Amoz, God describes the future destruction of the land followed by the return of the remnant. On the other hand, passages like 40:9 and 62:6 treat Jerusalem and the cities of Judah as still standing, as they were before the Babylonian invasion.

Certain themes and terminology are repeated throughout the book.  The “highway” theme comes up repeatedly (11:16; 19:23; 35:8; 40:3; 62:10).  Isaiah refers to God as “Lord of hosts” repeatedly throughout the entire book.  “The Holy One of Israel” is Isaiah’s distinctive name for God used 12 times in chapters 1-39 and 14 times in chapters 40-66. The phrase is only used six other times in the Bible outside of Isaiah.  This can only be explained if one author wrote the book, not two.

Only Isaiah, son of Amoz, is named as the author throughout the book of Isaiah, at the beginnings of chapters 2, 7, 13, 20, 38, and 39.  No other author is mentioned at all.  Even when Ezra and Nehemiah were bound together, those two books did not get confused and lumped together under Ezra.  Yet, “Deutero-Isaiah” was allegedly lost to history.  Chapters 40-66 contain some of the highest quality literature in all of written history, yet we are expected to believe that this writer went mysteriously unrecognized until he was “discovered” by recent scholarship.

As Gleason Archer Jr. declared, “There is not a shred of internal evidence to support the theory of a Second Isaiah, apart from a philosophical prejudice against the possibility of predictive prophecy.”

Isaiah is an amazing book, filled with the power and passion of God. In it He declares, “I am God, and there is none else; I am God, and there is none like me, Declaring the end from the beginning, and from ancient times the things that are not yet done, saying, My counsel shall stand, and I will do all my pleasure:” (Isaiah 46:9-10).

Chuck Missler, March 02, 2010 eNews issue

End Note:

Isaiah reveals the future and it happened exactly as Isaiah wrote.  Critics, those who don’t trust the Bible, believe prophecy can’t happen; therefore they must come up with a reason to disprove the book itself.  Yet, you have been given many specific pieces of evidence that Isaiah wrote the book that God wanted him to write.  And in that book, we see the fingerprints of God – events distant to Isaiah that took place exactly as Isaiah said they would happen.

God knows the future of the Way, the path that you are on.  You can take His hand with full confidence that He will never lead you off the path that will eventually lead you home.  So go ahead.  Dive into the book.  Discover what it says on how to “keep in step with the Spirit” and experience God for yourself as you walk with Him in a daily moment by moment way.

Pastor Chris

When it comes to Israel, there is one passage every individual and national leader must take into account as the Bible is very clear on this connection.  Genesis 12:1-3 states, “Now the LORD had said to Abram, ‘Leave your country, your people and your father’s household and go to the land I will show you.  I will make you into a great nation, and I will bless you; I will make your name great and you will be a blessing.  I will bless those who bless you and whoever curses you I will curse; and all peoples on earth will be blessed through you.’”

God made several promises to Abraham – a land, a nation and world-wide blessing.  He also tells Abraham that those who bless him will in turn be blessed and those who curse him will also be cursed.  That is a tremendously huge statement!  If you mess with Abraham, you will face the consequences.  Can this possibly be true?  In his book, Eye to Eye: Facing the Consequences of Dividing Israel, author Bill Koenig uses current situations in the US to show that it is.

Koenig shows that in all of US history, nine of the ten costliest insurance events, six of the seven costliest hurricanes, three of the four largest tornado outbreaks, nine of the top ten natural disasters as ranked by FEMA relief costs and two of the largest terrorism events all transpired on the very same day or within 24-hours of U.S. presidents Bush, Clinton and Bush applying pressure on Israel to trade her land for promises of “peace and security,” sponsoring major “land for peace” meetings, making major public statements pertaining to Israel’s covenant land and/or calling for a Palestinian state.

Is this mere coincidence or is it God literally keeping the promise He made to Abraham in Genesis 12?  Are we heading down this same road with the current US Administration?  Just recently my local newspaper reported on the floods taking place in the northeast region of the US.  It was reported that “flooding on a scale rarely seen in New England forced hundreds of people from their homes Wednesday.  Hardest hit by 3 days of record-breaking rain was Rhode Island, where the worst flooding in 200 years could persist for several more days.”¹

Was there anything going on between the US and Israel at that time?  There was a huge storm brewing between the two “allies”.  “On most issues, there is substantive continuity between Obama’s Middle East policies and those his immediate predecessor George W. Bush adopted during his second term in office.  Yet, whereas Israelis viewed Bush as Israel’s greatest friend in the White House, they view Obama as the most anti-Israel US president ever.  In the space of the past ten days alone, Israel has been subject to three malicious blows courtesy of Obama and his advisors.” ²

What sparked this latest storm was Israel’s construction plans for Jerusalem.  The US has been pressuring Israel to stop all construction in East Jerusalem so she can prove that she is ready to negotiate peace with the Palestinians.  So when American Vice President Joe Biden was in Israel on March 9, 2010, Israel announced further development of a Jerusalem suburb named Ramat Shlomo, and a diplomatic firestorm broke loose.

What is interesting about this firestorm is that Ramat Shlomo is not even in East Jerusalem, but is clearly in the northwest section of Jerusalem.  Yet the US Media keeps reporting and the US Administration keeps emphasizing that this suburb is in East Jerusalem, which has been ear marked for a Palestinian capital.  Why create a storm where there clearly is no issue?  Is there a hidden agenda?  Is the US moving away from its historic support of Israel?

If what was reported on March 29, 2010 is any indication, American policy might be making that shift.  “The US is considering abstaining if the United Nations Security Council votes on a resolution against Israeli construction in eastern Jerusalem, the BBC reported Sunday.  For decades, Israel has depended on the US to veto UNSC resolutions aimed against it.  A change in this US policy could be very perilous for Israel.  A diplomatic source told the BBC that a US official said the US would ‘seriously consider abstaining’ if the issue of Israeli construction for Jews was put to the vote.” ³

Why is this important?  Israel regularly gets bashed in the United Nations with anti-Israel resolutions being passed.  But these resolutions have very little bite to them.  They are just ink on paper.  But with the Security Council, which has the power to back up its actions, the picture rapidly changes.  Israel’s friend could now become her foe at worst or ambivalent at best.

Under George W. Bush, “Israel went along with US policies despite their strategic madness because Israel wanted to be a team player.  The Sharon and Olmert governments and the Israeli public as a whole believed that Israel had an ally in the Bush administration and that when push came to shove, the massive risks Israel took supporting US policies on Iran [let diplomacy take it’s course], Syria [Iranian-Syrian-North Korean nuclear alliance], Lebanon [don’t attack those who side with Hezbollah, namely the Lebanese government and military, which lead to Israel’s defeat by Hezbollah], Turkey [who supports Iran’s nuclear goals] and the Palestinians [measured responses to rocket attacks on Israel’s border with Gaza] would be rewarded [US would guarantee Israel’s security].  But what Obama has made clear in his mistreatment of Israel [in this current diplomatic explosion] is that he doesn’t want Netanyahu to walk the plank for the team.  He wants Israel off the team.”⁴

In other words, Israel went along with at worst or kept its mouth shut at best with US Middle East policy because it knew the US had it’s back.  Up to this point, US Administrations saw themselves as the guarantor of Israel’s security.  The current Administration, however, appears to be moving away from this policy.  In his article, “The Trust is Gone,” former New York Mayor, Jewish Democrat and Obama supporter Ed Koch stated, “It [this current diplomatic flap] has created a serious crisis of confidence among the Israeli public that it can depend on this Administration for its security.”⁵

Whether that is good or bad, for the purposes of this discussion, doesn’t matter.  It is what it is.  US foreign policy is changing.  And one of those changes is that the US appears to be moving away from guaranteeing Israel’s security, which is exactly what the Bible says must happen, no matter what party holds the White House.

One must understand that when it comes to prophecy, it’s not about America.  It’s about Israel.  And we learn from Ezekiel 38 and 39 that Israel will be attacked once again and in this particular prophecy, she has no one to guarantee her peace, her security, except the Lord.

Ezekiel describes a time when Israel will be living in peace and “are living in safety”, a “land that has recovered from war, whose people were gathered from many nations to the mountains of Israel, which had long been desolate” (38:8).  When Israel is feeling at peace, she will be attacked by a number of countries (who and is it that coalition coming together today will be the subject of a future article).  Yet Ezekiel states in 38:18-23 that God will do the fighting for Israel.  He will take care of Israel’s enemies all by Himself and the world will not only see it, but know that it was God alone who did it.

Now, let’s face it.  For those who live with a Biblical worldview and know Israel’s brief history, we would have to say that it was God who brought Israel into existence “in a day.”  We look at the odds Israel faced in her wars and come to the only plausible conclusion, God fought through the Israeli army like He did during the days of Joshua when Israel first conquered the land.  Is God getting the credit for Israel’s current existence?  No.  Do most people on the planet see this as God’s doing?  Hey, if most Israeli’s don’t credit God with their existence, what can you expect from the rest of the world?

Yet the war that Ezekiel describes reveals that “all on the face of the earth will tremble at My presence…I will make Myself known in the sight of many nations.  Then they will know that I am the LORD.”  Up to this point, it is “debatable” whether God brought about the existence of Israel as a nation again.  In this end time prophecy, that debate will be gone.  The entire world will know it was God who defeated Israel’s enemies.  Now, if the US is the guarantor of Israel’s security, then who would get the credit for defeating Israel’s enemies in Ezekiel?  The US.  But this passage specifically states that the world will know that it’s neither the US nor the Israeli Defense Force, but God and God alone who defeated Israel’s enemies.  How God does this is quite the story, but that’s for another day.

For this outcome to occur, the US will have to come to the point that it is no longer Israel’s security guarantee.  In this scenario, does it mean that the US will no longer be a world power?  Does it mean that the US must be humbled economically so as to back off its military commitments?  No, it simply means the US will not back Israel’s defense.  She may be hostile or ambivalent when Israel is being attacked.  But no matter what, America is on the sidelines watching events take place in Israel.

Having said that however, if any US Administration, again it doesn’t have to be the current holder of the White House as God can change that situation at any time, turns their back on Israel, what does that mean for the US?  Genesis 12.   Think about something for a moment.  Is it any wonder how the US won the Cold War leaving the US as the sole world power without a bullet being fired?  As one politician noted, “It’s the economy stupid!”  Those who bless Israel will be blessed.  Ask yourself, which of the two Cold War countries supported Israel?  Those who bless Israel will be blessed.  Is it any wonder why the US of all the world’s powers over time is still the sole super-power today?  Those who bless Israel will be blessed.

As of today, there is a shift in US foreign policy away from Israel.  Is it the crack that eventually breaks the dam?   It’s possible.  If it continues, there will be consequences.  The reason the past super-powers are past was their treatment of Israel.  Could the United States be the next past super-power because of her shift in support for Israel?  Could the reason so many natural disasters have occurred in the past 3 presidencies be because of those Administration’s treatment of Israel?  Could the worst flooding in Rhode Island’s past 200 year history be linked to the current Administration’s polices regarding Israel?

What is known from the Ezekiel prophecy is that America, the current guarantor of Israel’s security, is not present.   Whether that is by choice (foreign policy shift) or by force (something happens in or to America), we’ll have to wait and see.  Whether it is under this president or some future one, an American Administration will decide not to support Israel.  And when this happens, Genesis 12 will come true.  The long run of a prosperous economy will subside.  The time of American superiority will come to an end.  History is quite clear on this point.  Only time will tell when that takes place, but one thing is for sure, God has kept, is keeping and will keep His promises made to Abraham.

You know me, knowledge for knowledge sake is useless.  The Bible tells us always apply what we learn.  So allow me to give you a few practical applications.  First, trust in the Word of God, not the words of politicians of any party or country.  God’s Word has and will continue to prove itself true.  Second, allow the Word of God and the Spirit of God to change your life from the inside out.  The more you become like Jesus, the more you take on His character, the better prepared you’ll be to handle whatever comes your way in the future.  Third, live with a Biblical worldview.  See all of life through the Word of God, not the culture or country in which you live.  It’s not about America’s future; it’s about individual’s futures – where they chose to live for eternity.  Lastly, pray for your governmental leaders that they would believe and submit to the Word of God.  From an American perspective, most people in Congress and in the general American population currently support Israel.  But they don’t make foreign policy, the president does.  Yet the people will pay the price for their government’s choices.  I don’t know about you, but I want the blessings of God, rather than the curses.

Pastor Chris

End Notes

1. Press Enterprise, “Floodwaters slam Northeast,” April 1, 2010  C1.
2. Caroline B. Glick, “Exploiting the Crisis”, Jewish World Review, April 2, 2010.
3. Gil Ronen, “US May Abstain if UNSC Votes on Eastern Jerusalem Construction,” IsraelNationalNews.com, April 10, 2010.
4. Caroline B. Glick, “Exploiting the Crisis”, Jewish World Review, April 2, 2010.
5. Ed Koch, “The Trust is Gone”, IsraelNationalNews.com, March 25, 2010.

This man’s story teaches us many lessons and gives us a clear picture of what Jesus said in Matthew 5:43-45, “You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’  But I tell you: Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be sons of your Father in heaven.” Prayer, the Word of God and trust in the Spirit of God can reach anyone anywhere at any time, if only we will love on and pray for them.

In 1996, Yousef became a spy for Israel and served for over a decade as Shin Bet’s (Israel’s secret service) most reliable source in the Hamas leadership, “earning himself the nickname ‘the Green Prince’ – using the color of the Islamist group’s flag, and ‘prince’ because of his pedigree as the son of one of the movement’s founders.”

As a spy for Israel, Yousef was responsible for “helping the Israelis stop scores of terrorist attacks and arrest scores of terrorists from Hamas and other Palestinian jihadist groups,” though he drew the line when they wanted to take out his own father.  To prevent this from happening he took active steps to insure his father kept on breathing.

As a boy, Yousef grew up hating Jews and came from one of the most religious Islamic families in the Middle East.  And when Saddam Hussein sent rockets heading towards Israel in the 1991 Gulf War, Yousef cheered.  Yousef believed what Hamas taught regarding Israel, “Israel will be established and will stay established until Islam shall nullify it, as it nullified what was before it.” In other words, Israel can exist, but it will one day be overrun by Islam and run by Islamic rule; therefore, he was willing to help Hamas achieve it’s stated goal by whatever means possible.

Yet it was what happened in 1996 that put him on his spiritual journey to Jesus.  At the age of 18, Yousef was put into an Israeli prison for buying and storing automatic weapons.  It was while in prison that two things happened to him that would provide the fire he needed to examine his own life’s direction.

The first incident took place when he saw Muslims torturing Muslims. “I had never heard a human being scream like that guy did.  What could he have done to deserve that?”  He personally saw fellow Hamas members torturing their own people.  He came to the conclusion that this was not the movement he wanted to spend his life on.  If they were to stop the Jews, why were they hurting and killing fellow Arabs, Palestinians, Muslims?  It didn’t make sense.

With that incident in the back of his mind, he was approached by Shin Bet agents to see whether he would work for them in order to help save lives.  This is after seeing and hearing what he saw, he accepted their offer of help and in 1997 was released from prison to pursue his new mission – saving lives.

This new found mission led him one day to walk past the northern most gate of the Old City of Jerusalem, the Damascus Gate.  It was here that he came into contact with the Word of God as someone had the courage to invite him to a Bible study!  Though anyone can come and go through the Damascus Gate, to be there and to ask someone to a Bible study takes tremendous courage as both Muslims and Jews don’t want to hear the gospel.  Both groups want nothing to do with Christians.  In fact, to become a believer in Jesus from those two faiths can cost one their family, let alone their life (i.e. Ami Ortiz – for his story go to www.amiortiz.com).  Yet it was at this Bible study that he received a copy of the New Testament that would change the total direction of his life forever.

“I began at the beginning [in the Gospel According to Matthew], and when I got to the Sermon on the Mount, I thought, wow, this guy Jesus is really impressive!  Everything He says is beautiful!  I couldn’t put the book down.  Every verse seemed to touch a deep wound in my life.  It was a very simple message, but somehow it had the power to heal my soul and give me hope.  Then I read this: ‘You have heard that it was said, Love your neighbor and hate your enemy. But I tell you: Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be sons of your Father in heaven.’ (Matthew 5:43-45)….I was thunderstruck by these words. Never before had I heard anything like this, but I knew that this was the message I had been searching for all my life.

“For years I had struggled to know who my enemy was, and I had looked for enemies outside of Islam and Palestine.  But I suddenly realized that the Israelis were not my enemies.  Neither was Hamas nor my uncle Ibrahim [one of the torturers in prison] nor the kid who beat me with the butt of his M16….I understood that enemies were not defined by nationality, religion, or color.  I understood that we all share the same common enemies: greed, pride, and all the bad ideas and the darkness of the devil that live inside us….Five years earlier, I would have read the words of Jesus and thought, ‘What an idiot!’ and thrown the Bible away….But now, everything Jesus said on the pages of this book made perfect sense to me. Overwhelmed, I started to cry.”

In 2005, after a long spiritual journey, Yousef renounced Islam, received Jesus Christ as his personal Savior and Lord, and was baptized in the Mediterranean Sea.  He now lives in California after fleeing the West Bank in 2007 and going public with his conversion as his life was in grave danger if he stayed.

“So many people owe him their life to Yousef and don’t even know it,” said Yousef’s Shin Bet handler, named in his book as Captain Loai. “People who did a lot less were awarded the Israel Security Prize.  He certainly deserves it.  The amazing thing is that none of his actions were done for money.  He did things he believed in.  He wanted to save lives.  His grasp of intelligence matters was just as good as ours – the ideas, the insights.  One insight of his was worth 1,000 hours of thought by top experts.”

Yosef’s story goes to the power of the Word of God, the power of prayer and the power of faith.  It took trusting in the Lord to invite him to the Bible Study.  It took prayer by those at that study to help open Yosef’s eyes to the truths that he was reading.  And it took the Word God through the Spirit of God to penetrate to the deepest portion of Yosef’s life and begin to satisfy his thirst.

Yousef’s story teaches us that though we may have people in our lives – at work, at home, and in our neighborhoods – who seem to get under our skin or even try to do us harm, no one, not even our perceived or real enemies is beyond the saving grace of Jesus.   It is our privilege as believers in Jesus to join the battle for souls.  Therefore, never stop praying for those you love and for those you don’t like to come to faith in Jesus.  Overcome your fear of inviting someone to study the Word, to MiniChurch or to our services.  What’s the worst they can do to you?  Tell you no?  The risks are certainly not what our brothers and sisters face in the Middle East on a daily basis.  Keep on trusting the Word of God as it is the power to save a life and change a life – including yours! It is that powerful.

Pastor Chris

Sources for this article.

1. http://flashtrafficblog.wordpress.com/2010/03/01/exclusive-how-did-the-son-of-hamas-come-to-christ-part-one/
2. Mosab Hassan Yousef, Son of Hamas: A Gripping Account of Terror, Betrayal, Political Intrigue, and Unthinkable Choices, Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., 2010.
3. http://www.forzion.com/full-article.php?news=8589

I am very interested in the shift of emphasis that has occurred in this nation in the last twenty five years.  It used to be that the emphasis in the media and in the synagogues was on the evil of our enemies, Babylon, Persia, the Greeks Seleucid Empire, Rome, the Crusades, the Muslims, the Russian Cossacks, the Nazis, and the beat goes on until today’s hate mongering terrorists from all races and religious backgrounds.  Now the Israeli public and even some of the Orthodox Jewish religious leadership have turned inward.  There is a whole lot of introspection and soul searching in the Israeli society and the emphasis is not so much on what happened that our first temple in Jerusalem was destroyed by Babylon on the 9^th of Av and the second temple was destroyed by Rome on the 9^th of Av, and the expulsion of the Jews from Spain in 1492 was on the 9^th of Av, and many more events that are not so uplifting all happened on the 9th day of the Hebrew month of Av.

Of course there are the standard slogans and cliché’s that everyone uses.  The first temple was destroyed because of idolatry, and the second temple was destroyed because of senseless hatred, or just plain racist prejudice and insensitivity to the pain and need and plight of your fellowman.  But, when I take these slogans that might be full of meaning for a moment and break them down into daily activities the idea becomes a nightmare that fills my own heart with fear.

Can you imagine the guilt feeling that a sensitive Jew must have in his heart to believe that when he expressed negative and prejudicial and racially hateful feelings against his Jewish or Arab neighbor he actually causes God to punish the nation with such destruction as the one that happened in 70 A.D. when Jerusalem was ransacked and burned and the temple was destroyed by Rome?  Can you imagine how a conviction like this ought to affect a person today in the land of Israel, where racial and sectarian hate and rage actually fuel the very fabric of our society?  So many people today in Israel are turning to God, to an alternative God, not the God of inside the Synagogues, not the God of the black-dressed ultra orthodox, but a God that can meet the person on the streets of Tel-Aviv, and in the coffee shops of Ben-Yehuda Street in Jerusalem.  A God that is not boxed up in a neat package wrapped in beautiful colored paper and presented from a well polished pulpit, but a God that speaks to prophets prostitutes, beggars and Kings at the same time and in the same voice.

Last night there was a reading of the book of Lamentations in the Tzavta club in Tel-Aviv.  The Tzavta club in Tel-Aviv one could say is the Mecca of secularism in Israel.  In fact it was created and envisioned by the son of the former chief Rabbi of Bulgaria, Rabbi Daniel Zion who was a firm disciple of Yeshua the Messiah.  The Rabbi’s son rebelled against religion and became totally secular, a leader of the secular Israeli culture and created the Tzavta club.  Last night in this temple of secularism in Tel-Aviv the secular Israeli crowed read together the book of Lamentations, the book of the Bible that laments the fall of the first temple in Jerusalem in 586 B.C.

Who knows may be God is working in Israel not through the established “high priesthood” of the religious temples of doom that seek to enslave people in their systems, but again through those who are not wise and not rich and not learned.  Who knows, may be God is speaking to prostitutes and tax-collectors again and gathering them in the most unlikely places to speak of how to fix the problems of our history and calling to be a holy nation a nation of priests?  I hope so!  I pray so!  I want so!  I hope that you do too, because the same problems that we have in Israel and in our synagogues, you too have in your churches in the showcases of the Hollywood gods where Benjamin Franklin is not one of the founding fathers of the United States of America, but a key and a ticket to buy God’s blessing and prosperity. Maybe you too want to pray to be able to meet God in the most unlikely places like in the living room of your next door neighbor.

I write these things not to be negative towards church, but to urge the church, to get out from behind the pulpits and get back into the society where they have to deal with evangelism and pain, and suffering, and poverty, and do the work of the Gospel, all the good works for which we were saved by God’s grace. (Ephesians 2:8-10, “For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast. For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them.”)

It is a good thing to remember the grace of God and His blessings, but also a remembrance of His wrath and punishment because of our sins.  The idea that Christianity is always going to be talking about only the positive things and remembering only the wonderful love and grace of God, is a weak and half true idea.  We have to see the fullness of God’s relationship with mankind and know that the same God that so loved the world and gave His only begotten Son so that we might all be saved from the wrath of hell is the same God who controls the sea, the waves and the winds of the tornado and hurricane.  He is the God who took Israel out of Egypt but also the same God who walked with them into the German gas chambers in Buchenwald and Aushwitz, and went up in the smoke of the Crematoriums to show the world how evil man can become when politics control the church and the church controls politics.

by Joseph Shulam, The Jerusalem Prayer List, July 30th, 2009

Further Note from Pastor Chris

For some, we are the only Bible or Jesus people will see and know.  What do people know about Jesus from your life?  Recently, I was in Israel and was asked what I do for a living.  I told this person that I am a teacher just like them, but that I taught the Bible.  They said to me, “Everyone believes in the Bible, don’t they?”

I said that it is true that people know about the Bible, but that seeking to live it out in their daily lives is a completely different thing.  I gave them the example of this in action with their own people.  The Church tortured the Jewish people in order to get them to turn to Jesus (Yeshua in Hebrew).  I told this person that this is not what the Bible taught; at least I couldn’t find it in the Bible.  In fact, I read just the opposite.  Jesus said in Matthew 5:44, “I tell you: Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you that you may be sons of your Father in heaven.”  Jesus teaches us to love people into the kingdom, not torture them.  And if we are God’s children, we will put this love into daily action.

If it is true that the first and second Temple’s were destroyed because of the behavior of the Jews living in the land at those times, what actions will Jesus have to take with His Bride, the Church, in order to get her doing what she should be doing?  If you have put your faith in Jesus, you belong to the Church (1 Cor. 12:13).  What are the prostitutes and the tax-gatherers seeing in your life?  But I guess an even better question is, are you even around such people for them to see the Jesus you have in the first place?

When Jesus saw the crowds of humanity he had compassion on them because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd.  I believe the Bible teaches us to hit the streets and start loving on people so they can see the Jesus of the Bible and find the hope, the new hope, which can only come from the Jesus of the Bible.