This is a short comparison of Abib and Vernal Equinox.....very confrontational.
This was produced bu YAIY. You can go to there website for more info. Below that a brother sent me a message from Nehemia Gorden. It has some links to check out. This is must reading
Abib
Early ears (Lev 2:14) Hebrew: #24 Abib
Ex 9:31;12:2; 13:4; Duet 16:1 “observe Abib” (one calendar based on agriculture and moon: “Month of Abib,” Deut 16:1; Ex 34:18
Ps 104:19 Moon for seasons
Abib instructed as a calendar
No astrologers needed in ancient Israel to determine an equal day and night
Yahweh can change the Appointed Times (moeds) by changing the weather: Ex 9:29; Ps 135:6-7; Jer 10::13; Zech 10:1; 14:17-18.
Abib defined:
“Also if you bring a grain offering of early ripened (Abib) things (barley in the case of the new year: Ex 9:31; 12:2; 13:4) to Yahweh, you shall bring fresh heads of grain roasted in the fire, grits of new growth, for the grain offering of your early ripened things,” Lev 2:14. NASU
“Observe the month (new moon) of Abib (early ears of barley), and keep the Passover unto Yahweh thy Elohim: for in the month of Abib Yahweh thy Elohim brought thee forth out of Egypt by night,” Deut 16:1
Vernal Equinox
Equal day and night
Suggested Hebrew word: #8622 Tequphah
1 Sam 1:20 (9-month gestation period) Ex 34:22 Cycles of Pentecost and FOT; Ps 19:6 Sun rotates and runs its coarse; 2 Chron 24:23 End or close of the year
Gen 1:14-16; Ps 136:8-9 “sun rules day, moon rules night” (one calendar based on sun and moon?
“Pagan Calendars” “Lunisolar”)
Josh 10:12-14; 2 Kings 20:8-11 Sun for signs
Nisan showed pagan influence on Judah during and after their captivity (Neh 2:1; Est 3:7)
Astrologers needed to determine spring, summer, and winter equinoxes
Unless the fixed pattern (Jer 31:35) of the sun or moon’s coarse is changed, no controlled change can be made.
Vernal equinox defined:
the time when the sun crosses the plain of the earth’s equator, making night and day of approximately equal length all over the earth and occurring about March 21st.”
— Webster’s Encyclopedic Unabridged Dictionary of the English Language (emphasis mine)
www.yaiy.org
YAIY Quick Study Sheet
This is the e-mail I received from Brother Y
Will the Real Equinox Please Stand Up
Last week we found Aviv barley in the Land of Israel and the new moon on Wednesday night was the New Moon of the Aviv marking the beginning of the Biblical year. I discuss the biblical evidence for the role of the Aviv barley in the Biblical calendar at:
http://www.karaite-korner.org/abib.shtml
Some people object that the true indicator for the beginning of the Biblical year should not be the Aviv barley but the Vernal Equinox, the day which marks the beginning of Spring. They base this on an anachronism in their interpretation of the biblical Hebrew word Tekufah ("circuit"). An anachronism is erroneously placing something from a later time period into an earlier one. For example, speaking about telephones in ancient Rome is an anachronism. Interpreting the Biblical Hebrew word "Tekufah" as meaning "equinox", a meaning it never had in Tanakh times, is an anachronism. I won't go into too much detail here about the word Tekufah as I have done so in the past. For more information on this topic please see:
http://www.karaite- korner.org/ abib_faq. shtml
http://www.karaite-korner.org/abib_and_tekufah.shtml
http://groups. yahoo.com/ group/karaite_ korner_news/ message/220
http://groups. yahoo.com/ group/karaite_ korner_news/ message/124
Today I want to point out another anachronism in the application of the vernal equinox by those who claim it has a role in the Biblical calendar. Specifically I want to ask the question: If we are really required to use the vernal equinox for the biblical calendar, then which equinox? The problem is that there was no reliable way to calculate the timing of the Vernal Equinox in antiquity. Today modern astronomers have worked out with a high degree of accuracy the exact timing of the Vernal Equinox. The prerequisite for determining the true equinox was discovering the exact length of the solar year. According to modern astronomers a solar year is 365 days 5 hours 48 minutes 46 seconds and this year the equinox falls out on March 21, 2010. Easy, right? Not so fast. The true value of the solar year was not known until modern times.
Fear not, say advocates of the equinox, Moses had secret astronomical knowledge learned at the court of Pharoah. This secret knowledge supposedly included the exact calculation to work out the true timing of the Vernal Equinox. If Moses had this secret knowledge it was unfortunately unknown to later Jews. The early Rabbis mention the Vernal Equinox but they did not have a way of reliably calculating it because they did not know the true length of the solar year. There were actually two contradictory opinions about the length of the solar year and both were wrong. According to Rabbi Samuel the solar year was 365 days 6 hours whereas Rabbi Ada reckoned the solar year to be 365 days 5 hours 55 minutes 25.4 seconds. The difference between these two values may sound trivial but they result in the Vernal Equinox falling out on different days, neither of which is the correct day! For example, this year the Equinox of Samuel falls out on April 8, 2010 whereas the Equinox of Ada is March 28, 2010. As already mentioned, the true Vernal Equinox is March 21, 2010 - 7 days before the Equinox of Ada and 18 days before the Equinox of Samuel. Which one of these three values did Moses supposedly use: the Equinox of Ada, the Equinox of Samuel, or the true astronomical value only worked out in modern times? If this knowledge was known to Moses then why was it unknown to every other ancient civilization including the Jews? Did God really intend for us to wait for the advent of modern astronomy to know the true timing of the biblical feasts? Or did he set out a simple system that ancient Israelite farmers could easily follow by looking at their crops as they grew in the fields? It seems to me this is what the Creator was talking about when he said: "Observe the Month of the Aviv" in Deuteronomy 16:1. No need for secret astronomical knowledge; just a simple way to track the solar cycle relevant to an ancient farming society.
As a side note, the Vernal Equinox is generally calculated today as a moment in time not as a day. This year the Vernal Equinox was March 20 at 7:32pm Israel time. In the Hebrew reckoning, the day begins at sunset and this was well after sunset presumably making March 21 the day of the Vernal Equinox. But not so fast with this either! The ancients defined the equinox as the day on which daytime and nighttime were of equal length as we can see from the following quotation from the Jerusalem Talmud (Berachot 2c 1:1): "On both the Vernal Equinox and Autumnal Equinox the day and the night are equal". So when would that be for observers in the Land of Israel, March 20 or 21 this year? Considering that they did not have accurate clocks in ancient times, this would be no small feat to figure out, which is why both Samuel and Ada got it wrong. If you look at TimeAndDate. com for the day on which the daytime and nighttime are equal in Jerusalem you get a surprising result: March 16 or 17! On March 16 there was 11h 59m 12s of daytime and on March 17 there was 12h 01m 09s. So is the "Biblical" equinox March 16 or 17 based on day lengths in Jerusalem? Or March 21 as if Moses lived at the equator? Or March 28 or April 8 based on the ancient values of the year?
Check the Jerusalem day lengths in March 2010 for yourself:
http://www.timeandd ate.com/worldclo ck/astronomy. html?n=110& month=3&year= 2010&obj= sun&afl=- 11&day=1
Nehemia Gordon
Jerusalem, Israel
Saturday, March 20, 2010
Friday, March 12, 2010
Passover vs Easter
This is a good article on the pagan Easter. if you would like more info from this group, there address is at the end of the article
Be Blessed.
AbiYAH
The Counterfeit Called Easter
Sunrise worship services, Easter eggs in the vestibule, Easter ham and hot cross buns at the church social. Is this honoring a resurrected Savior- or is this resurrected mystery worship. Here are some hare-raising facts about the Easter bunny, eggs, and many of the other trappings that go with a great counterfeit celebration supposedly honoring the Savior’s death and resurrection.
Most people are born into their beliefs and rarely question what they have been taught from childhood. Societal traditions themselves have a powerful pull on what the majority of people do—with the force of religious passion.
If the tradition is to watch football on Monday nights, attend Fourth of July parades, or exchange Xmas presents, that is what the majority will do. If we teach our children from infancy to look for colored eggs on Easter Sunday morning, that is what they will grow up doing and teach to their own children as well.
In addition to the secular traditions of Easter unquestionably practiced in society at large, Easter is also an orthodox belief accepted automatically by the religious sector.
This observance is one of the holiest days of the year in Christianity. Few Christians will doubt its authenticity. So let’s ask the critical question: is Easter Biblical? Is it a holiday that should be observed by a True Believer?
Easter is made to appear Scriptural in a very clever way, but when one searches into the literal and spiritual truth of the matter one finds that Easter has nothing to do with the true Messiah. Any related religious connotations are found outside the Bible and are unscriptural.
These statements may seem like blasphemy to today’s Christian, but if he truly has his heart set on proving his beliefs right out of the Bible, then he will find the ensuing study to be true. This treatise is prepared for those who are willing to prove all things, accept the truth, turn from falsehood and deceit, and hold fast to that which is true and good.
The World Book Encyclopedia under "Easter" says, "Easter is a Christian festival that celebrates the resurrection of J-sus Christ. It is the most important holy day of the Christian religion. People attend churches and take part in religious ceremonies.
"In most countries, Easter comes in early spring, at a time when green grass and warm sunshine begin to push aside the ice and snow of winter. Its name may have come from Eostre, a Teutonic goddess of spring, or from the Teutonic festival spring, Eostar [pronounced ‘Easter’].
"Christians everywhere celebrate Easter with great rejoicing. In many areas, children collect candy and chocolate bunnies, and hunt colorful Easter eggs. Many persons wear new spring clothes to church on Easter."
Easter: a.k.a. Ishtar, Astarte
Let us first focus on the name "Easter." Where does it come from and what does it mean? You may be surprised to learn that many customs associated with the Easter celebration had been observed by pagans centuries before the Savior came to earth and was put to death, to rise three days later. The worship of pagan deities continued within Christianity, but with a new meaning and a different interpretation—thus making it more palatable.
In The Roots of English, A Reader’s Handbook of Word Origins, by Robert Clainborne, we find that Easter means "to shine, whence Germanic East (where the dawn light shines from), and also Austron, the Germanic goddess of dawn; she was worshiped at the spring equinox—now the Easter season. (The first Christian Missionaries in England shrewdly combined their celebration of the Resurrection with the older, pagan festival.)" (p. 55).
Nelson’s Illustrated Bible Dictionary has this to say: "Easter was originally a pagan festival honoring Eostre, a Teutonic (Germanic) goddess of light and spring. At the time of the vernal equinox (the day in the spring when the sun crosses the equator and day and night are of equal length), sacrifices were offered in her honor. As early as the eighth century the name was used to designate the annual Christian celebration of the resurrection of Chr-st" (p.317).
In The Two Babylon's, Alexander Hislop says that Easter is "Astarte, one of the titles of Beltis, the queen of heaven." Her name appears on the Assyrian monuments as Ishtar, which carries the same pronunciations as that of Easter in today’s language, (Section II, "Easter," p. 103).
Ishtar was a goddess of Babylon whose consort was Tammuz. She was known in various other nations as Asherah of the Canaanites whose consort was Baal; Isis of Egypt whose consort was Osiris; Aphrodite of Greece whose consort was Adonis, and Venus in Rome whose consort was Mars.
All of these goddesses were goddesses of fertility, fecundity, love, and sensual pleasure. Ishtar was served in her temples by prostitutes with immoral rites performed by bands of men and women.
Provocative Queen of Heaven
Easter or Ishtar is also known as the Queen of Heaven. What does Yahweh say concerning this Queen of Heaven?
"See you not what they do in cities of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem ? The children gather wood, and the fathers kindle the fire, and the women knead their dough, to make cakes to the queen of heaven, and to pour out drink offerings unto other elohim, that they may provoke me to anger. Do they provoke me to anger? Says Yahweh: do they not provoke themselves to the confusion of their own faces? Therefore, thus says Yahweh El, Behold, mine anger and my fury shall be poured out upon this place, upon man, and upon beast, and upon the trees of the field, and upon the fruit of the ground; and it shall burn, and shall not be quenched," Jeremiah 7:17-20.
Yahweh was so greatly angered by the people’s service to the Queen of Heaven that He overthrew them, carrying many of the survivors into Babylon .
Some of the survivors escaped to the land of Egypt where they continued in their practice of worshiping the "Queen of Heaven." He inspired the prophet Jeremiah to warn the people away from such practices, but the people adamantly refused, saying,
"As for the word that you have spoken unto us in the name of Yahweh, we will not hearken unto you. But we will certainly do whatsoever thing goes forth out of your own mouth, to burn incense unto the queen of heaven, and to pour out drink offerings unto her, as we have done, we, and our fathers, our kings, and our princes, in the cities of Judah, and in the streets of Jerusalem; for then had we plenty of food, and were well, and saw no evil. But since we ceased to burn incense to the queen of heaven, and to pour out drink offerings unto her, we have lacked all things, and have been consumed by the sword and by the famine. And when we burned incense to the queen of heaven, and poured out drink offerings unto her, did we make her cakes to worship her, and pour out drink offerings unto her, without our husbands? Then Jeremiah said unto all the people, to the men, and to the women, and to all the people who had given him that answer, saying, The incense that you burned in the cities of Judah, and in the streets of Jerusalem, you, and your fathers, your kings, and your princes, and the people of the land, did not Yahweh remember them, and came it not into his mind? So Yahweh could no longer bear, and because of the abominations which you have committed; therefore is your land a desolation, and an horror, and a curse, without an inhabitant, as at this day. Because you have burned incense, and because you have sinned against Yahweh, and have not obeyed the voice of Yahweh, nor walked in his law, nor in his statutes, nor in his testimonies, therefore, this evil happened unto you, as at his day," Jeremiah 44:16-23.
Jeremiah went on to prophesy that all those in Egypt who had burned incense to the Queen of Heaven would be destroyed along with the Egyptians when the Babylonians invaded that country. Only a small remnant of that group ever survived to return to the land of Israel .
The worship of the Queen of Heaven brought terrible disaster and destruction to those of Judaea and Egypt . This is a warning to us today.
The worship of Ishtar (Easter) and Tammuz is none other than sun, nature, and earth worship.
Tammuz, the Resurrected Son
Tammuz was a consort of the Queen of Heaven. Who was Tammuz? The Encyclopedia Britannica, Fourteenth Edition, has this to say about Tammuz: "A Sumerian, Babylonian and Assyrian god, who died and rose annually with dying and reviving vegetation, originally Dumuzi, ‘the son who rises, goes forth (from the nether world),’ but generally interpreted ‘faithful son.’
"…he represents the mystery of life and death, as seen in the withering vegetation of the hot Mesopotamian summer, and the rapid renewal of its life at the season of the spring rains… .
"There is a strange inconsistency in the hymns of the wailings concerning the relaxation of the mother goddess to her lover, Tammuz. In the early Sumerian texts she (Ishtar) is his sister, but soon the Semitic view that she is his mother prevails. The two theories appear inconsistently together throughout the entire history of the cult. He is, however, invariably the husband and lover of the otherwise consistently described virgin goddess of love, Innini (Ishtar), Gestinanna, Belitseri (queen of the field of the lower world), and the cult is particularly associated with the great city Erech [built by Nimrod, Gen. 10:10], home of the cult of Anu, the heaven god, and Innini (Ishtar).
"In astrology Tammuz was identified with Aries; in the magic rituals he is symbolized by a white kid, and he is also connected with the ram, which led to this astral identification. Under the title Sibzianna, ‘faithful shepherd of heaven,’ he was identified with Orion. During the period of the deified king worship in the Dungi period of Ur, and in the time of the Isin dynasty, the deified kings habitually identified themselves with Tammuz and were worshipped as husbands of the mother goddess….He was held to be a god of healing, bestower of health, and one who, like all other deities, had power over the demons.
"It is obvious that a cult which is based upon the death and resurrection of a propitiating god, and upon the love of a divine mother who wails for her son, has direct connection with the facts and the theological views based upon them, which gave birth to Christianity. But the form occult which apparently most directly affected the origins of Christianity is that in which Marduk of Babylon was identified with Tammuz. At the Nisan or new year festival at Babylon, Bel (Marduk) was said to have been imprisoned in the lower world, and the priestess weeps at his sepulchre. A malefactor was slain with Bel and they descend together to the land of darkness. Beltis, his wife, descends to hell to seek him, and Bel’s garments are given Ishtar (mother of Tammuz). Bel was laid in a sepulchre, from which he soon comes forth. This Marduk transformation of the national Tammuz cult is only another effort of the priesthood of the capital to enlarge the worship and importance of the local cult…That the cult had direct influence upon the ORIGINS OF CHRISTIANITY cannot be denied, and the Greek cult of Adonis owes its essential content to the Sumerian Tammuz." (vol. 21, pp. 776-777).
Yahweh Condemns Worship of Tammuz, Ishtar
Yahweh took the prophet Ezekiel in the land of Babylon where he had been taken captive, in vision to the land of Judah to witness what was going on in the temple among the priesthood and the men and women who were worshiping there. Ezekiel was shown the image of jealousy in 8:5 and he was then taken into a room where there were images of every form of creeping thing, while abominable creatures were depicted on the walls all around (vv. 6-10).
Seventy men of the ancients of Israel were burning incense to the images (v. 11). Then Yahweh said to Ezekiel, "Son of man, have you seen what the ancients of the house of Israel do in the dark, every man in the chambers of his imagery? For they say, Yahweh sees us not; Yahweh has forsaken the earth. He said also unto me, Turn yet again, and you shall see GREATER ABOMINATIONS that they do. Then he brought me to the door of the gate of Yahweh’s house, which was toward the north; and, behold, there sat women weeping for Tammuz," vv. 12-13.
The Israelite women were weeping for the Assyrian, Sumerian, Babylonian deity of vegetation which was a great abomination to Yahweh. Hislop identifies this period of weeping with the 40 days of the Lenten season, a time of mourning and fasting for the dead or dying god Tammuz (pp. 104-106). It was the forerunner of today’s 40-day Lenten season observed prior to Easter. Easter ends the period of fasting.
Tammuz is identified with Marduk by the Encyclopedia Britannica. The International Standard Bible Encyclopedia (Revised) says, "Marduk’s origin was unclear. His name appears to have a Sumerian etymology (amar-utu-k) and may mean ‘young calf of the sun.’ Some have suggested Marduk was originally a sun-god" (vol. 4, p. 87).
This all coincides to reveal that the worship of Ishtar and Tammuz is none other than sun, nature, and earth worship. Ishtar was the dawn goddess. Tammuz was the young calf of the sun.
They were especially worshiped around the spring equinox when the days not only became equally divided between day and night, but a type of annual day had begun, composed of spring and summer, when the earth would spring to life and bring forth its flora and fauna, producing life-giving food. It was the dawning of the annual day. The earth’s inhabitants would rejoice at the increasing strength of the sun and its ability to produce warmth, longer days, and food.
Egg-laying Rabbits?
The Easter egg hunt is a tradition in this country and around the world. Rabbits are also historically linked with Easter. There is even a traditional egg roll at the White House every year. What is this all about?
The rabbit or hare was only one of the animals associated with the pagan goddess of Ishtar in her capacity as Aphrodite. It was a symbol of productivity and fertility. At times she was portrayed as riding on a goat, which was symbolical of wantonness (Britannica, 14th Ed., vol. 2, pp. 97-98).
The egg also was a symbol of productivity and fertility, but there are more mystical meanings assigned to this item included in her worship. Hislop says,
"An egg of wondrous size is said to have fallen from heaven into the river Euphrates. The fishes rolled it to the bank where the doves having settled upon it, and hatched it, out came Venus, who afterwards was called the Syrian Goddess, that is Astarte. Hence the egg became one of the symbols of Astarte or Easter; and accordingly, in Cyprus, one of the chosen seats of the worship of Venus, or Astarte, the egg of wondrous size was represented on a grand scale" (p. 109).
Albert Pike adds even more information as to the mystical meanings of the egg in his book Morals and Dogma. He writes, "The relations of the human soul with the rest of nature were a chief object of the science of the mysteries. The man was there brought face to face with entire nature. The world, and the spherical envelope that surrounds it, were represented by a mystic egg, by the side of the sun-god whose mysteries were celebrated. The famous Orphic egg was consecrated to Bacchus in his mysteries. It was, says Plutarch, an image of the universe, which engenders everything, and contains everything in its bosom. ‘Consult’, says Macrobius, ‘the initiates of the mysteries of Bacchus, who honor with special veneration the sacred egg.’ The rounded and almost spherical form of its shell, he says, which encloses it on every side, and confines within itself the principles of life, is a symbolic image of the world; and the world is the universal principle of all things.
"The symbol was borrowed from the Egyptians, who also consecrated the egg to Osiris, gem of light, himself born, says Diodorus, from that famous egg. In Thebes, in upper Egypt, he was represented as emitting if from his mouth, and causing to issue from the first principle of heat and light, or the fire-god, Vulcan, or Phtha. We find this egg even in Japan, between the horns of the famous Mithraic bull, whose attributes Osiris, Apis, and Bacchus all borrowed.
"Orpheus, author of the Grecian mysteries, which he carried from Egypt to Greece, consecrated this symbol: and taught that matter, uncreated and informous, existed from all eternity, unorganized, as chaos; containing in itself the principles of all existences confused and intermingled, light with darkness, the dry with the humid, heat with cold; from which, it after long ages taking the shape of an immense egg, issued the purest matter, or first substance, and the residue was divided into the four elements, from which proceeded heaven and earth and all things else. This grand cosmogonic idea he taught in the mysteries; and thus the hierophant explained the meaning of the mystic egg, seen by the initiates in the sanctuary" (p. 400).
Albert Pike goes on to say that this mystic Orphic egg was held in all of the paganistic religions of the world: Greece, Egypt, Persia, Phoenicia, India, Babylon, Japan, etc.
According to the Encyclopedia Britannica, Fourteenth Edition, vol. 16, pp. 936-937, the name "Orpheus" is possibly linked with orphne, signifying darkness. Orpheus was represented as a seer, a founder of mystic rites, particularly Dionysiac, a magician, and later an astrologer.
The mystery of the egg, as we have seen from Albert Pike, is that the creation has inherent life within itself and developed without and apart from an everliving Creator. It is the beginning stages of the evolution theory, taught in our schools and colleges as fact today, rather than the abominable lie that it really is. It turns darkness into light in a perverted twist. Is it any wonder that the egg is associated with a pagan goddess of light, which is worshiped through spring sunrise services?
Pike also has this to say about the egg on page 496, "The serpent entwined round an egg, was a symbol common to the Indians, the Egyptians, and the Druids. It referred to the creation of the universe. A serpent with an egg in his mouth was a symbol of the universe containing within itself the gem of all things that the sun develops. The property possessed by the serpent, of casting its skin, and apparently renewing its youth, made it an emblem of eternity and immortality.
The egg is a symbol of serpent worship! It is a symbol of self creation apart from Yahweh. It is symbol of darkness and deceit rather than light and truth.
According to author Ralph Woodrow (Babylon, Mystery Religion) and others, both the egg and its hatching predate the resurrection of the Messiah by more than 2,000 years, eliminating any connection between eggs, Easter, and the resurrected Savior. Mankind has taken the Biblical significance of the occasion of the resurrection and added symbols and customs that originate from ancient peoples who serve pagan deities.
Note this candid statement from the Catholic Encyclopedia, 1909 Edition, "A great many pagan customs, celebrating the return of spring, gravitated to Easter. The egg is the emblem of the germinating life of early spring…The rabbit is a pagan symbol and has always been a symbol of fertility."
We also find this in Funk and Wagnalls Standard Dictionary of Folklore, Mythology and Legend: "Children roll pasch eggs in England. Everywhere they hunt the many-colored Easter eggs, brought by the Easter rabbit. This is not mere child’s play, but the vestige of a fertility rite, the eggs and the rabbit both symbolizing fertility. Furthermore, the rabbit was the escort of the Germanic Goddess Ostara who gave the name to the festival by way of the German Ostern" (1949 ed., vol. 1, p. 335).
Finally, the Dictionary of Christian Lore and Legend notes this about the Easter egg: "The Easter egg, pagan symbol of rebirth, was given a Christian meaning when it became the practice to bring eggs, forbidden during Lent, to be blessed in church on Easter Sunday," p. 89.
The rabbit or hare was only one of the animals associated with the pagan goddess Ishtar in capacity as Aphrodite.
Easter Sunrise Worship
We all know that sunrise services are associated with Easter. Easter was the name of the goddess of dawn, and therefore would naturally be worshiped at the dawning of the sun.
Albert Pike admits that the worship of the sun became the basis of all the religions of antiquity (p. 593). He also writes, "To conceive of G-d as an actuality, and not as a mere nonsubstance or name, which involved nonexistence, the Kabala, like the Egyptians, imagined him to be ‘a most occult light,’ AUR; not our material and visible light, but the substance out of which light flows, the fire, as relative to its heat and flame. Of this light or ether, the sun was to the Tsabeans the only manifestation or out-shining, and as such it was worshipped, and not as the type of dominion and power. G-d was the PhosNeoton, the light cognizable only by the intellect, the light-principle, the light-ether, from which souls emanate, and to which they return" (p. 740).
The Jewish people of Jeremiah’s and Ezekiel’s day had incorporated sun worship into the worship of Yahweh. We have already read of their worship of the Queen of Heaven and Tammuz, but Yahweh also showed Ezekiel other abominations that were going on.
After showing the women weeping for Tammuz, Yahweh said to Ezekiel, "Have you seen this, O son of man? Turn yet again, and you shall see greater abominations than these. And he brought me into the inner court of Yahweh’s house, and, behold, at the door of the temple of Yahweh, between the porch and the altar, were about five and twenty men, with their backs toward the temple of Yahweh, and their faces toward the east; and they worshiped the sun toward the east," Ezekiel 8:15-16.
As the sun rose in the east the Jewish leaders were turned to face the east, worshiping the rising sun. Judah was corrupting the true worship of Yahweh by introducing false, paganistic sun worship into their fellowship.
Yahweh’s temple was built facing eastward just as the tabernacle in the wilderness faced east. This positioning was for a purpose. As Albert Pike pointed out, all religions of antiquity worshiped the sun. The sun worshipers would begin their daily worship by facing the rising sun in the east. Yahweh’s temple and tabernacle faced the east so that a True Worshiper would turn away from the rising sun in the east to face the temple or the tabernacle in the west. This was a symbol of repentance. One had to turn away from sun worship to the True Worship of Yahweh.
Such is the status of those steeped in paganistic Easter sunrise worship today. One must turn, repent of such things, and shift to the True Worship of Yahweh.
"Rome, pursuing its usual policy, took measures to get the Christian and Pagan festivals amalgamated." The Two Babylon's
Hot Cross Buns
Alexander Hislop has this to say about the traditional hot cross buns associated with Easter: "The hot cross buns of Good Friday, and the dyed eggs of Pausch or Easter Sunday, figured in the Chaldean rites just as they do now. The ‘buns,’ known too by that identical name, were used in the worship of the queen of heaven, the goddess Easter, as early as the days of Cecrops, the founder of Athens—that is, 1500 years before the Christian era. ‘One species of sacred bread,’ says Bryant, ‘which used to be offered to the gods, was of great antiquity, and called Boun.’ Diogenes Laertius, speaking of this offering being made by Empedocles, describes the chief ingredients of which it was composed, saying, ‘He offered one of the sacred cakes called Boun, which was made of fine flour and honey,’ " (The Two Babylon's, pp. 107-108).
The "buns" described here are the "cakes" that earlier were denounced by the prophet Jeremiah. The ingredient of honey in the "cakes" was another violation of the commands of Yahweh for He had charged the Israelites to offer neither leaven nor honey in any offering made by fire to Him (Lev. 2:11).
Because these cakes were made to the Queen of Heaven, they were marked with a cross, symbol for woman and also signifying life in ancient Egyptian hieroglyphics.
Easter Hams
Sacrificial cakes were the offering of choice for those pagans who were too poor to offer a pig at the festival honoring the Queen of Heaven.
The pig was sacred to the goddess Demeter, the corn goddess, a deity of abundance and fertility—a counterpart of Astarte or Easter. We learn this from The Golden Bough, by James Frazer:
"The pig was sacred to her; in art she was represented carrying or accompanied by a pig; and the pig was regularly sacrificed in her mysteries…originally the pig was an embodiment of the corn-goddess herself," ch.3, p.44.
Pigs and cakes of dough were traditionally thrown into the chasms of two similar gods, Demeter and Proserpine, which appear to have been sacred caverns or vaults. The heathens believed that by eating what represented and embodied their god—in this case swine—they were literally partaking of their god (Frazer, p. 45).
What does the Almighty Yahweh think of honoring pagan gods with rites like these? He inspired the prophet Isaiah to write:
"A people that provokes me to anger continually to my face; that sacrifices in gardens, and burns incense upon altars of brick; Which remain among the graves, and lodge in the monuments, which eat swine’s flesh, and broth of abominable things in their vessels; Which say, Stand by thyself, come not near to me; for I am holier than thou. These are a smoke in my nose, a fire that burns all day." (Isa. 65:3-5)
Lent: On Loan from Ancient Paganism
The word "Lent" derives from the Old English lencten, meaning spring. Today it is the 40 weekdays from Ash Wednesday until Easter, reserved in churchianity for penitence and fasting.
The self-denial aspect of fasting during Lent has mostly been dropped in favor of "giving up" something—which usually means a bad habit like smoking that should be given up anyway.
The True Worshiper wonders, where did this custom of Lent originate? Was it with the early "church’?
Hislop’s The Two Babylon's explains, "The forty days’ abstinence of Lent was directly borrowed from the worshipers of the Babylonian goddess. Such a Lent of forty days, ‘in the spring of the year’ is still observed by the Yezidis or Pagan Devil-worshipers of Koordistan, who have inherited it from their early masters, the Babylonians….Such a lent of forty days was observed in Egypt…held expressly in commemoration of Adonis or Osiris, the great mediatorial god," pp. 104-5.
Osiris’s counterpart is the Greek Demeter and the Babylonian Tammuz—both deities of fertility and life. As The Two Babylon's observes, "Among the Pagans this Lent seems to have been an indispensable preliminary to the great annual festival in commemoration of the death and resurrection of Tammuz, which was celebrated by alternate weeping and rejoicing…To conciliate the Pagans to nominal Christianity, Rome, pursuing its usual policy, took measures to get the Christian and Pagan festivals amalgameted, and, by a complicated but skillful adjustment of the calendar, it was found no difficult matter, in general, to get Paganism and Christianity—now far sunk in idolatry—in this as in so many other things, to shake hands," p. 105.
How Good is Good Friday?
Held as the day of crucifixion by the Christian church, observance of Good Friday resulted from the development of the calendar in the fourth century, according to The New International Dictionary of the Christian Church, by J.D. Douglas. This reference notes, "Holy Communion was not usually celebrated on Good Friday. When weekday masses began in the sixth and seventh centuries, Friday was already a special fast day with Bible readings and prayers, and this tradition was left undisturbed," p. 422.
The problem is, in Matthew 12:40 Yahshua said just as Jonah was in the belly of the fish three days and three nights, so would He be in the tomb for three days and nights. The best one can do in counting from a Friday afternoon impalement to a Sunday morning resurrection is three days and two nights—providing one takes just a sliver of two daylight portions (late Friday afternoon and early Sunday morning).
But this does not hold with Scripture. Luke 24:1 shows that the women came to the tomb at deep dawn (Gr. Orthos bathus), while it was still dark, and the Savior had already risen, v. 3. In fact, He had already risen by sundown Saturday night, according to Matthew 28:1-6. "The end of the Sabbath" in verse 1 derives from the Greek opse, which means late in the day, at the back end. Not Sunday morning. (Write for the free booklet, He Arose…But When?)
For Him to rise by sundown Saturday, He had to have been impaled on Wednesday afternoon, not Friday.
Passover in the New Testament
Some might turn to Acts 12:4 to show that Easter is mentioned in the New Testament. Most Bibles with any good notation system at all, however, will clarify that the literal word should be "Passover" instead of Easter (the Greek means TO PASCHA, ie. the Passover).
Herod had decided to trouble some in the assembly and had James, John’s brother, slain with a sword. When he saw that this pleased the Jewish leaders, he also took Peter prisoner and was intent on treating him in the same manner once the Passover and days of Unleavened Bread were past.
This brings us to another important point. The New Testament assembly continued to observe the Sabbath and holy days just as the Jewish people did. Many historians and commentaries admit in their writings that such is the case.
Yahweh had commanded that Israel observe the Passover memorial (ex. 12, Lev. 23). (Write for our free booklet, Passover: A Memorial for All Time.)
Yahshua and his disciples observed the Passover. Yahshua was slain on the Passover, which is the anniversary of the deliverance of Israel out of Egypt. He instituted the bread and cup as symbols of His flesh and blood, which were sacrificed and poured out to Yahweh as our "Passover" (1Cor. 5:7). He is the Lamb of Elohim, slain without blemish (1Pet. 1:19;Rev.5:12).
Yahshua commanded us to observe the Passover in memorial of Him (Luke 22:19-20; 1Cor.11:23-25). Paul writes, "For as often as you eat this bread, and drink this cup, you do show the Sovereign’s death till he come," 1Corinthians 11:26. And now we begin to get to the heart of the matter. We are commanded to observe Yahshua’s death, the Passover memorial. Nowhere are we commanded to observe His resurrection as a great celebration.
Yes, we do confess that He was slain, buried and resurrected, but it is not a matter to be celebrated after the ways of the pagans.
The resurrection is not justification for devising our own celebration, nor is it grounds for Sunday worship. The way we remember the Savior’s resurrection is through our own baptism. Paul wrote in Romans 6:3-5:
"Know you not, that so many of us as were baptized into Yahshua the Messiah were baptized into his death? Therefore we are buried with him by baptism into death: that like as Messiah was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life. For if we have been planted together in the LIKENESS of his death, we shall be also in the LIKENESS of His resurrection."
Paul adds in Colossians 2:12: "Buried with him in baptism, wherein also you are risen with him through the faith of the operation of Elohim, who has raised him from the dead" (Col. 2:12).
As we come up out of the watery grave into a new life in the Savior, we portray His rising from the tomb and changing to spirit.
Sleuthing the Counterfeit
It is freely admitted by many modern-day Christians that Christianity has been shrewdly and cleverly paganized down through the ages. The pagans worshiped through a counterfeit religion that paralleled the true religion and beliefs but in a false way. Easter is one of those counterfeits.
A counterfeiter can counterfeit a $100 bill, which to the untrained person is not easily detectable. However, someone who handles money every day, like a bank or savings and loan employee who is instructed in what to look for, can easily spot the counterfeit. Integral to their training is a laborious examining of the real thing, which will make the forgery more obvious. Let’s train ourselves to detect the counterfeit by studying the real observances and other truths directly from Yahweh’s Word.
· The first fact that should alert us to the counterfeit is the name itself. "Easter" is the obvious name of a pagan goddess. It has nothing to do with Yahweh, Yahshua, the Passover, or Yahshua’s resurrection.
· The next fact that warns us to the counterfeit is the Easter eggs and rabbits tradition. Eggs and rabbits are fertility symbols. There is no command to use them in service to Yahweh anywhere in His Word.
· Another sign of a counterfeit is revealed in the worship of Tammuz. Just as two malefactors were slain with the true Messiah, one malefactor is slain with Tammuz. This, of course, is not common knowledge, but is obtainable with a little research once one realizes that Tammuz and Ishtar are cohorts.
· Evidence of a counterfeit is also discovered through the time that the Messiah was to be in the heart of the earth or in the tomb. Yahshua said that He would be "three days and three nights in the heart of the earth" (Matt. 12:38-40). The paganistic messiah of traditional Easter is in the grave only from Friday sunset to Sunday morning, a full day and two nights. That is only half of the actual time that Yahshua said would be THE proof that He was the true Messiah. Much of paganism is just like the counterfeit $100 bill, it is close, but still falls short of the actual requirements to be valid.
· Counterfeited also is the very name of the Messiah Himself. The pagan messiah is named Jesus or Hesus, while the true Messiah is named Yahshua. Even the name falls short of its true value and distinction.
· Finally, the best way to gauge a counterfeit is to compare it with the truth. No lie is of the truth (1John 2:21). If it can’t be proven Biblically, then it simply isn’t true or genuine.
The Quartodeciman Controversy
In the fourth century B.C.E. a controversy arose as to when the Passover should be observed. At first the quarrel was whether to observe the Passover on the 14th or 15th. Eusebius points out that the assemblies of Asia followed a more distant tradition of observing the Passover on the 14th of Abib. Those in favor of the fourteenth were called the Quartodecimen while those in favor of the fifteenth were called the Quintodecimen (Britannica, 14th Ed., Vol 7, p. 859).
Polycrates, a bishop of the Asian assemblies, maintained that the apostle Philip and his daughters, the apostle John and other great lights, had all observed Passover on the 14th. He himself came from a family line of bishops, being the eighth (Eusebius’ Ecclesiastical History, pp. 207-209).
Another scholar points out, "The churches of Asia Minor had preserved the most ancient of all methods of determining the date of Easter: they simply kept it at the same time as the Jewish passover, on the fourteenth day of the Jewish month Nisan whenever that might fall. When Easter was introduced at Rome (c. 160) the feast, as, being the eighth (at Alexandria, was celebrated on the Sunday following the Jewish passover…." The Early Church, by Henry Chadwick (p. 84).
The western assemblies, which were swinging to more Greco-Roman beliefs, reasoned that since their fast (Lent) ended on the day of the resurrection, that Easter Sunday should be the day of observance. When Victor, Bishop of Rome, saw that he could not prevail over Ploycrates, he promptly endeavored to cut off all assemblies of Asia (Middle East) and any others in the neighboring assemblies, proclaiming them to be heterodox (ibid).
Who was correct? We need only search Yahweh’s Word for the answer. When Yahshua appeared to the Apostle John giving him the Book of Revelation, Yahshua sent the message only to the assemblies in Asia, not to the west! The west cut off the Asian assemblies as being heretics for maintaining the 14th Passover, while Yahshua cut off the west for their apostasies!
The west cut off the Asian assemblies as being heretics for maintaining the 14th Passover, while Yahshua cut off the west for their apostasies!
Human Traditions Bring Yahweh’s Judgement
While Moses was yet on mount Sinai where he received those commandments on two tables of stone, the Israelites began to mix symbols of Egyptian religion with their worship of Yahweh. After collecting gold earrings from people, Aaron fashioned a golden calf. The people then proclaimed this calf to be "Your Elohim, O Israel Who led you up out of the land of Egypt."
Aaron went along with the multitude and proclaimed, There is a festival to Yahweh tomorrow. They began offering burnt offerings and sacrifices, Exodus 32: 1-6. Israel contended they were worshiping their Mighty One, Yahweh. They associated Yahweh with their golden calf. Yet, they were prancing around a pagan replica of a calf from Egypt (Apis?), claiming to worship Yahweh in a way He had never commanded.
The whole nation of Israel was in great peril for their presumptuous sins, Exodus 32:7-10. Only the intervention of Moses averted their punishment. Let us consider this account and have nothing more to do with Lent, Good Friday and Easter, none of which is based on the Bible.
The Jewish leaders of Yahshua’s day complained because His disciples were transgressing the traditions of their elders by eating with unwashed hands (Matt. 15:1-9; Mark 7:1-13). Yahshua countered by saying that they were rejecting and transgressing the commandments of Yahweh by their traditions.
An example that He used was the command to honor father and mother. However, they had circumvented the command to honor and care for mother and father by proclaiming possessions as corban, or dedicated to the temple. By virtue of their mere tradition they eluded the necessity of caring for mother and father.
Easter is also a tradition—a pagan one at that—originally consecrated to the worship of the goddess of Ishtar and her son Tammuz. Yahweh had commanded that the Passover be observed (Ex. 12; Lev. 23, etc.). Yahshua observed the Passover and commanded that the Passover memorial continue to be kept in remembrance of Him. Easter had circumvented the Passover resulting in the rejection and transgression of the commandments of Yahweh.
Truly, Paul writes that we are to observe Yahshua’s death until He comes again. Easter is a shrewd blending of paganism into what is supposed to be the true faith, producing disastrous results. It is a counterfeit of the true Passover, causing those steeped in such worship to fail, to fall short of the expected goals of inheritance of the kingdom and everlasting life.
Nowhere are we told to remember the resurrection of the Savior. The Bible knows nothing about a celebration over the Savior’s coming forth from the grave. Paul tells us that Passover is to recall the death of the Savior:
"For I have received of the Savior that which also I delivered unto you, That the Master Yahshua the [same] night in which He was betrayed took bread: And when He had given thanks, He brake [it], and said, Take eat: this is My body, which is broken for you: this do in remembrance of Me." (1Cor. 11:23-24)
Contact us for more information on observing the Passover, the proper memorial of our Savior’s death. Passover was kept by the Savior, the early believers, and will be kept in the Kingdom (Eze. 45:21), where Yahshua will observe it again with His people, Luke 22:15-18. If it will be kept in the future under Yahshua’s command and direction, should it not be kept today—under the New Covenant in Yahshua?
Passover: The Real Communion
If Easter is one of the great holy days of the church, why can’t we find it in the Bible? The Savior and His disciples always kept Passover. He told them that He would keep Passover again with them in the Kingdom. He became the New Testament Passover sacrifice.
Isn’t it time you looked into this most important observance—one that memorializes the Savior’s ultimate sacrifice for sin? After all, if we don’t recognize the Passover, how can we acknowledge His paying the death penalty for our sins?
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The Counterfeit Called Easter
Sunrise worship services, Easter eggs in the vestibule, Easter ham and hot cross buns at the church social. Is this honoring a resurrected Savior- or is this resurrected mystery worship. Here are some hare-raising facts about the Easter bunny, eggs, and many of the other trappings that go with a great counterfeit celebration supposedly honoring the Savior’s death and resurrection.
Most people are born into their beliefs and rarely question what they have been taught from childhood. Societal traditions themselves have a powerful pull on what the majority of people do—with the force of religious passion.
If the tradition is to watch football on Monday nights, attend Fourth of July parades, or exchange Xmas presents, that is what the majority will do. If we teach our children from infancy to look for colored eggs on Easter Sunday morning, that is what they will grow up doing and teach to their own children as well.
In addition to the secular traditions of Easter unquestionably practiced in society at large, Easter is also an orthodox belief accepted automatically by the religious sector.
This observance is one of the holiest days of the year in Christianity. Few Christians will doubt its authenticity. So let’s ask the critical question: is Easter Biblical? Is it a holiday that should be observed by a True Believer?
Easter is made to appear Scriptural in a very clever way, but when one searches into the literal and spiritual truth of the matter one finds that Easter has nothing to do with the true Messiah. Any related religious connotations are found outside the Bible and are unscriptural.
These statements may seem like blasphemy to today’s Christian, but if he truly has his heart set on proving his beliefs right out of the Bible, then he will find the ensuing study to be true. This treatise is prepared for those who are willing to prove all things, accept the truth, turn from falsehood and deceit, and hold fast to that which is true and good.
The World Book Encyclopedia under "Easter" says, "Easter is a Christian festival that celebrates the resurrection of J-sus Christ. It is the most important holy day of the Christian religion. People attend churches and take part in religious ceremonies.
"In most countries, Easter comes in early spring, at a time when green grass and warm sunshine begin to push aside the ice and snow of winter. Its name may have come from Eostre, a Teutonic goddess of spring, or from the Teutonic festival spring, Eostar [pronounced ‘Easter’].
"Christians everywhere celebrate Easter with great rejoicing. In many areas, children collect candy and chocolate bunnies, and hunt colorful Easter eggs. Many persons wear new spring clothes to church on Easter."
Easter: a.k.a. Ishtar, Astarte
Let us first focus on the name "Easter." Where does it come from and what does it mean? You may be surprised to learn that many customs associated with the Easter celebration had been observed by pagans centuries before the Savior came to earth and was put to death, to rise three days later. The worship of pagan deities continued within Christianity, but with a new meaning and a different interpretation—thus making it more palatable.
In The Roots of English, A Reader’s Handbook of Word Origins, by Robert Clainborne, we find that Easter means "to shine, whence Germanic East (where the dawn light shines from), and also Austron, the Germanic goddess of dawn; she was worshiped at the spring equinox—now the Easter season. (The first Christian Missionaries in England shrewdly combined their celebration of the Resurrection with the older, pagan festival.)" (p. 55).
Nelson’s Illustrated Bible Dictionary has this to say: "Easter was originally a pagan festival honoring Eostre, a Teutonic (Germanic) goddess of light and spring. At the time of the vernal equinox (the day in the spring when the sun crosses the equator and day and night are of equal length), sacrifices were offered in her honor. As early as the eighth century the name was used to designate the annual Christian celebration of the resurrection of Chr-st" (p.317).
In The Two Babylon's, Alexander Hislop says that Easter is "Astarte, one of the titles of Beltis, the queen of heaven." Her name appears on the Assyrian monuments as Ishtar, which carries the same pronunciations as that of Easter in today’s language, (Section II, "Easter," p. 103).
Ishtar was a goddess of Babylon whose consort was Tammuz. She was known in various other nations as Asherah of the Canaanites whose consort was Baal; Isis of Egypt whose consort was Osiris; Aphrodite of Greece whose consort was Adonis, and Venus in Rome whose consort was Mars.
All of these goddesses were goddesses of fertility, fecundity, love, and sensual pleasure. Ishtar was served in her temples by prostitutes with immoral rites performed by bands of men and women.
Provocative Queen of Heaven
Easter or Ishtar is also known as the Queen of Heaven. What does Yahweh say concerning this Queen of Heaven?
"See you not what they do in cities of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem ? The children gather wood, and the fathers kindle the fire, and the women knead their dough, to make cakes to the queen of heaven, and to pour out drink offerings unto other elohim, that they may provoke me to anger. Do they provoke me to anger? Says Yahweh: do they not provoke themselves to the confusion of their own faces? Therefore, thus says Yahweh El, Behold, mine anger and my fury shall be poured out upon this place, upon man, and upon beast, and upon the trees of the field, and upon the fruit of the ground; and it shall burn, and shall not be quenched," Jeremiah 7:17-20.
Yahweh was so greatly angered by the people’s service to the Queen of Heaven that He overthrew them, carrying many of the survivors into Babylon .
Some of the survivors escaped to the land of Egypt where they continued in their practice of worshiping the "Queen of Heaven." He inspired the prophet Jeremiah to warn the people away from such practices, but the people adamantly refused, saying,
"As for the word that you have spoken unto us in the name of Yahweh, we will not hearken unto you. But we will certainly do whatsoever thing goes forth out of your own mouth, to burn incense unto the queen of heaven, and to pour out drink offerings unto her, as we have done, we, and our fathers, our kings, and our princes, in the cities of Judah, and in the streets of Jerusalem; for then had we plenty of food, and were well, and saw no evil. But since we ceased to burn incense to the queen of heaven, and to pour out drink offerings unto her, we have lacked all things, and have been consumed by the sword and by the famine. And when we burned incense to the queen of heaven, and poured out drink offerings unto her, did we make her cakes to worship her, and pour out drink offerings unto her, without our husbands? Then Jeremiah said unto all the people, to the men, and to the women, and to all the people who had given him that answer, saying, The incense that you burned in the cities of Judah, and in the streets of Jerusalem, you, and your fathers, your kings, and your princes, and the people of the land, did not Yahweh remember them, and came it not into his mind? So Yahweh could no longer bear, and because of the abominations which you have committed; therefore is your land a desolation, and an horror, and a curse, without an inhabitant, as at this day. Because you have burned incense, and because you have sinned against Yahweh, and have not obeyed the voice of Yahweh, nor walked in his law, nor in his statutes, nor in his testimonies, therefore, this evil happened unto you, as at his day," Jeremiah 44:16-23.
Jeremiah went on to prophesy that all those in Egypt who had burned incense to the Queen of Heaven would be destroyed along with the Egyptians when the Babylonians invaded that country. Only a small remnant of that group ever survived to return to the land of Israel .
The worship of the Queen of Heaven brought terrible disaster and destruction to those of Judaea and Egypt . This is a warning to us today.
The worship of Ishtar (Easter) and Tammuz is none other than sun, nature, and earth worship.
Tammuz, the Resurrected Son
Tammuz was a consort of the Queen of Heaven. Who was Tammuz? The Encyclopedia Britannica, Fourteenth Edition, has this to say about Tammuz: "A Sumerian, Babylonian and Assyrian god, who died and rose annually with dying and reviving vegetation, originally Dumuzi, ‘the son who rises, goes forth (from the nether world),’ but generally interpreted ‘faithful son.’
"…he represents the mystery of life and death, as seen in the withering vegetation of the hot Mesopotamian summer, and the rapid renewal of its life at the season of the spring rains… .
"There is a strange inconsistency in the hymns of the wailings concerning the relaxation of the mother goddess to her lover, Tammuz. In the early Sumerian texts she (Ishtar) is his sister, but soon the Semitic view that she is his mother prevails. The two theories appear inconsistently together throughout the entire history of the cult. He is, however, invariably the husband and lover of the otherwise consistently described virgin goddess of love, Innini (Ishtar), Gestinanna, Belitseri (queen of the field of the lower world), and the cult is particularly associated with the great city Erech [built by Nimrod, Gen. 10:10], home of the cult of Anu, the heaven god, and Innini (Ishtar).
"In astrology Tammuz was identified with Aries; in the magic rituals he is symbolized by a white kid, and he is also connected with the ram, which led to this astral identification. Under the title Sibzianna, ‘faithful shepherd of heaven,’ he was identified with Orion. During the period of the deified king worship in the Dungi period of Ur, and in the time of the Isin dynasty, the deified kings habitually identified themselves with Tammuz and were worshipped as husbands of the mother goddess….He was held to be a god of healing, bestower of health, and one who, like all other deities, had power over the demons.
"It is obvious that a cult which is based upon the death and resurrection of a propitiating god, and upon the love of a divine mother who wails for her son, has direct connection with the facts and the theological views based upon them, which gave birth to Christianity. But the form occult which apparently most directly affected the origins of Christianity is that in which Marduk of Babylon was identified with Tammuz. At the Nisan or new year festival at Babylon, Bel (Marduk) was said to have been imprisoned in the lower world, and the priestess weeps at his sepulchre. A malefactor was slain with Bel and they descend together to the land of darkness. Beltis, his wife, descends to hell to seek him, and Bel’s garments are given Ishtar (mother of Tammuz). Bel was laid in a sepulchre, from which he soon comes forth. This Marduk transformation of the national Tammuz cult is only another effort of the priesthood of the capital to enlarge the worship and importance of the local cult…That the cult had direct influence upon the ORIGINS OF CHRISTIANITY cannot be denied, and the Greek cult of Adonis owes its essential content to the Sumerian Tammuz." (vol. 21, pp. 776-777).
Yahweh Condemns Worship of Tammuz, Ishtar
Yahweh took the prophet Ezekiel in the land of Babylon where he had been taken captive, in vision to the land of Judah to witness what was going on in the temple among the priesthood and the men and women who were worshiping there. Ezekiel was shown the image of jealousy in 8:5 and he was then taken into a room where there were images of every form of creeping thing, while abominable creatures were depicted on the walls all around (vv. 6-10).
Seventy men of the ancients of Israel were burning incense to the images (v. 11). Then Yahweh said to Ezekiel, "Son of man, have you seen what the ancients of the house of Israel do in the dark, every man in the chambers of his imagery? For they say, Yahweh sees us not; Yahweh has forsaken the earth. He said also unto me, Turn yet again, and you shall see GREATER ABOMINATIONS that they do. Then he brought me to the door of the gate of Yahweh’s house, which was toward the north; and, behold, there sat women weeping for Tammuz," vv. 12-13.
The Israelite women were weeping for the Assyrian, Sumerian, Babylonian deity of vegetation which was a great abomination to Yahweh. Hislop identifies this period of weeping with the 40 days of the Lenten season, a time of mourning and fasting for the dead or dying god Tammuz (pp. 104-106). It was the forerunner of today’s 40-day Lenten season observed prior to Easter. Easter ends the period of fasting.
Tammuz is identified with Marduk by the Encyclopedia Britannica. The International Standard Bible Encyclopedia (Revised) says, "Marduk’s origin was unclear. His name appears to have a Sumerian etymology (amar-utu-k) and may mean ‘young calf of the sun.’ Some have suggested Marduk was originally a sun-god" (vol. 4, p. 87).
This all coincides to reveal that the worship of Ishtar and Tammuz is none other than sun, nature, and earth worship. Ishtar was the dawn goddess. Tammuz was the young calf of the sun.
They were especially worshiped around the spring equinox when the days not only became equally divided between day and night, but a type of annual day had begun, composed of spring and summer, when the earth would spring to life and bring forth its flora and fauna, producing life-giving food. It was the dawning of the annual day. The earth’s inhabitants would rejoice at the increasing strength of the sun and its ability to produce warmth, longer days, and food.
Egg-laying Rabbits?
The Easter egg hunt is a tradition in this country and around the world. Rabbits are also historically linked with Easter. There is even a traditional egg roll at the White House every year. What is this all about?
The rabbit or hare was only one of the animals associated with the pagan goddess of Ishtar in her capacity as Aphrodite. It was a symbol of productivity and fertility. At times she was portrayed as riding on a goat, which was symbolical of wantonness (Britannica, 14th Ed., vol. 2, pp. 97-98).
The egg also was a symbol of productivity and fertility, but there are more mystical meanings assigned to this item included in her worship. Hislop says,
"An egg of wondrous size is said to have fallen from heaven into the river Euphrates. The fishes rolled it to the bank where the doves having settled upon it, and hatched it, out came Venus, who afterwards was called the Syrian Goddess, that is Astarte. Hence the egg became one of the symbols of Astarte or Easter; and accordingly, in Cyprus, one of the chosen seats of the worship of Venus, or Astarte, the egg of wondrous size was represented on a grand scale" (p. 109).
Albert Pike adds even more information as to the mystical meanings of the egg in his book Morals and Dogma. He writes, "The relations of the human soul with the rest of nature were a chief object of the science of the mysteries. The man was there brought face to face with entire nature. The world, and the spherical envelope that surrounds it, were represented by a mystic egg, by the side of the sun-god whose mysteries were celebrated. The famous Orphic egg was consecrated to Bacchus in his mysteries. It was, says Plutarch, an image of the universe, which engenders everything, and contains everything in its bosom. ‘Consult’, says Macrobius, ‘the initiates of the mysteries of Bacchus, who honor with special veneration the sacred egg.’ The rounded and almost spherical form of its shell, he says, which encloses it on every side, and confines within itself the principles of life, is a symbolic image of the world; and the world is the universal principle of all things.
"The symbol was borrowed from the Egyptians, who also consecrated the egg to Osiris, gem of light, himself born, says Diodorus, from that famous egg. In Thebes, in upper Egypt, he was represented as emitting if from his mouth, and causing to issue from the first principle of heat and light, or the fire-god, Vulcan, or Phtha. We find this egg even in Japan, between the horns of the famous Mithraic bull, whose attributes Osiris, Apis, and Bacchus all borrowed.
"Orpheus, author of the Grecian mysteries, which he carried from Egypt to Greece, consecrated this symbol: and taught that matter, uncreated and informous, existed from all eternity, unorganized, as chaos; containing in itself the principles of all existences confused and intermingled, light with darkness, the dry with the humid, heat with cold; from which, it after long ages taking the shape of an immense egg, issued the purest matter, or first substance, and the residue was divided into the four elements, from which proceeded heaven and earth and all things else. This grand cosmogonic idea he taught in the mysteries; and thus the hierophant explained the meaning of the mystic egg, seen by the initiates in the sanctuary" (p. 400).
Albert Pike goes on to say that this mystic Orphic egg was held in all of the paganistic religions of the world: Greece, Egypt, Persia, Phoenicia, India, Babylon, Japan, etc.
According to the Encyclopedia Britannica, Fourteenth Edition, vol. 16, pp. 936-937, the name "Orpheus" is possibly linked with orphne, signifying darkness. Orpheus was represented as a seer, a founder of mystic rites, particularly Dionysiac, a magician, and later an astrologer.
The mystery of the egg, as we have seen from Albert Pike, is that the creation has inherent life within itself and developed without and apart from an everliving Creator. It is the beginning stages of the evolution theory, taught in our schools and colleges as fact today, rather than the abominable lie that it really is. It turns darkness into light in a perverted twist. Is it any wonder that the egg is associated with a pagan goddess of light, which is worshiped through spring sunrise services?
Pike also has this to say about the egg on page 496, "The serpent entwined round an egg, was a symbol common to the Indians, the Egyptians, and the Druids. It referred to the creation of the universe. A serpent with an egg in his mouth was a symbol of the universe containing within itself the gem of all things that the sun develops. The property possessed by the serpent, of casting its skin, and apparently renewing its youth, made it an emblem of eternity and immortality.
The egg is a symbol of serpent worship! It is a symbol of self creation apart from Yahweh. It is symbol of darkness and deceit rather than light and truth.
According to author Ralph Woodrow (Babylon, Mystery Religion) and others, both the egg and its hatching predate the resurrection of the Messiah by more than 2,000 years, eliminating any connection between eggs, Easter, and the resurrected Savior. Mankind has taken the Biblical significance of the occasion of the resurrection and added symbols and customs that originate from ancient peoples who serve pagan deities.
Note this candid statement from the Catholic Encyclopedia, 1909 Edition, "A great many pagan customs, celebrating the return of spring, gravitated to Easter. The egg is the emblem of the germinating life of early spring…The rabbit is a pagan symbol and has always been a symbol of fertility."
We also find this in Funk and Wagnalls Standard Dictionary of Folklore, Mythology and Legend: "Children roll pasch eggs in England. Everywhere they hunt the many-colored Easter eggs, brought by the Easter rabbit. This is not mere child’s play, but the vestige of a fertility rite, the eggs and the rabbit both symbolizing fertility. Furthermore, the rabbit was the escort of the Germanic Goddess Ostara who gave the name to the festival by way of the German Ostern" (1949 ed., vol. 1, p. 335).
Finally, the Dictionary of Christian Lore and Legend notes this about the Easter egg: "The Easter egg, pagan symbol of rebirth, was given a Christian meaning when it became the practice to bring eggs, forbidden during Lent, to be blessed in church on Easter Sunday," p. 89.
The rabbit or hare was only one of the animals associated with the pagan goddess Ishtar in capacity as Aphrodite.
Easter Sunrise Worship
We all know that sunrise services are associated with Easter. Easter was the name of the goddess of dawn, and therefore would naturally be worshiped at the dawning of the sun.
Albert Pike admits that the worship of the sun became the basis of all the religions of antiquity (p. 593). He also writes, "To conceive of G-d as an actuality, and not as a mere nonsubstance or name, which involved nonexistence, the Kabala, like the Egyptians, imagined him to be ‘a most occult light,’ AUR; not our material and visible light, but the substance out of which light flows, the fire, as relative to its heat and flame. Of this light or ether, the sun was to the Tsabeans the only manifestation or out-shining, and as such it was worshipped, and not as the type of dominion and power. G-d was the PhosNeoton, the light cognizable only by the intellect, the light-principle, the light-ether, from which souls emanate, and to which they return" (p. 740).
The Jewish people of Jeremiah’s and Ezekiel’s day had incorporated sun worship into the worship of Yahweh. We have already read of their worship of the Queen of Heaven and Tammuz, but Yahweh also showed Ezekiel other abominations that were going on.
After showing the women weeping for Tammuz, Yahweh said to Ezekiel, "Have you seen this, O son of man? Turn yet again, and you shall see greater abominations than these. And he brought me into the inner court of Yahweh’s house, and, behold, at the door of the temple of Yahweh, between the porch and the altar, were about five and twenty men, with their backs toward the temple of Yahweh, and their faces toward the east; and they worshiped the sun toward the east," Ezekiel 8:15-16.
As the sun rose in the east the Jewish leaders were turned to face the east, worshiping the rising sun. Judah was corrupting the true worship of Yahweh by introducing false, paganistic sun worship into their fellowship.
Yahweh’s temple was built facing eastward just as the tabernacle in the wilderness faced east. This positioning was for a purpose. As Albert Pike pointed out, all religions of antiquity worshiped the sun. The sun worshipers would begin their daily worship by facing the rising sun in the east. Yahweh’s temple and tabernacle faced the east so that a True Worshiper would turn away from the rising sun in the east to face the temple or the tabernacle in the west. This was a symbol of repentance. One had to turn away from sun worship to the True Worship of Yahweh.
Such is the status of those steeped in paganistic Easter sunrise worship today. One must turn, repent of such things, and shift to the True Worship of Yahweh.
"Rome, pursuing its usual policy, took measures to get the Christian and Pagan festivals amalgamated." The Two Babylon's
Hot Cross Buns
Alexander Hislop has this to say about the traditional hot cross buns associated with Easter: "The hot cross buns of Good Friday, and the dyed eggs of Pausch or Easter Sunday, figured in the Chaldean rites just as they do now. The ‘buns,’ known too by that identical name, were used in the worship of the queen of heaven, the goddess Easter, as early as the days of Cecrops, the founder of Athens—that is, 1500 years before the Christian era. ‘One species of sacred bread,’ says Bryant, ‘which used to be offered to the gods, was of great antiquity, and called Boun.’ Diogenes Laertius, speaking of this offering being made by Empedocles, describes the chief ingredients of which it was composed, saying, ‘He offered one of the sacred cakes called Boun, which was made of fine flour and honey,’ " (The Two Babylon's, pp. 107-108).
The "buns" described here are the "cakes" that earlier were denounced by the prophet Jeremiah. The ingredient of honey in the "cakes" was another violation of the commands of Yahweh for He had charged the Israelites to offer neither leaven nor honey in any offering made by fire to Him (Lev. 2:11).
Because these cakes were made to the Queen of Heaven, they were marked with a cross, symbol for woman and also signifying life in ancient Egyptian hieroglyphics.
Easter Hams
Sacrificial cakes were the offering of choice for those pagans who were too poor to offer a pig at the festival honoring the Queen of Heaven.
The pig was sacred to the goddess Demeter, the corn goddess, a deity of abundance and fertility—a counterpart of Astarte or Easter. We learn this from The Golden Bough, by James Frazer:
"The pig was sacred to her; in art she was represented carrying or accompanied by a pig; and the pig was regularly sacrificed in her mysteries…originally the pig was an embodiment of the corn-goddess herself," ch.3, p.44.
Pigs and cakes of dough were traditionally thrown into the chasms of two similar gods, Demeter and Proserpine, which appear to have been sacred caverns or vaults. The heathens believed that by eating what represented and embodied their god—in this case swine—they were literally partaking of their god (Frazer, p. 45).
What does the Almighty Yahweh think of honoring pagan gods with rites like these? He inspired the prophet Isaiah to write:
"A people that provokes me to anger continually to my face; that sacrifices in gardens, and burns incense upon altars of brick; Which remain among the graves, and lodge in the monuments, which eat swine’s flesh, and broth of abominable things in their vessels; Which say, Stand by thyself, come not near to me; for I am holier than thou. These are a smoke in my nose, a fire that burns all day." (Isa. 65:3-5)
Lent: On Loan from Ancient Paganism
The word "Lent" derives from the Old English lencten, meaning spring. Today it is the 40 weekdays from Ash Wednesday until Easter, reserved in churchianity for penitence and fasting.
The self-denial aspect of fasting during Lent has mostly been dropped in favor of "giving up" something—which usually means a bad habit like smoking that should be given up anyway.
The True Worshiper wonders, where did this custom of Lent originate? Was it with the early "church’?
Hislop’s The Two Babylon's explains, "The forty days’ abstinence of Lent was directly borrowed from the worshipers of the Babylonian goddess. Such a Lent of forty days, ‘in the spring of the year’ is still observed by the Yezidis or Pagan Devil-worshipers of Koordistan, who have inherited it from their early masters, the Babylonians….Such a lent of forty days was observed in Egypt…held expressly in commemoration of Adonis or Osiris, the great mediatorial god," pp. 104-5.
Osiris’s counterpart is the Greek Demeter and the Babylonian Tammuz—both deities of fertility and life. As The Two Babylon's observes, "Among the Pagans this Lent seems to have been an indispensable preliminary to the great annual festival in commemoration of the death and resurrection of Tammuz, which was celebrated by alternate weeping and rejoicing…To conciliate the Pagans to nominal Christianity, Rome, pursuing its usual policy, took measures to get the Christian and Pagan festivals amalgameted, and, by a complicated but skillful adjustment of the calendar, it was found no difficult matter, in general, to get Paganism and Christianity—now far sunk in idolatry—in this as in so many other things, to shake hands," p. 105.
How Good is Good Friday?
Held as the day of crucifixion by the Christian church, observance of Good Friday resulted from the development of the calendar in the fourth century, according to The New International Dictionary of the Christian Church, by J.D. Douglas. This reference notes, "Holy Communion was not usually celebrated on Good Friday. When weekday masses began in the sixth and seventh centuries, Friday was already a special fast day with Bible readings and prayers, and this tradition was left undisturbed," p. 422.
The problem is, in Matthew 12:40 Yahshua said just as Jonah was in the belly of the fish three days and three nights, so would He be in the tomb for three days and nights. The best one can do in counting from a Friday afternoon impalement to a Sunday morning resurrection is three days and two nights—providing one takes just a sliver of two daylight portions (late Friday afternoon and early Sunday morning).
But this does not hold with Scripture. Luke 24:1 shows that the women came to the tomb at deep dawn (Gr. Orthos bathus), while it was still dark, and the Savior had already risen, v. 3. In fact, He had already risen by sundown Saturday night, according to Matthew 28:1-6. "The end of the Sabbath" in verse 1 derives from the Greek opse, which means late in the day, at the back end. Not Sunday morning. (Write for the free booklet, He Arose…But When?)
For Him to rise by sundown Saturday, He had to have been impaled on Wednesday afternoon, not Friday.
Passover in the New Testament
Some might turn to Acts 12:4 to show that Easter is mentioned in the New Testament. Most Bibles with any good notation system at all, however, will clarify that the literal word should be "Passover" instead of Easter (the Greek means TO PASCHA, ie. the Passover).
Herod had decided to trouble some in the assembly and had James, John’s brother, slain with a sword. When he saw that this pleased the Jewish leaders, he also took Peter prisoner and was intent on treating him in the same manner once the Passover and days of Unleavened Bread were past.
This brings us to another important point. The New Testament assembly continued to observe the Sabbath and holy days just as the Jewish people did. Many historians and commentaries admit in their writings that such is the case.
Yahweh had commanded that Israel observe the Passover memorial (ex. 12, Lev. 23). (Write for our free booklet, Passover: A Memorial for All Time.)
Yahshua and his disciples observed the Passover. Yahshua was slain on the Passover, which is the anniversary of the deliverance of Israel out of Egypt. He instituted the bread and cup as symbols of His flesh and blood, which were sacrificed and poured out to Yahweh as our "Passover" (1Cor. 5:7). He is the Lamb of Elohim, slain without blemish (1Pet. 1:19;Rev.5:12).
Yahshua commanded us to observe the Passover in memorial of Him (Luke 22:19-20; 1Cor.11:23-25). Paul writes, "For as often as you eat this bread, and drink this cup, you do show the Sovereign’s death till he come," 1Corinthians 11:26. And now we begin to get to the heart of the matter. We are commanded to observe Yahshua’s death, the Passover memorial. Nowhere are we commanded to observe His resurrection as a great celebration.
Yes, we do confess that He was slain, buried and resurrected, but it is not a matter to be celebrated after the ways of the pagans.
The resurrection is not justification for devising our own celebration, nor is it grounds for Sunday worship. The way we remember the Savior’s resurrection is through our own baptism. Paul wrote in Romans 6:3-5:
"Know you not, that so many of us as were baptized into Yahshua the Messiah were baptized into his death? Therefore we are buried with him by baptism into death: that like as Messiah was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life. For if we have been planted together in the LIKENESS of his death, we shall be also in the LIKENESS of His resurrection."
Paul adds in Colossians 2:12: "Buried with him in baptism, wherein also you are risen with him through the faith of the operation of Elohim, who has raised him from the dead" (Col. 2:12).
As we come up out of the watery grave into a new life in the Savior, we portray His rising from the tomb and changing to spirit.
Sleuthing the Counterfeit
It is freely admitted by many modern-day Christians that Christianity has been shrewdly and cleverly paganized down through the ages. The pagans worshiped through a counterfeit religion that paralleled the true religion and beliefs but in a false way. Easter is one of those counterfeits.
A counterfeiter can counterfeit a $100 bill, which to the untrained person is not easily detectable. However, someone who handles money every day, like a bank or savings and loan employee who is instructed in what to look for, can easily spot the counterfeit. Integral to their training is a laborious examining of the real thing, which will make the forgery more obvious. Let’s train ourselves to detect the counterfeit by studying the real observances and other truths directly from Yahweh’s Word.
· The first fact that should alert us to the counterfeit is the name itself. "Easter" is the obvious name of a pagan goddess. It has nothing to do with Yahweh, Yahshua, the Passover, or Yahshua’s resurrection.
· The next fact that warns us to the counterfeit is the Easter eggs and rabbits tradition. Eggs and rabbits are fertility symbols. There is no command to use them in service to Yahweh anywhere in His Word.
· Another sign of a counterfeit is revealed in the worship of Tammuz. Just as two malefactors were slain with the true Messiah, one malefactor is slain with Tammuz. This, of course, is not common knowledge, but is obtainable with a little research once one realizes that Tammuz and Ishtar are cohorts.
· Evidence of a counterfeit is also discovered through the time that the Messiah was to be in the heart of the earth or in the tomb. Yahshua said that He would be "three days and three nights in the heart of the earth" (Matt. 12:38-40). The paganistic messiah of traditional Easter is in the grave only from Friday sunset to Sunday morning, a full day and two nights. That is only half of the actual time that Yahshua said would be THE proof that He was the true Messiah. Much of paganism is just like the counterfeit $100 bill, it is close, but still falls short of the actual requirements to be valid.
· Counterfeited also is the very name of the Messiah Himself. The pagan messiah is named Jesus or Hesus, while the true Messiah is named Yahshua. Even the name falls short of its true value and distinction.
· Finally, the best way to gauge a counterfeit is to compare it with the truth. No lie is of the truth (1John 2:21). If it can’t be proven Biblically, then it simply isn’t true or genuine.
The Quartodeciman Controversy
In the fourth century B.C.E. a controversy arose as to when the Passover should be observed. At first the quarrel was whether to observe the Passover on the 14th or 15th. Eusebius points out that the assemblies of Asia followed a more distant tradition of observing the Passover on the 14th of Abib. Those in favor of the fourteenth were called the Quartodecimen while those in favor of the fifteenth were called the Quintodecimen (Britannica, 14th Ed., Vol 7, p. 859).
Polycrates, a bishop of the Asian assemblies, maintained that the apostle Philip and his daughters, the apostle John and other great lights, had all observed Passover on the 14th. He himself came from a family line of bishops, being the eighth (Eusebius’ Ecclesiastical History, pp. 207-209).
Another scholar points out, "The churches of Asia Minor had preserved the most ancient of all methods of determining the date of Easter: they simply kept it at the same time as the Jewish passover, on the fourteenth day of the Jewish month Nisan whenever that might fall. When Easter was introduced at Rome (c. 160) the feast, as, being the eighth (at Alexandria, was celebrated on the Sunday following the Jewish passover…." The Early Church, by Henry Chadwick (p. 84).
The western assemblies, which were swinging to more Greco-Roman beliefs, reasoned that since their fast (Lent) ended on the day of the resurrection, that Easter Sunday should be the day of observance. When Victor, Bishop of Rome, saw that he could not prevail over Ploycrates, he promptly endeavored to cut off all assemblies of Asia (Middle East) and any others in the neighboring assemblies, proclaiming them to be heterodox (ibid).
Who was correct? We need only search Yahweh’s Word for the answer. When Yahshua appeared to the Apostle John giving him the Book of Revelation, Yahshua sent the message only to the assemblies in Asia, not to the west! The west cut off the Asian assemblies as being heretics for maintaining the 14th Passover, while Yahshua cut off the west for their apostasies!
The west cut off the Asian assemblies as being heretics for maintaining the 14th Passover, while Yahshua cut off the west for their apostasies!
Human Traditions Bring Yahweh’s Judgement
While Moses was yet on mount Sinai where he received those commandments on two tables of stone, the Israelites began to mix symbols of Egyptian religion with their worship of Yahweh. After collecting gold earrings from people, Aaron fashioned a golden calf. The people then proclaimed this calf to be "Your Elohim, O Israel Who led you up out of the land of Egypt."
Aaron went along with the multitude and proclaimed, There is a festival to Yahweh tomorrow. They began offering burnt offerings and sacrifices, Exodus 32: 1-6. Israel contended they were worshiping their Mighty One, Yahweh. They associated Yahweh with their golden calf. Yet, they were prancing around a pagan replica of a calf from Egypt (Apis?), claiming to worship Yahweh in a way He had never commanded.
The whole nation of Israel was in great peril for their presumptuous sins, Exodus 32:7-10. Only the intervention of Moses averted their punishment. Let us consider this account and have nothing more to do with Lent, Good Friday and Easter, none of which is based on the Bible.
The Jewish leaders of Yahshua’s day complained because His disciples were transgressing the traditions of their elders by eating with unwashed hands (Matt. 15:1-9; Mark 7:1-13). Yahshua countered by saying that they were rejecting and transgressing the commandments of Yahweh by their traditions.
An example that He used was the command to honor father and mother. However, they had circumvented the command to honor and care for mother and father by proclaiming possessions as corban, or dedicated to the temple. By virtue of their mere tradition they eluded the necessity of caring for mother and father.
Easter is also a tradition—a pagan one at that—originally consecrated to the worship of the goddess of Ishtar and her son Tammuz. Yahweh had commanded that the Passover be observed (Ex. 12; Lev. 23, etc.). Yahshua observed the Passover and commanded that the Passover memorial continue to be kept in remembrance of Him. Easter had circumvented the Passover resulting in the rejection and transgression of the commandments of Yahweh.
Truly, Paul writes that we are to observe Yahshua’s death until He comes again. Easter is a shrewd blending of paganism into what is supposed to be the true faith, producing disastrous results. It is a counterfeit of the true Passover, causing those steeped in such worship to fail, to fall short of the expected goals of inheritance of the kingdom and everlasting life.
Nowhere are we told to remember the resurrection of the Savior. The Bible knows nothing about a celebration over the Savior’s coming forth from the grave. Paul tells us that Passover is to recall the death of the Savior:
"For I have received of the Savior that which also I delivered unto you, That the Master Yahshua the [same] night in which He was betrayed took bread: And when He had given thanks, He brake [it], and said, Take eat: this is My body, which is broken for you: this do in remembrance of Me." (1Cor. 11:23-24)
Contact us for more information on observing the Passover, the proper memorial of our Savior’s death. Passover was kept by the Savior, the early believers, and will be kept in the Kingdom (Eze. 45:21), where Yahshua will observe it again with His people, Luke 22:15-18. If it will be kept in the future under Yahshua’s command and direction, should it not be kept today—under the New Covenant in Yahshua?
Passover: The Real Communion
If Easter is one of the great holy days of the church, why can’t we find it in the Bible? The Savior and His disciples always kept Passover. He told them that He would keep Passover again with them in the Kingdom. He became the New Testament Passover sacrifice.
Isn’t it time you looked into this most important observance—one that memorializes the Savior’s ultimate sacrifice for sin? After all, if we don’t recognize the Passover, how can we acknowledge His paying the death penalty for our sins?
Send for the FREE booklet, Passover, A Memorial for All Time
© 2007 Yahweh’s Assembly in Yahshua
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Wednesday, March 3, 2010
Wednesday, February 24, 2010
New Study on Evangelism
EVENGELISM 101
I have heard many excuses for not fulfilling the great commission…….
Or you may ask……. What is this great commission?????
(Mat 28:18) And יהושע came up and spoke to them, saying, “All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth.
(Mat 28:19) “Therefore, go and make taught ones of all the nations, immersing them in MY NAME.
(Mat 28:20) teaching them to guard all that I have commanded you. And see, I am with you always, until the end of the age.” Amĕn.
I can imagine that there are people getting nervous at this point and are worried about what they know, or…. how they talk or….. for that matter what to do ………
So with the scriptures as our training manual, lets take a look at the life of two men.
One is one of the greatest, if not the greatest apostle, prophet, evangelist, pastor, and teacher there ever was.
The other……well, you decide
(Eph 4:11) And he gave some, apostles; and some, prophets; and some, evangelists; and some, pastors and teachers;
(Eph 4:12) For the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of the Messiah:
Now this individual didn’t have any formal training,
absolutely no cemetery…or rather seminary training……
he was just a Sheppard…
in a desert………
in a land far away.
Turn with me if you would to the Book of Shemoth, or Exodus.
We will start in chapter 1 vs 6
Exo 1:6 And Yoseph died, and all his brothers, and all that generation.
Exo 1:7 And the children of Yisra’ĕl bore fruit and increased very much, multiplied and became very strong, and the land was filled with them.
Did you know that only about 75 people started in Mitsrayiam (Egypt) when Yoseph had all his family with him?
Exo 1:8 Then a new sovereign arose over Mitsrayim, who did not know Yosĕph,
Exo 1:9 and he said to his people, “See, the people of the children of Yisra’ĕl are more and stronger than we,
It looks like the Blessing of Abraham was working.
Here is the blessing given to Abraham
Gen 17:4 As for me, behold, my covenant is with thee, and thou shalt be a father of many nations.
And of coarse it was handed down generation to generation.
To continue:
Exo 1:10 come, let us act wisely towards them, lest they increase, and it shall be when fighting befalls us, that they shall join our enemies and fight against us, and shall go up out of the land.”
Exo 1:11 So they set slave-masters over them to afflict them with their burdens, and they built for Pharaoh supply cities, Pithom and Raʽamses.
Exo 1:12 But the more they afflicted them, the more they increased and grew, and they were in dread of the children of Yisra’ĕl.
Exo 1:13 And the Mitsrites made the children of Yisra’ĕl serve with harshness,
Even thou there were records of what Yoseph and his family did, They didn’t care……..
So here we are in Mitsrayim, or Egypt,
Yoseph had died, and a new pharaoh was in power,
The children of Yisreal were multiplying, and the Egyptians were becoming
worried.
They were being tough on the children of Yisrael .
It says “serve with hardness” in other words, they were being very cruel to them.
Exo 1:14 and they made their lives bitter with hard bondage, in mortar, and in brick, and in all kinds of work in the field, all their work which they made them do was with harshness.
Exo 1:15 Then the sovereign of Mitsrayim spoke to the Heḇrew midwives, of whom the name of one was Shiphrah and the name of the other Puʽah,
Exo 1:16 and he said, “When you deliver the Heḇrew women, and see them on the birthstools, if it is a son, then you shall put him to death, but if it is a daughter, then she shall live.”
Now we see that the pharaoh is worried about being out numbered by the Hebrews.
So he institutes a form of birth control.
Unfortunately for him the Hebrew midwives feared YAHWEH!
Exo 1:17 But the midwives feared Elohim, and did not do as the sovereign of Mitsrayim commanded them, and kept the male children alive.
Exo 1:18 So the sovereign of Mitsrayim called for the midwives and said to them, “Why have you done this, and kept the male children alive?”
Exo 1:19 And the midwives said to Pharaoh, “Because the Heḇrew women are not like the Mitsrite women. For they are lively and give birth before the midwives come to them.”
Exo 1:20 So Elohim was good to the midwives, and the people increased and became very numerous.
Exo 1:21 And it came to be, because the midwives feared Elohim, that He provided households for them.
Exo 1:22 And Pharaoh commanded all his people, saying, “Throw every son who is born into the river, and keep alive every daughter.”
Pharaoh was relentless.
He wanted the Hebrews to stop having children,……..But it wasn’t to be so.
In all of this one must see that YAHWEH had a plan….
About 400 years earlier a young boy was sold into slavery so that YAHWEH’S people could become a nation……..
Now,………… physically, that was fixen to happen.
Exo 2:1 And a man of the house of Lĕwi went and married a daughter of Lĕwi.
Exo 2:2 And the woman conceived and bore a son. And she saw that he was a lovely child, and she hid him three months.
Exo 2:3 And when she could hide him no longer, she took an ark of wicker for him, and coated it with tar and pitch, and put the child in it, and laid it in the reeds by the edge of the river.
Exo 2:4 And his sister stood at a distance, to know what would be done to him.
Exo 2:5 And the daughter of Pharaoh came down to wash herself at the river, and her young women were walking by the river-side. And when she saw the ark among the reeds, she sent her female servant to get it,
Exo 2:6 and opened it and saw the child, and see, the baby wept. So she had compassion on him, and said, “This is one of the children of the Heḇrews.”
Exo 2:7 And his sister said to Pharaoh’s daughter, “Shall I go and call a nurse for you from the Hebrew women to nurse the child for you?”
Exo 2:8 And Pharaoh’s daughter said to her, “Go.” And the girl went and called the child’s mother.
Exo 2:9 And Pharaoh’s daughter said to her, “Take this child away and nurse him for me, then I shall pay your wages.” So the woman took the child and nursed him.
Exo 2:10 And the child grew, and she brought him to Pharaoh’s daughter, and he became her son. And she called his name Mosheh, saying, “Because I have drawn him out of the water.”
Now what is beginning to happen will set the course for all of mankind, yes even you and me!
Exo 2:11 And in those days it came to be, when Mosheh was grown, that he went out to his brothers and looked at their burdens. And he saw a Mitsrite beating a Heḇrew, one of his brothers.
Exo 2:12 So he turned this way and that way, and when he saw no one, he smote the Mitsrite and hid him in the sand.
Exo 2:13 And he went out the second day and saw two Heḇrew men fighting, and he said to the one who did the wrong, “Why do you smite your neighbour?”
Exo 2:14 And he said, “Who made you a head and a judge over us? Do you intend to slay me as you slew the Mitsrite?” And Mosheh feared and said, “Truly, the matter is known!”
Exo 2:15 And Pharaoh heard of this matter, and he sought to kill Mosheh. But Mosheh fled from the face of Pharaoh and dwelt in the land of Miḏyan. And he sat down by a well.
From most accounts, people say Mosheh is about 40 years old.
Things have become topsey turvy at this point, so lets go over what has happened to date……
He was born,
Put in the river…
Found by an Egyptian princes,
Became a prince of Egypt.
Then killed an Egyptian over serer,
And got out of town to save his own life.
Wow, what an experience to this point….
Let’s continue and see what happens.
Exo 2:16 And the priest of Miḏyan had seven daughters. And they came and drew water, and they filled the troughs to water their father’s flock,
Exo 2:17 but the shepherds came and drove them away. Then Mosheh stood up and came to their rescue, and watered their flock.
Exo 2:18 And they came to Reʽuw’ĕl their father, and he said, “How is it that you have come so soon today?”
Exo 2:19 And they said, “A Mitsrite rescued us from the hand of the shepherds, and he also drew enough water for us and watered the flock.”
Exo 2:20 And he said to his daughters, “And where is he? Why did you leave the man? Call him and let him eat bread.”
Exo 2:21 And Mosheh agreed to dwell with the man, and he gave Tsipporah his daughter to Mosheh.
Exo 2:22 And she bore him a son, and he called his name Gĕreshom, for he said, “I have become a sojourner in a foreign land.”
Exo 2:23 And it came to be after these many days that the sovereign of Mitsrayim died. And the children of Yisra’ĕl groaned because of the slavery, and they cried out. And their cry came up to Elohim because of the slavery.
Exo 2:24 And Elohim heard their groaning, and Elohim remembered His covenant with Aḇraham, with Yitsḥaq, and with Yaʽaqoḇ.
Exo 2:25 And Elohim looked on the children of Yisra’ĕl, and Elohim knew!
Well the stage is being set for the biggest show since the Flood.
And we all know how that turned out……..
Even today, in our being, we must have it ingrained in us, that Yahweh will never leave us or forsake us.
As we see here, he remembered the covenant he had with Aḇraham, with Yitsḥaq, and with Yaʽaqoḇ.
Now YAHWEH uses man to work thru….
you, me, the next guy……
HE is looking for those whom love HIM and will trust him.
There are many, many verses in the Tanach alone that talks about trust. But to me this one sums it all up.
Pro 3:5 Trust in יהוה with all your heart, And lean not on your own understanding;
Pro 3:6 Know Him in all your ways, And He makes all your paths straight.
How can we ever doubt when we have a promise like that!
When we go out to evangelize……. (our way of life) go with this scripture in mind.
Fall back on it and know that YAHWEH is with you.
Now lets get back to our story.
Exo 3:1 And Mosheh was shepherding the flock of Yithro his father-in-law, the priest of Miḏyan. And he led the flock to the back of the wilderness, and came to Ḥorĕḇ, the mountain of Elohim.
Exo 3:2 And the Messenger of יהוה appeared to him in a flame of fire from the midst of a bush. And he looked and saw the bush burning with fire, but the bush was not consumed.
Exo 3:3 And Mosheh said, “Let me turn aside now, and see this great sight, why the bush does not burn.”
This would be an amazing sight know matter where you were.
Put yourself there,………what would be going thru your mind!!!!
Exo 3:4 And יהוה saw that he turned aside to see, and Elohim called to him from the midst of the bush and said, “Mosheh! Mosheh!” And he said, “Here I am.”
Exo 3:5 And He said, “Do not come near here. Take your sandals off your feet, for the place on which you are standing is set-apart ground.”
Exo 3:6 And He said, “I am the Elohim of your father, the Elohim of Aḇraham, the Elohim of Yitsḥaq, and the Elohim of Yaʽaqoḇ.” And Mosheh hid his face, for he was afraid to look at Elohim.
Exo 3:7 And יהוה said, “I have indeed seen the oppression of My people who are in Mitsrayim, and have heard their cry because of their slave-drivers, for I know their sorrows.
Exo 3:8 “And I have come down to deliver them from the hand of the Mitsrites, and to bring them up from that land to a good and spacious land, to a land flowing with milk and honey, to the place of the Kenaʽanites and the Ḥittites and the Amorites and the Perizzites and the Ḥiwwites and the Yeḇusites.
Exo 3:9 “And now, see, the cry of the children of Yisra’ĕl has come to Me, , and I have also seen the oppression with which the Mitsrites oppress them.
OK………,
Mosheh sees this burning bush and goes to investigate.
The bush is burning, but it isn’t being consumed………
As he nears this burning bush, he hears a voice to remove his shoes……
I would love to know what is going thru his mind at this point. I guess I would have to ask you…….what would you be thinking??????
Ask yourself this. What readied him for this……
How many years in intensive scripture classes did he attend……..
How long had he been in cemetery er….. seminary……
You know the answer to all these questions…….. a big fat 0, nadda, ……
Just a plain ole’ guy like you and me.
So what did YAHWEH see in him????
And what would ready him for what was ahead???
Good question, I think……….
Exo 3:10 “And now, come, I am sending you to Pharaoh, to bring My people, the children of Yisra’ĕl, out of Mitsrayim.”
Exo 3:11 And Mosheh said to Elohim, “Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh, and that I should bring the children of Yisra’ĕl out of Mitsrayim?”
Exo 3:12 And He said, “Because I am with you. And this is to you the sign that I have sent you: When you have brought the people out of Mitsrayim, you are to serve Elohim on this mountain.”
Exo 3:13 And Mosheh said to Elohim, “See, when I come to the children of Yisra’ĕl and say to them, ‘The Elohim of your fathers has sent me to you,’ and they say to me, ‘What is His Name?’ what shall I say to them?”
Exo 3:14 And Elohim said to Mosheh, “I am that which I am.”1 And He said, “Thus you shall say to the children of Yisra’ĕl, ‘I am has sent me to you.’ ”
Exo 3:15 And Elohim said further to Mosheh, “Thus you are to say to the children of Yisra’ĕl, ‘יהוה Elohim of your fathers, the Elohim of Aḇraham, the Elohim of Yitsḥaq, and the Elohim of Yaʽaqoḇ, has sent me to you. This is My Name forever, and this is My remembrance to all generations.’
Exo 3:16 “Go, and you shall gather the elders of Yisra’ĕl together, and say to them, ‘יהוה Elohim of your fathers, the Elohim of Aḇraham, of Yitsḥaq, and of Yaʽaqoḇ, appeared to me, saying, “I have indeed visited you and seen what is done to you in Mitsrayim;
Exo 3:17 and I say: I am bringing you up out of the affliction of Mitsrayim to the land of the Kenaʽanite and the Ḥittite and the Amorite and the Perizzite and the Ḥiwwite and the Yeḇusite, to a land flowing with milk and honey.” ’
Exo 3:18 “And they shall listen to your voice. And you shall come, you and the elders of Yisra’ĕl, to the sovereign of Mitsrayim, and you shall say to him, ‘יהוה Elohim of the Heḇrews has met with us. And now, please, let us go three days’ journey into the wilderness to slaughter to יהוה our Elohim.’
Without catching HIS breath, YAHWEH continues.
`Exo 3:19 “But I know that the sovereign of Mitsrayim is not going to let `you go, not even by a strong hand.
Exo 3:20 “And I shall stretch out My hand and smite Mitsrayim with all My wonders which I shall do in its midst. And after that he shall let you go.
Exo 3:21 “And I shall give this people favour in the eyes of the Mitsrites. And it shall be, that when you go, you shall not go empty-handed.
Exo 3:22 “But every woman shall ask from her neighbour and from the stranger in her house, objects of silver, and objects of gold, and garments. And you shall put them on your sons and on your daughters, and shall plunder the Mitsrites.”
Now YAHWEH has just laid out the whole plan….
from start to finish……
What was going to happen, and how it would happen….
Makes you think that HE just might be in control!
And if you do, what makes you think that HE wouldn’t be in control now??????
Well, Mosheh didn’t quite understand this at all……
First of all, why did you pick me?
And,….. had many reasons why not to pick him…..
Exo 4:1 And Mosheh answered and said, “And if they do not believe me, nor listen to my voice, and say, ‘יהוה has not appeared to you?’ ”
Exo 4:2 And יהוה said to him, “What is that in your hand?” And he said, “A rod.”
Exo 4:3 And He said, “Throw it on the ground.” So he threw it on the ground, and it became a serpent. And Mosheh fled from it.
Exo 4:4 And יהוה said to Mosheh, “Reach out your hand and take it by the tail” – so he reached out his hand and caught it, and it became a rod in his hand –
Exo 4:5 so that they believe that יהוה Elohim of their fathers, the Elohim of Aḇraham, the Elohim of Yitsḥaq, and the Elohim of Yaʽaqoḇ, has appeared to you.”
Exo 4:6 And יהוה said to him again, “Now put your hand in your bosom.” And he put his hand in his bosom, and when he took it out, and see, his hand was leprous, like snow.
Exo 4:7 And He said, “Put your hand in your bosom again.” So he put his hand in his bosom again, and drew it out of his bosom, and see, it was restored like his other flesh.
Exo 4:8 “And it shall be, if they do not believe you, nor listen to the voice of the first sign, they shall believe the voice of the latter sign.
Exo 4:9 “And it shall be, if they do not believe even these two signs, or listen to your voice, that you shall take water from the river and pour it on the dry land. And the water which you take from the river shall become blood on the dry land.”
Exo 4:10 And Mosheh said to יהוה, “O יהוה, I am not a man of words, neither before nor since You have spoken to Your servant, for I am slow of speech and slow of tongue.”
Exo 4:11 And יהוה said to him, “Who has made man’s mouth? Or who makes dumb, or deaf, or seeing, or blind? Is it not I, יהוה?
Exo 4:12 “And now, go, and I shall be with your mouth and teach you what to say.”
Exo 4:13 But he said, “O יהוה, please send by the hand of him whom You would send.”
Exo 4:14 And the displeasure of יהוה burned against Mosheh, and He said, “Is not Aharon the Lĕwite your brother? I know that he speaks well. And see, he is also coming out to meet you. And when he sees you, he shall be glad in his heart.
Exo 4:15 “And you shall speak to him and put the words in his mouth. And I am with your mouth and with his mouth, and I shall teach you what to do.
Exo 4:16 “And he shall speak for you to the people. And it shall be that he shall be a mouth for you, and you shall be an elohim1 for him.
Exo 4:17 “And take this rod in your hand, with which you shall do the signs.”
I think that at this point Mosheh was convinced he was to go……
He may not have actually thought he was the man for the job, but at this point he was going.
I can’t see where Mosheh has show a lot of confidence in what was going on, or what was to happen.
Yet he has resigned himself to the fact that he is going to go.
Let’s continue.
Exo 4:18 Then Mosheh went and returned to Yithro his father-in-law, and
said to him, “Please let me go and return to my brothers who are in
Mitsrayim to see whether they are still alive.” And Yithro said to Mosheh,
“Go in peace.”
Exo 4:19 And יהוה said to Mosheh in Miḏyan, “Go, return to Mitsrayim, for all
the men are dead who sought your life.”
Exo 4:20 So Mosheh took his wife and his sons and set them on a donkey,
and he returned to the land of Mitsrayim. And Mosheh took the rod of
Elohim in his hand.
Exo 4:21 And יהוה said to Mosheh, “As you go back to Mitsrayim, see that
you do all those wonders before Pharaoh which I have put in your hand.
But I am going to harden his heart, so that he does not let the people go.
Excuse me………you are going to what…….harden his heart!
Exo 4:22 “And you shall say to Pharaoh, ‘Thus said יהוה, “Yisra’ĕl is My son,
My first-born,
Exo 4:23 so I say to you, let My son go to serve Me. But if you refuse to let
him go, see, I am killing your son, your first-born.
Exo 4:24 And it came to be on the way, in the lodging place, that יהוה met
him and sought to kill him.
Exo 4:25 And Tsipporah took a sharp stone and cut off the foreskin of her
son and threw it at Mosheh’s feet, and said, “You are indeed a bridegroom
of blood to me!”
Exo 4:26 So He let him go. Then she said, “You are a bridegroom of blood,”
because of the circumcision.
Exo 4:27 And יהוה said to Aharon, “Go to meet Mosheh in the wilderness.”
And he went and met him on the mountain of Elohim, and kissed him.
Exo 4:28 Mosheh then told Aharon all the words of יהוה who had sent him,
and all the signs which He had commanded him.
Exo 4:29 And Mosheh went with Aharon and gathered together all the
elders of the children of Yisra’ĕl.
Exo 4:30 And Aharon spoke all the words which יהוה had spoken to Mosheh.
Then he did the signs before the eyes of the people.
Exo 4:31 And the people believed. And they heard that יהוה had visited the
children of Yisra’ĕl and that He had looked on their affliction, and they
bowed their heads and did obeisance.
Well, I encourage you to read “the rest of the story……”
all the way to the “Promice Land”.
In that, you will see all the heart ache, and the jubilation
that Mosheh must have felt.
You can see, that YAHWEH took an unsuspecting shepherd,
He molded and grumed him to do what he was called to do…..
Remember YAHWEH said that HE would be his mouth…….
All he needed to do was to do what he was told to do……..
And as long as he did that, he was a success.
Remember, YAHWEH also told him that pharaoh would harden his heart,
And they would go thru many plagues till he would be broken enough to let the people of Yisra’el go.
You need to remember that YAHWEH told him HE would not forsake him…….
Now, to compare that to another Evangelist/prophet. I am sure you have heard all the stories, and red the book of……”Yonah or (Jonah)”………….
Now Yonah was an interesting fellow.
Lets jump in and see just what kind of guy he was!
Jon 1:1 And the word of יהוה came to Yonah son of Amittai, saying,
Jon 1:2 “Arise, go to Ninewĕh, the great city, and cry out against it, for
their evils have come up before Me.”
Jon 1:3 But Yonah rose up to flee to Tarshish from the presence of יהוה, and
went down to Yapho, and found a ship going to Tarshish. And he paid the
fare, and went down into it, to go with them to Tarshish from the
presence of יהוה.
Wooooah!!!! Can you believe that!
This guy is a prophet of YAHWEH.
YAHWEH speaks to him directly, away he goes….
BUT IN THE WRONG DIRECTION!!!!!
Does that sound familiar?
Has this ever happened to us?????????
Well anyway, back to the story…….
Jon 1:4 And יהוה sent out a great wind on the sea, and there was a great storm on the sea, so that the ship was thought to be broken up.
Jon 1:5 And the seamen were afraid, and each one cried out to his mighty one, and threw the cargo which was in the ship into the sea, to lighten the load. But Yonah had gone down into the lowest parts of the ship, and he lay down, and was fast asleep.
Jon 1:6 And the captain came to him, and said to him, “What do you mean, sleeper? Arise, cry out to your Elohim, if so be that Elohim shall think about us, so that we do not perish.”
Jon 1:7 And they said to each other, “Come, and let us cast lots, so that we know for whose sake this evil has come upon us.” So they cast lots, and the lot fell on Yonah.
Now Yonah is in real trouble. Not only does “he” know that he is running,……
Now everybody in the ship knows,…..what is he to do?
Jon 1:8 So they said to him, “Please explain to us! For whose sake is this evil upon us? What is your occupation? And where do you come from? What is your country? And from what people are you?”
Jon 1:9 And he said to them, “I am a Heḇrew. And I am fearing יהוה, the Elohim of the heavens, who made the sea and the dry land.”
Jon 1:10 And the men were exceedingly afraid, and said to him, “Why have you done this?” For the men knew that he fled from the presence of יהוה, for he had informed them.
Jon 1:11 And they said to him, “What are we to do to you to make the sea calm for us?” For the sea was growing more stormy.
Jon 1:12 And he said to them, “Take me and throw me into the sea, so that the sea becomes calm for you. For I know that this great storm is because of me.”
Jon 1:13 However, the men rowed hard to bring the ship to land, but were unable, for the sea continued to grow more stormy against them.
Jon 1:14 And they cried out to יהוה and said, “We pray, O יהוה, please, let us not perish for this man’s life, and do not lay on us innocent blood. For You, O יהוה, have done as it pleased You.”
Jon 1:15 Then they took Yonah and threw him into the sea, and the sea stopped raging.
Jon 1:16 And the men feared יהוה exceedingly, and brought an offering to יהוה and made vows.
Oh my gosh………. If this isn’t a fine kettle….LOL…. of fish to be in……..
Now what is Yonah going to do?
Then to add insult to injury, check out what YAHWEH does.
Jon 1:17 But יהוה appointed a great fish to swallow Yonah. And Yonah was in the stomach of the fish three days and three nights.
I have been in some pretty tough spots in my life, but nothing compares to this……
can you imagine…….
I mean how could you even……..well…….breath in there?
Yet,………. we serve a compassionate abba.
And no mater what we have done,……
or where we are,…………
HE does hear our prayer.
Jon 2:1 And Yonah prayed to יהוה his Elohim from the stomach of the fish.
Jon 2:2 And he said, “I called to יהוה because of my distress, and He answered me. From the stomach of the grave I cried, and You heard my voice.
Jon 2:3 “For You threw me into the deep, into the heart of the seas, and the floods surrounded me. All Your breakers and Your waves passed over me.
Jon 2:4 “So I said, ‘I have been driven away from Your eyes. Would I ever look again toward Your set-apart Hĕḵal?’
Jon 2:5 “Waters encompassed me, unto life, the deep closed around me, weeds were wrapped around my head.
Jon 2:6 “I went down to the base of the mountains, the earth with its bars were behind me forever. But You brought up my life from the pit, O יהוה, my Elohim.
Jon 2:7 “When my life fainted within me, I remembered יהוה. And my prayer went up to You, into Your set-apart Hĕḵal.
Jon 2:8 “Those observing false worthlessnesses forsake their own kindness.
Jon 2:9 “But I offer to You with the voice of thanksgiving, I pay what I have vowed. Deliverance is of יהוה.”
Jon 2:10 Then יהוה spoke to the fish, and it vomited Yonah on the dry land.
Hummmm………
Let”s recap this……
YAHWEH calls me…..
I run from YAHWEH……..
A bunch of guys want me dead, and throw me overboard in to a raging sea……
Then…….
A giant fish swallows me,……..
AND I’M ALIVE, IN HIS BELLY!!!!
So after 3 day’s, I pray to Abba YAHWEH…..
HE hears my cry, and this giant fish vomits me up……
On dry land!!!………
Hollywood couldn’t write a script this good……..
Now as if nothing had happened, Yonah has YAHWEH speak to him a second time………..
Jon 3:1 And the word of יהוה came to Yonah the second time, saying,
Jon 3:2 “Arise, go to Ninewĕh, that great city, and proclaim to it the message that I am speaking to you.”
Jon 3:3 And Yonah arose and went to Ninewĕh, according to the word of יהוה. Now Ninewĕh was a great city before Elohim, of three day’s journey.
Jon 3:4 And Yonah began to go in to the city on the first day’s walk. And he cried out and said, “Yet forty days, and Ninewĕh shall be overthrown!”
Jon 3:5 And the men of Ninewĕh believed in Elohim, and proclaimed a fast, and put on sackcloth, from the greatest to the least of them.
Jon 3:6 And the word reached the sovereign of Ninewĕh, so he arose from his throne and took off his robe, and covered himself with sackcloth and sat in ashes.
Jon 3:7 And he proclaimed and said throughout Ninewĕh, “By decree of the sovereign and his nobles: No man or beast, herd or flock, shall taste whatever – let them not eat, let them not even drink water.
Jon 3:8 “But let man and beast be covered with sackcloth, and call mightily to Elohim. And let each one turn from his evil way and from the violence that is in his hands.
Jon 3:9 “Who knows whether Elohim does turn and relent, and shall turn away from the heat of His displeasure, so that we do not perish?”
Jon 3:10 And Elohim saw their works, that they turned from their evil way. And Elohim relented from the evil which He had said He would do to them, and He did not do it.
Can you believe this……
Yonah gets up…….walks THRU Nineweh for 3 days……..
Preaching repentance in the streets of Nineweh,
Everybody…..I mean everybody including the King turns from there wicked ways,
And then the king makes all the people and the animals put on sackcloth and ashes.
YAHWEH sees there heart, and forgives them……….WOW! that must have been some preaching……..
Those were some inspiring words.
We see that YAHWEH forgave them and HE didn’t destroy them.
So what about poor Yonah……
What happened to him after the city repented and YAHWEH spared them.
Jon 4:1 But it greatly displeased Yonah, and he was grieved.
Jon 4:2 And he prayed to יהוה, and he said, “Please, יהוה, was this not what I said while I was in my own land? This is why I went ahead and fled to Tarshish. For I know that You are an Ěl showing favour, and compassionate, patient and of great kindness, and relenting from doing evil.
Jon 4:3 “And now, O יהוה, please take my life from me, for it is better for me to die than to live!”
Jon 4:4 And יהוה said, “Are you right to be displeased?”
Jon 4:5 Then Yonah went out of the city and sat on the east side of the city, and made himself a shelter there, and sat under it in the shade, to see what would become of the city.
Jon 4:6 And יהוה Elohim appointed a plant and made it come up over Yonah, to be a shade for his head to deliver him from his discomfort. And Yonah greatly rejoiced over the plant.
Jon 4:7 But as morning dawned the next day Elohim appointed a worm which attacked the plant so that it withered.
Jon 4:8 And it came to be when the sun came up, that Elohim appointed a scorching east wind, and the sun smote on Yonah’s head, so that he grew faint, and asked for his life to die, and said, “It is better for me to die than to live.”
Jon 4:9 And Elohim said to Yonah, “Have you rightly become displeased over the plant?” And he said, “I have rightly become displeased, even to death!”
Jon 4:10 And יהוה said, “You felt sorry for the plant for which you have not laboured, nor made it grow, which came up in a night and perished in a night.
Jon 4:11 “And should I not pardon Ninewĕh, that great city, in which are more than one hundred and twenty thousand beings who have not known their right hand from their left, and much cattle?”
Pretty sad isn’t it……….
I told this story for a reason……..
We can never discern the motive of YAHWEH.
You see, Yonah was mad due to the repentance of Ninewwh………..
he wanted them to be destroyed………..it doesn’t say why, he just had distain for them.
Yet YAHWEH loved them…….
YAHWEH even had mercy on Yonah, and let a large plant grow over him for shade.
Yonah had more compassion for the plant than for human life………..
Then the story ends………we never hear about Yonah again………not a word……..
What is the moral of this story??????
YAHWEH IS IN CHARGE!!!!!
My friends, once we become a follower, we are not our own master.
HIS priorities have now become our priorities.
We have no right to choose our own ways or our own priorities.
We beckon to HIS callings.
We no longer serve ourselves; we become the servant of all.
Two different men, The same calling…….the same ending………….
Mosheh, after leading YAHWEH’S people for 40 years……
never entered the Promiced Land because of disobedience to YAHWEH’S word and anger toward HIS people,
Yonah, the same thing…….
Disobedience to YAHWEH’S word and anger towards HIS people.
Yonah was never to be heard of again…….put on the shelf…….taken out of the game………………
The stakes in Evangelism are high.
We are dealing with life and death.
We don’t give life, and we surely don’t take it away………..
But there is no higher calling than to lead someone to repentance.
We are just a spokesman…….
As YAHWEH said to Mosheh………
Exo 4:12 “And now, go, and I shall be with your mouth and teach you what to say.”
I leave you where we started……The words of Messiah YAHUSHUA
(Mat 28:19) “Therefore, go and make taught ones of all the nations, immersing them in MY NAME
(Mat 28:20) teaching them to guard all that I have commanded you. And see, I am with you always, until the end of the age.”
Amĕn.
I have heard many excuses for not fulfilling the great commission…….
Or you may ask……. What is this great commission?????
(Mat 28:18) And יהושע came up and spoke to them, saying, “All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth.
(Mat 28:19) “Therefore, go and make taught ones of all the nations, immersing them in MY NAME.
(Mat 28:20) teaching them to guard all that I have commanded you. And see, I am with you always, until the end of the age.” Amĕn.
I can imagine that there are people getting nervous at this point and are worried about what they know, or…. how they talk or….. for that matter what to do ………
So with the scriptures as our training manual, lets take a look at the life of two men.
One is one of the greatest, if not the greatest apostle, prophet, evangelist, pastor, and teacher there ever was.
The other……well, you decide
(Eph 4:11) And he gave some, apostles; and some, prophets; and some, evangelists; and some, pastors and teachers;
(Eph 4:12) For the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of the Messiah:
Now this individual didn’t have any formal training,
absolutely no cemetery…or rather seminary training……
he was just a Sheppard…
in a desert………
in a land far away.
Turn with me if you would to the Book of Shemoth, or Exodus.
We will start in chapter 1 vs 6
Exo 1:6 And Yoseph died, and all his brothers, and all that generation.
Exo 1:7 And the children of Yisra’ĕl bore fruit and increased very much, multiplied and became very strong, and the land was filled with them.
Did you know that only about 75 people started in Mitsrayiam (Egypt) when Yoseph had all his family with him?
Exo 1:8 Then a new sovereign arose over Mitsrayim, who did not know Yosĕph,
Exo 1:9 and he said to his people, “See, the people of the children of Yisra’ĕl are more and stronger than we,
It looks like the Blessing of Abraham was working.
Here is the blessing given to Abraham
Gen 17:4 As for me, behold, my covenant is with thee, and thou shalt be a father of many nations.
And of coarse it was handed down generation to generation.
To continue:
Exo 1:10 come, let us act wisely towards them, lest they increase, and it shall be when fighting befalls us, that they shall join our enemies and fight against us, and shall go up out of the land.”
Exo 1:11 So they set slave-masters over them to afflict them with their burdens, and they built for Pharaoh supply cities, Pithom and Raʽamses.
Exo 1:12 But the more they afflicted them, the more they increased and grew, and they were in dread of the children of Yisra’ĕl.
Exo 1:13 And the Mitsrites made the children of Yisra’ĕl serve with harshness,
Even thou there were records of what Yoseph and his family did, They didn’t care……..
So here we are in Mitsrayim, or Egypt,
Yoseph had died, and a new pharaoh was in power,
The children of Yisreal were multiplying, and the Egyptians were becoming
worried.
They were being tough on the children of Yisrael .
It says “serve with hardness” in other words, they were being very cruel to them.
Exo 1:14 and they made their lives bitter with hard bondage, in mortar, and in brick, and in all kinds of work in the field, all their work which they made them do was with harshness.
Exo 1:15 Then the sovereign of Mitsrayim spoke to the Heḇrew midwives, of whom the name of one was Shiphrah and the name of the other Puʽah,
Exo 1:16 and he said, “When you deliver the Heḇrew women, and see them on the birthstools, if it is a son, then you shall put him to death, but if it is a daughter, then she shall live.”
Now we see that the pharaoh is worried about being out numbered by the Hebrews.
So he institutes a form of birth control.
Unfortunately for him the Hebrew midwives feared YAHWEH!
Exo 1:17 But the midwives feared Elohim, and did not do as the sovereign of Mitsrayim commanded them, and kept the male children alive.
Exo 1:18 So the sovereign of Mitsrayim called for the midwives and said to them, “Why have you done this, and kept the male children alive?”
Exo 1:19 And the midwives said to Pharaoh, “Because the Heḇrew women are not like the Mitsrite women. For they are lively and give birth before the midwives come to them.”
Exo 1:20 So Elohim was good to the midwives, and the people increased and became very numerous.
Exo 1:21 And it came to be, because the midwives feared Elohim, that He provided households for them.
Exo 1:22 And Pharaoh commanded all his people, saying, “Throw every son who is born into the river, and keep alive every daughter.”
Pharaoh was relentless.
He wanted the Hebrews to stop having children,……..But it wasn’t to be so.
In all of this one must see that YAHWEH had a plan….
About 400 years earlier a young boy was sold into slavery so that YAHWEH’S people could become a nation……..
Now,………… physically, that was fixen to happen.
Exo 2:1 And a man of the house of Lĕwi went and married a daughter of Lĕwi.
Exo 2:2 And the woman conceived and bore a son. And she saw that he was a lovely child, and she hid him three months.
Exo 2:3 And when she could hide him no longer, she took an ark of wicker for him, and coated it with tar and pitch, and put the child in it, and laid it in the reeds by the edge of the river.
Exo 2:4 And his sister stood at a distance, to know what would be done to him.
Exo 2:5 And the daughter of Pharaoh came down to wash herself at the river, and her young women were walking by the river-side. And when she saw the ark among the reeds, she sent her female servant to get it,
Exo 2:6 and opened it and saw the child, and see, the baby wept. So she had compassion on him, and said, “This is one of the children of the Heḇrews.”
Exo 2:7 And his sister said to Pharaoh’s daughter, “Shall I go and call a nurse for you from the Hebrew women to nurse the child for you?”
Exo 2:8 And Pharaoh’s daughter said to her, “Go.” And the girl went and called the child’s mother.
Exo 2:9 And Pharaoh’s daughter said to her, “Take this child away and nurse him for me, then I shall pay your wages.” So the woman took the child and nursed him.
Exo 2:10 And the child grew, and she brought him to Pharaoh’s daughter, and he became her son. And she called his name Mosheh, saying, “Because I have drawn him out of the water.”
Now what is beginning to happen will set the course for all of mankind, yes even you and me!
Exo 2:11 And in those days it came to be, when Mosheh was grown, that he went out to his brothers and looked at their burdens. And he saw a Mitsrite beating a Heḇrew, one of his brothers.
Exo 2:12 So he turned this way and that way, and when he saw no one, he smote the Mitsrite and hid him in the sand.
Exo 2:13 And he went out the second day and saw two Heḇrew men fighting, and he said to the one who did the wrong, “Why do you smite your neighbour?”
Exo 2:14 And he said, “Who made you a head and a judge over us? Do you intend to slay me as you slew the Mitsrite?” And Mosheh feared and said, “Truly, the matter is known!”
Exo 2:15 And Pharaoh heard of this matter, and he sought to kill Mosheh. But Mosheh fled from the face of Pharaoh and dwelt in the land of Miḏyan. And he sat down by a well.
From most accounts, people say Mosheh is about 40 years old.
Things have become topsey turvy at this point, so lets go over what has happened to date……
He was born,
Put in the river…
Found by an Egyptian princes,
Became a prince of Egypt.
Then killed an Egyptian over serer,
And got out of town to save his own life.
Wow, what an experience to this point….
Let’s continue and see what happens.
Exo 2:16 And the priest of Miḏyan had seven daughters. And they came and drew water, and they filled the troughs to water their father’s flock,
Exo 2:17 but the shepherds came and drove them away. Then Mosheh stood up and came to their rescue, and watered their flock.
Exo 2:18 And they came to Reʽuw’ĕl their father, and he said, “How is it that you have come so soon today?”
Exo 2:19 And they said, “A Mitsrite rescued us from the hand of the shepherds, and he also drew enough water for us and watered the flock.”
Exo 2:20 And he said to his daughters, “And where is he? Why did you leave the man? Call him and let him eat bread.”
Exo 2:21 And Mosheh agreed to dwell with the man, and he gave Tsipporah his daughter to Mosheh.
Exo 2:22 And she bore him a son, and he called his name Gĕreshom, for he said, “I have become a sojourner in a foreign land.”
Exo 2:23 And it came to be after these many days that the sovereign of Mitsrayim died. And the children of Yisra’ĕl groaned because of the slavery, and they cried out. And their cry came up to Elohim because of the slavery.
Exo 2:24 And Elohim heard their groaning, and Elohim remembered His covenant with Aḇraham, with Yitsḥaq, and with Yaʽaqoḇ.
Exo 2:25 And Elohim looked on the children of Yisra’ĕl, and Elohim knew!
Well the stage is being set for the biggest show since the Flood.
And we all know how that turned out……..
Even today, in our being, we must have it ingrained in us, that Yahweh will never leave us or forsake us.
As we see here, he remembered the covenant he had with Aḇraham, with Yitsḥaq, and with Yaʽaqoḇ.
Now YAHWEH uses man to work thru….
you, me, the next guy……
HE is looking for those whom love HIM and will trust him.
There are many, many verses in the Tanach alone that talks about trust. But to me this one sums it all up.
Pro 3:5 Trust in יהוה with all your heart, And lean not on your own understanding;
Pro 3:6 Know Him in all your ways, And He makes all your paths straight.
How can we ever doubt when we have a promise like that!
When we go out to evangelize……. (our way of life) go with this scripture in mind.
Fall back on it and know that YAHWEH is with you.
Now lets get back to our story.
Exo 3:1 And Mosheh was shepherding the flock of Yithro his father-in-law, the priest of Miḏyan. And he led the flock to the back of the wilderness, and came to Ḥorĕḇ, the mountain of Elohim.
Exo 3:2 And the Messenger of יהוה appeared to him in a flame of fire from the midst of a bush. And he looked and saw the bush burning with fire, but the bush was not consumed.
Exo 3:3 And Mosheh said, “Let me turn aside now, and see this great sight, why the bush does not burn.”
This would be an amazing sight know matter where you were.
Put yourself there,………what would be going thru your mind!!!!
Exo 3:4 And יהוה saw that he turned aside to see, and Elohim called to him from the midst of the bush and said, “Mosheh! Mosheh!” And he said, “Here I am.”
Exo 3:5 And He said, “Do not come near here. Take your sandals off your feet, for the place on which you are standing is set-apart ground.”
Exo 3:6 And He said, “I am the Elohim of your father, the Elohim of Aḇraham, the Elohim of Yitsḥaq, and the Elohim of Yaʽaqoḇ.” And Mosheh hid his face, for he was afraid to look at Elohim.
Exo 3:7 And יהוה said, “I have indeed seen the oppression of My people who are in Mitsrayim, and have heard their cry because of their slave-drivers, for I know their sorrows.
Exo 3:8 “And I have come down to deliver them from the hand of the Mitsrites, and to bring them up from that land to a good and spacious land, to a land flowing with milk and honey, to the place of the Kenaʽanites and the Ḥittites and the Amorites and the Perizzites and the Ḥiwwites and the Yeḇusites.
Exo 3:9 “And now, see, the cry of the children of Yisra’ĕl has come to Me, , and I have also seen the oppression with which the Mitsrites oppress them.
OK………,
Mosheh sees this burning bush and goes to investigate.
The bush is burning, but it isn’t being consumed………
As he nears this burning bush, he hears a voice to remove his shoes……
I would love to know what is going thru his mind at this point. I guess I would have to ask you…….what would you be thinking??????
Ask yourself this. What readied him for this……
How many years in intensive scripture classes did he attend……..
How long had he been in cemetery er….. seminary……
You know the answer to all these questions…….. a big fat 0, nadda, ……
Just a plain ole’ guy like you and me.
So what did YAHWEH see in him????
And what would ready him for what was ahead???
Good question, I think……….
Exo 3:10 “And now, come, I am sending you to Pharaoh, to bring My people, the children of Yisra’ĕl, out of Mitsrayim.”
Exo 3:11 And Mosheh said to Elohim, “Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh, and that I should bring the children of Yisra’ĕl out of Mitsrayim?”
Exo 3:12 And He said, “Because I am with you. And this is to you the sign that I have sent you: When you have brought the people out of Mitsrayim, you are to serve Elohim on this mountain.”
Exo 3:13 And Mosheh said to Elohim, “See, when I come to the children of Yisra’ĕl and say to them, ‘The Elohim of your fathers has sent me to you,’ and they say to me, ‘What is His Name?’ what shall I say to them?”
Exo 3:14 And Elohim said to Mosheh, “I am that which I am.”1 And He said, “Thus you shall say to the children of Yisra’ĕl, ‘I am has sent me to you.’ ”
Exo 3:15 And Elohim said further to Mosheh, “Thus you are to say to the children of Yisra’ĕl, ‘יהוה Elohim of your fathers, the Elohim of Aḇraham, the Elohim of Yitsḥaq, and the Elohim of Yaʽaqoḇ, has sent me to you. This is My Name forever, and this is My remembrance to all generations.’
Exo 3:16 “Go, and you shall gather the elders of Yisra’ĕl together, and say to them, ‘יהוה Elohim of your fathers, the Elohim of Aḇraham, of Yitsḥaq, and of Yaʽaqoḇ, appeared to me, saying, “I have indeed visited you and seen what is done to you in Mitsrayim;
Exo 3:17 and I say: I am bringing you up out of the affliction of Mitsrayim to the land of the Kenaʽanite and the Ḥittite and the Amorite and the Perizzite and the Ḥiwwite and the Yeḇusite, to a land flowing with milk and honey.” ’
Exo 3:18 “And they shall listen to your voice. And you shall come, you and the elders of Yisra’ĕl, to the sovereign of Mitsrayim, and you shall say to him, ‘יהוה Elohim of the Heḇrews has met with us. And now, please, let us go three days’ journey into the wilderness to slaughter to יהוה our Elohim.’
Without catching HIS breath, YAHWEH continues.
`Exo 3:19 “But I know that the sovereign of Mitsrayim is not going to let `you go, not even by a strong hand.
Exo 3:20 “And I shall stretch out My hand and smite Mitsrayim with all My wonders which I shall do in its midst. And after that he shall let you go.
Exo 3:21 “And I shall give this people favour in the eyes of the Mitsrites. And it shall be, that when you go, you shall not go empty-handed.
Exo 3:22 “But every woman shall ask from her neighbour and from the stranger in her house, objects of silver, and objects of gold, and garments. And you shall put them on your sons and on your daughters, and shall plunder the Mitsrites.”
Now YAHWEH has just laid out the whole plan….
from start to finish……
What was going to happen, and how it would happen….
Makes you think that HE just might be in control!
And if you do, what makes you think that HE wouldn’t be in control now??????
Well, Mosheh didn’t quite understand this at all……
First of all, why did you pick me?
And,….. had many reasons why not to pick him…..
Exo 4:1 And Mosheh answered and said, “And if they do not believe me, nor listen to my voice, and say, ‘יהוה has not appeared to you?’ ”
Exo 4:2 And יהוה said to him, “What is that in your hand?” And he said, “A rod.”
Exo 4:3 And He said, “Throw it on the ground.” So he threw it on the ground, and it became a serpent. And Mosheh fled from it.
Exo 4:4 And יהוה said to Mosheh, “Reach out your hand and take it by the tail” – so he reached out his hand and caught it, and it became a rod in his hand –
Exo 4:5 so that they believe that יהוה Elohim of their fathers, the Elohim of Aḇraham, the Elohim of Yitsḥaq, and the Elohim of Yaʽaqoḇ, has appeared to you.”
Exo 4:6 And יהוה said to him again, “Now put your hand in your bosom.” And he put his hand in his bosom, and when he took it out, and see, his hand was leprous, like snow.
Exo 4:7 And He said, “Put your hand in your bosom again.” So he put his hand in his bosom again, and drew it out of his bosom, and see, it was restored like his other flesh.
Exo 4:8 “And it shall be, if they do not believe you, nor listen to the voice of the first sign, they shall believe the voice of the latter sign.
Exo 4:9 “And it shall be, if they do not believe even these two signs, or listen to your voice, that you shall take water from the river and pour it on the dry land. And the water which you take from the river shall become blood on the dry land.”
Exo 4:10 And Mosheh said to יהוה, “O יהוה, I am not a man of words, neither before nor since You have spoken to Your servant, for I am slow of speech and slow of tongue.”
Exo 4:11 And יהוה said to him, “Who has made man’s mouth? Or who makes dumb, or deaf, or seeing, or blind? Is it not I, יהוה?
Exo 4:12 “And now, go, and I shall be with your mouth and teach you what to say.”
Exo 4:13 But he said, “O יהוה, please send by the hand of him whom You would send.”
Exo 4:14 And the displeasure of יהוה burned against Mosheh, and He said, “Is not Aharon the Lĕwite your brother? I know that he speaks well. And see, he is also coming out to meet you. And when he sees you, he shall be glad in his heart.
Exo 4:15 “And you shall speak to him and put the words in his mouth. And I am with your mouth and with his mouth, and I shall teach you what to do.
Exo 4:16 “And he shall speak for you to the people. And it shall be that he shall be a mouth for you, and you shall be an elohim1 for him.
Exo 4:17 “And take this rod in your hand, with which you shall do the signs.”
I think that at this point Mosheh was convinced he was to go……
He may not have actually thought he was the man for the job, but at this point he was going.
I can’t see where Mosheh has show a lot of confidence in what was going on, or what was to happen.
Yet he has resigned himself to the fact that he is going to go.
Let’s continue.
Exo 4:18 Then Mosheh went and returned to Yithro his father-in-law, and
said to him, “Please let me go and return to my brothers who are in
Mitsrayim to see whether they are still alive.” And Yithro said to Mosheh,
“Go in peace.”
Exo 4:19 And יהוה said to Mosheh in Miḏyan, “Go, return to Mitsrayim, for all
the men are dead who sought your life.”
Exo 4:20 So Mosheh took his wife and his sons and set them on a donkey,
and he returned to the land of Mitsrayim. And Mosheh took the rod of
Elohim in his hand.
Exo 4:21 And יהוה said to Mosheh, “As you go back to Mitsrayim, see that
you do all those wonders before Pharaoh which I have put in your hand.
But I am going to harden his heart, so that he does not let the people go.
Excuse me………you are going to what…….harden his heart!
Exo 4:22 “And you shall say to Pharaoh, ‘Thus said יהוה, “Yisra’ĕl is My son,
My first-born,
Exo 4:23 so I say to you, let My son go to serve Me. But if you refuse to let
him go, see, I am killing your son, your first-born.
Exo 4:24 And it came to be on the way, in the lodging place, that יהוה met
him and sought to kill him.
Exo 4:25 And Tsipporah took a sharp stone and cut off the foreskin of her
son and threw it at Mosheh’s feet, and said, “You are indeed a bridegroom
of blood to me!”
Exo 4:26 So He let him go. Then she said, “You are a bridegroom of blood,”
because of the circumcision.
Exo 4:27 And יהוה said to Aharon, “Go to meet Mosheh in the wilderness.”
And he went and met him on the mountain of Elohim, and kissed him.
Exo 4:28 Mosheh then told Aharon all the words of יהוה who had sent him,
and all the signs which He had commanded him.
Exo 4:29 And Mosheh went with Aharon and gathered together all the
elders of the children of Yisra’ĕl.
Exo 4:30 And Aharon spoke all the words which יהוה had spoken to Mosheh.
Then he did the signs before the eyes of the people.
Exo 4:31 And the people believed. And they heard that יהוה had visited the
children of Yisra’ĕl and that He had looked on their affliction, and they
bowed their heads and did obeisance.
Well, I encourage you to read “the rest of the story……”
all the way to the “Promice Land”.
In that, you will see all the heart ache, and the jubilation
that Mosheh must have felt.
You can see, that YAHWEH took an unsuspecting shepherd,
He molded and grumed him to do what he was called to do…..
Remember YAHWEH said that HE would be his mouth…….
All he needed to do was to do what he was told to do……..
And as long as he did that, he was a success.
Remember, YAHWEH also told him that pharaoh would harden his heart,
And they would go thru many plagues till he would be broken enough to let the people of Yisra’el go.
You need to remember that YAHWEH told him HE would not forsake him…….
Now, to compare that to another Evangelist/prophet. I am sure you have heard all the stories, and red the book of……”Yonah or (Jonah)”………….
Now Yonah was an interesting fellow.
Lets jump in and see just what kind of guy he was!
Jon 1:1 And the word of יהוה came to Yonah son of Amittai, saying,
Jon 1:2 “Arise, go to Ninewĕh, the great city, and cry out against it, for
their evils have come up before Me.”
Jon 1:3 But Yonah rose up to flee to Tarshish from the presence of יהוה, and
went down to Yapho, and found a ship going to Tarshish. And he paid the
fare, and went down into it, to go with them to Tarshish from the
presence of יהוה.
Wooooah!!!! Can you believe that!
This guy is a prophet of YAHWEH.
YAHWEH speaks to him directly, away he goes….
BUT IN THE WRONG DIRECTION!!!!!
Does that sound familiar?
Has this ever happened to us?????????
Well anyway, back to the story…….
Jon 1:4 And יהוה sent out a great wind on the sea, and there was a great storm on the sea, so that the ship was thought to be broken up.
Jon 1:5 And the seamen were afraid, and each one cried out to his mighty one, and threw the cargo which was in the ship into the sea, to lighten the load. But Yonah had gone down into the lowest parts of the ship, and he lay down, and was fast asleep.
Jon 1:6 And the captain came to him, and said to him, “What do you mean, sleeper? Arise, cry out to your Elohim, if so be that Elohim shall think about us, so that we do not perish.”
Jon 1:7 And they said to each other, “Come, and let us cast lots, so that we know for whose sake this evil has come upon us.” So they cast lots, and the lot fell on Yonah.
Now Yonah is in real trouble. Not only does “he” know that he is running,……
Now everybody in the ship knows,…..what is he to do?
Jon 1:8 So they said to him, “Please explain to us! For whose sake is this evil upon us? What is your occupation? And where do you come from? What is your country? And from what people are you?”
Jon 1:9 And he said to them, “I am a Heḇrew. And I am fearing יהוה, the Elohim of the heavens, who made the sea and the dry land.”
Jon 1:10 And the men were exceedingly afraid, and said to him, “Why have you done this?” For the men knew that he fled from the presence of יהוה, for he had informed them.
Jon 1:11 And they said to him, “What are we to do to you to make the sea calm for us?” For the sea was growing more stormy.
Jon 1:12 And he said to them, “Take me and throw me into the sea, so that the sea becomes calm for you. For I know that this great storm is because of me.”
Jon 1:13 However, the men rowed hard to bring the ship to land, but were unable, for the sea continued to grow more stormy against them.
Jon 1:14 And they cried out to יהוה and said, “We pray, O יהוה, please, let us not perish for this man’s life, and do not lay on us innocent blood. For You, O יהוה, have done as it pleased You.”
Jon 1:15 Then they took Yonah and threw him into the sea, and the sea stopped raging.
Jon 1:16 And the men feared יהוה exceedingly, and brought an offering to יהוה and made vows.
Oh my gosh………. If this isn’t a fine kettle….LOL…. of fish to be in……..
Now what is Yonah going to do?
Then to add insult to injury, check out what YAHWEH does.
Jon 1:17 But יהוה appointed a great fish to swallow Yonah. And Yonah was in the stomach of the fish three days and three nights.
I have been in some pretty tough spots in my life, but nothing compares to this……
can you imagine…….
I mean how could you even……..well…….breath in there?
Yet,………. we serve a compassionate abba.
And no mater what we have done,……
or where we are,…………
HE does hear our prayer.
Jon 2:1 And Yonah prayed to יהוה his Elohim from the stomach of the fish.
Jon 2:2 And he said, “I called to יהוה because of my distress, and He answered me. From the stomach of the grave I cried, and You heard my voice.
Jon 2:3 “For You threw me into the deep, into the heart of the seas, and the floods surrounded me. All Your breakers and Your waves passed over me.
Jon 2:4 “So I said, ‘I have been driven away from Your eyes. Would I ever look again toward Your set-apart Hĕḵal?’
Jon 2:5 “Waters encompassed me, unto life, the deep closed around me, weeds were wrapped around my head.
Jon 2:6 “I went down to the base of the mountains, the earth with its bars were behind me forever. But You brought up my life from the pit, O יהוה, my Elohim.
Jon 2:7 “When my life fainted within me, I remembered יהוה. And my prayer went up to You, into Your set-apart Hĕḵal.
Jon 2:8 “Those observing false worthlessnesses forsake their own kindness.
Jon 2:9 “But I offer to You with the voice of thanksgiving, I pay what I have vowed. Deliverance is of יהוה.”
Jon 2:10 Then יהוה spoke to the fish, and it vomited Yonah on the dry land.
Hummmm………
Let”s recap this……
YAHWEH calls me…..
I run from YAHWEH……..
A bunch of guys want me dead, and throw me overboard in to a raging sea……
Then…….
A giant fish swallows me,……..
AND I’M ALIVE, IN HIS BELLY!!!!
So after 3 day’s, I pray to Abba YAHWEH…..
HE hears my cry, and this giant fish vomits me up……
On dry land!!!………
Hollywood couldn’t write a script this good……..
Now as if nothing had happened, Yonah has YAHWEH speak to him a second time………..
Jon 3:1 And the word of יהוה came to Yonah the second time, saying,
Jon 3:2 “Arise, go to Ninewĕh, that great city, and proclaim to it the message that I am speaking to you.”
Jon 3:3 And Yonah arose and went to Ninewĕh, according to the word of יהוה. Now Ninewĕh was a great city before Elohim, of three day’s journey.
Jon 3:4 And Yonah began to go in to the city on the first day’s walk. And he cried out and said, “Yet forty days, and Ninewĕh shall be overthrown!”
Jon 3:5 And the men of Ninewĕh believed in Elohim, and proclaimed a fast, and put on sackcloth, from the greatest to the least of them.
Jon 3:6 And the word reached the sovereign of Ninewĕh, so he arose from his throne and took off his robe, and covered himself with sackcloth and sat in ashes.
Jon 3:7 And he proclaimed and said throughout Ninewĕh, “By decree of the sovereign and his nobles: No man or beast, herd or flock, shall taste whatever – let them not eat, let them not even drink water.
Jon 3:8 “But let man and beast be covered with sackcloth, and call mightily to Elohim. And let each one turn from his evil way and from the violence that is in his hands.
Jon 3:9 “Who knows whether Elohim does turn and relent, and shall turn away from the heat of His displeasure, so that we do not perish?”
Jon 3:10 And Elohim saw their works, that they turned from their evil way. And Elohim relented from the evil which He had said He would do to them, and He did not do it.
Can you believe this……
Yonah gets up…….walks THRU Nineweh for 3 days……..
Preaching repentance in the streets of Nineweh,
Everybody…..I mean everybody including the King turns from there wicked ways,
And then the king makes all the people and the animals put on sackcloth and ashes.
YAHWEH sees there heart, and forgives them……….WOW! that must have been some preaching……..
Those were some inspiring words.
We see that YAHWEH forgave them and HE didn’t destroy them.
So what about poor Yonah……
What happened to him after the city repented and YAHWEH spared them.
Jon 4:1 But it greatly displeased Yonah, and he was grieved.
Jon 4:2 And he prayed to יהוה, and he said, “Please, יהוה, was this not what I said while I was in my own land? This is why I went ahead and fled to Tarshish. For I know that You are an Ěl showing favour, and compassionate, patient and of great kindness, and relenting from doing evil.
Jon 4:3 “And now, O יהוה, please take my life from me, for it is better for me to die than to live!”
Jon 4:4 And יהוה said, “Are you right to be displeased?”
Jon 4:5 Then Yonah went out of the city and sat on the east side of the city, and made himself a shelter there, and sat under it in the shade, to see what would become of the city.
Jon 4:6 And יהוה Elohim appointed a plant and made it come up over Yonah, to be a shade for his head to deliver him from his discomfort. And Yonah greatly rejoiced over the plant.
Jon 4:7 But as morning dawned the next day Elohim appointed a worm which attacked the plant so that it withered.
Jon 4:8 And it came to be when the sun came up, that Elohim appointed a scorching east wind, and the sun smote on Yonah’s head, so that he grew faint, and asked for his life to die, and said, “It is better for me to die than to live.”
Jon 4:9 And Elohim said to Yonah, “Have you rightly become displeased over the plant?” And he said, “I have rightly become displeased, even to death!”
Jon 4:10 And יהוה said, “You felt sorry for the plant for which you have not laboured, nor made it grow, which came up in a night and perished in a night.
Jon 4:11 “And should I not pardon Ninewĕh, that great city, in which are more than one hundred and twenty thousand beings who have not known their right hand from their left, and much cattle?”
Pretty sad isn’t it……….
I told this story for a reason……..
We can never discern the motive of YAHWEH.
You see, Yonah was mad due to the repentance of Ninewwh………..
he wanted them to be destroyed………..it doesn’t say why, he just had distain for them.
Yet YAHWEH loved them…….
YAHWEH even had mercy on Yonah, and let a large plant grow over him for shade.
Yonah had more compassion for the plant than for human life………..
Then the story ends………we never hear about Yonah again………not a word……..
What is the moral of this story??????
YAHWEH IS IN CHARGE!!!!!
My friends, once we become a follower, we are not our own master.
HIS priorities have now become our priorities.
We have no right to choose our own ways or our own priorities.
We beckon to HIS callings.
We no longer serve ourselves; we become the servant of all.
Two different men, The same calling…….the same ending………….
Mosheh, after leading YAHWEH’S people for 40 years……
never entered the Promiced Land because of disobedience to YAHWEH’S word and anger toward HIS people,
Yonah, the same thing…….
Disobedience to YAHWEH’S word and anger towards HIS people.
Yonah was never to be heard of again…….put on the shelf…….taken out of the game………………
The stakes in Evangelism are high.
We are dealing with life and death.
We don’t give life, and we surely don’t take it away………..
But there is no higher calling than to lead someone to repentance.
We are just a spokesman…….
As YAHWEH said to Mosheh………
Exo 4:12 “And now, go, and I shall be with your mouth and teach you what to say.”
I leave you where we started……The words of Messiah YAHUSHUA
(Mat 28:19) “Therefore, go and make taught ones of all the nations, immersing them in MY NAME
(Mat 28:20) teaching them to guard all that I have commanded you. And see, I am with you always, until the end of the age.”
Amĕn.
Monday, February 22, 2010
Abortion News
This is the Latest from World Net Daily:
This is good that the numbers are dwindling, but our Taxes keep them going!!!!!
If you are not a subscriber to WND, I would advise it.....very good Blog!
MATTERS OF LIFE AND DEATH
Report: Taxes prop up 'dying' abortion industry
2 decades sees 2 of 3 'clinics' shutter doors
________________________________________
Posted: February 21, 2010
2:30 am Eastern
By Bob Unruh
© 2010 WorldNetDaily
Operation Rescue photo of sign announcing closure of Youngstown, Ohio, abortion business
A new report asserts the U.S. abortion industry is in significant decline, held together largely through the $300 million-plus that federal taxpayers deliver annually to its major player, Planned Parenthood.
"It is very clear that the only abortion group expanding its business is Planned Parenthood, and the only reason it can do so is with the help of our tax dollars," said Operation Rescue President Troy Newman.
His organization last year launched Project Daniel 5:15, which monitors and reports on the status of abortion businesses across the country.
Operation Rescue's goal in listing the names and addresses of abortion businesses is to encourage pro-life activists to maintain a prayer and sidewalk counseling presence at the sites and act as "watchdogs over the abortion cartel."
Just last week, WND reported 167 of the locations are sites for the prayer- and fasting-based 40 Days for Life campaign of pro-life activism.
Newman told WND that in the last two decades, two-thirds of the abortion businesses in the nation have imploded.
"The only place we see any growth is with government subsidies," he said.
While Title X funding isn't supposed to go directly for abortions, it does pay the mortgage, light bills, staff salaries and the like, he said.
Stop Planned Parenthood, an effort of the American Life League, promotes a petition demanding that elected officials halt the flow of taxpayer funding for Planned Parenthood, an organization launched by eugenics advocate Margaret Sanger.
The STOPP organization notes that recent annual federal tax subsidies to Planned Parenthood have been in the $320 million to $330 million range. From 1987 through 2003, the total was $2.7 billion.
The update to Operation Rescue's listing of abortion businesses confirms that five months ago there were 713 abortion business locations in the U.S., while that total now is 710.
The figures reflected the closure of five locations – or one a month – and the opening of new tax-subsidized Planned Parenthood mega clinics in Houston and Portland, Ore.
The assessment predicted smaller clinics in those areas would close as a result. The other five that closed, however, were not in those areas "and reflect a truer picture of the failing abortion industry," the report said. "The closures took place in Florida, Michigan, New York and Ohio."
"This news emphasizes the need to defund Planned Parenthood nationwide. Without being artificially supported with our tax dollars, Planned Parenthood would be closing clinics, not building new ones," said Newman.
Pro-life activists warn, however, of the potential of a massive new flow of federal tax dollars to abortion businesses through President Obama's proposed nationalization of health care.
Activists have been working to alert members of Congress to that danger and so far have built significant opposition to Obama's plans.
But even without the opposition, the $330 million annual federal taxpayer payments to Planned Parenthood make the difference between staying open and closing down for many of the locations operated under the organization's $1 billion annual budget, critics say.
Further, state officials in Alabama have acted against the license of a Planned Parenthood operation in Birmingham for allegedly refusing to follow a state law to obtain parental permission for abortions on young children. And in Kansas, there are 107 criminal charges pending against a Planned Parenthood business for allegedly illegal abortions.
"It is despicable that at a time economic instability when 71 percent of the American people oppose tax-funding of abortion, that millions and millions in public funds are going to bolster the bottom line of abortionists, many of which are violating the law," said Newman.
"Once Planned Parenthood is stripped of its tax funding, we will see their abortion clinics close down like a row of falling dominoes. That is a short-term goal for the pro-life movement that is completely doable and will save countless lives," said Newman.
His organization has documented that in 1991 there were nearly 2,200 abortion clinics, compared to 710 today.
This is good that the numbers are dwindling, but our Taxes keep them going!!!!!
If you are not a subscriber to WND, I would advise it.....very good Blog!
MATTERS OF LIFE AND DEATH
Report: Taxes prop up 'dying' abortion industry
2 decades sees 2 of 3 'clinics' shutter doors
________________________________________
Posted: February 21, 2010
2:30 am Eastern
By Bob Unruh
© 2010 WorldNetDaily
Operation Rescue photo of sign announcing closure of Youngstown, Ohio, abortion business
A new report asserts the U.S. abortion industry is in significant decline, held together largely through the $300 million-plus that federal taxpayers deliver annually to its major player, Planned Parenthood.
"It is very clear that the only abortion group expanding its business is Planned Parenthood, and the only reason it can do so is with the help of our tax dollars," said Operation Rescue President Troy Newman.
His organization last year launched Project Daniel 5:15, which monitors and reports on the status of abortion businesses across the country.
Operation Rescue's goal in listing the names and addresses of abortion businesses is to encourage pro-life activists to maintain a prayer and sidewalk counseling presence at the sites and act as "watchdogs over the abortion cartel."
Just last week, WND reported 167 of the locations are sites for the prayer- and fasting-based 40 Days for Life campaign of pro-life activism.
Newman told WND that in the last two decades, two-thirds of the abortion businesses in the nation have imploded.
"The only place we see any growth is with government subsidies," he said.
While Title X funding isn't supposed to go directly for abortions, it does pay the mortgage, light bills, staff salaries and the like, he said.
Stop Planned Parenthood, an effort of the American Life League, promotes a petition demanding that elected officials halt the flow of taxpayer funding for Planned Parenthood, an organization launched by eugenics advocate Margaret Sanger.
The STOPP organization notes that recent annual federal tax subsidies to Planned Parenthood have been in the $320 million to $330 million range. From 1987 through 2003, the total was $2.7 billion.
The update to Operation Rescue's listing of abortion businesses confirms that five months ago there were 713 abortion business locations in the U.S., while that total now is 710.
The figures reflected the closure of five locations – or one a month – and the opening of new tax-subsidized Planned Parenthood mega clinics in Houston and Portland, Ore.
The assessment predicted smaller clinics in those areas would close as a result. The other five that closed, however, were not in those areas "and reflect a truer picture of the failing abortion industry," the report said. "The closures took place in Florida, Michigan, New York and Ohio."
"This news emphasizes the need to defund Planned Parenthood nationwide. Without being artificially supported with our tax dollars, Planned Parenthood would be closing clinics, not building new ones," said Newman.
Pro-life activists warn, however, of the potential of a massive new flow of federal tax dollars to abortion businesses through President Obama's proposed nationalization of health care.
Activists have been working to alert members of Congress to that danger and so far have built significant opposition to Obama's plans.
But even without the opposition, the $330 million annual federal taxpayer payments to Planned Parenthood make the difference between staying open and closing down for many of the locations operated under the organization's $1 billion annual budget, critics say.
Further, state officials in Alabama have acted against the license of a Planned Parenthood operation in Birmingham for allegedly refusing to follow a state law to obtain parental permission for abortions on young children. And in Kansas, there are 107 criminal charges pending against a Planned Parenthood business for allegedly illegal abortions.
"It is despicable that at a time economic instability when 71 percent of the American people oppose tax-funding of abortion, that millions and millions in public funds are going to bolster the bottom line of abortionists, many of which are violating the law," said Newman.
"Once Planned Parenthood is stripped of its tax funding, we will see their abortion clinics close down like a row of falling dominoes. That is a short-term goal for the pro-life movement that is completely doable and will save countless lives," said Newman.
His organization has documented that in 1991 there were nearly 2,200 abortion clinics, compared to 710 today.
Friday, February 19, 2010
Daddy....
This is a great little verse for ALL Fathers!!!
Walk a little plainer daddy
Said a little boy so frail
I'm following in your footsteps
And I don't want to fail
Sometimes your steps are very plain
Sometimes they are so hard to see
So walk a little plainer daddy
For you are leading me.
I know that once you walked this way
Many years ago
And what you did along the way
I'd really like to know
For sometimes when I am tempted
I don't know what to do
So walk a little plainer daddy
For I must follow you.
Someday when I'm grown up
You are like I want to be
Then I will have a little boy
Who will want to follow me
And I would want to lead him right
And help him to be true
So walk a little plainer daddy
For we must follow you.
(Author Unknown)
Walk a little plainer daddy
Said a little boy so frail
I'm following in your footsteps
And I don't want to fail
Sometimes your steps are very plain
Sometimes they are so hard to see
So walk a little plainer daddy
For you are leading me.
I know that once you walked this way
Many years ago
And what you did along the way
I'd really like to know
For sometimes when I am tempted
I don't know what to do
So walk a little plainer daddy
For I must follow you.
Someday when I'm grown up
You are like I want to be
Then I will have a little boy
Who will want to follow me
And I would want to lead him right
And help him to be true
So walk a little plainer daddy
For we must follow you.
(Author Unknown)
Saturday, February 6, 2010
Animal sacrifices??????
By know, many of you have probably heard about the Sanhedrin in Israel going to sacrifice animals on Passover. Here is the article for your reference.
'Renew animal sacrifices on Mount' says radical rabbi
Member of Sanhedrin says sacrifices 'were not possible when the people of
Israel were in the Diaspora, but now they are.' Adds: Jerusalem Temple should
be rebuilt, Israeli government standing in our way.
Yaakov Lappin
Animal sacrifices should be renewed on the Temple Mount, a member of the radical Sanhedrin organization told Ynetnews. In ancient Israel and Judea, the Sanhedrin served as the highest court in the land, and was made up of 71 top judges. Now, a group of fringe rabbis say they have reformed the group, although the organization has received no recognition from Israel's official religious authorities.
"In the Torah there are around 200 commandments dealing with animal sacrifices," said Rabbi Dov Stein, of the Sanhedrin organization. "The Torah of Israel demands animal sacrifices. When the people of Israel were in the Diaspora, it couldn’t be done. But now, there is the supreme institution, the Sanhedrin, made up of experts, and it can be done. The new Sanhedrin, like the old, will educate the people of Israel on how to keep and safeguard the Torah."
'Democracy was not invented today'
Stein vowed that "we will try to carry out animal sacrifices on the Temple Mount this Passover, as commanded by the Torah."
Asked if his organization sought to rebuild the third Temple, Stein's answer was unequivocal.
"We want to establish the Temple again. Unfortunately, standing in our way is a hostile regime, the Israeli government, and rabbis who for political interest don't want this to happen." Stein even suggested that Muslims would agree to the project, saying: "The Omar Mosque (the Dome of the Rock), built by Khalif Omar, was actually intended to safeguard the site for the Jews. Islam hasn't always been so hostile. Despite its hatred and massacres against us, Islam sees in Judaism a source and a guide. I think the moment will come that Muslims understand the need to build the Temple and go along with us."Stein outlined his plan for Israel, calling for a king to be appointed democratically. "Democracy was not invented today, the king is elected from a list of candidates. A senior judge, as was done during the days of the judges, can also be appointed," he added. However, such practices ended 2000 years ago, Rabbi Doniel Hartman was quoted by the Associated Press as saying.
"Around that time, animal sacrifice, as a mode of religious worship, stopped for Jews, Christians and Muslims," said the rabbi from the Shalom Hartman Institute in Jerusalem, according to AP. "Moving back in that direction is not progress," he added. According to mainstream Jewish thought, animal sacrifices must not be carried out outside of Temple, which itself cannot be rebuilt by human endeavor, but will be rebuilt upon the arrival of the messiah.
This was found in Ynet News.Com
'Renew animal sacrifices on Mount' says radical rabbi
Member of Sanhedrin says sacrifices 'were not possible when the people of
Israel were in the Diaspora, but now they are.' Adds: Jerusalem Temple should
be rebuilt, Israeli government standing in our way.
Yaakov Lappin
Animal sacrifices should be renewed on the Temple Mount, a member of the radical Sanhedrin organization told Ynetnews. In ancient Israel and Judea, the Sanhedrin served as the highest court in the land, and was made up of 71 top judges. Now, a group of fringe rabbis say they have reformed the group, although the organization has received no recognition from Israel's official religious authorities.
"In the Torah there are around 200 commandments dealing with animal sacrifices," said Rabbi Dov Stein, of the Sanhedrin organization. "The Torah of Israel demands animal sacrifices. When the people of Israel were in the Diaspora, it couldn’t be done. But now, there is the supreme institution, the Sanhedrin, made up of experts, and it can be done. The new Sanhedrin, like the old, will educate the people of Israel on how to keep and safeguard the Torah."
'Democracy was not invented today'
Stein vowed that "we will try to carry out animal sacrifices on the Temple Mount this Passover, as commanded by the Torah."
Asked if his organization sought to rebuild the third Temple, Stein's answer was unequivocal.
"We want to establish the Temple again. Unfortunately, standing in our way is a hostile regime, the Israeli government, and rabbis who for political interest don't want this to happen." Stein even suggested that Muslims would agree to the project, saying: "The Omar Mosque (the Dome of the Rock), built by Khalif Omar, was actually intended to safeguard the site for the Jews. Islam hasn't always been so hostile. Despite its hatred and massacres against us, Islam sees in Judaism a source and a guide. I think the moment will come that Muslims understand the need to build the Temple and go along with us."Stein outlined his plan for Israel, calling for a king to be appointed democratically. "Democracy was not invented today, the king is elected from a list of candidates. A senior judge, as was done during the days of the judges, can also be appointed," he added. However, such practices ended 2000 years ago, Rabbi Doniel Hartman was quoted by the Associated Press as saying.
"Around that time, animal sacrifice, as a mode of religious worship, stopped for Jews, Christians and Muslims," said the rabbi from the Shalom Hartman Institute in Jerusalem, according to AP. "Moving back in that direction is not progress," he added. According to mainstream Jewish thought, animal sacrifices must not be carried out outside of Temple, which itself cannot be rebuilt by human endeavor, but will be rebuilt upon the arrival of the messiah.
This was found in Ynet News.Com
Friday, January 8, 2010
Separate - To Set -Apart
Lev 11:45 ‘For I am יהוה who is bringing you up out of the land of Mitsrayim, to be your Elohim. And you shall be set-apart, for I am set-apart.
Lev 19:2 “Speak to all the congregation of the children of Yisra’ĕl, and say to them, ‘Be set-apart, for I יהוה your Elohim am set-apart.
Lev 20:7 ‘And you shall set yourselves apart, and shall be set-apart, for I am יהוה your Elohim,
Lev 20:26 ‘And you shall be set-apart to Me, for I יהוה am set-apart, and have separated you from the peoples to be Mine.
There are over 900 verses talking about being set apart.....
Don't you think it is about time we heed what it is saying........
Shalom
Lev 19:2 “Speak to all the congregation of the children of Yisra’ĕl, and say to them, ‘Be set-apart, for I יהוה your Elohim am set-apart.
Lev 20:7 ‘And you shall set yourselves apart, and shall be set-apart, for I am יהוה your Elohim,
Lev 20:26 ‘And you shall be set-apart to Me, for I יהוה am set-apart, and have separated you from the peoples to be Mine.
There are over 900 verses talking about being set apart.....
Don't you think it is about time we heed what it is saying........
Shalom
Saturday, January 2, 2010
Heart to Heart
Blessings to all of you.
There is a lot of "stuff" going on in the world today. Wars, rummer,s of wars,(where have we heard that before), civil unrest, economic woes, the list is endless. So..... how should we, as believers, handle all of this. The very first thing I want to say is this. If in fact we have our hearts set on the things of YAHWEH, absolutely nothing. We should see these as just a sign of the times. Lets go to scripture:
Deu 31:6 “Be strong and courageous, do not fear nor be afraid of them. For it is YHWH your Elohim who is going with you. He does not fail you nor forsake you.”
(Mat 28:20) teaching them to guard all that I have commanded you. And see, I am with you always, until the end of the age.” Omein.
Well my friends, it gets no plainer than that. One verse out of the Torah, one verse out of the Gospels. You see, we have the assurance that Abba YAHWEH, and His Son, the YAHUSHUA, they both proclaim that they are with us. They care enough, that they tell us many times they are with us.
Just how reassuring is that!
There is a lot of "stuff" going on in the world today. Wars, rummer,s of wars,(where have we heard that before), civil unrest, economic woes, the list is endless. So..... how should we, as believers, handle all of this. The very first thing I want to say is this. If in fact we have our hearts set on the things of YAHWEH, absolutely nothing. We should see these as just a sign of the times. Lets go to scripture:
Deu 31:6 “Be strong and courageous, do not fear nor be afraid of them. For it is YHWH your Elohim who is going with you. He does not fail you nor forsake you.”
(Mat 28:20) teaching them to guard all that I have commanded you. And see, I am with you always, until the end of the age.” Omein.
Well my friends, it gets no plainer than that. One verse out of the Torah, one verse out of the Gospels. You see, we have the assurance that Abba YAHWEH, and His Son, the YAHUSHUA, they both proclaim that they are with us. They care enough, that they tell us many times they are with us.
Just how reassuring is that!
Monday, December 21, 2009
Access through Worship by Derek Prince
Here is a word for you from the Word.
Psalm 95:1-2; 6-8
Psa 95:1 Come, let us sing to יהוה! Let us raise a shout to the Rock of our deliverance.
Psa 95:2 Let us come before His face with thanksgiving; Let us raise a shout to Him in song.
Psa 95:3 For יהוה is a great Ěl, And a great Sovereign above all mighty ones.
Psa 95:4 In whose hand are the depths of the earth; The mountain peaks are His also.
Psa 95:5 His is the sea, for He made it; And His hands formed the dry land.
Psa 95:6 Come, let us bow down and bend low, Let us kneel before יהוה our Maker.
Psa 95:7 For He is our Elohim, And we are the people of His pasture, And the sheep of His hand. Today, if you would hear His voice:
Psa 95:8 “Do not harden your hearts as in Meriḇah, And as in the day of Massah in the wilderness,
There’s a beautiful progression there that brings us into the immediate presence of YAHWEH. It starts with loud and jubilant praise and thanksgiving: “Let us sing for joy to the YHWH, let us shout aloud to the rock of our salvation.” YHWH encourages us to express freely our praises, our thanksgiving. But then as we go further it says, “Let us bow down and worship, let us kneel before the YHWH our Maker.” Praise and thanksgiving lead us on to worship. Worship is not so much an utterance as it is an attitude. It’s bowing down, it’s kneeling, it’s submitting ourselves to YHWH. And when we come into that attitude of worship, then we qualify to hear YHWH’s voice.
And so the psalmist says, “Today, if you hear his voice.” Alas, there are so many BELIEVERS who hardly know what it is to hear YHWH’s voice, and yet that’s the key to all success in the spiritual life is hearing YHWH’s voice. And if we’ll follow the pathway of praise and thanksgiving leading us to worship, bringing us to an attitude where we can hear YHWH’s voice, then we have the key to measureless blessings. - Derek Prince
Psalm 95:1-2; 6-8
Psa 95:1 Come, let us sing to יהוה! Let us raise a shout to the Rock of our deliverance.
Psa 95:2 Let us come before His face with thanksgiving; Let us raise a shout to Him in song.
Psa 95:3 For יהוה is a great Ěl, And a great Sovereign above all mighty ones.
Psa 95:4 In whose hand are the depths of the earth; The mountain peaks are His also.
Psa 95:5 His is the sea, for He made it; And His hands formed the dry land.
Psa 95:6 Come, let us bow down and bend low, Let us kneel before יהוה our Maker.
Psa 95:7 For He is our Elohim, And we are the people of His pasture, And the sheep of His hand. Today, if you would hear His voice:
Psa 95:8 “Do not harden your hearts as in Meriḇah, And as in the day of Massah in the wilderness,
There’s a beautiful progression there that brings us into the immediate presence of YAHWEH. It starts with loud and jubilant praise and thanksgiving: “Let us sing for joy to the YHWH, let us shout aloud to the rock of our salvation.” YHWH encourages us to express freely our praises, our thanksgiving. But then as we go further it says, “Let us bow down and worship, let us kneel before the YHWH our Maker.” Praise and thanksgiving lead us on to worship. Worship is not so much an utterance as it is an attitude. It’s bowing down, it’s kneeling, it’s submitting ourselves to YHWH. And when we come into that attitude of worship, then we qualify to hear YHWH’s voice.
And so the psalmist says, “Today, if you hear his voice.” Alas, there are so many BELIEVERS who hardly know what it is to hear YHWH’s voice, and yet that’s the key to all success in the spiritual life is hearing YHWH’s voice. And if we’ll follow the pathway of praise and thanksgiving leading us to worship, bringing us to an attitude where we can hear YHWH’s voice, then we have the key to measureless blessings. - Derek Prince
Saturday, December 12, 2009
"Permanent Link to Hanukkah Yes, but also Kislev 24"
December 12th, 2009
As sundown fell across Israel, Europe, and the United States last evening millions of Jews and many others who care about the history of Israel are marking the advent of Hanukkah, the Festival of Dedication. What might be lost is the historical grounding of the feast of Hanukkah itself, which seems to actually derive from Friday’s date: Kislev 24 or the 24th day of the 9th month of the Jewish calendar. Notice carefully this historical background:
The book of the prophet Haggai comes to us from the 2nd year of the Persian King Darius, late summer, August, 520 BCE. It is one of the most precisely dated books in the Hebrew Bible, much like its sister Zechariah, and its twin Malachi. The three go together, like peas in the pod, both coming from that crucial time of the “restoration” of Judah to the Land following the Babylonian captivity. Collectively they are our LAST WORD from Yehovah in terms of how the redemption is to unfold. It is very likely, based on Haggai 1:12, where the Prophet is called the “messenger of Yehovah,” that Haggai is in fact the author of the book we call Malachi, as this book is just named “My Messenger,” and the name of the prophet who wrote it is not given. Both Haggai and Zechariah address their contemporary situation, as one would expect, and are concerned that the Temple be rebuilt and that the constitution of the new state of Judah be ordered according to the Torah. However, if read carefully, both clearly understand that this restoration of Judah is only a preliminary, even symbolic step, to a coming GREAT restoration of Judah and ALL Israel. Even though there is a Priest (Joshua), and a Governor (Zerubbabel) of the Davidic line, there is no anointing of the BRANCH figure of whom both Isaiah and Jeremiah had spoken. One way of putting this is to say that Haggai and Zechariah are working in the tall shadow of JEREMIAH (see especially chapters 30-31), and they know, from his clear and powerful prophecies, that the final days have not come with this tiny little beachhead return of a portion of Judah to the land. But they do believe that this return of Judah is a “sign” of things to come, and a guarantee that the Plan of Yehovah, to fill the earth with justice and righteousness, through Abraham’s seed, is not to fall to the ground.
And that leads us to the curious and fascinating references to the 24th day of the 9th month–Kislev 24 in modern Jewish parlance.
Notice, reading the book of Haggai is sequential, it takes you through the last months of the year. It begins with the Rosh Chodesh of the 6th month (August), takes you through the 21st day of the 7th month (2:1), which is the last day of Sukkoth (October), and then into December–with the 24th day of the 9th month. Haggai’s third and fourth messages come on this very day. It is a short book, and if you skim it through you will see the building sequence.
Kislev 24 is mentioned FOUR times in the second chapters, verses 10, 15, 18 and 20. Twice it is emphasized that “from THIS DAY FORWARD I will bless you,” and twice Haggai gets a special Word from Yehovah, on this very day. You have to read the whole chapter to get the context, but the message is basically that Yehovah will “SHAKE the heavens and the earth and ALL NATIONS,” overthrowing their power, anoint the chosen one (symbolized in that day by Zerubbabel), and essentially make Jerusalem the new world capital. For the DETAILS you need to go back, of course, to Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Micah in particular, as they set forth the entire agenda to which Haggai only briefly alludes.
This message is addressed to the two “messiahs,” the Priest and the “King” or Governor, Joshua and Zerubbabel, respectively (2:4-5). They become “signifiers” of things to come. They are not the final anointed ones, and Zechariah picks this up in his visions, especially chapters 4 and 6. These symbolic figures, as well as the promised presence of the Holy Spirit (see 2:5 and Zech 4:6!), are the guarantee that Yehovah will bring about these promises.
Notice, Zechariah begins getting his visions and messages in the 8th month of that same year (Zech 1:1), or mid-November. He has EIGHT night visions, they are all quite difficult to follow, but prophetically important in forecasting the redemptive future. There is much more detail in Zechariah, but the two, Haggai and Zechariah, should be read in tandem, as one explains the other. Now, note carefully, Kislev 24 is not specifically mentioned in Zechariah, but it is alluded to in chapter 4:8-10. It is the famous “day of small things,” that one might be led to “despise,” because after all, this tiny little remnant of Judah, beginning to lay the foundation of a nondescript temple, under the mighty thumb of the Persian empire, was hardly even worthy of the name of a city-state, much less a world kingdom, and yet had HOPES and DREAMS and promises of world dominion!
Chapters 7-14 of Zechariah, which he gets two years later, are quite different. They are straightforward and fairly plain, laying out, likely in some sequential order, both the preliminary events, and the detailed climax, of the “time of the end.”
So, what about Kislev 24? It seems to have a three-fold meaning. First, in the time of Haggai and Zechariah, it was the day MARKED for the promise that the redemption would ultimately come about, not by power, nor by might, but by the Spirit of Yehovah–but “in its time.” Second, subsequently though history, this day seems to be one upon which key events take place, perhaps only a few of which have been recognized down through history. And finally, it might well turn out that on some Kislev 24 in the future, that date will serve as a “countdown marker” for the unfolding of the mysterious 1260/1290/1335/2300 days of Daniel’s visions, which interested Sir Isaac Newton so much.
During the period of the Maccabees, when Syrian ruler Antiochus IV unleashed his great persecution against the Jews of Judea/Palestine, it was on Kislev 24 that the enemy was defeated and the Temple freed from its desecration. That is why the festival of Chanukah is celebrated beginning at sundown, at the end of Kislev 24. In other words, it is NOT so much Chanukah that is important, as its marker date: Kislev 24. It seems to become a kind of banner date in history that marks any kind of “signal” of future redemption.
Fast forward to December 9, 1917. General Allenby, leading the British forces (remember Lawrence of Arabia), liberates Jerusalem for the first time in centuries from Turkish/Muslim rule. The date on the Jewish calendar–you guessed it: Kislev 24! That evening the Jewish soldiers in the British army celebrated Chanukah and went to the Wall in openness and freedom. The Torah reading that week was Mikketz (Gen 41), where JOSEPH is raised to power and saves Judah. And the Haphtorah reading, for the special Sabbath of Chanukah, as it is today, is the fascinating Zechariah 2:14-4:7! Note how it begins: “I have returned to Zion,” which seems to be the essential meaning of THIS DAY.
It is doubtful that Allenby was aware, during the heat of the battle, of even Chanukah, but certainly he knew nothing of Kislev 24.
If we begin checking in history over the past 2520 years (remember that number), there have been numerous times when Kislev 24 has played a large part, and even a smaller more symbolic part, in the unfolding of redemptive history. For example, no matter what one’s view of Yeshua might be, it seems in all likelihood that Yeshua was conceived on this day, nine months before his birth in September 3 BCE.
Some UIWU officers also noticed some years ago that the encounter David Horowitz had at the cave with his teacher Moshe Guibbory, as recounted in his autobiography, Thirty-three Candles, was on Friday night, December 16/17, 1927–and again, you guessed it, this was Kislev 24th. The Torah reading was Vayeshev, which begins the Joseph cycle, and the Haphtorah was Amos 2:6-3:8, which seems quite appropriate. Horowitz had no idea of this until over 50 years later when it was pointed out to him by others.
Now, a tiny bit on the numbers. Note, these important visions came in the year 520 BCE. The year 2000/2001 marks 2520 years since that first Kislev 24 vision of Haggai. The number 2520 is interesting, it has several mystical mathematical properties, but one most obvious one is that it is 7 x 360, or seven “prophetic years.” A prophetic year in the Bible is 360 days, thus we get in the books of Daniel and Revelation the period of 1260 days for 3.5 years. There are a number of indications, both in the Torah and Prophets, especially Ezekiel, that a kind of “day for a year” principle applies in Prophecy, and accordingly, the official “Exile” of Joseph and Judah would last 2520 years. Perhaps this is the meaning of the phrase “after two days” and “on the third day” references in Hosea 6. Now Judah was essentially “restored” in type at least, in the year 520, but the full restoration, and the union of things between Judah and Joseph is yet to come, “after two days” according to Hosea (a day is a “thousand years” in these prophetic texts). The point is, based on this chronology, we are “in” the third day, as of the year 2000. And indeed, it does appear we have begun to experience a “shaking of all things.” Whether this is the ultimate upheaval to which Haggai refers remains to be seen.
It is also worth noting, in terms of Kislev 24, that if you add 2300 days (the figure in Daniel 8) to that day, you always, on the Jewish calendar, come to the last day of Unleavened Bread, oddly something like 6.3 years later. In other words, it is sort of a strange figure. And there are then various interesting ways, too complicated to go into here, that the periods of Daniel (1260/1290/1335) fit in, taking one to Shavuot of any given sequence of years. We do know for certain that the 2300 “days” was fulfilled as a “day for a year” running from Alexander’s defeat of Darius in 334 BCE (June 7), to the day, to June 7, 1967–when Jerusalem was liberated by the Israelis in the Six Day War. The point seems to be that Alexander’s march to Jerusalem began a period of 2300 days/years of the trampling of Jerusalem. So what this seems to indicate is that there is a larger (day for a year) fulfillment of these periods, as well as a shorter “day for a day” fulfillment, once the “countdown” begins.
One might conclude then, from these indications, that on some Kislev 24, at some year “on our days and in our time” (whether past or future), people will come to recognize that Haggai’s “shaking” did indeed begin. It does not seem likely that time has quite yet come, but every year at this time one’s thoughts go to this date, given such an important designation by Haggai and Zechariah. On a personal level, it seems it can always be a date of “renewal” for any of us, and a time of new beginnings, looking to both the past and to the future.
Posted in Biblical Reflections, Historical Reflections
As sundown fell across Israel, Europe, and the United States last evening millions of Jews and many others who care about the history of Israel are marking the advent of Hanukkah, the Festival of Dedication. What might be lost is the historical grounding of the feast of Hanukkah itself, which seems to actually derive from Friday’s date: Kislev 24 or the 24th day of the 9th month of the Jewish calendar. Notice carefully this historical background:
The book of the prophet Haggai comes to us from the 2nd year of the Persian King Darius, late summer, August, 520 BCE. It is one of the most precisely dated books in the Hebrew Bible, much like its sister Zechariah, and its twin Malachi. The three go together, like peas in the pod, both coming from that crucial time of the “restoration” of Judah to the Land following the Babylonian captivity. Collectively they are our LAST WORD from Yehovah in terms of how the redemption is to unfold. It is very likely, based on Haggai 1:12, where the Prophet is called the “messenger of Yehovah,” that Haggai is in fact the author of the book we call Malachi, as this book is just named “My Messenger,” and the name of the prophet who wrote it is not given. Both Haggai and Zechariah address their contemporary situation, as one would expect, and are concerned that the Temple be rebuilt and that the constitution of the new state of Judah be ordered according to the Torah. However, if read carefully, both clearly understand that this restoration of Judah is only a preliminary, even symbolic step, to a coming GREAT restoration of Judah and ALL Israel. Even though there is a Priest (Joshua), and a Governor (Zerubbabel) of the Davidic line, there is no anointing of the BRANCH figure of whom both Isaiah and Jeremiah had spoken. One way of putting this is to say that Haggai and Zechariah are working in the tall shadow of JEREMIAH (see especially chapters 30-31), and they know, from his clear and powerful prophecies, that the final days have not come with this tiny little beachhead return of a portion of Judah to the land. But they do believe that this return of Judah is a “sign” of things to come, and a guarantee that the Plan of Yehovah, to fill the earth with justice and righteousness, through Abraham’s seed, is not to fall to the ground.
And that leads us to the curious and fascinating references to the 24th day of the 9th month–Kislev 24 in modern Jewish parlance.
Notice, reading the book of Haggai is sequential, it takes you through the last months of the year. It begins with the Rosh Chodesh of the 6th month (August), takes you through the 21st day of the 7th month (2:1), which is the last day of Sukkoth (October), and then into December–with the 24th day of the 9th month. Haggai’s third and fourth messages come on this very day. It is a short book, and if you skim it through you will see the building sequence.
Kislev 24 is mentioned FOUR times in the second chapters, verses 10, 15, 18 and 20. Twice it is emphasized that “from THIS DAY FORWARD I will bless you,” and twice Haggai gets a special Word from Yehovah, on this very day. You have to read the whole chapter to get the context, but the message is basically that Yehovah will “SHAKE the heavens and the earth and ALL NATIONS,” overthrowing their power, anoint the chosen one (symbolized in that day by Zerubbabel), and essentially make Jerusalem the new world capital. For the DETAILS you need to go back, of course, to Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Micah in particular, as they set forth the entire agenda to which Haggai only briefly alludes.
This message is addressed to the two “messiahs,” the Priest and the “King” or Governor, Joshua and Zerubbabel, respectively (2:4-5). They become “signifiers” of things to come. They are not the final anointed ones, and Zechariah picks this up in his visions, especially chapters 4 and 6. These symbolic figures, as well as the promised presence of the Holy Spirit (see 2:5 and Zech 4:6!), are the guarantee that Yehovah will bring about these promises.
Notice, Zechariah begins getting his visions and messages in the 8th month of that same year (Zech 1:1), or mid-November. He has EIGHT night visions, they are all quite difficult to follow, but prophetically important in forecasting the redemptive future. There is much more detail in Zechariah, but the two, Haggai and Zechariah, should be read in tandem, as one explains the other. Now, note carefully, Kislev 24 is not specifically mentioned in Zechariah, but it is alluded to in chapter 4:8-10. It is the famous “day of small things,” that one might be led to “despise,” because after all, this tiny little remnant of Judah, beginning to lay the foundation of a nondescript temple, under the mighty thumb of the Persian empire, was hardly even worthy of the name of a city-state, much less a world kingdom, and yet had HOPES and DREAMS and promises of world dominion!
Chapters 7-14 of Zechariah, which he gets two years later, are quite different. They are straightforward and fairly plain, laying out, likely in some sequential order, both the preliminary events, and the detailed climax, of the “time of the end.”
So, what about Kislev 24? It seems to have a three-fold meaning. First, in the time of Haggai and Zechariah, it was the day MARKED for the promise that the redemption would ultimately come about, not by power, nor by might, but by the Spirit of Yehovah–but “in its time.” Second, subsequently though history, this day seems to be one upon which key events take place, perhaps only a few of which have been recognized down through history. And finally, it might well turn out that on some Kislev 24 in the future, that date will serve as a “countdown marker” for the unfolding of the mysterious 1260/1290/1335/2300 days of Daniel’s visions, which interested Sir Isaac Newton so much.
During the period of the Maccabees, when Syrian ruler Antiochus IV unleashed his great persecution against the Jews of Judea/Palestine, it was on Kislev 24 that the enemy was defeated and the Temple freed from its desecration. That is why the festival of Chanukah is celebrated beginning at sundown, at the end of Kislev 24. In other words, it is NOT so much Chanukah that is important, as its marker date: Kislev 24. It seems to become a kind of banner date in history that marks any kind of “signal” of future redemption.
Fast forward to December 9, 1917. General Allenby, leading the British forces (remember Lawrence of Arabia), liberates Jerusalem for the first time in centuries from Turkish/Muslim rule. The date on the Jewish calendar–you guessed it: Kislev 24! That evening the Jewish soldiers in the British army celebrated Chanukah and went to the Wall in openness and freedom. The Torah reading that week was Mikketz (Gen 41), where JOSEPH is raised to power and saves Judah. And the Haphtorah reading, for the special Sabbath of Chanukah, as it is today, is the fascinating Zechariah 2:14-4:7! Note how it begins: “I have returned to Zion,” which seems to be the essential meaning of THIS DAY.
It is doubtful that Allenby was aware, during the heat of the battle, of even Chanukah, but certainly he knew nothing of Kislev 24.
If we begin checking in history over the past 2520 years (remember that number), there have been numerous times when Kislev 24 has played a large part, and even a smaller more symbolic part, in the unfolding of redemptive history. For example, no matter what one’s view of Yeshua might be, it seems in all likelihood that Yeshua was conceived on this day, nine months before his birth in September 3 BCE.
Some UIWU officers also noticed some years ago that the encounter David Horowitz had at the cave with his teacher Moshe Guibbory, as recounted in his autobiography, Thirty-three Candles, was on Friday night, December 16/17, 1927–and again, you guessed it, this was Kislev 24th. The Torah reading was Vayeshev, which begins the Joseph cycle, and the Haphtorah was Amos 2:6-3:8, which seems quite appropriate. Horowitz had no idea of this until over 50 years later when it was pointed out to him by others.
Now, a tiny bit on the numbers. Note, these important visions came in the year 520 BCE. The year 2000/2001 marks 2520 years since that first Kislev 24 vision of Haggai. The number 2520 is interesting, it has several mystical mathematical properties, but one most obvious one is that it is 7 x 360, or seven “prophetic years.” A prophetic year in the Bible is 360 days, thus we get in the books of Daniel and Revelation the period of 1260 days for 3.5 years. There are a number of indications, both in the Torah and Prophets, especially Ezekiel, that a kind of “day for a year” principle applies in Prophecy, and accordingly, the official “Exile” of Joseph and Judah would last 2520 years. Perhaps this is the meaning of the phrase “after two days” and “on the third day” references in Hosea 6. Now Judah was essentially “restored” in type at least, in the year 520, but the full restoration, and the union of things between Judah and Joseph is yet to come, “after two days” according to Hosea (a day is a “thousand years” in these prophetic texts). The point is, based on this chronology, we are “in” the third day, as of the year 2000. And indeed, it does appear we have begun to experience a “shaking of all things.” Whether this is the ultimate upheaval to which Haggai refers remains to be seen.
It is also worth noting, in terms of Kislev 24, that if you add 2300 days (the figure in Daniel 8) to that day, you always, on the Jewish calendar, come to the last day of Unleavened Bread, oddly something like 6.3 years later. In other words, it is sort of a strange figure. And there are then various interesting ways, too complicated to go into here, that the periods of Daniel (1260/1290/1335) fit in, taking one to Shavuot of any given sequence of years. We do know for certain that the 2300 “days” was fulfilled as a “day for a year” running from Alexander’s defeat of Darius in 334 BCE (June 7), to the day, to June 7, 1967–when Jerusalem was liberated by the Israelis in the Six Day War. The point seems to be that Alexander’s march to Jerusalem began a period of 2300 days/years of the trampling of Jerusalem. So what this seems to indicate is that there is a larger (day for a year) fulfillment of these periods, as well as a shorter “day for a day” fulfillment, once the “countdown” begins.
One might conclude then, from these indications, that on some Kislev 24, at some year “on our days and in our time” (whether past or future), people will come to recognize that Haggai’s “shaking” did indeed begin. It does not seem likely that time has quite yet come, but every year at this time one’s thoughts go to this date, given such an important designation by Haggai and Zechariah. On a personal level, it seems it can always be a date of “renewal” for any of us, and a time of new beginnings, looking to both the past and to the future.
Posted in Biblical Reflections, Historical Reflections
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