Escaping the Wrath to Come

Matthew 25:1-13 in the parable of the ten virgins tells us that an urgent need for "oil in our lamps" will come upon us very suddenly, without warning, and that if our lamps (our heart, our mind, our spirit) are not kept filled with oil (the power of the Holy Spirit) at all times, we will be left not only unprepared, but unable to obtain that for which we will be in the direst need:

"Then shall the kingdom of heaven be likened unto ten virgins, which took their lamps, and went forth to meet the bridegroom. And five of them were wise, and five were foolish. They that were foolish took their lamps and took no oil with them, but the wise took oil in their vessels with their lamps. While the bridegroom tarried, they all slumbered and slept. And at midnight, there was a cry made, Behold the bridegroom cometh. Go ye out to meet him. Then all those virgins arose, and trimmed their lamps. And the foolish said unto the wise, Give us of your oil, for our lamps are gone out. But the wise answered, saying, Not so, lest there be not enough for us and you; but go ye rather to them that sell, and buy for yourselves. And while they went to buy, the bridegroom came, and they that were ready went in with him to the marriage, and the door was shut. Afterward came also the other virgins, saying, Lord, Lord, open to us. But  he answered and said, Verily, I say unto you, I know you not. 

Watch therefore, for ye know neither the day nor the hour wherein the Son of man cometh." Matthew 25:1-13.

To me this speaks of the rapture of the bride of Christ, the church, in the end times. The five wise virgins went in with the groom, Jesus Christ, to the marriage [of Jesus to His bride, the church]. And thus, the church age ends. Those wise virgins who are watching for the Lord to catch his church up into the air are the virgins whose lamps are filled with oil, oil being the power of the Holy Spirit. The rapture is the way of escape that the Lord has prepared for His Bride the church, so that His Bride escapes the wrath of God at the end of the Great Tribulation:

"In a moment in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump: for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed." 1 Corinthians 15:52.

So, how do we get this needed oil? 

By faith in Jesus Christ who left us with the power of the Holy Spirit to strengthen us and cause us to endure to the end. By faith that believes that the Word of God IS Jesus Christ, the Son of God and God Himself:

"In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by Him, and without Him was not anything made that was made. In Him was life, and the life was the light of men. And the light shineth in darkness, and the darkness comprehended it not." (John 1:1-3)

"That was the true Light, which lighteth every man that cometh into the world. He was in the world, and the world was made by Him, and the world knew Him not. He came unto His own and His own received Him not. But as many as received Him, to them gave He power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on His name, which were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God. And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father), full of grace and truth." (John 1:9-14)

These scriptures written by the apostle John speak of Jesus Christ, the only begotten Son of God, who after His three-and-a-half-year ministry of miracles and grace, during which He showed the love of God towards men, was tortured and nailed to a cross where He died at the age of 33, all for the crime of showing God's love to the world. Those who received Him then, and those who receive Him now, do so by faith, not by good works, not by will power to discipline oneself into better shape physically or spiritually, but simply by faith in the power of God tat what God has done and will do is sufficient for all that we need to be saved.

Three days after His death on the cross, this same Jesus was bodily raised again to life by the power of God Almighty, Creator of heaven and earth and of all that dwell therein, as only the Creator of these bodies of flesh would have the power to do. Yet, to this very day, the darkness reviles any mention of a Creator.

Jesus was the light of God shone into a world that was filled with darkness more 2,000 years ago. And the darkness tried to extinguish the light but failed when God raised Him from the dead. Until Jesus returns a second time, as He said He would do, the darkness continues in its attempt to snuff out every light of God that proclaims His Good News. Christians are still being tortured and killed around the world for speaking of the Good News that we are saved, not by our works, but by our faith and trusting in the work of Jesus Christ alone.

Back to the oil, if you already know Jesus and trust in Him, then you are already living by the power of the Holy Spirit and your lamp is full. There will be times, however, as there were with the disciples in the book of Acts, where more oil is needed. In the book of Acts, the disciples asked for more power of the Holy Spirit (oil in their lamps) by which to be bolder in speaking the Truth of God's Word in perilous times. The perilous times the disciples were dealing with was the threat of being arrested or worse for speaking the truth about Jesus Christ. At the time of the following prayer, the disciples had seen Jesus tortured, crucified, raised from the dead, and lifted into the heavens until He disappeared from their sight. These were the glorious miraculous works of God that Peter and John were compelled to speak to the unbelieving Jews about, in their effort to see those Jews saved. Peter and John had not only been arrested once, and miraculously released, but had been told never to speak these truths again. This is how they reacted to the threat from the authorities, exactly as we should react in similar circumstances:

"...they lifted up their voice to God with one accord, and said, 'Lord, thou art God, which hast made heaven, and earth, and the sea, and all that in them is, who by the mouth of thy servant David hast said, Why did the heathen rage, and the people imagine vain things? The Kings of the earth stood up, and the rulers were gathered together against the Lord, and against His Christ. For of a truth against thy holy child Jesus, whom thou hast anointed, both Herod, and Pontius Pilate, with the Gentiles, and the people of Israel, were gathered together, for to do whatsoever thy hand and thy counsel determined before to be done. And now, Lord, behold their threatenings, and grant unto thy servants, that with all boldness they may speak thy word, by stretching forth thine hand to heal; and that signs and wonders may be done by the name of thy holy child Jesus.' And when they had prayed, the place was shaken where they were assembled together; and they were all filled with the Holy Ghost, and they spake the word of God with boldness." Acts 4:24-31.

They asked and they received, as they knew they would receive, or they would not have asked. 

"Therefore, I say unto you, what things soever you desire, when ye pray, believe that ye receive them, and ye shall have them," Mark 11:24.

We also need only ask in faith and believe by faith that we have received that for which we have asked. And then we find that we have it. It is ours. Or I should say, He, the Holy Spirit, the oil in our lamps, is ours. Simply for the asking.

If you don't yet know Jesus, as both your Lord and your Savior, then now is the time to get to know Him. Now is the time to put your faith and trust in Him. The Word of God says:

"For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever would believe in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life." John 3:16

 "If you will confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and will believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved." Romans 10:9.

"For therein is the righteousness of God revealed from faith to faith: as it is written, the just shall live by faith." Romans 1:17.

"Therefore being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ: by whom also we have access by faith into this grace wherein we stand and rejoice in hope of the glory of God." Romans 5:1-2.

The Holy Spirit is not given to men because they deserve to have it. The Holy Spirit is given to those who simply believe that God is good and that His grace, to us who believe, knows no measure.

When I was a young Christian, someone helped me understand by using this analogy:

Imagine that the Holy Spirit (the power of God) was placed in a box with your name on it. That power has been gifted to you, it is yours by the grace and goodness of God Almighty, waiting for you to open and receive it. If you never open the box, you will never receive the gift. There is no test to pass, no act to perform. All that is needed is for you to believe that God is good, that He has given you a gift, and that all you now need to do is open it (ask for it).  Open it, receive the gift, and then walk in it. 

Walk as the bride of Christ whose lamp is filled to the brim with oil. 

For perilous times are coming and are even now upon us, but we are never alone. Jesus is with us:

"All power is given unto me [Jesus] in heaven and in earth. Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you: and, lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world." Matthew 28:18-20 

Amen.

The Stand Again Power of God

The phrase used in the title of this post has been borrowed from a book titled Last Days Survival Guide. The author of this book, Rick Renner, delves deeply into the Greek of the New Testament in a way that turned my beloved King James language of the Bible into a highly detailed modern-day language that spoke to me in a powerful way and encouraged me to stand again in faith.

The last four words of the above paragraph are easily written, but there is nothing easy about standing again once you've been knocked down, especially when your thoughts tempt you with: Not just knocked down, but knocked out. Knocked out of the race altogether. Not an overcomer after all, but one who has been overcome by the enemy. 

It's funny that God often reaches me through the words of others. I remember being knocked down once before in 2003. But while reading a book by Billy Graham titled Storm Warning, my derailed heart melted and I found myself sobbing on the floor, first in repentance and then in awe of the love of God that flooded over me. 

More recently, with Rick Renner's book, I felt not a flood, but a quiet nudging of faith that helped me stand again. Surely, we are the generation that must stand again by faith in these last of the last days, guided by the Holy Spirit of God, as He leads us safely through the wiles of the enemy and brings us home to Him. Knowing that even if we momentarily lose our hold and are knocked down, He is always faithful to help us stand again. 

And we will be knocked down, for perilous times are ahead. In fact, many Christians, myself included, believe that we are in the beginning of those most perilous of times, when we will need the guiding, the boldness, and the standup power of the Holy Spirit more than ever.

Quoting 2 Timothy 3:1, Rick gives great depth of meaning to the phrase "perilous times." Instead of the King James wording, "This know also, that in the last days perilous times shall come," Rick takes all that he can from the original Greek to help us understand just how perilous these perilous times will actually be, so that we now end up with this translation of that particular verse and the perilous times ahead:

"You need to know emphatically and categorically that in the last of the last days there will come uncontrollable, unpredictable, hurtful, treacherous, menacing times that will be emotionally difficult for people to bear."

Have we not seen such times beginning in 2020 with a global pandemic, political divisions, cancel culture, the insidious Equality Act, and so much more? I believe we have. Along with this, we face natural disasters that we aren't always able to fully prepare for.

In my family's home state of Texas, 2021 brought unpredictable times that were especially difficult to bear.  A rare snowstorm that dumped several inches of snow over most of Texas, brought with it temperatures that fell into the single digits, wind chill factors of below zero, failed electrical grids all over the state, millions of Texans without heating or water for several days in a row, and frozen pipes bursting that had plumbers from surrounding states being called upon to help in this devastating emergency situation. Millions of people - millions!- had to live through those conditions with no ability to control what was happening to them. Those were perilous times for Texans. But that was nothing compared to the "uncontrollable, unpredictable, hurtful, treacherous, menacing times"  that the Bible describes are yet to come. 

I stumbled upon a graphic example of such treacherous times in a podcast that I recently listened to: [ Tyranny, Slavery and Columbia U | Yeonmi Park | The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast - S4: E26 - YouTube ] A young North Korean girl, Yeonmi Park, describes her childhood and teen years with all the horrors of living under the satanically evil regime of Kim Jong Il in North Korea. It is not a Christian podcast per se, and yet it is one that I believe every citizen of every free nation should hear as this is the tyranny that is attempting currently to overtake the free world. The North Korean girl being interviewed now lives in the U.S. But she describes the horrific life humans live in North Korea and then expresses her concerns of the tyrannical thinking already present here in America. 

Towards the end of the interview, Yeonmi's experience with missionaries is very interesting to hear. She was judged harshly by the missionary, and yet he risked his life to save her. I am unable to tell whether she ever came to truly trust in Jesus or whether her experience with a Christian missionary left her confused about Jesus instead. I do intend to buy her book and hope to get more information from it than is possible in this one interview.

As Christians, we understand that there is a spirit realm in which powers and principalities rule. I believe that the spirit of antichrist rules North Korea and is the same spirit that has set things in motion to turn our beloved country into another North Korea. My hope is that any Christian believer listening to this podcast will be stirred to take prayerful action. And by that, I mean that as Christians we will not only pray for those who are living in such horrific situations in North Korea, but that we will ask the Lord to show us what actions we can take that would be impactful in fighting against the evils that Yeonmi was forced to experience. The same evils that hundreds of thousands of children are still experiencing in North Korea and China.

Yeonmi Park, has risked her life to speak openly of what is happening in both North Korea and bordering China, in order to bring the truth to light and prevent that same evil from overcoming the "free" world. But don't doubt for a moment. The plans to destroy our country have already been set in motion. Coming our way are "uncontrollable, unpredictable, hurtful, treacherous, menacing times that will be emotionally difficult for people to bear."

God is warning us about what is coming not to cause us to fear, but to remind us to be diligent in that which matters most so that we are prepared. Spiritual tools necessary to deal with the times to come are ours for the asking as believers in Jesus Christ. Just knowing Him, and being known by Him, grants us access to the throne of God with our prayers and supplications, and provides us with the infilling strength and power of His Holy Spirit. All that we need to "stand" is found in Jesus. And for the Christian believer, He has prepared a way of escape. More on that in the next post.

Blessed Be the One Who Opens Our Ears to Hear

 These are the words of Isaiah, prophet of the Sovereign LORD:

"The Sovereign LORD has given me his words of wisdom, so that I know how to comfort the weary. Morning by morning he wakens me and opens my understanding to his will." Isaiah 50:4 NLT

So many of us in these trying times are feeling a sort of malaise or what might even be called depression. I believe it is what the Word of God labels as "weary."

We are all weary, are we not?

In my own area, added to the COVID19 uptick, the political and social unrest, the continued social distancing, whether forced or voluntary, we can also add the gale force winds of 88 miles per hour that prevailed all day long yesterday causing fires 30 miles south of us from downed electrical wires and forcing hundreds to be evacuated from their safe homes into hotels. Those same winds fueled a brush fire 45 miles north of us causing 12 families to lose their homes at this very precise time which we call the "holiday" season. None of this feels like a holiday. Few of us can find reason to celebrate.

How many families have lost loved ones this year, whether due to COVID19 or other causes? How many have lost everything in fires that raged out of control in so much of the world? What about the millions who have lost jobs and are barely hanging on financially? Or those who were unable to hang on and lost their businesses and maybe even their homes because of things so completely beyond their control?

What words of comfort to these, the weary, was Isaiah given from God?  

Perhaps these:

"Therefore I will give him a portion among the great, and he will divide the spoils with the strong, because he poured out his life unto death,  and was numbered with the transgressors. For he bore the sins of many,  and made intercession for the transgressors."  Isaiah 53:12 NLV

To some, Isaiah's words might not appear to be all that comforting, maybe even a bit depressing. But I ask you to read them over again and I pray that the Lord will open your ears to hear the great encouragement to be found within this tiny yet powerful passage of Scripture.

Isaiah is speaking prophetically about that which the Messiah will endure in order to save His people (us, the transgressors) from their sins, from their wrong-doings which He knows they (we, the transgressors) are too weak to overcome. 

Approximately seven hundred years later, the Messiah did exactly as Isaiah had prophesied through the prophetic words dictated to Isaiah by God Himself.  And so the Messiah, Yeshua Hamashiach, Jesus the Christ, the Anointed One, gave His life willingly in a final and everlasting atonement for our transgressions that only God Himself could do, because He was God, giving Himself in order to save His own creation (us) because no other sacrifice or offering or effort on the part of us humans was able to save us once and for all time.

Jesus, the Messiah, was and still is our only hope, as prescribed by the Father, God Almighty.

And so we are made strong, because Jesus took away our fear of the punishment we deserve when He suffered that punishment in our place.

We are strong because He took the fear of death away from us when He rose from the dead, pointing us to the truth about life after death, so that death is not final for us and everlasting life with Him is promised to those who will only believe His Word and trust in Him.

We are strong, even we are weary, because our strength is not of ourselves, but of Him, our Messiah, our Lord, our Savior, in whom we can trust completely, in spite of all that is happening around us.

We are strong, because when we are weary, we cry out to the only One who can help us. And He opens our ears to hear Him as He calls us His Beloved and strengthens us through this, our wearying journey, that leads us to our home with Him.

Blessed be the Name of the LORD in times such as these to which we have all been called, as we remain mindful of Him and continue to pray for one another.

Rest from Our Burdens

There is a new book added to my Reading List on the right side of the screen here. The book is titled Burden Bearers: Who's Carrying Your Load? Paul Chappell is a pastor and the author of this book that I have not quite finished reading - still working on it.

I found this book when I felt led to do a Google search on "burden bearers" just to see if anyone had already written something on the subject, as I know quite a few people who carry burdens for others, myself included, and I wanted to know more about the subject. In my case, I needed to know specifically how to deal with the very heavy burdens I was carrying - how to shift their weight in order to carry them more easily or how to release them altogether. All I knew was that I could no longer carry them all. It had become too much. I slept very little each night with the worries of each burden and then could barely face each day. It seemed as though my only solution was to run away and hide so that no one could burden me any further (forgetting that I was the one who had taken the burdens upon myself in the first place, no one had forced me into anything, that's just the kind of person I am: caring and compassionate and...well...it seemed that if I were going to hide, it might need to be from myself!)

Mind you, I have been a born-again believer for more than 40 years now and I know Scripture (how could I not after studying the bible for the best part of that 40 years?)  I know, for example, that Jesus said:

"Come unto me all ye that labor and are heavy-laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly of heart; and ye shall find rest unto your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light." (Matthew 11:28-30)

And then there is this one which I used so often just to help me drift off to sleep each night after a long day of burden-bearing, it's just that I couldn't stay asleep:

"The Lord is my Shepherd, I shall not want. He maketh me to lie down in green pastures, He leadeth me beside the still waters. He restoreth my soul...I will fear no evil, for Thou art with me, thy rod and thy staff they comfort me..." (Psalm 23: 1-4a)

These are words my mind kept telling my heart, it's just that my heart was unable to apply that which it was hearing. At some point, I had become so burdened that I didn't function as well as I once had. It was as though a sort of paralysis had taken hold of me and I became unable to move, or even to think clearly. You would think paralysis would be a "rest" of some sort, but it isn't - it's just a more intense struggle to do what you know you can no longer do - to move - and carry burdens!

Then my Google search led me to Paul Chappell's book which, by the way, is such an easy read! Each chapter is prefaced by an allegorical example, similar to the way The Pilgrim's Progress was written. Each preface is a continuation of a tale that happens primarily between two main characters, Carrier and Burden Bearer, although they meet other characters along The Way.  It is difficult to know whether I learned more from the allegorical parts or from the pastoral teaching parts that followed, as they were both excellently written, but there was no doubt about it: I was Carrier, who was also a born-again believer, carrying a backpack filled with burdens.

So, have I found a practical application of the message contained in Paul Chappell's book to my own life? Have I truly found the rest and restoration that are promised to me in the two scriptures above?

Honestly, probably not quite yet. After all, I haven't even finished the book...

...but as I read, I sense a slight lessening, barely perceptible, of the ever-present weight on my heart and a stirring of truths long buried under grief's pain. For example, there was a time when I clearly heard the Lord speak to me through a dream, but His words were also lost in my suffering. Now, I recall the words spoken, and I weep for having doubted Him, for having lost my way. And even as I weep, I understand once again that a release, and rest, are waiting for me, here, in the weeping. 

God's Truth Versus Man's Imagination

During an extended period of grieving, I allowed work, and other distractions, to keep me away from this blog. More than two years later, with grief reduced to only an occasional heart-searing pain of regret and remorse, work came to an end as well, although distractions never end.

Still, I still found myself unable (or unwilling?) to take up my blogging "pen" until this week when I received an anonymous comment on an older post about Babylon. As I reread the Babylon post, some words I had written about man's imagination being evil caught my attention.

Clearly, all that man can imagine is not evil.

After all, imagination (our "mind's eye" as it is sometimes called) allows us to "see" ourselves in the place of Peter as he wept bitterly upon realizing that he had three times denied any association with Jesus whom he had claimed to love. ["...Lord you know all things, you know that I love you..." John 21:17; "And Peter wept bitterly" Luke 22:62]

This same imagination begs an answer from us individually to the question: Am I capable of denying Jesus as Peter did?

The answer is always: yes.  We humans whom God came to save are absolutely capable of denying Jesus, of denying God, for they are One and the same. ["...he who has seen me has seen the Father..." John 14:9; "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was God, and the Word was with God." John 1:1]

We are completely capable of turning away from the Hand that has reached out, not to harm us, but to save us. ["For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future." Jeremiah 29:11]

This same imagination can put us in the place of the prodigal son as he returned home laden with the weight of his former rebellion against his Father, only to find the Father rejoicing in his son's return, rather than finding himself being accused and punished as he knew he deserved. ["For this my son was dead, and is alive again; he was lost, and is found. And they began to be merry." Luke 15:24]

We have not actually laid our eyes upon Jesus in any physical sense, but by virtue of our imagination, we do "see" Him as we read the Word of God, we imagine all that Jesus said and did actually happened just as the Word of God said it did, and eventually, by the will of God, we come to believe it to be true. What we call faith is a gift that comes from God, but is created by God within us with the aid of our imagination, as God so designed. In this case, imagination is used, as our Creator God intended, for good.

But...

If something, a distraction, for example, causes us to turn away from the Word of God for any significant period of time, we are also capable of using imagination in ways that are evil, as our memory of God's Truth falters within us, our faith slides downward, and our imagination rises up and begins to doubt God's Word, to believe that which is not in alignment with God's Word, and to create ways of asserting itself against God Himself.

Sin is listening to our own imagination, when it tells us something that is contrary to God's Word, and believing it.

And sin is always subtle, not wanting to reveal itself to us, for the goal of sin is to defeat us, imprison us, destroy us...and to do so eternally, not just in the here and now.

Ironically, our only weapon against this enemy of ours is the Word of God, the very thing from which we allow ourselves to be distanced because of work, for example, and other distractions, such as:

...dysfunctional family members and their dramas,
...financial worries;
...unbelieving co-workers or friends,
...unbelieving spouses,

...our own wicked hearts.

Without the last item being true, none of the former items could affect our faith. After all, we allowed these distractions to pull us away from the Word of God. The fault lies in us alone. Always has, always will, for we are drawn away because of our own lusts, as God's Word rightly declares:

"But every man is tempted, when he is drawn away by his own lust, and enticed. Then when lust has conceived, it brings forth sin: and sin, when it is finished brings forth death." James 1:14-15

Lusts might include:
...our need to be needed by dysfunctional family members, spending time on their problems rather than with God;
...being moved by a fear of not having enough money versus trusting that the Lord will meet one's every need;
...escaping unpleasant realities by jumping into the distraction of worldly things (becoming "of" the world, rather than being "in" it just long enough to testify of God's love to mankind) rather than escaping to the loving arms of the Lord Himself, our shelter, our help in time of need, our Savior;
...driven by loneliness to the wrong place and the wrong person, believing the world's version of "love" rather than God's declaration of its true meaning, and, for the sake of the "better" version of love that the world offers, overriding, with various rationalizations, all that the Word says about what love between a man and a woman should look like, and about not being united with an unbeliever (then blaming God when the relationship ends, tragically for all concerned).

If we allow ourselves to be pulled away from the Word of God, even pulled away by intellectualizing the Word versus letting the Word cut through to the marrow of our very being in order to remove the evil in our hearts, then our imaginations are free to "create" thoughts in opposition to God's TRUTH; thoughts that MUST be taken captive by the Word of God or will take us captive instead. ["...take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ." 2 Corinthians 10:5]. Thus, our imaginations can be used for evil, leading us to our own destruction.

I am thankful to "anonymous" for drawing my attention back to an old post, drawing me back to this blog, and through a decidedly pre-ordained circumstance, helping me once more to "see" sin...

...in me.

Jeremiah's Eighth Sermon

This eighth sermon encompasses three chapters of Jeremiah in verses 18:1 through 20:18

In Christian praise songs, both new and old, scripture is often used or referred to. As you read chapters 18 and 19 specifically, you won't be able to help but recall to mind those songs which speak of believers being the "clay" and the Lord being the "potter," or songs that refer to believers as "broken vessels."

In chapter 18, the Lord brought Jeremiah to the potter's house to watch how he takes clay, forms in on the constantly turning wheel, and when it doesn't take the shape he wants, he takes the same clay and reshapes it, again and again if necessary, until it takes the form he desires.  The power to take the clay in his hands in order to break it down and begin again is in the potter's hands alone; the clay has no control over what is being done to it.

Such clay are we in the hands of Almighty God.  Our prideful, intelligent minds speak lies to us about how "we are in control" when nothing could be further from the truth.  And the sooner we put aside our prideful thoughts and humble ourselves to submit to the Lord, the better it will go for us when terror strikes our own land as it struck the land of Judah.

Such was the message that Jeremiah is told in chapter 18 to deliver to Judah.

After the clay takes the right shape and is hardened by the drying or heat process, if the clay (aka "earthen" as clay comes from the earth) becomes damaged in any way, it is impossible to repair it.  Because it is now a useless vessel, unable to hold liquids, for example, there is no choice but to throw it onto the trash heap, where it is broken into bits and buried under more trash.

Unrepentant sin brings damage to us, the vessels of God, chosen for His purposes, but turned away from His purposes because of hard and unrepentant hearts.

What is very important to realize here is that the Lord told Jeremiah in chapter 19 to take an ordinary useless vessel, along with the eldest of the people of Judah and the eldest of the priests of Judah, to the "valley of Hinnom."  And there he was to break the useless vessel into bits, probably by tossing it firmly onto the existing trash heap that the valley of Hinnom was known for at that time. 

The valley of Hinnom was comparable to what we call the "city dump." It was outside the walls of the city, naturally, and the fires were kept burning continually in order to consume all the waste that was brought there.  It must have been a black, smelly place of destruction with fires that were never quenched.

Imagine the effect the environment had on Jeremiah's "guests" as he escorted them to this foul place and spoke the words of the Lord that referred to Judah as damaged and useless vessels that the potter, God Himself, would destroy and toss onto this most "unclean" site with its sulfurous odor and the great heat of its perpetual fires. (What is this reminiscent of?)

We would think it would shake some sense into them, right?  But what happened, as seen in chapter 20, is that Jeremiah becomes even more persecuted for the words of the Lord that he spoke against Judah.

"Now Pashur, the son of Immer the priest, who was also chief governor in the house of the Lord, heard that Jeremiah prophesied these things.  Then Pashur beat Jeremiah the prophet, and put him in the stocks that were in the high gate of Benjamin, which was by the house of the Lord." (Jer. 20:1-2)

While the Lord allowed his servant Jeremiah to suffer for His sake, He never allows such behavior against one of His own to go unpunished.  While all of Judah was already in line to receive judgment for their sins, the Lord made sure, immediately, that Pashur knew his own particular fate; a fate clearly brought about not only by his own hard-heartedness against the Lord, but because of his ill-treatment of God's faithful servant Jeremiah:

"And it came to pass on the morrow, that Pashur brought forth Jeremiah out of the stocks.  Then said Jeremiah unto him, The Lord hath not called thy name Pashur, but Magormissabib.  For thus saith the Lord, Behold, I will make thee a terror to thyself, and to all thy friends: and they shall fall by the sword of their enemies, and thine eyes shall behold it: and I will give all Judah into the hand of the king of Babylon, and he shall carry them captive into Babylon, and shall slay them with the sword.

Moreoever, I will deliver all the strength of this city, and all the labours thereof, and all the precious things thereof, and all the treasures of the kings of Judah will I give into the hand of their enemies, which shall spoil them, and take them, and carry them to Babylon.  And thou, Pashur, and all that dwell in thine house shall go into captivity: and thou shalt come to Babylon, and there thou shalt die, and shalt be buried there, thou, and all thy friends, to whom thou hast prophesied lies." (Jer. 20:3-6)

The second half of chapter 20 tells us of Jeremiah's misery under such unjust persecution.  After all, he is just relaying a message from God.  He is merely the messenger of the Word of the Lord.

There is a sign to us in chapter 20, or perhaps I should call it a characteristic, that I want to bring your attention to in Jeremiah 20:9.  It is the great "compelling" that inhabits faithful servants of God:

"Then I said, I will not make mention of Him, nor speak any more in His name.  But His Word was in mine heart as a burning fire shut up in my bones, and I was weary with forbearing, and I could not stay."

The burning fire of the Holy Spirit anointing filled Jeremiah so that as much as he knew speaking the Word would bring him great pain, he had no choice but to speak it.

David spoke of this compelling.  Peter and John spoke of it as well:

"And they called them and commanded them not to speak at all nor teach in the name of Jesus.  But Peter and John answered and said unto them, Whether it be right in the sight of God to hearken unto you more than unto God, judge ye.  For we cannot but speak the things which we have seen and heard." (Acts 4:18-20)

Some of you may have experienced this compelling.  I have.  It is what caused me to go preach in the Douglas County jail, a most uncomfortable place to be in, preaching with much fear and trembling as I faced thirty or forty tattooed grim-faced men in orange jumpsuits, or the twenty or so equally grim and hard looking women, prisoners within the walls of those jails.  I felt completely inadequate to face these people, and yet the compassion of the Lord for these men and women, that resided within me, allowed my mouth to open and, thankfully, HIS word to come out of it.

It is what compelled me to go further afield to the jail in Bridgeport, California, consuming most of my Sunday afternoons, to bring hope in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ to the few women I was able to meet with there. In that smaller jail, in a more intimate women's bible study, I was able to witness the Lord doing some amazing transformations in only a couple of women there, while others remained rooted firmly in their sin and denial.  But seeing the miracle of tremendously changed lives in even two young women, made the discomfort of being in such a place so rewarding.  All I had to do was present my body for God's use, and He did the rest.  Watching their transformations before my eyes, increased my faith exponentially, because I knew it was God doing it, not me. And what He could do for them, He could do for me as well.

Such a compelling is so great in you that you cannot resist it and must go, even in fear and trembling.

I believe Jeremiah preached with great fear and trembling.  Yet he remained faithful to God. Such are we also called to do.

We are to hear from the Lord, wait for the compelling (the anointing of the Holy Spirit), and then move out no matter how much we tremble at doing so.  If you have not yet experienced this, you will, once filled with the Holy Spirit, as the disciples were, and you will find that it is more terrible to NOT go than to GO.  Because the Lord, through the Holy Spirit commands you to go, and go you must! 

You will find, as Jeremiah did, that you "cannot stay."

Jeremiah's Seventh Sermon, Part 2

The second half of Jeremiah 16 describes the amazing promise of God towards His people:

"Therefore, behold, the days come, saith the Lord, that it shall no more be said, The Lord liveth, that brought up the children of Israel out of the land of Egypt." (16:14) 

In other words, that miracle, as great as it was, will be eclipsed by what the Lord is going to do next as the Deliverer of those who trust in Him!  Here is what He promises He will do, prefaced by that which the people will proclaim as His new and greater miracle:

"The Lord liveth, that brought up the children of Israel from all the land of the north, and form all the lands whither He had driven them: and I will bring them again into their land that I gave unto their fathers." (16:15) 

This is the ultimate and final return of God's chosen people, Israel, back to the land that He gave to their ancestors beginning with Abraham.  This is the miracle that has brought about the establishment of the State of Israel, but that is not all that the miracle entails.  There is so much more.

"Behold, I will send for many fishers, saith the Lord, and they shall fish them; and after will I send for many hunters, and they shall hunt them from every mountain, and from every hill, and out of the holes of the rocks.  For mine eyes are upon all their ways: they are not hid from my face, neither is their iniquity hid from mine eyes." (16:16)

This is the miracle that we have witnessed in our own times: that of a nation of people returning home from all the ends of the earth to which they had been scattered (aka the "diaspora"), as the scripture says, by the hand of God. The same hand of a holy and righteous God that drove them away from His presence, is the same hand that loves them enough and is compassionate enough, to bring them home again, and thus glorify His Name and declare to the whole earth just who He is! We are all to see and understand that the very existence of the State of Israel is no coincidence; this is the orchestration of a mighty and sovereign God who will fulfill ALL of His promises to His people, to all those who trust in Him! 

Who are these "fishers" but their own brethren, the disciples of Jesus Christ and all who follow Him?  The ones that Christ declared He would make "fishers of men"?  First to the Jews, and then to the Gentiles.  Paul even says that the Lord will cast aside the Jews for a certain length of time, and will instead draw Gentiles unto Him, in order to make the Jews jealous:

"O Lord, my strength and my fortress, and my refuge in the day of affliction, the Gentiles shall come unto thee from the ends of the earth, and shall say, Surely our father have inherited lies, vanity, and things wherein there in no profit.  Shall a man make gods unto himself and they are no gods? Therefore, behold, I will this once cause them to know, I will cause them to know mine hand and my might: and they shall know that my name is THE LORD." (16:19-21)

Then who are the "hunters"? Could there be 144,000 of them perhaps? God has further plans for this people who have turned from Him, most of which have still not returned to Him, even though they have returned to their homelands given to them by this gracious God.  His plan requires that they be in Israel, for it is from Israel, under great duress, that they will as a nation once again turn towards God and call out to their Messiah for deliverance!  All of which will be enabled by the prior faithful testimony of 144,000 witnesses that are to come 12,000 each from the 12 tribes of Judah!  The Word declares that these witnesses will preach to the nation of Israel so that they will know that their Messiah was the one they rejected more than two thousand years ago.  They will know Jesus, the Messiah, or as they will call Him in their native tongue, Yeshua HaMashiach!  They will cry out to Him, and He will answer!  What a miraculous thing, after two thousand years of determined rejection, to now recognize Jesus as their Messiah!

The second part of the seventh sermon of Jeremiah to the people of Judah is in effect a declaration or a detailing of their sins, so that there can be no doubt, to future generations at least, the reasons why Judah was punished:

- worshipping at the altars (pagan shrines) in the groves of green trees upon the high hills (17:2)
- departing from the Lord  and trusting in man instead (17:5)
- not keeping holy the Sabbath day (17:21-27)

It is in fact, their refusal to observe the Sabbath, especially the Sabbath year, known as the Shemitah, rebelling against the very command of God written and preserved in scripture, that determined the length of Judah's captivity for those who were not killed but taken captive into Babylon. This people determined to not take God's Word at face value, and to instead, do what they thought best, most likely following upon unquestioned traditions of their fathers and the fathers before them.  Much as we Christians do still today.  Here is why I say that.

I have a comment regarding the Sabbath, and it is one that I have preached for many years on my blogs: the Sabbath is a day that GOD has declared HOLY.  It is THE day that God has called HIS holy day for on it He rested from His work of creation.  It is the day which, if we observe it, is our witness to the world around us of the fact of our Creator God's very existence, and that our sovereign God did in fact create the universe and all that is in it in SIX days and rested on the SEVENTH.  It is NOT and never has been a JEWISH holy day.  It is a GOD holy day.

We, the people of this great and awesome God, turned away from Sabbath observance in the third century A.D.  It was done by order of Constantine, the Roman emperor who thought he could worship the one true God, while continuing to worship other gods, such as the "sun" god, and thus he, Constantine, changed the Sabbath from Saturday worship to "sun"-day worship.  Even though the Sabbath (seventh day) is declared in God's word to be HIS HOLY DAY, we treat Sunday as His holy day instead.  And thus, because of our own unquestioning continuance of our forefathers traditions, we have lost the power of the 7th day/Sabbath witness of God as Creator of heaven and earth. 

I can't help but wonder how much the loss of this powerful statement of faith has contributed to the now common place belief in evolution that the world has chosen over the belief in a Creator God who made the heavens and the earth in six days and rested on the seventh?

Jeremiah's Seventh Sermon, Part 1

The 16th chapter of Jeremiah begins with a description of the horrifying and devastating judgment that will soon come upon the people of Judah:

"For thus saith the Lord concerning the sons and concerning the daughters that are born in this place, and concerning their mothers that bare them, and concerning their fathers that begat them in this land: they shall die of grievous deaths...they shall be as dung upon the face of the earth...they shall be consumed by the sword, and by famine and their carcasses shall be meat for the fowls of heaven, and for the beasts of the earth." (16:3-4)

"Both the great and the small shall die in this land; they shall not be buried, neither shall men lament for them, nor cut themselves, nor make themselves bald for them." (16:6)

"Behold, I will cause to cease out of this place in your eyes, and in your days, the voice of mirth, and the voice of gladness, the voice of the bridegroom, and the voice of the bride." (16:9)

As a physical sign before the people of the Lord's coming judgment, His servant Jeremiah is not allowed to marry, nor to have children. Thus, Jeremiah, in a sense is already experiencing the effects of this judgment in his own life. What we are not told is whether or not Jeremiah already had a potential wife chosen for himself, or if he had hopes, as most people do, of having a home and family, only to be told by the Lord that he could have neither. If so, it is no wonder that he was called the "weeping prophet."  And yet, he remained obedient and faithful to God!

The people of Judah understood then what was to come, even as they doggedly refuse to acknowledge their sin, as evidenced by the words the Lord says they will speak to Jeremiah after his proclamation of God's judgment:

"And it shall come to pass, when thou shalt shew this people all these words, and they shall say unto thee, Wherefore hath the Lord pronounced all this great evil against us? Or what is our iniquity? Or what is our sin that we have committed against the Lord our God?"

This passage shows the blindness of heart in the people, the greatness of the deception in which they lived that they were unable to see their own evil towards God. Deception that allowed them to respond to the one true and almighty GOD Himself with words that, in effect, said: "What have we done to deserve such punishment? We have done nothing!" In effect, showing God to be unjust, blaming Him, for their own wickedness!

To which God has Jeremiah reply:

"Because your fathers have forsaken me, saith the Lord, and have walked after other gods, and have served them, and have worshipped them, and have forsaken me, and have not kept my law; and ye have done worse than your fathers, for, behold, ye walk every one after the imagination of his evil heart, that they may not hearken unto me: therefore I will cast you out of this land unto a land that ye know not, neither ye nor your fathers, and there shall ye serve other gods day and night: where I will not shew you favor." (16:11-13)

Mind you, Jeremiah has been preaching to them for a very long time now; he is more than halfway through the time period that the Lord has allowed for the people to hear His words and turn from their evil ways.  But they are no more aware of their sin now than they were when Jeremiah began.  God, omniscient that He is, knew, even as He brought His servant to preach to them, that they would not turn, knew that even Jeremiah's intercession in their behalf, could not change such hardhearted a people as they were.  Yet, for His Name's sake, He would be gracious to hold back His wrath for a period of time, so that the survivors of this judgment (such as Jeremiah and Daniel) could look back and know that His love caused Him to do all that was possible to bring the people back to Himself before bringing such terrible judgment upon them.

The reason God sites as the cause of the judgment to fall is that men "walk every one after the imagination of his evil heart."  In fact, this phrase is reiterated a total of 7 times in the book of Jeremiah [3:17; 7:24, 11:8, 13:10, 16:12, 18:12, 23:17]. SEVEN TIMES! We know that seven is the number of God, the number of perfection; perhaps indicating to us the perfection or "rightness"  of God's judgment upon evil men.

Walking after the imaginations of our own evil hearts is a malady afflicting all off mankind: from the creation of man in the garden, to this very day and beyond.  Scripture is filled with examples throughout the past generations of man and to be seen in future generations as well, until the Lord returns, of man doing his own thing, while fully rejecting God:

Judges 21:25: "In those days there was no king in Israel: every man did that which was right in his own eyes."

"For as in the days that were before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day that Noah entered into the ark, and knew not until the flood came, and took them all away..." (Matthew 24:38)

"And in that day did the Lord God of hosts call to weeping, and to mourning, and to baldness, and to girding with sackcloth: and behold joy and gladness, slaying oxen and killing sheep, eating flesh, and drinking wine: let us eat and drink for tomorrow we shall die." (Isaiah 22:12-13)

"Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil; that put darkness for light, and light for darkness; that put biter for sweet, and sweet for bitter! Woe unto them that are wise in their own sight!" (Isaiah 5:20-21)

Are we modern-day people not just such people?  Are we not all wiser than ever before because of the knowledge we can easily gain from the internet?  Do we find ourselves calling out to God for His wisdom, or do we trust more in our own educated, independent thinking?  Isn't society around us, that which calls evil good, and good evil, just an extension of ourselves and our modern-day thinking?  We have become gods in our own sight, according to the evil imaginations of our own deceived hearts.

And the deception that allows us to walk in such evil imagination is so great, that only God Himself, in human form, called by the name of Jesus, could deliver us from this great bondage that seeks to drive us all towards the wrath of a holy God. 

Only Jesus, by the sacrifice of His own spotless sin-free life, could break the chains of such deception in us. Jesus is the grace of God given to us. We are as foolish and hardhearted as the people of Judah, if we will not recognize God's goodness to us in this period of grace and repent from our own ways before the grace period is finished!

The earth itself and all who are in it are in just such a period of grace, for the bible (2 Thessalonians 2:1-12) declares that the day will come when the power of the Holy Spirit that is currently restraining evil, will be removed from the earth, leaving evil to destroy all that remains, by design of a sovereign and holy God who will bring judgment to those who continue to reject His great gift of grace: His Son Jesus, our Savior, our Deliverer!

"Therefore we ought to give the more earnest heed to the things which we have heard, lest at any time we should let them slip. For if the word spoken by angels was steadfast, and every transgression and disobedience received a just recompence of reward, how shall we escape, if we neglect so great salvation...?" (Hebrews 2:1-3)

Jeremiah's Sixth Sermon, Part 2

In this last passage of scripture from Jeremiah's sixth sermon, we find Jeremiah grumbling before the Lord.  Then we see the Lord basically telling him to stand up and be a man; to stop his whining, to repent of it, and, if he will turn away from his complaining, then the Lord will take care of him even in the midst of the coming judgment.

Please don't take exception to my paraphrasing that the Lord is telling Jeremiah to buck up and deal with the problem at hand.  The fact is that the Lord often speaks to us with a certain amount of "tough love", especially when we are feeling sorry for ourselves.  He is our Father, after all, and what father would not say that if the times warranted it?  There are times for compassion, and there are times for toughness, aka truth. The truth here is that feeling sorry for ourselves is just sin. Yes, we are human, and yes, sometimes we like to just wallow in self-pity.

The truth also is that it isn't always about us.  Especially when we have been given an assignment from God; there is no time for self-pity.  There is work to be done...God's work...and we are to be willing vessels without complaint.

I am thankful that we have our brothers and sisters in Christ to encourage us to go on, as Paul was thankful for those who remembered him in prayer and supported him as best they could during his ministry, especially those times spent in jail.  We all have times such as Paul and Jeremiah, where it is difficult to go on, and sometimes, in our humanness, we grumble a bit.  Yet, at all times we are thankful to be used of God for His glory.  I believe it is just the flesh in us that grumbles, while the Holy Spirit in us keeps moving us forward.  The best we can do at those times is just as Jeremiah did...voice it honestly before the Lord, for He knows our hearts already anyway...we can hide nothing from Him.  And then face up to the music, the mild rebuke from the Lord, and pick ourselves up by His power and encouragement and by the hope that He gives, and move on in the battle.

This discourse between Jeremiah and the Lord picks up at chapter 15, verse10:

Jeremiah cries out: "Woe is me, my mother, that thou has borne me a man of strife and a man of contention to the whole earth!" Words reminiscent of Job's suffering (Job 3:1). "I have neither lent on usury [charging interest], nor men have lent to me on usury; yet every one of then doth curse me."

To which the Lord replied: "Truly, it will be well with thy remnant; truly I will cause the enemy to entreat thee well in the time of evil and in the time of affliction."

Can you hear the compassion the Lord has upon Jeremiah; can you hear how much the Lord understands our fears and anxieties and helps us through them with promises of great hope?  His first response to Jeremiah is not one of rebuke, but of tender encouragement for Jeremiah's concerns.  It isn't until Jeremiah persists in his self-pity that the Lord issues the tough love rebuke.  And even then, it is the words by which Jeremiah begins to accuse the Lord that brings forth this rebuke.

Jeremiah goes on: "Why is my pain perpetual, and my wound incurable; which refuseth to be healed? Wilt thou be altogether unto me as a liar, and as waters that fail?"

This is where we sin; when our self-pity becomes bigger than our God.  When out of our suffering we forget ourselves, and forget that this is GOD to whom we are speaking.  Much as a child who, now that he has his parent's attention, becomes overly emboldened and a bit cocky to his parent...and then gulps back his fear as he realizes he went a bit too far that time!  This realization strikes him right about the time his parent puts the child back in his proper place with a quick cold rebuke.  The child is not always aware that it is out of love that the parent brinks this rebuke and that it is for the sake of the child rather than for the parent.  So it is with us and our Father God.  So it was with Jeremiah and the Lord.

"Therefore thus saith the Lord, If thou return [repent], then will I bring thee again, and thou shalt stand before me: and if thou take forth the precious from the vile, thou shalt be as my mouth: let them return unto thee: return not thou unto them. [In other words, don't become as these evil people have become before me...let them become as you are, obedient, but do not let yourself become disobedient as they are.]  And I will make thee unto this people a fenced brazen wall: and they shall fight against thee, but they shall not prevail against thee: for I am with thee to save thee and to deliver thee, saith the Lord. And I will deliver thee out of the hand of the wicked, and I will redeem thee out of the hand of the terrible."

God makes this promise to Jeremiah, that even though he must be included in this evil to come, he will be protected to a great degree in the midst of the evil.  We will see further in this study exactly what the Lord does to bring His promise to pass for Jeremiah's sake.

Meanwhile, we take encouragement from this: that if we repent, and we remain upright and trusting of the Lord and His goodness, we have that hope as well of being spared the worst of what is to come.  The rain falls on the just and the unjust, but in all things God is sovereign and He will decide what we are to bear and what we will be spared from bearing.

This is our confident hope in Him: that as Jesus Christ is our covering, as well as our strength, we will receive mercy from the Lord in times of need.  We see it in small ways in our lives every day as financial needs are somehow met at the eleventh hour, as serious health issues become less scary as we walk through them with the Lord and are often completely healed of them as well, as the burden of our fears for our wayward children are left at the cross of Christ with this confident hope that He loves them even more than we do, and thus He will see that they are kept safe until HE brings them to repentance, as only He can do.

It is seeing these hopes realized in the small things, that prepares us to hope confidently when in the midst of the greater battles yet to come.

Jeremiah's Sixth Sermon, Part 1

Chapters 14 and 15 are considered to be Jeremiah's sixth sermon. Here, Jeremiah is given the prophetic word from the Lord about a coming drought of epic proportions, what my King James version calls a "dearth."  And, of course, if there is no water, there will soon be no food; famine must follow closely behind, bringing death as well.

As you read this next passage of scripture, try to imagine the horror Jeremiah must have felt to hear these words of severe judgment against his people, affecting even the beasts of the field that inhabited the land of Judah, being spoken to him straight from the mouth of almighty God:

" Judah mourneth, and the gates thereof languish; they are black unto the ground; and the cry of Jerusalem is gone up. 

And their nobles have sent their little ones to the waters: they came to the pits, and found no water; they returned with their vessels empty; they were ashamed and confounded, and covered their heads.

Because the ground is chaff, for there was no rain in the earth, the plowmen were ashamed, they covered their heads. 

Yea, the hind also calved in the field, and forsook it, because there was no grass. 

And the wild asses did stand in the high places, they snuffed up the wind like dragons; their eyes did fail, because there was no grass." (Jeremiah 14:2-6)

It is no wonder, then, that Jeremiah immediately begins to intercede and plead with the Lord for mercy, even while acknowledging the sins of his people.  Three times in the remainder of the 14th chapter, Jeremiah pleads with the Lord. And three times God refuses to change His mind about His coming judgment against Judah.  These verses are very self-explanatory, needing no further commentary from me. 

But as you read them, please read them not only with unrepentant Judah in mind, but with the unrepentant United States of America in mind as well.  When you read about horrendous coming judgment upon the unrepentant people individually, consider if those horrifying judgments were being spoken to us as a people who once belonged solely to God, but have turned from Him.  As you read about false prophets, speaking only a positive word, consider yourself, as I do myself: are we so intent on being "positive" that we do not want to speak the "harsh" words that the Holy Spirit might be leading us to speak concerning coming judgment in our own time and in our own land?  Will proclaiming peace when there is no peace, in God's eyes at least, bring about the salvation for the multitudes who are leading their lives as they see fit with no regard for this fearful and holy God who must bring such judgment to those who will not heed Him?  Are we definitely being led by the Spirit of God at all times when we speak or are we just speaking what we want to hear and believe no matter how contrary it appears to be to the Word of God?

For me, these passages bring me great pause to consider my own actions, both as part of a people group, and as an individual.  Have I repented of all that I need to repent of?  Have I spoken what God wanted me to speak, versus what I wanted to hear spoken?  Have I taken an easy way out of proclaiming peace, versus the enduring the misery and rejection that would come of speaking God's words of coming judgment as Jeremiah did? Am I leading the life God wants me to lead, versus going my own way and doing what feels good to me?

Consider all of this as you read the conversation that went on between Jeremiah and God, as Jeremiah pleads for a change of heart from the Lord on behalf of Judah:

Jeremiah: "O Lord, though our iniquities testify against us, do thou it for thy name's sake: for our backslidings are many; we have sinned against thee...yet thou O lord, art in the midst of us, and we are called by thy name; leave us not."

The Lord: "Pray not for this people for their good.  When they fast, I will not hear their cry; and when they offer burnt offering and an oblation, I will not accept them: but I will consume them by the sword, and by the famine, and by the pestilence." (Jeremiah 14:11-12)

Jeremiah: "Ah, Lord God! behold, the prophets say unto them, Ye shall not see the sword, neither shall ye have famine; but I will give you assured peace in this place."

The Lord:   "The prophets prophesy lies in my name, and I sent them not, yet they say, Sword and famine shall not be in this land.  By sword and famine shall those prophets be consumed. And the people shall be cast out in the streets of Jerusalem because of the famine and the sword; and they shall have none to bury them, them, their wives, nor their sons, nor their daughters, for I will pour this wickedness upon them. Therefore thou shalt say this word unto them: 'Let mine eyes run down with tears night and day, and let them not cease: for the virgin daughter of my people is broken with a great breach, with a very grievous blow."

Jeremiah: "Hast thou utterly rejected Judah? Hath thy soul loathed Zion? Why hast thou smitten us, and there is no healing for us? We looked for peace, and there is no good: and for the time of healing, and behold trouble! We acknowledge, O Lord, our wickedness, and the iniquity of our fathers, for we have sinned against thee. Do not abhor us, for thy name's sake, do not disgrace the throne of thy glory: remember, break not thy covenant with us."

The Lord: "Though Moses and Samuel stood before me, yet my mind could not be toward this people: cast them out of my sight, and let them go forth.  And it shall come to pass, if they say unto thee, Whither shall we go forth? Then thou shalt tell them, Thus saith the Lord: Such as are for death, to death; and such as are for the sword, to the sword; and such as are for the famine, to the famine; and such as are for the captivity, to the captivity....for who shall have pity upon thee, O Jerusalem?...thou hast forsaken Me, saith the Lord, thou art gone backward: therefore will I stretch out my hand against thee, and destroy thee; I am weary with repenting. And I will fan them with a fan in the gates of the land: I will bereave them of children, I will destroy my people, since they return not from their wicked ways."

Does the new covenant in Jesus Christ do away with judgments such as these toward a disobedient people, even if that disobedient person is a believer in Christ? Or did Christ come to show us that through Him we don't have to live lives of disobedience to the Lord; that we don't have to fear these judgments, not because our holy God has changed His ways, but because we have changed our disobedient ways into obedience through the strength of Christ?  How does a person change their ways, and escape such judgment, without Christ?  And what are we doing to help them come to know Christ and thus escape such judgment?

We will finish the 15h chapter on the next posting.

Jeremiah: Fifth Sermon

The 13th chapter of Jeremiah is filled with the use of the use of the words "pride" and "darkness."  It describes two tangible signs that God provides the people of Judah in order to try to shake them out of their prideful sin.  But still they will not hear; they will not repent.

Through two strong analogies, the first being a girdle that is buried and then unearthed in a deplorable condition, and the second being wine bottles that are filled with the source of drunkenness, God warns the people that their lives are in His hands alone and that this should be a fearful place to be: sinners in the hands of a HOLY and angry God, angered by their continued rebellion against His goodness toward them.  Yet the people will neither heed and repent, nor will they fear.

Regarding the analogy of the girdle, verses 13:1 through 13:11: when the description of  "loins" is used biblically it denotes a sort of strength or security perhaps.  The "girdle" protects the loins, the lower back, the hips, which once destroyed, one cannot stand without.  The girdle also carried the sword by which one protected himself (see 2 Samuel 20:8).  Perhaps these following two verses will illuminate further:

"Bless the Lord, His substance, and accept the work of His hands: smite through the loins of them that rise against Him, and of them that hate Him that they rise not again."  Deuteronomy 33:11

"Let their eyes be darkened that they see not; and make their loins continually to shake." Psalm 69:23

God is declaring that He is putting the protection of His name and His glory into the people of Israel first, and then Judah. They were the belt or girdle that He joined to Himself.  But they did not glorify the Name that they were called by, they did not bring praise to His Name.

Thus, by using the sign of a damaged and useless girdle, He is telling Judah that as they dishonored His name, so will they be dishonored and cast aside.  They have become of no use to Him.  And even as the Lord's own loins have been exposed and unprotected by this useless girdle called Judah, so Judah will receive the judgment of being exposed and unprotected as they are cast aside. They will no longer have the Lord to cleave to, because He will no longer cleave to them.

"This evil people, which refuse to hear my words, which walk in the imagination of their heart, and walk after other gods, to serve them, and to worship them, shall even be as this girdle, which is good for nothing. For as the girdle cleaveth to the loins of a man, so have I caused to cleave unto me the whole house of Israel, and the whole house of Judah, saith the Lord; that they might be unto me for a people, and for a name, and for a praise, and for a glory: but they would not hear."

Verses 13:12-14 describe the second sign: "every bottle filled with wine."

When Jeremiah speaks these words, the people mock him in great pride saying, "Do we  not certainly know...?"

But of course, they have no idea what they are talking about, because the word of God through Jeremiah is pointing to a soon coming great judgment:

"I will fill all the inhabitants of this land, even the kings that sit upon David's throne, and the priests, and the prophets, [speaking of false prophets here] and all the inhabitants of Jerusalem, with drunkenness. And I will dash them one against another, even the fathers and the sons together, saith the Lord: I will not pity, nor spare, nor have mercy, but destroy them.  Hear ye, and give ear; be not proud, for the Lord hath spoken."

Here the key word is drunkenness.  If we look at how that word is used in other scriptures, we will understand better what the Lord means with this analogy of every person being filled with that which produces great drunkenness:

"And it come to pass, when he heareth the words of this curse, that he bless himself in his heart, saying, I shall have peace, though I walk in the imagination of mine heart, to add drunkenness to thirst:" (Deut. 29:19) 

 

To be drunk is to be insensible, or deceived, is it not? Perhaps to see something that is not really even there.  To lie to one's self. A deception, I believe.

 

"Thou shalt be filled with drunkenness and sorrow, with the cup of astonishment and desolation, with the cup of thy sister Samaria." Ezekiel 23:33

 

Drunkenness produces "astonishment," being caught off guard as the protective instincts are no longer serving that person.

 

"And take heed to yourselves, lest at any time your hearts be overcharged with surfeiting, and drunkenness, and cares of this life, and so that day come upon you unawares." Luke 21:34

 

Drunkenness makes one "unaware" of the danger looming before them.  Again it is a form of deception, of a lie that all is well, when it is not.

 

All of this points to the coming "darkness" of which Jeremiah 13:16 warns:

"Give glory to the Lord your God, before He cause darkness, and before your feet stumble upon the dark mountains, and, while ye look for light, He turn it into the shadow of death, and make it gross darkness."

 

The final consequence of remaining unrepentant in sin is a darkness caused by God Himself that will fall on those who will not heed the word of the Lord.  This consequence occurs even today with those who remain unrepentant of their sins, for God's divine principles never cease to perform that which His Word declares must happen regarding man willful sin.

This particular darkness in Jeremiah 13:16 is a judicial darkness, a judgment from God on those in Judah who continue to "enjoy" sin's pleasures, who refuse to repent, who love sin more than they love God. This is further described in 2 Thessalonians 2:10-12:

"...and with all deceivableness of unrighteousness in them that perish; because they received not the love of the truth, that they might be saved. And for this cause God shall send them strong delusion, that they should believe a lie: that they all might be damned who believed not the truth, but had pleasure in unrighteousness."

 

Jeremiah is telling them to repent before God sends this darkness upon them from which they cannot recover.  (Perhaps the "gross darkness" mentioned in Jeremiah 13:16 is that of hell itself, as the judicial darkness appears to have the potential of becoming a deeper, possibly permanent, darkness for those still unrepentant hearts?)

Amos describes this judicial judgment of darkness as a famine of His Word:

"Behold, the days come, saith the Lord God, that I will send a famine in the land, not a famine of bread, nor a thirst for water, but of hearing the words of the Lord. And they shall wander from sea to sea, and from the north even to the east, they shall run to and fro to seek the word of the Lord, and shall not find it." Amos 8:11-12

God has unimaginable patience with us, far beyond what mere humans can give. Yet, He is to be feared as well, for all sin must end sooner or later; best that we end it right away, rather than wait for God to end it in His great wrath! If God withdraws the understanding of His Word from our hearts, as Amos describes, then we have no hope of being saved, for the Word of God carried by the Holy Spirit is what gives us life. Without this we face only eternal and everlasting death.

It always amazes me that we can so easily see the sins of Judah, but we cannot see what pride and vanity of mind we apply to our own lives rather than admit our personal and deep-rooted sins of pride.  It amazes me how few times in our lives, we fall trembling before this almighty, powerful and holy God. What deception lies in our own hearts?

I believe this is the main reason that we are commanded to pray for one another, to plead with God for that dark deception to be removed from each of us, so that our hearts can remain clean before Him.  It is so important to pray for one another....at all possible moments.

Chuck Missler says that the Word of God describes at least three forms of darkness.

Besides the judicial darkness already described above, there is a "natural" darkness.

This is a darkness of ignorance, a darkness of an unregenerate heart, a darkened understanding.  This is us before the Holy Spirit opened our eyes to see and our ears to hear, and drew us to Christ. Who prayed for us that we might be able to see?  Surely, there was someone somewhere, if even a stranger, who, on their knees, pleaded for the the Holy Spirit to bring the light into sin-darkened lives such as ours.

It is of this natural darkness that Paul speaks in Ephesians 4:17-18:

"This I say therefore, and testify in the Lord, that ye henceforth walk not as other Gentiles walk, in the vanity of their mind, having the understanding darkened, being alienated from the life of God through the ignorance that is in them, because of the blindness of their heart..."

Often, people with this darkness in them are able to see God as Creator, but not as Redeemer. Without the Redeemer who is the bridge between man and God, they cannot reach God, even if they might think He exists.  There is no relationship with the Father without the Son. Yet, Paul says the existence of God is testified to by the works of His hands, in other words, by all of creation that surrounds us (Romans 1:20).

But we cannot understand redemption without the living Word of God found only in Jesus, and without the Holy Spirit to plant faith as a seed in our hearts in order that we might believe in Him.  And without that relationship with Jesus there is no relationship between us and the Father.  It is in the righteousness of Jesus Christ that we must be clothed, in a sense, before we enter into the presence of so holy a God as ours. We need Jesus to know God.  The Word of God declares that there is no other way!

There is a third darkness: one that is deliberate or chosen.

 John 3:19-20 describes it as:

"...the condemnation, that light is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil. For every one that doeth evil hateth the light, neither cometh to the light, lest his deeds should be reproved."

This is when people know they are doing evil, but choose to continue in it willfully.  They prefer the darkness to hide the evil in their lives; they refuse to come to the light and to be held accountable.  There is great pride involved and the pride wins out. They do not want to change.

 

We are to know and recognize our Creator God, and we are to know and recognize that our Redeemer, our Savior, IS GOD.  He is the Word of God made flesh: Jesus Christ.  (John 1).

It is His great love for each and every man created, that led Him to give His life on the cross for us.  Such great love we have never experienced before Him!  How great then, is our rejection, when we refuse to acknowledge what He has done for us?  How great must God's anger be towards us who would dare to reject such a gift from almighty God Himself: the gift of His only-begotten Son's life? What great pride and delusion must we be filled with to not see this?

Jesus arrived in our world the first time, in fleshly form, in humility, in what might be described by the world as a position of low birth, and in poverty.  Yet multitudes were drawn to Him, the very Word of God made flesh, as He presented to the world the love of God and the very real hope of life everlasting for those who would but trust in Him.

But when Jesus returns, Revelation 19:11-16 tells us the manner of His second coming:

"And I saw heaven opened, and behold a white horse; and he that sat upon him was called Faithful and True, and in righteousness he doth judge and make war. His eyes were as a flame of fire, and on his head were many crowns; and he had a name written, that no man knew, but he himself. And he was clothed with a vesture dipped in blood: and his name is called The Word of God.  And the armies which were in heaven followed him upon white horses, clothed in fine linen, white and clean. And out of his mouth goeth a sharp sword, that with it he should smite the nations: and he shall rule them with a rod of iron: and he treadeth the winepress of the fierceness and wrath of Almighty God. And he hath on his vesture and on his thigh a name written, KING OF KINGS, AND LORD OF LORDS."

After this final battle scene, Jesus will then judge the living and the dead, granting everlasting life with Him to those who trusted in Him, not because of their great deeds, or their might, for we can never EARN such a gift: but simply because they TRUSTED in Him.  They trusted their lives to Him, by putting their lives every moment of every day in HIS hands.

But to those who reject Him, continually, willfully, pridefully, He assigns them in His righteous and holy judgment to be thrown into the everlasting lake of fire, along with Satan and his dark angels.  Such a terrible, unimaginable place of horror and pain, yet God makes sure everyone knows this...everyone will hear His Word, before being judged. 

The choice is ours alone.

Will we choose the love that Jesus has given us and everlasting life in His presence, or will we reject His goodness to us, and choose everlasting darkness and eternal suffering?

Here is what God wants us to choose:

"I call heaven and earth to record this day against you, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing: therefore choose life, that both thou and thy seed may live."  Deuteronomy 30:19

Jeremiah: Fourth Sermon, Part 2

Returning to our study of Jeremiah, we see in Jeremiah 11:9 that God speaks of a "conspiracy".  All conspiracies contain an element of secrecy.  Thus, the people in this conspiracy of which the Lord speaks are those who choose to continue to serve other gods, probably in secret resistance to the reforms that King Josiah instituted against pagan practices; resistant even to the point of making secret plans to assassinate the prophet Jeremiah (verses 11:18-19), who is preaching things the people do not want to hear. Thus, this conspiracy has double meaning.

There is a danger, as I have mentioned before, of feeling removed or uninvolved with the sins of Judah, since today most of us do not light candles to idols in a secret back room of our house. But we have to understand how subtle the act of worshipping an idol can be in our own lives. 

I found a very clear description of this from an interesting blog that says:

"Contrary to cultural opinion, possessions or positions or people cannot and will not bring us any closer to a sense of peace, prosperity or security." [ http://bogdankipko.com/why-idolatry-is-infused-with-irony ]

The problem is that in very subtle ways we so often put our trust in "possessions or positions or people" that only the Holy Spirit can reveal to us that we are NOT trusting Jesus, because we will continue to affirm that we ARE trusting Jesus as our hearts continue to deceive us. Whatever we give more of our time, thought, and even our money to, rather than to the Lord, is our idol.

It is because of the seriousness of this idol worship in Judah that the Lord tells Jeremiah NOT to pray for them in verse 11:14.  This is a clear indication of how grieved God is with the people, how angry He is because of their continued rebellion against Him, and for choosing vain and useless idols over the God who gives them their very breath. God declares that He will "not hear them in the time that they cry unto Me..." 

It was these sins of the people of Judah, as well as our own sins, for which Jesus, on the cross, experienced this relentless turning away of God in a time of great need:  "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?"  In that transcendent moment, Jesus became the sin of all the world, and received the punishment, in our place, of this divine proclamation against such sin.

It is always the idols in our lives that turn us away from God, and Him away from hearing us.  This is why our prayer each and every day should be such as David prayed:

"Search me, O God, and know my heart: try me, and know my thoughts; And see if there be any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting. (Psalm 139:23-24)

Even in these last days, God's Word through His prophet Zechariah declares that He will not hear the cries of His people Israel until they repent of their iniquity and cry out for help to the Messiah whom they earlier rejected.

In chapter 12, we see the closeness of Jeremiah's relationship with the Lord; so intimate that Jeremiah seems to actually criticize the Lord:

"Righteous art thou, O Lord, when I plead with thee: yet let me talk with thee of thy judgments: Wherefore doth the way of the wicked prosper? Wherefore are all they happy that deal very treacherously?" (Jeremiah 12:1)

David speaks of this same issue, as does Habakkuk.  It was a difficult thing for the people of God, who strived to walk in righteousness, to reconcile in their minds this prosperity of the wicked.

We have the advantage of the cross of Christ.  We are able to place less importance on the prosperity of the wicked, having been witnesses to the gift of God through Jesus Christ, a gift whose value is priceless to those who have received it.  The treasures of the wicked hold no appeal to those who have the real riches of Jesus.

There is a hint in verse 12:4 of the reason that Judah is eventually led into captivity, and that is of the land mourning, and the "herbs of every field" withering. This refers to the Sabbath years, every seventh year in which God commanded that the land should lay fallow, unworked, to give it rest. We will see later in our study that the years of Judah's captivity are relative to the number of years that the land did not receive its Sabbath rest. This is a powerful statement of God's concern for His creation.  And yet, there are those in society who do not care for the land in the specific way that God commanded, but instead worship the land, rather than worship God.  Another form of idolatry for us to guard against, while yet remaining obedient to God's command. 

There is an interesting analogy in verse 12:9 and that is of "a speckled bird, the birds round about are against her..."

This speaks of a type of mob mentality: a flock of birds wanting to gang up on and attack the bird that is different than they are, the only bird in the flock with spots.  A group always attacks the deviant in its midst, even when, as in the case of Jeremiah, the deviant is the only one going the right way, while the rest of the group all go the wrong way.  Jeremiah is following the Lord, while the world around him is following the idols.  The world is all in agreement, while Jeremiah alone voices his disagreement.  Simple solution to the problem is to remove the deviant from their midst, thus the conspiracy to assassinate Jeremiah.

The question for us is this: are we the deviant in the world?

Or are we one of them?   

Shavuot/Pentecost

Today is what the church calls Pentecost Sunday. 

In Hebrew, it is called Shavuot (which means weeks), a feast day that occurs exactly seven weeks past the Feast of Firstfruits (in other words, seven weeks or 49 days must pass and then on the fiftieth day the Feast of Shavuot is observed); in the Greek of the New Testament it is given the name Pentecost (from pente which means five and koste which means times ten) as it is celebrated exactly fifty days after the resurrection of Jesus from the tomb - Jesus being the fulfillment of the Feast of Firstfruits when He became the "firstfruits" of life everlasting by the power of Almighty God that raised Him from the dead.  To the Hebrew mindset, Shavuot is the conclusion of the Passover season.

I want to depart from our study of Jeremiah for just a moment to recognize this feast day of the Lord's, for all the feast days belong to the Lord, not to either Jew or Gentile, even though most of the Lord's feast days are now celebrated only by Jews or Jewish believers in Christ, sadly.  The gentile portion of the body of Christ chooses not to really "celebrate" anything other than the Sunday known as Easter [a name which I do not even like to use as its origin comes from that of the pagan goddess Astarte or Ishtar, whom Jeremiah reviles with the facetious name "Queen of Heaven"] and Christmas, a commemoration of the birth of Christ, which is not a feast of the Lord at all.  In Protestant churches throughout America, a Christian nod is given to what is known as Good Friday, the day Christ was crucified which in Hebrew is known as Passover, and another nod is given to Pentecost, but there is very little celebration given to this day.

I wonder why that is, given that the church was in effect born on this very day, and draws its very life from the power of God given to them on this day?

But the gentile church as a whole knows very little about the Feast Day of Shavuot and what it was intended to represent to the people of God, so I want to take a little time to describe what it was meant to be, and how Jesus became the fulfillment of that Feast Day...His feast day.  So, let's turn not to Acts, as you would think, but to the first mentions of the commandment to God's people to observe this feast day:

"And thou shalt observe the feast of weeks, of the firstfruits of wheat harvest,  and the feast of ingathering at the year's end.  Thrice in the year shall all your men children appear before the Lord God, the God of Israel." (Exodus 34:22-23)

"And thou shalt keep the feast of weeks unto the Lord thy God with a tribute of a freewill offering of thine hand, which thou shall give unto the Lord thy God, according as the Lord thy God blessed thee." (Deuteronomy 16:10)

The offering for Shavuot consisted of two long, flat, leavened loaves of wheat bread.  This is because the offering to be brought to the temple on this Shavuot Feast was to be the firstfruits of the wheat harvest.  Shavuot occurred in the summer at the time of the wheat harvest, while the Feast of Firstfruits brought an offering of the barley that was harvested in spring.

These two loaves of wheat bread for Shavuot were not burned as other sacrifices to the Lord were burned, but were waved by the priest standing before the altar.  The two loaves were waved forwards and backwards, then up and down (does that remind you of the shape of a cross?). Then they became the festive meal eaten by the priests themselves later in the day.

It is important to note that their were two loaves, not one.  Two. Two loaves joined together to bring an offering of worship to the Lord. An offering of the hands of the people of God, performed by the priest indicating the shape of a cross.

Now, watch how Jesus fulfills this Feast Day, and by fulfilling, I do not at all mean that Jesus caused the celebration of it to cease, but that He brought it into its full purpose, the purpose for which it had been intended from its very first origin at Mt. Sinai.  That is what is to be celebrated even now today.

We begin at Luke: 24:44:

"And He said unto them, 'These are the words which I spake unto you, while I was yet with you, that all things must be fulfilled, which were written in the law of Moses, and in the prophets, and in the psalms, concerning me.  Then opened He their understanding, that they might understand the scriptures, and said unto them, Thus it is written, and thus it behoved Christ to suffer, and to rise from the dead the third day: and that repentance and remission of sins should be preached in His name among all nations, beginning at Jerusalem.  And ye are witnesses of these things.  And behold, I send the promise of my Father upon you: but tarry ye in the city of Jerusalem, until ye be endued with power from on high.'  And He led them out as far as to Bethany, and He lifted up His hands, and blessed them. And it came to pass, while He blessed them, He was parted from them, and carried up into heaven.  And they worshipped Him, and returned to Jerusalem with great joy: and were continually in the temple, praising and blessing God. Amen." (Luke 24:44-53)

I underlined the portion of scripture above that, to me, begins to indicate the meaning of the two loaves of bread...all nations, beginning at Jerusalem...not only for those in Jerusalem, but for all nations.  Two loaves of bread raised up in worship to God, an expansion of the people of God, no longer Jewish only (the disciples), but also now including the Gentiles; one in Jesus Christ, one in Yeshua HaMashiach (Jesus, the Messiah).

It was by the power from God (the Holy Spirit) that two people groups, now joined by their belief in Jesus Christ, would become one.  It began with Jewish followers of Christ, but now includes both Jewish and Gentile followers of Christ.  The Gentiles (the group to which I belong) became a part of the "people of God" on Pentecost, on Shavuot, through the power of the Holy Spirit, by the preaching of repentance to all nations, by Jewish disciples of Christ.  What were the people of God called?  Israel.  At Pentecost, the people of God separated unto Him (the church) became one people called Israel. Israel was no longer a physical identity, but a spiritual one; no longer requiring physical circumcision, but circumcision of the heart only. Does that mean Jewish believers disappeared and are no more?  No, not any more than Gentile believers lost their identity.  But the identity of both developed into something even better; their identity became the "church" or the "bride of Christ."

As a result, the Jewish believers have no need to join with our Gentile church, they are the church, just as much as we Gentile believers are the church, the joining of the two was done by God on the Day of Pentecost over two thousand years ago...two loaves of bread that became one in Jesus, united in the power of the Holy Spirit.    Instead, I often hear pastors say that Jewish believers are welcome to join "their" church. I have always felt that was a little bit of putting the cart before the horse.  The horse that pulls the cart is the Jewish believers in Christ; the cart that follows behind, but is one with the horse now, is the Gentile believers in Christ.  If anyone "joined" a church, it was, and still should be, the Gentiles that "joined."  That was what Paul's metaphor of "grafting in" was all about.  Gentile believers in Christ became one with Jewish believers in Christ...the Jewish believers leading the way...until both are completely "united" under the new identity of the bride of Christ.

"But ye shall receive power, after that the Holy Ghost is come upon you: and ye shall be witnesses unto be both in Jerusalem, and in all Judaea and in Samaria, and unto the uttermost part of the earth....these [the disciples of Jesus] all continued with one accord in prayer and supplication, with the women and Mary the mother of Jesus, and with His brethren...and when the day of Pentecost [Shavuot] was fully come, they were all with one accord in one place [in Jerusalem].  And suddenly there came a sound from heaven as of a rushing mighty wind, and it filled all the house where they were sitting.  And there appeared unto them, cloven tongues like as of fire, and it sat upon each of them.  And they were all filled with the Holy Ghost, and began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance....the multitude came together and were confounded, because that every man heard them speak in his own language.  And they were all amazed and marveled, saying one to another, Behold, are not all these which speak Gallileans? And how hear we every man in our own tongue, wherein we were born?  And they were all amazed, and were in doubt, saying one to another, What meaneth this?  Others mocking said, These men are full of new wine. 

But Peter, standing up with the eleven, lifted up his voice and said unto them, Ye men of Judaea, and all ye that dwell at Jerusalem, be this known unto you, and hearken to my words: For these are not drunken, as ye suppose, seeing it is but the third hour of the day.  But this is that which was spoken by the prophet Joel:

And it shall come to pass in the last days, saith God, I will pour out of my Spirit unto all flesh, and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, and your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams: and on my servants and on my handmaidens I will pour out in those days of my Spirit, and they shall prophesy: and I will shew wonders in heaven above, and signs in the earth beneath; blood, fire, and vapour of smoke: the sun shall be turned into darkness, and the moon into blood, before that great and notable day of the Lord come: and it shall come to pass, that whosoever shall call on the name of the Lord shall be saved." (Acts 1:8-2:21)

Two loaves of bread, representing Jew and Gentile, waved before the altar of God, with hands raised in Spirit-filled worship in the symbol of the cross; two people become one as living sacrifices, anointed by God in the power of His Holy Spirit, united together by the blood of Jesus that washed away their sins, appointed to bring into the kingdom of God those that would be saved (both Jew and Gentile) in the last days.

This is what we, Jewish and Gentile believers in Christ, should be celebrating today on the Feast of Shavuot.

I think it is worth celebrating....