Sunday, December 28, 2014

Surprising Insights on the Gospel from "Christmas" Prophecies Taken In Context

It cracks me up how hypocritical we are in the Church, yet, it is so sad!  Hypocritical that is, about properly interpreting the scriptures (i.e. exegeting the scriptures) only when it suits our denominational interests.  Don't get me wrong.  I think and believe that there are many godly people out there who delight in Yhwh's word, and seek to follow Him and live in obedience to the scriptures... but our entire theological outlook is all discombobulated, that's a good word for it!

The other morning I was reading in the book of Isaiah, chapters 7-11, and it was a good refresher, having forgotten a number of good verses that are found in this section of chapters.  In chapters seven and nine, these contain some very famous and well known Messianic prophecies oft quoted by Protestants and Christians around Christmas time.

Is. 7: 14 Therefore the Lord himself will give youf a sign. Look! the virging is with child and she is about to give birth to a son, and she shall call his name ‘God with us.’ 

Is. 9:For a child has been born for us;
a son has been given to us.
And the dominion will be on his shoulder,
and his name is called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God,
Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.
His dominion will grow continually,
and to peace there will be no endh
oni the throne of David and overj his kingdom,
to establish itk and sustain it
with justice and righteousness
now and forever.
The zeal of Yahweh of hosts will do this.

These Messianic prophecies, foretelling the coming of Messiah Yeshua are indeedi incredible and powerful prophecies fulfilled by (and to be fulfilled) Yeshua the Messiah.  These are oft quoted, laminated, put on posters, web pages, books, Sunday school materials... but then we don't look into the context of which the verse is foiund... or we do, and miss the context, because we miss the distinction of the two houses of Israel!

And this is one reason why Protestant Christians' theology is so messed up!  This is why so many believe there will be a Pre-Trib Rapture, is because they see the Church as being separate from the Jews (or/and, having replace the Jews in God's plan, a sublte form of anti-semitism), never mind that the Church began as being completely Jewish, but then being overwhelmed later by the mass number of Gentile believers.  And contrary to the clear teaching in the Newer Testament (Brit Chadashah), that the Gentile believers are ingrafted into the tree of Israel, and their root supports us, the Gentile Church!  In fact, Rabbi Paul uses some rather strong language to warn us against having such arrogant thoughts as replacing the Jewish church (Rom. 11:17-24)!

But when one begins to read the passages in Isaiah, keeping in mind the eventual dispersion of the ten northern tribes of Israel (circa 722 B.C.), and noting that most of the prophets, in the Tanakh (Old Testament), are prophesying during the time shortly before, or shortly after (relatively speaking), the dispersion of the ten tribes into the nations, where they no longer kept Torah and were mixed with the Gentile inhabitants wherever they went, thus fulfilling Yhwh's promise to Abraham:

Gen. 17:5 Your name shall no longer be called Abram, but your name shall be Abraham, for I will make you the father of a multitude of nations. And I will make you exceedinglyf fruitful. I will make you a nation, and kings shall go out from you. And I will establish my covenant between me and you, and between your offspring after you, throughout their generations as an everlasting covenant to be as God for you and to your offspring after you. And I will give to you and to your offspring after you the land in which you are living as an alien,g all the land of Canaan, as an everlasting property. And I will be to them as God.”

Many times, we see the beginning of chapter 9 quoted ":The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light; light has shined on those who lived in a land of darkness."  But the verse is often cut off from the preceding verse, alienating it from its context, or, not having the context left or explained.  "In former times hec treated the land of Zebulun and Naphtali with contempt, but in the future he will honor the way of the sea beyond the Jordan, Galilee of the nations."

Zebulun and Naphtali were tribal regions in northern Israel, which along with the other eight northern tribes, were eventually conquered by Assyria and deported to Gimera, in Assyria, coming to be known as Gimeroi, or Cimmerians, later on as they begin their migrations.  The ten northern tribes were given into the hands of the king of Assyria by Yhwh, because they did not keep His word.  (If you have not begun, the migration of the "lost tribes" of Israel makes a fascinating study, and believe it or not, there is quite a bit of info about it!*)

This is what makes the Messianic prophecies in Isaiah 9:6-7 so powerful!  We westerners in the Church do not fully understand the meaning of all that we read, and thus end up neglecting much of the theological import.  The verses speaking of the rule of Messiah, and of the increase of His government, but that's where we stop.  But the verse continues... 

oni the throne of David and overj his kingdom,
to establish itk and sustain it
with justice and righteousness
now and forever.
The zeal of Yahweh of hosts will do this.

These prophecies foretell the coming rule of the Messiah ruling on the "throne of David and over his kingdom, to establish it and sustain it (David's kingdom), the restoration and fullness of the kingdom of all Israel... not just the Jews (the southern tribe, Judah).

In Isaiah ch. 10, it contains some prophecies yet to be realized for the restoration of both houses of Israel (the house of the northern ten tribes, called Israel, and the house of Judah), which has significant import for us to know and understand today.  

20 And this shall happen: on that day, the remnant of Israel and the survivorsq of the house of Jacob will not continue to lean on the one who struck it
but will lean on Yahweh, the holy one of Israel, in truth.
21 A remnant will return—
the remnant of Jacob—to the mighty God.
22 For though your people Israel was like the sand of the sea,
only a remnant of it will return.
Annihilation is determined,
overflowing with righteousness.
23 For the Lord Yahweh of hosts is about to make a complete destruction
and a determined end in the midst of all the earth.

Rough times are upon us, and the are foretold in the pages of scripture.  I don't want you to be on the wrong side, or supporting the wrong group.  False teachers abound today, wolves in sheeps' clothing!  Knowing Yahweh's word is all that will protect you and guide you into coming kingdom of the Real New Age.  Yeshua already told us that the supposed "New Age" being brought about by the "rulers" of this world will be like "the days of Noah" (Mt. 24:37).  So we see it is not a "new" age being brought about, but an old one, which existed before the Flood.

Yeshua said to the Jews who had believed in him, "if you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples, and you will know the truth ad the truth will set you free." (John 8:32)



* scriptures posted from www.biblia.com, Lexham English Bible.
*some interesting resources I've found in researching on the "lost tribes" are:  Joseph Dumond, his website www.sightedmoon.com; also Jewish geneological researcher Yair Davidy and his site www.britam.org  

Friday, December 26, 2014

Israel Now News - Episode 160



WHAT WILL HAPPEN TO AMERICA IN 2015? 'SCARY' EVENTS AROUND THE WORLD

Monday, December 22, 2014

Islam Endorses Murder and Hate, But Claims Abraham!

As we all know, and can clealy see, Islam and the Muslims "extremists" (thought in Muslim eyes, the faithful), the Quran teaches hatred of the Jews, and the end goal of Islam is annihilation of the Jewish people, to bring about global Sharia law on every person.  Not only does it endorse the teaching of hatred, instead of love, which Ye'shua taught, and is taught in the Torah, but Islam endorses violence, murder and death, so much so, that the only guarantee of entering eternal life in heaven, is by dying in battle with the infidels (unbelievers of Islam).

But in the Gospels, Ye'shua has a different message.  He spoke to murderers who claimed to have Abraham as their father, as do Muslims.  But he told them who their father really is.  We read in John (Injil) 8:

39 They answered and said to him, “Abraham is our father!” Jesus said to them, “If you are children of Abraham, do the deeds of Abraham! 40 But now you are seeking to kill me, a man who spoke to you the truth which I heard from God. This Abraham did not do. 41 You are doing the deeds of your father!”
They saidq to him, “We were not born from sexual immorality! We have one father, God!” 42 Jesus said to them, “If God were your father, you would love me, for I have come forth from God and have come. For I have not come from myself, but that one sent me. 43 Whyr do you not understand my way of speaking? Because you are not able to listen to my message. 44 You are of your father the devil, and you want to do the desires of your father! That one was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand firm in the truth, because truth is not in him. Whenever he speaks the lie, he speaks from his own nature,* because he is a liar and the father of lies.s 45 But because I am telling the truth, you do not believe me. (biblia.com)


Friday, December 19, 2014

'CLIMATE CHAOS' IN 2015: Strange Events/Apocalyptic Sounds Increasing Ar...

Jason A has done a great job compiling a number of weather events and phenomenon that have occurred in this past month.



Snow Blizzard 7 Feet Japan 11 Dead (Apocalyptic Event)



Catholic Exorcist Warns: Pope Francis is NOT the Legitimate Pope & Satan...



Breaking! We are heading to Nuclear war with Russia!!!! This is a major ...

With the Russian ruble collapsing... and being blamed on the West (the U.S.), could this bring in the end of America, and be "the hook" Yhwh uses to bring Magog out of the north against Israel in the last days (Ezek. 38)?





Wednesday, December 17, 2014

Ps. 47- a Preview of the Return of Messiah

Yesterday I was reading in Psalm 47, and I was just totally amazed.  The Yhwh opened my eyes to see or realize things in this Psalm I don't ever recall seeing before!  This Psalm is a Psalm of rejoicing in Yhwh, the holy one of Israel, and pictures Him working deliverance, or salvation, for the people of Israel, and indeed, Himself being king over Israel, putting them in their land.

The reason Protestants misunderstand, is because they reject (in the majority) the Tanakh as the basis, or foundation of the Brit Hadaschah (New Testament, or Covenant).  and they think it is otherwise!


First off, the Hebrew scriptures start their verse numbering in the Psalms with the superscription, which English Bibles usually just take as the section heading or leave it as 'superscript.'  But this tells us in Psalm 47 that this song was "written for the music director (which, gentlemen, the choir in the temple was made up of men!)

v.1 All you peoples, clap your hands.b
Shout to God with a voice of rejoicing.
In Philippians, we are taught by Rabbi Paul to "rejoice in the Yhwh always, I will say it again, rejoice!" (Phil. 3:1, 4:4).

For Yahweh Most High is awesome,c
a great king over all the earth.
A common Biblical theme, that Yhwh Sabaoth (of hosts~ angelic armies), is king over the earth, the most high, Elyon; and, He is to be feared, something lost in most Christian circles!

He subdues peoples under us
and nations under our feet.
He chooses for us our inheritance,
the pride of Jacob whom he loves. Selah
He, Yhwh Sabaoth, is the one who subdues or conquerors, Israel's enemies under them. He chose the land of Canaan, or Palestine (old Philistia~ Israel's ancient foe), to give to the children of Ja'acob, and it is their Pride!

God has gone up with a shout,
Yahweh with the sound of a [shofar].
Sing praises to God, sing praises.
Sing praises to our king, sing praises.
For God is king of all the earth.
Sing praises with understanding.d
God reigns over nations;
God sits on his holy throne.


Here we see God, Elyon Sabaoth comes, of goes up with a shout! With the sound of a trumpet (in hebrew,shofar, the ram's horn) the instrument given by the Israelis' when going into battle. This is where, beyond acknowledging that Israel's peace, military dominance, and possession of the land of ancient Canaan are from Yhwh, we see in verse five the rallying signal given by Yhwh Himself for the final battle (also known as Armageddon, when the nations of the world are gathered against Israel, synonymous with Psalm 83?).

One reason why this passage is so powerful, is that we can see here it's parallel teaching by Rabbi Paul, in the Brit Hadashah. 1 Thessalonians 4

16 For the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a shout of command, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first.

This seems to parallel the eschatological (end time) teaching of the deliverance of Yhwh found in Psalm 47.  and for those with a Biblical worldview... this is bringing to completion the good news, the Euanggelion, the consummation of Yhwh's plan, the covenant He made with Abra'am, Yisac, and Ja'acob.  

The forgiveness of sins, based upon the suffering of the Messiah, the son of man, and justification because of imputation of His righteousness is based upon the teaching found in the Prophet Isaiah, chapter 53.  And to this Rabbi Paul also alludes in his letter to the diasporoa Romans in Romans 3:19-31.

 17 Then we who are alive, who remain, will be snatched away at the same time together with them in the clouds for a meeting with the Lord in the air, and thus we will be together with the Lord always.

And so with Rabbi Paul's teaching, in accordance with the basis of the Christian faith, the Tanakh, Rabbi Paul teaches that the dead in Messiah, and then those living believers, will be caught up to be forever with Messiah, as he places His people in the land of Yisrael never more to be uprooted, under His physical reign upon the earth!

There are so many other scriptures in the Tanakh and the Brit Hadashah, connecting these teachings, but for now, it will have to be another post.

Rabbi Paul also speaks about the salvation of all Israel in Romans 11, which ties in with Psalm 47.  Another hint for those who are hungry: the "fullness of the Gentiles" is explained to us what that is in Genesis 48:19 where Jacob blesses the children of Joseph.

Let those who have ears hear!  Shalom!


Sunday, December 14, 2014

Speaking the names of gods... Good Lord?

Among the different religions of the world, there are many different religous figures who are revered, and or worshipped, or given the status of gods.  And of all these various religions, they have no problem speaking the name of their god.  In Islam the defiantly chant, "Allahu akbar" (Allah is greater!), In Buddhism, the adherents often quote, refer to and model their lives after the Buddah.  Hindus have many gods, such as Vishnu, Krishna, Shiva, Lakshmi, Durga, to name a few....  

But did you ever notice it's not that way in Chrisitanity (and Judaism to a lesser extent).  In Christianity, it's followers have to hide behind a translation.  They never speak the name of their God, the one true God, but hide behind a translation of a title meaning master.  But then difficulties arise... the worshipper has to rely upon the knowledge, intent/agenda and resources of the translators of their religous text, especially and primarily when the original tests are not in that followers native tongue (ie, language).

So in Christianity, the name most often used for their God, is "Lord", or "LORD."  This implies someone who has control over, lordship over, or a mastery over a specific object or region.  One day a few weeks ago, I heard someone suggest to look up the definition of "Lord" on the Merriam Webster dictionary.  Happening to have that on my phone, I typed it in, and found at the bottom of the entry, it indicated the Heb. origin was none other than Ba'al!  Hmmmph!

Good Lord!  Not really.  For those of you who have ventured to study the historical development of the  evolution of religious gods/deities, you will know that Ba'al, the sun-god, worshiped in Egypt as Ra, Sumeria (ancient Babylon in Iraq/Persia) as Ba'al, is based on the myth of Gilgamesh, known in the Bible as Nimrod, who was the one-world ruler over mankind of his day, when the earth was still being populated.  

I went to Merriam Webster dictionary on the larger screened PC computer, and could not find this reference, but it was stating that the first known use of the (etymological origin) of the word was in the 12 C. Europe, hlaford, a loaf-keeper.  Hmmmph?  Why the discrepancies?  So I researched a little more, and found it at dictionary.com.  See below.  I pasted the pertinent section.

(4.) Heb. ba'al, a master, as having domination. This word is applied to human relations, as that of husband, to persons skilled in some art or profession, and to heathen deities. "The men of Shechem," literally"the baals of Shechem" (Judg. 9:2, 3). These were the Israelite inhabitants who had reduced the Canaanites to a condition of vassalage (Josh. 16:10;17:13). (5.) Heb. seren, applied exclusively to the "lords of the Philistines"(Judg. 3:3). The LXX. render it by satrapies. At this period the Philistines were not, as at a later period (1 Sam. 21:10), under a kingly government.(See Josh. 13:3; 1 Sam. 6:18.) There were five such lordships, viz., Gath,Ashdod, Gaza, Ashkelon, and Ekron.  
(posted from http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/lord)


In Genesis 10, Nimrod is credited with founding eight cities, both in the land of Shinar (ancient Persia/Sumeria) and in Assyria (modern Syria), which contains some of the longest inhabited cities of the world!  He is credited with being the founder and leader at the building of the tower of Babel, and in the Israelite historic writings, he is said to have organized three parties in their attempt to dethrone the God of heaven!  One of the groups indeed, shot arrows into heaven from atop the tower at Babel before their languages were confused.

So the conclusion is, when you are (in English) using the word "Lord" in reference to the one true Creator God of the universe, you are calling the name of Ba'al or Nimrod, the proto-type of the coming one-world ruler and Anti-Christ.  And it's extremely frustrating, I have found in my own experience, trying to correct the problem, because the word "Lord" is so ingrained in my habit of referring to Yhwh, King of the Universe.  It is in our Bibles, which note *it is a 'device" to refer to the name of the Hebrew God of scriptures.  Why not use the device of Buddah, or Krishna?  Because that would be outright recognized as idolatry!  It is also found in Hymnals, praise songs, and certainly cultural cliches of amazement or disbelief, "Good Lord!"  But I want to suggest, Ba'al was not good, but wicked!

I don't know about you guys, but something funny is up!  I now try to speak the Biblical names of God.  Call it reconnecting with my Hebrew roots... as if that's a bad thing!  Didn't Yeshua our Adonai (see!) teach "salvation is of the Jews" (John 4:22)?  My Savior was Hebrew, coming in fulfillment of the promise Yhwh made to Abraham and the Hebrews descended from him!

And that could very well lead to another post... have you ever thought about why they don't translate the Hebrew name of the messiah Yehoshua as Joshua, instead of "Jesus"?  Jesus sounds more palatable to pagan ears, more similar to the names of gods they were used to worshipping, such as Ze-us, Dionysius, etc., with the "-sus" ending.  But nowhere in the original Hebrew texts is "Jesus" used.  The name "Jesus" does not translate into Hebrew.  This is significant, because it involves the concept of the meaning of the name "Ye-hoshua," which means, "Yahweh is salvation!" 

Elohim, our Creator, created all of creation through speaking, the spoken word.  We are created (intimately, caringly) in His image, with the ability to speak, and we are warned in the Bible of the consequences of the words we speak.  "Death and Life are in the power of the tongue, and those who love it will eat its fruit" (Prov. 18:21).  So when we speak the name Yehoshua, or the shortened form Y'shua, we are proclaiming a Biblical truth, that Yhwh is salvation!  It is a shout of defeat over the enemy, who was set up camp all over this world, in his attempt to become as the one true God (cf. Is. 14).  The spirits and the fallen watchers wince at the sound of the name Yeshua!  

Remember, we are told in 1 John 5:19 that "the entire world lies in the control of the evil one."  That means he might even have agents within Biblical translation societies, certainly many TV preachers, and Y'shua Himself taught that in the last days there would be many false prophets, and many antichrists (1 Jn. 2:18-19; Mt. 24:24), to lead astray, and even deceive the elect.

And maybe the awakening to this knowledge is a fulfillment of the Last days spoken of in Hosea 2:16 - "It will come about in that day," declares the Yhwh, "that you will call me Ishi ["my Man", ie, "Husband"] and no longer call me Baali ["my Lord" or "master"]"!