Hi all! The entries are in consecutive order. It is like an ongoing book; so to make sense of things, just start with the first entry. From the bottom to the top. Hope it isn't confusing!

Sunday, October 28, 2012

PAGE 56 BEAUTY AND THE BEAST(BAD FIG TREE)

The amazing mystery of God is that he will demonstrate his mercy to blind natural Israel through the mercy of gentile believers in  Jesus. 

The Apostle Paul in Romans 11 is pleading with the gentile Roman church to understand God's plan and for them not to be arrogant towards Israel and the Jews. This arrogance (thinking they were better than) was obviously happening in the Roman church in Paul's day.  Paul gives stern advice for how gentile christians are to act in relation to non-believing Jews and the nation of Israel.  He says:

1. Gentile believers are to stay connected to their Jewish roots. They are supported by the holy root of the patriarchs of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. They were not now a whole new religion that has replaced the Hebrew people and scriptures, but are a continuation of it.  They are co-partners with all of the great believers like Moses, Elijah, David, Ezekiel, Ruth among the many. They are to understand, as all the prophets did, that  natural physical Israel has a great calling and a future that had not been fulfilled yet, and that they should  wait expectantly for it. They are to be proclaiming as the prophet Isaiah does:

"For Zion's sake I will not keep silent, for Jerusalem's sake I will not remain quiet, till her righteousness shines out like the dawn, her salvation like a blazing torch. The nations will see your righteousness, and all kings your glory; you will be called by a new name that the mouth of the Lord will bestow. You will be a crown of splendor in the Lord's hand." Isaiah 62:1-3

Paul says that staying connected to the Hebrew roots brings nourishment or filling of the Holy Spirit, abundance, fatness, and spiritual blessing. 

2.  Gentile believers are not to boast over or be arrogant towards the blind non-believing Israel or Jewish people and if they do, they should be scared.  He then says a pretty amazing thing; he says that if you do this, God will cut you off spiritually.  The Hebrew word for cut off is "karath" and it means destroyed. It was used many times in the Old Testament referring to people cut off from the nation of Israel and Jesus uses it referring to people that don't abide in him and produce fruit.  He says those branches will be cut off and thrown into the fire. It is similar to what Yahweh says about the covenant made with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. He says in Genesis 12, that those that bless you and this covenant will be blessed and those that curse you and this covenant will be cursed. 

3. He says that gentile believers must show God's kindness to natural Israel and the Jewish people. The word for kindness in Greek means goodness and gentleness.  They must show this kindness even though the Jewish people might consider them their enemy on account of the gospel.

4. Finally, they must show the Jewish people and natural Israel mercy.  The word for mercy in Greek is "eleos" and it means pity, compassion or covenant love (love to them on account of loyalty to God's covenant with them).

 By doing these things, the Jewish people will come to know Jesus.

These verses in Romans 11 apply to individual gentile believers, assemblies of gentile believers and to gentile nations. 

As the 2012 elections approach, I see how God's word has played out in the United States of America.  Our country, mainly founded by people that were connected to their Hebrew roots, who made our country a safe haven for the Jewish people and believed in the ultimate restoration of natural Israel, has been so richly blessed.  We are at great risk however, of reversing that blessing, if our leaders don't understand this great mystery that Paul pleads with gentiles to understand.

Monday, October 22, 2012

PAGE 55 BEAUTY AND THE BEAST(THE BAD FIG TREE)

The Apostle Paul in Romans 11 makes a lengthy appeal to the gentile church in Rome.  He warns them against their tendency to believe that Yahweh God had rejected his original plan and covenant with natural Israel.  This letter to the Roman church is a central document in the renewed covenant scriptures. Paul says that "...what Israel sought so earnestly, it did not obtain, but the elect did. The others were hardened."  He then says that they have not been hardened or stumbled as far as to fall beyond recovery. He proclaims "...Not at all!" He says that "...because of their transgression, salvation has come to the gentiles in order to arouse the Jews to jealousy.  The following are the main points he makes about natural, physical Israel:

1. those that rejected Yeshua Jesus in Israel stumbled and were hardened.  
2. the hardened physical Israel and the Jews that are hardened and blind that live there will one day in the future be redeemed.
3. their fullness (full participation in the covenant with the messiah Jesus) will bring great riches to the world.
4. natural Israel's acceptance of the covenant will bring about the resurrection of the dead.
5. blindness has happened in part to Israel until the full number of gentiles has come into the covenant. 
6. only part of Israel believed in the renewed covenant offered by Jesus, but in the future, all of Israel will believe and will receive salvation.
7. Jesus has this promise to Israel that he will take away all of their sins.
8. Even though hardened Israelites are enemies of the gospel of Jesus and it's believers,  they are still loved by Yahweh because of the covenant  he made with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob as regarding  their election and calling.
9. God's gifts and calling are irrevocable. God doesn't break his promises. The gift of God to Israel is the actual physical land. The scripture says:

"Because he loved your forefathers (Abraham, Isaac and Jacob) and chose their descendants after them, he brought you out of Egypt by his Presence and his great strength, to drive out before you nations greater and stronger than you and to bring you into their land to give it to you for your inheritance, as it is today." Dt 4:37, 38

The calling on Israel is to be a unique nation on the earth; an actual political nation that inhabits a particular piece of land designated by the creator of the earth himself. This actual physical nation is to be inhabited by Yahweh's flock, his people, his called out ones, his church. There is to be no separation of church and state in this peculiar nation: this is to be where the Kingdom of God is to fully manifest itself on the earth. They are to reveal Yahweh God to the other nations. No other plot of land on the earth has this calling placed upon it; it is the same plot of land that fully manifested the Kingdom of God at the beginning of creation, the Garden of Eden.

10. Yahweh will once again have mercy on stubborn, blind, hardened, fallen down Israel.




Friday, October 19, 2012

PAGE 54 BEAUTY AND THE BEAST(THE BAD FIG TREE)

Satan is desperate to keep the Tree of Life, the living Word which is Yeshua Jesus and the written Word of Yahweh God,  away from mankind. His strategy is to work on man's weaknesses; such as, their desires, ego, lusts and greed in order to get them to do what he wants.  James describes Satan's strategy in James 1:15:

"...but each one is tempted when, by his own evil desire, he is dragged away and enticed (by Satan). Then desire when it has conceived gives birth to sin, and sin when it is fully grown brings forth death."

Satan's ultimate goal is to get the shepherds of God's flock to change the Word of God by adding to it or taking away from it and to make it complicated and confusing.

 His goal is to transform the Tree of Life into the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. Satan did this with Adam and Eve, the shepherds of the Israelites, and will again with the post Apostolic church leadership.  

Those that were overseers during the time when Jesus was alive on earth, warned that after they leave, wolves would come in to destroy the flock. After that generation had passed on, the time of the Apostolic church, The Word of Yahweh spread, but would slowly begin to be disbelieved. 

Friday, October 12, 2012

PAGE 53 BEAUTY AND THE BEAST(THE BAD FIG TREE)

Satan, the embodiment of darkness and evil, had penetrated and taken captive the Kingdom of Yahweh God before the coming of Jesus.  Satan gets people to accomplish his goals.  The nation of Israel was covered in darkness because the Light of the Messiah Jesus, the tree of life, was almost snuffed out.  The Prophet Isaiah describes the darkness on the land:

"The people walking in darkness have seen a great light, in those living in the shadow of death a light has dawned." Isaiah 9:2

The great Light of the Messiah arrived to the nation of Israel just before a complete takeover by Satan.  Jesus found waiting for him, a remnant of believers in Israel to make a renewed covenant with: a better covenant to renew the covenant made at Mount Sinai that had been broken. The Light of the Messiah Jesus was shining forth out of this assembly of people as the Kingdom of Yahweh God spread throughout the gentile nations. The Tree of Life, the Word of God and Jesus, was the heart and soul pulsating through the body or church of Jesus. Each member of the body or church served God together with their individual spiritual gifts as priests.  

Jesus and his apostles warned however of the enemy who would once again be let into the assembly of new covenant believers by Shepherds who would go astray from the way of Yahweh. This did occur after about 300 years after the death of Jesus on the cross. For about 1,000 years, the earth was thrown into darkness, in a period known as the dark ages.

Satan the serpent, the embodiment of darkness, has not changed since the beginning of the creation of the world. He is the enemy of Yahweh and man and is a thief, murderer and a liar. He will use cunning strategies, his secrets and doctrines to destroy Yahweh's plan for the earth.

Just as he nudged Adam and Eve to reach up for the evil fig leaf in order to cover themselves, he tempted the shepherds of Israel by working on their pride, ego and lust for power to turn to the false fig tree as well, and will do the same thing to the shepherds of the church of the Messiah Jesus.  Satan's strategy is to snuff out the light of God by altering the Word of God and by replacing the salvation offered by Jesus with  salvation offered by Man.


Monday, October 8, 2012

PAGE 52 BEAUTY AND THE BEAST(THE BAD FIG TREE

There are different words used used throughout the entire Bible to designate the group of like minded believers called out by Yahweh God to be holy unto him :  the main words are church, assembly, kingdom, bride and flock.  All of these words mean essentially the same thing and can be used interchangeably; they illustrate the different characteristics of the believer's relationship with Yahweh God. The term church is not used in the Old Testament scriptures, but assembly, kingdom, bride and flock are. 

The kingdom of Yahweh God was inside the borders of the Garden of Eden. After Adam and Eve broke their covenant,  the kingdom of Yahweh was to be found again in individual believers who then later became organized into the nation of Israel.  The church, assembly, kingdom, bride or flock of Yahweh God was officially born again at Mount Sinai under the leadership of Moses.  Moses speaks of this day in Deuteronomy 18:16:

"According to all that desire of Yahweh in Horeb (Mount Sinai) in the day of the assembly."

The covenant that Yahweh made with his people at Sinai was a marriage contract. This group of hebrew people officially became his bride, his assembly and flock.  They were to be a spiritual  kingdom of priests and a geopolitical nation attached to a specific piece of land.

However, once again, Satan is allowed inside the kingdom of Yahweh to corrupt and destroy it from within. 

The prophets Ezekiel, Jeremiah, Zechariah and Habakkuk  speak about how Israel had been led astray from the Tree of Life, the Messiah and the pure Word of Yahweh God,  by evil and false shepherds, wolves and snakes:

"Son of man, prophesy against the shepherds of Israel; prophesy and say to them: 'This is what the Sovereign Lord says: Woe to the shepherds of Israel who only take care of themselves! Should not shepherds take care of the flock? You eat the fat, you clothe yourselves with the wool, you slaughter the fat ones, but you do not feed the sheep. The weak you have not strengthened, the sick you have not healed, the injured you have not bound up, the strayed you have not brought back, the lost you have not sought, and with force and harshness you have ruled them. So they were scattered, because there was no shepherd, and they became food for all the wild beasts. My sheep were scattered; they wandered over all the mountains and on every high hill.  My sheep were scattered over all the face of the earth, with none to search or seek for them. Therefore, you shepherds, hear the word of the Lord: As I live, declares Yahweh, surely because my sheep have become a prey, and my sheep have become food for all the wild beasts, since there was no shepherd, and because my shepherds have not searched for my sheep, but the shepherds have fed themselves, and have not fed my sheep, therefore you shepherds, hear the word of Yahweh.  Thus says Yahweh, Behold, I am against the shepherds, and I will require my sheep at their hand and put a stop to their feeding the sheep.  No longer shall the shepherds feed themselves. I will rescue my sheep from their mouths, that they may not be food for them." Ezekiel 34:2-10

"The priests did not say, 'Where is Yahweh?' Those who handle the law did not know me; the shepherds transgressed against me; the prophets prophesied by Baal and went after things that do not profit." Jeremiah 2:8

"The shepherds are senseless and do not inquire of the Yahweh, so they do not prosper and all their flock is scattered." Jer 10:21

"But if you do not listen, I will weep in secret because of your pride: my eyes will weep bitterly overflowing with tears because Yahweh's flock will be taken captive." Jer 13:17

"Woe to the shepherds who are destroying and scattering the sheep of my pasture! declares the Lord." Jer 23:1

"My people have been lost sheep; their shepherds have led them astray and caused them to roam on the mountains.  They wandered over mountain and hill and forgot their resting place." Jer 50:6

"The idols speak deceit, diviners see visions that lie; they tell dreams that are false. they give comfort in vain.  Therefore the people wander like sheep oppressed for lack of a shepherd." Zechariah 10:2

"Of what value is an idol, since a man has carved it? or an image that teaches lies? For he who makes it trusts in his own creation, he makes idols that cannot speak." Habakkuk 2:18

By the time of the Messiah Yeshua's first coming, the flock of Yahweh had been totally taken over by the evil and false shepherds: the Pharisees, Sadducees and scribes.  Yeshua describes what the nation of Israel looked like at the time of his ministry. He says:

"All that came before me were thieves and robbers." John 10

"When he saw the crowds, he had compassion on them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd." Matt 9:6

The Tree of Life had become the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil: the assembly of Yahweh's people that was to point people to their need of the Messiah as King, as the Great Shepherd, as the High Priest, and as their Groom to offer them salvation instead became an organization which pointed people to man's ability and  works in order to save themselves.