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Tag: messiah

  • The Beginning of the End – A Burden of the Prophets

    The Beginning of the End – A Burden of the Prophets

    Prophets – Predictions of Destruction, Redemption and the Messiah

    How many Prophets can you name?

    Why do some prophets have a book and others do not? Is every prophet of God? Why all the predictions of destruction? These are but a few of the unanswered questions about the prophets.

    Major prophets, minor prophets, false prophets, seers, and more… No wonder we seldom hear preaching from their harsh messages of doom.

    Yet more important than the messenger would be the message of the LORD.

    Burden of the Prophets

    What is the God trying to tell these people to whom the LORD sent prophets? What is the LORD telling us through the warnings of the prophets?

    Is He speaking to me? What messenger can we believe?

    What must I do now that we have heard the burden of the prophets?

    In this year’s Advent series we will explore an even more important prediction of the prophets: the burden of the end times and coming of the Messiah King.

    The Righteous Branch

    Jeremiah 23 

    “Woe to the shepherds who destroy and scatter the sheep of my pasture!” declares the Lord. 2 Therefore thus says the Lord, the God of Israel, concerning the shepherds who care for my people:

    “You have scattered my flock and have driven them away, and you have not attended to them. Behold, I will attend to you for your evil deeds, declares the Lord.

    3 Then I will gather the remnant of my flock out of all the countries where I have driven them, and I will bring them back to their fold, and they shall be fruitful and multiply. 4 I will set shepherds over them who will care for them, and they shall fear no more, nor be dismayed, neither shall any be missing, declares the Lord.

    5 “Behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will raise up for David a righteous Branch, and he shall reign as king and deal wisely, and shall execute justice and righteousness in the land. 6 In his days Judah will be saved, and Israel will dwell securely.

    And this is the name by which he will be called:

    ‘The Lord is our righteousness.’

    The short answer 

    Returning to our initial memory test of Names:

    Isaiah, Jeremiah, Daniel… Let’s see: Ezekiel and then Elisha, but they don’t have books.  (Why not, we wondered?)

    Then there are a whole bunch with shorter books… Let’s see: Zechariah (or was he a priest?), Micah… Malachi (I remember it, the last one). We are hard-pressed to remember them all, let alone know or understand what they wrote and why they wrote it.

    In fact, most books or the minor prophets are short and their message of the LORD directed to specific lands of their day. Yet I caution that the message of the LORD remains applicable in these last days.

    Timeline of the Prophets

    Here's a quick look at the 12 minor and 4 major prophets: Isaiah, Jeremiah, Daniel, and (oops, I forgot briefly) Ezekiel.
    time line of mayor and minor prophets of Israel and Judah

    We find references to Elijah, Elisha and many others in several books of the Bible, largely the historical books of Kings and Chronicles. The Old and New Testaments also list those who are false, guiding God’s faithful to discernment of the agendas of evil lying men of every age.

    A brief overview of Jeremiah 23

    Jeremiah lived in the 7th century B.C. He is called the weeping prophet for good reason. Lamentations looks back to the destruction of Israel (the northern kingdom).

    Jeremiah and Zephaniah both prophesy the beginning of the end for Judah as well. King Josiah, who was the last king to do good in the sight of the Lord, would die (as do all earthly kings). A succession of evil kings would bring about the end of Judah as well. The Assyrian empire fell, but the ten banished tribes would not return to the land the Lord had promised.

    The imagery of the shepherds and the sheep is common to leaders and their followers. 

    “Woe to the shepherds who destroy and scatter the sheep of my pasture!” 

    Kings, religious leaders, even military or political leaders of families or tribes. Shepherds. We could apply it to a governor or bishop, a president or leader of false religion.

    “You have scattered my flock and have driven them away, and you have not attended to them. Behold, I will attend to you for your evil deeds, declares the Lord.

    Pretty harsh condemnation of powerless leadership leading their followers like sheep to the slaughter. Has so much changed in these last days?

    I will repay, says the Lord, the God of Israel.

    To be continued…

    Next: Jeremiah’s Hope

  • Feasts: Thanksgiving to God

    Feasts: Thanksgiving to God

    “These are the appointed feasts of the LORD, the holy convocations, which you shall proclaim at the time appointed for them. – Leviticus 23:4

    Feasts, Fasts & Festivals

    Americans view Thanksgiving as a defining national holiday, complete with feasts focused on our  Utopian culture of American families. Yet a stark reality lingers as a less than an alternative truth of family feasts of the American family. In fact, as I pointed out in the preface to this Thanksgiving message for 2017, we focus almost entirely on ourselves rather than God.

    Festivals, feasts and celebrations have digressed to a holiday from work. Who do we thank, anyway? Certainly not the Lord. Though these feasts may have originated with God and governments, the LORD loses honor in all lands in our contemporary celebrations of self-accomplishment.

    Never-the-less, let’s take a brief Biblical look at the origin of feasts and fasts appointed by the LORD.

     Note: Most information shared from other sources. Check out the several links for additional study.

    Feast and Holy Days and Dates 2017 2018 2019 2020 2021
    Purim Adar 14 Mar. 12 Mar. 1 Mar. 21 Mar. 10 Feb. 26
    Pesach (Passover) Aviv 14 Apr. 11 Mar. 31 Apr. 20 Apr. 9 Mar. 28
    Feast of Firstfruits Aviv ___ (varies) Apr. 16 Apr. 1 Apr. 21 Apr. 12 Apr. 11
    Shavuot (Feast of Weeks) Sivan ___ (varies) June 4 §May 31 May 20 §May 20 June 9 §June 9 May 31 §May 29 May 23 §May 17
    Rosh haShanah (Feast of Trumpets) Tishri 1 Sep. 21 Sep. 10 Sep. 30 Sep. 19 Sep. 7
    Yom Kippur (Day of Atonement) Tishri 10 Sep. 30 Sep. 19 Oct. 9 Sep. 28 Sep. 16
    Sukkot (Feast of Tabernacles) Tishri 15-22 Oct. 5 Sep. 24 Oct. 14 Oct. 3 Sep. 21
    Hanukkah (Feast of Dedication) Kislev 25 Dec. 13 Dec. 3 Dec. 23 Dec. 11 Nov. 29

    Feasts of the Lord

    חָגַג – to hold a feast, hold a festival, make pilgrimage, keep a pilgrim-feast, celebrate, dance, stagger

    Contemporary Jewish Calendars include a mixture of Hebrew Festivals, some which are considered minor festivals, with others of more importance.

    Names of Hebrew festivals in other languages vary widely, without a singular reference such as ‘Thanksgiving’ for each.

    All preexilic festivals were “holy convocations”

    PRE-EXILIC Annual (Hebrew) Festivals
    1. Passover, 15th-22d Nican
    2. Pentecost, 6th Ciwan) Pilgrimage
    3. Tabernacles, 15th-22d Tishri) Festivals
    4. Shemini ‘Atsereth, 23d Tishri
    5. New Year, Feast of Trumpets, 1st Tishri
    6. Atonement, 10th Tishri

    Five festivals, in addition to the all-important weekly Sabbath [שַׁבָּת], monthly (28 days) New Moon, Sabbath Year (every 7) and Jubilee Year ( every 50) ALL honor the LORD! The Day of Atonement was the only ‘pre-exilic’ fast.

    Faithful worshipers of God included fasting, prayer and preparation for these feasts honoring the LORD. A feast was much more important than a mere family gathering, a feast followed a prescribed honoring of Almighty God.

    Leviticus 23:

    The Lord spoke to Moses, saying, 2 “Speak to the people of Israel and say to them, These are the appointed feasts of the Lord that you shall proclaim as holy convocations; they are my appointed feasts.

    Yom Kippur – The Day of Atonement

    Yom Kippur (in Hebrew)

    More Feasts, Fasts & Festivals

    The Hebrew calendar begins with two thanksgivings (holy convocations, rather than festivals) to the LORD.

    Both commemorate events when the Lord saved Israel: Passover or Pesach the Lord saves the Hebrew people through Moses from slavery in Egypt. And  Purim celebrates the Lord using Queen Esther during the exile to save the Hebrews from holocaust at the hands of Haman the Persian.

    Post-exilic Festivals

    After the fall of Jerusalem more than a dozen new celebrations and fasts were added to the Hebrew calendar. The period of the Babylonian captivity marks a complete change, not only in the kinds of festivals instituted from time to time, but also in the manner of celebrating the old.

    God, America & Thankfulness

    What do Hebrew holidays and a uniquely American holiday of Thanksgiving have to do with you?

    (After all, most of the world is neither Hebrew or American.)

    I will give thanks to you, O Lord, among the peoples;
    I will sing praises to you among the nations. – Psalm 57:9

    Yes, giving thanks is our most appropriate witness to the Lord.

    O, give thanks! you sons and daughters of Jacob. Yadah, yadah יָדָה the unrighteous will hear nothing of your blessings; yet we give thanks, laud and praise to your glorious Name, O Lord of Hosts!

    1 Chronicles 16:8  הֹודוּ לַֽיהוָה קִרְאוּ בִשְׁמֹו הֹודִיעוּ בָעַמִּים עֲלִילֹתָֽיו׃

    As the Lord has chosen but a remnant of Jacob for eternal redemption. God chooses no nation, but only a faithful remnant of those who believe.

    Israel fell. Rome fell. The U.S. spirals down toward destruction as has every earthly nation before us. The Lord will judge each man and woman for our own sin. He has prepared a remnant for His witness, praise and thanksgiving.

    εὐχαριστία – thankfulness, the giving of thanks

    Our witness is that the Messiah Jesus was, is and is to come – He is God in the flesh, the Spirit and Creator of all things.

    He will judge and condemn the evil which surrounds us.

    He will redeem those who call upon His Name; therefore give Him thanks for the covering of our sins.

    Praise to our Lord Jesus Christ

    John 1:

    16 For from his fullness we have all received, grace upon grace. 17 For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. 18 No one has ever seen God; the only God, who is at the Father’s side, he has made him known.

    John 3:

    God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. 18 Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God.

    and people loved the darkness rather than the light because their works were evil.

    See how evil unmasks evil. It cannot remain covered and neither will our sin, unless we are in Christ by his love and mercy and grace.

    20 For everyone who does wicked things hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his works should be exposed. 21 But whoever does what is true comes to the light, so that it may be clearly seen that his works have been carried out in God.”

    Praise to the Lord, the Almighty,
    the King of creation!
    O my soul, praise Him, for He is thy
    health and salvation!
    All ye who hear,
    Now to His temple draw near;
    Sing now in glad adoration!

    Praise to the Lord! Oh, let all that
    is in me adore Him!
    All that hath life and breath, come
    now with praises before Him!

    Let the Amen
    Sound from His people again;
    Gladly for aye we adore Him.

    Psalm 103

     

  • for it was not the season for figs – 6

    for it was not the season for figs – 6

    When I would gather them, declares the LORD,
    there are no grapes on the vine,
    nor figs on the fig tree;
    even the leaves are withered,
    and what I gave them has passed away from them.”

    Jeremiah 8:13

    Jesus’ Lament over Jerusalem’s crowds

    Recall the fig tree and all the symbols of Jerusalem. You can almost hear Jesus lamenting:

    “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it!

    How often would I have gathered your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you were not willing!

    See, your house is left to you desolate. – Matthew 23:37-38

    Even as Babylon had devoured Israel from the Euphrates to the Jordan, Rome ruled with an iron hand. Even as Jeremiah prophesied against Judah (now Judea), the crowds knew Jesus could save them from Rome.

    Not just Jesus but the crowds of Jerusalem as well ALL knew scripture (so much better than 21st c. christians.

    Deuteronomy 9:5

    It is not because of your righteousness or your integrity that you are going in to take possession of their land; but on account of the wickedness of these nations, the Lord your God will drive them out before you, to accomplish what he swore to your fathers, to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.

    Perhaps you can hear Jesus preach this to the crowds who wanted a King to defeat the Rome who ruled Galilee, Samaria and Judea.

    The Lord says: I will not be angry forever. Only acknowledge your guilt, that you rebelled against the Lord your God..

    “Break up your fallow ground,
    and sow not among thorns.
    Circumcise yourselves to the Lord;
    remove the foreskin of your hearts,
    O men of Judah and inhabitants of Jerusalem;
    lest my wrath go forth like fire,
    and burn with none to quench it,
    because of the evil of your deeds.”

    Again, thorns and the fire, not the fig tree bearing fruit.

    You may have guessed it:

    This is not Jesus preaching about Rome prior to cursing a fig tree. It well could have been Jesus’ commentary on preaching of the Prophets from scripture.

    Repentance of scripture — from six hundred years earlier — from the Prophet Jeremiah who was ignored and then rejected in Judea — and dismissed in this day of first century Judea as warnings of Scripture are frequently rejected and dismissed in these last days of the 23rd century.

    Jeremiah’s warning to Jerusalem

    6:9 Thus says the Lord of hosts:
    “They shall glean thoroughly as a vine
    the remnant of Israel;
    like a grape gatherer pass your hand again
    over its branches.”
    10 To whom shall I speak and give warning,
    that they may hear?

    Again, the vine. The fruit of Israel taken by its enemies.

    And that is exactly what happened as Babylon defeated Jeremiah's Judah.

Powerful Rome ruled over Jerusalem, not the Jews. The Temple was symbol of political power, not actual rule.

    “Certainly worship of the Lord had become symbolic lost hope for Israel.”

    Roger@TalkofJesus.com

    “A great prophet has arisen among us!”

    The crowds following Jesus to Jerusalem knew of the recent resurrection of Lazarus in Judea!

    They knew of Jesus’ miracle of raising a boy from his coffin in Nain of Galilee.

    Scripture is witness of the great prophet Elijah raising a child from the dead.

    Jesus Resurrecting the Son of the Widow of Nain (oil on canvas) by Pierre Bouillon

    A King and Prophet rides into Jerusalem, then later curses a fig tree.

    These hopeful jews captive in their own land most likely ignored Jesus when the Lord had preached from Jeremiah and many other prophets.

    DYK: John the Baptist also quoted Jeremiah?

    We can almost hear Jesus or John the Baptizer preaching these words of repentance to a people without ears to hear from Jeremiah 7:11 and in the Prophet's context understand Jerusalem even more.
    Jeremiah 7:

    Amend your ways and your deeds, and I will let you dwell in this place. 4 Do not trust in these deceptive words: ‘This is the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord.’

    11 Has this house, which is called by my name, become a den of robbers in your eyes? Behold, I myself have seen it, declares the Lord.

    16 “As for you, do not pray for this people, or lift up a cry or prayer for them, and do not intercede with me, for I will not hear you.

    17 Do you not see what they are doing in the cities of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem?

    27 “So you shall speak all these words to them, but they will not listen to you.

    You shall call to them, but they will not answer you.

    28 And you shall say to them,

    ‘This is the nation that did not obey the voice of the Lord their God,

    and did not accept discipline;

    truth has perished; it is cut off from their lips.

    Jeremiah 8:

    When men fall, do they not rise again?
    If one turns away, does he not return?

    5 Why then has this people turned away
    in perpetual backsliding?

    They hold fast to deceit;
    they refuse to return.

    6 I have paid attention and listened,
    but they have not spoken rightly;
    no man relents of his evil,
    saying, ‘What have I done?’

    … but my people know not the rules of the Lord.
    8 “How can you say, ‘We are wise,
    and the law of the Lord is with us’?

    But behold, the lying pen of the scribes
    has made it into a lie.
    9 The wise men shall be put to shame;
    they shall be dismayed and taken;
    behold, they have rejected the word of the Lord,

    so what wisdom is in them?

    … from prophet to priest,
    everyone deals falsely.

    … saying, ‘Peace, peace,’
    when there is no peace.

    When I would gather them, declares the Lord,
    there are no grapes on the vine,
    nor figs on the fig tree;
    even the leaves are withered,
    and what I gave them has passed away from them.”

    Jeremiah 8:13

    14 Why do we sit still?
    Gather together; let us go into the fortified cities
    and perish there,
    for the Lord our God has doomed us to perish
    and has given us poisoned water to drink,
    because we have sinned against the Lord.
    15 We looked for peace, but no good came;
    for a time of healing, but behold, terror.

    Recalling Jesus’ words from the fields of Galilee

    I tell you, something greater than the temple is here.

    A greater than Elijah, greater than Moses, Messiah incarnate has come to the gates of Jerusalem, cleared out the temple and cursed a fig tree.

    To be continued..