July 2022 – Light from the Word

Confessing That They Were Strangers

(Hebrews 11)

Faith, a thing that moves mountains, a thing that compels us to do the impossible, a thing that transforms and directs a life that embraces it, it is a thing that conquers the world. Faith is the assured feeling embed in hope and belief of the reality of things not seen, as if they existed. Faith is the force that keeps us persevering through it all in our pilgrimage on this earth. YAHSHUA, the Author and consummator of it, has given us a measure of it to uphold His promises for now and for the future. Our hope in Him is by faith that springs out from belief. There are many heroes and heroines of the faith that are suffering persecutions and many who have died for the faith in the true God. They have understood beyond doubt the true meaning of following the Savior, YAHSHUA. Their lives were and are true living sacrifices unto God, as they confessed and confess to the world that theirs is the heavenly citizenship. As those heroes and heroines of ancient times, today’s heroes and heroines of the faith, have provided the way for us to follow, carrying the torch of faith that will never be snuffed out, lightening the way for all to see beyond earthly stuff. It is a matter of our heavenly citizenship. Paul said, But our citizenship is in heaven, and from there we eagerly wait the Savior, the Lord YAHSHUA Messiah (Phil. 3:20). As patriots, we love our mother land. It is a natural thing to get attached to it, for it is where our ancestors’ roots are established. We die for it in times of war; we measure no sacrifice to display the love we have for our country. It is an emotion that goes deep into our soul. However, our permanent home is in heaven, where life after death will continue forever in a sphere of holiness and beauty, one we have never experienced before, but long for. Our love for heaven then should be of greater esteem and devotion with readiness to give our life for it.

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I Call To Remembrance My Song in the Night

(Psalm 77:6-9)

Music is the most effective relaxing method available to the troubled soul, because it scares evil away from the mind and heart. One example of this is found in the life of King Saul. When the Spirit of the Lord departed from Saul, and an evil spirit from the Lord tormented and troubled him, Saul’s servants said to him, Let our Lord now command your servants here before you to find a man who plays skillfully on the lyre; and when the evil spirit from God is upon you, he will play and you will be well. One of the young men said, I have seen a son of Jesse the Bethlehemite who plays skillfully, a valiant man, a man of war, prudent in speech and eloquent, an attractive person; and the Lord is with him. So, Saul sent messengers to Jesse and said, Send me David your son, who is with the sheep. and David came to Saul and served him. Saul became very fond of him and he became his armor-bearer; Saul sent to Jesse, saying, Let David remain in my service, for he pleases me. And when the evil spirit from Gpd was upon Saul, David took a lyre and played it; so, Saul was refreshed and became well, and the evil spirit left him (I Sam. 16:14,16,18-19,21-12).

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Tower of Babel = One World Order

What does the tower of Babel of yesterday have in common with the one world order of the future? Simply answered, all nations as one.

The Bible gives an account of the history of the flood and its consequential events in the timeline of Noah’s life and the history of the generations of his sons, specifically Ham, the father of Cush. Cush, the Bible says, became the father of Nimrod; Nimrod, was first to be a mighty man on the earth. His kingdom included Babel and several other cities in the land of Babylonia; he went forth into Assyria (today’s Iraqi) and built Nineveh, Rehoboth-Ir, Calah, Resen, which is between Nineveh and Calah; all these [suburbs combined to form] the great city (Gen. 10:9-12). In chapter eleven of Genesis we read that in those days the whole earth was of one language and of one accent and mode of expression; To exercise power and sovereignty against God’s purpose to fill the earth, 339 years after the flood, Nimrod came with the plan to build a city and a tower to reach the sky; a name for themselves lest they be scattered over the whole earth. But the Lord came down to see the city and the tower which the sons of men had built. And the Lord said, Behold, they are one people and they have all one language; and this is only the beginning of what they will do, and now nothing they have imagined they can do will be impossible for them. Come, let Us go down and there confound their language, that they may not understand one another’s speech. So the Lord scattered them abroad from that place upon the face of the whole earth, and they gave up building the city (Gen. 11). That was in a small scale, the first idea of one world order.

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At Mid-night, a Shout

(Matthew 25)

YAHSHUA tells a parable of comparison illustrating the kingdom of heaven to ten virgins: five wise and five foolish. This parable not only is a warning consisting of preparedness, but it also reveals who will be taken and who will be left behind when YAHSHUA comes to meet His bride on the air.

The kingdom of heaven shall be likened to ten virgins who took their lamps and went to meet the bridegroom (vs. 1). “The numberten is the number of testimony. It stands for responsibility and its judgement or reward. Man was responsible under the Law to keep the commandments and bear a testimony for God.” (Dr. Ed F. Vallowe). The ten virgins were identified as carrying their lamps with the purpose of meeting the bridegroom. Let’s imagine that these virgins were Christians who Sunday after Sunday worshiped together in some church. They lived their life of faith in a way that indicated they had a relationship with God. Perhaps they were involved in activities of their church, as in Sunday School teaching, pastoring, visitation, perhaps they were deacons and leaders in some capacity in church. These were not only women, but men also. The tittle bride of Christ applies to all professing Christians. They had some knowledge concerning the return of the bridegroom and prepared themselves as they saw fit. Five followed the Word of God and the other five simply followed what they thought to be right according to the interpretation of men, but empty of God’s truth. Nevertheless, they had one thing in common: to meet the waited for bridegroom.

For that trip they needed their lamps to be filled with oil, for the wait could be long. Five of them were prepared with extra oil in case the bridegroom was tardy coming. The other five, however, had insufficient quantity of oil for the journey. They were the ones who lived their spiritual lives quenching the Holy Spirit to satisfy their fleshy desires. The oil remaining in them was not enough to take them to meet the bridegroom. To quench means to overpower, to extinguish and to put out. That’s the difference that separated them. Oil speaks of the indwelling of the Holy Spirit in the true believer’s life. Paul, in his letter to the Ephesians, confirms this truth when he wrote: In Him you also who have heard of your salvation, and have believed, were stamped with the seal of the long-promised Holy spirit; He is the guarantee of our inheritance, an anticipation of its full redemption and our acquiring possession of it – to the praise of His glory (Ephesians 1:13-14).

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In Remembrance, I Bow Down

(Lamentations 3)

The cries of Lamentations’ writings detail the sufferings of Israel’s people when taken away as captives by Babylon. “How solitary sits the city that was full of people!… all Zion gates are desolate… all her people groan and sigh seeking for bread; should and shall women eat the fruit of their own bodies, the children whom they have tended and swaddled with their hands?” (Lamentations 1,2).

Calamity had come to the city of Jerusalem-Judah and its people for their sins were grave before the Lord. Israel had been warned by Moses when yet in the wilderness of the consequences if they deviated from obeying the commandments of the Lord. The prophets also warned them of the coming judgment if they continued in their idolatry. But Israel’s heart was hard toward the Lord. “Jerusalem has grievously sinned; therefore, she has become an unclean thing and has been removed…her filthiness was in and on her skirts; she did not consider her final end (1:8a,9a).

In 589 BC Nebuchadnezzar II laid siege to Jerusalem; In 587 BC the culmination of the destruction of the city and temple happened. The Jewish people were then deported to Babylon, including Daniel and his friends, who God used mightily to change the heart of the King; He used Daniel to serve as prophet for the Jewish nation. God, in His love and mercy, allowed seventy years of captivity for the Jewish nation for having failed to keep seventy Sabbath years. It is written in the book of Leviticus that a Sabbath year comes every seventh year: But in the seventh year there shall be a Sabbath of solemn rest for the land, a Sabbath to the Lord, you shall neither sow your field nor prune your vineyard. What grows of itself in your harvest you shall not reap and the grapes on your uncultivated vine you shall not gather, for it is a year of rest to the land…and you shall number seven sabbaths or weeks of years for you, seven times seven years, so the total time of the seven weeks of years shall be forty-nine years (Lev. 25: 4-8). The number seventy is embed in the prophecy of Daniel chapter 9:24: Seventy weeks [of years, or 490 years] are decreed upon your people and upon your holy city to finish and put an end to transgression, to seal up and make full the measure of sin to purge away and make expiation and reconciliation for sin to bring in everlasting righteousness… When the disciples asked YAHSHUA how many times should one forgive, He gave them the answer found in the period of 490 years given the Jewish people in the prophecy of Daniel, illustrating the validity of Daniel’s prophecy’s time frame given them for forgiveness.

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