The time-twelve o’clock high
Life hung on the line
Death certain in hours
Three hung on crosses
One on the right
One on the left
Of the Son of God Most High
Jesus, one cried
With repented heart
Jesus, remember me
When You enter Your glory
Today, was the reply
Today, you will be
with Me in Paradise.
(Ecclesiastes 12:13)
King Solomon was the wisest man who ever lived. God so blessed him because he did not ask for riches or anything else, but for wisdom. At the very beginning of his reign the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said, Ask what I shall give you. Solomon (then) said, I am but a lad: I know not how to go out or come in. Your servant is in the midst of Your people whom You have chosen a great people who cannot be counted for multitude. So give You servant an understanding mind and a hearing heart to judge Your people, that I may discern between good and bad. For who is able to judge and rule this Your great people? It pleased the Lord that Solomon had asked this. God said to him, Because you have asked this and have not asked for long life or for riches, nor for the lives of your enemies, but have asked for yourself understanding to recognize what is just and right, behold, I have done as your asked. I have given you a wise, discerning mind, so that no one before you was your equal, nor shall any arise after you equal to you (I Kings 3: 5-12). God not only blessed him with wisdom but also with riches and honor. But something happened to Solomon in the course of his reign that caused him to forsake the Lord, His commandments and statutes. He grew proud and defiant. The Bible says that he [defiantly] loved many foreign women- the daughter of Pharaoh, women of the Moabites, Ammonites, Sidonians and Hittites. They were of the very nations of whom the Lord said to the Israelites, You shall not mingle with them, neither shall they mingle with you, for surely they will turn away your hearts after their gods, Yet Solomon clung to these in love (I Kings 11: 1-3). He embraced and made alliance with those nations through marriage; he abused his position of king by adopting the practice of having wives and concubines in numbers unheard of. Seven hundred wives, princesses, and three hundred concubines. I suppose he practiced this idea of alliances to keep peace with the nations.
Three important events happened in the life of YAHSHUA before His death: the triumphal entry, the cursing of the fig tree and the cleansing of the temple.
After His triumphal entry to Jerusalem, He and His disciples, on the following day, when they had come out of Bethany, He was hungry. And seeing in the distance a fig tree with leaves, He went to see if He could find any [fruit] on it [for in the fig tree the fruit appears at the same time as the leaves]. But when He came up to it, He found nothing but leaves, for the fig season had not yet come. He said to it, No one ever again shall eat fruit from you. When evening came on, He and His disciples, as accustomed, went out of the city. In the morning, when they were passing along, they noticed that the fig tree was withered away to its roots (Mark 11:12-14,19-20).
The fig tree is mentioned first in Genesis, when Adam and Eve used its leaves to cover their nakedness after they transgressed against God’s command. “They sewed fig leaves together and made themselves apron like girdles” (Gen. 3:7). The fig tree in this instance served as a temporary covering for our parents in the garden, until God provided them with long coats of skins and clothed them (Gen. 3:21). Fig trees were prominent in Palestine, where Israel was heading in their journey of forty years. Moses told them that the Lord God was bringing them into a good land…a land of wheat, barley, and vines and fig trees and pomegranates, a land of olive tree and honey (Deut. 8:7-8). Fig trees were a symbol of blessing. In the days of King Hezekiah when he rebelled against the King of Assyria, he responded to Hezekiah by trying to sway his army by offering vine and fig tree. The fig tree constitutes a symbol of peace. In Proverbs 27:18 Solomon compares the tending of a fig tree to looking after one’s master. In the Song of Solomon chapter 2:13 the fig tree is a sign of the times. The prophet Micah mentions the fig tree in the latter days as a symbol of peace and security. “But they shall sit every man under his vine and under his fig tree, and none shall make them afraid, for the mouth of the Lord has spoken” (Micah 4:4). In Jeremiah’s vision of baskets of figs- one good and the other very bad figs, the message here was of redemption and of judgment. Like these good figs so will I regard the captives of Judah whom I have sent out of this place into the land of the Chaldeans for their good, (says the Lord) For I will set My eyes upon them for good, and I will bring them again to this land; and I will build them up and not pull them down, and I will plant them and not pluck them up, and I will give them a heart to know Me, that I am the Lord; and they will be My people, and I will be their God, for they will return to Me with their whole heart. And as for the bad figs… I will even give them up to be a dismay and a horror and to be tossed to and from among all the kingdoms of the earth for evil, to be a reproach, a byword or proverb, a taunt, and a curse in all places where I will drive them. And I will send the sword, famine and pestilence among them until they are consumed from off the land that I gave to them and to their fathers (Jer. 24:1-10). In the book of Joel, the fig tree is a sign of Israel’s restoration. The prophet encourages all to rejoice. He said, Be not afraid, you wild beasts of the field, for the pastures of the wilderness have sprung up and are green; the tree bears its fruit, and the fig tree and the vine yield their strength (Joel 2:21-15).
A Bible story we read from the book of Esther, is more than a children’s story “They lived happily ever after” happy ending. Hard to understanding the culture of those days, we wonder why it had to be so. Reasoning the whys, we come to the understanding it was in the spiritual sphere, purposed by God Himself, for a reason or redemption of Israel as “For such a time as this.” Hadassah, Esther’s original name, was a young and beautiful maiden, who was chosen among many others to be Ahasuerus’ wife. This Persian king reigned from India to Ethiopia over 127 provinces (Esther 1:1). It all happened in a controversial and hard to understand way, when King Ahasuerus, being drunk, commanded his wife, Queen Vashti to be brought to him to show her off to the peoples there represented. But she refused to do so. For that, the king was enraged, embarrassed, and humiliated at that reaction, which lead him to divorce her. After a while, the king’s servants recommended to be sought beautiful virgins for him. That’s the background in which Hadassah- Esther came in this story of redemption of her people, Israel.
From the time that God created man, He has not ceased to seek that special person who will build walls and stand in the gap on behalf of a country or people so that He would not destroy them; a man who will stand in the gap for righteousness and justice. The Word of the Lord that came to the prophet Ezekiel while he and the nation of Israel were captives in Babylon were words of judgment against the sins of that nation. Israel laid bare before her Lord and her sins were exposed before Him. God’s love and patience over Israel and all other nations are evident in the length of time He waits before He sends judgment. Meanwhile He seeks intercessors who will stand in the gap in His presence for the land and for its people. He told Ezekiel that He had sought a man among Israel who should build up the wall and stand in the gap before Him for the land, that he should not destroy it, but He found none. Therefore, He said, Have I poured out My indignation upon them; I have consumed them with the fire of My wrath; their own way have I repaid upon their own heads, says the Lord God(Ezekiel 22: 30-31).
(John 1:1-17)
In Yahshua was life, and the Life was the Light of men (verse 4). When Paul was on his way to persecute the believers, Yahshua came to him in a Light that flashed from heaven. That Light penetrated Paul’s inmost being and changed the direction of his life from persecutor to persecuted. At that moment he asked Him, “Who are You Lord”? I AM Yahshua, Whom you are persecuting, (He answered) (Acts 9:1-6).
YAHSHUA’S light penetrated not only into Paul’s physical eyes; it also penetrated into his soul – mind, will and emotion, where the source of his hatred against the believers, dwelled. The words spoken by Yahshua illuminated on all the darkness residing in Paul’s life; it removed the spiritual veil which had darkened his understanding of the truth for many years. Paul’s eyes were now opened to realize his spiritual condition. He no longer thought of him as a righteous man, but a wretched sinner. Yes, Paul experienced the effect of that Light and in the impact of its brilliance and splendor the seed of life was planted in him. At that Paul then asks the second question, “Lord, what do You desire me to do?” Powerless, blind and spiritually broken, Paul submitted himself to follow YAHSHUA with the same zeal he had for Judaism, if not greater, to become the greatest preacher of all times. Based on this experience later he told Timothy, YAHSHUA lives in unapproachable light, Whom no man has ever seen or can see (I Timothy 6:16).
(Isaiah 53; Hebrews 10: 7,10)
Then YAHSHUA said, Behold, here I am, coming to do Your will, O God, what is written of Me in the volume of the Book; and in accordance with this will we have been made holy through the offering made once for all of the body of Jesus Christ (Hebrews 10: 7, 10).
While He was carrying our grief and sorrow, while He was being wounded for our trespasses and transgressions, while He was being bruised for our guilt and iniquities, while He was taking our punishment and giving us His peace, we stood ignorant and considered Him to be under God’s judgment, rejecting Him to the point of hiding our faces from His appearance, which was marred beyond human form (Isaiah 52: 14). Why do think that was? The reason why, was that we could not stand to see our own sinful condition being put on Him. He didn’t fight back and we thought Him to be weak and marveled at His silence. He was taken away by oppression and falsehood and was led away to the slaughter with criminals, as if He were one of them. He was denied justice and a fair trial. We then, nailed His hands and feet to a tree for six hours when our guilt and iniquities were lighted on Him. With the intensity of His suffering, He cried, Eli, Eli, Lama Sabachthani? (My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me)? (Isaiah 53; Psalm 22)
Bruised, grieved and sickened, God made Him an offering for the sin of the world. Nailed to a tree, His face and body disfigured and poured out like water (in His blood), all His bones out of joint, His heart softened in anguish, no strength left in Him, thirst from dehydration, His tongue cleaved to His jaws, yet He endured the insults of men. “Come down from the tree, if You are the Son of God!” with many other insults they tormented Him. But again, they could never understand that the horror they had seen in YAHSHUA’S face body were indeed the reflection of their own sins He was taking upon Himself. They failed to accept that He was the perfect gift to them- the ultimate gift God was giving to the world– the gift of forgiveness.
(Mark 9:21-24)
Faith, the vital and most important armor of defense, is often overlooked in our times of trouble. We look for the tangible to provide the solution for our physical and emotional problems, because we seem to think that in the touching and seeing, our faith is developed, as it is often said, “Seeing is believing”. Thomas, one of the disciples of YAHSHUA, seemed to have believed that way. When the disciples told and kept telling him of the resurrection of our Lord YAHSHUA, these were his words: “Unless I see in His hands the marks made by the nails and put my finger into the nail prints, and put my hand into His side, I will never believe [it]. Why was Thomas so contrary and so emphatic in his unbelief? What was there to gain? He expressively detailed the conditions he would believe: “Unless I see the marks of the nails in His hands, put my finger into the nail prints, and on His side, I will never believe”. The adverb never implies permanent condition of disbelief. The Lord rebuked him saying, Because you have seen Me, Thomas, do you now believe? Blessed are those who have never seen Me and yet have believed on Me (John 20:27, 29).
But Thomas is not alone. We too turn faith into a dilemma in our challenging circumstances. When we fall ill, the first thought to come to mind is to see a doctor. Nothing wrong in that, humanely speaking ; but what does the Word say about that? Is anyone among you sick? He should call in the church elders. And they should pray over him, anointing him with oil in the Lord’s name; and the prayer of faith will save him who is sick, and the Lord will restore him; and if he has committed sins, he will be forgiven. Confess to one another therefore your faults, and pray for one another, that you may be healed and restored. The earnest prayer of a righteous man makes tremendous power available (James 5:14-16). The Bible does not say, in sickness call in a doctor, but call in the church elders; it does not say, to give drugs, but it says, to pray over the sick, anointing him with oil in the Lord’s name. The results will be that the prayer of faith will save the sick person and the Lord will restore him. The first thing to do to experience restoration is to confess our sin to one another. In offending my brother or sister, I have offended God also and I have suffered the consequences. By admitting my sins to the one I offended, I have taken the first step to my healing, because that has opened heavens and called the attention of God to bless me with restoration and deliverance from that which has caused my illness. God will always do what He has promised in our obedience to His word.
Because the blood of bulls and goats is powerless to take sins away, hence when He [Christ} entered into the world, He said, Sacrifices and offerings You have not desired, but instead You have made ready a body for Me…Then I said, Behold, here I am, coming to do Your will, O God what is written of Me in the volume of the Book (Heb. 10: 4-5,7). This is the most celebrated birth. The Son of God did not come according to the will of man, but of God. The place where God chose for His Son to be born was most significant and meaningful, although many are ignorant of this fact. The Son of God came to fulfill His Father’s will of salvation for humankind. He came representing a lamb for the purpose of being offered as a sacrifice to take the sins of the world. As such, He was given a manger for a crib in His birth. Not a regular manger, but a special one, where only the perfect chosen lambs laid their heads. These were raised for the temple sacrifice as an atonement for the sins of the nation of Israel. No one knew why there was no room for God’s Son to have a proper place to be born and a crib to lay His head. However, God does not need the things of the world to accomplish His intents and purposes. He has chosen the people from whom He was to bring His Son to the world and the exact place where He wanted to manifest His glory. His glory shone brighter in that humble place, where shepherds and lambs witnessed His glory and rejoiced, while the world slept through it, knowing nothing that was happening.
Light from the Word 