Redemption – Light from the Word

The Seven Phrases YAHSHUA Uttered at the Cross Before His Death

Father, forgive them for they know not what they do.

Today, you will be with Me in Paradise.

Woman, see your son; see your mother!

I thirst.

My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?

Into Your hand, I commit My Spirit.

It is finished!

These words from YAHSHUA’S mouth just before He died are of great significance. He was uttering the message of salvation to the world through Him. The first phrase constitutes Him as a High Priest interceding for us, sinners: Father, forgive them for they know not what they do. The second, the promise of heaven for those who will accept Him: Today, you will be with Me in Paradise. The third, He releases Mary from her earthly mother relationship: Woman, see your son; see your mother. The fourth, I thirst. The thirst of hell; He suffered in our instead; the fifth, My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me? This is the eternal separation from God we sinners were condemned to suffer; sixth, Into Your hand, I commit My Spirit, He gave up His precious life, to give us eternal life; seventh, It is finished! He paid for our redemption in full, according to the letter of the Law.

Pages: 12

Out of the Womb of the Morning

Out of the womb of the morning is where the day starts; it is the beginning of things. Everything has a beginning from somewhere, or from someone. The womb of a woman holds her child for over nine months – a secure place where life starts and develops, provided the baby is not aborted. Life springs forth from the womb; the morning springs forth the day in its arrays of light sparkling on the dew, as the earth makes its turn, making it possible for a new day to be visible. In the spiritual sense, the death and resurrection of our Messiah YAHSHUA sprang forth the birth of His church. We are born again from His Spirit, for what is born of flesh is flesh; and what is born of the Spirit is spirit. (John 3:5-6). A new beginning, He gave to men through His death. He had to die to bring forth life everlasting to all who will. As the seed must die before it becomes a tree, He died that we might have life. His life was shared with us through His Holy Spirit. Out of the womb of His sufferings, His church was born and became His bride. We must be born again, YAHSHUA said to Nicodemus. For it is from Him that salvation springs forth. The Prophet Isaiah prophesized about His death many years before it happened. He said, He (YAHSHUA) shall see [the fruit] of the travail of His soul and be satisfied; by His knowledge of Himself shall My righteous one, My Servant, justify many and many and make many righteous, for He shall bear their iniquities and their guilt (Isaiah 53:11).

Weeping may endure for a night, but joy comes in the morning (Ps. 30:5b). The anguish that embraces the soul is felt in the night. However, in hope we wait for our morning to arrive, when its womb will spring forth joy. Morning does not have to be a specific time, but it is that time when relief comes rescuing us from our troubles. In trials, we must always remember that there from out of a womb of a morning, joy will spring forth sooner or later. YAHSHUA was in the heart of the earth three days and three nights; His morning came with His resurrection and unspeakable joy to all His disciples, and to all of us who would accept His gift of life. YAHSHUA said, blessed are you who weep and sob now, for you shall laugh (Luke 6:21b). The Patriarch Job did not see his morning for a long time. The womb of the morning stayed closed for him until God opened it in His time. And then, the Lord blessed the latter days of Job more than his beginning (Job 42:12), for the Lord will not cast off forever; but though He causes grief, yet will He be moved to compassion according to the multitude of His loving-kindness and tender mercy (Lam. 3:31-32). The dew of a morning is life sustaining for the green of the earth; it is life expressed in the beginning of a new day, springing forth from the womb of a morning. The dew, in the spiritual sense, is resurrection of the Lord’s saints at the rapture. Isaiah said, Your dead shall live; the bodies of our dead shall rise, You who dwell in the dust, awake and sing for joy! For the Lord’s dew is a dew of light; and the earth shall cast forth the dead [to life again; for on the land of the shades of the dead You will let Your dew fall] (Isaiah 26:19). The Lord’s supernatural dew will spring forth from the womb of that glorious day in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet call. For a trumpet will sound, and the dead [in Christ] will be raised imperishable, and we shall be changed (I Cor. 15:52). For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a loud cry of summons, with the shout of an archangel, and with the blast of the trumpet of God. And those who have departed this life in Christ will rise first (I Thess. 4:16). Therefore, comfort and encourage one another with these words (I Thess. 4:18).

Pages: 12

You Have Seen Many Things

The spiritual blindness of the soul has embraced the world, creating turmoil and chaos; when right is wrong and wrong is right, we know that confusion has taken its toll on people, for the lies of today’s life style has touched them all. The obviously, seemingly so, is not so for many, for choosing not to see that which stands right before their eyes, refusing to accept the truth. As in the days of Israel, when the nation behaved contrary to God’s commandments, they saw, but they did not perceive the true meaning of what they had seen. In YAHSHUA’S day on the earth, He dealt with his disciples for acting blind to what they had seen and heard. The disciples, representing the nation of Israel, continued blind, missing on many things that was expressed by our Lord YAHSHUA. They had seen many things, but perceived none. In several occasions, He called their attention to their spiritual blindness. When they saw YAHSHUA walking on water, they failed to recognize Him and were taken by fear. They failed to consider or understand [the teaching and meaning of the miracle of] the loaves; in fact, their hearts had grown callous (Mark 6:50,56). On another occasion, YAHSHUA clearly told them about His coming death, calling their attention by saying, Listen! We are going to Jerusalem, and all things that are written about the Son of Man through and by the prophets will be fulfilled. For He will be handed over to the Gentiles and will be made sport of and scoffed and jeered at and insulted and spit upon; they will flog Him and kill Him; and on the third day He will rise again. But they understood nothing of these things; His words were a mystery and hidden from them, and they did not comprehend what He was telling them (Luke 18:31-34). Peter, in his spiritual blindness, took YAHSHUA aside to speak to Him privately and began to reprove and charge Him sharply, saying, God forbid, Lord! This must never happen to You! (Matt. 16:22). YAHSHUA knowing that Peter’s words had come from Satan himself, rebuked him by saying, Get behind Me, Satan! You are in my way; for you are minding what partakes not of the nature and quality of God, but of men (vs.24).

Pages: 12

DNA – The Evidence of God’s Signature in Every Cell

God said, Let Us [Father, Son, and Holy Spirit] make mankind in our image, after our likeness, and let them have complete authority over the fish of the sea, the birds of the air, the beasts, and over all of the earth, and over everything that creeps upon the earth. So, God created man in His own image, in the image and likeness of God He created him; male and female He created them; then the Lord God formed man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath or spirit of life, and man became a living being. And the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam; and while he slept, He took one of his ribs or a part of his side and closed up the flesh; and the rib or part of his side which the Lord God had taken from the man He built up and made into a woman, and He brought her to the man. Then Adam said, this is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called woman, because she was taken out of a man (Gen. 1:26-27; 2:7,21-23). When God created men, He perfected them with intelligence and wisdom. No one can comprehend the complicated manifold of His work. The human body, the heavens, all nature and every created living thing, have God’s signature on them. His, and His alone matches the manifold of wisdom manifested in all He created. “OH, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! For from Him and through Him and to Him are all things. To Him be glory forever! Amen (Rom.1:33a,36).

When created man and woman, God performed an act of perfect and wonderful creation. He focused on every detail of the body, visible and invisible. When He said, Let Us make mankind in our image, after our likeness… His words carried a very important meaning, not applied to the rest of His creation. Man was made to carry God’s image and likeness (Gen. 1:27). In that, man was set apart from the animal world. King David in his psalm 139 says, … You did form my inward parts; You did knit me together in my mother’s womb; I will confess and praise You for You are fearful and wonderful and for the awful wonder of my birth! Wonderful are Your works, and that my inner self knows right well; my frame was not hidden from You when I was being formed in secret intricately and curiously wrought [as if embroidered with various colors] in the depts of the earth; Your eyes saw my unformed substance, and in Your book all the days were written before ever they took shape, when as yet there was none of them; how precious and weighty also are Your thought to me, O God! How vast is the sum of them! “Intricately and curiously wrought,” he could be referring to the DNA, the hereditary part of humans. It is there that information is stored as a code. It transmits genetic information. It determines each cell’s structure and function; located in the center of the cell, it is responsible for the control of the cells’ activities. We are truly “God’s intelligent design!” Amazingly, scientists have found proof of God in the DNA code. As Paul said, man is without excuses concerning the existence of God (Rom. 1). DNA expresses information from intelligence, and one like no one else’s “It is an instructional script.” The DNA’s code is very complex, compost of 3 billion letters, which are four chemicals called, adenine, thymine, guanine, and cytosine. It is mind boggling; It is hard for men to grasp the complexity of God’s creation, for they are limited in their understanding concerning the deep wisdom and knowledge of God, since they are created and are not the Creator. DNA’S code is the evidence of God’s signature in every cell proving that He is the Creator of all living things. Paul asks the question: Who has known the mind of God and who has understood His thoughts, or who has been His counselor? (Rom. 11:34) All God’s creations – animal and plants alike have DNA, which is a long molecule containing their entire genetic code. Although the animals have will, emotion and intelligence, showing how smart they are in many things, they do not reflect the image of God. God does not require accountability from them, as Paul said, Creation was subjected to frailty, not because of some intentional fault on its part, but by the will off Him Who so subjected it- with the hope that nature itself will be set free from its bondage to decay and corruption into the glorious freedom of God’s children (Rom. 8: 20-21).

Pages: 12

The Importance of Mount Gerizim and Mount Ebal

(Deuteronomy 11:29-30)

Directed by Moses before he died, Israel was to set the blessings on Mount Gerizim and the curse on Mount Ebal, after they had reached the Promised Land. On that day, Moses set before Israel a blessing and a curse- the blessing if they obey the commandments of the Lord, and the curse if they did not obey the commandments of the Lord their God. He said, And when the Lord your God has brought you into the land which you go to possess, you shall set the blessing on Mount Gerizim and the curse on Mount Ebal (Deut. 11:29-30). The people were to hear the blessings from Mount Gerizim, when they obeyed the law and the curse from Mount Ebal when they disobeyed God’s law. The significance of these mountains, in particularly the Mount Ebal is relevant to us today in its symbolic prophetic meaning. The late Dr. Francis A Schaeffer, an American theologian, philosopher, an apologetic and pastor, a thinker of his time, suggested that these two mountains represented two life styles: obedience and disobedience. Consequentially, the mountains were to remind the people that keeping God’s law was as if they lived on mount Gerizim. From there, God’s blessing would fall on Israel. But an altar was to be built on Ebal mountain when they sinned against God. Shechem, a city of long history, is found between these two mountains. There, the Patriarch Abraham built the first altar to the living God; Joseph, his great-grandson, sought for his brother in Shechem; his bones were buried there many years later after Israel’s exodus from Egypt. Jacob dug a well near the city and many years later, YAHSHUA providentially met a Samaritan woman there with a message of salvation. The Samaritans, after hearing what the woman had to say about YAHSHUA, said, Now we no longer believe just because of what you said; for we have heard Him ourselves and we know that He truly the Savior of the world, the Messiah. Many more believed Him, because of His personal message (John 4:42,41). The city of Shechem, was a silent witness of past history and of the spiritual meaning they carried, according to the words Moses spoke to Israel before they entered the Land.

Pages: 12