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dfroza · 3 years ago

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wrongfully imprisoned, yet an angel set a man free.

and the message of grace kept spreading.

Today’s reading of the Scriptures from the New Testament is the 12th chapter of the book of Acts:

Back in Jerusalem, hard times came to the disciples. King Herod violently seized some who belonged to the church with the intention of mistreating them. He ordered James (brother of John) to be executed by the sword, the first of those appointed as emissaries to be martyred. This move pleased Jewish public opinion, so he decided to arrest Peter also. During the holy festival of Unleavened Bread, he caught Peter and imprisoned him, assigning four squads of soldiers to guard him. He planned to bring him to trial publicly after the Passover holiday.

During Peter’s imprisonment, the church prayed constantly and intensely to God for his safety. Their prayers were not answered, until the night before Peter’s execution.

Picture this event: Peter is sound asleep between two soldiers, double-chained, with still more guards outside the prison door watching for external intruders. Suddenly the cell fills with light: it is a messenger of the Lord manifesting himself. He taps Peter on the side, awakening him.

Messenger of the Lord: Get up, quickly.

The chains fall off Peter’s wrists.

Messenger of the Lord: Come on! Put on your belt. Put on your sandals.

Peter puts them on and just stands there.

Messenger of the Lord: Pull your cloak over your shoulders. Come on! Follow me!

Peter does so, but he is completely dazed. He doesn’t think this is really happening—he assumes he is dreaming or having a vision. They pass the first guard. They pass the second guard. They come to the iron gate that opens to the city. The gate swings open for them on its own, and they walk into a lane. Suddenly the messenger disappears.

Peter finally realized all that had really happened.

Peter: Amazing! The Lord has sent His messenger to rescue me from Herod and the public spectacle of my execution which the Jews fully expected.

Peter immediately rushed over to the home of a woman named Mary. (Mary’s son, John Mark, would eventually become an important associate of the apostles.) A large group had gathered there to pray for Peter and his safety. He knocked at the outer gate; and a maid, Rhoda, answered. She recognized Peter’s voice, but she was so overcome with excitement that she left him standing on the street and ran inside to tell everyone.

Rhoda: Our prayers were answered! Peter is at the front gate!

Praying Believers: Rhoda, you’re crazy!

Rhoda: No! Peter’s out there! I’m sure of it!

Praying Believers: Well, maybe it’s his guardian angel or something.

All this time, Peter was still out in the street, knocking on the gate. Finally they came and let him in. Of course, the disciples were stunned, and everyone was talking at once. Peter motioned for them to quiet down and then told them the amazing story of how the Lord engineered his escape.

Peter: Could you please get word to James, our Lord’s brother, and the other believers that I’m all right?

Then he left to find a safer place to stay.

But when morning came and Peter was gone, there was a huge uproar among the soldiers. Herod sent troops to find Peter, but he was missing. Herod interrogated the guards and ordered their executions. Peter headed down toward the coast to Caesarea, and he remained there.

At this time there was major political upheaval. Herod was at odds with the populace of neighboring Tyre and Sidon, so the two cities sent a large group of representatives to meet with him. They won over one of Herod’s closest associates, Blastus, the director of the treasury; then they pressured Herod to drop his grudge. Cooperation was important to the two cities because they were all major trading partners and depended on Herod’s territory for food. They struck a deal, and Herod came over to ratify it. Dressed in all his royal finery and seated high above them on a platform, he made a speech; and the people of Tyre and Sidon interrupted with cheers to flatter him.

The People: This is the voice of a god! This is no mere mortal!

Herod should have given glory to the true God; but since he vainly accepted their flattery, that very day a messenger of the Lord struck him with an illness. It was an ugly disease, involving putrefaction and worms eating his flesh. Eventually he died.

Through all this upheaval, God’s message spread to new frontiers and attracted more and more people. Meanwhile, the time Barnabas and Saul spent in Jerusalem came to an end, and they reported back to Antioch, bringing along John, who was also called Mark.

The Book of Acts, Chapter 12 (The Voice)

Today’s paired chapter of the Testaments is the 3rd chapter of the book (scroll) of Isaiah that points to God humbling people to lead to correction:

See here! The Eternal, Commander of heavenly armies,

will take away the supply of bread and water—

the whole supply—from Jerusalem and Judah.

He will take away their heroes and warriors,

judges and prophets, fortune-tellers and elders,

He will take away their military officers and high-ranking officials,

advisers and skilled workers, and experts with charms and amulets.

In the chaos of their absence, I will make mere kids rule.

Even infants will govern them,

Leaving people to take advantage of each other,

making their lives miserable.

Youngsters will terrorize the elderly,

and the most despicable will bully the upstanding.

Desperate people will grab anyone who seems the least bit ordinary.

People: You managed to hold on to your coat, so you must be our leader;

this heap of rubble will be under your command!

Chosen Leader: I will not play the nurse for your wounds.

Do not elect me to lead the people—I can barely feed and clothe my own.

O how this precious city, this Jerusalem, has gone wrong,

and Judah is in shambles.

For all they say and do is an affront to the Eternal,

resisting His glorious presence.

The look on their faces tells the true story;

they flaunt their sins like Sodom.

They don’t even try to hide them—how terrible it will be for them,

for they will pay for their self-serving carelessness.

Tell those who have done right in the eyes of God

that all will be well for them,

For they will be rightly rewarded.

But whoever persists in wrongdoing will rue the day—

everything will go wrong for him—

Whatever he’s done will come back to him.

Oh, how I ache for my people! They are oppressed by children,

ruled by women, naïve and inexperienced.

O my people, your leaders are misleading you,

guiding you down the path to disaster.

But now the Eternal is taking the bench; He’s ready to judge;

He rises to lay out the people’s case.

The Eternal will bring charges

against those in positions of authority over His people.

Eternal One: You are charged with devouring everything in the vineyard,

and leaving nothing for the needy.

You’ve ransacked the poor to fill your houses.

How dare you! How dare you crush My people,

and grind the faces of the poor into the ground!

This is what the Eternal, Commander of heavenly armies has to say.

Eternal One: Because the daughters of Zion are so proud,

so preoccupied with themselves—strutting and flirting,

Skipping and dancing, winking and giggling for attention—

I will shame them with unsightly scabs on their heads,

these daughters who should be the pride of Zion, God’s precious place.

I will make them feel naked

when I uncover their foreheads and make them bald.

When the time comes, the Lord will simply take away the jewelry for their ankles, heads, noses, arms, ears, wrists, and fingers; these chains and gems, baubles and bangles, sashes and veils, perfume bottles and lucky charms, festive clothes and undergarments, purses and mirrors—everything that consumed their attention to get attention.

Then instead of a lovely scent—they’ll smell of decay;

instead of leather belts—they’ll don a rope;

Instead of a cut and style—they’ll have bald heads;

instead of silky-soft fabric—they’ll put on scratchy burlap sacks;

Instead of beauty—they’ll be branded with shame.

Jerusalem, your fathers and sons will be slaughtered,

your valiant protectors killed in battle,

And your gates will cry out in grief.

The city will sit in a heap on the ground, desolate and empty.

The Book of Isaiah, Chapter 3 (The Voice)

A link to my personal reading of the Scriptures for friday, june 11 of 2021 with a paired chapter from each Testament of the Bible along with Today’s Proverbs and Psalms

A post by John Parsons about spiritual Reality:

Yeshua taught that we discover the truth about spiritual reality by way of revelation from heaven, not by way of human reasoning. He said that we can come to know God only through Him: "No one has ever seen God; the only God (μονογενὴς θεὸς), who is at the Father's side, he has made him known" (John 1:18).

For example, when a religious leader named Nicodemus visited Yeshua to inquire who he was, Yeshua redirected the inquiry by asking what sort of man he was instead (John 3). Nicodemus was impressed with the reports of miracles ascribed to Yeshua and supposed that he was some sort of teacher sent from God. Yeshua, however, abruptly told him that unless he was “born from above” he would be unable to see the truth of the kingdom (John 3:3). He explained that no one can see the hidden kingdom of God apart from a spiritual "rebirth," that is, a new mode of being that enables the person to enter another realm of existence altogether. Such transformation comes by means of the agency of God's Spirit, that is, by an encounter with God that imparts heavenly life (רוח) to the soul.... Once that happens, the person is able to receive the truth of heavenly things.

Nicodemus objected to the idea of being “born again.” "How can a man be born when he is old? He cannot enter his mother's womb and be born a second time, can he?" Perhaps he was suggesting that spiritual rebirth would be as impossible as physical rebirth. People are just too set in their ways to change... Yeshua reminded him of the distinction between the realm of the natural (“born of water”) and the realm of the spirit (“born of the Spirit”): “That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. Do not marvel that I said to you, 'You must be born again.' The wind (ruach) blows wherever it will, and you hear the sound it makes, but do not know where it comes from and where it is going. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit." When Nicodemus still expressed uncertainty about all this by asking “How can these things be?” Yeshua chided him for his shortsightedness: “If you don’t believe when I explain in earthly terms, how will you believe if I tell you about heavenly things?” As a respected teacher of the Torah, Nicodemus should have known the prophetic teaching of “rebirth” from the Scriptures, such as Ezekiel 36:25-28, Jeremiah 31:33; and indeed he had a responsibility to know this truth. Moreover the general theme of Scripture concerned the coming of Messiah, the Son of Man, who would undo the curse that befell humanity through Adam’s transgression, and this meant a new beginning...

To help Nicodemus see, Yeshua reminded him of the episode recorded in the Torah when the people became discouraged about the journey in the desert. At one stop they could not find water and they began to say that the LORD had abandoned them to die there (see Num. 21:4-9). God then sent "fiery serpents" (הַנְּחָשִׁים הַשְּׂרָפִים) that bit the people and many began dying. When the people cried out in distress, God instructed Moses to make a semblance of a fiery serpent and to lift it up on a stake, so that everyone who was bitten could look upon it and live. Yeshua then made the connection for Nicodemus: "Just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the desert, so the Son of Man must be lifted up: so that whoever believes in Him would not perish but have eternal life" (John 3:14-15).

The episode in the desert provides a vivid picture of deliverance for all who have likewise come under divine judgment. The lifted up serpent was an sign of righteous judgment; the people were entirely unable to rescue themselves, and the venom was lethal and without antidote. Only God could save them, and God's way of healing was to have the people look at the impaled serpent to receive life. Only God's power could kill the power of death's hold over them... When Yeshua told Nicodemus that he likewise would be "lifted up," he used the same word used elsewhere to refer to crucifixion (ὑψόω). "Looking at" God's provision for deliverance at the cross is the means of salvation -- that is, the greatest blessing of all: healing from our separation from God, deliverance from the judgment for sin, and the promise of eternal life. Again, all this comes by faith: "looking at" God's remedy means accepting it as being offered for your sake. You are set free from condemnation, you receive newness of life, and you are able to live before God in honesty and confidence of his love for you...

"Unless you are born again, you cannot see the kingdom of God." You are blind until God opens your eyes. When Yeshua gave sight to a man born blind, the Pharisees concluded that he could not be a true prophet of God because he healed someone on the Sabbath day (John 9). In response Yeshua said, "For judgment I came into this world, that those who do not see may see, and those who 'see' may become blind." When the Pharisees heard this they asked, "Are we blind then?" and Yeshua replied: "If you were blind, you would not be guilty of sin, but now because you claim that you can see, your guilt remains." Likewise the Apostle Paul was made blind in order to see; he had to lose the blindness of his seeing in order to behold the truth of God's kingdom (Acts 9). As long as Paul thought he could see he remained blind, but as soon as he realized he was blind, he began to be able to see...

The difference between believers and unbelievers does not turn on the problem of sin and the resulting condition of spiritual death - for both are in the same helpless state before God - but rather with the different responses they have toward "the light," that is, the revelation of God manifest in Yeshua. Those who love evil hate the light and turn away from its disclosure, whereas those who "do truth" love the light so that their deeds are revealed as God's power at work within their hearts (John 3:19-21; Eph. 5:13). There is an "exclusive disjunction" in the realm of the spirit: either you will love what is evil and hate the light, or you will love the light and hate what is evil. "No one can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other" (Matt. 6:24).

In the end there will be found two types of people: those who love the truth and those who love the lie. These are the children of light (בְּנֵי הָאוֹר) and the children of darkness (בְּנֵי הַחשֶׁךְ), respectively. Followers of Yeshua the Messiah are told to “walk as children of light” / ὡς τέκ��α φωτὸς π��ριπατεῖτε (Eph. 5:8). The children of light are called to be am kadosh - a holy people - separate from the evil engendered by the fallen world and its forces, just as the very first creative expression of God was the separation of light from darkness (Gen. 1:3-4). The children of light "hate evil and love the good," and conversely, the children of darkness "hate the good and love evil" (Psalm 34:21, Prov. 8:13, Amos 5:15, John 3:20-21). Regarding the heavenly Zion to come, it is written: “nothing ritually unclean will ever enter into it, nor anyone who does what is detestable or practices falsehood (lit. “makes a lie”), but only those whose names are written in the Lamb's book of life” (Rev. 21:27).

The essential question is whether you are willing to believe in the light of God's love, or not... What sort of person are you, after all? Yeshua is the light of the world, and those who follow him will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life (John 8:12). So, do you have ohr ha-chayim (אוֹר הַחַיִּים), "the light of Life," shining within your heart? The light beckons: "wake up, open your eyes, and believe" the good news: darkness and despair will not prevail; your mourning will find comfort, your grief its solace. Your heart's deepest longing shines brightly, even now, if you will but believe... Now may you find courage and remember what is written: "The LORD is my light and my salvation (i.e., my Yeshua); whom shall I fear? The LORD is the refuge of my life; of whom shall I be afraid?" Amen. [Hebrew for Christians]

6.10.21 • Facebook

Today’s message (Days of Praise) from the Institute for Creation Research

June 11, 2021

Here a Little, There a Little

��For precept must be upon precept, precept upon precept; line upon line, line upon line; here a little, and there a little.” (Isaiah 28:10)

The setting of this unusual passage is most sobering. Both the people and their priests in Israel’s northern kingdom (personified by “Ephraim”) were in gross rebellion and drunken disobedience to the Lord. They were even ridiculing God’s prophets who were trying to call them back, complaining that they were being treated like schoolchildren. In effect, they were saying: “Are you presuming to teach us as you would freshly weaned infants, going line by line, with rule after rule?”

Whereupon God replied that He would use people of another tongue to come in and teach them what they refused to learn from Him. These precepts He had been trying to teach them should have provided true rest and refreshment, but now learning these lessons would prove to be their undoing. What should have been a blessing to them would become their condemnation.

How desperately do modern Christians need to heed these same words! They profess to believe God’s Word, but they study it only superficially, compromise its doctrines, and disobey its instructions. “For when for the time ye ought to be teachers, ye have need that one teach you again which be the first principles of the oracles of God” (Hebrews 5:12). Most Christians of today, like the Corinthians of old, are still “babes in Christ” (1 Corinthians 3:1). Thus, it really is necessary for their teachers to bring the Word of God to them “precept upon precept, line upon line, little by little.” “Therefore leaving the principles of the doctrine of Christ, let us go on unto perfection; not laying again the foundation of repentance from dead works, and of faith toward God” (Hebrews 6:1). HMM

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