Here in the United States in this season of our Thanksgiving holiday I am reminded that we should count our blessings and express our gratitude to our loving God.  Gratefulness is such an important component in our faith walk with the Lord, it is more a “heart condition”  to acquire than a behavioral attribute.  In that regard, as Christians every day is in fact a day of Thanksgiving.

Likewise, I want to express my gratitude to each of you for your prayers and financial support along with words of encouragement I have received from you.  Now in its 14th month, this blog is now being read by almost 3,000 across six different continents.  Seeking the Lord for every message I never know from week to week what will be written next, and for that matter, I consider it to be His blog and not mine.

I would like to ask you to pray for a little boy named Ethan who is in dire need of a bone marrow transplant.  It is believed a donor match has been found but there are complications that have arisen and have brought things to a temporary halt.  Please pray for God’s solution and healing of Ethan, and for strength and encouragement to his parents and siblings.  It has been a long road for them.

In addition, in this season of giving I would ask you to consider making a donation to Sons of Thunder, a five-fold ministry underway in Zambia.  God has used Sons of Thunder in mighty ways to spread the gospel of Jesus Christ, to minister through its four churches, teach and train on agricultural techniques using Farming God’s Way©,  healing and saving lives through the Sons of Thunder Medical Clinic and Maternity Ward, and educate multitudes with excellence through the Grade School.  Zambia has suffered a terrible drought in the last year and your donations can help acquire additional mealy-meal for distribution to those hungry and malnourished who frequently seek help from SOT.  This ministry is near and dear to my heart and I love the Zambian people.  If you would like to learn more about Sons of Thunder here is the link and you can migrate to their donation page.

Finally, there is a transformation that God is bringing about in our lives as well.  Both my wife and I are excited and have peace about what the Lord is directing but there is an element of clarity that we are seeking from Him.  We would be grateful for your prayers in that regard.

“Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom, teaching and admonishing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with grace in your hearts to the Lord.  And whatever you do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through Him.” (Colossians 3:16-17)

Among Christians today there is a common view that the Jews that Jesus encountered two thousand years ago, even the disciples, were dull and ignorant of the Scriptures.  But the Dead Sea Scrolls give explanation that many years prior there was a series of events that influenced this mindset that ultimately rejected Jesus Christ as Messiah.  Could the Church today become susceptible to similar consequences?

It is comical for some, for others it is simply frustrating.  Those that use an Apple smartphone versus those that use an Android smartphone; although they both have a lot in common, there are distinct differences in the operation of both platforms.  Often you will see the users of one throw up their hands in frustration after trying to use the other brand.  Once you learn a certain system “a” there is a distinct adjustment required to entertain a new system “b” and the adjustment can be challenging.  As a result, surveys indicate once you adopt your favorite brand over another, you generally maintain your brand for the long term and reject the notion of ever adopting the other.

For the longest time there were the traditional accepted teachings of the patriarchs in Judaism, the system that gave interpretation of the Old Testament.  However, during the 400 “silent years” after Malachi’s prophecy there slowly developed three main Jewish factions that were present during the Second Temple period into the New Testament era: the Pharisees, the Sadducees, and the Essenes.  They were all Jews, but they held very wide differences in their belief systems.

“He replied, ‘Isaiah was right when he prophesied about you hypocrites; as it is written:

‘“These people honour me with their lips,
but their hearts are far from me.
They worship me in vain;
their teachings are merely human rules.”

You have let go of the commands of God and are holding on to human traditions.’

And he continued, ‘You have a fine way of setting aside the commands of God in order to observe your own traditions!” (Mark 7:6-9)

What did Jesus mean in this Mark passage by “traditions?”

During the Hasmonean Dynasty a bloody civil war broke out between the Pharisees and the Sadducees between 90-80 B.C. They fought primarily over whether the kings should combine both the duties of priests and kings under their authority.  The Sadducees agreed with whatever the kings decreed, the Pharisees were emphatic that combining the duties was illegal and not aligned with the Law.  “Parisee” in Hebrew means “to separate” and they became known as the Pharisees.  Afterwards, the Pharisees invented a new form of teaching known as the “oral Law” (known today as the Talmud) and they rejected the teachings of the Patriarchs handed down over the ages.  This is where rabbinic Judaism departed from Biblical Judaism and is precisely what Jesus was addressing as “traditions” in the passage above.

It would be analogous today to our promoting footnotes and commentaries as more authoritative than the literal Word of God in our Bibles! In effect, what the Pharisees had helped produce was an apostasy within Judaism just prior to the first Advent of Christ.  As a result, this reinterpretation of the Old Testament confused several generations of people to the point they appeared ignorant or clueless in the season of their Messiah.  How did this “reprogramming” all begin?  By moving away from the literal Word of God.

“Now as He drew near, He saw the city and wept over it, saying, “If you had known, even you, especially in this your day, the things that make for your peace! But now they are hidden from your eyes.  For days will come upon you when your enemies will build an embankment around you, surround you and close you in on every side, and level you, and your children within you, to the ground; and they will not leave in you one stone upon another, because you did not know the time of your visitation.” (Luke 19:41-45)

However, there was a priestly sect of Jews in Israel known as the Essenes that were very expectant of the Messiah and they had separated themselves from the rest of Judaism.  They took copies of the Bible (Old Testament) with them to the wilderness along with sectarian texts and ancient Jewish writings settling in the mountainous area along the coastline of the Dead Sea, known as the Judean Wilderness.  Over the last 75 years over 1,000 of their scrolls have been discovered.   Using both radiocarbon and paleographic testing, the majority of Dead Sea Scrolls are dated between 150-100 BC, with some fragments dating to 225 BC.  All these writings were BEFORE the birth of Christ and therefore CANNOT BE early Christian writings.

The “Essenes” broke off from the Pharisees over this matter as they astutely upheld the teachings and prophetic writings of the Patriarchs.  In their writings you will find that their theology agrees with New Testament theology: One Messiah with two comings, Messiah as God incarnate and who would die to pay for the penalty of sins.  The Pharisees were looking for someone and something entirely different.  It was due in part to this “apostasy” in the Temple priesthood that helped totally alter the Jewish mindset to reject Christ.

After the split occurred, the Essenes state in their sectarian writings that the Spirit of God told them to separate from both the Pharisees and Sadducees completely and have nothing to do with their corrupt priesthood.   Moreover, they wrote that God told them to move to the Judean Wilderness and fulfill the Isaiah 40:3 prophecy, “A voice of one calling: ‘In the wilderness prepare the way for the Lord; make straight in the desert a highway for our God.’^” Thus, the Essenes moved to the harsh wilderness out of obedience to prepare for the coming of Messiah, Jesus Christ.  There are many Bible scholars that cannot help but note that the theology of John the Baptist and his personal attributes were very similar to that of the Essenes and he baptized in the Jordan River very near Qumran.  As a footnote, the Essenes disappeared shortly after the resurrection and ascension of Christ.  Why?  Because they accepted Christ as Messiah almost immediately once they heard the testimony.  He was precisely who they were waiting for.

In Israel today there is general excitement on the one hand over the Dead Sea Scrolls for they serve to validate and legitimize Jewish claims to the Land based on historical evidence.  But on the other hand, there is real awkwardness and discomfort with the fact that the Dead Sea Scrolls reflect New Testament theology with incredible accuracy.  Thus, they write off the Essenes as a wacky, fringe group with strange beliefs.  It simply does not fit their “system.”

How does this relate to the Church today?

We cannot help but acknowledge that we are now living in the Laodicean age.  It is the seventh and final church age that is the “lukewarm” church.  Unlike the first six churches, this church is not named precisely but Jesus describes it in Revelation 3:14 as “the church of the Laodiceans” as if the people exercised some claim on the church.  In effect, it has come under the influence of the outside world and its values.  It is “neither cold nor hot” and seemingly accepts any doctrine for the sake of compromise as it denies the verbal and literal interpretation of Scripture.  This church believes it is rich and “in need of nothing” but the Lord says it is “wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked.”

Today, the Church has lost much of its identity as a transforming agent by allowing the influence of the world’s values to come inside.  Once the Church stood strong on so many social and moral issues but today is frequently seen bowing to secular pressures.  And finally, today the Church is losing its grip on the assured Word of God in its preaching and teaching. We live in a time when academic scholarship has seriously attacked the integrity of the Biblical text.  No generation in history has been more skeptical of the notion that the Bible is nothing more than a construct of folklore and traditions.  Biblical illiteracy is rampant in today’s churches.  Many evangelicals would say the “apostasy” is well underway.

Certainly not all churches today are Laodicean, and there are many churches alive and well that might better resemble the more desirable attributes of the church at Philadelphia (Revelation 3:7-13).  And our brothers and sisters in China, Iran, Egypt and North Korea might surely identify more with the persecuted church of Smyrna (Revelation 3:8-11).  But the reality of this Laodicean age remains as a general condition.

If ever there was a time that the Church needed to be reminded not to move away from the literal Word of God, it is today.

Sometimes we hear a comment and it jolts us, our head turns, and we ask, “did they really say that?” There was such an incident that was recorded at a notable wedding in the Old Testament.  But was there another hidden meaning?

The Book of Ruth is a story of redemption and the climax occurs when Boaz as kinsmen redeemer redeems the land to Naomi and takes Ruth as his Gentile bride.  During their wedding vows a strange toast is offered to them:

“May your house be like the house of Perez, whom Tamar bore to Judah, because of the offspring which the Lord will give you from this young woman.” (Ruth 4:12)

This is a bizarre toast at first glance because it references the sordid events of Genesis 38.  If you recall, Tamar had married Judah’s firstborn son who died with no children.  Under Mosaic law, Judah was expected to provide one of his other sons to provide Tamar with children. But he did not follow through and Tamar ultimately disguises herself as a prostitute and became pregnant by Judah himself.  She gives birth to two illegitimate children, the twins Perez and Zerah.  This is known as “Judah’s sin” and the Torah specifies (Deuteronomy 23:2) that the bastard child is to be cast out of the congregation for ten generations.

But, instead of a mocking insult, Ruth 4:12 is a prophecy that the tenth generation from Perez was none other than David.  And to emphasize this, the book closes with David’s genealogy:

“Now this is the genealogy of Perez: Perez begot Hezron; Hezron begot Ram, and Ram begot Amminadab; Amminadab begot Nahshon, and Nahshon begot Salmon; Salmon begot Boaz, and Boaz begot Obed; Obed begot Jesse, and Jesse begot David.” (Ruth 4:18-22)

Thus, Boaz was the 7^th generation from Perez in Judah’s lineage, or David’s great grandfather.  But there is more to this story of Ruth and Boaz that has prophetic implications.

Biblical typology is perhaps the least understood but most important concept in the hermeneutics of biblical prophecy. It is a method of biblical interpretation whereby an element found in the Old Testament is seen to prefigure one found in the New Testament. The initial one is called the type and the fulfillment is designated the antitype. Either type or antitype may be a person, thing, or event, but often the type is messianic and frequently related to the idea of salvation.  When one says Joseph is a “type” of Christ or the Passover lamb symbolizes Jesus as the eventual Lamb of God, these are examples of typology.

With only four chapters, the book of Ruth is a beautiful love story.  When Orpah went back to her people, Ruth refused to leave her mother-in-law who was from the tribe of Judah.  Ruth was a Moabitess who chose to stay with Naomi not only because she loved her but also she made a choice to serve Jehovah, the One True God! She told Naomi, “But Ruth said, “Do not urge me to leave you or turn back from following you; for where you go, I will go, and where you lodge, I will lodge. Your people shall be my people, and your God, my God.” (Ruth 1:16-17)

As a “type” Ruth represents the Gentiles who have become Christians and are devoted to Jehovah.  She became a part of the family she married into, when she married Boaz, her Hebrew husband.  In this regard, Boaz became her “kinsmen redeemer.”

The role of kinsman-redeemer is found in Leviticus 25 and Numbers 27:8-11, in the case of an Israelite man’s death in which he fails to leave behind a son, the brother of the deceased man is commanded to take his widow as wife and both redeem the land and provide a son to carry on the deceased father’s name.

This event occurs at the midsummer harvest at the threshing floor of Boaz where the winnowing of wheat was conducted.  With use of a prevailing wind the grain would be tossed into the air and the grain would fall below while the chaff, being lighter, would be carried further downwind resulting in two piles.  It was a time of festivities and having “met payroll” it was customary after celebrations for owners to sleep near their wheat to prevent theft.

It is here that Ruth approaches Boaz in the middle of the night while he is sleeping and requests him to spread his skirt over her as he is a near kinsman. This is not the kind of proposition many people might assume it to be.

“It happened in the middle of the night that the man was startled and bent forward; and behold, a woman was lying at his feet.  He said, “Who are you?” And she answered, “I am Ruth your maid. So spread your covering over your maid, for you are a close relative.” (Ruth 3:8-9)

The shul (skirt), or hem, was the emblem of rank or authority in Israel, much like the stripes on the sleeve of a naval officer or airline pilot in our culture.  In the middle of the night with no one else around, Ruth was asking Boaz to put the authority of his house over her. She is invoking her right under the laws of Israel for him to take her to wife. Boaz was delighted to accommodate her and communicated his intentions to take her as his wife.  The next day in the city gate he formalized his redemption of Naomi and the taking of Ruth as his bride.

As we examine the role of Boaz as the goel, or kinsman-redeemer, we can easily see how he, in some ways, pre-figures our own kinsman-redeemer, Jesus Christ. Through his act of redemption, Boaz returns Naomi (Israel) to her land, and also takes Ruth (a Gentile) as his bride. This suggests a parallel with the Church as the Gentile bride of Christ.  That Boaz takes Ruth as his bride “in the middle of the night” symbolizes the Rapture of the Church reminding us that Christ returns for His bride “like a thief in the night.” (1^st Thessalonians 5:2)

Not only does he descend from the tribe of Judah, but Boaz came out of Bethlehem to bless his people and was the great-grandfather of David, the one to whom the promise of Messiah was given (2^nd Samuel 7).  More interesting is his father also took a Gentile bride.  His father Salmon took Rahab as his wife after helping rescue her from the tower of Jericho.  As a result, both Rahab and Ruth are found in the genealogy of our Lord Jesus Christ.

It is also remarkable that to this day the book of Ruth is always read by Jews on the day of Pentecost or Shavuot in Hebrew.  Why? For it is recorded in their rabbinical writings that the redemption of Ruth by Boaz as her kinsmen redeemer occurred on the 6^th of Sivan, or Pentecost.  In addition, not only was the Church born on Pentecost Sunday, but Jews also celebrate the giving of the Law to Moses on Mount Sinai on this date as well.

“It is no coincidence that, on the same day of Pentecost in which God appeared to Moses in the wilderness of Sinai and revealed to man a new relationship based upon His sacred Law, He again revealed to man a new relationship based on the Holy Spirit.  The mystical union of God and Israel that occurred on the Feast of Pentecost at the foot of Mount Sinai is exactly mirrored in the union of God’s Holy Spirit with Christ’s Bride, the Church, on Pentecost, fifty days after Christ rose from the dead.” -Grant Jeffrey

In all these ways Boaz is a type of Christ. Christ is the Lion of the tribe of Judah, who comes out of Bethlehem to bless his people. He is the Son of David, the redeemer of God’s elect. He sends his laborers into his fields to work. He treats his own people well. He receives and welcomes Gentiles. He pays our debt, and therefore gains the right to make us his bride.

“For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first: Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord. Wherefore comfort one another with these words.” (1^st Thessalonians 4:16-18)

Sources: Grant Jeffrey, Dr. Chuck Missler, Nick Batzig

There is a quote that is attributed to many, “sometimes when you’re looking for an answer, you search everywhere else before you take a look at what’s right in front of you.”  For many centuries, theologians, archaeologists and historians have pondered what God meant in passages such as this:

“And he built altars in the house of the Lord, of which the Lord said, In Jerusalem will I put My name.”  (2^nd Kings 21:4)

Not only does God say He has put His name in Jerusalem but this is this repeated in verse 7, and also Ezra 6:12, 2^nd Chronicles 6:6; 33:4, 1^st Kings 11:36 and 1^st Kings 14:21.  And there are other Scriptural passages where this is sounded.  Was this something to be discovered in an ancient scroll or archaeological site?  Is this a reference to the Temple?  What did God mean by saying that He would put His name in Jerusalem?

There are 22 letters in the Hebrew alphabet and each letter has a specific meaning and a numerical number attached to it.  The 21^st letter is “שׁ SHIN” and pronounced “sheen.” It looks somewhat like an English “w” and it is in the same form in Hebrew and in Aramaic/Syriac, a text used in both the Old and the New Testaments.  In gematria Shin has the numerical value of 300.

For Jews, Shin ש is the letter that is used to denote the unspeakable name of “HaShem” or “The Name.”  It is also the letter that represents “Shaddai” or “El Shadai,” another name for Yahweh.

“The ש [Shin] stands high among the Sacred Letters because it represents two Names of God: … the All-Sufficient, Unlimited One and … Peace.” (The Wisdom in the Hebrew Alphabet, Rabbi Michael L. Munk, (c)1998, p. 207.)

In Israel and Jewish homes throughout the world it is common for a “mezuzah” or prayer box to be mounted on the doorpost of homes and businesses.  The letter Shin ש is imprinted on every Jewish mezuzah and what is contained within the prayer box is the Scriptural portion of Deuteronomy 6:4 known as “The Shema” in Hebrew, meaning “To Hear.”

“Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God is one Lord.” (Deuteronomy 6:4)

With the advent of aerial photography, satellite imagery and topographical maps there is a remarkable view that unfolds when one looks upon Jerusalem from a higher vantage point.  In fact, what is portrayed can even be seen in many map inserts of Bibles.

There are three significant valleys that make up the city of Jerusalem, two that flank its outskirts and one that runs near the center of the city.  These are the Kidron Valley, the Hinnom Valley and the Tyropean Valley.  When one views this on a map it marks the outline of a perfect Hebrew Shin ש.  It is the Name of God in Hebrew.

When King David first conquered this area and settled it as his capital city, he would have had no idea that this city was seated on the Name of God.  “Since the day that I brought forth my people out of the land of Egypt I chose no city among all the tribes of Israel to build an house in, that my name might be there; neither chose I any man to be a ruler over my people Israel: But I have chosen Jerusalem, that my name might be there; and have chosen David to be over my people Israel.” (2^nd Chronicles 6:5-6)

Today, this information is now commonly presented to tourists in sky tours or in scale models of Jerusalem.  But the remarkable geographic phenomenon of Jerusalem does not end with the Shin ש.

The city of Jerusalem is also made up of three mountain heads comprising one mountain known as Zion and is why Jerusalem is referred to as “Zion” or the “City of Zion.”  But Zion certainly has three heads, the uppermost head is called Moriah, the center head is called Ophel, and the bottom head of the mountain is called Zion.  One mountain, with three distinct heads.

It is a topographical depiction of the Christian Trinity, One God as Three distinct Persons.  But there is more.  These three mountain names have three significant underlying meanings yet their significance could not have been known thousands of years ago prior to the revelation of Jesus Christ and the New Testament.

In Hebrew, the word Ophel means “my fortress, tower, strong hold.”(Strongs #H6076)  All of these are names for Yahweh, God the Father as described in the Old Testament, especially in the Psalms.

Zion means “the mark, the sign, the waymark, the pillar.” (Strongs #H6725)  We are reminded that in Ephesians 1:13 Paul states that the Gentiles were included in the family of God, “Having believed, you were MARKED in him with a SEAL, the promised Holy Spirit.”  It is the Holy Spirit that is the seal or “mark” on every born-again believer.

Mount Moriah means “to see God or to be seen of God.” (Strongs #4179).  In Genesis 22 Moriah is where Abraham took his only begotten son Isaac as a sacrifice before the Lord intervened and provided the sacrifice Himself, a ram caught in the thicket.  It is here that the Temple Mount exists today and within this story is the Biblical typology pointing to God’s only begotten Son who would one day be our sacrificial Lamb. And it is in Jesus Christ, when we are able to see God in the flesh.

Ophel- “My Fortress”- God the Father

Moriah- “To see God”- God the Son

Zion- “The Mark”- God the Holy Spirit

When God declared that Jerusalem was where He had place His name, He meant it literally.  The very valleys comprising the city declares His name. The mountains that His city sits upon literally cries out His name.

Maybe this is what Jesus was referring to during the last week of His life before the Crucifixion:

“Then, as He was now drawing near the descent of the Mount of Olives, the whole multitude of the disciples began to rejoice and praise God with a loud voice for all the mighty works they had seen,  saying: “ ‘Blessed is the King who comes in the name of the Lord!’ Peace in heaven and glory in the highest!”  And some of the Pharisees called to Him from the crowd, “Teacher, rebuke Your disciples.”  But He answered and said to them, “I tell you that if these should keep silent, the stones would immediately cry out.”(Luke 19:37-40)

God’s word is perfect and infallible.  And God’s Name is not just written in the land of Israel, but physically on our hearts!  All of humanity has the undeniable mark of God’s creation but each of us must choose whether to give our hearts totally to Him or not.  When we give our lives to Christ then we receive His mark upon us, the seal of the Holy Spirit.  The beautiful aspect of this is, when the enemy comes against us, God tells him, “You can’t have them because My name is written there! He/She belongs to Me.”

“O Clap your hands, all ye people; shout unto God with the voice of triumph.  Sing praises to God, sing praises: sing praises unto our King, sing praises.  For God is the King of all the earth: sing ye praises with understanding. (Psalm 47:1,6-7)

There is no one like Him.  Has God left His mark on you?

Sources: Michael Munk, Carl Gallups, Dr. J. Stark, Heather Hampton