The End Time Church: From the Cathedrals to the Catacombs

By Dan L. White

Copyright ©2019 by Dan L. White, all rights reserved.

Scripture quotations are from the World English Bible (WEB) which is in the public domain.

Chapter 57

Feasts of the Jews, Feasts of the Christians

When they rejected the Messiah, the Jewish religious leaders were cast out of their meeting room in the Temple.

Rejected the Messiah?

Luke 9:22
22) [Christ] saying, “The Son of Man must suffer many things, and be rejected by the elders, chief priests, and scribes, and be killed, and the third day be raised up.”

Luke 17:25
25) But first, he must suffer many things and be rejected by this generation.

1Pet 2:3-4
3) if indeed you have tasted that the Lord is gracious:
4) coming to him, a living stone, rejected indeed by men, but chosen by God, precious.

Yes. Rejected their Messiah!

And when they did that, God rejected those ruling rabbis and their religion. As discussed in the chapter on “Getting Rid of the Rabbis,” several momentous signs — including kicking them out of their meeting room in the Temple — showed that God was done with those religious rulers.

So then, how about the feasts of the Jews, with Caiaphas and his kind presiding, with the Sadducees hawking their religious merchandise in the Temple, and with the rabbis sitting in the chief seats? Was Yahweh still in those feasts?

Isa 1
13) Bring no more vain offerings. Incense is an abomination to me; new moons, Sabbaths, and convocations: I can’t bear with evil assemblies.
14) My soul hates your New Moons and your appointed feasts. They are a burden to me. I am weary of bearing them.
15) When you spread forth your hands, I will hide my eyes from you. Yes, when you make many prayers, I will not hear. Your hands are full of blood.
16) Wash yourselves, make yourself clean. Put away the evil of your doings from before my eyes. Cease to do evil.

Isaiah wrote to Judah about six centuries before New Testament times, during the reigns of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz and Hezekiah, so when he wrote that about Judah’s feasts, he was not talking about the rabbis of Christ’s time. That does show, though, that when a people are evil, their Sabbaths and Feasts are rejected, and even their prayers are refused: “when you make many prayers, I will not hear.”

The problem, of course, is not Sabbaths or Feasts or prayers. Sabbaths and Feasts are holy, given by Yahweh to point to Him, just as prayers do.

1Pet 3
12) For the eyes of the Lord are on the righteous, and his ears open to their prayer; but the face of the Lord is against those who do evil.”

The problem with Judah’s Sabbaths, Feasts and prayers was the evil that unrepentant people brought with them: “Cease to do evil!”

Defiled feasts are like Nadab and Abihu’s strange fire.

Exod 24
1) He said to Moses, “Come up to Yahweh, you, and Aaron, Nadab, and Abihu, and seventy of the elders of Israel; and worship from a distance.
2) Moses alone shall come near to Yahweh, but they shall not come near, neither shall the people go up with him.”

9) Then Moses, Aaron, Nadab, Abihu, and seventy of the elders of Israel went up.
10) They saw the God of Israel. Under his feet was like a paved work of sapphire stone, like the skies for clearness.
11) He didn’t lay his hand on the nobles of the children of Israel. They saw God, and ate and drank.

Nadab and Abihu had a dinner date with God. When they didn’t respect Him, though, He cooked them. To quote an old hymn, He set their souls on fire.

Nadab and Abihu let the fire started by Yahweh go out, and then put their own fire in.

Lev 10
1) Nadab and Abihu, the sons of Aaron, each took his censer, and put fire in it, and laid incense on it, and offered strange fire before Yahweh, which he had not commanded them.
2) And fire came forth from before Yahweh, and devoured them, and they died before Yahweh.

In the same way, when people defile God’s holy times with their unholy ways, God rejects their Sabbaths and Feasts and even their prayers — as if they are strange fire.

Amos’ life overlapped somewhat with Isaiah. He wrote this not to Judah, but to Samaria/Israel.

Amos 5
4) For thus says Yahweh to the house of Israel: “Seek me, and you will live;
5) but don’t seek Bethel, nor enter into Gilgal, and don’t pass to Beersheba: for Gilgal shall surely go into captivity, and Bethel shall come to nothing.
6) Seek Yahweh, and you will live; lest he break out like fire in the house of Joseph, and it devour, and there be no one to quench it in Bethel.
7) You who turn justice to wormwood, and cast down righteousness to the earth:

Again, the problem was unrepented evil, by people who “cast down righteousness to the earth.” Therefore like Judah, Israel’s feasts also were rejected, which is totally understandable since their first king Jeroboam had changed them into idol worship times at Bethel.

Amos 5
21) I hate, I despise your feasts, and I can’t stand your solemn assemblies.
22) Yes, though you offer me your burnt offerings and meal offerings, I will not accept them; neither will I regard the peace offerings of your fat animals.
23) Take away from me the noise of your songs! I will not listen to the music of your harps.

You notice that not only were their feasts and religious meetings rejected, but even their songs and music were spurned. Perhaps they had gotten into rap?

Well, maybe not. Rap isn’t music.

Those examples of Judah and Israel show that when people reject God, He rejects their feasts. Even though the original Feasts come from Him and are holy time to spend with Him, He does not accept festival worship from defiled people.

So how about the rabbis of Christ’s time, the ones who were kicked out of the Temple when the earth quaked at the death of the Son of God —

Did God still accept their feasts?

John, in his New Testament gospel, several times referred to the feasts of the Jews.

John 2:13
13) The Passover of the Jews was at hand…

John 5:1
1) After these things, there was a feast of the Jews…

John 6:4
4) Now the Passover, the feast of the Jews, was at hand.

John 7:2
2) Now the feast of the Jews, the Feast of Booths, was at hand.

John 11:55
55) Now the Passover of the Jews was at hand…

John wrote his Gospel after the fall of the Temple. When the Temple stood, the festivals of the Jews were always at the Temple. Therefore, when John wrote, the festivals of the Jews — as they had been — were no more.

The Temple was gone! The feasts of the Jews were gone! When John wrote, he wrote about those historic festivals of the Jews at the Temple, where the Jews had gathered for their feasts.

It’s also important to understand that while the Temple stood —

The Christians did not necessarily go there for God’s Feasts.

Their High Priest was not at that Temple!

Yeshua is not confined to an earthly building.

Heb 3
1) Therefore, holy brothers, partakers of a heavenly calling, consider the Apostle and High Priest of our confession, Yeshua;
2) who was faithful to him who appointed him, as also was Moses in all his house.
3) For he has been counted worthy of more glory than Moses, inasmuch as he who built the house has more honor than the house.

Caiaphas and his kind presided as high priests at the earthly Temple. Caiaphas and his kind had flaws.

(Boy, did they ever!!!)

For that matter, even the first high priest Aaron made a golden calf and spoke against meek Moses. Aaron had flaws, too, as did all human high priests who served at the Tabernacle and Temple.

By contrast, Christians have a perfect High Priest.

Heb 7
28) For the law appoints men as high priests who have weakness, but the word of the oath which came after the law appoints a Son forever who has been perfected.

So Christians were faced with a choice. At the Feasts, should they look to Yeshua as High Priest, or look to the high priests who had condemned Him to death?

That’s a no-brainer.

Heb 7
8) Here people who die receive tithes, but there one receives tithes of whom it is testified that he lives.
9) We can say that through Abraham even Levi, who receives tithes, has paid tithes,
10) for he was yet in the body of his father when Melchizedek met him.
11) Now if there were perfection through the Levitical priesthood (for under it the people have received the law), what further need was there for another priest to arise after the order of Melchizedek, and not be called after the order of Aaron?
12) For the priesthood being changed, there is of necessity a change made also in the law.

When the priesthood was changed, there was no point in giving tithes to the Temple priesthood. Far better to support the ekklesia than those who hated the ekklesia, so tithes were to go to those serving the assembly and not the Sadducees.

The same principle applied to the Feasts. Christians did not have to go to the Temple for the Feasts, because the high priests serving there were not their high priests. The main time of service of the human high priests was at the Temple during the Feasts. Following a different high priest means not following the high priests of the Jews or the feasts of the Jews where they presided, but keeping the Feasts with the Christian High Priest, Yeshua.

While the Temple stood, Christians sometimes did go there for the Feasts. In fact, all the thousands of the first Christianos were in Jerusalem for the Feast of Pentecost. All the first Christians were Feast keepers. Yet there were other examples where Christianos in Gentile lands did not go to Jerusalem for the Feasts but kept them in their home areas.

Paul did both.

He was at the Temple for some Feasts.

Acts 18
19) He came to Ephesus, and he left them there; but he himself entered into the synagogue, and reasoned with the Jews.
20) When they asked him to stay with them a longer time, he declined;
21) but taking his leave of them, and saying, “I must by all means keep this coming feast in Jerusalem, but I will return again to you if God wills,” he set sail from Ephesus.
22) When he had landed at Caesarea, he went up and greeted the assembly, and went down to Antioch.

At Ephesus, Paul told them he must keep the coming Feast in Jerusalem. Then he sailed from Ephesus to Caesarea, on the coast of Israel, and went the short distance on to Jerusalem and met with the assembly there during the Feast. Right after the Feast he took off again for Asia Minor, to Antioch.

So Paul kept that Feast in Jerusalem.

Later Paul, and Luke with him who wrote of their trips in Acts, kept Feasts both at the Temple and with Gentiles in Gentile lands.

Acts 20
6) We sailed away from Philippi after the days of Unleavened Bread, and came to them at Troas in five days, where we stayed seven days.

16) For Paul had determined to sail past Ephesus, that he might not have to spend time in Asia; for he was hastening, if it were possible for him, to be in Jerusalem on the day of Pentecost.

Paul and Luke were in Philippi for the Days of Unleavened Bread. That’s just an incidental mention by Luke, like ‘Oh, that’s where we were for Unleavened Bread.’ That shows they kept Unleavened Bread in Gentile lands with Gentile Christians.

Think about this —

What were you doing last Ramadan?

I myself have no clue what I was doing last Ramadan, because I don’t observe Ramadan and other than hearing some news references, I know practically nothing about it. Ramadan is not on my calendar.

Luke wrote specifically where he and Paul were during the Feast of Unleavened Bread, because that was on their calendar. They were in a Gentile land, far from Jerusalem. The local people were pagan, and knew only pagan festivals. When Paul went to those lands, he went first to the synagogues, until he was thrown out, when he then preached to the Gentiles.

The Christian assembly in Philippi would have been mostly Gentiles, with no historical connection with the Bible or its festivals. Yet Luke wrote that they were in Philippi during Unleavened Bread, and that means he and Paul kept that Bible Feast there with those Gentile Christianos.

Otherwise, why in the world would he remember it?

Certainly the local population didn’t keep Passover/Unleavened Bread!

Gentile Christians and Jewish Christians kept the Feasts. That’s what the Bible teaches. And Luke wrote —

‘Oh, yeah – right after the Feast of Unleavened Bread, we sailed away from Philippi…”

So Paul and Luke kept that Feast away from the Temple.

In another example, how did the elders from Miletus and Ephesus react when they knew Paul was hurrying to Jerusalem for Pentecost?

Acts 20
15) Sailing from there, we came the following day opposite Chios. The next day we touched at Samos and stayed at Trogyllium, and the day after we came to Miletus.
16) For Paul had determined to sail past Ephesus, that he might not have to spend time in Asia; for he was hastening, if it were possible for him, to be in Jerusalem on the day of Pentecost.
17) From Miletus he sent to Ephesus, and called to himself the elders of the assembly.

What did the elders do when they learned Paul was going to keep Pentecost at Jerusalem?

Nothing — except they feared for his life.

They did not say — “What’s Pentecost?”

They did not argue against those “Mosaic Feasts.”

They all knew perfectly well what Pentecost is. Christ’s flock began on the Feast of Pentecost. Would those new Christianos have forsaken the Bible festivals, after beginning their spiritual family on a Bible festival? Would you forget the day you were born?

Absolutely not.

If those new zealous Christianos hadn’t kept Pentecost, they would have been shocked. ‘You mean the ekklesia began on Pentecost and we’re not supposed to remember that?’

Those Gentile Christianos had learned all that Yahweh had done on the Feasts — the coming out of Egypt, going into the Promised Land, dedicating the first Temple, dedicating the second Temple, etc. They knew God’s commands to observe His Feasts. What we call the Old Testament was the only Bible they had, and that Bible is full of the Feasts.

It also tells of the sins of Jeroboam, Ahaz and Amon, who paid dearly for forsaking God’s Feasts.

So when Paul told the Ephesians that he was going to Jerusalem for Pentecost, nobody asked, “What’s Pentecost?” They would keep Pentecost where they were and Paul would keep it in Jerusalem.

After Miletus, Paul and Luke did go to Jerusalem, and a large festival crowd was present. Many Jewish Christians were there for the Feasts, as shown when Paul was told of “many thousands there are among the Jews of those who have believed,” Acts 21:20. Anti-Christ Jews from Asia were also there. They rioted when they saw Paul, causing him to be arrested and taken to Rome to appear before Caesar.

Luke made another incidental mention of keeping the Feasts in Gentile lands, when he and Paul were on a ship bound for Rome.

Acts 27
7) When we had sailed slowly many days, and had come with difficulty opposite Cnidus, the wind not allowing us further, we sailed under the lee of Crete, opposite Salmone.
8) With difficulty sailing along it we came to a certain place called Fair Havens, near the city of Lasea.
9) When much time had passed and the voyage was now dangerous, because the Fast had now already gone by, Paul admonished them,
10) and said to them, “Sirs, I perceive that the voyage will be with injury and much loss, not only of the cargo and the ship, but also of our lives.”

The seas had changed because of the change in seasons. The Fast was past.

Notice how the World English Bible translation capitalizes “Fast” as a proper noun. That’s because it refers to the Day of Atonement, Yom Kippur, which comes near the change of seasons from summer to autumn. Again, why did Luke remember that? Only because they had kept that Fast wherever they were, while they were traveling as captives.

Note how Paul and Luke had to mark when that Feast day was.

The new moons and the Feasts at Jerusalem were set by visual observation. They couldn’t calculate the specific new moon day ahead of time, because they were never sure when it might be seen or if it might be cloudy. So the Jews still sent out runners from Jerusalem when a new moon was sighted at the beginning of the festival months. Of course, no runners could have gotten to Paul and Luke on the rough seas.

It would seem, then, that Paul and Luke could only have looked at the Creator’s calendar in the skies to learn the first day of the seventh month, and then count to the tenth day, Yom Kippur. And then Luke said, ‘Yeah, the Day of Atonement had passed and the weather got real rough.’

Paul gave a great example of how the Christians observed the Feasts, in his first letter to the Corinthians, when he used the Feast of Unleavened Bread to teach about an unleavened life.

1Cor 5
1) It is actually reported that there is sexual immorality among you, and such sexual immorality as is not even named among the Gentiles, that one has his father’s wife.
2) You are puffed up, and didn’t rather mourn, that he who had done this deed might be removed from among you.

No leavened bread — puffed up bread — is to be eaten during Unleavened Bread. Followers of Christ are not to be puffed up, either. The Corinthians were puffed up, leavened with pride and sin. Six times in that letter Paul refers to them being puffed up!

So Paul told them to get flat and be unleavened.

3) For I most certainly, as being absent in body but present in spirit, have already, as though I were present, judged him who has done this thing.
4) In the name of our Lord Yeshua Christ, you being gathered together, and my spirit, with the power of our Lord Yeshua Christ,
5) are to deliver such a one to Satan for the destruction of the flesh, that the spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Yeshua.
6) Your boasting is not good. Don’t you know that a little yeast [leaven – KJV] leavens the whole lump?
7) Purge out the old yeast [leaven – KJV], that you may be a new lump, even as you are unleavened. For indeed Christ, our Passover, has been sacrificed in our place.

Paul explained that they needed to put out the leavening, as they did during the Feast, and to expel the sexual sinner. Then he told them to keep the Feast, with the Christian understanding of the Feast.

8) Therefore let us keep the feast, not with old yeast [leaven], neither with the yeast [leaven] of malice and wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.

“Let us keep the Feast,” Paul wrote.

What Feast?

You see, Paul didn’t even bother to cite the Feast by the name of Feast of Unleavened Bread. He just assumed they knew all about it!

Those Corinthian Christians, for all their weaknesses, knew perfectly well what Feast Paul was referring to — the Feast of Unleavened Bread. Those Christians, mostly Greeks, kept that Feast every year and were completely familiar with it. Paul used their familiarity with Passover and Unleavened Bread to teach them a strong spiritual lesson. ‘Let’s keep the Feast, with unleavened obedience!’

And they knew it so well, Paul didn’t even have to say what Feast it was.

Was Paul just talking “figuratively” when he told them to keep the Feast? Was that just a spiritual metaphor, without expecting them to really keep the Feast?

In the same way, was Paul just speaking figuratively when he said this?

9) I wrote to you in my letter to have no company with sexual sinners;
10) yet not at all meaning with the sexual sinners of this world, or with the covetous and extortioners, or with idolaters; for then you would have to leave the world.
11) But as it is, I wrote to you not to associate with anyone who is called a brother who is a sexual sinner, or covetous, or an idolater, or a slanderer, or a drunkard, or an extortioner. Don’t even eat with such a person.
12) For what have I to do with also judging those who are outside? Don’t you judge those who are within?
13) But those who are outside, God judges. “Put away the wicked man from among yourselves.”

Was Paul just making a metaphor when he said that?

Today people want to “spiritualize” Paul’s command to put the wicked man away. “Oh, you can’t put a sexual sinner out. That’s not showing love!”

Was Paul speaking figuratively when he commanded them to put the sexual sinner away?

Absolutely not. We know that because the Corinthians did in fact put that man out. They didn’t think Paul was just talking figuratively, about the sex sinner or the Feast.

People can do away with any command in the Bible simply by spiritualizing it. That’s their purpose — to do away with what God commands. To spiritualize is to spurn what God’s says.

Notice this example of spiritualizing and spurning.

Zec 14
16) It will happen that everyone who is left of all the nations that came against Jerusalem will go up from year to year to worship the King, Yahweh of Armies, and to keep the feast of tents.

John Gill’s Exposition of the Bible, on Zech 14:16
”and to keep the feast of tabernacles; not literally, but spiritually; for, as all the Jewish feasts have been long since abolished, having had their accomplishment in Christ, not one of them will ever be revived in the latter day.”

Why is that Feast — which will be observed with Christ the King — to be taken spiritually and not literally?

Simply because John Gill didn’t want it to be.

Does that also mean that the world will not worship Yahweh the King? Is that to be taken spiritually? Oh, no — he takes that literally.

And when people say that Paul’s command — “therefore let us keep the Feast” — was just a figurative statement, they are spiritualizing away God’s command to keep the Feast.

And that’s just what the Corinthians were doing by allowing sexual sin — they were spiritualizing away obedience!

The Corinthians observed the Feast of Passover/Unleavened Bread and were quite familiar with it, even as they violated its intent. They did, however, accept Paul’s lesson of leavening, they did put the leaven/sex sinner out, and he then repented. So he learned the lesson of the Feast, too — the Christian lesson of the Christian Feast.

So Paul did observe some Feasts at the Temple, with Jews and Christians. However, in his job as apostle to the Gentiles, most of the time he observed the Feasts away from Jerusalem, in Gentile lands with Gentile Christians.

Paul was gone from Judea for years at a time. In his earlier years Paul had known the high priest so well that he got orders from him to persecute Christians.

Acts 9
1) But Saul, still breathing threats and slaughter against the disciples of the Lord, went to the high priest,
2) and asked for letters from him to the synagogues of Damascus, that if he found any who were of the Way, whether men or women, he might bring them bound to Jerusalem.

Yet in later years Paul was gone from Judea so long that he didn’t even recognize the latest high priest, whom the Romans changed frequently.

Acts 23
1) Paul, looking steadfastly at the council, said, “Brothers, I have lived before God in all good conscience until this day.”
2) The high priest, Ananias [not the same Ananias mentioned at Christ’s death], commanded those who stood by him to strike him on the mouth.
3) Then Paul said to him, “God will strike you, you whitewashed wall! Do you sit to judge me according to the law, and command me to be struck contrary to the law?”
4) Those who stood by said, “Do you malign God’s high priest?”
5) Paul said, “I didn’t know, brothers, that he was high priest. For it is written,‘You shall not speak evil of a ruler of your people.’”

Paul had been gone so long he missed knowing the latest high priest.

All those years when Paul was gone from Jerusalem, he had kept the Feasts in Gentile lands, with Gentile and Jewish Christians, who were one in Christ.

Christians, then, even while the Temple was still standing, often kept the Bible Feasts wherever they were. Their religion was not linked to the earthly Temple but was now connected to the heavenly Temple. Their High Priest was not in earthly Jerusalem but was in heavenly Jerusalem. Their Feasts were not just ritual and sacrifice, as with the Jews, but were a spiritual connection to the eternal sacrifice, the Son of God.

In the middle of the second century CE, Polycarp was martyred on what was called a “Great Sabbath,” showing that he and his brethren observed the weekly Sabbath. Further, when it was called a Great Sabbath, that meant the day was more than just a normal weekly Sabbath. No one weekly Sabbath of itself is greater than any other weekly Sabbath. To be a more important Sabbath it must have been associated somehow with an annual Feast. That’s the only way you can have a Great Sabbath. Polycarp himself stood for the Feasts against the Roman Bishop Anicetus, when Polycarp refused to change Passover from the 14^th of the first month to Sunday.

A couple centuries after Paul’s time, much had changed with the Christians as the Roman Church began to act like the Roman Empire, even as the Empire persecuted it. Yet many then still held to the Bible Festivals, as shown by writings about how and when to observe Passover and Unleavened Bread. Dionysius of Alexandria wrote his Festal Epistles, which included a Paschal Canon that discussed the date of the Passover Feast. And in the middle of the third century CE, during a time of plague and persecution, he wrote how they observed Feasts.

At first the Christian exiles met with very hostile treatment, being stoned and persecuted; but after awhile their patient labours were rewarded by the conversion of many amongst the surrounding heathen. Wherever they were, these faithful servants of God ceased not to praise His holy Name. “In exile and persecution, we still celebrated the festival, and every place, marked by some particular affliction, was still a spot distinguished by our solemnities; the open field, the desert, the ship, the inn, the prison.” Eusebius Church History, Book VII.

One of the great lessons about feasts of the Jews and Feasts of the Christians involves when Jerusalem fell.

This is what the disciples heard Christ warn.

Luke 21
20) “But when you see Jerusalem surrounded by armies, then know that its desolation is at hand.
21) Then let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains. Let those who are in the midst of her depart. Let those who are in the country not enter therein.
22) For these are days of vengeance, that all things which are written may be fulfilled.
23) Woe to those who are pregnant and to those who nurse infants in those days! For there will be great distress in the land, and wrath to this people.
24) They will fall by the edge of the sword, and will be led captive into all the nations. Jerusalem will be trampled down by the Gentiles, until the times of the Gentiles are fulfilled.

When Jerusalem was surrounded by armies, what did the Christians do?

When the Son of God had warned His followers “when you see Jerusalem surrounded by armies, then know that its desolation is at hand, …flee to the mountains,” —

What would you expect them to do?

Flee to the mountains.

And that’s what they did.

Well, at least to the hills.

The people of the Church in Jerusalem were commanded by an oracle given by revelation before the war to those in the city who were worthy of it to depart and dwell in one of the cities of Perea which they called Pella. To it those who believed on Christ traveled from Jerusalem,  …” (Eusebius, Church History 3, 5, 3)

This heresy of the Nazoraeans exists in Beroea in the neighbourhood of Coele Syria and the Decapolis in the region of Pella and in Basanitis in the so-called Kokaba (Chochabe in Hebrew). From there it took its beginning after the exodus from Jerusalem when all the disciples went to live in Pella because Christ had told them to leave Jerusalem and to go away since it would undergo a siege. Because of this advice they lived in Perea after having moved to that place, as I said.” ( Epiphanius, Panarion 29,7,7-8)

For after all those who believed in Christ had generally come to live in Perea, in a city called Pella of the Decapolis of which it is written in the Gospel that it is situated in the neighbourhood of the region of Batanaea and Basanitis, Ebion’s preaching originated here after they had moved to this place and had lived there.” (Epiphanius, Panarion 30, 2, 7)

So Aquila, while he was in Jerusalem, also saw the disciples of the disciples of the apostles flourishing in the faith and working great signs, healings, and other miracles. For they were such as had come back from the city of Pella to Jerusalem and were living there and teaching. For when the city was about to be taken and destroyed by the Romans, it was revealed in advance to all the disciples by an angel of God that they should remove from the city, as it was going to be completely destroyed. They sojourned as emigrants in Pella, the city above mentioned in Transjordania. And this city is said to be of the Decapolis.” (Epiphanius, On Weights and Measures 15)

Pella is in the hills south of the Sea of Galilee, on the east side of the Jordan River near a ford. The Greek word translated as mountains in Luke 21 is the same as the word translated as hill when Christ said “A city that is set on a hill cannot be hid.”

The Jews rebelled against Rome in 66 CE. Emperor Nero sent Vespasian to deal with the insurrection.

The revolt was successful at first: Jewish forces quickly expelled the Romans from Jerusalem, and a revolutionary government was formed that extended its influence into the surrounding area. In response, the Roman emperor Nero sent the general Vespasian to meet the Jewish forces, an endeavour that pushed the majority of the rebels into Jerusalem by the time Vespasian was proclaimed emperor in 69 CE, (Encyclopedia Britannica, Siege of Jerusalem.)

Those years between 66 and the final fall of Jerusalem in 70 gave ample time for Christians to flee Jerusalem. Once Vespasian was emperor, he sent his son Titus to finish the job of quelling the Jewish rebellion.

In April 70 ce, about the time of Passover, the Roman general Titus besieged Jerusalem. Since that action coincided with Passover, the Romans allowed pilgrims to enter the city but refused to let them leave—thus strategically depleting food and water supplies within Jerusalem. Within the walls, the Zealots, a militant anti-Roman party, struggled with other Jewish factions that had emerged, which weakened the resistance even more. Josephus, a Jew who had commanded rebel forces but then defected to the Roman cause, attempted to negotiate a settlement, but, because he was not trusted by the Romans and was despised by the rebels, the talks went nowhere. The Romans encircled the city with a wall to cut off supplies to the city completely and thereby drive the Jews to starvation…

By August 70 ce the Romans had breached the final defenses and massacred much of the remaining population. They also destroyed the Second Temple. The Western Wall, the only extant trace of the Second Temple, remains a site of prayer and pilgrimage. The loss of the Temple for a second time is still mourned by Jews during the fast of Tisha be-Av. Rome celebrated the fall of Jerusalem by erecting the triumphal Arch of Titus. (ibid.)

That final siege began about Passover time. The Jews went into Jerusalem for the feast of the Jews, and the Christians were in the hills for the Feast of the Christians — two different feasts. The high priest of the Jews was evidently killed in the siege, and the High Priest of the Christians was alive in heaven.

Still is.

The Jews rejected the Messiah. God rejected their feasts. If He even rejected the Temple, when the Jews filled it with evil, was God going to keep accepting their feasts?

John wrote of the “feasts of the Jews” after the Temple had fallen and the Jews had lost the locus of their festivals. The Christians still had the focus of their Feasts, the Father and the Son.The feasts of the Jews and the Feasts of the Christians had the same names and the same days but they were different feasts. John pointed that out when he wrote of the feasts of the Jews, whose Sanhedrin had been kicked out of the Temple, whose Temple and city had been destroyed, and whose feast observances were rejected by God. They were just feasts of the Jews.

The one big difference between the feasts of the Jews and the Feasts of the Christians is —

The Christians have their Messiah.

The Jews are still looking for theirs.

 

The End Time Church: From the Cathedrals to the Catacombs

By Dan L. White

Copyright ©2019 by Dan L. White, all rights reserved.

Scripture quotations are from the World English Bible (WEB) which is in the public domain.

Chapter 56

God’s Authority on Earth!

It really is simple.

Christ obeyed the Ten Commandments.

Satan broke them.

Which one should you follow?

Sin is breaking the Ten Commandments, God’s Law.

1Jn 3 World English Bible
4) Everyone who sins also commits lawlessness. Sin is lawlessness.
5) You know that he was revealed to take away our sins, and in him is no sin.

8) He who sins is of the devil, for the devil has been sinning from the beginning. To this end the Son of God was revealed: that he might destroy the works of the devil.

In Christ is no sin. He who sins is of the devil. Pretty simple.

The old King James translation clearly states verse 4 as “sin is the transgression of the law.” A number of other passages also show that sin is breaking God’s Commandments.

The Greek word translated “lawlessness” IN 1 John 3:4 is anomia. “Nomia” is law and the prefix “a” means “not,” so anomia means not-law, as anemia means not-blood. Anomia is breaking God’s Commandments.

Many Bible translations, especially older translations, do not consistently translate anomia as lawbreaking or lawlessness. Instead they substitute some less specific word like ‘iniquity’ or ‘evil.’ For example, the World English Bible, a generally accurate translation, renders anomia as iniquity (immoral or wicked) in the following passage.

Matt 7
19) Every tree that doesn’t grow good fruit is cut down, and thrown into the fire.
20) Therefore, by their fruits you will know them.
21) Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter into the Kingdom of Heaven; but he who does the will of my Father who is in heaven.
22) Many will tell me in that day, ‘Lord, Lord, didn’t we prophesy in your name, in your name cast out demons, and in your name do many mighty works?’
23) Then I will tell them, ‘I never knew you. Depart from me, you who work iniquity [anomia].’

The KJV also uses iniquity there. The Contemporary English Version and the International Standard Version use “evil.” The Good News Bible just says “you wicked people!”

Such translations do not show specifically what iniquity and evil is — breaking God’s Law. And the word there is anomia – lawlessness!

A number of translations do consistently translate anomia in Matthew 7:23 as lawlessness, or breaking the Law.

Matt 7:23 New English Translation
23) Then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you. Go away from me, you lawbreakers!’

Matt 7:23 English Standard Version
23) And then will I declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.’

Mat 7:23 Modern King James
23) And then I will say to them I never knew you! Depart from Me, those working lawlessness!

Yeshua clearly stated, “Depart from me, you who work lawlessness!” — anomia, the same word used to define sin. Translating anomia accurately throughout the New Testament immediately shows the problem with people — breaking God’s Law.

Law-breakers will be thrown into the fiery furnace.

Matt 13 English Standard Version
41) The Son of Man will send his angels, and they will gather out of his kingdom all causes of sin and all law-breakers,
42) and throw them into the fiery furnace. In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.

Pharisees, who saw themselves as the ultimate law-keepers, were actually full of lawlessness.

Matt 23 ESV
27) “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you are like whitewashed tombs, which outwardly appear beautiful, but within are full of dead people’s bones and all uncleanness.
28) So you also outwardly appear righteous to others, but within you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness.

At the end time, lawlessness — sin! — will increase.

Matt 24 ESV
9) “Then they will deliver you up to tribulation and put you to death, and you will be hated by all nations for my name’s sake.
10) And then many will fall away and betray one another and hate one another.

11) And many false prophets will arise and lead many astray.
12) And because lawlessness will be increased, the love of many will grow cold.
13) ​But the one who endures to the end will be saved.

Christians can be freed from being slaves to lawlessness.

Rom 6 ESV
17) But thanks be to God, that you who were once slaves of sin have become obedient from the heart to the standard of teaching to which you were committed,
18) and, having been set free from sin, have become slaves of righteousness.
19) I am speaking in human terms, because of your natural limitations. For just as you once presented your members as slaves to impurity and to lawlessness leading to more lawlessness, so now present your members as slaves to righteousness leading to sanctification.

That was Paul, who was supposed to have done away with the law, writing about lawlessness.

A difference between a believer in Christ and an unbeliever is that the believer seeks to obey the Commandments and the unbeliever doesn’t. One is in the light of Christ and the other is in the darkness of Satan. Therefore a law-keeper must not marry a law-breaker.

2Cor 6 ESV
14) Do not be unequally yoked with unbelievers. For what partnership has righteousness with lawlessness? Or what fellowship has light with darkness?

The New American Standard Bible is even more consistent than the ESV in translating anomia as lawlessness.  Hebrews 1:9, NASB, says that Christ hated lawlessness.

Heb 1 NASB
8) But of the Son He says, “your throne, o God, is forever and ever, and the righteous scepter is the scepter of his kingdom.
9) “you have loved righteousness and hated lawlessness; therefore God, your God, has anointed you with the oil of gladness above your companions.”

Christ himself was without sin – no amonia.

1Pet 2WEB
21) For to this you were called, because Christ also suffered for us, leaving you an example, that you should follow his steps,
22) who did not sin, “neither was deceit found in his mouth.”

On the other hand —

Satan is the very spirit of disobedience, the leader in transgressions and sins.

Eph 2
1) You were made alive when you were dead in transgressions and sins,
2) in which you once walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit who now works in the children of disobedience;

Satan is a murderer — breaking the sixth commandment — and a liar — ninth commandment.

John 8
44) You are of your father, the devil, and you want to do the desires of your father. He was a murderer from the beginning, and doesn’t stand in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaks a lie, he speaks on his own; for he is a liar, and its father.

So, after all that, Yeshua did not sin. Satan does. Which one should we follow?

Easy answer.

Christ.

Yet almost all the world follows the law-breaker instead of the law-keeper!

Even most who consider themselves Christian do not believe in obeying the Ten Commandments, as they were written with God’s finger and spoken with God’s mouth.

Amazing! How can this be?

Rev 12
9) The great dragon was thrown down, the old serpent, he who is called the devil and Satan, the deceiver of the whole world. He was thrown down to the earth, and his angels were thrown down with him.

Satan is the deceiver of the whole earth. That’s why most of the earth follows his example instead of following Christ’s.

But Satan doesn’t get all these people to follow him by yelling, “I’m Satan! Follow me!” That’s not deception. Deception is getting you to follow Satan — without you knowing it.

The world at large doesn’t even believe in Satan. So when they follow him, breaking God’s Commandments, they think they’re just finding ‘self fulfillment.’

But Christians do believe in Satan. They do believe he is the adversary, going around as a roaring lion seeking whom he may devour. Yet they usually still wind up following Satan’s example of breaking the Ten Commandments instead of following Christ’s example of obeying them.

How does that happen in the Christian religion?

It happens when people put someone between them and God — a religious authority.

The religious authority says that he or she or it is following God. And when people follow that religious authority, they think they’re following God.

Especially when that religious authority says stoutly and immodestly that people should follow him, her or it, possibly citing this verse.

1Cor 11 KJV
1) Be ye followers of me, even as I also am of Christ.

Paul already scolded the Corinthians in the first chapter of that first letter to them about following men, so Paul could not mean that people should follow him. Almost all other translations present the verse not as following Paul but as imitators of Paul.

1Cor 11:1 World English Bible
1) Be imitators of me, even as I also am of Christ.

1Cor 11:1 International Standard Version
1) Imitate me, as I do the Messiah.

Paul was saying to do the same things he was doing, not to follow him personally instead of following Christ directly.

Yet this is the deception that repeats itself. A religious authority, either a person or a church, appears to be righteous and doing good. At some point that authority then shifts the emphasis from following Christ directly to following the religious authority as it follows Christ. That emphasis is then shifted further to say that if people do not follow the religious authority, then they are not following Christ at all. And by that point, the religious authority, instead of following Christ – is actually following itself!

With that control, with centralized religious power, the religious authority then leads people into lawlessness, anomia, as they follow him, her or it instead of God.

Presto!

Satan wins.

Jeroboam did that.

We discussed Jeroboam changing the feast a couple of chapters ago, but Jeroboam didn’t really seem like a jerk.

1Kgs 11
28) The man Jeroboam was a mighty man of valor; and Solomon saw the young man that he was industrious, and he put him in charge of all the labor of the house of Joseph.

37) I will take you, and you shall reign according to all that your soul desires, and shall be king over Israel.
38) It shall be, if you will listen to all that I command you, and will walk in my ways, and do that which is right in my eyes, to keep my statutes and my commandments, as David my servant did; that I will be with you, and will build you a sure house, as I built for David, and will give Israel to you.
39) I will for this afflict the seed of David, but not forever.’”
40) Solomon sought therefore to kill Jeroboam; but Jeroboam arose, and fled into Egypt, to Shishak king of Egypt, and was in Egypt until the death of Solomon.

So Jeroboam certainly didn’t seem like a jerk. His kingdom could have been as David’s, except over ten tribes instead of just one. But Jeroboam put himself between the people and God. As king, he set himself up as the religious authority.

1Kgs 12
26) Jeroboam said in his heart, “Now the kingdom will return to the house of David.
27) If this people goes up to offer sacrifices in the house of Yahweh at Jerusalem, then the heart of this people will turn again to their lord, even to Rehoboam king of Judah; and they will kill me, and return to Rehoboam king of Judah.”
28) Whereupon the king took counsel, and made two calves of gold; and he said to them, “It is too much for you to go up to Jerusalem. Look and see your gods, Israel, which brought you up out of the land of Egypt!”
29) He set the one in Bethel, and the other put he in Dan.
30) This thing became a sin; for the people went to worship before the one, even to Dan.
31) He made houses of high places, and made priests from among all the people, who were not of the sons of Levi.
32) Jeroboam ordained a feast in the eighth month, on the fifteenth day of the month, like the feast that is in Judah, and he went up to the altar; he did so in Bethel, sacrificing to the calves that he had made: and he placed in Bethel the priests of the high places that he had made.
33) After this thing Jeroboam didn’t return from his evil way, but again made priests of the high places from among all the people. Whoever wanted to, he consecrated him, that there might be priests of the high places.
34) This thing became sin to the house of Jeroboam, even to cut it off, and to destroy it from off the surface of the earth.

Yahweh Himself had set Jeroboam up, and promised him a kingdom like David’s. Wasn’t Jeroboam Yahweh’s representative on earth?

So Jeroboam, the religious authority, changed God’s feast, he created worship services with idols, and he consecrated the priests of the high places. He consecrated them. Jeroboam was like the high priest of high places, the authority between the people and God. And the people must have believed that.

Then Jeroboam, even though he didn’t speak Greek, led the people into anomia.

This pattern has repeated over and over throughout the last two thousand years, sometimes by kings, sometimes by religious rulers, sometimes by institutions. People always want a religious authority to look to, a king, a religious leader, a church, etc. So people — not God — set up what is for them a supreme religious authority. Then at some point – not always immediately but always — that authority leads the people into anomia.

When people centralize power in fallible humans, instead of looking directly to the infallible, sinless Son of God, anomia always appears. Kings, popes, chief apostles, archbishops and beatific bigwigs always — at some point — imitate Jeroboam.

This pattern of history culminates at the very end of this age with the ultimate in a human religious authority.

2Thess 2
1) Now, brothers, concerning the coming of our Lord Yeshua Christ, and our gathering together to him, we ask you
2) not to be quickly shaken in your mind, nor yet be troubled, either by spirit, or by word, or by letter as from us, saying that the day of Christ had come.
3) Let no one deceive you in any way. For it will not be, unless the departure comes first, and the man of sin is revealed, the son of destruction,
4) he who opposes and exalts himself against all that is called God or that is worshiped; so that he sits as God in the temple of God, setting himself up as God.
5) Don’t you remember that, when I was still with you, I told you these things?
6) Now you know what is restraining him, to the end that he may be revealed in his own season.
7) For the mystery of lawlessness already works. Only there is one who restrains now, until he is taken out of the way.
8) Then the lawless one will be revealed, whom the Lord will kill with the breath of his mouth, and destroy by the manifestation of his coming;

That ultimate human religious authority will lead the world into anomia, and he himself is called “the lawless one:”

The ANOMOS!

Yeshua obeyed the Ten Commandments. Satan broke them. Which one should you follow?

Yeshua.

And only by following Him directly will you avoid Satan’s deception of anomia.

The End Time Church: From the Cathedrals to the Catacombs

By Dan L. White

Copyright ©2018 by Dan L. White, all rights reserved.

Scripture quotations are from the World English Bible (WEB) which is in the public domain.

Chapter 55

Getting Rid of the Rabbis

“Rabbi?”

In a Messianic meeting, I once heard a lady ask the “rabbi” a religious question. He said he didn’t know the answer, but he would look it up later. Then I wondered —

Why couldn’t she look up the answer herself?

I guess the answer to that is — Because he was the “rabbi.”

Rabbi!

A prestigious position, an exalted title, a religious ruler. Even Christians who should know better sometimes like to follow “rabbis.”

Or should I say “rabbanim?”

“Rabbi” article on Wikipedia, 1/24/19
While speaking about a superior, in the third person one could say ha-rav (“the Master”) or rabbo (“his Master”). Later, the term evolved into a formal title for members of the Patriarchate. Thus, the title gained an irregular plural form:  rabbanim (“rabbis”), and not rabbay (“my Masters”).

Well, it’s all Balonay…

When the real Rabbi showed up on earth, the rabbis and chief priests joined Rome to get rid of Him. Then they thought their problems with Him were over.

Nope. Not over.

After Peter told a lame man to walk —

Acts 4
1) As they [Peter and John] spoke to the people, the priests and the captain of the temple and the Sadducees came to them,
2) being upset because they taught the people and proclaimed in Yeshua the resurrection from the dead.
3) They laid hands on them, and put them in custody until the next day, for it was now evening.
4) But many of those who heard the word believed, and the number of the men came to be about five thousand.

15) But when they had commanded them to go aside out of the council, they conferred among themselves,
16) saying, “What shall we do to these men? Because indeed a notable miracle has been done through them, as can be plainly seen by all who dwell in Jerusalem, and we can’t deny it.
17) But so that this spreads no further among the people, let’s threaten them, that from now on they don’t speak to anyone in this name.”
18) They called them, and commanded them not to speak at all nor teach in the name of Yeshua.
19) But Peter and John answered them, “Whether it is right in the sight of God to listen to you rather than to God, judge for yourselves,
20) for we can’t help telling the things which we saw and heard.”

That’s what people do with rabbis. They listen to them, rather than to God. Peter and John wouldn’t do that.

So the rabbis continued their battle against Yeshua by attacking His flock. But that flock did spread farther among the people, as the rabbis feared. The flock grew.

But what happened to the rabbis?

The religious rulers — and Christ’s biggest adversaries — were the priests, scribes and Pharisees.

Matt 27
41) Likewise the chief priests also mocking, with the scribes, the Pharisees, and the elders, said,
42 )“He saved others, but he can’t save himself. If he is the King of Israel, let him come down from the cross now, and we will believe in him.
43) He trusts in God. Let God deliver him now, if he wants him; for he said, ‘I am the Son of God.’”

Priests —

The priesthood was begun by God with the first high priest Aaron. In Christ’s time, John’s father Zechariah was a Godly priest but the chief priests — the high priest and those close to him and the priestly party of Sadducees  — were corrupt.

Scribes —

Scribes were copiers and students of the Hebrew scriptures. Ezra was a priest from the line of Aaron, and he was said to be a scribe in the law of Moses.

Ezra 7
6) this Ezra went up from Babylon: and he was a ready scribe in the law of Moses, which Yahweh, the God of Israel, had given; and the king granted him all his request, according to the hand of Yahweh his God on him.

10) For Ezra had set his heart to seek the law of Yahweh, and to do it, and to teach in Israel statutes and ordinances.

The Hebrew word for scribe means to mark, and the scribes did a meticulous job of copying and protecting the Hebrew scriptures. Ezra humbled himself to obey that law. Later scribes did not but, with their knowledge and position, exalted themselves.

Pharisees —

The Pharisees were separated by their ‘purity,’ and they created an almost endless stream of religious rules, to separate themselves. “A member of the society of Pharisees was called chaber; those not members were called “the people of the land”; compare Joh 7:49, “this people who knoweth not the law are cursed”; also the Pharisee standing and praying with himself, self righteous and despising the publican (Luk 18:9-14),” Fausset’s Bible Dictionary, “Pharisees.”

The law that the Pharisees prided themselves on knowing was the “oral law,” which was written down in the Talmud and Mishna.

“The Mishna lays down the fundamental principle of the Pharisees. “Moses received the oral law from Sinai, and delivered it to Joshua, and Joshua to the elders, and these to the prophets, and these to the men of the great synagogue,”” Fausset’s Bible Dictionary.

Yahweh gave the written Law through Moses. The “oral law” was added to the written law, in direct violation of the written Law, which said not to add to or take away from it. Christ upheld the Father’s Law and rejected the Pharisees’ laws and traditions.

The chief priests, scribes and Pharisees, the religious rulers of the Jewish people — the rabbis — led their nation in rejecting the King of the Jews. But right before his execution, Yeshua had given this warning.

Luke 23
26) When they led him away, they grabbed one Simon of Cyrene, coming from the country, and laid on him the cross, to carry it after Yeshua.
27) A great multitude of the people followed him, including women who also mourned and lamented him.
28) But Yeshua, turning to them, said, “Daughters of Jerusalem, don’t weep for me, but weep for yourselves and for your children.
29) For behold, the days are coming in which they will say, ‘Blessed are the barren, the wombs that never bore, and the breasts that never nursed.’
30) Then they will begin to tell the mountains, ‘Fall on us!’ and tell the hills, ‘Cover us.’

Forty is the number of trial in the Bible. Forty years passed from that time until 70 AD, when the daughters of Jerusalem did weep. Jerusalem fell, the Temple burned, and a million or so Jews were slaughtered by their chosen king, Caesar of Rome.

John 19
15) They cried out, “Away with him! Away with him! Crucify him!” Pilate said to them, “Shall I crucify your King?” The chief priests answered, “We have no king but Caesar!”

At Yeshua’s death in 30 AD, the earth turned dark and trembled.

Matt 2
45) Now from the sixth hour there was darkness over all the land until the ninth hour.
46) About the ninth hour Yeshua cried with a loud voice, saying, “Eli, Eli, lima sabachthani?” That is, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”
47) Some of them who stood there, when they heard it, said, “This man is calling Elijah.”
48) Immediately one of them ran, and took a sponge, and filled it with vinegar, and put it on a reed, and gave him a drink.
49) The rest said, “Let him be. Let’s see whether Elijah comes to save him.”
50) Yeshua cried again with a loud voice, and yielded up his spirit.
51) Behold, the veil of the temple was torn in two from the top to the bottom. The earth quaked and the rocks were split.
52) The tombs were opened, and many bodies of the saints who had fallen asleep were raised;
53) and coming out of the tombs after his resurrection, they entered into the holy city and appeared to many.
54) Now the centurion, and those who were with him watching Yeshua, when they saw the earthquake, and the things that were done, feared exceedingly, saying, “Truly this was the Son of God.”

The blackout lasted three hours, the earth quaked hard enough to split rocks, and the veil in the Temple was torn in two.

In today’s English, veil often means a covering over a woman’s face, so thin she can see through it. The Temple veil was not like that! That veil — the curtain between the Holy Place and the Holy of Holies — was about sixty feet high and thirty feet wide. Jewish commentary said it was as thick as a man’s hand span.

Only God could rip that curtain.

The high priest alone went behind that curtain into the Holy of Holies, only once a year on Atonement. When God ripped the veil, the Holy of Holies was opened. The high priest had lost his job. Those priests still served for another forty years but ultimately Caiaphas and his kind were replaced by Christ.

Look at all the things that happened forty years before the Temple was destroyed in 70 AD.

Besides the darkening, the earthquake, and the torn curtain, jewishroots.net quotes the Talmud about another miraculous event of that time.

“Interestingly, one of the signs that Israel was to be forgiven, when represented by her High Priest on the Day of Atonement was that they would tie a scarlet thread where it could be observed, at the start of the holiday and by the end of the day the scarlet thread would change in color from scarlet to white, showing all Israel her sins had been forgiven.

For forty years before the destruction of the temple the thread of scarlet never turned white but it remained red.” Talmud- Mas. Rosh HaShana 31b http://jewishroots.net/library/miscellaneous/high_priest_corruption.html

That red thread was not a good sign.

Alfred Edersheim in his well known book, The Life and Times of Jesus the Messiah, chapter XV, wrote of four independent testimonies of miraculous events at that time, forty years before the Temple fell in 70 AD.

“…[New Testament account] records the rending of the Temple-Veil in two from the top downward to the bottom; as the second, the quaking of the earth, the rending of the rocks and the opening of the graves. . . while the rending of the Veil is recorded first, as being the most significant token to Israel, it may have been connected with the earthquake, although this alone might scarcely account for the tearing of so heavy a Veil from the top to the bottom. Even the latter circumstance has its significance. That some great catastrophe, betokening the impending destruction of the Temple, had occurred in the Sanctuary about this very time, is confirmed by not less than four mutually independent testimonies: those of Tacitus, of Josephus, of the Talmud, and of earliest Christian tradition. The most important of these are, of course, the Talmud and Josephus. The latter speaks of the mysterious extinction of the middle and chief light in the Golden Candlestick, forty years before the destruction of the Temple; and both he and the Talmud refer to a supernatural opening by themselves of the great Temple-gates that had been previously closed, which was regarded as a portent of the coming destruction of the Temple.”

The Jewish Talmud, Yoma 39b, describes the Temple gates opening by themselves this way.

“Forty years before the Temple was destroyed . . . the gates of the Hekel [Holy Place] opened by themselves, until Rabbi Yohanan B. Zakkai rebuked them [the gates] saying, Hekel, Hekel, why alarmist thou us? We know that thou art destined to be destroyed . . .”

Josephus, who wrote of the candlestick in the Menorah going out and of the large Temple gates opening by themselves, was a Jewish historian who lived through the fall of Jerusalem. He described the gate opening in his book Wars of the Jews.

”Moreover, the eastern gate of the inner, [court of the temple] which was of brass, and vastly heavy, and had been with difficulty shut by twenty men, and rested upon a basis armed with iron, and had bolts fastened very deep into the firm floor, which was there made of one entire stone, was seen to be opened of its own accord about the sixth hour of the night. Now, those that kept watch in the temple came thereupon running to the captain of the temple, and told him of it; who then came up thither, and not without great difficulty was able to shut the gate again. This also appeared to the vulgar to be a very happy prodigy, as if God did thereby open them the gate of happiness. But the men of learning understood it, that the security of their holy house was dissolved of its own accord, and that the gate was opened for the advantage of their enemies. So these publicly declared, that this signal foreshewed the desolation that was coming upon them” (IV,5,3).

Jerome, c. 347-420, is best known for the Vulgate, a Latin translation of the Bible. In a letter to Hedibia, Jerome wrote that the Hebrew Gospel of Matthew said that a huge lintel in the Temple fell (Littell’s Living Age, 1857.) Edersheim, in his book cited above, wrote “it would seem an obvious inference to connect again this breaking of the lintel with an earthquake.” A lintel is a horizontal structural support that spans an opening. When the stone lintel fell — thirty feet long and weighing thirty tons — that was a big event. Not just because of the noise, but because it may have bounced the rabbis out of the Temple.

“Forty years before the destruction of the Temple, the Sanhedrin was banished (from their meeting place in the Chamber of Hewn Stones) and sat in the trading-station (on the Temple Mount but not in the Temple),“ (Talmud, Shabbat 15a).

Ernest Martin, now deceased, is well known for a theory that the second Temple was not on the Temple Mount but was in the City of David. Excavations in the City of David since Martin’s death have shown that to be apparently impossible. However, in an earlier book Secrets of Golgotha, Martin insightfully speculated on why the Jewish rabbis left the Chamber of Hewn Stones in the Temple.

“If an earthquake of the magnitude capable of breaking the stone lintel at the top of the entrance to the Holy Place was occurring at the exact time of Christ’s death, then what would such an earthquake have done to the Chamber of Hewn Stones (a vaulted and columned structure) no more than 40 yards away from where the stone lintel fell and the curtain torn in two?

There is every reason to believe, though the evidence is circumstantial, that the Chamber of Hewn Stones was so damaged in the same earthquake that it became structurally unsafe from that time forward. Something like this had to have happened because the Sanhedrin would not have left this majestic chamber (to take up residence in the insignificant ‘Trading Place’) unless something approaching this explanation took place.”

The Sanhedrin had to move out of their meeting room in the Temple, and Jerome said that the nearby lintel was broken. No record exists of the Romans forcing the Sanhedrin out, which would have caused a rebellion among the Jews. The rabbis and priests certainly would not have voluntarily moved out of the Temple. To go from the Chamber of Hewn Stones in the magnificent Temple to the “Trading Place” where ordinary commerce was done was like moving from Westminster Abbey to a flea market. So it seems likely that the lintel broke because of the earthquake at Christ’s death; and because the lintel broke, the Sanhedrin had to move out of the Temple.

Martin reaches this conclusion about the earthquake and broken lintel expelling the Sanhedrin: “If this is actually what happened (and I have no doubt that it did), we then have a most remarkable witness that God the Father engineered every action happening on the day of Christ’s trial and crucifixion. It means that the judgment made by the official Sanhedrin against Jesus within the Chamber of Hewn Stones, was THE LAST JUDGMENT ever given by the official Sanhedrin in their majestic chambers within the Temple! It would show that God the Father demonstrated by the earthquake at Christ’s death that the sentence of the Sanhedrin against Jesus would be the last judgment it would ever make in that authorized place!”

What does all this show about the Jewish religious rulers?

God was done with them dudes.

God did not continue the human priesthood.

Heb 7
23) Many, indeed, have been made priests, because they are hindered from continuing by death.
24) But he, because he lives forever, has his priesthood unchangeable.
25) Therefore he is also able to save to the uttermost those who draw near to God through him, seeing that he lives forever to make intercession for them.
26) For such a high priest was fitting for us: holy, guiltless, undefiled, separated from sinners, and made higher than the heavens;
27) who doesn’t need, like those high priests, to offer up sacrifices daily, first for his own sins, and then for the sins of the people. For he did this once for all, when he offered up himself.
28) For the law appoints men as high priests who have weakness, but the word of the oath which came after the law appoints a Son forever who has been perfected.

The priesthood continues, not in flawed humans, but in the Messiah.

Further, as discussed in Chapter 37 of this work, “Ruin, Ruin, Ruin,” God did not continue the human kingship, either.

Eze 21 English Standard Version
(25) And you, O profane wicked one, prince of Israel, whose day has come, the time of your final punishment,
(26) thus says the Lord GOD: Remove the turban and take off the crown. Things shall not remain as they are. Exalt that which is low, and bring low that which is exalted.
(27) A ruin, ruin, ruin I will make it. This also shall not be, until he comes, the one to whom judgment belongs, and I will give it to him.

Acts 15
13) After they were silent, James answered, “Brothers, listen to me.
14) Simeon has reported how God first visited the nations, to take out of them a people for his name.
15) This agrees with the words of the prophets. As it is written,
16) ‘After these things I will return. I will again build the tabernacle of David, which has fallen. I will again build its ruins. I will set it up,
17) That the rest of men may seek after the Lord; All the Gentiles who are called by my name, Says the Lord, who does all these things.

The throne of David fell to ruin and continues only in the Messiah. It will not be until He comes, and the Father will give it to Him then.

Now, if God did not continue the human priesthood, and if He did not continue the human kingship, would He continue the institution of the rabbis? Did Yahweh continue using the Pharisees as religious rulers?

No way.

God set up the priesthood, beginning with Aaron. He did not want His people ruled by kings, but when the people demanded a king, He accepted their kings, for a while. But the rabbis, scribes and Pharisees? There are no Bible commands setting up the rabbis. They set themselves up.

The human priesthood is gone. The human kings are gone. And the human rabbis are —

Gone.

After having Yeshua killed, the rabbis continued their battle against Him by attacking His flock. That flock grew. So what happened to the rabbis?

When the Son of God died, the earth quaked, the veil in the Temple ripped, and the rabbis had to move out to the flea market. Forty years later, the women of Jerusalem wept, and the most blessed of them were those who never bore children, as the city fell, the Temple burned and the Jews perished.

The rabbis and Pharisees were kicked out as religious rulers. God forever uses His Son as High Priest, coming King, and righteous Rabbi.

The End Time Church: From the Cathedrals to the Catacombs

By Dan L. White

Copyright ©2018 by Dan L. White, all rights reserved.

Scripture quotations are from the World English Bible (WEB) which is in the public domain.

Chapter 54

Looking Beyond What Can Be Seen

A comedy video showed some people stop while walking on a busy street. They stared and pointed upward, looking interested and intrigued. Other people stopped, looked up, and saw nothing. Then they looked curiously at the first people, looked up again, still saw nothing, and walked on, shaking their heads.

That’s the way anti-Christ people look at Christians. We follow an invisible King. We stare and we point at Him, but He’s not to be seen. And the world thinks we’re crazy.

Remember that Israel wanted a king they could see, like all the other nations. They rejected their invisible King. Now New Covenant Israel, Jews with Gentiles grafted in, also has to follow the invisible King.

The disciples actually saw the King. Then they saw Him tortured and killed. Then they saw Him again, and touched Him, talked to Him, ate with Him. He even cooked the fish! And after 40 days with Him, they saw this —

Acts 1
9) When he had said these things, as they were looking, he was taken up, and a cloud received him out of their sight.
10) While they were looking steadfastly into the sky as he went, behold, two men stood by them in white clothing,
11) who also said, “You men of Galilee, why do you stand looking into the sky? This Yeshua, who was received up from you into the sky will come back in the same way as you saw him going into the sky.”

After that, the King they had seen, touched and talked to —

Was invisible. They didn’t see Him.

We also have to follow that invisible King.

Bible study, prayer, fasting, Sabbaths and Feasts change your spirit and bring you closer to your King. But you can follow the invisible King only if you look beyond what can be seen. You cannot follow an invisible King by looking only at the visible. An eternal King is not just for the ‘here and now.’ He is for the ‘forever.’

The invisible King Himself, when He was in the flesh and facing a fleshly death, looked beyond what could be seen.

Heb 12
1) Therefore let us also, seeing we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, lay aside every weight and the sin which so easily entangles us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us,
2) looking to Yeshua, the author and perfecter of faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising its shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.

He lived his earthly life not focusing on this life, but on the spiritual life to come — for the joy that was set before him. He faced the end of his life while seeing the beginning of His next life. He dwelt in an earthly kingdom while looking forward to the Kingdom of God to come. He looked beyond what could be normally seen — the visible — to that which couldn’t — the invisible.

And this is what He saw.

Mar 16:19
(19) So then the Lord, after he had spoken to them, was received up into heaven, and sat down at the right hand of God.

Now, to follow that invisible King, we also have to look beyond what is visible.

As Paul did. He lived his Christian life looking beyond what he could see to that which he couldn’t.

The Quakers would have kicked Paul out.

You recall that the Quakers are famous for setting up the “underground railway” before the American Civil War, to help slaves escape their southern owners. They used their religion, which they thought was Bible based, to justify their actions. Yet Paul, who wrote 14 books of the Bible, including Hebrews, did the opposite of the Quakers. Not only did he not set up an underground railway to free slaves —

He sent a runaway slave back to his owner.

At the time of the New Testament, the Roman Empire was new, having just replaced the five-centuries-old Roman Republic. Christ was born during the reign of the first emperor and died during the reign of the second. Even during the republic, Rome had been built on slavery. Not surprisingly, that practice continued with the dictators of the Empire.

Needless to say, slavery was much better for the “owners” than for the slaves.

All slaves and their families were the property of their owners, who could sell or rent them out at any time. Their lives were harsh. Slaves were often whipped, branded or cruelly mistreated. Their owners could also kill them for any reason, and would face no punishment. The Roman Empire_ in the First Century. The Roman Empire. Social Order. Slaves & Freemen _ PBS.html

An owner could kill a slave without being punished, because —

A slave was not a person.

According to Marcel Mauss, in Roman times the persona gradually became “synonymous with the true nature of the individual” but “the slave was excluded from it. servus non habet personam (‘a slave has no persona’). He has no personality. He does not own his body; he has no ancestors, no name, no cognomen [third name of Roman citizens], no goods of his own.” The testimony of a slave could not be accepted in a court of law unless the slave was tortured—a practice based on the belief that slaves in a position to be privy to their masters’ affairs would be too virtuously loyal to reveal damaging evidence unless coerced. Slavery in ancient Rome – Wikipedia.html

So who was a slave?

Nobody. No personality, no ancestors, no legal standing — no persona. Getting slaves to accept that about themselves helped keep them in slavery. They shouldn’t expect to have lives of their own. They were just slaves.

Roman mosaic from Dougga, Tunisia (2nd century AD): the two slaves carrying wine jars wear typical slave clothing and an amulet against the evil eye on a necklace; the slave boy to the left carries water and towels, and the one on the right a bough and a basket of flowers

By Pascal Radigue – Own work, CC BY 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=4966082

Not all slaves accepted that they were complete nobodies. Spartacus had a spark of individualism.

Slavery was an ever-present feature of the Roman world. Slaves served in households, agriculture, mines, the military, manufacturing workshops, construction and a wide range of services within the city. As many as 1 in 3 of the population in Italy or 1 in 5 across the empire were slaves and upon this foundation of forced labour was built the entire edifice of the Roman state and society.

Spartacus was a Thracian gladiator who had served in the Roman army and he became the leader of a slave rebellion beginning at the gladiator school of Capua. Supplementing their numbers with slaves from the surrounding countryside (and even some free labourers) an army was assembled which numbered between 70,000 and 120,000. Amazingly, the slave army successively defeated two Roman armies in 73 BCE. Then in 72 BCE Spartacus defeated both consuls and fought his way to Cisalpine Gaul. It may have been Spartacus’ intention to disperse at this point but with his commanders preferring to continue to ravage Italy, he once more moved south. More victories followed but, let down by pirates who had promised him transportation to Sicily, the rebellion was finally crushed by Marcus Licinius Crassus at Lucania in 71 BCE. Spartacus fell in the battle and the survivors, 6000 of them, were crucified in a forceful message to all Roman slaves that any chance of winning freedom through violence was futile. Slavery in the Roman World – Ancient History Encyclopedia.html

Spartacus led a slave revolt against Rome, and most people think Paul should have done what Spartacus did.

Paulacus!

But Paul didn’t do that. In fact, he repeatedly told slaves to be obedient to their masters.

Titus 2 New English Translation
9) Slaves are to be subject to their own masters in everything, to do what is wanted and not talk back,

Col 3 NET
22) Slaves, obey your earthly masters in every respect, not only when they are watching – like those who are strictly people-pleasers – but with a sincere heart, fearing the Lord.

Eph 6 NET
5) Slaves, obey your human masters with fear and trembling, in the sincerity of your heart as to Christ,
6) not like those who do their work only when someone is watching – as people-pleasers – but as slaves of Christ doing the will of God from the heart.
7) Obey with enthusiasm, as though serving the Lord and not people,
8) because you know that each person, whether slave or free, if he does something good, this will be rewarded by the Lord.

Notice that phrase “whether slave or free.” The Greek word doulos is translated in different translations as slave or servant, but the context and Roman history indicate abject slavery, not an English type servant class. A slave was not free. He couldn’t just leave and find another job somewhere else.

Slavery is also shown when Peter spoke of perverse masters.

1Pet 2 NET
18) Slaves, be subject to your masters with all reverence, not only to those who are good and gentle, but also to those who are perverse.
19) For this finds God’s favor, if because of conscience toward God someone endures hardships in suffering unjustly.
20) For what credit is it if you sin and are mistreated and endure it? But if you do good and suffer and so endure, this finds favor with God.

Unlike Quakers, Paul did not use his “ministry” to try to free slaves. On the contrary, he sent the slave Onesimus back to his master Philemon.

Philemon was not anathematized for owning slaves. The Christianos, original word for Christians, actually met in his house. It was probably a big house, large enough to hold a gathering of Christians, because Philemon was wealthy — he owned slaves!

Phlm 1 World English Bible
1) Paul, a prisoner of Christ Yeshua, and Timothy our brother, to Philemon, our beloved fellow worker,
2) to the beloved Apphia, to Archippus, our fellow soldier, and to the assembly in your house:

Philemon’s escaped slave Onesimus had helped Paul in Rome. Slavery could exist only if slaves didn’t rebel or run away, so Roman penalties against such were severe. Onesimus was apparently living underground in Rome when he ran into Paul, whom he would have known from Christians meeting in Philemon’s house. At some point, Onesimus became a Christiano, a first century Christian. But Paul, instead of helping Onesimus hide, sent him back to his owner.

Phlm 1
10) I beg you for my child, whom I have become the father of in my chains, Onesimus,
11) who once was useless to you, but now is useful to you and to me.
12) I am sending him back. Therefore receive him, that is, my own heart,
13) whom I desired to keep with me, that on your behalf he might serve me in my chains for the Good News.
14) But I was willing to do nothing without your consent, that your goodness would not be as of necessity, but of free will.
15) For perhaps he was therefore separated from you for a while, that you would have him forever,
16) no longer as a slave, but more than a slave, a beloved brother, especially to me, but how much rather to you, both in the flesh and in the Lord.

How in the world could Paul do that? An escaped slave, who was living free and undetected, who had become a follower of the risen Messiah and even had helped Paul during Paul’s incarceration — Paul sent Onie back to his “owner!”

What was Paul thinking?

This is what he was thinking.

Rom 8
18) For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which will be revealed toward us.
19) For the creation waits with eager expectation for the children of God to be revealed.
20) For the creation was subjected to vanity, not of its own will, but because of him who subjected it, in hope
21) that the creation itself also will be delivered from the bondage of decay into the liberty of the glory of the children of God.
22) For we know that the whole creation groans and travails in pain together until now.
23) Not only so, but ourselves also, who have the first fruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for adoption, the redemption of our body.

“…[T]he sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which will be revealed toward us.”

That’s what Paul was thinking. He groaned within himself, waiting for his change from flesh to spirit, to go from this life to the next.

What’s more, Onie was thinking the same thing as Paul!

Onesimus could have run away again; Paul certainly had no means to restrain him. So when Paul sent Onie back to his owner, Onie owned up to it. He voluntarily returned to slavery! Onie couldn’t have been a Quaker, either. He thought like Paul, and not like ordinary Christians. He looked beyond the short period of his slavery to the eternity of his redemption.

Yeah, Paul could do that to someone else, some might say, since he wasn’t enslaved himself.

But — when he wrote that letter to Philemon, Paul himself was imprisoned. And he was losing his helper, Onesimus, as he wrote to Philemon: whom I desired to keep with me, that on your behalf he might serve me in my chains for the Good News. But I was willing to do nothing without your consent, that your goodness would not be as of necessity, but of free will.

Paul — and Onesimus — looked beyond what could be seen to what couldn’t be seen, as they followed the invisible King.

And why didn’t Paul want to get married?

He just didn’t want to be bothered. He had more important things on his mind.

1Co 7 Good News Bible
25) Now, concerning what you wrote about unmarried people: I do not have a command from the Lord, but I give my opinion as one who by the Lord’s mercy is worthy of trust.
26) Considering the present distress, I think it is better for a man to stay as he is.
27) Do you have a wife? Then don’t try to get rid of her. Are you unmarried? Then don’t look for a wife.
28) But if you do marry, you haven’t committed a sin; and if an unmarried woman marries, she hasn’t committed a sin. But I would rather spare you the everyday troubles that married people will have.
29) What I mean, my friends, is this: there is not much time left, and from now on married people should live as though they were not married;
30) those who weep, as though they were not sad; those who laugh, as though they were not happy; those who buy, as though they did not own what they bought;
31) those who deal in material goods, as though they were not fully occupied with them. For this world, as it is now, will not last much longer.
32) I would like you to be free from worry. An unmarried man concerns himself with the Lord’s work, because he is trying to please the Lord.
33) But a married man concerns himself with worldly matters, because he wants to please his wife;
34) and so he is pulled in two directions. An unmarried woman or a virgin concerns herself with the Lord’s work, because she wants to be dedicated both in body and spirit; but a married woman concerns herself with worldly matters, because she wants to please her husband.
35) I am saying this because I want to help you. I am not trying to put restrictions on you. Instead, I want you to do what is right and proper, and to give yourselves completely to the Lord’s service without any reservation.

I had a good friend who, in his teens, feared that he wouldn’t be able to get married before Christ returned. Well, my good buddy was a bit more concerned with the here and now than Paul was. Marriage is now. Paul looked to the future and didn’t even want to bother with marriage.

He even preferred that this life be over, because he looked forward to the next life so much.

Phil 1 World English Bible
19) For I know that this will turn out to my salvation, through your supplication and the supply of the Spirit of Yeshua Christ,
20) according to my earnest expectation and hope, that I will in no way be disappointed, but with all boldness, as always, now also Christ will be magnified in my body, whether by life, or by death.
21) For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain.
22) But if I live on in the flesh, this will bring fruit from my work; yet I don’t know what I will choose.
23) But I am in a dilemma between the two, having the desire to depart and be with Christ, which is far better.
24) Yet, to remain in the flesh is more needful for your sake.

So Paul sent a slave back, refused to get married, and even looked forward to death —

Simply because he lived his Christian life looking beyond this life. The years of a slave were so few compared to eternity, and by being single Paul could focus more on the future, and dying in the faith was the gateway to the future.

Paul did all that simply because he saw what couldn’t be seen. He looked beyond the visible to the invisible. He followed the invisible King, the one he had seen executed, the one who had called to him on the road to Damascus, and the one who had refused to remove Paul’s thorn in the flesh.

WEB Heb 11
1) Now faith is assurance of things hoped for, proof of things not seen.

Heb 11 Good News Bible
1) To have faith is to be sure of the things we hope for, to be certain of the things we cannot see.

To be certain of things we cannot see is to look beyond what we can see.

Heb 11 Good News Bible
8) It was faith that made Abraham obey when God called him to go out to a country which God had promised to give him. He left his own country without knowing where he was going.
9) By faith he lived as a foreigner in the country that God had promised him He lived in tents, as did Isaac and Jacob, who received the same promise from God.
10) For Abraham was waiting for the city which God has designed and built, the city with permanent foundations.

15) They did not keep thinking about the country they had left; if they had, they would have had the chance to return.
16) Instead, it was a better country they longed for, the heavenly country. And so God is not ashamed for them to call him their God, because he has prepared a city for them.

35) Through faith women received their dead relatives raised back to life. Others, refusing to accept freedom, died under torture in order to be raised to a better life.
36) Some were mocked and whipped, and others were put in chains and taken off to prison.
37) They were stoned, they were sawed in two, they were killed by the sword. They went around clothed in skins of sheep or goats—poor, persecuted, and mistreated.
38) The world was not good enough for them! They wandered like refugees in the deserts and hills, living in caves and holes in the ground.
39) What a record all of these have won by their faith! Yet they did not receive what God had promised,
40) because God had decided on an even better plan for us. His purpose was that only in company with us would they be made perfect.

The invisible King — when He was in the flesh — constantly taught about that which could not be seen, the coming Kingdom of God.

Matt 13
44) “Again, the Kingdom of Heaven is like a treasure hidden in the field, which a man found, and hid. In his joy, he goes and sells all that he has, and buys that field.
45) “Again, the Kingdom of Heaven is like a man who is a merchant seeking fine pearls,
46) who having found one pearl of great price, he went and sold all that he had, and bought it.
47) “Again, the Kingdom of Heaven is like a dragnet, that was cast into the sea, and gathered some fish of every kind,
48) which, when it was filled, they drew up on the beach. They sat down, and gathered the good into containers, but the bad they threw away.
49) So will it be in the end of the world. The angels will come forth, and separate the wicked from among the righteous,
50) and will cast them into the furnace of fire. There will be the weeping and the gnashing of teeth.”

Our invisible King will be the King of that kingdom.

But before that kingdom comes, we live in Satan’s kingdom. Satan is the god of this world, and this world follows him. Hey — that’s really easy to do! All you have to do is go along with everything you see around you. Your job, your games, your gadgets can take up most of your attention, your time, your life. That leaves little time for Bible study and prayer, no time for fasting, and quite a bit of time for fudging on the Sabbaths and Feasts.

That’s just the opposite of following the invisible King.

We can talk about how Israel erred by wanting a king they could see, but we ourselves err if we underestimate how enormously hard it is for fleshly people to follow an invisible King. The smartest people in the world almost unanimously scoff at such a notion. To most people, going only by our five senses is just common sense. Only with Bible study, prayer, fasting, Sabbaths and Feasts are those five fleshly senses superseded.

The older a person gets, the more he sees how little this life is, and how much more important the next is. As the importance of the visible vanishes, the overwhelming value of the invisible becomes apparent. As what we see disappears with death, what we cannot see comes more into focus.

Bible study, prayer, fasting, Sabbaths and Feasts change your spirit and bring you closer to your King. But you can follow the invisible King only if you look beyond what can be seen, and you see this —

Rev 22
1) He showed me a river of water of life, clear as crystal, proceeding out of the throne of God and of the Lamb,
2) in the middle of its street. On this side of the river and on that was the tree of life, bearing twelve kinds of fruits, yielding its fruit every month. The leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations.
3) There will be no curse any more. The throne of God and of the Lamb will be in it, and his servants serve him.
4) They will see his face, and his name will be on their foreheads.
5) There will be no night, and they need no lamp light; for the Lord God will illuminate them. They will reign forever and ever.

20) He who testifies these things says, “Yes, I come quickly.” Amen! Yes, come, Lord Yeshua.

The End Time Church: From the Cathedrals to the Catacombs

By Dan L. White

Copyright ©2018 by Dan L. White, all rights reserved.

Scripture quotations are from the World English Bible (WEB) which is in the public domain.

Chapter 53

Time with God, on God’s Time

How can common soil – dirt! – be made holy?

Just have God stand on it. Presto! Divine dirt.

At the burning bush, Yahweh told Moses to take off his sandals — because the ground was holy.

Exod 3
5) “Take your sandals off of your feet, for the place you are standing on is holy ground, [quodesh, Heb]”

Why was that ground quodesh?

Because Yahweh was there.

In the same way, Yahweh appointed certain times as holy.

First of all, the Sabbath day.

Exod 20
8) “Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy.”

Then, annual holy days and times.

Lev 23
1) Yahweh spoke to Moses, saying,
2) “Speak to the children of Israel, and tell them, ‘The set feasts of Yahweh, which you shall proclaim to be holy [quodesh] convocations, even these are my set feasts.

After that comes the listing of the Feasts, including the weekly Sabbath. Notice that all these feast days are “quodesh”, not just the high Sabbath days when no work is to be done, but also the lower Feast days. All these days are set apart days.

Some make a distinction and call only the annual Sabbaths “holy days.” That’s not what the Bible says. They’re not all Sabbaths, but they’re all quodesh.

That’s repeated in verse 4.

Lev 23
4) “‘These are the set feasts of Yahweh, even holy [quodesh] convocations, which you shall proclaim in their appointed season.

All the feast days are quodesh gatherings, both high days and common days.

Why are the weekly Sabbath and the annual Feasts holy?

Because Yahweh God is there.

God is holy.

His appointed times are holy.

And His people are to be holy.

1 Pet 1
15) but just as he who called you is holy, you yourselves also be holy in all of your behavior;
16) because it is written, “You shall be holy; for I am holy.”

Yahweh’s people are to be holy, not just by having sins forgiven, but by overcoming sinful human nature and taking in the nature of God.

2 Pet 1:4
4) by which he has granted to us his precious and exceedingly great promises; that through these you may become partakers of the divine nature, having escaped from the corruption that is in the world by lust.

Yahweh’s holy convocations help Yahweh’s people to be holy. By spending time with the holy God on his holy times, God’s people become more like Him. By being with Him on Feasts and Sabbaths, taking time for Him instead of the everyday world, they can partake of His nature.

Look what happened to Moses.

Exod 34
28) He was there with Yahweh forty days and forty nights; he neither ate bread, nor drank water. He wrote on the tablets the words of the covenant, the ten commandments.
29) It happened, when Moses came down from Mount Sinai with the two tablets of the testimony in Moses’ hand, when he came down from the mountain, that Moses didn’t know that the skin of his face shone by reason of his speaking with him.
30) When Aaron and all the children of Israel saw Moses, behold, the skin of his face shone; and they were afraid to come near him.

Moses glowed.

He became more like Yahweh — even in appearance — just by being around Him.

One writer said that children are like stem cells. They become what they’re around. We’re God’s children. When we’re around Him, we become more like Him.

You must spend time with God to become more like Him. That includes time every day, and it also includes weekly Sabbaths and annual festivals, which God specifically and purposely appointed as His special times. Like Bible study, prayer and fasting, the practice of truly visiting with God at His appointed times will change who you are.

Yet Christians often look at Sabbaths and Feasts only as something to do, instead of Sabbaths and Feasts doing something to them. Seeing these days as a commanded burden instead of a golden opportunity is the main reason that Christians as a whole reject God’s holy days.

It’s also the main reason that Feast keepers themselves want to pull back on their observance.

And Feast keepers do continually want to pull back on these holy times, forsaking them in whole or in part.

Why?

So they can do what they really want to do.

Whenever Israel fell away from God, one of the first things they did was to abandon Sabbaths and Feasts.

For instance, Jeroboam, the first king of the ten tribes of Israel after they rebelled against Solomon’s son Rehoboam, is infamous for changing the feast of the seventh month to the eighth month.

1 Kgs 12
26) Jeroboam said in his heart, “Now the kingdom will return to the house of David.
27) If this people goes up to offer sacrifices in the house of Yahweh at Jerusalem, then the heart of this people will turn again to their lord, even to Rehoboam king of Judah; and they will kill me, and return to Rehoboam king of Judah.”
28) Whereupon the king took counsel, and made two calves of gold; and he said to them, “It is too much for you to go up to Jerusalem. Look and see your gods, Israel, which brought you up out of the land of Egypt!”
29) He set the one in Bethel, and the other put he in Dan.
30) This thing became a sin; for the people went to worship before the one, even to Dan.
31) He made houses of high places, and made priests from among all the people, who were not of the sons of Levi.
32) Jeroboam ordained a feast in the eighth month, on the fifteenth day of the month, like the feast that is in Judah, and he went up to the altar; he did so in Bethel, sacrificing to the calves that he had made: and he placed in Bethel the priests of the high places that he had made.
33) He went up to the altar which he had made in Bethel on the fifteenth day in the eighth month, even in the month which he had devised of his own heart: and he ordained a feast for the children of Israel, and went up to the altar, to burn incense.

Jeroboam created his own feast because going to Jerusalem was ‘too much of a burden for the people.’

‘Those old feasts are such a burden!’ Did you ever hear that argument?

But when Israel backed off from Yahweh’s feasts, they backed off from Yahweh! Forsaking the Feasts was part of Jeroboam’s package of perversion from which Israel/Samaria never recovered.

In another example, Hezekiah’s father Ahaz shut up the Temple.

2 Chr 28
24) Ahaz gathered together the vessels of the house of God, and cut in pieces the vessels of the house of God, and shut up the doors of the house of Yahweh; and he made him altars in every corner of Jerusalem.

When Ahaz shut the doors of the Temple that meant closing down the weekly Sabbath and annual festivals. Leaving those holy times separated Judah from their holy God. That meant trouble!

2 Chr 28
25) Therefore Yahweh his God delivered him into the hand of the king of Syria; and they struck him, and carried away of his a great multitude of captives, and brought them to Damascus. He was also delivered into the hand of the king of Israel, who struck him with a great slaughter.

And in a third example, Josiah’s father Amon was the only Jewish king named after a pagan idol. The name fit.

2 Kgs 21
21) He walked in all the way that his father walked in, and served the idols that his father served, and worshiped them:
22) and he forsook Yahweh, the God of his fathers, and didn’t walk in the way of Yahweh.

Like Ahaz, Amon trashed and closed the Temple, so much so that Judah didn’t even know where the book of the law, with its knowledge of the Sabbath and festivals, was.

Reprobates like Jeroboam, Ahaz and Amon quickly forsook the weekly Sabbaths and annual Feasts. On the other hand, Israel was closest to God at His Sabbaths and Feasts. Look at a few examples when God’s people drew closer to Him at His appointed times.

Lydia was praying by a river on the Sabbath.

Act 16
(12) and from there to Philippi, which is a city of Macedonia, the foremost of the district, a Roman colony. We were staying some days in this city.
(13) On the Sabbath day we went outside of the city by a riverside, where we supposed there was a place of prayer, and we sat down, and spoke to the women who had come together.
(14) A certain woman named Lydia, a seller of purple, of the city of Thyatira, one who worshiped God, heard us; whose heart the Lord opened to listen to the things which were spoken by Paul.
(15) When she and her household were baptized, she begged us, saying, “If you have judged me to be faithful to the Lord, come into my house, and stay.” So she persuaded us.

Why did Paul suppose there was a place of prayer outside the city by a river? He didn’t actually know that Sabbath keepers were out there, but he did know there was a beautiful river there, and he figured that God-fearers might be in that peaceful place seeking God on His Sabbath.

That’s what God’s people do on the Sabbath. They seek Him, partaking of His holy nature. That’s what the Sabbath is for, to be close to Yahweh God. It’s not a burden to seek the One who keeps you alive. Au contraire – such time is a great blessing. “The Sabbath was made for man,” (Mark 2:27), Christ said. Why was it made for man? To spend time with his Creator.

And Christ should know! He was that Creator, of all creation and of the Sabbath.

So what happened with Lydia, who was praying by the river on the Sabbath? The Lord opened her heart to hear Paul – whose heart the Lord opened to listen to the things which were spoken by Paul.

As mentioned, Hezekiah’s father Ahaz shut up the Temple and abandoned the Feasts. But what did Hezekiah do when he became king?

2 Chr 29
1) Hezekiah began to reign when he was twenty-five years old; and he reigned twenty-nine years in Jerusalem: and his mother’s name was Abijah, the daughter of Zechariah.
2) He did that which was right in the eyes of Yahweh, according to all that David his father had done.
3) He in the first year of his reign, in the first month, opened the doors of the house of Yahweh, and repaired them.
4) He brought in the priests and the Levites, and gathered them together into the broad place on the east,
5) and said to them, “Listen to me, you Levites! Now sanctify yourselves, and sanctify the house of Yahweh, the God of your fathers, and carry out the filthiness out of the holy place.

As quickly as possible after getting the Temple functioning, Hezekiah and Judah kept the Passover and the Feast of Unleavened Bread. First things first!

2 Chr 30
1) Hezekiah sent to all Israel and Judah, and wrote letters also to Ephraim and Manasseh, that they should come to the house of Yahweh at Jerusalem, to keep the Passover to Yahweh, the God of Israel.

25) All the assembly of Judah, with the priests and the Levites, and all the assembly who came out of Israel, and the foreigners who came out of the land of Israel, and who lived in Judah, rejoiced.
26) So there was great joy in Jerusalem; for since the time of Solomon the son of David king of Israel there was not the like in Jerusalem.
27) Then the priests the Levites arose and blessed the people: and their voice was heard, and their prayer came up to his holy habitation, even to heaven.

They sought Yahweh during His Feast. And they found Him, in His holy time – their prayer came up to his holy habitation, even to heaven.

And as mentioned, Josiah’s father Amon, also shut up the Temple, so that the people and the priests even forgot about the Book of the Law, which teaches the Sabbaths and Feasts. But when Josiah took over as king and they began to clean out the Temple, they found that book.

2 Chr 34
12) The men did the work faithfully: and their overseers were Jahath and Obadiah, the Levites, of the sons of Merari; and Zechariah and Meshullam, of the sons of the Kohathites, to set it forward; and others of the Levites, all who were skillful with instruments of music.
13) Also they were over the bearers of burdens, and set forward all who did the work in every kind of service: and of the Levites there were scribes, and officers, and porters.
14) When they brought out the money that was brought into the house of Yahweh, Hilkiah the priest found the book of the law of Yahweh given by Moses.
15) Hilkiah answered Shaphan the scribe, “I have found the book of the law in the house of Yahweh.” Hilkiah delivered the book to Shaphan.

Then they took that Book of the Law to Josiah, and when Josiah read it, he ripped a stitch.

2 Chr 34
19) It happened, when the king had heard the words of the law, that he tore his clothes.
20) The king commanded Hilkiah, and Ahikam the son of Shaphan, and Abdon the son of Micah, and Shaphan the scribe, and Asaiah the king’s servant, saying,
21) “Go inquire of Yahweh for me, and for those who are left in Israel and in Judah, concerning the words of the book that is found; for great is the wrath of Yahweh that is poured out on us, because our fathers have not kept the word of Yahweh, to do according to all that is written in this book.”

Josiah was right. The wrath of Yahweh was great upon Judah for not keeping the word of Yahweh, including the holy times. So Josiah made this covenant.

2 Chr 34
31) The king stood in his place, and made a covenant before Yahweh, to walk after Yahweh, and to keep his commandments, and his testimonies, and his statutes, with all his heart, and with all his soul, to perform the words of the covenant that were written in this book.

Right after making that covenant to obey with all his heart, Josiah sought Yahweh at His Feast.

2 Chr 35
17) The children of Israel who were present kept the Passover at that time, and the feast of unleavened bread seven days.
18) There was no Passover like that kept in Israel from the days of Samuel the prophet; neither did any of the kings of Israel keep such a Passover as Josiah kept, and the priests, and the Levites, and all Judah and Israel who were present, and the inhabitants of Jerusalem.

Again, Christians tend to see Sabbaths and Feasts as just something for them to do, instead of seeing Sabbaths and Feasts as doing something to them. They only see the “burden” of taking off from work or school or recreation. They do not see the blessing of visiting with God on His holy times.

And as with Israel, pulling back from these times is one of the first things that Christians do when they begin to pull away from God. Notice this present day example.

A church denomination was known for keeping the annual Feasts and spreading the knowledge of them. The “apostle” of that organization saw himself as the ‘Peter’ of the modern church, in much the same way that the Roman Catholic Church views the pope, based on the same Petrine doctrine. After 37 years of keeping the Feast of Unleavened Bread for seven days, that “Peter” changed the Feast of Unleavened Bread, from keeping it seven days to only keeping the two high days. He did not have Bible reasons to do that. He did not need Bible reasons to do that. After all, he was the ‘Peter.’ So that ‘Peter’ simply made a “church administrative decision.”

This pattern of not keeping the spring Feast – amazingly! – was then followed by basically all successor groups of that denomination. They claim to follow the Bible, but there are no Bible examples of keeping a bookend feast. They’re simply following the ‘Peter.’

The largest annual gathering of any of these groups, larger than any of their Tabernacles feast sites, is at Christmas time, when thousands of their people gather for games and festive activities. The obvious irony here is that these people skip the spring feast week, which they claim to observe, yet have their largest single gathering at Christmas, which they claim not to observe.

Why do they do that?

The obvious answer is that they’re off from work at Christmas, anyway, so they use that chance to get together.

What, then, is the obvious reason that these people do not keep the Feast of Unleavened Bread?

Because they’re not off from work. And they’re simply not willing to take that time from their daily lives to spend seeking God.

Yes, they will come up with theological reasons why they don’t keep the Feast. However, every single example in the Bible shows the Feast of Unleavened Bread is kept for the whole week, not just two days. Every single example! That means there are no theological reasons not to keep that Feast, only human nature reasoning. Unleavened Bread pictures coming out of Egypt, yet their reasoning leads them to conclude that they are better off staying in Egypt — the world — for the Feast of Unleavened Bread.

So these ‘feast-keepers’ get together at Christmas because they’re off from work and school. They don’t get together for the spring feast week, because they’re not off from work and school. And they’re not going to take off!

But they don’t ask themselves what they lose by skipping that Feast week.

By keeping the Sabbaths and Feasts, people may see themselves only as losing time instead of gaining spiritual strength. They feel that the holy times are something they have to do instead of times that do something to them. Even some of the most diligent observers of these times fail to see the great benefit. Therefore they are constantly seeking to do something else on those days instead of just seeking God, repeatedly searching for what they can get away with and still be obedient Sabbath or Feast keepers. Sure enough, at some point they find ‘new truth’ that allows them to do what they really want to do, which invariably is something other than seeking God.

Hey – that’s not new truth! Most other Christians have been doing that, anyway, ever since the murderer Constantine took over as spiritual leader of Rome.

In Isaiah 58, Yahweh condemned Judah for the way they fasted.

Isa 58
3) ‘Why have we fasted,’ say they, ‘and you don’t see? Why have we afflicted our soul, and you take no knowledge?’ Behold, in the day of your fast you find pleasure, and exact all your labors.

Israel saw fasting only as something they should do, and not as something that would bring them closer to God. So God told them how to fast, if they wanted to get closer to Him.

Isa 58
6) “Isn’t this the fast that I have chosen: to release the bonds of wickedness, to undo the bands of the yoke, and to let the oppressed go free, and that you break every yoke?
7) Isn’t it to distribute your bread to the hungry, and that you bring the poor who are cast out to your house? When you see the naked, that you cover him; and that you not hide yourself from your own flesh?
8) Then your light shall break forth as the morning, and your healing shall spring forth speedily; and your righteousness shall go before you; the glory of Yahweh shall be your rear guard.
9) Then you shall call, and Yahweh will answer; you shall cry, and he will say, ‘Here I am.’ “If you do away with the yoke among you, and pointing fingers and malicious talk;…”

Right after that, Yahweh also told Israel how to keep the Sabbath, if they would be close to Him.

Isa 58
13) “If you turn away your foot from the Sabbath, from doing your pleasure on my holy day; and call the Sabbath a delight, and the holy of Yahweh honorable; and shall honor it, not doing your own ways, nor finding your own pleasure, nor speaking your own words:
14) then you shall delight yourself in Yahweh; and I will make you to ride on the high places of the earth; and I will feed you with the heritage of Jacob your father:” for the mouth of Yahweh has spoken it.

The Pharisee rabbis came up with reams of rules for the Sabbath. God Himself really gave no rules for the Sabbath, but He did give this principle. Don’t do your own ways, or business; or your own pleasure, or recreation; or your own words, or self focus. Instead, you delight yourself in Yahweh, and on the Sabbath you make Him your business, your recreation and your focus. His holy days, Sabbaths and feasts, are different than regular days. All those other things you can do on weekdays, but on His Sabbath days, you do Him.

Fasting with obedience draws people closer to God: Then you shall call, and Yahweh will answer. The same principle applies to the Feasts. They are to draw people closer to God. Holy times with a holy God make a holy people.

Throughout the Bible, the times when Yahweh’s people were closest to Him were during His festivals, as shown by all the following examples.

1. When Yahweh made the covenant with Abram to give his family the land of Canaan.
2. When Israel was rescued from Egypt at Passover/Unleavened Bread.
3. When Israel was taught the Ten Commandments at Pentecost time.
4. When Israel, after 40 years of wilderness wandering, entered the Promised Land at Passover/Unleavened Bread.
5. When Solomon dedicated the Temple at Tabernacles.
6. When Hezekiah led Judah back to Yahweh and kept Passover for two weeks.
7. When Josiah led Judah back to Yahweh and kept Passover as none had ever been kept.
8. When Ezra and the Jews, just returned to the land of Israel, kept the Feasts of Trumpets and Tabernacles.
9. When Ezra and the Jews kept Passover and Unleavened Bread at the dedication of the second Temple.
10. When Yeshua was born at the time of the feasts of the seventh month.
11. When Yeshua was sacrificed at Passover.
12. When Yeshua began His flock with the holy spirit at Pentecost.

Does all that tell you something?

God’s people are closest to Him at His holy times! God’s people fall away from Him when they get away from those times.

Even Feast keepers often fail to realize the full value of the festivals. The Feasts they do keep are often so busied with social swirling that the real value is overwhelmed. And the fact that they almost unanimously neglect the Feast of Unleavened Bread shows they do not understand the value of that week.

A young man was infatuated, enamored and enraptured with his young bride to be. She had already graduated from college; he still had a year to go. His college studies were pressing on him, but something else was more pressing. He had to spend time with his beloved. So they spent hours sitting in campus open areas, talking, laughing, being together. What did they talk about? Nothing memorable, nothing remembered. To the young man, it was not so much what was being said as who was saying it. He loved her. He really wanted to be with her.

If people want to be with God, they will find reasons to keep the Feasts, instead of finding reasons not to. If you refuse to take that quodesh time to come out of the world, either in whole or in part, then ask yourself this question —

If you were Moses, standing on quodesh ground, would you have kept your sandals on?

The Feasts are times to be closest to Yahweh God, the Father and Son. The great mistake that observers of the Sabbath and Feasts make is looking at those times as something to do, instead of as doing something to them, changing them with the glow of God.

The End Time Church: From the Cathedrals to the Catacombs

By Dan L. White

Copyright ©2018 by Dan L. White, all rights reserved.

Scripture quotations are from the World English Bible (WEB) which is in the public domain.

Chapter 52

Fasting

A three legged stool will sit stably on a floor where a four legged chair won’t. A three legged stool for spiritual stability is Bible study, prayer and fasting. That third leg — fasting — is the one most often cut off.

Why?

Fasting is affliction. So who wants to be afflicted?

WEB Lev 23
26) Yahweh spoke to Moses, saying,
27) “However on the tenth day of this seventh month is the day of atonement: it shall be a holy convocation to you, and you shall afflict yourselves; and you shall offer an offering made by fire to Yahweh.
28) You shall do no kind of work in that same day; for it is a day of atonement, to make atonement for you before Yahweh your God.
29) For whoever it is who shall not deny himself in that same day; shall be cut off from his people.
30) Whoever it is who does any kind of work in that same day, that person I will destroy from among his people.
31) You shall do no kind of work: it is a statute forever throughout your generations in all your dwellings.
32) It shall be a Sabbath of solemn rest for you, and you shall deny yourselves. In the ninth day of the month at evening, from evening to evening, you shall keep your Sabbath.”

Notice verses (27) you shall afflict yourselves; (29) deny himself; and (32) deny yourselves. The day of Atonement is a total fast, when you deny yourself food and drink. The day was even known simply as The Fast.

Acts 27
(9) When much time had passed and the voyage was now dangerous, because the Fast had now already gone by, Paul admonished them.

Fasting is to deny yourself and afflict yourself.

David afflicted himself with fasting.

WEB Ps 3
11) Unrighteous witnesses rise up. They ask me about things that I don’t know about.
12) They reward me evil for good, to the bereaving of my soul.
13) But as for me, when they were sick, my clothing was sackcloth. I afflicted my soul with fasting. My prayer returned into my own bosom.

WEB Ps 109
23) I fade away like an evening shadow. I am shaken off like a locust.
24) My knees are weak through fasting. My body is thin and lacks fat.

When the child born from the adultery of David of Bathsheba grew sick, David fasted for at least six days. That will make the knees weak and the body thin.

Bible study and prayer require discipline to maintain a steady effort. However, with steady practice, Bible study and prayer become welcome relief, not affliction; not just endurable but enjoyable. Fasting, however, is always affliction.

It’s supposed to be.

Some say there are many kinds of fasts, like skipping a meal here and there, giving up meat and only eating fish, or avoiding everything except chocolate shakes. Such “fasting” is human nature at work. The only fasting specifically named as such in the Bible is to go without all food and drink. That’s how you are afflicted. After only one day of fasting, your body becomes weaker, your mind may become dull, your mouth becomes dry and your growling stomach becomes very angry.

Afflicted!

But Christ requires fasting from His followers.

As with prayer, Yeshua tells how not to fast.

WEB Matt 6
16) “Moreover when you fast, don’t be like the hypocrites, with sad faces. For they disfigure their faces, that they may be seen by men to be fasting. Most certainly I tell you, they have received their reward.
17) But you, when you fast, anoint your head, and wash your face;
18) so that you are not seen by men to be fasting, but by your Father who is in secret, and your Father, who sees in secret, will reward you.

Notice that Yeshua said “when you fast,” meaning that as one of His followers, you will fast. Just don’t do it to show off, as the Pharisees did.

In the preceding verses 5 through 15, Christ taught how to pray: “When you pray.” His unspoken premise there is that His followers will pray. After that, He immediately said “when you fast.” His unspoken premise there is that His followers will fast. He taught fasting at the same time as He taught prayer and in the same way. Fasting is just as much a part of a Christian’s life as praying.

But fasting is the leg of the spiritual stool that most often gets cut off, usually ignored, hardly ever taught, and almost never discussed. Yet Christ plainly said that His disciples will fast.

WEB Matt 9
14) Then John’s disciples came to him, saying, “Why do we and the Pharisees fast often, but your disciples don’t fast?”
15) Yeshua said to them, “Can the friends of the bridegroom mourn, as long as the bridegroom is with them? But the days will come when the bridegroom will be taken away from them, and then they will fast.
16) No one puts a piece of unshrunk cloth on an old garment; for the patch would tear away from the garment, and a worse hole is made.
17) Neither do people put new wine into old wineskins, or else the skins would burst, and the wine be spilled, and the skins ruined. No, they put new wine into fresh wineskins, and both are preserved.”

Moses had to fast before he could receive the Ten Commandment tablets from Yahweh. Why? Because that was when he — the most humble man on earth — was most humble.

WEB Num 12
3) Now the man Moses was very humble, above all the men who were on the surface of the earth.

Meek Moses had to go through a forty day fast, kept alive only by the spirit of God, to receive the Ten Commandment tablets. And  when he threw those tablets down and broke them, he had to go through that forty day humbling again.

“Hey, wasn’t that first forty days enough?” Moses might have thought, although of course he was too meek to say such a thing.

The Bible records people fasting when faced with a huge problem.

Satan is a big problem and Christ faced that problem with 40 days of fasting.

WEB Matt 4
1) Then Yeshua was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil.
2) When he had fasted forty days and forty nights, he was hungry afterward.
3) The tempter came and said to him, “If you are the Son of God, command that these stones become bread.”

Esther and the Jews fasted for three days when faced with Haman’s planned genocide.

WEB Esth 4
16) “Go, gather together all the Jews who are present in Shushan, and fast for me, and neither eat nor drink three days, night or day. I and my maidens will also fast the same way. Then I will go in to the king, which is against the law; and if I perish, I perish.”

And Jehoshaphat fasted when faced with a huge Syrian army.

WEB 2 Chr 20
2) Then some came who told Jehoshaphat, saying, “A great multitude is coming against you from beyond the sea from Syria. Behold, they are in Hazazon Tamar” (that is, En Gedi).
3) Jehoshaphat was alarmed, and set himself to seek to Yahweh. He proclaimed a fast throughout all Judah.
4) Judah gathered themselves together, to seek help from Yahweh. They came out of all the cities of Judah to seek Yahweh.

Yes, in a time of calamity, God commands us to turn to Him with humble fasting.

WEB Joel 2
12) “Yet even now,” says Yahweh, “turn to me with all your heart, and with fasting, and with weeping, and with mourning.”
13) Tear your heart, and not your garments, and turn to Yahweh, your God; for he is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and abundant in loving kindness, and relents from sending calamity.

When we do, He hears us. How much attention God pays to fasting was shown when Ahab fasted.

WEB 1 Kgs 21
21) Behold, I will bring evil on you, and will utterly sweep you away and will cut off from Ahab everyone who urinates against a wall, and him who is shut up and him who is left at large in Israel.
22) I will make your house like the house of Jeroboam the son of Nebat, and like the house of Baasha the son of Ahijah for the provocation with which you have provoked me to anger, and have made Israel to sin.”
23) Yahweh also spoke of Jezebel, saying, “The dogs shall eat Jezebel by the rampart of Jezreel.
24) The dogs will eat he who dies of Ahab in the city; and the birds of the sky will eat he who dies in the field.”
25) But there was none like Ahab, who sold himself to do that which was evil in the sight of Yahweh, whom Jezebel his wife stirred up.
26) He did very abominably in following idols, according to all that the Amorites did, whom Yahweh cast out before the children of Israel.
27) It happened, when Ahab heard those words, that he tore his clothes, and put sackcloth on his flesh, and fasted, and lay in sackcloth, and went softly.
28) The word of Yahweh came to Elijah the Tishbite, saying,
29) “See how Ahab humbles himself before me? Because he humbles himself before me, I will not bring the evil in his days; but in his son’s days will I bring the evil on his house.”

Who was Ahab?

Israel/Samaria had 19 kings, all reprobates. Who was the worst? Ahab — “there was none like Ahab, who sold himself to do that which was evil in the sight of Yahweh.” So if Ahab — the most evil of Israel’s nineteen evil kings — could receive Yahweh’s favor by truly humbling himself with fasting — See how Ahab humbles himself before me? — can’t we do the same?

Nineveh was the central city of the greatest empire on earth at that time, and one of the most evil places on earth. Yet when they humbly fasted before Yahweh, He really appreciated that, even if Jonah didn’t.

WEB Jonah 3
4) Jonah began to enter into the city a day’s journey, and he cried out, and said, “In forty days, Nineveh will be overthrown!”
5) The people of Nineveh believed God; and they proclaimed a fast, and put on sackcloth, from their greatest even to their least.
6) The news reached the king of Nineveh, and he arose from his throne, and took off his royal robe, covered himself with sackcloth, and sat in ashes.
7) He made a proclamation and published through Nineveh by the decree of the king and his nobles, saying, “Let neither man nor animal, herd nor flock, taste anything; let them not feed, nor drink water;
8) but let them be covered with sackcloth, both man and animal, and let them cry mightily to God. Yes, let them turn everyone from his evil way, and from the violence that is in his hands.
9) Who knows whether God will not turn and relent, and turn away from his fierce anger, so that we might not perish?”
10) God saw their works, that they turned from their evil way. God relented of the disaster which he said he would do to them, and he didn’t do it.

Saul/Paul, when he found out he was persecuting what he claimed to promote, immediately fasted for three days. He had a hurried up humility!

WEB Acts 9
3) As he traveled, it happened that he got close to Damascus, and suddenly a light from the sky shone around him.
4) He fell on the earth, and heard a voice saying to him, “Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?”
5) He said, “Who are you, Lord?” The Lord said, “I am Yeshua, whom you are persecuting.
6) But rise up, and enter into the city, and you will be told what you must do.”
7) The men who traveled with him stood speechless, hearing the sound, but seeing no one.
8) Saul arose from the ground, and when his eyes were opened, he saw no one. They led him by the hand, and brought him into Damascus.
9) He was without sight for three days, and neither ate nor drank.

You expect Christians to fast when faced with a big personal problem. However, spiritual strength requires fasting more often than just when you have big problems. Fasting gives spiritual strength, helping to avoid big problems.

WEB Matt 17
14) When they came to the multitude, a man came to him, kneeling down to him, saying,
15) “Lord, have mercy on my son, for he is epileptic, and suffers grievously; for he often falls into the fire, and often into the water.
16) So I brought him to your disciples, and they could not cure him.”
17) Yeshua answered, “Faithless and perverse generation! How long will I be with you? How long will I bear with you? Bring him here to me.”
18) Yeshua rebuked him, the demon went out of him, and the boy was cured from that hour.
19) Then the disciples came to Yeshua privately, and said, “Why weren’t we able to cast it out?”
20) He said to them, “Because of your unbelief. For most certainly I tell you, if you have faith as a grain of mustard seed, you will tell this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move; and nothing will be impossible for you.
21) But this kind doesn’t go out except by prayer and fasting.”

This is a spiritual principle: prayer and fasting give spiritual strength. On a fast day, you have more time for prayer, study and contemplation.

And the converse? Lack of prayer and fasting cause spiritual weakness.

Cornelius was a Gentile Roman soldier. During one of his fasts, and apparently he fasted regularly, he had a vision from God.

WEB Acts 10
30) Cornelius said, “Four days ago, I was fasting until this hour, and at the ninth hour, I prayed in my house, and behold, a man stood before me in bright clothing,
31) and said, ‘Cornelius, your prayer is heard, and your gifts to the needy are remembered in the sight of God.

The apostle Paul began his service to Christ with fasting when he was struck blind. Guess what? He didn’t stop then.

WEB 2 Cor 11
24) Five times from the Jews I received forty stripes minus one.
25) Three times I was beaten with rods. Once I was stoned. Three times I suffered shipwreck. I have been a night and a day in the deep.
26) I have been in travels often, perils of rivers, perils of robbers, perils from my countrymen, perils from the Gentiles, perils in the city, perils in the wilderness, perils in the sea, perils among false brothers;
27) in labor and travail, in watchings often, in hunger and thirst, in fastings often, and in cold and nakedness.

See all the things that Paul had to humble him! 39 stripes 5 times – that’s 195 stripes with a whip! He also had three rod beatings, the number of stripes not mentioned. People tried to kill him with rocks. He was in three shipwrecks. He also had a day and a night float trip – with no boat!

And with all that suffering to humble him, what did Paul do?

“…in fastings often.”

He was hungry and thirsty a lot, anyway. So why did he fast?

To get his ‘self’ out of God’s way.

Paul had a thorn in the flesh that Christ refused to remove.

Why?

Simply to keep Paul’s self more selfless. And on top of that, Paul added “fastings often.”

Love and coddle Christians have a hard time understanding why God requires His people to be afflicted. Wasn’t Paul doing a great job? “Good job, Paul! Here, have a Big Mac and take it easy!”

Indulging the self does not build the character to overcome the self. Fasting – if done humbly and hungrily — can.

Humbly — not to show how righteous you are, but because you know how righteous you aren’t.

Hungrily — not just for food, but hungry for the spirit of the Creator.

Bible study is God talking to you with His words. Prayer is you talking to God with your words. And fasting is becoming more like God, because you’re giving up your self. To fast is to deny your self and that is one of the greatest lessons in life.

WEB Mark 8:34
He called the multitude to himself with his disciples, and said to them, “Whoever wants to come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me.

To be a follower of Christ, not just in name but in reality, you have to deny yourself. You have to come out of the world’s ways, days and praise. You have to bless when people insult you. You may even have to give up your life, just for the name of Yeshua. You have to deny yourself.

Even Yeshua had to deny Himself.

WEB Matt 26
31) Then Yeshua said to them, “All of you will be made to stumble because of me tonight, for it is written, ‘I will strike the shepherd, and the sheep of the flock will be scattered.’
32) But after I am raised up, I will go before you into Galilee.”
33) But Peter answered him, “Even if all will be made to stumble because of you, I will never be made to stumble.”
34) Yeshua said to him, “Most certainly I tell you that tonight, before the rooster crows, you will deny me three times.”
35) Peter said to him, “Even if I must die with you, I will not deny you.” All of the disciples also said likewise.
36) Then Yeshua came with them to a place called Gethsemane, and said to his disciples, “Sit here, while I go there and pray.”
37) He took with him Peter and the two sons of Zebedee, and began to be sorrowful and severely troubled.
38) Then he said to them, “My soul is exceedingly sorrowful, even to death. Stay here, and watch with me.”
39) He went forward a little, fell on his face, and prayed, saying, “My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass away from me; nevertheless, not what I desire, but what you desire.”
40) He came to the disciples, and found them sleeping, and said to Peter, “What, couldn’t you watch with me for one hour?
41) Watch and pray, that you don’t enter into temptation. The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak.”
42) Again, a second time he went away, and prayed, saying, “My Father, if this cup can’t pass away from me unless I drink it, your desire be done.”
43) He came again and found them sleeping, for their eyes were heavy.
44) He left them again, went away, and prayed a third time, saying the same words.

“…your desire be done.” Or as the King James Version puts it, “thy will be done.”

The great problem with any person is himself. True, Christians have to fight the world and they have to fight the spiritual pull of Satan in this world. Yet the greatest fight for any person is the battle to overcome self-love.

Christ told all the seven assemblies in Asia to overcome.

Rev 2:7 – To him who overcomes I will give to eat of the tree of life, which is in the Paradise of my God.

Rev 2:11 – He who overcomes won’t be harmed by the second death.

Rev 2:17 – To him who overcomes, to him I will give of the hidden manna, and I will give him a white stone, and on the stone a new name written, which no one knows but he who receives it.

Rev 2:26 – He who overcomes, and he who keeps my works to the end, to him I will give authority over the nations.

Rev 3:5 – He who overcomes will be arrayed in white garments, and I will in no way blot his name out of the book of life, and I will confess his name before my Father, and before his angels.

Rev 3:12 – He who overcomes, I will make him a pillar in the temple of my God, and he will go out from there no more.

Rev 3:21 – He who overcomes, I will give to him to sit down with me on my throne, as I also overcame, and sat down with my Father on his throne.

How did Christ overcome? He had to battle Satan, He had to withstand attacks from the Pharisees, and He had to face death for doing nothing wrong. Most of all, He had to overcome his natural desire to put His self first.

Yeshua taught us not to pray to show off and not to fast to show off. And He said that when you do something good —

WEB Matt 6
1) “Be careful that you don’t do your charitable giving before men, to be seen by them, or else you have no reward from your Father who is in heaven.
2) Therefore when you do merciful deeds, don’t sound a trumpet before yourself, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, that they may get glory from men. Most certainly I tell you, they have received their reward.
3) But when you do merciful deeds, don’t let your left hand know what your right hand does,
4) so that your merciful deeds may be in secret, then your Father who sees in secret will reward you openly.

He said that when you do something good — don’t even let your left hand know what your right hand did! Why? To avoid that inherent love and exaltation of the self.

Yeshua pointed out those things in religion – public prayers, show-off fasting, ostentatious alms, chief religious positions — that are used to exalt the self. In fact, most religion is used for the exaltation of the religionists. The Pharisees were the penultimate example of this, but far from the only one. After all, they weren’t the only ones with human nature.

It may be that religion is the single most common means of self exaltation. Yes, wealth is used for exalting, but most people simply aren’t rich. But anybody can get in a religious group and show off how righteous they are, by their religious trappings, mannerisms, and presumptive talk about love and relationships, with the presumption being that they are the perfect examples.

That’s why fasting cuts to the core of self love. Fasting is denying yourself, a lesson for what you have to do with your whole life.

People who love themselves hate being uncomfortable, and fasting is affliction. Over and over I have seen where an individual or family or group was facing a daunting problem, and the suggestion is made — “Let’s have a fast day for them!” Then many of those vocally loving and supportive Christians have this reaction: “Whoa! I don’t wanna do that!”

Faith fakers don’t fast. They don’t study fasting, they don’t give or listen to sermons about it, and their physiques often deny it. Love and coddle Christians don’t offend people, they don’t make a stand against sin, and they don’t fast.

At least not often.

Paul said that he was “in fastings often.” So how often is often?

We have cited prayer examples in the Bible, where David and Daniel prayed three times a day, but there are no real Bible examples of how often to fast. The Pharisees said they fasted twice in the week. Some Pharisees became Christians and historically some early Christians also fasted twice a week. It would not seem that Paul, on his laborious trips, fasted that often, but he did fast often. So no Bible guide is given of how often to fast, but Christ said His followers will fast. That means Christ’s followers will have a regular routine of fasting.

Often.

So how often is often?

Certainly fasting once a year on Atonement is not often. That’s minimal, fasting only on the commanded day.

Adding a fast or two during a personal crisis is not often. That’s fasting only when you really need something.

Fasting a few times a year, every few months, still seems more sporadic than often. Fasting every month seems often. Fasting every week seems diligent, for a person who is hungrily seeking God.

Whatever often is, Christ’s followers need to fast often.

Fasting is physically going hungry because you have a spiritual hunger. That’s the only motivation that will carry you through to fasting often. Not because you’re commanded to, but because you’re personally driven, with your whole heart, to seek God.

WEB Ps 143
6) I spread forth my hands to you. My soul thirsts for you, like a parched land. Selah.

WEB Isa 55
1) “Come, everyone who thirsts, to the waters! Come, he who has no money, buy, and eat! Yes, come, buy wine and milk without money and without price.
2) Why do you spend money for that which is not bread? and your labor for that which doesn’t satisfy? listen diligently to me, and eat you that which is good, and let your soul delight itself in fatness.

WEB Matt 5
6) Blessed are those who hunger and thirst after righteousness, for they shall be filled.

Fasting is the third leg of the three legged spiritual stool and fasting is the leg that’s most often cut off.

Why?

Well, people have their reasons!

Hey, we can always find good reasons not to fast!

The typical American schedule is dedicated to keep you from being dedicated to God. That’s no accident! Fasting does not easily fit into a work schedule. You can pray and study in mornings and evenings before and after work; with diligent effort, you can fit that into a work schedule. But fasting is an all day deal, and in the last few hours of a fast day, you’re not going to get much physical work done if you try. Nor should you, because fasting is a time to focus on faith. So fast days have to be planned and scheduled, and because of that, fasting takes even more commitment than Bible study and prayer. You may have to change your whole lifestyle just to be able to fast often.

Yet if you will be a follower of the Messiah, you will do whatever it takes to fast often. This leg of the three legged stool is the one most often sawed off and if you cut off that third leg, you’re sitting on a two legged stool. Good luck with that!

On the other hand, fast days, even though they are days of affliction, can be some of your best days, when you are most out of the way, and that lets you get most in The Way.

Not fasting today is a deathly spiritual mistake. Satan is going to and fro, seeking whom he may devour, perhaps now more than he ever has. No Christian will make it through this end time on his own strength. Only with great spiritual strength directly from God will we persevere through this terribly increasing period of demonic deception. That necessary spiritual strength will come only with prayer and fasting –

Regular fasting.

Often.

The End Time Church: From the Cathedrals to the Catacombs

By Dan L. White

Copyright ©2018 by Dan L. White, all rights reserved.

Scripture quotations are from the World English Bible (WEB) which is in the public domain.

Chapter 51

Consistent, Persistent, Insistent

I remember taking Driver Ed in high school on the mountain roads of West Virginia. When the instructor took us out for our first drive, he gave us some precautionary advice.

“Don’t drive over the side of the mountain.”

So before the teacher taught us how to drive, he told us how not to drive.

And when Christ told us how to pray, He began by telling us how not to pray.

WEB Matt 23
12) Whoever exalts himself will be humbled, and whoever humbles himself will be exalted.
13) “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you devour widows’ houses, and as a pretense you make long prayers. Therefore you will receive greater condemnation.

WEB Luke 20
46) “Beware of the scribes, who like to walk in long robes, and love greetings in the marketplaces, the best seats in the synagogues, and the best places at feasts;
47) who devour widows’ houses, and for a pretense make long prayers: these will receive greater condemnation.”

Scribes and Pharisees had pretended, long-winded prayers. Their prayers were to be heard by people, not by God.

WEB Matt 6
5) “When you pray, you shall not be as the hypocrites, for they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and in the corners of the streets, that they may be seen by men. Most certainly, I tell you, they have received their reward.
6) But you, when you pray, enter into your inner room, and having shut your door, pray to your Father who is in secret, and your Father who sees in secret will reward you openly.

Gentiles also liked long prayers, with much speaking. They weren’t praying to the true God so they didn’t even bother coming up with original words. They just kept repeating the same words over and over.

WEB Matt 6
7) In praying, don’t use vain repetitions, as the Gentiles do; for they think that they will be heard for their much speaking.
8) Therefore don’t be like them, for your Father knows what things you need, before you ask him.

That’s why prayers don’t have to be long-winded. Your Father knows what you need before you ask Him. And He has a really good memory, so you don’t have to keep repeating what you say, with vain repetitions.

Yeshua taught, then, that prayers don’t have to be long, they shouldn’t be showy, and you should actually mean what you say. Then He went on to give an example prayer.

WEB Matt 6
9) Pray like this: ‘Our Father in heaven, may your name be kept holy.
10) Let your Kingdom come. Let your will be done, as in heaven, so on earth.
11) Give us today our daily bread.
12) Forgive us our debts, as we also forgive our debtors.
13) Bring us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one. For yours is the Kingdom, the power, and the glory forever. Amen.’

That English translation of Christ’s teaching prayer has 70 words, including the Amen at the end.

Of course that’s not exactly the same number as in the original Greek, but in either language, that’s not a long prayer.

WEB Eccl 5
2) Don’t be rash with your mouth, and don’t let your heart be hasty to utter anything before God; for God is in heaven, and you on earth. Therefore let your words be few.
3) For as a dream comes with a multitude of cares, so a fool’s speech with a multitude of words.

What have people often done with Christ’s example prayer? They have turned it into a Gentile prayer, by repeating it over and over. But at least they haven’t made it long-winded.

Yeshua told us how not to pray. Then He showed us how to pray. And the Bible teaches us about prayer, with real life prayers by real people.

Some prayers were very short.

Like Hannah’s —

Elkanah had two wives: Peninnah who had kids, and Hannah who didn’t. Prolific Peninnah persecuted barren Hannah.

WEB 1 Sam 1
4) When the day came that Elkanah sacrificed, he gave to Peninnah his wife, and to all her sons and her daughters, portions:
5) but to Hannah he gave a double portion; for he loved Hannah, but Yahweh had shut up her womb.
6) Her rival provoked her severely, to make her fret, because Yahweh had shut up her womb.

Finally, sad Hannah prayed this prayer.

WEB 1 Sam 1
10) She [Hannah] was in bitterness of soul, and prayed to Yahweh, and wept bitterly.
11) She vowed a vow, and said, “Yahweh of Armies, if you will indeed look on the affliction of your handmaid, and remember me, and not forget your handmaid, but will give to your handmaid a boy, then I will give him to Yahweh all the days of his life, and no razor shall come on his head.”

That prayer was only a few seconds long but traveled a long way.

WEB 1 Sam 1
19) They rose up in the morning early, and worshiped before Yahweh, and returned, and came to their house to Ramah: and Elkanah knew Hannah his wife; and Yahweh remembered her.
20) It happened, when the time had come, that Hannah conceived, and bore a son; and she named him Samuel, saying, “Because I have asked him of Yahweh.”

Hezekiah —

Shortly after they had conquered the northern kingdom of Israel and carried off its people, the Assyrians surrounded Jerusalem and sent King Hezekiah a letter, threatening to do the same to Judah. Hezekiah then forwarded their letter, not with snail mail or email, but with p-mail.

WEB 2 Kgs 19
14) Hezekiah received the letter from the hand of the messengers, and read it. Then Hezekiah went up to the house of Yahweh, and spread it before Yahweh.
15) Hezekiah prayed before Yahweh, and said, “Yahweh, the God of Israel, who sit above the cherubim, you are the God, even you alone, of all the kingdoms of the earth. You have made heaven and earth.
16) Incline your ear, Yahweh, and hear. Open your eyes, Yahweh, and see. Hear the words of Sennacherib, with which he has sent to defy the living God.
17) Truly, Yahweh, the kings of Assyria have laid waste the nations and their lands,
18) and have cast their gods into the fire; for they were no gods, but the work of men’s hands, wood and stone. Therefore they have destroyed them.
19) Now therefore, Yahweh our God, save us, I beg you, out of his hand, that all the kingdoms of the earth may know that you, Yahweh, are God alone.”
20) Then Isaiah the son of Amoz sent to Hezekiah, saying, “Thus says Yahweh, the God of Israel, ‘Whereas you have prayed to me against Sennacherib king of Assyria, I have heard you.

Again, not a long prayer, but full of meaning.

Hezekiah also had a terminal illness.

WEB 2 Kgs 20
1) In those days was Hezekiah sick to death. Isaiah the prophet the son of Amoz came to him, and said to him, “Thus says Yahweh, ‘Set your house in order; for you shall die, and not live.’”
2) Then he turned his face to the wall, and prayed to Yahweh, saying,
3) “Remember now, Yahweh, I beg you, how I have walked before you in truth and with a perfect heart, and have done that which is good in your sight.” Hezekiah wept bitterly.

As Hannah had done, Hezekiah wept bitterly. He was only thirty-five years old, facing death.

4) It happened, before Isaiah had gone out into the middle part of the city, that the word of Yahweh came to him, saying,
5) “Turn back, and tell Hezekiah the prince of my people, ‘Thus says Yahweh, the God of David your father, “I have heard your prayer. I have seen your tears. Behold, I will heal you. On the third day, you shall go up to the house of Yahweh.
6) I will add to your days fifteen years. I will deliver you and this city out of the hand of the king of Assyria. I will defend this city for my own sake, and for my servant David’s sake.”’”

When a person weeps bitterly, his or her prayers are the opposite of a Gentile vain repetition.

Elijah —

Elijah did not weep bitterly, even though the prophets of Baal outnumbered him 450 to 1.

WEB 1 Kgs 18

26) They took the bull which was given them, and they dressed it, and called on the name of Baal from morning even until noon, saying, Baal, hear us. But there was no voice, nor any who answered. They leaped about the altar which was made.
27) It happened at noon, that Elijah mocked them, and said, “Cry aloud; for he is a god. Either he is musing, or he has gone aside, or he is on a journey, or perhaps he sleeps and must be awakened.”
28) They cried aloud, and cut themselves in their way with knives and lances, until the blood gushed out on them.
29) It was so, when midday was past, that they prophesied until the time of the offering of the offering; but there was neither voice, nor any to answer, nor any who regarded.
30) Elijah said to all the people, “Come near to me;” and all the people came near to him. He repaired the altar of Yahweh that was thrown down.
31) Elijah took twelve stones, according to the number of the tribes of the sons of Jacob, to whom the word of Yahweh came, saying, “Israel shall be your name.”
32) With the stones he built an altar in the name of Yahweh. He made a trench around the altar, large enough to contain two measures of seed.
33) He put the wood in order, and cut the bull in pieces, and laid it on the wood. He said, “Fill four jars with water, and pour it on the burnt offering, and on the wood.”
34) He said, “Do it a second time;” and they did it the second time. He said, “Do it a third time;” and they did it the third time.
35) The water ran around the altar; and he also filled the trench with water.

You gotta admit that the Baal boys worked hard, praying to Baal all day long, jumping up and down and screaming and gashing themselves. The long-winded Pharisees had nothing on these guys.

By contrast, though, Elijah did this.

36) It happened at the time of the offering of the offering, that Elijah the prophet came near, and said, “Yahweh, the God of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Israel, let it be known this day that you are God in Israel, and that I am your servant, and that I have done all these things at your word.
37) Hear me, Yahweh, hear me, that this people may know that you, Yahweh, are God, and that you have turned their heart back again.”
38) Then the fire of Yahweh fell, and consumed the burnt offering, and the wood, and the stones, and the dust, and licked up the water that was in the trench.
39) When all the people saw it, they fell on their faces. They said, “Yahweh, he is God! Yahweh, he is God!”

After that, Elijah asked Yahweh to end the 42 month drought.

WEB 1 Kgs 18
41) Elijah said to Ahab, “Get up, eat and drink; for there is the sound of abundance of rain.”
42) So Ahab went up to eat and to drink. Elijah went up to the top of Carmel; and he bowed himself down on the earth, and put his face between his knees.
43) He said to his servant, “Go up now, look toward the sea.” He went up, and looked, and said, “There is nothing.” He said, “Go again” seven times.
44) It happened at the seventh time, that he said, “Behold, a small cloud, like a man’s hand, is rising out of the sea.” He said, “Go up, tell Ahab, ‘Get ready and go down, so that the rain doesn’t stop you.’”
45) It happened in a little while, that the sky grew black with clouds and wind, and there was a great rain. Ahab rode, and went to Jezreel.

James connected Ahab’s rain with your pain.

WEB Jas 5
14) Is any among you sick? Let him call for the elders of the assembly, and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord,
15) and the prayer of faith will heal him who is sick, and the Lord will raise him up. If he has committed sins, he will be forgiven.
16) Confess your offenses to one another, and pray for one another, that you may be healed. The insistent prayer of a righteous person is powerfully effective.
17) Elijah was a man with a nature like ours, and he prayed earnestly that it might not rain, and it didn’t rain on the earth for three years and six months.
18) He prayed again, and the sky gave rain, and the earth brought forth its fruit.

The familiar King James renders verse 16 as “The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much.” The World English Bible calls that prayer “insistent.”

Obviously people who wept bitterly were fervent, but joyful prayers can also be fervent.

Solomon —

Solomon prayed a fervent prayer of gratitude at the dedication of the Temple.

WEB 1 Kgs 8
22) Solomon stood before the altar of Yahweh in the presence of all the assembly of Israel, and spread forth his hands toward heaven;
23) and he said, “Yahweh, the God of Israel, there is no God like you, in heaven above, or on earth beneath; who keep covenant and loving kindness with your servants, who walk before you with all their heart;
24) who have kept with your servant David my father that which you promised him. Yes, you spoke with your mouth, and have fulfilled it with your hand, as it is this day.
25) Now therefore, may Yahweh, the God of Israel, keep with your servant David my father that which you have promised him, saying, ‘There shall not fail you a man in my sight to sit on the throne of Israel, if only your children take heed to their way, to walk before me as you have walked before me.’
26) “Now therefore, God of Israel, please let your word be verified, which you spoke to your servant David my father.
27) But will God in very deed dwell on the earth? Behold, heaven and the heaven of heavens can’t contain you; how much less this house that I have built!
28) Yet have respect for the prayer of your servant, and for his supplication, Yahweh my God, to listen to the cry and to the prayer which your servant prays before you this day;
29) that your eyes may be open toward this house night and day, even toward the place of which you have said, ‘My name shall be there;’ to listen to the prayer which your servant shall pray toward this place.
30) Listen to the supplication of your servant, and of your people Israel, when they shall pray toward this place. Yes, hear in heaven, your dwelling place; and when you hear, forgive.

Solomon went on asking Yahweh in several different ways to be with His people, and then concluded:

51) (for they are your people, and your inheritance, which you brought out of Egypt, from the midst of the furnace of iron);
52) that your eyes may be open to the supplication of your servant, and to the supplication of your people Israel, to listen to them whenever they cry to you.
53) For you separated them from among all the peoples of the earth, to be your inheritance, as you spoke by Moses your servant, when you brought our fathers out of Egypt, Lord Yahweh.”
54) It was so, that when Solomon had made an end of praying all this prayer and supplication to Yahweh, he arose from before the altar of Yahweh, from kneeling on his knees with his hands spread forth toward heaven.

What a great position for a powerful king: kneeling with his hands spread toward heaven. Solomon began his prayer by standing but ended by kneeling. All the people could hear, and it was for those people that he prayed. That public prayer was longer than those of Hannah and Hezekiah, about ten minutes or so, but Solomon obviously meant every word he said.

At least Yahweh thought so.

WEB 1 Kgs 9
3) Yahweh said to him, “I have heard your prayer and your supplication, that you have made before me. I have made this house holy, which you have built, to put my name there forever; and my eyes and my heart shall be there perpetually.

Nehemiah —

The most fervent prayers are often at times of repentance. When Nehemiah heard how bad things were in Jerusalem, he wept like Hannah and Hezekiah.

WEB Neh 1
4) It happened, when I heard these words, that I sat down and wept, and mourned certain days; and I fasted and prayed before the God of heaven,
5) and said, “I beg you, Yahweh, the God of heaven, the great and awesome God, who keeps covenant and loving kindness with those who love him and keep his commandments:
6) Let your ear now be attentive, and your eyes open, that you may listen to the prayer of your servant, which I pray before you at this time, day and night, for the children of Israel your servants while I confess the sins of the children of Israel, which we have sinned against you. Yes, I and my father’s house have sinned.
7) We have dealt very corruptly against you, and have not kept the commandments, nor the statutes, nor the ordinances, which you commanded your servant Moses.
8) “Remember, I beg you, the word that you commanded your servant Moses, saying, ‘If you trespass, I will scatter you abroad among the peoples;
9) but if you return to me, and keep my commandments and do them, though your outcasts were in the uttermost part of the heavens, yet will I gather them from there, and will bring them to the place that I have chosen, to cause my name to dwell there.’
10) “Now these are your servants and your people, whom you have redeemed by your great power, and by your strong hand.
11) Lord, I beg you, let your ear be attentive now to the prayer of your servant, and to the prayer of your servants, who delight to fear your name; and please prosper your servant this day, and grant him mercy in the sight of this man.” Now I was cup bearer to the king.

Notice that Nehemiah included himself with sinning Judah, although he hadn’t sinned like them. After that prayer, God granted Nehemiah the king’s favor to go back to Jerusalem.

Ezra –

Those captives who returned from exile soon began doing the same sins that led to the exile. When Ezra the priest learned of this, he tore his garment and his robe, pulled out hair from his head and his beard, and sat down downright confounded. Then he prayed this breathtakingly humble prayer, his face too blushed to even look up to God, even though he had not done those sins himself. Humility in prayer!

WEB Ezra 9
1) Now when these things were done, the princes drew near to me, saying, “The people of Israel, and the priests and the Levites, have not separated themselves from the peoples of the lands, following their abominations, even those of the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Jebusites, the Ammonites, the Moabites, the Egyptians, and the Amorites.
2) For they have taken of their daughters for themselves and for their sons, so that the holy seed have mixed themselves with the peoples of the lands. Yes, the hand of the princes and rulers has been chief in this trespass.”
3) When I heard this thing, I tore my garment and my robe, and plucked off the hair of my head and of my beard, and sat down confounded.
4) Then were assembled to me everyone who trembled at the words of the God of Israel, because of their trespass of the captivity; and I sat confounded until the evening offering.
5) At the evening offering I arose up from my humiliation, even with my garment and my robe torn; and I fell on my knees, and spread out my hands to Yahweh my God;
6) and I said, “My God, I am ashamed and blush to lift up my face to you, my God; for our iniquities have increased over our head, and our guiltiness has grown up to the heavens.
7) Since the days of our fathers we have been exceeding guilty to this day; and for our iniquities we, our kings, and our priests, have been delivered into the hand of the kings of the lands, to the sword, to captivity, to plunder, and to confusion of face, as it is this day.
8) Now for a little moment grace has been shown from Yahweh our God, to leave us a remnant to escape, and to give us a nail in his holy place, that our God may lighten our eyes, and give us a little reviving in our bondage.
9) For we are bondservants; yet our God has not forsaken us in our bondage, but has extended loving kindness to us in the sight of the kings of Persia, to give us a reviving, to set up the house of our God, and to repair its ruins, and to give us a wall in Judah and in Jerusalem.
10) “Now, our God, what shall we say after this? For we have forsaken your commandments,
11) which you have commanded by your servants the prophets, saying, ‘The land, to which you go to possess it, is an unclean land through the uncleanness of the peoples of the lands, through their abominations, which have filled it from one end to another with their filthiness.
12) Now therefore don’t give your daughters to their sons, neither take their daughters to your sons, nor seek their peace or their prosperity forever; that you may be strong, and eat the good of the land, and leave it for an inheritance to your children forever.’
13) “After all that has come on us for our evil deeds, and for our great guilt, since you, our God, have punished us less than our iniquities deserve, and have given us such a remnant,
14) shall we again break your commandments, and join in affinity with the peoples that do these abominations? Wouldn’t you be angry with us until you had consumed us, so that there should be no remnant, nor any to escape?
15) Yahweh, the God of Israel, you are righteous; for we are left a remnant that has escaped, as it is this day. Behold, we are before you in our guiltiness; for none can stand before you because of this.”

Those Jews who were guilty of those sins joined in Ezra’s repentance and were granted pardon by Yahweh.

Daniel —

Daniel prayed a prayer similar to Ezra’s, in that he was personally extremely repentant, even though he had not sinned as the Jews had.

WEB Dan 9
1) In the first year of Darius the son of Ahasuerus, of the seed of the Medes, who was made king over the realm of the Chaldeans,
2) in the first year of his reign I, Daniel, understood by the books the number of the years about which the word of Yahweh came to Jeremiah the prophet, for the accomplishing of the desolations of Jerusalem, even seventy years.
3) I set my face to the Lord God, to seek by prayer and petitions, with fasting and sackcloth and ashes.

Amazingly, this was near the time when Judah would return from their captivity. The 70 years were about up but Daniel was anything but cocky.

4) I prayed to Yahweh my God, and made confession, and said, Oh, Lord, the great and dreadful God, who keeps covenant and loving kindness with those who love him and keep his commandments,
5) we have sinned, and have dealt perversely, and have done wickedly, and have rebelled, even turning aside from your precepts and from your ordinances;
6) neither have we listened to your servants the prophets, who spoke in your name to our kings, our princes, and our fathers, and to all the people of the land.
7) Lord, righteousness belongs to you, but to us confusion of face, as at this day; to the men of Judah, and to the inhabitants of Jerusalem, and to all Israel, who are near, and who are far off, through all the countries where you have driven them, because of their trespass that they have trespassed against you.
8) Lord, to us belongs confusion of face, to our kings, to our princes, and to our fathers, because we have sinned against you.
9) To the Lord our God belong mercies and forgiveness; for we have rebelled against him;
10) neither have we obeyed the voice of Yahweh our God, to walk in his laws, which he set before us by his servants the prophets.
11) Yes, all Israel have transgressed your law, turning aside, that they should not obey your voice: therefore the curse and the oath written in the law of Moses the servant of God has been poured out on us; for we have sinned against him.
12) He has confirmed his words, which he spoke against us, and against our judges who judged us, by bringing on us a great evil; for under the whole sky, such has not been done as has been done to Jerusalem.
13) As it is written in the law of Moses, all this evil has come on us: yet have we not entreated the favor of Yahweh our God, that we should turn from our iniquities, and have discernment in your truth.
14) Therefore has Yahweh watched over the evil, and brought it on us; for Yahweh our God is righteous in all his works which he does, and we have not obeyed his voice.
15) Now, Lord our God, who has brought your people forth out of the land of Egypt with a mighty hand, and have gotten yourself renown, as at this day; we have sinned, we have done wickedly.
16) Lord, according to all your righteousness, let your anger and please let your wrath be turned away from your city Jerusalem, your holy mountain; because for our sins, and for the iniquities of our fathers, Jerusalem and your people have become a reproach to all who are around us.
17) Now therefore, our God, listen to the prayer of your servant, and to his petitions, and cause your face to shine on your sanctuary that is desolate, for the Lord’s sake.
18) My God, turn your ear, and hear; open your eyes, and see our desolations, and the city which is called by your name: for we do not present our petitions before you for our righteousness, but for your great mercies’ sake.
19) Lord, hear; Lord, forgive; Lord, listen and do; don’t defer, for your own sake, my God, because your city and your people are called by your name.

Lord, hear. Lord, forgive. Lord, listen.

And the Lord and Master did.

20) While I was speaking, and praying, and confessing my sin and the sin of my people Israel, and presenting my supplication before Yahweh my God for the holy mountain of my God;
21) yes, while I was speaking in prayer, the man Gabriel, whom I had seen in the vision at the beginning, being caused to fly swiftly, touched me about the time of the evening offering.
22) He instructed me, and talked with me, and said, Daniel, I am now come forth to give you wisdom and understanding.

Those prayers of Solomon, Nehemiah, Ezra and Daniel were longer than the prayers of Hannah and Hezekiah. They were still each only a few minutes speech, but filled with fervency. And filled with humility. Nehemiah, Ezra and Daniel all included themselves with sinning Judah, although they were obedient men. To be heard, the pray-er must be humble.

WEB Luke 18
10) “Two men went up into the temple to pray; one was a Pharisee, and the other was a tax collector.
11) The Pharisee stood and prayed to himself like this: ‘God, I thank you, that I am not like the rest of men, extortioners, unrighteous, adulterers, or even like this tax collector.
12) I fast twice a week. I give tithes of all that I get.’
13) But the tax collector, standing far away, wouldn’t even lift up his eyes to heaven, but beat his breast, saying, ‘God, be merciful to me, a sinner!’
14) I tell you, this man went down to his house justified rather than the other; for everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but he who humbles himself will be exalted.”

Since prayers are not rote, there is no one routine. Prayer is more a matter of the heart than of the head. Christ’s example prayer was less than a minute long, yet He Himself sometimes prayed for hours.

WEB Luke 6
12) It happened in these days, that he went out to the mountain to pray, and he continued all night in prayer to God.
13) When it was day, he called his disciples, and from them he chose twelve, whom he also named apostles:

Christ Himself gave a relatively long prayer in John 17 on the night when He was taken to be crucified. After talking to his disciples, He talked to His Father in heaven, in a five minute prayer they all heard. Shortly after that, He followed it up with these brief prayers.

WEB Matt 26
36) Then Yeshua came with them to a place called Gethsemane, and said to his disciples, “Sit here, while I go there and pray.”
37) He took with him Peter and the two sons of Zebedee, and began to be sorrowful and severely troubled.
38) Then he said to them, “My soul is exceedingly sorrowful, even to death. Stay here, and watch with me.”
39) He went forward a little, fell on his face, and prayed, saying, “My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass away from me; nevertheless, not what I desire, but what you desire.”
40) He came to the disciples, and found them sleeping, and said to Peter, “What, couldn’t you watch with me for one hour?
41) Watch and pray, that you don’t enter into temptation. The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak.”
42) Again, a second time he went away, and prayed, saying, “My Father, if this cup can’t pass away from me unless I drink it, your desire be done.”
43) He came again and found them sleeping, for their eyes were heavy.
44) He left them again, went away, and prayed a third time, saying the same words.
45) Then he came to his disciples, and said to them, “Sleep on now, and take your rest. Behold, the hour is at hand, and the Son of Man is betrayed into the hands of sinners.

Those prayers are the shortest but most powerful in the Bible.

Prayer is to be consistent, persistent, and insistent.

Daniel’s custom was to pray three times a day.                                                                       

WEB Dan 6
10) When Daniel knew that the writing was signed, he went into his house (now his windows were open in his room toward Jerusalem) and he kneeled on his knees three times a day, and prayed, and gave thanks before his God, as he did before.

13) Then answered they and said before the king, That Daniel, who is of the children of the captivity of Judah, doesn’t respect you, O king, nor the decree that you have signed, but makes his petition three times a day.

It seems that was David’s pattern, too.

WEB Ps 55
17) Evening, morning, and at noon, I will cry out in distress. He will hear my voice.

Sometimes communicating with Yahweh will be just thinking, considering, reflecting. Meditating is a fancy sounding word for all that.

WEB Gen 24
63) Isaac went out to meditate in the field at the evening. He lifted up his eyes, and saw, and, behold, there were camels coming.

The Hebrew word translated as meditate means to muse pensively. The pre-KJV Bishops and Geneva English Bibles said that Isaac went out to pray. The Easy to Read Bible says that “he went out to the field to think,” and the New Evangelistic German translation says that he went out to be alone with his thoughts. To do so is to seek God, whether with words or thoughts or both; and what better time than at twilight.

Praying three times each day is consistent. It’s not easy to do. Your schedule may not allow it, or you get so wrapped up in what you’re doing that you don’t want to get away in the middle of the day. To pray three times a day, your whole life has to be scheduled around that, taking time from whatever seems important for that which is important. Consistent prayer — three times a day.

Persistent —

Samuel said that it would be sin if he stopped praying for Israel.

WEB 1 Sam 12
23) Moreover as for me, far be it from me that I should sin against Yahweh in ceasing to pray for you: but I will instruct you in the good and the right way.

Samuel couldn’t stop praying. He had to be persistent.

Christ had a parable about persistent prayer.

WEB Luke 18
1) He also spoke a parable to them that they must always pray, and not give up,
2) saying, “There was a judge in a certain city who didn’t fear God, and didn’t respect man.
3) A widow was in that city, and she often came to him, saying, ‘Defend me from my adversary!’
4) He wouldn’t for a while, but afterward he said to himself, ‘Though I neither fear God, nor respect man,
5) yet because this widow bothers me, I will defend her, or else she will wear me out by her continual coming.’”

I don’t know if we will wear God out by our continual prayers — He doesn’t tire easily — but at least we can try.

Paul said to be steadfast in prayer. Steadfast — fastened to steadiness.

WEB Col 4
2) Continue steadfastly in prayer, watching therein with thanksgiving;
3) praying together for us also, that God may open to us a door for the word, to speak the mystery of Christ, for which I am also in bonds;
4) that I may reveal it as I ought to speak.

And Paul simply said to pray without ceasing.

WEB 1 Thess 5
16) Rejoice always.
17) Pray without ceasing.
18) In everything give thanks, for this is the will of God in Christ Yeshua toward you.

Persistence is steadiness, not on and off or up and down, but persistent, day after day after day, through weeks and months and years, through a lifetime. Persistent prayer.

Insistent —

For prayer to be meaningful, you must mean it. The prayers of Hannah, Hezekiah, Nehemiah, Ezra, Daniel and Yeshua were fervent. They were insistent about their needs and their lips were moved by their hearts. As James said, “The insistent prayer of a righteous person is powerfully effective.”

The real key to these short prayers is that the speakers were talking to a real being. They were not just fulfilling a religious duty or going through the motions. They were going to the Creator, seeking to be heard by Him — real talk to a real being.

Like Bible study, prayer changes your spirit. It changes who you are. After all, you’re talking to the spirit that sustains everything. He gives you your physical sustenance. He will give you your spiritual sustenance, as you seek it.

Prayer should be consistent, persistent, and insistent.

Do you pray often each day?

Do you pray every day?

And when you pray, do you mean it?

The End Time Church: From the Cathedrals to the Catacombs

By Dan L. White

Copyright ©2018 by Dan L. White, all rights reserved.

Scripture quotations are from the World English Bible (WEB) which is in the public domain.

Chapter 50

Studying God’s Word – 780,000 of Them

What if God spoke to you?

As He did to Samuel.

One evening, tired Eli lay down in the Tabernacle. The night drew on and the darkness grew deeper. Eli could feel the dark as much as he could see it because he was so old, his eyes were dim, and they were tired, too.

The boy Samuel also lay down.

Before Samuel went to sleep, though, he heard –

“Samuel!”

“Here I am!” Samuel answered quickly.

Then he quickly ran to where Eli was and answered again, “Here I am! You called me.”

“I didn’t call you,” Eli responded drowsily. It was late. His eyes could hardly see anything, anyway, when he kept them open, so he wanted to keep them shut. “Lie down again,” he told Samuel.

Samuel lay down again. Then again he heard –

“Samuel!”

Again the boy hurried in to Eli. “Here I am! You called me.”

“I didn’t call, my son. Lie down again,” Eli answered.

But Eli was not quite as sleepy as before.

Samuel went back to bed –

“Samuel!”

That was the third time that Samuel had been called. But that third time Samuel jumped up just as quickly as he had the first time, and the second time, and he ran to Eli the same way, and again he said, “Here I am! You called me.”

Now Eli was wide awake.

He knew that he had not called Samuel.

But someone had called Samuel. Three times.

Who?

The Ark of the Covenant was in the Tabernacle, in the innermost chamber, the Holy of Holies. Inside the Ark of the Covenant were manna, Aaron’s rod that budded, and the Ten Commandment tablets. Above those was the top of the ark, which was the Mercy Seat, Yahweh’s throne.

Eli realized that Yahweh had called Samuel.

Eli was the priest; the older man. Samuel was not a priest; he was just a boy. Yet Yahweh did not call to Eli. He called to the boy Samuel.

Eli was excited, as excited as an old man can get. Yahweh had actually spoken again. The Word of Yahweh was precious in those days. But Eli was also a little sad. God had not spoken to him, but to the boy.

Eli knew what to do, though.

Eli, with his eyes that could barely see, looked Samuel straight in the eye. “Go, lie down,” Eli told Samuel clearly. “If He calls you, then you shall say, Speak, Yahweh; for your servant hears.”

So Samuel went and lay down in his bed –

But he wasn’t sleepy at all! –

…and waited for God to call his name again. He had never spoken directly with Yahweh before. No one he knew had. No, he wasn’t sleepy at all.

But Samuel was an obedient boy. He didn’t run for the door. He didn’t hide under the bed. He just went back and lay down again, a little boy on his little bed.

And lying in his bed, in the dark of night, Samuel quietly waited for God to speak to him.

In his mind, Samuel remembered –

Yahweh had spoken to Noah: “Make an ark of gopher wood!”

Yahweh had spoken to Moses: “Take your sandals off your feet!”

Now Samuel waited for God to speak to him…

. . .

“Samuel!”

“Samuel!”

Samuel served at the Tabernacle. He knew the presence of Yahweh was in the Holy of Holies, in the rear of the big tent. But right then the presence of Yahweh was there, with him, by his little bed.

Samuel really paid attention. He wasn’t bored at all. He did exactly as he had been instructed by old Eli. He didn’t argue. He didn’t run away. He didn’t hide. He just said, “Speak; for your servant hears you.”

Then Yahweh heard Samuel, too.

Yahweh said to Samuel, “Behold, I will do a thing in Israel, at which both the ears of everyone who hears it shall tingle.”

Samuel’s ears were tingling a little already. His whole body felt like it was tingling. But he listened carefully.

Very carefully.

God went on, “In that day I will perform against Eli all that I have spoken concerning his house, from the beginning even to the end. For I have told him that I will judge his house forever, for the iniquity which he knew, because his sons did bring a curse on themselves, and he didn’t restrain them.”

Then Samuel told Eli what Yahweh had said against Eli, and Samuel didn’t have any trouble remembering, because he had paid very close attention when God spoke to him.

What if God spoke to you? Would you pay close attention to His words?

God did give you His words. In fact, more than three quarters of a million of them, in the King James translation.

WEB Ps 12
6) The words of Yahweh are flawless words, as silver refined in a clay furnace, purified seven times.

You can react two ways to those ~780,000 words.

1. That’s a lot of words! I’ll never get through all that!
2. My Creator took the trouble to write me 780,000 words telling me how to live! What a gift!

Just as Israel heard Yahweh’s words at Mt. Sinai directly from His mouth, so the words of the Bible are from the mouth of God.

WEB Deut 8
3) He humbled you, and allowed you to be hungry, and fed you with manna, which you didn’t know, neither did your fathers know; that he might make you know that man does not live by bread only, but man lives by everything that proceeds out of the mouth of Yahweh.

WEB Matt 4
3) The tempter came and said to him, “If you are the Son of God, command that these stones become bread.”
4) But he [Yeshua] answered, “It is written, ‘Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God.’”

The Ten Commandments were spoken by the mouth of God and written with the finger of God. The Bible is written by the spirit of God.

WEB Acts 28
25) When they didn’t agree among themselves, they departed after Paul had spoken one word, “The Holy Spirit spoke rightly through Isaiah, the prophet, to our fathers…

Then Paul quoted from the book of Isaiah, which was the spirit of God speaking through Isaiah.

WEB Mark 12
36) For David himself said in the Holy Spirit, ‘The Lord said to my Lord, “Sit at my right hand, until I make your enemies the footstool of your feet.”’

That’s from Psalm 110, written by the holy spirit through David. The same is true of this example, from Psalm 41:9.

WEB Acts 1
16) “Brothers, it was necessary that this Scripture should be fulfilled, which the Holy Spirit spoke before by the mouth of David concerning Judas, who was guide to those who took Jesus.

And from Psalm 95.

WEB Heb 3
7) Therefore, even as the Holy Spirit says, “Today if you will hear his voice,
8) don’t harden your hearts, as in the rebellion, like as in the day of the trial in the wilderness,

And from Jeremiah 31.

WEB Heb 10
15) The Holy Spirit also testifies to us, for after saying,
16) “This is the covenant that I will make with them: ‘After those days,’ says the Lord, ‘I will put my laws on their heart, I will also write them on their mind;’” then he says,
17) “I will remember their sins and their iniquities no more.”

In the Bible, men of God spoke and wrote as they were directed by the Holy Spirit.

WEB 2 Pet 1
20) knowing this first, that no prophecy of Scripture is of private interpretation.
21) For no prophecy ever came by the will of man: but holy men of God spoke, being moved by the Holy Spirit.

The Bible was written through men by God’s spirit. Those 780,000 words were ultimately written by God Himself.

How precious is it to have the words of God, 780,000 of them, speaking to you?

Back in the days when people did not have a Bible, some were killed trying to change that.

From the article, “Melvyn Bragg on William Tyndale:”
In 1524, [William Tyndale] left England never to return. He led a perilous, often penurious, life finding the means and the time somehow (often helped by family friends in the Cotswolds) to translate the Bible.

…[Tyndale] hunted down printers, he escaped with his life, he saw his work lost and re-did it. This quiet, reclusive English scholar seemed perfectly capable of assuming the character of a 16th-century James Bond. He moved around Germany and the Low Countries, outwitting the spies until a Judas figure from Oxford trapped him. This was Harry Phillips, employed by the Holy Roman Emperor, a wastrel whom Tyndale met in a safe house in Antwerp and took his flattery for friendship.

Eighteen months’ imprisonment followed, during which he practically starved but continued his translation of the Old Testament. Somehow in his exile he managed to find printers bold enough to work with him and the resources to smuggle into London in wine casks and bales of wool the New Testament which had a claim to be one of the founding texts of our language.

The fury of the then Establishment is difficult to credit. The Bishop of London bought up an entire edition of 6,000 copies and burned them on the steps of the old St Paul’s Cathedral. More [Henry VIII’s counselor Sir Thomas More]went after Tyndale’s old friends and tortured them. Richard Byfield, a monk accused of reading Tyndale, was one who died a graphically horrible death as described in Foxe’s Book of Martyrs. More stamped on his ashes and cursed him. And among others there was John Firth, a friend of Tyndale, who was burned so slowly that he was more roasted.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/tvandradio/10096770/Melvyn-Bragg-on-William-Tyndale

Tyndale himself was burned at the stake, although the Church mercifully strangled him first. Those 6000 Tyndale Bibles were burned on the steps of St. Paul’s Cathedral, and today one of three existing copies of Tyndale’s Bible is on display in that cathedral. How precious is that book today? How precious was that book then!

WEB Ps 139
17) How precious to me are your thoughts, God! How vast is their sum!

The word of Yahweh was precious in Eli’s time. They didn’t have it.

WEB 1 Sam 3
1) The child Samuel ministered to Yahweh before Eli. The word of Yahweh was precious in those days; there was no frequent vision.

Yet we have over 780,000 words from God. What will we do with those precious words?

We are not to study the Bible just to exalt ourselves.

I remember listening to a Sabbath keeping evangelist who always spoke on how the Protestants were wrong. Over and over he said, ‘They say that and the Bible says this.’ Basically all his messages were like that. It seemed that the purpose of his years of extensive Bible study was simply to show that somebody else was wrong. Later he changed his view of the Sabbath and I wondered if all his sermons then were to show how Sabbath keepers were wrong.

The Bible does teach right and wrong. As Paul said, “For through the law comes the knowledge of sin,” Rom 3:20. But knowledge alone is not enough, as Paul brought out, and Bible study is not just to gain knowledge.

The Pharisees prided themselves on their scripture knowledge.

WEB John 7
48) Have any of the rulers believed in him, or of the Pharisees?
49) But this multitude that doesn’t know the law is accursed.”
50) Nicodemus (he who came to him by night, being one of them) said to them,
51) “Does our law judge a man, unless it first hears from him personally and knows what he does?”
52) They answered him, “Are you also from Galilee? Search, and see that no prophet has arisen out of Galilee.”

They thought their knowledge of the law made them righteous — this multitude that doesn’t know the law is accursed. The irony is that after all their study to learn what is right and wrong, the Pharisees and Judaism had no idea what is right and wrong. Search, and see that no prophet has arisen out of Galilee, they mocked, yet they missed THE Prophet, who just happened to come from Galilee.

The scribes and Pharisees missed the biggest event in human history. Knowledge of God did not give them God’s wisdom because they did not receive the word with personal repentance and correction.

Modern Christians sometimes take a similar tack, where their religion is an accumulation of knowledge. This “knowledge” may be a collection of doctrine or a supposed understanding of prophecy, and much time is put into repeated study of such “truth,” often to the exaltation of the possessor of such “truth.” This is usually accompanied by ignoring less esoteric Bible teachings, such as caring for widows and orphans. Nobody ever stands up and announces, “I have new Bible truth. Help the widow down the street!” Probably some who consider themselves Bible savants have never helped a widow in their whole lives.

We don’t want to study the Bible just to accumulate knowledge or to puff ourselves up with how much we know, but we must study the Bible.

KJV 2 Tim 2
15) Study to shew thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth.

WEB 2 Tim 2
15) Give diligence to present yourself approved by God, a workman who doesn’t need to be ashamed, properly handling the Word of Truth.

WEB 1 Tim 4
13) Until I come, pay attention to reading, to exhortation, and to teaching.

What is Bible study?

Bible study is reading and studying —

The Bible.

It is not studying what someone says about the Bible. It is not studying prophetic interpretations that someone has about a Bible prophecy. It is not reading books or magazines or commentaries about the Bible. Bible study is reading God’s words, not reading people’s words about God. Bible study is studying only the Bible.

Religions often create other “inspired” works besides the Bible. These “inspired” works are not said to replace the Bible but only to add to it. The Jews did that, as Christ pointed out.

WEB Mark 7
7) But in vain do they worship me, teaching as doctrines the commandments of men.’
8) “For you set aside the commandment of God, and hold tightly to the tradition of men—the washing of pitchers and cups, and you do many other such things.”
9) He said to them, “Full well do you reject the commandment of God, that you may keep your tradition.
10) For Moses said, ‘Honor your father and your mother;’ and, ‘He who speaks evil of father or mother, let him be put to death.’
11) But you say, ‘If a man tells his father or his mother, “Whatever profit you might have received from me is Corban, that is to say, given to God;”’
12) then you no longer allow him to do anything for his father or his mother,
13) making void the word of God by your tradition, which you have handed down. You do many things like this.”

Indeed the basic Jewish religion holds that the Talmud, the writings of the “rabbis” about the Hebrew scriptures, are as inspired as the scriptures themselves.

The Jews, though, were not the only ones to set up extra-biblical works as inspired. You may immediately think of the Book of Mormon, the dozens of books by Ellen G. White, and many other lesser known works that some treat as holy writ. Even if a group does not say a work is holy writ, they often study other writings besides the Bible or instead of the Bible, in effect making the Bible of no effect. This happens often in group Bible lessons, where denominational literature is studied, while scarcely opening the Bible itself. Such Bible lessons are almost always written selectively, only citing verses to support a point and avoiding those verses that deny their point. That’s not Bible study.

Perhaps the most common example of works supplanting the Bible is doctrinal statements. People write doctrinal statements based on what they believe the Bible teaches, then point people to that doctrinal statement instead of directly to the Bible. What they have established as orthodox belief, written by ordinary people, is used over and above the Bible.

In fact, it may be that most Christians use some source other than the Bible — a doctrinal statement, an orthodox position, a prophetic interpretation, or some “inspired” book — as the basis of their belief, while they think they’re following the Bible!

There are no God-written works besides the Bible. God is holy and only He writes holy writ. Therefore Bible study is never reading other “inspired” works. Bible study is studying only the Bible.

People seldom respond to God’s words as Samuel did, when he heard “Samuel…Samuel.” Ironically and unfortunately, human nature often does not want to study the Creator’s instruction book. Those 780,000 words are not seen as precious but as prosaic.

A young Christian man once told me that he couldn’t get interested in reading the Bible. He wasn’t defending himself. He felt that he should study the Bible, but he honestly admitted that he had little interest in doing that.

People who don’t want to fast simply don’t believe that their fasting has any effect. They only see physical hunger, not spiritual growth. It’s the same with Bible study. People who don’t have an interest don’t see the value of absorbing God’s words. They see Bible study as a time consuming duty, not a life giving opportunity.

The predicament of the young Christian man who did not want to study the Bible, even though he knew that he should, is not uncommon. People often fail to see the value of the most valuable things in life.

How can we be interested in reading God’s precious words? How can we be like Samuel: “Speak; for your servant hears you.”

First of all, use a readable translation of the Bible. Many have had their Bible reading invigorated simply by using a Bible they can easily read. Instead of having to wade through the Bible, they read through it. Big difference.

Many American Christians have a strong loyalty to the King James Bible, the Authorized Version. The word “authorized” makes it sound very official, but it was authorized only by King James, not by God. King James authorized his Bible to support the church that he headed, the Church of England, begun by infamous Henry VIII. All the KJV translators were from the king’s church and the king ordered that their translation must support his church. The Pilgrims and Puritans who came to America to worship God as they believed best did not use King James’ Bible because it was his church that persecuted them. They used the earlier Geneva Bible.

Most early English translations were simply lifted from the Tyndale Bible, so they are all very similar in content. The King James is a fine Bible translation, and the biggest problem with it is simply that KJV English is not our English. Archaic language hinders Bible study.

“Wot ye not what the scripture saith of Elias?” Romans 11:2.

Reading that archaic language, you may not even wot who Elias is!

The King James Bible commonly used today is not the original translation of 1611, which used an alphabet of only 25 letters, with no J as in Jesus. A 1769 revision used the 26 letter alphabet and that is the KJV used since then. Its language is more understandable than the 1611 version, but is still much harder to read than a modern translation.

Of course, some believe that the King James Bible was authorized not just by King James but by God, and that God disapproves of using any other English translation. In the same way, I was told by an Amish/Mennonite lady that they should only use the Martin Luther German translation. The 1534 Luther translation preceded the 1611 King James by nearly a century, but even for modern Amish and Mennonites, that is not an easy read.

Christ said that the Sabbath was made for man and not man for the Sabbath. In the same way, the purpose of a Bible translation is to convey the message to the reader. The translation is not an icon or end in itself, only the means to an end. Reading the Bible shouldn’t be like doing penance, where you bloody your knees crawling to some cathedral or get bloodshot eyes from deciphering archaic language. There are a number of modern Bible translations that are at least as accurate as the King James and some that are more so. Using one or more of these helps Bible study.

Another aid to Bible study is — studying the Bible. The more you do, the more you want to.

You recall that when Pharaoh caught Israel at the Red Sea, the cloud gave light to the Israelites but darkness to the Egyptians. This is one of the great principles of life. Seeking God gives light. Shunning God gives darkness. When you earnestly make the effort to study His Word, He will then give you more of a desire to do that. If you don’t want to hear God’s words, He’ll give you that, too — a disdain for His word. You have to roll the ball to get it going, but once underway God will help you roll.

I remember when I had first learned all the guitar chords.

I was in my early teens and had been teaching myself guitar for several years. I figured out the chords myself as I learned, a slow, inefficient process. Finally, when I had figured out the twelve major chords and the twelve minor chords, I thought — ‘That’s it! No more chords to learn!’

Actually, there may be a seemingly infinite number of guitar chords, much more complex than a simple major or minor chord. A little further study led me on to 6^th chords, 7^th chords, 9^th chords, diminished and augmented chords, and such chords as B minor seventh diminished fifth, or Bm7-5. Alas! Sixty years later I have not run out of chords to learn!

Reading the Bible helps give you the desire to read the Bible. No matter how many years you do that, spiritual wisdom can always be gained by exposing yourself to the source of spiritual wisdom. You will never run out of chords to learn or spiritual wisdom to be gained from absorbing God’s words. Never!

The biggest factor in Bible study, though, is to understand who you are and who God is. You ain’t nothing but a fading flower with few years left, no matter how young you are. Your beginning wasn’t that long ago and your end is in sight. On the other hand, Yahweh God Almighty is everything — all life, all creation, all existence, with no beginning and no end.

See the difference?

The Bible is the Word of God, written by the spirit of God, to tell us what God wants. Nothing in life is more important to us than those words.

“Samuel…Samuel!”

Paul told Timothy what studying the scriptures can do for a person.

WEB 2 Tim 3
15) From infancy, you have known the holy Scriptures which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith, which is in Christ Jesus.
16) Every Scripture is God-breathed and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for instruction in righteousness,
17) that the man of God may be complete, thoroughly equipped for every good work.

Yahweh put the breath of life in Adam and His breath is in the words of your Bible — God-breathed. Those words can make us wise for salvation, to teach us, reprove us, correct us, instruct us in righteousness, and make us complete.

To be spiritually complete, cleansed by the washing of the Word.

WEB Eph 5
25) Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the assembly, and gave himself up for it;
26) that he might sanctify it, having cleansed it by the washing of water with the word,

So how do you control the people?

With all powerful kings and emperors and czars who force people to submit? With popes and archbishops and pastors and rabbis who make our spiritual decisions for us?

No. The complete person is thoroughly equipped for every good work. His human nature is under control.

WEB Rom 10
17) So faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.

Bible study can change our spirits. As we read the words written by God’s spirit, we expose ourselves to His spirit. Remember how Moses’ face shone when he came down from Sinai after visiting with Yahweh? A similar thing happens as we expose ourselves to God’s spirit in reading His words, and our spirits begin to shine and change.

Our spirits are naturally self-seeking. We need that drastic change of spirit, to be like Stephen and Peter and Paul, when they were willing to give all for Him who is all in all. Bible study is not just to find some new doctrine or to parse some real or perceived prophecy.

Bible study is to change who you are.

WEB Heb 4
12) For the word of God is living, and active, and sharper than any two-edged sword, and piercing even to the dividing of soul and spirit, of both joints and marrow, and is able to discern the thoughts and intentions of the heart.

Notice what the Word of God does. It pierces to the soul and spirit and discerns the heart.

Whose soul?

Whose heart?

Yours.

Pierced and discerned, when you study the Bible.

You do not study the Bible just to show others where they are wrong. You do not study the Bible just to show how much you know. You do not study the Bible just to find support for your doctrinal statement or your prophetic parsing.

You study the Bible to change who you are, to pierce your soul and spirit and to discern the thoughts and intentions of your deceitful heart. Bible study keeps you from deceiving yourself, if you apply it to yourself and not just to the guy down the road.

By the way —

The devil is against you reading the Bible.

Satan centralized power over American schools. Then with that centralized power, he put God and the Bible out of those schools. With that as his base of power, Satan is now putting God and the Bible out of America altogether. The same pattern prevails throughout the western world.

The devil is against kids learning about the Bible, he is against you reading the Bible, and when you voluntarily don’t read the Bible, you’re doing the devil’s will.

We are approaching the time when those 780,000 words of the Bible will indeed be precious — they won’t be allowed at all. Even as the Bible is not now allowed in America’s left wing schools and in the socialist schools of northern Europe, when the whole world is under an anti-Christ centralized government, controlling all business and religious activity, this book about Christ will be verboten.

How precious will it be then?

How precious is it to you now?

Bible study is to change your spirit that may not even want to find time to read the Bible at all.

The End Time Church: From the Cathedrals to the Catacombs

By Dan L. White

Copyright ©2018 by Dan L. White, all rights reserved.

Scripture quotations are from the World English Bible (WEB) which is in the public domain.

Chapter 49

Three-legged Stool

Why will a three-legged stool sit flat on an uneven floor when a four legged chair won’t?

The site twentytwowords.com in their 658 word article titled, “A mathematical explanation of a 3-legged stool’s complete inability to wobble,” explains why. Here are a few of those 658 words.
https://twentytwowords.com/a-mathematical-explanation-of-a-3-legged-stools-complete-inability-to-wobble/, 9/4/18.

(1) If you hold a cane in the air, you can move it in any direction, twirl it, and so on. Its motion isn’t constrained at all. That is, the top of the cane can move freely in three dimensions.

(2) If you put (and keep) one end on the ground, now its motion is constrained: you can’t lift it, or rotate it… although you can swing the top around in a variety of different arcs. That is, the top of the cane can move freely in two dimensions.

(3) If you connect the tops of two canes together and place the other ends on the ground, you can still move the tops, but only along a single (straight) arc, back and forth. That is, the tops of the canes can move freely in one dimension.

(4) If you try the same trick with three canes, now you can’t move the tops at all. This is basically what’s happening with a three-legged stool. The tops of the canes can move in zero dimensions…which is to say, they can’t.

So since the top of a three-legged stool can’t move in any direction, it doesn’t. A three-legged stool will sit stably on an uneven floor while a four-legged chair won’t.

People have great difficulty living a stable life. How does a person control his human spirit?

With a spiritual three-legged stool.

We have discussed how people naturally have a spirit like Satan instead of like Christ.

Rom 7
22) For I delight in God’s law after the inward man,
23) but I see a different law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity under the law of sin which is in my members.
24) What a wretched man I am! Who will deliver me out of the body of this death?

Even if we want to obey God’s law, our nature gets in the way.

Rom 8
1) There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Yeshua, who don’t walk according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit.
2) For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Yeshua made me free from the law of sin and of death.
3) For what the law couldn’t do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God did, sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh;
4) that the ordinance of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit.
5) For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit, the things of the Spirit.
6) For the mind of the flesh is death, but the mind of the Spirit is life and peace;
7) because the mind of the flesh is hostile towards God; for it is not subject to God’s law, neither indeed can it be.

The way to become like Christ instead of being like Satan is with the Spirit of Christ. For “the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Yeshua” makes us ”free from the law of sin and of death,” Paul said. That spirit can give us a nature of selflessness to replace our natural self-centered nature.

As Stephen had.

Acts 7:53-60
53) You received the law as it was ordained by angels, and didn’t keep it!”
54) Now when they heard these things, they were cut to the heart, and they gnashed at him with their teeth.
55) But he, being full of the Holy Spirit, looked up steadfastly into heaven, and saw the glory of God, and Yeshua standing on the right hand of God,
56) and said, “Behold, I see the heavens opened, and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God!”
57) But they cried out with a loud voice, and stopped their ears, and rushed at him with one accord.
58) They threw him out of the city, and stoned him. The witnesses placed their garments at the feet of a young man named Saul.
59) They stoned Stephen as he called out, saying, “Lord Yeshua, receive my spirit!”
60) He kneeled down, and cried with a loud voice, “Lord, don’t hold this sin against them!” When he had said this, he fell asleep.

Stephen castigated the religious rulers for their carnality, but then when they killed him, he asked that they be forgiven. He did not share their selfish carnality. He had a different spirit.

The natural man does not receive things from God’s spirit. Only when God’s spirit is added to the spirit in man can a person receive spiritual strength from God.

1 Cor 2
11) For who among men knows the things of a man, except the spirit of the man, which is in him? Even so, no one knows the things of God, except God’s Spirit.
12) But we received, not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit which is from God, that we might know the things that were freely given to us by God.
13) Which things also we speak, not in words which man’s wisdom teaches, but which the Holy Spirit teaches, comparing spiritual things with spiritual things.
14) Now the natural man doesn’t receive the things of God’s Spirit, for they are foolishness to him, and he can’t know them, because they are spiritually discerned.

The earliest flock certainly had God’s spirit in abundance.

For instance, Peter’s shadow passed over a man and the man was healed. Peter and Silas were freed from prison when an angel threw the gates open. People were healed just from anointed pieces of cloth sent from Paul. Paul shook a deadly poisonous snake off his arm into the fire with no effect, other than to roast the snake.

And in their common meetings, people spoke with other languages and prophesied.

1 Cor 12
4) Now there are various kinds of gifts, but the same Spirit.
5) There are various kinds of service, and the same Lord.
6) There are various kinds of workings, but the same God, who works all things in all.
7) But to each one is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the profit of all.
8) For to one is given through the Spirit the word of wisdom, and to another the word of knowledge, according to the same Spirit;
9) to another faith, by the same Spirit; and to another gifts of healings, by the same Spirit;
10) and to another workings of miracles; and to another prophecy; and to another discerning of spirits; to another different kinds of languages; and to another the interpretation of languages.
11) But the one and the same Spirit works all of these, distributing to each one separately as he desires.

1 Cor 14
26) What is it then, brothers? When you come together, each one of you has a psalm, has a teaching, has a revelation, has another language, has an interpretation. Let all things be done to build each other up.
27) If any man speaks in another language, let it be two, or at the most three, and in turn; and let one interpret.
28) But if there is no interpreter, let him keep silent in the assembly, and let him speak to himself, and to God.
29) Let the prophets speak, two or three, and let the others discern.
30) But if a revelation is made to another sitting by, let the first keep silent.
31) For you all can prophesy one by one, that all may learn, and all may be exhorted.

Amazingly, their assemblies had a problem trying to keep all their prophets from speaking at once. ‘All right, prophets — line up! Be quiet over there prophet number three — wait your turn!’ Those prophets did not just have an opinion on a Bible verse. They received revelations from God, so many of them that they had to prophesy one by one.

God gave an abundant early rain of His spirit on that earliest group of Christianos, to get the flock off to an energetic start. And there in Corinth, even in their weekly meetings the Spirit of Christ was powerful, with gifts of healings, languages and prophesying.

Yet —

Those Corinthian Christianos, even with all that spiritual power, still had incredible problems of carnality — with the self-seeking human spirit outweighing God’s giving spirit. In chapter 3 of 1 Corinthians they were setting up denominations; in chapter 5 they allowed gross sexual immorality; and in chapter 6 they were suing each other. Even with all the abundant spiritual power that the early flock had, they still needed to seek the spirit of Christ with all their hearts to control their own human spirits.

All those Corinthian problems did not include facing the persecutions of the Jews or the death threats of Nero and Rome. How much more spiritual power did they need when facing that?

As we will soon.

How can we have our own spirits changed, from law breaking to obedient, from naturally selfish to naturally selfless, from putting ourselves first to putting God and others before ourselves?

Paul said, ”the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Yeshua made me free from the law of sin and of death.” Christ’s spirit changes us to be like Him. Yet Paul also said that this spirit given to Christ’s followers is given as an earnest or down payment of the full spirit.

2 Cor 1
21) Now he who establishes us with you in Christ, and anointed us, is God;
22) who also sealed us, and gave us the down payment of the Spirit in our hearts.

2 Cor 5
1) For we know that if the earthly house of our tent is dissolved, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal, in the heavens.
2) For most certainly in this we groan, longing to be clothed with our habitation which is from heaven;
3) if so be that being clothed we will not be found naked.
4) For indeed we who are in this tent do groan, being burdened; not that we desire to be unclothed, but that we desire to be clothed, that what is mortal may be swallowed up by life.
5) Now he who made us for this very thing is God, who also gave to us the down payment of the Spirit.

After that early rain of the spirit came a long dry spell. Miracles were not common, prophets were fake, and people talking in other languages was usually just gibberish. As North American Christianos now come toward the latter times, we again face imminent persecution and torturous trials. As if we don’t have enough problems just dealing daily with our own human natures, with people conflicts, pressures of life, and then facing the end of life! On top of that, to now face persecution just for trying to follow the Son of God means we need to be overwhelmed with the nature and spirit of the Son of God. We flat out need a change of spirit from us to Him, to be able to face conflict without revenge, trials without despair, and death without panic.

God gives us His spirit at our repentance, baptism and laying on of hands, yet we also spend a lifetime trying to grow in that spirit. Elders were old men, having learned from experience and longer spiritual growth. In chapters 2 and 3 of Revelation, seven times Christ said that eternal rewards come to those who overcome, overcome, overcome, overcome, overcome, overcome, overcome. That’s a lifetime of spiritual growth to overcome yourself. This growth is not just head knowledge. It is a dramatic change in the way we are — a change of spirit.

How can my spirit be changed? Even in Corinth during the early rain of the spirit, they still had great problems with human nature. God gives us the down payment of His spirit, but to face life we need a full measure of His spirit.

What can I do to change this spirit? How do I seek God with my whole heart?

Simple. Use a three-legged stool.

Pioneer settlers used three-legged stools instead of chairs with four legs, as in this description of a pioneer log cabin.

Our chimney occupied most of the east end; there were pots and kettles opposite the window under the shelves, a gun on hooks over the north door, four split-bottom chairs, three three-legged stools, and a small eight by ten looking-glass sloped from the wall over a large towel and combcase. Our list of furniture was increased by a clumsy shovel and a pair of tongs, made with one shank straight, which was a certain source of pinches and blood blisters. We had also a spinning-wheel and such things as were necessary to work it. It was absolutely necessary to have three-legged stools, as four legs of anything could not all touch the floor at the same time.
http://www.nationalcenter.org/LogCabin.html

When log cabins had wood floors instead of just dirt, they were generally made of puncheons, which were logs split in half with the flat side turned up. That left big cracks between the uneven sides of the logs and a floor that wasn’t very smooth. Logs don’t split perfectly in half, you know. So settlers preferred three-legged stools to four legged chairs, unless they wanted a four-legged rocking chair. The three-legged stool sat evenly on their uneven floors. They were stable.

Our spirits need to change from being like self-loving Satan to being like Yeshua, who gave Himself up. That means we have to take in the spirit of God, and that means we have to use a three-legged stool to be stable.

What is this three-legged stool?

The three-legged stool for Christianos is studying about God, talking to God, and fasting to become like God.

The stool must have all three legs.

If a stool has just one leg, like studying, the top can move in all directions. If a stool has two legs, like studying and prayer, the seat can move back and forth in one direction. If a stool has three legs, the seat cannot move at all.

The spiritual three-legged stool must have all three legs. You can never be stable sitting on a one or two-legged stool. Studying, praying, and fasting is the three-legged stool that gives spiritual stability to the rocking human spirit.

 

The End Time Church: From the Cathedrals to the Catacombs

By Dan L. White

Copyright ©2017 by Dan L. White, all rights reserved.

Scripture quotations are from the World English Bible (WEB) which is in the public domain.

Chapter 48

A New Heart

Who do you trust more — God or yourself?

Ps 78
10) They didn’t keep God’s covenant, and refused to walk in his law.
11) They forgot his doings, his wondrous works that he had shown them.
12) He did marvelous things in the sight of their fathers, in the land of Egypt, in the field of Zoan.
13) He split the sea, and caused them to pass through. He made the waters stand as a heap.
14) In the daytime he also led them with a cloud, and all night with a light of fire.
15) He split rocks in the wilderness, and gave them drink abundantly as out of the depths.
16) He brought streams also out of the rock, and caused waters to run down like rivers.
17) Yet they still went on to sin against him, to rebel against the Most High in the desert.
18) They tempted God in their heart by asking food according to their desire.
19) Yes, they spoke against God. They said, “Can God prepare a table in the wilderness?
20) Behold, he struck the rock, so that waters gushed out, and streams overflowed. Can he give bread also? Will he provide flesh for his people?”
21) Therefore Yahweh heard, and was angry. A fire was kindled against Jacob, anger also went up against Israel,
22) because they didn’t believe in God, and didn’t trust in his salvation.

Israel trusted themselves more than they trusted God.

“Can God prepare a table in the wilderness?” they mocked. After splitting the sea for them, leading them with cloud and fire, and giving them water from a rock they asked, “Can he give bread also?”

Israel did not trust Yahweh to be their king. How do you trust what you can’t see? So they trusted what they could see – themselves.

That’s normal.

The whole of humanity struggles with this problem. They do not believe a God they can’t see.

The scientific method fails at this point. Scientists trust only what they can see, yet human science is based on what no one has ever seen. Evolution’s founding premise is that life comes from nothing, yet no one has ever known of any life coming from nothing. Charles Darwin thought that life first sprouted from lifeless matter in some little warm pond somewhere. I have a little pond on my forty acres that’s warm much of the year, but I’ve never seen scientists huddling around my little warm pond, hoping to see new life spring up from dead stuff.

So why aren’t they huddled around my pond or any other little warm pond in the world?

Because they know better. They may be scientists but they’re not that dumb.

Their science claims to believe only what they can observe and replicate, yet they wind up believing what no one has ever observed and what no one can replicate. They trust that life comes from nothing yet they cannot bring themselves to trust an invisible God. They can only trust in themselves.

Ps 92
5) How great are your works, Yahweh! Your thoughts are very deep.
6) A senseless man doesn’t know, neither does a fool understand this:

Ironically everything that is visible — all that we see and think of as real, everything that we trust — is not really real.

Heb 11
3) By faith, we understand that the universe has been framed by the word of God, so that what is seen has not been made out of things which are visible.

Everything visible is made out of that which is not visible. All physical matter is like slowed down spirit. Einstein showed that all matter is energy. So everything we see is made up of what you can’t see — energy — including our own physical bodies. That which we believe in most — ourselves — is just an aggregation of agitated atoms wildly whirling away. For a few years, anyway, until we die and fall back into the nitrogen and carbon cycles, cycles that prove a Creator.

Plants take in nitrogen from the soil, you get nitrogen from eating the plant, then eventually you decompose and give the nitrogen back. How green will your grass grow?

Plants breathe in carbon dioxide, use the sun’s energy to make sugar from the carbon, you eat the plant to take in carbon, and then at some point you decompose and give the carbon back to some other living thing.

Decomposing!

That’s mindful of the story where, after his death, Beethoven was seen erasing all his musical scores. “What are you doing?” he was asked. His answer? “Decomposing.”

It’s natural to trust in yourself because you can see yourself. Yet you’re not really real. You’re only a temporary physical apparition, who will pass in the blink of an eye and do the same thing that Beethoven did.

WEB Ps 146:3-4
3) Don’t put your trust in princes, each a son of man in whom there is no help.
4) His spirit departs, and he returns to the earth. In that very day, his thoughts perish.

When Jeremiah said “The heart is deceitful above all things,” self trust is that deception. The heart is “desperately wicked,” KJV, yet it thinks it is good. It tends to trust itself more than it trusts anyone else or even God. We wind up trusting that which is most deceptive, our own natural reactions.

Even in reading that statement, you’re going to wonder if your heart is really deceitful above all things.

Some deception, huh?

WEB Prov 28:26
26) One who trusts in himself is a fool; but one who walks in wisdom is kept safe.

Much of the world dives into this deception of self trust, preaching trust yourself, believe in yourself, whatever you want to do is right for you — then soon they all are decomposing, without ever even understanding why they were composed in the first place.

1Tim 1
17) Now to the King eternal, immortal, invisible, to God who alone is wise, be honor and glory forever and ever. Amen.

To distrust what you can see — yourself — and trust what you can’t see — invisible Almighty God — takes a total change of heart.

This requires nothing less than a miracle, the miracle of the new heart.

A different spirit.

This is not just an intellectual conclusion. This is an internal conviction. When we are facing ridicule and ruin, injury and injustice, persecution and trials, or just the end of life — that takes so much more than mental reasoning. That takes a changed heart. Facing the end of life either early or late, and the end of life always comes way too early, is not just a mental exercise but a test of the heart. At such a moment of stress, your head will not prevail over your heart. The reaction of your heart will rule the reasoning of your mind. You cannot overthink what you feel.

For example, a normal human reaction at the end of life is — controlled panic. People grasp at every straw to prolong life, even with little or no chance of success. Yet when Peter’s tent was ready to fold, Peter was calm and confident.

2Pet 1
10) Therefore, brothers, be more diligent to make your calling and election sure. For if you do these things, you will never stumble.
11) For thus you will be richly supplied with the entrance into the eternal Kingdom of our Lord and Savior, Yeshua Christ.
12) Therefore I will not be negligent to remind you of these things, though you know them, and are established in the present truth.
13) I think it right, as long as I am in this tent, to stir you up by reminding you;
14) knowing that the putting off of my tent comes swiftly, even as our Lord Yeshua Christ made clear to me.
15) Yes, I will make every effort that you may always be able to remember these things even after my departure.

Remember when the soldiers came to apprehend Christ, how Peter had panicked and cut off Malchus’ ear? Yet Peter faced his own martyrdom calmly — “the putting off of my tent comes swiftly,” he boldly wrote.

And when Paul was about to be martyred as he had martyred Stephen, he had anticipation instead of panic.

2Tim 4
6) For I am already being offered, and the time of my departure has come.
7) I have fought the good fight. I have finished the course. I have kept the faith.
8) From now on, there is stored up for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, will give to me on that day; and not to me only, but also to all those who have loved his appearing.

Those were changed hearts, full of faith in God. Unlike Israel, they did trust in God’s salvation.

Moses endured because he saw what can’t be seen. Of course, Moses actually had seen Him once, on Mt. Sinai, for a moment.

Heb 11
24) By faith, Moses, when he had grown up, refused to be called the son of Pharaoh’s daughter,
25) choosing rather to share ill treatment with God’s people, than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a time;
26) accounting the reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures of Egypt; for he looked to the reward.
27) By faith, he left Egypt, not fearing the wrath of the king; for he endured, as seeing him who is invisible.

Moses endured, as if he saw Him who is invisible. That’s called faith.

Heb 11
1) Now faith is assurance of things hoped for, proof of things not seen.

Faith is “proof of things not seen” — following an invisible God.

To trust in God more than yourself, to trust in what you can’t see more than what you can see, takes a whole new heart and that new heart comes only from seeking with the whole heart.

We quote from an earlier chapter.

“Israel didn’t see God because they weren’t really looking for him.

They had no image of Yahweh to look at. They had no human government to control their lives. They were led only by the invisible visible God. However, only by seeking God with their whole heart could they find him.

The whole heart.

Jer 24)
7) I will give them a heart to know me, that I am Yahweh. They will be my people, and I will be their God;   for they will return to me with their whole heart.

Seeking God with the whole heart can never be a halfhearted effort.

Just before Israel entered the Promised Land, Moses told them that in the future they would forsake God and then he would forsake them. After their suffering, though, they would again seek God, and then they would do it with a whole heart.

Deu 4:27-29
Yahweh will scatter you among the peoples, and you will be left few in number among the nations, where Yahweh will lead you away. There you shall serve gods, the work of men’s hands, wood and stone, which neither see, nor hear, nor eat, nor smell. But from there you shall seek Yahweh your God, and you shall find him, when you search after him with all your heart and with all your soul.

Notice — you shall find him, when you search after him with all your heart and with all your soul.

Jeremiah prophesied at the time of the fall of Judah, and he told them that after a long period of captivity, they would again search for God — with all their heart.

Jer 29:10-13
For Yahweh says, “After seventy years are accomplished for Babylon, I will visit you and perform my good word toward you, in causing you to return to this place. For I know the thoughts that I think toward you,” says Yahweh, “thoughts of peace, and not of evil, to give you hope and a future. You shall call on me, and you shall go and pray to me, and I will listen to you. You shall seek me, and find me, when you search for me with all your heart.

Notice — “You shall seek me, and find me, when you search for me with all your heart,” From Chapter 6, “Seeking What You Can’t See — With Your Whole Heart.”

Israel didn’t usually seek with the whole heart. The result was that “they didn’t believe in God, and didn’t trust in his salvation,” because they were left with their own deceitful heart instead of a new heart.

Heb 8
7) For if that first covenant had been faultless, then no place would have been sought for a second.
8) For finding fault with them, he said, “Behold, the days come,” says the Lord, “that I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah;
9) not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers, in the day that I took them by the hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt; for they didn’t continue in my covenant, and I disregarded them,” says the Lord.
10) “For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel. After those days,” says the Lord; “I will put my laws into their mind, I will also write them on their heart. I will be their God, and they will be my people.

This new heart is more than just trying not to break the Ten Commandments. Yeshua never broke the Commandments once or even thought about it, yet He went far beyond that. The Ten Commandments say don’t: don’t kill, don’t adulterize, don’t steal, don’t lie, don’t covet. But Christ prayed for His murderers while they were killing Him. That wasn’t just a mental reaction on His part. That was a conviction of the heart, His innermost feelings poured out with His blood — “Father, forgive them, for they don’t know what they are doing.”

Now do you think your heart will naturally do that? How do you feel when someone insults you, or physically attacks you, or — woe upon woe — disagrees with your religion? Do you yearn with compassion for that person, or do you burn with vengeful passion?

If Israel was to find God only when they sought Him with their whole heart, can New Covenant Israel do less?

You can’t change until you realize that you’re what needs to be changed. Not just what you do but what you are. What you have to repent of is yourself, that one being that you trust more than anyone.

Your heart, your spirit — what you feel inside, the way you react to the tumult of trials, your unplanned reaction to reality — controls your life. Whether you’re facing death, or personal catastrophe, or religious persecution, your heart is your rudder. To rise above natural human self serving reactions, your natural heart has to change. Even if you know in your mind that Yahweh is God, you have to feel it in your heart.

And just as Israel was told to do, you have to seek this new heart with all your heart.

It’s very hard to seek this new heart with all your heart. Why? Because your heart says you don’t need to.

We do need to change.

From looking out for number 1, which is what people normally do —

WEB Matt 26:33-41
33) But Peter answered him, “Even if all will be made to stumble because of you, I will never be made to stumble.”
34) Yeshua said to him, “Most certainly I tell you that tonight, before the rooster crows, you will deny me three times.”
35) Peter said to him, “Even if I must die with you, I will not deny you.” All of the disciples also said likewise.
36) Then Yeshua came with them to a place called Gethsemane, and said to his disciples, “Sit here, while I go there and pray.”
37) He took with him Peter and the two sons of Zebedee, and began to be sorrowful and severely troubled.
38) Then he said to them, “My soul is exceedingly sorrowful, even to death. Stay here, and watch with me.”
39) He went forward a little, fell on his face, and prayed, saying, “My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass away from me; nevertheless, not what I desire, but what you desire.”
40) He came to the disciples, and found them sleeping, and said to Peter, “What, couldn’t you watch with me for one hour?
41) Watch and pray, that you don’t enter into temptation. The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak.”

47) While he was still speaking, behold, Judas, one of the twelve, came, and with him a great multitude with swords and clubs, from the chief priest and elders of the people.
48) Now he who betrayed him gave them a sign, saying, “Whoever I kiss, he is the one. Seize him.”
49) Immediately he came to Yeshua, and said, “Hail, Rabbi!” and kissed him.
50) Yeshua said to him, “Friend, why are you here?” Then they came and laid hands on Yeshua, and took him.
51) Behold, one of those who were with Yeshua stretched out his hand, and drew his sword, and struck the servant of the high priest, and struck off his ear.

WEB Matt 26:69-75
69) Now Peter was sitting outside in the court, and a maid came to him, saying, “You were also with Yeshua, the Galilean!”
70) But he denied it before them all, saying, “I don’t know what you are talking about.”
71) When he had gone out onto the porch, someone else saw him, and said to those who were there, “This man also was with Yeshua of Nazareth.”
72) Again he denied it with an oath, “I don’t know the man.”
73) After a little while those who stood by came and said to Peter, “Surely you are also one of them, for your speech makes you known.”
74) Then he began to curse and to swear, “I don’t know the man!” Immediately the rooster crowed.
75) Peter remembered the word which Yeshua had said to him, “Before the rooster crows, you will deny me three times.” He went out and wept bitterly.

To looking up to Number 1.

WEB Matt 27:27-31
27) Then the governor’s soldiers took Yeshua into the Praetorium, and gathered the whole garrison together against him.
28) They stripped him, and put a scarlet robe on him.
29) They braided a crown of thorns and put it on his head, and a reed in his right hand; and they kneeled down before him, and mocked him, saying, “Hail, King of the Jews!”
30) They spat on him, and took the reed and struck him on the head.
31) When they had mocked him, they took the robe off of him, and put his clothes on him, and led him away to crucify him.

WEB Luke 23:32-34
32) There were also others, two criminals, led with him to be put to death.
33) When they came to the place that is called The Skull, they crucified him there with the criminals, one on the right and the other on the left.
34) Yeshua said, “Father, forgive them, for they don’t know what they are doing...”

You see, that ain’t normal. That’s the heart and spirit we have to seek with all our might.