NOTE EARLIER LIVE STREAM TIME ON SHABBAT:
Due to teaching at our local congregation,
bli neder
, we'll live stream on Shabbat at approximately
at 1:15 pm
Eastern Time. Click
Creation Gospel YouTube Channel to join the live stream on Shabbat.
On the Shabbat live stream, we'll cover:
1. Daniel and his companions' relationship to the warriors of Matot
2. Daniel's prophecy of release from Babylon
3. How not to use the names of Babylonian gods
4. The great blunder of the ten spies and what they overlooked in their looking
5. The prophecy of the captured vessels in Matot
6. Our present relationship to the Land of Israel
We have entered the Straits, the Three Weeks of remembering the calamities that befell Israel on the 9th of Av. It is not so difficult to engage thoughts of those calamities this year, for calamity surrounds us on every side. The world is like a great ship, and all the political and economic scurrying around, as one rabbi said, is only like straightening deck chairs on the Titanic. The ship is broken by problems that are both obvious to and concealed from the eye's natural view.
It is the passengers who must change and prepare to escape the systems that are sinking themselves. Those passengers must seek Adonai, pray, and repent. Babylon means confusion, and confusion rules in exile. As humankind builds their human-centric towers higher and higher, they descend lower and lower spiritually. How do we escape this when Babylon is everywhere?
We turn to Daniel and his companions, our role models for successful Babylonian exile. They wrote the manual on how to live in Babylon, yet come out from among her. In fact, their disciplines of fasting and prayer toward Jerusalem prepared them for both fiery furnace and lion's den! We, too, live in a place that will require us to practice some fasting and fervent prayer, to look toward Jerusalem above in order to increase our faith. As Tisha B'Av approaches, we must be careful not to Babyl On like the ten spies who gave such an evil report on that day.
We're in the Straits, the Three Weeks leading up to Tisha B'Av and the evil report of the ten spies. We remember the destruction of two Temples of Israel for idolatry, hatred among brothers, blood, and sexual licentiousness.
Turn back the clock, and right now the twelve explorers from the tribes of Israel are walking the Land of Israel, deciding what kind of report they will give. Will they fall in love with her the way that Moses has, or will they see only obstacles and imposs
ibilities in the natural realm?
Will they assemble an intelligence report for war, or will they "ascend the mountain" to meet the Bridegroom and let Him worry about the war? We err when we do not know what the Holy One expects of us. The ten spies made a huge blunder when they completely disregarded a vital piece of information that Moses gave them back at Sinai. They didn't understand what they were sent to do. We, too, make huge blunders when we fail to read the instructions carefully and understand our role relative to the Land of Israel. If we don't listen carefully to Moses, then we won't listen carefully to Yeshua. (Lk 16:31) If we handle the Torah sloppily, then most likely we're handling our salvation sloppily.
In this season, if we can't fast, pray, and give a good report, nature itself tells us what we should do. Just say nothing. Bad words in this season lead to national calamity. National calamity leads to personal calamity.
The sunflower seeds that drop under our bird feeder each year yield volunteers. Since the birds plant the seeds, we let them grow so they can feed from the flowers. This sunny lady assumed a strange posture on the Fast of the Fourth Month, but then again, it's not so strange. Even nature is telling us we need to measure and limit our words at this season.
Shhhh...just the Good News please.
