I came across the definition of Dispensation which I must say, I’ve heard spoken of on many occasions, but never fully understood. The dictionary definition of dispensation is as follows:
dis·pen·sa·tion [ dìspən sáysh'n ] (plural dis·pen·sa·tions)
1. exemption: exemption or release from a rule or obligation, especially a religious one
2. document giving exemption: an official document authorizing dispensation, especially religious dispensation
3. religious system: in Christian belief, a divinely ordained religious system
4. divine ordering: in Christian belief, a divine ordering or management of affairs and events in the world
5. religious epoch: the time during which a religious doctrine or practice is believed to be in force
6. distribution of things: the distribution or giving out of something dispensation of emergency supplies
Based on the definition given in the dictionary, it became clear to me that dispensation as it applies to the Christian Church is a time of God’s release from O.T. Law and Covenant because of the New Covenant of Grace given to the church by the Lord Yeshua upon his death on the Cross. This causes me to question the Church’s position….does God change or doesn’t He?
Because of so many doctrinal positions that seem to emerge from the Church, it has caused many Believers to become discontent. I believe that so much Church doctrine and position is not clear to many of the members and so they do not know or understand what they believe.
I recently came across the following opinion on the definition of Dispensation which I must admit, really articulates what I have sensed for a very long time: Dispensationalism – Relatively new church doctrine which divides G-d’s plan up into two separate dispensations; it pits Torah against Grace; an age of Israel against a church age. Basically, dispensationalism creates a confused G-d and confused followers. It leads to anomianism (lawlessness) and pre-tribulational eschatology scenarios to accommodate G-d’s supposed ‘two sets of people.’ Dispensationalists read the bible in terms of ‘this applies to me, this doesn’t apply to me’ instead of acknowledging G-d has one way and one people.
I absolutely feel that the church is a house divided because it has turned away from it’s Judeo-Christian roots and it’s Apostolic mandate. And why Is there no sense of God or understanding of His Eternal Purposes?
And yet, Church leadership doesn’t understand the lack of growth in their denominations.
Am I the only Believer who has taken the position to not invite anyone to my church home, because of concern of doctrinal error and not only that, but because too much of the Gospel is watered down fluff and church looks more like an infomercial?
We need Truth….God’s Truth. God did not design man to live in untruth or half-truths or lies.
Psalm 51: 6Behold, thou desirest truth in the inward parts: and in the hidden part thou shalt make me to know wisdom.
I noticed that one of the definitions for “dispensation” is: the time during which a religious doctrine or practice is believed to be in force.
I believe that God has times and seasons for everything He has ordained, but I can’t see where He sets his works against one another….if anything, everything He ordains is a prelude to or shadow of His Eternal Purposes. That being said….why is there such a division of the O.T. and N.T. as far as man is concerned? This error is propagated by the Jews and by the Church.
I really have come to believe that God did not intend for Jews or Believers/Christians to be at odds; I believe that God’s plan is for us to be united into “One New Man” serving “One True God” believing the same Truths.
I believe that Yeshua’s/Jesus’ death on the cross created the opportunity for all mankind to be reconciled to God and live eternally in the Kingdom of God.
When will we get there? How long will we not seek after Truth? Fear of God is the beginning of understanding….can we start there? Or will we propagate what is clearly deception from the enemy of our souls….a divided kingdom and replacement theology?
Prayer:
Father God, you are Alpha & Omega, Our Creator, the Only Wise God…..Sovereign and Holy are you! From the beginning you had a plan for all mankind; and even though sin came through Adam and stained us….you were willing still to reconcile us to you and see your eternal plan and purpose through. Forgive us Father for leaning to our own understanding and not seeing past our wants and needs and desires to your plan for us. Forgive us for exalting our will and wisdom above your perfect will and manifold wisdom….which is too high for us to understand.
Lord we need to humble ourselves before your throne and repent of our pride. We need to repent of our rejection of your wisdom and for dividing your house. Father I pray in Yeshua’s Holy Name that you will remove the scales from our eyes and bring us down from our high-mindedness so that we will know that you alone are God and that we will no longer do, or think or say what is right in our own eyes.
I ask this and all things in Yeshua’s Name….amen.
Minister Glenda
Friday, April 29, 2011
Thursday, February 24, 2011
Have You Surrendered To God?
I recently heard a word from the Lord: God wants us to become totally surrendered to Him. God wants us to give all of our lives to Him.
We are so carried away with the things of the world, and this is what makes it so hard to submit our lives to God.
We see people of today going after idols, just as the children of Israel did. I would encourage each person to consider giving yourselves completely to God.
Please use the following facebook link to listen to a song that ecourages us to surrender to God:
http://www.facebook.com/v/10150139618507594
We are so carried away with the things of the world, and this is what makes it so hard to submit our lives to God.
We see people of today going after idols, just as the children of Israel did. I would encourage each person to consider giving yourselves completely to God.
Please use the following facebook link to listen to a song that ecourages us to surrender to God:
http://www.facebook.com/v/10150139618507594
Tuesday, January 25, 2011
The Malady of the Church: Contemporary Worship
Just wanted to share this.
One cannot help but notice an increasing and sweaty insistence on parts of the Church to affect the sense of God’s Presence. However desirable that may be, Oswald Chambers reminds us (My Utmost for His Highest, April 25) “Those times are the gift of God entirely. You cannot give them to yourself when you choose.” Not only you “cannot,” you should not! Whatever is self-initiated, however well-meaning the motive, is not of God. He alone is the Creator-King who disposes from the Throne what He wills when He wills. As Chambers adds, “We are in God’s presence by God’s act.” Our priestly waiting upon Him is that profound respect and acknowledgment which is the very heart foundation of ourselves as the Church. And, here, every Sunday, the whole game is won or lost!
The very matrix of the Church that desires to see itself as Apostolic rests upon the root meaning of that word as sent. If we forfeit that reality by fabricating ourselves what must only come down to us from above as given, sent, we lay the axe, as it were, to the apostolic root itself. For what comes to us as sent is equally a mercy—that which is given from Above entirely independent of any deserving. It is by that mercy extended by the Church to Israel that they might be saved that Paul speaks in Romans 11:30-32. But how shall we extend mercy if we are not conscious that we have received it and indeed are conducting ourselves in such a way, Sunday by Sunday, as to insure by our own self-effort that we will not? Is it not because we are “ignorant of the mystery” of which the Apostle speaks that we are so cavalier in our disregard of what comes down to us from Above as a mercy that is sent? How shall we commend a Kingdom which is “at hand” when we have lost the sense of its focus as the Throne of Heaven from which alone every good and perfect thing comes that is sent? A very great issue is every Sunday being propounded and we know it not! While we ostensibly honor the title and are frequent to cite it, we forfeit our apostolic credential by our very platform conduct.
After all, something vibrant and uplifting must be given to the Sunday congregant whose week-long condescension to the world and spiritual and moral laxity assures that he cannot provide it for himself! He needs as it were “a Sunday fix.” An enthusiasm of a certain kind can certainly be affected by the musicality of the “worship team” who can as readily move from the upbeat to the tear-inducing, carried away, as they evidently are, in realms of rapturous ecstasy as is visible in their eye-closed countenances! But what if they are no more worshippers than those dulled worldlings before them? Their week has been no better, but, knowing that the success of the service is at stake, give it their best not knowing, and never having been instructed by the apostolic authority in the Church, that “Those times are the gift of God entirely. You cannot give them to yourself when you choose.”
To forfeit that reality is to forfeit reality itself! That however much it is enjoyed, we are rendered by it to be unfitted as witness for the world as we ought. How then shall we move Israel to jealousy? Our own sense of God as God is diminished, for the Giver is known by His gifts. As Charles Spurgeon says, “the manner of His giving is as precious as the boon itself…He dips our morsel in his own dish.” To receive such beneficence is to be transformed by it—made expansive ourselves, made gracious by the receiving of Grace! Can you see that what is apostolic is therefore rooted in the jealous respect for what is alone divinely given as sent? If the Lord is overrun, He steps aside compelling us to be more frenzied in providing ourselves a substitute. Our souls might be responsive and may be satisfied, but our spirit is denied and impoverished, and withers away in the process! We have substituted our own ‘in-house’ enjoyment for the fulfillment of the mystery to which we are enjoined by Paul as being to “the glory of God forever” (Romans 11:36). The powers of the air see it and can continue to mock us with, “Jesus we know and Paul we know, but who are you?” That we should be known and feared by these Powers as formidable is more to be desired than Sunday enjoyment, and the very constituent element of apostolic reality itself!
The root of our problem is immaturity, carnality and shallowness. This needs to be addressed rather than accommodated. No ‘class act’ which is religious performance can alter that, but rather reinforce it. If we will not respect and wait for what is sent, how shall we become sent ones ourselves? How shall “faith come by hearing” in the Word of the Lord that is “preached by those who are sent” (Romans 10:14-15)? The fact of the matter is that we have not taken the mandate to Israel to heart and it shows! The mystery about whose ignorance Paul warned is unknown to us, absent from our consciousness, even the root cause of all our malady, for the issue of the Jew is the issue of the Church! Had we been occupied with it as we ought (concerned apostolically by definition with whatever pertains to the glory of God), it would precipitate that deep contemplative prayer life which is the very matrix of God’s desired presence, for what shall we be required to conjure up in its absence?
Here the whole issue of the Church is being contested, upheld or lost! Bless that remnant of Zion within the larger Church who know this and agonize over it, knowing that worship is only worship that has its own sake as its end, and ceases to be worship when it serves the purpose of Man and degenerates to manipulation, performance and control. We should shrink from the faintest such affinity, knowing that God will lead us through every barrier into the inner-chamber of the knowledge of Himself if we relinquish the other. It will be a no-man’s-land of testing before the real comes and our flesh will cry out and crave the leaks and garlics of Egypt. What is at stake is Israel’s redemption, which can only come to it out of the ‘Zion’ that God intends the Church to be—Apostolic and glorious. Its first test may be the receiving of this word as coming to it as sent—and the messenger as a sent one!
If we balk here, dismiss the word as only issuing out of the speaker’s ethnic identity with his own kin and not having its origin from the Throne, we can go no further. Jesus is the High Priest as well as the Apostle of our confession. Unless we ourselves restore priestly waiting in jealous insistence for that alone which is sent, we forsake any possible fulfillment of our own apostolicity. May we repent for being satisfied with less and restore the respect, nay the reverence, for the word sent which will again be tested this very Sunday.
One cannot help but notice an increasing and sweaty insistence on parts of the Church to affect the sense of God’s Presence. However desirable that may be, Oswald Chambers reminds us (My Utmost for His Highest, April 25) “Those times are the gift of God entirely. You cannot give them to yourself when you choose.” Not only you “cannot,” you should not! Whatever is self-initiated, however well-meaning the motive, is not of God. He alone is the Creator-King who disposes from the Throne what He wills when He wills. As Chambers adds, “We are in God’s presence by God’s act.” Our priestly waiting upon Him is that profound respect and acknowledgment which is the very heart foundation of ourselves as the Church. And, here, every Sunday, the whole game is won or lost!
The very matrix of the Church that desires to see itself as Apostolic rests upon the root meaning of that word as sent. If we forfeit that reality by fabricating ourselves what must only come down to us from above as given, sent, we lay the axe, as it were, to the apostolic root itself. For what comes to us as sent is equally a mercy—that which is given from Above entirely independent of any deserving. It is by that mercy extended by the Church to Israel that they might be saved that Paul speaks in Romans 11:30-32. But how shall we extend mercy if we are not conscious that we have received it and indeed are conducting ourselves in such a way, Sunday by Sunday, as to insure by our own self-effort that we will not? Is it not because we are “ignorant of the mystery” of which the Apostle speaks that we are so cavalier in our disregard of what comes down to us from Above as a mercy that is sent? How shall we commend a Kingdom which is “at hand” when we have lost the sense of its focus as the Throne of Heaven from which alone every good and perfect thing comes that is sent? A very great issue is every Sunday being propounded and we know it not! While we ostensibly honor the title and are frequent to cite it, we forfeit our apostolic credential by our very platform conduct.
After all, something vibrant and uplifting must be given to the Sunday congregant whose week-long condescension to the world and spiritual and moral laxity assures that he cannot provide it for himself! He needs as it were “a Sunday fix.” An enthusiasm of a certain kind can certainly be affected by the musicality of the “worship team” who can as readily move from the upbeat to the tear-inducing, carried away, as they evidently are, in realms of rapturous ecstasy as is visible in their eye-closed countenances! But what if they are no more worshippers than those dulled worldlings before them? Their week has been no better, but, knowing that the success of the service is at stake, give it their best not knowing, and never having been instructed by the apostolic authority in the Church, that “Those times are the gift of God entirely. You cannot give them to yourself when you choose.”
To forfeit that reality is to forfeit reality itself! That however much it is enjoyed, we are rendered by it to be unfitted as witness for the world as we ought. How then shall we move Israel to jealousy? Our own sense of God as God is diminished, for the Giver is known by His gifts. As Charles Spurgeon says, “the manner of His giving is as precious as the boon itself…He dips our morsel in his own dish.” To receive such beneficence is to be transformed by it—made expansive ourselves, made gracious by the receiving of Grace! Can you see that what is apostolic is therefore rooted in the jealous respect for what is alone divinely given as sent? If the Lord is overrun, He steps aside compelling us to be more frenzied in providing ourselves a substitute. Our souls might be responsive and may be satisfied, but our spirit is denied and impoverished, and withers away in the process! We have substituted our own ‘in-house’ enjoyment for the fulfillment of the mystery to which we are enjoined by Paul as being to “the glory of God forever” (Romans 11:36). The powers of the air see it and can continue to mock us with, “Jesus we know and Paul we know, but who are you?” That we should be known and feared by these Powers as formidable is more to be desired than Sunday enjoyment, and the very constituent element of apostolic reality itself!
The root of our problem is immaturity, carnality and shallowness. This needs to be addressed rather than accommodated. No ‘class act’ which is religious performance can alter that, but rather reinforce it. If we will not respect and wait for what is sent, how shall we become sent ones ourselves? How shall “faith come by hearing” in the Word of the Lord that is “preached by those who are sent” (Romans 10:14-15)? The fact of the matter is that we have not taken the mandate to Israel to heart and it shows! The mystery about whose ignorance Paul warned is unknown to us, absent from our consciousness, even the root cause of all our malady, for the issue of the Jew is the issue of the Church! Had we been occupied with it as we ought (concerned apostolically by definition with whatever pertains to the glory of God), it would precipitate that deep contemplative prayer life which is the very matrix of God’s desired presence, for what shall we be required to conjure up in its absence?
Here the whole issue of the Church is being contested, upheld or lost! Bless that remnant of Zion within the larger Church who know this and agonize over it, knowing that worship is only worship that has its own sake as its end, and ceases to be worship when it serves the purpose of Man and degenerates to manipulation, performance and control. We should shrink from the faintest such affinity, knowing that God will lead us through every barrier into the inner-chamber of the knowledge of Himself if we relinquish the other. It will be a no-man’s-land of testing before the real comes and our flesh will cry out and crave the leaks and garlics of Egypt. What is at stake is Israel’s redemption, which can only come to it out of the ‘Zion’ that God intends the Church to be—Apostolic and glorious. Its first test may be the receiving of this word as coming to it as sent—and the messenger as a sent one!
If we balk here, dismiss the word as only issuing out of the speaker’s ethnic identity with his own kin and not having its origin from the Throne, we can go no further. Jesus is the High Priest as well as the Apostle of our confession. Unless we ourselves restore priestly waiting in jealous insistence for that alone which is sent, we forsake any possible fulfillment of our own apostolicity. May we repent for being satisfied with less and restore the respect, nay the reverence, for the word sent which will again be tested this very Sunday.
Monday, January 17, 2011
GOD'S MESSAGE FOR 2011: TEACH THE PEOPLE HOW TO WORSHIP ME
Greetings my brothers and sisters in Christ!
As the last remaining hours of 2010 ticked away, I began to seek Adonai God for a Word for his people that would open their eyes in a new way and so that we don’t continue in the traditions and idolatry as we enter 2011 and beyond. God is not pleased.
I was taken to the Book of II Kings 17:1-41 which reads as follows:
Hoshea Last King of Israel1 In the twelfth year of Ahaz king of Judah, Hoshea son of Elah became king of Israel in Samaria, and he reigned nine years. 2 He did evil in the eyes of the LORD, but not like the kings of Israel who preceded him.
3 Shalmaneser king of Assyria came up to attack Hoshea, who had been Shalmaneser’s vassal and had paid him tribute. 4 But the king of Assyria discovered that Hoshea was a traitor, for he had sent envoys to So[a] king of Egypt, and he no longer paid tribute to the king of Assyria, as he had done year by year. Therefore Shalmaneser seized him and put him in prison. 5 The king of Assyria invaded the entire land, marched against Samaria and laid siege to it for three years. 6 In the ninth year of Hoshea, the king of Assyria captured Samaria and deported the Israelites to Assyria. He settled them in Halah, in Gozan on the Habor River and in the towns of the Medes.
Israel Exiled Because of Sin7 All this took place because the Israelites had sinned against the LORD their God, who had brought them up out of Egypt from under the power of Pharaoh king of Egypt. They worshiped other gods 8 and followed the practices of the nations the LORD had driven out before them, as well as the practices that the kings of Israel had introduced. 9 The Israelites secretly did things against the LORD their God that were not right. From watchtower to fortified city they built themselves high places in all their towns. 10 They set up sacred stones and Asherah poles on every high hill and under every spreading tree. 11 At every high place they burned incense, as the nations whom the LORD had driven out before them had done. They did wicked things that aroused the LORD’s anger. 12 They worshiped idols, though the LORD had said, “You shall not do this.”[b] 13 The LORD warned Israel and Judah through all his prophets and seers: “Turn from your evil ways. Observe my commands and decrees, in accordance with the entire Law that I commanded your ancestors to obey and that I delivered to you through my servants the prophets.”
14 But they would not listen and were as stiff-necked as their ancestors, who did not trust in the LORD their God. 15 They rejected his decrees and the covenant he had made with their ancestors and the statutes he had warned them to keep. They followed worthless idols and themselves became worthless. They imitated the nations around them although the LORD had ordered them, “Do not do as they do.”
16 They forsook all the commands of the LORD their God and made for themselves two idols cast in the shape of calves, and an Asherah pole. They bowed down to all the starry hosts, and they worshiped Baal. 17 They sacrificed their sons and daughters in the fire. They practiced divination and sought omens and sold themselves to do evil in the eyes of the LORD, arousing his anger.
18 So the LORD was very angry with Israel and removed them from his presence. Only the tribe of Judah was left, 19 and even Judah did not keep the commands of the LORD their God. They followed the practices Israel had introduced. 20 Therefore the LORD rejected all the people of Israel; he afflicted them and gave them into the hands of plunderers, until he thrust them from his presence.
21 When he tore Israel away from the house of David, they made Jeroboam son of Nebat their king. Jeroboam enticed Israel away from following the LORD and caused them to commit a great sin. 22 The Israelites persisted in all the sins of Jeroboam and did not turn away from them 23 until the LORD removed them from his presence, as he had warned through all his servants the prophets. So the people of Israel were taken from their homeland into exile in Assyria, and they are still there.
Samaria Resettled24 The king of Assyria brought people from Babylon, Kuthah, Avva, Hamath and Sepharvaim and settled them in the towns of Samaria to replace the Israelites. They took over Samaria and lived in its towns. 25 When they first lived there, they did not worship the LORD; so he sent lions among them and they killed some of the people. 26 It was reported to the king of Assyria: “The people you deported and resettled in the towns of Samaria do not know what the god of that country requires. He has sent lions among them, which are killing them off, because the people do not know what he requires.”
27 Then the king of Assyria gave this order: “Have one of the priests you took captive from Samaria go back to live there and teach the people what the god of the land requires.” 28 So one of the priests who had been exiled from Samaria came to live in Bethel and taught them how to worship the LORD.
29 Nevertheless, each national group made its own gods in the several towns where they settled, and set them up in the shrines the people of Samaria had made at the high places. 30 The people from Babylon made Sukkoth Benoth, those from Kuthah made Nergal, and those from Hamath made Ashima; 31 the Avvites made Nibhaz and Tartak, and the Sepharvites burned their children in the fire as sacrifices to Adrammelek and Anammelek, the gods of Sepharvaim. 32 They worshiped the LORD, but they also appointed all sorts of their own people to officiate for them as priests in the shrines at the high places. 33 They worshiped the LORD, but they also served their own gods in accordance with the customs of the nations from which they had been brought.
34 To this day they persist in their former practices. They neither worship the LORD nor adhere to the decrees and regulations, the laws and commands that the LORD gave the descendants of Jacob, whom he named Israel. 35 When the LORD made a covenant with the Israelites, he commanded them: “Do not worship any other gods or bow down to them, serve them or sacrifice to them. 36 But the LORD, who brought you up out of Egypt with mighty power and outstretched arm, is the one you must worship. To him you shall bow down and to him offer sacrifices. 37 You must always be careful to keep the decrees and regulations, the laws and commands he wrote for you. Do not worship other gods. 38 Do not forget the covenant I have made with you, and do not worship other gods. 39 Rather, worship the LORD your God; it is he who will deliver you from the hand of all your enemies.”
40 They would not listen, however, but persisted in their former practices. 41 Even while these people were worshiping the LORD, they were serving their idols. To this day their children and grandchildren continue to do as their ancestors did.
The interesting thing is that we see in this text that the “Natural Seed” of Abraham, and descendents of Jacob whom God had given all of the Law and Commandments to, so easily took on the very practices of Baal worship, idolatry and serving other gods. They ended up being exiled from the land God had given them and foreigners settled in that land.
So why do the people of God today think that we are not fallen into the same Baal worship and idolatry? Christians and many other Believers don’t worship Adonai God in the way he requires….and worse yet, they don’t want to know God’s requirements for worshipping Him, sanctification and holiness.
The modern Church doesn’t even follow the wisdom that is so clear in the Torah (O.T.) text, as if that wisdom was for then and is not needed now…here’s an example:
In verse 27 Then the king of Assyria gave this order: “Have one of the priests you took captive from Samaria go back to live there and teach the people what the god of the land requires.” 28 So one of the priests who had been exiled from Samaria came to live in Bethel and taught them how to worship the LORD.
When the people who had settled in Samaria were being killed by lions (sent by God), they knew that the God of Israel was behind it and they knew it was because they did not know how to worship Him; their King…a heathen…gave the order that an Israelite Priest be taken to live among the people “TEACH THEM HOW TO WORSHIP THE LORD”.
It is clear, Church, that we need priests from the “Natural Seed” of Abraham, to teach us how to worship the Lord.
My dear brothers and sisters, I believe the Word God is speaking to the Church as we enter into 2011 and beyond, is that
1) we must learn HOW to worship God;
2) Believers that know must teach the people how to worship the Lord;
3) We must lay down our idols and worship the True and Living God of Israel.
And so I leave you with the Blessings that God told Moses to tell Aaron & his sons to bless the people with:
Hebrew
Yevarekhekha Adonai veyishmerekha. Ya’er Adonai panav eleykha vichuneka.
Yisa Adonai panav eleykha veyaseim lekha shalom.
English
The Lord Bless you and keep you, The Lord makes is face shine upon you and be gracious to you, the lord turns his face toward you and give you peace.
Shabbat Shalom
Reverend Glenda Jackson
As the last remaining hours of 2010 ticked away, I began to seek Adonai God for a Word for his people that would open their eyes in a new way and so that we don’t continue in the traditions and idolatry as we enter 2011 and beyond. God is not pleased.
I was taken to the Book of II Kings 17:1-41 which reads as follows:
Hoshea Last King of Israel1 In the twelfth year of Ahaz king of Judah, Hoshea son of Elah became king of Israel in Samaria, and he reigned nine years. 2 He did evil in the eyes of the LORD, but not like the kings of Israel who preceded him.
3 Shalmaneser king of Assyria came up to attack Hoshea, who had been Shalmaneser’s vassal and had paid him tribute. 4 But the king of Assyria discovered that Hoshea was a traitor, for he had sent envoys to So[a] king of Egypt, and he no longer paid tribute to the king of Assyria, as he had done year by year. Therefore Shalmaneser seized him and put him in prison. 5 The king of Assyria invaded the entire land, marched against Samaria and laid siege to it for three years. 6 In the ninth year of Hoshea, the king of Assyria captured Samaria and deported the Israelites to Assyria. He settled them in Halah, in Gozan on the Habor River and in the towns of the Medes.
Israel Exiled Because of Sin7 All this took place because the Israelites had sinned against the LORD their God, who had brought them up out of Egypt from under the power of Pharaoh king of Egypt. They worshiped other gods 8 and followed the practices of the nations the LORD had driven out before them, as well as the practices that the kings of Israel had introduced. 9 The Israelites secretly did things against the LORD their God that were not right. From watchtower to fortified city they built themselves high places in all their towns. 10 They set up sacred stones and Asherah poles on every high hill and under every spreading tree. 11 At every high place they burned incense, as the nations whom the LORD had driven out before them had done. They did wicked things that aroused the LORD’s anger. 12 They worshiped idols, though the LORD had said, “You shall not do this.”[b] 13 The LORD warned Israel and Judah through all his prophets and seers: “Turn from your evil ways. Observe my commands and decrees, in accordance with the entire Law that I commanded your ancestors to obey and that I delivered to you through my servants the prophets.”
14 But they would not listen and were as stiff-necked as their ancestors, who did not trust in the LORD their God. 15 They rejected his decrees and the covenant he had made with their ancestors and the statutes he had warned them to keep. They followed worthless idols and themselves became worthless. They imitated the nations around them although the LORD had ordered them, “Do not do as they do.”
16 They forsook all the commands of the LORD their God and made for themselves two idols cast in the shape of calves, and an Asherah pole. They bowed down to all the starry hosts, and they worshiped Baal. 17 They sacrificed their sons and daughters in the fire. They practiced divination and sought omens and sold themselves to do evil in the eyes of the LORD, arousing his anger.
18 So the LORD was very angry with Israel and removed them from his presence. Only the tribe of Judah was left, 19 and even Judah did not keep the commands of the LORD their God. They followed the practices Israel had introduced. 20 Therefore the LORD rejected all the people of Israel; he afflicted them and gave them into the hands of plunderers, until he thrust them from his presence.
21 When he tore Israel away from the house of David, they made Jeroboam son of Nebat their king. Jeroboam enticed Israel away from following the LORD and caused them to commit a great sin. 22 The Israelites persisted in all the sins of Jeroboam and did not turn away from them 23 until the LORD removed them from his presence, as he had warned through all his servants the prophets. So the people of Israel were taken from their homeland into exile in Assyria, and they are still there.
Samaria Resettled24 The king of Assyria brought people from Babylon, Kuthah, Avva, Hamath and Sepharvaim and settled them in the towns of Samaria to replace the Israelites. They took over Samaria and lived in its towns. 25 When they first lived there, they did not worship the LORD; so he sent lions among them and they killed some of the people. 26 It was reported to the king of Assyria: “The people you deported and resettled in the towns of Samaria do not know what the god of that country requires. He has sent lions among them, which are killing them off, because the people do not know what he requires.”
27 Then the king of Assyria gave this order: “Have one of the priests you took captive from Samaria go back to live there and teach the people what the god of the land requires.” 28 So one of the priests who had been exiled from Samaria came to live in Bethel and taught them how to worship the LORD.
29 Nevertheless, each national group made its own gods in the several towns where they settled, and set them up in the shrines the people of Samaria had made at the high places. 30 The people from Babylon made Sukkoth Benoth, those from Kuthah made Nergal, and those from Hamath made Ashima; 31 the Avvites made Nibhaz and Tartak, and the Sepharvites burned their children in the fire as sacrifices to Adrammelek and Anammelek, the gods of Sepharvaim. 32 They worshiped the LORD, but they also appointed all sorts of their own people to officiate for them as priests in the shrines at the high places. 33 They worshiped the LORD, but they also served their own gods in accordance with the customs of the nations from which they had been brought.
34 To this day they persist in their former practices. They neither worship the LORD nor adhere to the decrees and regulations, the laws and commands that the LORD gave the descendants of Jacob, whom he named Israel. 35 When the LORD made a covenant with the Israelites, he commanded them: “Do not worship any other gods or bow down to them, serve them or sacrifice to them. 36 But the LORD, who brought you up out of Egypt with mighty power and outstretched arm, is the one you must worship. To him you shall bow down and to him offer sacrifices. 37 You must always be careful to keep the decrees and regulations, the laws and commands he wrote for you. Do not worship other gods. 38 Do not forget the covenant I have made with you, and do not worship other gods. 39 Rather, worship the LORD your God; it is he who will deliver you from the hand of all your enemies.”
40 They would not listen, however, but persisted in their former practices. 41 Even while these people were worshiping the LORD, they were serving their idols. To this day their children and grandchildren continue to do as their ancestors did.
The interesting thing is that we see in this text that the “Natural Seed” of Abraham, and descendents of Jacob whom God had given all of the Law and Commandments to, so easily took on the very practices of Baal worship, idolatry and serving other gods. They ended up being exiled from the land God had given them and foreigners settled in that land.
So why do the people of God today think that we are not fallen into the same Baal worship and idolatry? Christians and many other Believers don’t worship Adonai God in the way he requires….and worse yet, they don’t want to know God’s requirements for worshipping Him, sanctification and holiness.
The modern Church doesn’t even follow the wisdom that is so clear in the Torah (O.T.) text, as if that wisdom was for then and is not needed now…here’s an example:
In verse 27 Then the king of Assyria gave this order: “Have one of the priests you took captive from Samaria go back to live there and teach the people what the god of the land requires.” 28 So one of the priests who had been exiled from Samaria came to live in Bethel and taught them how to worship the LORD.
When the people who had settled in Samaria were being killed by lions (sent by God), they knew that the God of Israel was behind it and they knew it was because they did not know how to worship Him; their King…a heathen…gave the order that an Israelite Priest be taken to live among the people “TEACH THEM HOW TO WORSHIP THE LORD”.
It is clear, Church, that we need priests from the “Natural Seed” of Abraham, to teach us how to worship the Lord.
My dear brothers and sisters, I believe the Word God is speaking to the Church as we enter into 2011 and beyond, is that
1) we must learn HOW to worship God;
2) Believers that know must teach the people how to worship the Lord;
3) We must lay down our idols and worship the True and Living God of Israel.
And so I leave you with the Blessings that God told Moses to tell Aaron & his sons to bless the people with:
Hebrew
Yevarekhekha Adonai veyishmerekha. Ya’er Adonai panav eleykha vichuneka.
Yisa Adonai panav eleykha veyaseim lekha shalom.
English
The Lord Bless you and keep you, The Lord makes is face shine upon you and be gracious to you, the lord turns his face toward you and give you peace.
Shabbat Shalom
Reverend Glenda Jackson
Thursday, January 6, 2011
SPIRITUAL WARFARE PRAYER
SPIRITUAL WARFARE PRAYER
I break every assignment of ALL principalities and spirits of wickedness in high places; I pull down every stronghold & demonic influence from my life and all of my family members.
I cast down every wicked imagination from my mind and from the minds of all of my family; I bind every power of witchcraft and sorcery from the hearts, minds and lives of myself and all my family members.
I declare and decree that the works & influences of every evil, demonic and satanic spirit are cancelled and off-limits to my life and the lives of all of my family members lives.
I bind and cast out all powers & principalities, demons, spirits of darkness and wickedness, witchcraft, rebellion, jezebel spirit, spirit of fear, spirit of heaviness, spirit of error, lying spirits, unclean spirit and every satanic work from my life and the lives of all my family members, by the authority of Yeshua HaMashiach.
Satan, the Blood of Yeshua is against you;
I loose from Heaven, the Blood of Yeshua upon my life and the lives of all of my family members; I loose the Resurrection Life of Yeshua HaMashiach upon my life and the lives of all of my family members.
I give thanks and praise to Adonai Eloheynu, who has given His children authority and victory over all the works of the flesh and the devil....in the name of Yeshua HaMashiach. Amen
As we fast and pray this month of January, please join us in praying this prayer over family members, church and world leaders, nations and all people of the world. The time is now, to confront the enemy of our souls and his demons, so that captives are set free and people are healed and made whole.
Shalom and God Bless You!
Rev. Glenda Jackson
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