THE REASON FOR THE SEASON

They traversed the vast desert of the East and of the Persian land to make the connectivity with the One born to be King and the Messiah. They were the wise men or the Magi. Magi simply means magicians. They were quite firmly rooted in the Oriental occultism. Their findings pointed to a phenomenal birth of no equal.

God advertised His incarnation. He put it in the air. The perusers of the heavenly bodies who were equally versed in the art of the invocations of elementals of sorcery saw the announcement. Maybe they embarked on this peregrination just to gain more knowledge professionally. God saw an opportunity to preach the kerygma. The Bible quoted of the wise men in Matthew 2:2, “Saying, Where is he that is born King of the Jews? for we have seen his star in the east, and are come to worship him”. Eidō (i’-do) is the Greek word for ‘seen’ and it means: ‘come to know, understand or perceive (this is an experiential knowledge)’. The word ‘worship’, proskuneō (pros-koo-neh’-o) means: ‘(to kiss, like a dog licking his master’s hand); to fawn or crouch to, that is, (literally or figuratively) prostrate oneself in homage (do reverence to, adore)’. Why would they want to do a proskuneō before a new born babe? It is to corroborate beyond any shred of any doubt, of the verity inherent in the enigmatic phenomenon of the Incarnation.

This King, according to prophecy, was to be born in Bethlehem that is Bēthleem (bayth-leh-em’): ‘house of bread’. Bēthleem is from ‘Judaea’ which means ‘he shall be praised’. Remember that the holy babe was wrapped in swaddling clothes?

If Jesus is the bread of life (John 6:35, “And Jesus said unto them, I am the bread of life: he that cometh to me shall never hunger; and he that believeth on me shall never thirst”.) then it is apropos for His place of birth to point out to Him. Any visitor who came to see the baby Jesus must look at Him inside the manger. A manger is where domestic animals take their food. It takes a heavenly domestication to feed from the bread of heaven. Some cuisines, we understand, will make one go singing sweet tunes of true satisfactoriness. Tell me, true lover of goodness, how one should feel after having satisfied oneself with the consumption of celestial culinary. Is there any good reason why the LORD would not allow His physical appearance in a place of praise to His holy manifestation? Certainly not!

‘Swaddling clothes’ is the Greek, sparganoō (spar-gan-o’-o), meaning: ‘strips’. These strips represent the pages of the Holy Scriptures (Do the books from Genesis to Revelation not speak of Him? (Luke 24:44 “And he said unto them, These are the words which I spake unto you, while I was yet with you, that all things must be fulfilled, which were written in the law of Moses, and in the prophets, and in the psalms, concerning me”). Having read of Him from Him, as He lay in the manger, there was nothing else expected of the supposedly wise other than to do an obeisant proskuneō. Amen.

Heathens came running to meet with the LORD. Christians, how much of the LORD do you know? Do you ever see Him as the reason for the season?

Many still see Him as Baby Jesus. Mary does not strap Him to her body any longer, neither does she nourish the LORD with the milk of her breast. This same One is seated in the heavenly assizes carrying out the divine duty of Advocacy for the saints of His army on planet earth. Hallelujah!

GOD’S TEMPLE (II)

The purpose of Adamic creation is for the worship of the true God. Adam was both the lord of the earth and the priest i.e. the political and the spiritual headship. In that he adumbrates Jesus as both Priest and King (Genesis 14:18; Psalm 110:4 & Hebrews 7:1-3). Remember it was after the creation of the Woman that God said, “very good” and not “good” as for other days’ score. You know why? The Woman is the body of Adam, a prefiguration of Christ, hence, she adumbrates the Church! “If only I could just get the Church”, was Lucifer’s shenanigan preoccupation. Right there in the Garden was the most mystical representation of God: the Church! We have the priestly office in Adam and worshipper in the Woman so, where is the Worshipped? He was the LORD God, who brought the Woman to Adam the man. When the Man said, “Yes”, he agreed with the commencement of the Church (for where two or three are gathered…- Matthew 18:20). They saw the LORD God of Sabbath, their Creator. The only One that man’s physical eyes can behold among the Trinity is Christ. I am highly elated to announce to you that the One to whom the first Church, in Eden, worshipped is the preincarnate Jesus! And this is the true God: Jesus.

The first Church at the Pentecost, in the Upper Room.

In the Book of Acts of the Apostles 2:3-4, “And there appeared unto them cloven tongues like as of fire, and it sat upon each of them. 4) And they were all filled with the Holy Ghost, and began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance”, the spiritual Israel, the Church, was built. Over the years the Gentile nation was grafted in. Remember Solomon’s supplication, “Moreover concerning a stranger, that is not of thy people Israel, but cometh out of a far country for thy name’s sake; (1Kings 8:41). Today Christians all over the world form one ‘body of Christ’, the Church. The Holy Spirit still occupies His rightful place of the holy of holies i.e. the spirit of every believer – man’s third compartment. The spirit of an individual is his third compartment; the first being the visibility of his physiognomy and the second of which is the soul. God no longer dwells in the physical building or in the land of Israel. He lives in His spiritual children: the Church. Every born again Christian should, for this reason, be able to speak in tongues. John 3:16, “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life”. In perpetuity God dwells in us, the born again Christians. Amen. For how long are we going to be here in the world of satanic control?

HOUSEHOLD OF GOD CHURCH

There cannot be two masters in any given situation. When the man of perdition (2Thessalonians 2:3, Revelation 17:11) comes to occupy the seat of the cosmos for his father, Lucifer, God’s children will be raptured (Luke 17:34-36; 1Corinthians 15:52 & 1Thessalonians 4:16-17). The Devil must have his day for the sake of judicial equity, in the sense that man gave the world to Satan, which elevated the evil one to the position of the god of this world (John 12:31, 14:30; 2Corinthians 4:3-4). The word ‘world’ in the two verses of John is kosmos (kos’-mos): ‘orderly arrangement, that is, decoration; by implication the world (in a wide or narrow sense, including its inhabitants, literally or figuratively [morally]’. We need to understand that Satan has effected a whimsical arrangement of the earth. ‘Age’, of 2Corinthians as it comes in the Greek is aiōn (ahee-ohn’): ‘properly an age; by extension perpetuity (also past); by implication the world; specifically (Jewish) a Messianic period (present or future)’. This ‘age’ has a controlling spirit (the zeitgeist). Lucifer likes to ape God, hence, the antichrist will represent him as the god of the world. The temple of God (the Church) must be removed (2Thessalonians 2:3, 7) to give the wickedness of this world its free moral agency to exercise its willingness to bow down to satanic idolatry (Exodus 4:21; Deuteronomy 2:30 & Mark 10:5). After the Antichrist (2Thessalonians 2:3-4) would have had his days of three and a half years (Daniel 7:25; 9:27 & 12:7), the Lord Jesus will ascend with His saints to destroy (Daniel 7:22-27; 2Thessalonians 2:8-10) the fake Christ and reign for 1000 years (Revelation 20:2-7) and a crooked cosmos will experience God’s holy temple for the first time. Amen! You can be part of God’s temple today by saying this simple prayer: “Dear heavenly Father, I come to You now in the name of Jesus Christ. I believe in my heart that Jesus is the Son of God. I believe in my heart that Jesus died for my sin. I believe that You raised Him from the dead. I believe that Jesus is LORD and I receive Him as my LORD and my Saviour. I give God all the glory. Amen”.   (Concluded)

Click to read the first part.

GOD’S TEMPLE (I)

Verse 30 of 1Kings 8:22-53 reads, “And hearken thou to the supplication of thy servant, and of thy people Israel, when they shall pray toward this place: and hear thou in heaven thy dwelling place: and when thou hearest, forgive”. The ‘place’ meant by King Solomon in this verse is the Jerusalem Temple i.e. where God’s dwelling place used to be among men. Nowhere else did God ever choose to tabernacle the people of the earth. In the holy of holies or the third compartment of the sanctuary was placed the ark of covenant which was the mercy seat and upon which the Holy Spirit sat as the Jehovah of the Israelites; of whom we see in verse 53, “For thou didst separate them from among all the people of the earth, to be thine inheritance, as thou spakest by the hand of Moses thy servant, when thou broughtest our fathers out of Egypt, O Lord GOD”.

In 1Kings 9:3 the Bible shows God’s gracious response with, “And the LORD said unto him, I have heard thy prayer and thy supplication, that thou hast made before me: I have hallowed this house, which thou hast built, to put my name there for ever; and mine eyes and mine heart shall be there perpetually”. This verse holds an astounding fascination. The word ‘hallowed’ is qadash (kaw-dash’): ‘to be (causatively make, pronounce or observe as) clean (ceremonially or morally)’. Then we have the word, ‘name’, which is shem (shame): ‘fame, glory; an appellation, as a mark or memorial of individuality; by implication honor, authority, character’. Shem happens to be the name of one of the antediluvian sons (by whom the present population of the earth came into being) of Noah. Shem is the patriarchal ancestor of Israel. God put His fame in the physical Israel i.e. the Church. God pronounced the sanctity of Israel as perpetual. His eyes (attention of Divinity) over Israel has no end. His heart (Eternal One’s thought) of endearment towards Israel is forever. No wonder the physical nation of Shem’s progeny is still a reality of a global force to be reckoned with.

Temple made with hands

Yes, I hear your sound argument against the perpetuity in the light of: i. the Holy Spirit’s departure of the holy of holies (Hebrew 10:19-22), ii. Israel’s apostasy (Acts 7:51, “Ye stiffnecked and uncircumcised in heart and ears, ye do always resist the Holy Ghost: as your fathers did, so do ye”. Matthew 3:7, “But when he saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees come to his baptism, he said unto them, O generation of vipers, who hath warned you to flee from the wrath to come?”) and, of course, iii. the unavailability of the very temple in question – having been completely destroyed (1Kings 9:7; 1Kings 9:8; Jeremiah 26:18; Ezekiel 7:20-22; Daniel 9:26; Daniel 9:27; Micah 3:12; Matthew 24:1-2 & Luke 19:44) (a probable proof of the fallibility of the oracular afflatus according to the Bible?). “And I say also unto thee, That thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it”; is the Lord Jesus’ assertive pronouncement in Matthew 16:18, even when the LORD God still tabernacled Solomon’s Temple. Matthew 15:37 & 38, “And Jesus cried with a loud voice, and gave up the ghost. 38) And the veil of the temple was rent in twain from the top to the bottom” (confer Hebrews 10:20). That which gave Jesus the authority to declare, “For this is my blood of the new testament, which is shed for many for the remission of sins”, in Matthew 26:28, is because He is the LORD God of the Old Testament!

God had always walked into Eden

“6) But I say unto you, That in this place is one greater than the temple. 7) But if ye had known what this meaneth, I will have mercy, and not sacrifice, ye would not have condemned the guiltless.8 For the Son of man is Lord even of the sabbath day” (Matthew 12:6-8). Two facts emerge from these verses. Jesus is greater than Sabbath (which is the reason for worship). Jesus is the Lord of Sabbath (no wonder He made the categorical statement, “…I will give you rest”. He had just told them that He created the seventh Sabbath day! (…to be concluded…)

Read part I, click here.

SPIRITUAL INEPTITUDE OF KING JOASH (part 2)

 

It will not stop confounding the simple mind of the one who is untutored in scripture. Putting myself in King Joash’s shoes I could be angry with the dying Elisha, even as revered as his prophetic office is. I will vehemently query this outburst from the anointed lips of the prophet with, “After all you did not tell me the more shots the better for my warring successes”.

Our spiritual realism is in possession of the governing influence over the physical manifestation of our stance. The spiritual walk of King Joash was via the route of demonic gods of wicked Satanism. This is the accounting reason for the failure of Joash. God’s enemy will never want anyone going through any preparatory walk that meets Jehovah’s standard of success. Joash knew the Elohim of Israel but he would rather worship Baal. He, like so many of humans, bothered not to ask Jesus when it came to the ideal deity of worship; but faced with destructive warring enemy, Joash knew the route to the God of Israel. Insincerity! How can we be fraught with spiritual insincerity and expect an excellent trial grade?

The spirit of negligence rode on the back of king Joash, veering him off tracks of God’s word. Carelessness! When we keep ourselves away from the rejuvenating word of God we definitely miss the glorious mark of distinction, creating a certain unpreparedness on our part. “…meditate therein day and night, that thou mayest observe to do according to all that is written therein:”, is what the scripture teaches and concludes with, “for then thou shalt make thy way prosperous, and then thou shalt have good success” of Joshua 1:8. Negligence to God’s instructions is the preamble to failure. Joash complied with the social phenomenon. Zeitgeist (an adherence to inimical norm)! Strict care is of utmost importance in our choice of earthly norm in order not to perform too poorly when God’s trial does eventually come. A pitiable result sheet becomes a toga of ignominy, offering devastating strides of languorousness. If the prophet had told the king, “The number of shots represents your life’s victory”, he would have asked for all of the arrows Israeli armament could boast of. Just imagine, all he needed achieve a pass mark was only two easy shots! This, unfortunately, is how close to success most beings have come.

  Why did the king of Israel founder? The answer is not difficult to arrive at. He was simply unprepared. He thought it was business as usual. He could do as he wished, he believed, forgetting that his spiritual stand was undergoing trial, and also little did he know that he was dealing with the thrice holy Jehovah. This God demands holy perfection, unlike other gods of idolatry, headed by the sacrilegious Lucifer. 1Peter 1:16, “Because it is written, Be ye holy; for I am holy”. The word ‘holy’ is hagios (hag’-ee-os) meaning: ‘1. Sacred 2. (physically) pure 3. (morally) blameless 4. (religious, ceremonially) consecrated’. Hagios, simply put, is ‘to be set apart’: to the glory of the LORD. Genesis 17:1 says, “And when Abram was ninety years old and nine, the LORD appeared to Abram, and said unto him, I [am] the Almighty God; walk before me, and be thou perfect”. ‘Walk’ is the Hebrew word halak (haw-lak’) ‘to walk (in a great variety of applications, literally and figuratively)’. Halak speaks of ‘lifestyle’. Tamiym (taw-meem’) is the word for ‘perfect’ and it means: ‘1. (literally, figuratively or morally) entire 2. (also, as noun) integrity, truth’. God wants your integrity before Him to be ‘complete’, which is the root word of tamiym.

King Joash was careless with God’s business. Many other people are guilty of spiritual ineptitude in their dealings with the Lord. God is a serious Personage; He does not joke with the matters of His kingdom. The LORD God is an astute Businessman. You must do His business according to the revealed word of the principles of His business. Integrity is of utmost importance in order to be able to discomfit the enemy’s destructive appeal. God sees your heart, so, any action of infidelity causes your premature vanquishment.

 

 

 

 

          We should be careful in our walk so as not to be guilty of an adherence to inimical societal norm, which was engendered by the utterance of the first woman of Eden, when she verbalized the infamy, “…neither shall ye touch it, lest ye die” of Genesis 3:3. The world had fashioned its own standard since that awful demise.

As children of God, you are the arrows He, the Lord God, shoots to discomfit His enemies. Your inability to shoot victoriously can only be your undoing. Nothing, as far as God is concerned, comes fortuitously. You work for it. There is a Divine orchestration leading to joy. There is, nonetheless, a determined, satanic plot. God has given you all you need to represent Him in victory. Amen.

You can become God’s effective arrow by praying this prayer of salvation to get born again. Say: “Dear heavenly Father, I come to You now in the name of Jesus Christ. I believe in my heart that Jesus is the Son of God. I believe that Jesus died on the cross for my sin. I believe that You raised Him from the dead. I confess with my mouth that Jesus is Lord and I receive Him now as my Lord and my Saviour. I give God all the glory. Amen!” (Concluded)

To read part 1 click here.

SPIRITUAL INEPTITUDE OF KING JOASH (part 1)

“And Elisha said unto him, Take bow and arrows. And he took unto him bow and arrows. 16 And he said to the king of Israel, Put thine hand upon the bow. And he put his hand [upon it]: and Elisha put his hands upon the king’s hands. 17 And he said, Open the window eastward. And he opened [it]. Then Elisha said, Shoot. And he shot. And he said, The arrow of the LORD’S deliverance, and the arrow of deliverance from Syria: for thou shalt smite the Syrians in Aphek, till thou have consumed [them]. 18 And he said, Take the arrows. And he took [them]. And he said unto the king of Israel, Smite upon the ground. And he smote thrice, and stayed. 19 And the man of God was wroth with him, and said, Thou shouldest have smitten five or six times; then hadst thou smitten Syria till thou hadst consumed [it]: whereas now thou shalt smite Syria [but] thrice” (2Kings 13:15-19).

A cursory look at the above scenario will, from a logical point of view, absolve the king of the northern kingdom of Israel, Joash, of Prophet Elisha’s wrothy rebuke. Did the prophet give an instruction to the king on the number of times to hit the ground with the arrows? Was the king told to use all his arrows? So why the ireful disposition of the man of the God of Israel? Was there any possibility that the king should have any information on the number of times he should have shot the arrows? What could have pushed him to choose the wrong act? A meticulous Bible study of this incident will prove very rewarding, so, let us do just that.

King Joash had gone to visit the great prophet of Israel as he was dying. The king could not bear the huge loss. Strong’s Bible Dictionary definition of Joash is ‘Jehovah-fired’, while Easton gives it as ‘whom Jehovah bestowed’. Joash, no doubt, had himself backed by God, going by the definition of his name. Elisha means ‘God of supplication (or of riches)’. Joash, as an Israelite and who also grew up in the palace should not be a one to be found faith deficient, especially for the fact of being a one whom the LORD had ‘fired’ and ‘bestowed’ His beneficence. Joash had no business, whatsoever, to have misfired for he had to himself, an Elisha, to remind him of how richly blessed by this great Jehovah he was.

                                                                   SHOOT!!!

To prove how fortunately blessed he was, the man of God placed his anointed hand upon his hand before he commenced his shooting. Arrows are only for strong armed and willed men (Psalm 127:4). It is the tradition in the East to shoot arrows in an enemy’s territory to herald hostility. When he told him to “Put thine hand”, Elisha told the king to ‘let fly’ the arrows from a hand of power. The word ‘hand’, in Hebrew is yad (yawd): ‘a hand (the open one (indicating power, means, direction, etc)’. Joash’s hand had been endowed with power of success for Elisha’s lent hand represented Jehovah’s. Jehoash, therefore, had no excuse to fail.

The word ‘open’, pathach (paw-thakh’) means: ‘1. to open wide (literally or figuratively) 2. specifically, to loosen, begin, plough, carve’. ‘Eastward’ is qedem (keh’-dem) (or qedmah {kayd’-maw}): 1. the front, of place (absolutely, the fore part, relatively the East) or time (antiquity) 2. often used adverbially (before, anciently, eastward)’. Qedem comes from the root word qadam (kaw-dam’) – to project (one self), i.e. precede; – hence, to anticipate, hasten, meet (usually for help)’. Joash was enabled with a considerable latitude when he heard the word ‘pathach’. He should anticipate an incessant incursion of his kingdom by the devil who is nothing less than a stubborn goat. ‘Window’ is supposed to usher in the light of understanding, dear King Joash, and does ‘east’ not remind you of the coming of light and of course where the Syrian enemies had always emerged?

Aphek or ‘Apheq (af-ake’) (or Aphiyq {af-eek’}) means ‘fortress, stronghold; it was the scene of the licentious worship of the Syrian Aphrodite’. A fortress is something an enemy would never want to lose. Joash showed himself to be a weakling in this wise. The spiritual incompetence of Joash was unveiled when the words of the prophet put him to test. He was not fit to unclasp the vicelike grasp that his Syrian foe had in his domination of his environs. He shot thrice: three being the scriptural number for the perfect manifestation of the Trinity. Joash knew of the Jehovah of Israel but the power thereof he unfortunately denied (2Timothy 3:5). He lacked what it took to walk according to the revealed word of God. The king shot at least twice less than expected. Two is the number of witness and of testimony. Joash, by his action, failed in the test to be a witness of the God of Israel and to testify of HIS beneficence.

If he had shot five times he would have invoked the enabling strength found in the grace of Jehovah. And if he had done it six times he would have claimed the Divine ordained dominion of man (Genesis 1:26; Psalm 115:16): for having been created on day number six. King Joash depended on the understanding of the fallen nature of his being which is the bane of man’s precipitous spiritual imbalance. He did not know that by his choice he spurned the spirit of five: the unmerited favour of God. Neither did the king perceive that his refusal of six is the rejection of Christ (1Corrinthians 15:47, “The first man is of the earth, earthy: the second man is the Lord from heaven”). It is strictly a spiritual matter.             (…to be concluded…)

Read the concluding part 2 here