26 November 2005
A voice cries out, “Clear a road through the desert for Adonai! Level a highway in the ‘Aravah for our God! Let every valley be filled in, every mountain and hill lowered, the bumpy places made level and the crags become a plain, and the glory of God will be revealed.” (Yesha’yahu [Isaiah] 40:3-5
Something truly sad happened about 2000 years ago. The long expected Messiah came, and his people new him not. The law and the prophets had shown his coming in various ways, and indeed there was a frenzy of belief that the Messiah was coming soon, yet he was not recognised. He wasn’t recognised for several reasons.
The Pharisees did not recognise him because they had substituted works for relationship. They had taken the many marvellous commandments which were for the purpose of developing a relationship with God and turned them into an end in and of themselves. In other words, instead of salvation through a relationship with God, they were pushing salvation by works, which is a dead end. No matter how good and holy we are, we can never measure up to God’s standards. Those of us here in the USA have to watch out for this, for we like to do everything for ourselves and often forget this is not God’s plan.
The Sadducees (They don’t believe in resurrection or spiritual things so they are Sad, you see) couldn’t recognise him because they (as many here in the USA) had lost their spiritual base. They no longer believed in resurrection, angels or spiritual events, some may not have even believed in God, so when faced with the truth, they could not face it and denied it. In fact someone even today asked me, about some of the people that Jesus faced. They didn’t really have demons did they? They were just insane, right? Wrong, the demonic is still with us. Many of our problems today have a spiritual basis, but we (including many church folk) have become such materialists that we no longer can see it. Disease, storms disasters are merely natural phenomena, they don’t have anything to do with God, right? Now I do not deny the germ theory or modern science, but the more I counsel, the more I see that disease and disasters have a spiritual element to them. We ignore this at our peril.
The Herodians on the other hand had a different problem. Outwardly, they were Jews, but inwardly they worshipped power. We all know the saying power corrupts, and absoluter power corrupts absolutely. In this case they were so worried about power that they were incapable of recognising THE POWER when he came into their presence. We often do the same. We are so busy pursuing power, money, sex, etc. that when the eternal maker comes into our presence, we know him not.
Do you recognise your saviour. Will you listen to the message of Yesha’yahu and Yohan the Baptist and recognise the Messiah and invite him to your heart? Maybe you already know him, but have allowed the cares of this world to usurp his place in your heart. Call upon him today, and you will be saved.
Mar Michael Abportus
Pastor, Congregation Benim Avraham
mjthan@quik.com http://www.freewebs.com/childrenofabraham/http://www.christiansynod.org/
1-281-303-3671
Something truly sad happened about 2000 years ago. The long expected Messiah came, and his people new him not. The law and the prophets had shown his coming in various ways, and indeed there was a frenzy of belief that the Messiah was coming soon, yet he was not recognised. He wasn’t recognised for several reasons.
The Pharisees did not recognise him because they had substituted works for relationship. They had taken the many marvellous commandments which were for the purpose of developing a relationship with God and turned them into an end in and of themselves. In other words, instead of salvation through a relationship with God, they were pushing salvation by works, which is a dead end. No matter how good and holy we are, we can never measure up to God’s standards. Those of us here in the USA have to watch out for this, for we like to do everything for ourselves and often forget this is not God’s plan.
The Sadducees (They don’t believe in resurrection or spiritual things so they are Sad, you see) couldn’t recognise him because they (as many here in the USA) had lost their spiritual base. They no longer believed in resurrection, angels or spiritual events, some may not have even believed in God, so when faced with the truth, they could not face it and denied it. In fact someone even today asked me, about some of the people that Jesus faced. They didn’t really have demons did they? They were just insane, right? Wrong, the demonic is still with us. Many of our problems today have a spiritual basis, but we (including many church folk) have become such materialists that we no longer can see it. Disease, storms disasters are merely natural phenomena, they don’t have anything to do with God, right? Now I do not deny the germ theory or modern science, but the more I counsel, the more I see that disease and disasters have a spiritual element to them. We ignore this at our peril.
The Herodians on the other hand had a different problem. Outwardly, they were Jews, but inwardly they worshipped power. We all know the saying power corrupts, and absoluter power corrupts absolutely. In this case they were so worried about power that they were incapable of recognising THE POWER when he came into their presence. We often do the same. We are so busy pursuing power, money, sex, etc. that when the eternal maker comes into our presence, we know him not.
Do you recognise your saviour. Will you listen to the message of Yesha’yahu and Yohan the Baptist and recognise the Messiah and invite him to your heart? Maybe you already know him, but have allowed the cares of this world to usurp his place in your heart. Call upon him today, and you will be saved.
Mar Michael Abportus
Pastor, Congregation Benim Avraham
mjthan@quik.com http://www.freewebs.com/childrenofabraham/http://www.christiansynod.org/
1-281-303-3671
posted by The Synod of Saint Timothy at 22:58
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