Shabbat Shalom,
I picked up my Bible this afternoon to read from Luke Chapter 13, which is the chapter we'll be teaching on Monday in our little bible study group at Greeley Place (the retirement home where my parents live). We have about 17 students there, mostly over the age of 80, and amazingly, we have the most lively, profound discussions about the Scriptures that I have ever experienced! Yet in these most recent chapters of the Gospel of Luke, the Messiah has been speaking with words so harsh that some of these folks are having a hard time with it. Many of them have been spoon-fed an image of a gentle, tender Jesus who would never raise His voice to anybody; but when it comes to His call to repentance, our Lord did raise His voice, and did not mince words!
Luke 13:1-5:
There were present at that season some who told Him about the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mingled with their sacrifices. 2 And Yeshua answered and said to them, “Do you suppose that these Galileans were worse sinners than all other Galileans, because they suffered such things? 3 I tell you, no; but unless you repent you will all likewise perish. 4 Or those eighteen on whom the tower in Siloam fell and killed them, do you think that they were worse sinners than all other men who dwelt in Jerusalem? 5 I tell you, no; but unless you repent you will all likewise perish.”
In the scenario in verse 1, Roman Governor Pilate had apparently put to death some Galileans as they were offering worship sacrifices in Jerusalem. Perhaps they had transgressed some Roman law; and since the Pharisees' theology attributed individual suffering to individual sin, they interpreted the fate of these Galileans as God's punishment of their guilt. And in verses 4-5, referring to a recent accident where 18 workers perished, Yeshua warns that instead of speculating on those 18 people's guilt, they should regard their fate as a warning, calling themselves to repentance.
My dear friend Batya Wooten sent out a very moving, convicting message this week, which mirrors the words of our Messiah in Luke 13. In her message entitled "Sifting the Saints," she wrote, "We need a paradigm shift in our thinking. It is not about the heathen,
friends. It is instead about the traces of heathen ways that are left in us.
Even so, many think "shaking" is for
those who will not leave behind their "pagan ways" and walk in the same way that
we do. But this too, can be a problem. If
we are arrogant or self-righteous in our judgments of others, we are part of the
Father's problem. We become the ones He needs to sift. And the truth is that some of us are acting like Pharisees
who focus on tithing the tiny seeds of mint, dill and cumin, while neglecting
the weightier matters of the law: justice, mercy and faithfulness. Our Messiah
said that such people "should have practiced the latter, without neglecting the
former" (Mat 23:23).
To be candid, in all of my years as a Believer, I have never seen a more merciless, arrogant, and rude people than some who call themselves "Messianic." We need to repent of these things immediately. We need to collectively speak out against such behavior. The more merciless we are with others, the more likely it is that the Father will decide that, for our own good, we need to be seriously sifted."
These are very timely words for us today - and what is really striking and stunning me in these past couple of months is the number of Christian and Messianic leaders who are all stepping forward with this same passionate call. These are not people who are talking to each other or plagarizing each other's papers! Clearly they are each hearing the Voice of the Holy Spirit, who is igniting them with fiery messages of warning, especially for our nation, the United States of America. This message has lit a fire in my own bones, and we have answered God's call to begin a mid-week prayer/intercession service in our home town. There has never been a time in recent history when we have had a greater need to fall on our knees and pray to the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Scripture tells us that "judgment begins in the house of the Lord - so then, repentance must begin there also, as we each examine our own hearts and turn from our own sin. As more and more of us commit to the Lord a time of daily prayer, I believe we will begin to see families, communities, states, and even nations healed, and perhaps our God will do as He once spoke through the prophet Jeremiah concerning the House of Israel, "The instant I speak concerning a nation and concerning a kingdom, to pluck up, to pull down, and to destroy it, if that nation against whom I have spoken turns from its evil, I will relent of the disaster that I thought to bring upon it."
Rabbi Jonathan Cahn delivered an incredibly powerful "Message to America" (and the President) at the Inaugural Prayer Breakfast. Amid weeping, praying and the sounding of shofars from the audience, Cahn said the U.S. has chosen a path that takes the nation away from God, and he pleaded with its leaders to return. “What we once knew to be immoral, we celebrate,” he said. “What we once knew to be right, we war against.” And he warned that no level of political correctness will change right and wrong. “A thousand apostate ministers swearing on a thousand Bibles will not change one jot or tittle of the word of God,” he said. "Just hours later, Barack Obama rose behind another podium and gave his vision for the next four years in America, speaking of advancing gay rights and referencing the “Stonewall Uprising as a great American event we should honor,” Cahn stated. "The conflict," he said, "continues, between what the Bible prescribes for a nation seeking God’s blessing, and the nation that America appears to have become."
If you have not heard Rabbi Cahn's message, click here to listen: Message to America. Just as John the Baptist came in the Elijah Anointing, preaching a message of repentance, so I believe Jonathan Cahn's words also carried that same Elijah Anointing!
In our Erev Shabbat gathering last night we were talking about the signs of the new season that has just begun, and how some of this season is actually a call to return to some of the more important parts of our faith walk, which we had abandoned in the last season. In our constant quest for "head knowledge" we had all but thrown out the gifts of the Holy Spirit and the great commission to seek and save the lost! John and I just returned from leading a weekend retreat in northern California and I can assure you that in this group of intercessors in the Anglican Diocese of San Joaquin, the Holy Spirit is alive and well and moving in salvation, healing, and deliverance! I told this group that we at DoorKeeper Ministries have received a call from a dear pastor in Kenya to travel there this summer. I worked with Rev. Samuel several years ago when I taught at a pastors' conference in Kenya, and we have stayed in touch. When I wrote and asked him to tell me his vision for this mission trip in 2013, he wrote back two words: HOLINESS AND REPENTANCE. Then to this he added, "you will preach to the unsaved and seek the lost." Certainly the words "holiness and repentance" were solid confirmation for me; but further confirmation came from a prophetic word from the Lord dated February 1, 2013, which John and I read just this morning:
"There is a call of salvation that must be answered. Now look out from your
circumstances, My beloved, and look compassionately upon My ones who are ready,
who are hungry and who are willing and who are weary –and give them drink – let
them drink from the river of life that they will never thirst again, says the
Lord. I am waiting for them, My heart cries out for them. Bring them in. Bring
them in no matter the circumstance, bring them in. Whether they’re broken or
wounded, I will heal them. The lost, I will help them find their way and I will
restore them from the experiences of the circumstances of life, and I will bind
their wounds, as you carry them over your shoulders. Bring them in, My
Beloved."
The Lord is reminding us today, through the voices of so many trusted leaders, that the time is short and the harvest is white in the world. Perhaps we can leave behind the season of feeding only ourselves on the Word of God and learning how to walk out His commandments - and now "go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them...and teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you." (Matthew 28:18-20).
Amen! Bring them in!
