SOUNDS OF HIS RETURN
“The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, (referring to His return) as some people think of slowness; on the contrary, he is patient with you; for it is not his purpose that anyone should be destroyed, but that everyone should turn from his sins.” (2Pet.3:9)
When I first arrived in South Africa I soon discovered that it was in many ways a paradise even though it contains many shadows. And like any country there existed many little day-to-day irritations that I needed to get used to. And one of these was what’s cynically termed, ‘African time.’ In other words, people seem to have their own unique mindset concerning punctuality.
And so with this, it’s good to know that God is always right on time, never a moment too early or late, and is certainly not bound by African time, Asian time, European time or any other time. He is the Author of the times and seasons within the universe He created.
God views things from an eternal perspective through the lens of Divine love continually wooing people into His Kingdom whilst time moves relentlessly forward. The Bride of Messiah longs for His return but God is waiting for just those few little extra moments within eternity to draw in souls who have yet to yield their lives to Him. And we can cooperate with God in this too as we earnestly pray for the salvation of the lost in the knowledge of Divine and eternal judgment towards unbelievers as compared to the enormity of His grace and mercy for all those who would receive Him as their Saviour and Lord!
Sometimes I wonder who will be that last person who comes to faith before the final shofar blow sounds from heaven signalling His return? No doubt everyone will be standing in line to shake his hand in Heaven!
In the meantime, lets gird our loins as we occupy our time until His soon coming. This places everything else in our lives in context. It is our great privilege to serve and bless the King of Kings! The ancient Hebrew word for “ bless” literally means, ‘to kneel.’ When we bless Him we are symbolically bringing a gift to Him on bended knee that is a conscious and unconditional act of surrender to His perfect will.
Ki Tavo (When You Enter) Deut. 26:1–29:9; Is. 60:1–22; Lk. 23:26–56
By Raphael ben Levi
Today is the 20th day of ELUL – the month of “teshuva” – when Jewish people earnestly seek God in repentance, (Ps.139) and forgive others for sins committed during the course of the year. The Western Wall in Jerusalem is crowded with people for special communal prayers known as “slichot.” Each day throughout Elul the shofar is blown by rabbis for the people with a call to put right the wrongs in their lives to bring them into a right relationship with God. Forgiveness is a central theme of Elul and although it is something ongoing rather than restricted to certain times of the year, there is in Elul there a greater intensity in the lead up to Rosh Ha Shanah and Yom Kippur. We forgive because He has forgiven us our sins and the enormity of this can never be compared, and is demonstrated by the measure we give Him our best, however poor we may be in the world’s eyes. Anything less falls short of what is rightly His. Many are called but few are chosen because few choose this path. But God is not as interested in the level of our gifts or talents, but with the first fruits of a life well-lived unto Him. To overcome much with very little is better than to overcome much with an abundance – to contend for the faith wholeheartedly no matter how meagre our provision may appear to be. To be faithful in even the smallest things which God has entrusted to us will reflect our reward in Heaven. Giving God our best is always good enough.
The terms of God’s covenant towards the Israelites are reflective of this in our parasha from Deut 28:1-14. If the Israelites would choose to faithfully follow His commandments, He would set them high above all the nations of the earth with levels of blessings that would characterise their lives. Their choice was unambiguous – blessing or curse – abundant life or enslavement?
We do well in this 6th month in the Hebrew calendar to ask ourselves what are our lives are characterised by? For example, I may strive to acquire a fortune of material wealth, but it will never fulfil my longings and ends up being a curse – wood, hay and stubble. Yet, when I fix my eyes upon Yeshua, and walk in alignment with His ways, my life becomes irrevocably transformed.
This is how we become ‘tikkun olam’ (repairers of the world), by mending the damage caused by sin. God is not concerned with damage limitation or sticky plaster solutions but to bring us full restoration with Divine love and precision. He is rebuilding the things that have been broken down through sin and rendered a heap of rubble, that through our restoration we fully align with Him in His Divine purposes for our lives.
In this weeks Torah portion God instructed Israel to bring their first-fruits (‘bikurim’ – the best of their produce) to the Tabernacle when they entered Canaan (ch.26:2): First fruits (“Bikurim”) beautifully illustrates God’s desire that we give Him nothing less than our best. Our faithfulness as custodians of God’s riches will reflect in eternity. Yeshua stated in Matt.10:42: “… (that) if you give even a cup of cold water to one of the least of my followers, you will surely be rewarded.” Nothing is overlooked whether it be presented in thought, word or action.
God made clear His conditions and terms to the Israelites in Deut.28:1-14, prefixing everything with the conditional clause “if.” If the Israelite’s faithfully followed His commandments, He promised them abundant blessings. “…if you faithfully obey the voice of the Lord your God, being careful to do all his commandments that I command you today, the Lord your God will set you high above all the nations of the earth.” (v.1)
We may ask ourselves in what sense this has proved true, since a significant chunk of Jewish history has been reflected in apostasy and rebellion. Yet despite this and although they only constitute 0.12% of the world’s population the Jewish people have contributed disproportionately far beyond any other country in the world in almost every area of life. God has set up the Jewish people high above the nations. But does it not contradict the terms of agreement that God set out to them?
What it does reveals is an incredible picture of a loving God who pours out His blessings with infinite care upon a people who don’t deserve it because of His covenant promises in spite of their failings. Disobedience may lead to Divine judgement but God’s covenant remains steadfast! And as we reflect upon this we can understand how this is no different for us as believers.
God laid out a principle for the Israelites that blessings come through obedience. So if the Jewish people have been blessed in levels that surpass every other nation despite their ups and downs, how much more will He bless them when they enter spiritual fullness through embracing Yeshua as their Messiah! Paul wrote about it in Rom.11:12 “Now if their transgression leads to riches for the world, and their loss riches for the Gentiles, then how much more their fullness!”
Throughout history the lives of the Jewish people have been permeated with constant calls for their destruction. Yet, even in the darkest of times they’ve never lost the capacity to rejoice in the knowledge that God is faithful to His promises, and 5 days following Yom Kippur, a time of national mourning, is Sukkot, the feast of great rejoicing. The gematria of 5 represents grace and is “zeman simchatenu” “the time of our rejoicing” – an outflow of God’s infinite blessings poured out in our lives based in the knowledge for us as believers that “All things work together for good for those who love God and are called according to His purposes” Rom.8:28. (I.e., God always has the last word and His eternal purposes will always prevail).
The Haftarah portion from Isa.60 defines the joy that’s available for every believer: “Arise [from spiritual depression to a new life], shine [be radiant with the glory and brilliance of the Lord]; for your light has come, And the glory and brilliance of the Lord has risen upon you!” Even though …”darkness shall cover the earth, and dense darkness [all] peoples, but… The end of the story has yet to unfold: “the Lord shall arise upon you [O Jerusalem], and His glory shall be seen on you. 3 And nations shall come to your light, and kings to the brightness of your rising.”
Isa.60 points us directly to Yeshua who read from this same passage at the commence of His public ministry. On visiting the synagogue in His hometown, Nazareth, He was asked to read from the Haftarah which happened to be from the same passage in Isa 60. This points to the timing when Yeshua began His public ministry, during the month of Elul, when the King of Kings enters the field. And so, during this solemn month God has given us the capacity to ‘arise and shine’ for God’s glory who resides within us, through His Ruach that’s present in the field of our lives.
Joy plays a key role in this week’s parsha and connects with bringing the first-fruits offering to the Temple. After describing the ceremony that took place, the Torah concludes: “Then you will rejoice in all the good things that the Lord your God has given you and your family, along with the Levites and the stranger in your midst” (Deut.26:11). For us as believers it echoes Paul’s statement in Rom.12: “Therefore brethren by the mercies of God I urge you to offer your lives as a living sacrifice (your first fruits offering – giving Him one’s best rather than the scraps under the table) to Him which is your spiritual service.”
Joy is not something we pursue but rather it pursues us for those who choose to fully submit their lives to God. This is different from happiness which most people actively pursue. But in Judaism, happiness is not defined by riches, pleasure, success or power. The Hebrew word for happiness, (‘ashrei’) is the first word in the Book of Psalms, sometimes translated as ‘blessed,’ the same word used by Yeshua in the sermon on the Mount. Ps.1 defines happiness (ashrei) in the following way: “Happy is the man who has not walked in the counsel of the wicked, nor stood in the way of sinners or sat where scoffers sit. But his desire is in the Torah of the Lord; on his Torah he meditates day and night. He shall be like a tree planted by streams of water, bearing its fruit in its season, and its leaf does not wither; and in all that he does he prospers. (Ps.1:1-3) Is that the primary happiness we seek as believers? Like a tree, it has roots that withstands every passing wind of falsehood. Such people bear fruit and thrive. Yet for all of this, happiness is what we pursue as individuals as opposed to simcha (joy) which is something expressed icorporately. The feasts described in Deut.23 are days of joy, precisely because they are occasions of collective celebration: “you, your sons and daughters, your male and female servants, the Levites in your towns, and the strangers, the fatherless and the widows living among you” (16:11). Simcha is something we experience in community rather than in solitude. This is a principle that runs true when we gather together collectively to celebrate Shabbat and beyond when we meet in small groups for fellowship as instructed in Heb.10:24-25: “Do not neglect meeting together, as some people do, but encourage one another, especially now that the day of his return is drawing near.” By building fellowship with one another we grow in our capacity to deepen relationships and grow in love and unity together to become all that God has destined us to be.
Strangely, the biblical book most focused on joy is Ecclesiastes, (Kohelet – preacher) the one often thought to be the least joyful of all. The author was Solomon, the man who had everything according to the world’s standards and yet he describes it all as “hevel”, a word he uses almost 40 times throughout the book which can be translated as ‘meaningless, pointless, futile, empty,’ or ‘vanity.‘ In fact Ecclesiastes uses the word “simcha” only 17 times in comparison yet that is more than the whole of the first 5 books of Torah combined. After every one of his meditations on the supposed pointlessness of life, Ecclesiastes ends with an exhortation to joy, e.g., “I know that there is nothing better for people than to rejoice and do good while they live.” (3:12) And in (8:15) “So I commend rejoicing in life, because there is nothing better for a person under the sun than to eat and drink and rejoice.”
How does this provide relevance for us as believers? Ecclesiastes can only be understood when we realise that “hevel” does not mean ‘pointless, empty, futile‘ or ‘vanity’ but rather ‘a shallow breath.’ Rather it focuses upon the theme of mortality. Our lives are terminal from the moment we are born and merely a microsecond in the history of the universe – it is as Scripture describes it as a ‘fleeting breath’ (Ps.144:4)
Ecclesiastes is obsessed by this and explores the deepest question of all – what is the point of life? And yet this is the Book we read during the feast of Sukkot, “Zaman simchateinu” the time of our joy. What gives life meaning, purpose, substance? What will redeem us from the shadow of death? Ecclesiastes answer is, in a word, joy, “simcha.”
However, he leaves unanswered the source of our joy and how to obtain it. Neh.8:10 provides us with a clue: “The joy of the Lord, is our strength.” He is the source from whom all true joy is derived in its fullest sense. But how do we obtain it? Isa.51:11-12 states, “Therefore the redeemed of the Lord shall return and come with singing unto Zion and everlasting joy shall be upon their heads. They shall obtain gladness and joy and sorrow and crying will flee away!”
Who are the redeemed of the Lord? They represent those who are righteous in the sight of God and in the modern context represent believers who are sustained through the many challenges in life by the “sure hope,” obtained through Yeshua who alone is the ‘way the truth and the life.” (Jn.14:6) He is our source of joy that is available to every person who has surrendered their life fully under His sovereignty. Here is the solution to every dilemma we may be facing today: He is the fountain of life! Drink deeply, it is free, but it will cost you everything. It will quench your thirst yet cause you to thirst for more. It will destroy every carnal desire and produce light out of darkness when He become our all in all.
The famous 19th century Messianic scholar, David Baron commented on the verse in Ps.45:8 “All your robes are fragrant with myrrh, aloes, and cassia.” with this beautiful description: “All His (Messiah’s) garments are so thoroughly scented that they seem to be altogether woven out of costly spices, for the Hebrew of the first line in verse eight literally reads, ‘Myrrh and Aloes and Cassia are all Thy garments’—a hint surely of the innate and absolute perfection and preciousness of this glorious Bridegroom whose outer coverings are wrought of the same pure and fragrant substance as His character, which in all its manifestations send up a sweet-smelling savour.”
The exquisite scent of these ointments showcases the substance of God’s glory poured out in the life of every true believer. (1Pet 2:7) All His garments are filled with His fragrance, every single one, because He is altogether lovely! Even His very shadow intoxicates who alone is worthy of our worship and adoration! To behold His beauty is to be ruined for life and forever changed!
Esther was anointed with myrrh, aloes and cassia in preparation for the moment when she would be presented to the king. Out of the dazzling whiteness of the inner walls of the king’s palace inlaid with ivory, King Xerxes made his choice and received Esther as his bride amid the sound of celebration and song!
God’s remnant, His bride, is also being prepared for His soon return bearing His fragrance, awaiting the promise of the redeemed. Heaven will break out in spontaneous applause when the shofar is sounded and just for the briefest instant, time will be suspended in the moment of moments? “16 For the Lord Himself shall come down from heaven with a commanding shout, with the voice of the archangel and with the blast of God’s shofar, and the dead in Messiah shall rise first. (1Thess.4:16)
The clock is ticking and the stage is set. The Lion of Judah is sounding the charge and preparing to gather His elect to Himself. Dearest friends, are you ready? Are you ready?
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