August 15, 2006
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Sunday we were blessed to have Rabbis Michael and Gayle Zeitler speak at our church. They are from Baruch Ha Shem Ministries International. Gayle spoke about what is happening in Israel today. She mentioned how God shields Israel, and that many of the missiles that were targeting Israel missed their mark, that God’s hand was protecting Israel. She talked about Judges 7 and Gideon and his army, pointing out that God does not need many to fight His battles, because God is able. God waits until His people turn away from their sin, away from their idols and turn toward Him, then He intervenes. But in this case today, much of Israel is secular, but God is intervening to protect Israel in spite of their spiritual condition.
Rabbi Michael spoke about Josiah, 2 Kings Chapters 22-25.
He had us turn to 2 Kings 23:25 Regarding Josiah Now before him there was no king like him, who turned to the LORD with all his heart, with all his soul, and with all his might, according to all the Law of Moses; nor after him did any arise like him.
Rabbi Michael said that we need to come together in Righteousness because of where we are in today’s world. We don’t know the time that the Messiah will come again, but it will happen. If we look at the signs of the times, 1000′s of weather incidents, earthquakes, and all the signs that Jeshua spoke. Now more than ever we have to come together in unity through His Righteousness.
He continued to say that we need to speak God’s words, not our words.
He gave an example that in Communist Russia, underground churches would meet and invariably the KGB would come and the worshippers would scatter, running for their lives. After many times of this, the pastor stated that the Holy Spirit would tell them when and were to gather, to listen for the Holy Spirit’s instructions. The next time they met all were there but one person – that was the person who was the informant. Given the way our world is going now, we may soon be put into a similar situation, where we need the guidance of the Holy Spirit.
Josiah wanted to be like David, walking in the Righteousness of God. In Josiah’s day there were high places (altars to idols) even in Jerusalem. He ordered that the high places be torn down, the bones of the priests of the idols were scattered, and at 19 he made a concerted effort to cleanse the land of all unrighteousness. Josiah thought, after that, that he had done everything in his power. But he realized that the Temple was in shambles and uncared for. He had the High Priest take treasury money and give it to carpenters to buy the supplies to begin to rebuild Solomon’s Temple. There is actually archeological proof of this because a piece of slate was found with a list of carpentry supplies on it and Josiah’s signature.
In the rebuilding of the temple, they also found idols of pagan worship within the temple!. They were destroyed, and in a secret spot were found scrolls of the Torah. When the Words were read to him, Josiah wept and ripped his clothes in grief. He realized how short of righteousness he was, even though he thought he had done everything in a righteous way, but it wasn’t even close to what God proclaimed.
This is true also in our lives. That we think we are walking in righteousness, but when we hold our lives up to the Word of God, to God’s truth, we will see how far we fall short of God’s Word.
The Bible says that not one jot or tittle will pass away. We do not follow the entire Word of God completely in our lives.
Josiah had all the people gathered, so that they could hear the reading of the True Word of God. This lead to a great revival in the land, and a return to Beth-el – the House of God. Rabbi Michael said that the mountains near Beth-el are in the shape of the letter Shem if you look at an aerial photograph of the mountains.
It was at Beth-el that the people built a golden calf and worshiped at an idol’s altar. Josiah pulled down that altar and found a grave site. The grave was the grave of a prophet who had prophesied that this event of the returning of Israel to God would happen 300 years previous to the time of Josiah.
The prophets today are telling us to walk in righteousness, walk in holiness. There can be no fluctuation, no wolves among the sheep, no hidden idols in our temples (not our churches, not our bodies which are the temple of God), we need to get ourselves cleansed.
We were told to write down idols in our lives on a piece of paper and bring them to the altar. Pastor Don was going to burn them. We prayed for release of the idols so that we can walk in God’s righteousness.
Rabbi Michael suggested a book, In His Steps by Charles Shelden, which shows us how to walk in righteousness.
It was a profoundly moving service on Sunday, and I am so blessed to be able to sit under good teachings.
Heather
Comments (20)
Josiah has always been one of my favorite people in the Bible. He was a wonderful example that young people can be awesome leaders for God and lead others in the ways of the Lord.
God will protect His Chosen Ones….thanks for your suggestion….have to think on that one!
Be Blessed,
Mike
Josiah is a hero of faith to us all. We need revival that is evidenced by a love for the Word, and a tenderness to the Holy Spirit’s moving in us. That book ~ In His Steps is one of my favorites that I have read several times.
That is so neat that you guys have Messianic Jews that was at your church…
Now, do you take notes during the message or do you write it down from memory???
Just curious, becuase you always take very detailed notes!
Have a Blessed Tuesday!……..In Christ’s Love…..Monic
I have a hard time keeping up with all the notes you take from your pastor, but at least when I do read I read good things.
Hi Heather,
Wonderful post and I do know that God protects His people. I agree there may come a time when it will be hard to worship in the open we so take for granted the freedom we have to go to church and serve our blessed Saviour.
Love ya, Darlena
that did sound like a great service. I, too, had a phenomenal service at my church where my pastor spoke about “The Christ For the Disappointed Life.” So many are downtrodden, and disappointed, carrying that around with them, but that is not what He wants for our lives.
It’s great how God speaks through his chosen, at such a time when it is needed!
Hope you are blessed this week.
Our pastor just preached from Judges just this past Sunday. He talked about how God always uses the weak to portray His glory. We see this in his choosing Ehud, the Benjamite, (a man left-handed – which speaks of weakness), and downsized Gideon’s army to 300 to fight the Midianites. All through the Word of God we see man’s weakness that prevails because of God’s power on him. How encouraging to belong to such a God…to be able to trust Him in that, with just you and God alone, we can be a powerful army. “As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord!” Thankyou for your thoughts for today. Blessings. ~ jenny
Beautiful post….sounds like it was an impactful service…tks for sharing..:)
hi! RYC your link question. you need to put a line break, so after your first line code, put a
(not sure if that will show up cos of html on here but i’m trying). Also you can write it up in a Wordpad also, then copy and paste into your section on your look and feel page. Suezzzque does that often and has a system down for that, so you could ask her too (she’s away all week though)
Good luck and God bless yoU!
Wonderful teaching. Yes, they are right…we are being called back to God and being cleansed. We need to make sure that we are sheep, and not fooled into thinking we are sheep when we might actually be a wolf in sheep’s clothing.
RYC – The problem is that most cowboy’s seem to prefer to learn from their own mistakes. I think a lot of folks have that problem. The difference often is that a cowboy knows when he is wrong and will generally say so. That is one of the things I love about your ministry here. You look at life honestly, mistakes and all. I love you for that. You are a valuable treausure, Heather Dawn. You are fearfully and wonderfully made in the image of God. You are a blessing of salt and light in my life. Thank you, friend. Know that you are lifted up by a brother in Texas. Old Hat
It was awesome to read this. My husband actually read about this recently and was telling me all about how Josiah purged the land and read the God’s law and tore his clothes. I think it is awesome that you are learning about it to. I have also learned that when something is repeated in the Bible or when God presents something to you twice that you should most likely pay attention because He is talking to you and it is important. So That is pretty neat!
Have a great day.
love in Christ
Good teachers who follow after God’s heart are truly a blessing.
If I may make a recommendation for you regarding a study on Middle East and Israel and God’s word. I believe this will give you a whole different perspective regarding what is going on in Middle East.
http://www.truthtellers.org/alerts/whymideastbleeds.html
This article is by a Baptist pastor named Ted Pike.
Arun
Yes, Media Bias, it is!
Wonderful teaching…thank you so much for visiting my site & your uplifting comments. Many blessings & peace to you,
Tina
Thank you for sharing this, Heather. It sounds like you had a wonderful and interesting service! God bless you!
That KGB story is really moving… very good stuff.
Thanks for sharing their message with me. You know I eat it right up.