Days of Awe 2015—Bringing Light to our Nation

Days of Awe, Bringing Light to our Nation

By Rev. Lonnie C. Crowe

 

The Feast of Trumpets begins the 10 days of Awe leading to Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement.  This is a time of reflection, prayer and meditation on the atoning work of the Cross.  I sense that this is, also, our time to reflect, pray and meditate on the power of God to change our nation.  Remember that God has called believers to arise and shine for our light has come and the glory of the Lord has risen upon us (Isaiah 60:1).  The changing of our nation depends on God’s people walking in His light.

It is time for a spiritual revolution, a time to call the ranks of the army of God into integrity and righteousness.  No separation between the spiritual and the natural, between the church and the state should exist in the life of a Christian.  It is time for us to appeal to heaven.

Remember the words of John Locke:“…where the body of the people, or any single man, is deprived of their right, or is under the exercise of a power without right, and have no appeal on earth, then they have a liberty to appeal to heaven, whenever they judge the cause of sufficient moment.”

This is the sufficient moment to present our cause before the throne.  We do that when we decree, declare and pray rather the whine, gripe and complain.

We must declare:  “We have no sovereign but God, no king but Jesus.”

Following are some suggestions about how we can pray during these ten days.

Pray over every house and business within 3 blocks of your home.

Pray for all schools—including preschools and day care centers.

Pray for fires houses, police stations and sheriff’s departments.

Pray for city officials and county commissioners.

Pray for all cities and rural areas in your county.

Pray for state elected leadership.

Pray for each county in your state.

Pray for each state in the United States (include the territories).

Pray for the three branches of government:  executive; judicial and legislative.

Pray for the church to rise up and be the light of our nation.  

 

Matthew 5:16 (NKJV)
¹⁶  Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works and glorify your Father in heaven.

Feast of Trumpets—Rosh Hashanah 2015

Feast of Trumpets—Rosh Hashanah 2015

By Rev. Lonnie C. Crowe

Leviticus 23:23-24 "Then the Lord spoke to Moses saying, "Speak to the children of Israel, saying, "In the seventh month, on the first day of the month, you shall have a sabbath rest, a memorial of blowing of trumpets, a holy convocation."

Psalm 81:1-3 (NKJV) “Sing aloud to God our strength; Make a joyful shout to the God of Jacob. Raise a song and strike the timbrel, The pleasant harp with the lute. Blow the trumpet at the time of the New Moon, At the full moon, on our solemn feast day.”

The Feast of Trumpets begins at sunset on September 13 because the biblical day goes from sunset to sunset.  The Jewish name for this holy convocation is Rosh Hashanah which is usually translated "the beginning or head of the year." Actually the Hebrew word “shana” means to change.  Rosh Hashanah implies that something in the spiritual world is changing. It is the beginning of a new season in our walk with the Lord.  God works in seasons. “To everything there is a season, A time for every purpose under heaven. Ecclesiastes 3:1 (NKJV)

Ten days after Rosh Hashanah is Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement.  Five days later, Sukkoth, the Feast of Tabernacles begins. 

According to Jewish tradition, Rosh Hashanah commemorates the creation of Adam and Eve and the fall into sin.  It is a reminder of the covenant relationship between God and mankind.  It is a time of new beginnings.

             Rosh Hashanah is observed with the sounding of the trumpet.  The traditional trumpet is the shofar, the ram’s horn, which also represents the trumpet blast of the coronation of the king. The sounding of the shofar is a call to repentance because Rosh Hashanah is also a reminder of man’s first sin and repentance for that sin. 

            Likewise, the shofar also commemorates the sacrifice of Isaac which occurred on the day that God later established as Rosh Hashanah. The sounding of the shofar reminds us that a ram took Isaac’s place as an offering to God.  Abraham named the place, "Jehovah-Jirah", God is our provision.  Abraham understood that in ages to come God would provide the means of our salvation, His Son, Jesus Christ. 

                        Because Rosh Hashanah is the Feast of Trumpets, we should remember the importance of trumpets in our relationship with God.  In Exodus 19, people were to wait for the sounding of trumpet before going near Mt. Sinai where God spoke to Moses. (Exodus 19:3b) "When the trumpet sounds long, they shall come near the mountain."  (Exodus 20:18) "Now all the people witnessed the thundering, the lightning flashes, the sound of the trumpet, and the mountain smoking; when the people saw it, they trembled and stood afar off."  God was beginning a new season as He molded a band of ex-slaves into a mighty army.

            It was with the shouting of the people and the sound of the trumpets that God brought down the walls of Jericho and gave the Israelites their first victory in the Promised Land.  The defeat of Jericho was a new beginning for the people of God.

            The Lord will again bring a new thing with the sound of the trumpet when Jesus returns. (Matthew 24:29-31) “Immediately after the tribulation of those days shall the sun be darkened, and the moon shall not give her light, and the stars shall fall from heaven, and the powers of the heavens shall be shaken: And then shall appear the sign of the Son of man in heaven: and then shall all the tribes of the earth mourn, and they shall see the Son of man coming in the clouds of heaven with power and great glory. And he shall send his angels with a great sound of a trumpet, and they shall gather together his elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other. 

(1 Corinthians 15:52)  "In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump: for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed."

            Remember the Feasts of Trumpets by sounding the trumpet, blowing a horn, ringing a bell.  With joy in our hearts, we remember the trumpet soundings of the past and look forward to the sounding of the trumpet when Jesus returns.

            Rosh Hashanah is a time for speaking blessings for the season to come.  A simple blessing is "Shana Tovah", which literally means "Happy Change” or “Happy New Season " in Hebrew.

Celebrating the Feast Days is not required, but a powerful blessing can come to us when we more fully understand what has been accomplished in our lives and in the Kingdom of Heaven because of the atoning, redemptive ministry of Jesus, our Messiah. Whether our celebration is elaborate or simple, our remembrance should include thanksgiving, worship and joy. God is giving a party and He has invited us.

Shana Tovah! Shana Tovah! Because of Jesus, our new season is blessed.  Because of Jesus, we are changed; we are renewed.  Let us walk into this new season changed, renewed and recharged for the Kingdom of God.

Baruch HaShem Hamacsiach Yeshua;

Baruch HaShem Adonai.

Blessing in the name of Messiah Jesus. 

Blessing in the name of the Lord.

Where Were We When God Laid the Foundations of the Earth?

Where Were We When God Laid the Foundations of the Earth?

By Rev. Lonnie C. Crowe

            I am a creationist, a bit of an iconoclastic creationist, but still a creationist.  I believe that my God is capable of speaking the universe into being in any amount of time He would choose to do it, even in nanoseconds.  Moreover, I know the importance of believing that God created the universe with a purpose and plan in mind.  I also believe that when we try to explain how it all came about, not even the most ardent, educated, dedicated creationist can possibly explain how God brought it all together.  

            We must remember that evolutionary theory is founded in pagan religion just as creation is founded in the Word of God. One is the tree of determining good and evil that leads to death.  The other is the tree of life.  Either choice is based on faith.  

            Quoting from an earlier article that I wrote, “The theory of evolution is not a modern phenomenon.  It is as ancient as mankind.  It is replete in the ancient creation stories.  In the predominant Greek creation story, the Titan Prometheus created mankind from clay and Athena breathed the divine spirit into them.  In the process of creating man, Prometheus created all other animal forms.  He began with simple forms such as worms and snakes.  As he became more skilled, his creations became more complex.  After he created monkeys and apes, he produced man. “ [i] According to the myth, Prometheus was punished for his kindness to man. 

            Because we are human, we can conceive and discuss spiritual phenomena only in human, finite terms. Whether we are creationists or evolutionists, our human efforts are inadequate.  "For My thoughts are not your thoughts, Nor are your ways My ways," says the LORD."For as the heavens are higher than the earth, So are My ways higher than your ways, And My thoughts than your thoughts (Isaiah 55:8-9 NKJV).

            In our endeavor to explain God, we usually anthropomorphize Him.  As we attempt to explain the deeper truths, we often transform God into our image.  We forget that we are created in His image and that He is transforming us by the renewing of our minds.  We are in a process.  John explains that process, “Beloved, now we are children of God; and it has not yet been revealed what we shall be, but we know that when He is revealed, we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is” (1 John 3:2 NKJV). 

            God is not bound by our concepts of time.  A 24-hour day as we know it didn’t occur until the fourth day of creation when the sun, moon and stars were created.  “The ancient Greeks had two words for time, chronos and kairos. While the former refers to chronological or sequential time, the latter signifies a time lapse, a moment of indeterminate time in which everything happens.”[ii]  God moves in kairos which cannot be measured by a clock or a calendar.  “Kairos” is used more than 80 times in the New Testament.

            Remember Job? Job’s friends try to explain the ways of God.  Job becomes frustrated because God has not explained Himself.  Following is a synopsis of much of the book of Job:

 “In the course of one day, Job receives four messages, each bearing separate news that his livestock, servants, and ten children have all died due to marauding invaders or natural catastrophes. Job tears his clothes and shaves his head in mourning, but he still blesses God in his prayers. Satan appears in heaven again, and God grants him another chance to test Job. This time, Job is afflicted with horrible skin sores. His wife encourages him to curse God and to give up and die, but Job refuses, struggling to accept his circumstances.

“Three of Job’s friends, Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar, come to visit him, sitting with Job in silence for seven days out of respect for his mourning. On the seventh day, Job speaks, beginning a conversation in which each of the four men shares his thoughts on Job’s afflictions in long, poetic statements.

”Job curses the day he was born, comparing life and death to light and darkness… Eliphaz believes that Job’s agony must be due to some sin Job has committed, and he urges Job to seek God’s favor. Bildad and Zophar agree that Job must have committed evil to offend God’s justice and argue that he should strive to exhibit more blameless behavior. Bildad surmises that Job’s children brought their deaths upon themselves. Even worse, Zophar implies that whatever wrong Job has done probably deserves greater punishment than what he has received.

“Job responds to each of these remarks, growing so irritated that he calls his friends “worthless physicians” who “whitewash [their advice] with lies” (13:4). After making pains to assert his blameless character, Job ponders man’s relationship to God. He wonders why God judges people by their actions if God can just as easily alter or forgive their behavior. It is also unclear to Job how a human can appease or court God’s justice. God is unseen, and his ways are inscrutable and beyond human understanding. Moreover, humans cannot possibly persuade God with their words. God cannot be deceived, and Job admits that he does not even understand himself well enough to effectively plead his case to God. ..

“Job’s friends are offended that he scorns their wisdom... Job sustains his confidence in spite of these criticisms, responding that even if he has done evil, it is his own personal problem. Furthermore, he believes that there is a “witness” or a “Redeemer” in heaven who will vouch for his innocence (16:19, 19:25). After a while, the upbraiding proves too much for Job, and he grows sarcastic, impatient, and afraid. …

“Without provocation, another friend, Elihu, suddenly enters the conversation. The young Elihu believes that Job has spent too much energy vindicating himself rather than God. Elihu explains to Job that God communicates with humans by two ways—visions and physical pain. He says that physical suffering provides the sufferer with an opportunity to realize God’s love and forgiveness when he is well again, understanding that God has “ransomed” him from an impending death (33:24). Elihu also assumes that Job must be wicked to be suffering as he is, and he thinks that Job’s excessive talking is an act of rebellion against God.

“God finally interrupts, calling from a whirlwind and demanding Job to be brave and respond to his questions. God’s questions are rhetorical, intending to show how little Job knows about creation and how much power God alone has… Overwhelmed by the encounter, Job acknowledges God’s unlimited power and admits the limitations of his human knowledge. This response pleases God.” [iii]

            I once thought I knew all about creationism.  When I read again the book of Job, the Holy Spirit so convicted me of the inadequacies of my reasoning that I was spiritually forced to stand as I read chapters 38-42.  Like Job, who am I to think I can explain the ways of God or that God needs to explain His ways to me?

            While I am unable to explain the creation, I know the importance of a God-created universe.  God created the universe, and He created me.  I know that He does all things decently and in order.  (1 Corinthians 14:40) I know that I am fearfully and wonderfully made. (Psalm 139:14) I know that my life has meaning and purpose. (Jeremiah 29:11)  I know that God desires the best for me.  (John10:10).  I know that before the foundation of the world, God chose that His only begotten Son would go to the cross for me.  (Revelation 13:8) Because God is the Creator, I have hope in spite of what is happening in the world around me.
           

Pray:

▪ For Christians to walk in the admonition of Titus 3:9: “But avoid foolish disputes, genealogies, contentions, and strivings about the law; for they are unprofitable and useless.” (NKLV)

▪ That we will repent of being wise in our own eyes.  (Proverbs 3:7)

  

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[i] https://www.usrpn.org/articles/single/preparing_our_children_understanding_context

[ii] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kairos

[iii] http://www.sparknotes.com/lit/oldtestament/section11.rhtml