An Amazing Addition!

Hey, Everybody, we’ve got some exciting news!  It looks like on 12.12.12 as we worship in the caves we’ll be joined by a local Israeli Ethiopian Choir.  You know, many of the religious Hebrew traditions are still practiced in parts of Ethiopia and the Jewish feasts and festivals are still kept. They practice an ancient form of biblical Judaism and it is believed that the Ethiopians are one of the lost tribes of Israel. Every year Ethiopian Jews return to Israel by the thousands!  The sounds of the nations returning to Zion…how exciting!

Sunrise Awakening

I have some dear friends in Honolulu that are waking to 72 beautiful degrees. There is a gentle wind out of the northwest that will remind them that God really loves them. I have friends in Singapore that are asleep on an 81-degree night and the wind, at the moment, is still. It's cloudy and 47 degrees in Miles City, Montana, where my friend John is so thankful for spring that he doesn’t care if the wind is blowing or not. It's 22 degrees and on the way down to 7 bone chilling degrees in Siberia, and the wind has a bad attitude. I’m sitting on a porch in Alabama, breathing in pollen and thinking about Ireland. In a few hours everything will change, everywhere, because the atmosphere is in a constant state of change all over the world. In a few hours in Jerusalem, daylight will appear at 5:55 a.m., and sunrise at 6:20. It will be 67 degrees under a gloriously beautiful blue sky. The sun will shine on an ancient stone there that is a witness to a sunrise awakening that happened so long ago. That stone is a reminder that His love never changes and there will also be a calm one-mile an hour wind to remind everyone that atmospheres do.

From the four corners of the earth and from all the people that breathe the winds that blow, we acknowledge the specialness of this day. We declare our thanks to the one who rolled away the stone to show us what love can do.

May the beautiful Hallelujahs of Hawaii rise into the heavens like all Hallelujahs should. May the Songs of Singapore and Siberia be filled with praise, and may the wind mingle your melodies as they rise heavenward. Alabama, Montana, Ireland, it's a new day. May all winds that blow, carry our songs across the heavens over Israel this day. Let all the earth declare His glory as the Son shines on us all.

Passover / April 6-14

Hey! Tonight is the first night of Passover! We thought we'd post a little bit about the history and the spiritual significance that this feast holds for us as Christians. Enjoy! 

Passover (Pesach)

The first feast of the Lord is Passover (Leviticus 23:5). The word Passover is Pesach in Hebrew and means passing over or protection. It is the foundational feast. It cannot be overemphasized as to how foundational Passover is in God’s eternal redemption plan.

Passover is the time of beginnings for Israel. This festival ushers in the coming of spring on the Jewish calendar and is celebrated on the fourteenth day of Nisan. Each of the first three festivals—Passover, Pentecost and the Feast of Tabernacles—has an agricultural basis as well as an historical significance. Many different things are celebrated during Passover including: the end of the rainy season and the beginning of the growing season; the new lambing time, and the Exodus of the Israelites from Egypt during Passover.

The Jewish people have celebrated Passover annually till this day since the time of Moses. Historically, there was only one Passover. It occurred almost 3500 years ago in Egypt when the children of Israel were slaves to the Egyptians. The Israelites cried out to God for help and He heard them. He commanded Moses to tell the children of Israel,

“I am the Lord; I will bring you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians, I will rescue you from their bondage, and I will redeem you with an outstretched arm and with great judgments. I will take you as My people, and I will be your God. Then you shall know that I am the Lord your God who brings you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians. And I will bring you into the land which I swore to give to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob; and I will give it to you as a heritage: I am the Lord.”

Moses and his brother Aaron went to Pharaoh and told him that the Lord said to let the Israelites go. Pharaoh refused to release the Israelites, even for a brief visit to the desert to worship their God. Moses had warned Pharaoh that God would send a series of plagues upon Egypt unless the people were freed.

God did send the plagues to show the people that He is the one true God. The tenth and final plague was the death of the firstborn. In Exodus 12 God spoke to Moses and Aaron to tell the congregation of Israel to take for himself a lamb of the first year without blemish on the tenth of the month and keep it until the fourteenth, then kill the lamb at twilight. They were to roast and eat the lamb the same night and none of the lamb’s bones were to be broken. They were to take some of the blood and put it on the two doorposts and on the lintel of the houses and none of them were to go out of the door of his house until morning. “For the Lord will pass through to strike all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, and when He sees the blood on the lintel and on the two doorposts the Lord will pass over the door and not allow the destroyer to come into your houses to strike you.”

Verse 14 says: “So this day shall be to you a memorial and you shall keep it as a feast to the Lord throughout your generations. You shall keep it as a feast by an everlasting ordinance.”

This was given to us not only to remember the first Passover but to point us to the one true Lamb of God. The apostle Paul said in 1 Cor. 5:7 “Christ, our Passover, was sacrificed for us”

Jesus was examined and found without blemish.

He entered Jerusalem and the temple on public display for four days on the tenth of Nisan.

He died in the seventh hour.

His bones were not broken

His blood was shed

He was crucified, suffered and died in the same night.

It is the applied blood of Christ that saves us

Jesus even celebrated the Passover meal. When we keep the Passover we are following the ways of Jesus. Jesus also added to the Passover. He told his disciples that whenever they ate the Passover meal, they should remember Him using the special unleavened bread and the cup. In the Passover ceremony this cup is called “the cup of Redemption.” Jesus wants believers to observe this yearly institute to remember the deliverance of God’s people physically from Egypt, and to recall the spiritual deliverance of God’s people through Jesus the Messiah.

On this revival calendar Passover is posted for a full week. It is actually one day but there is some controversy on whether it is the fourteenth or fifteenth of Nisan. Some celebrate on the first day and some on the second.

The gospels appear to say that the Messiah ate a Passover meal with the disciples on the evening beginning Nisan 14, and John appears to say Jews were having their Passover meal one day later.

The Sadducees and Pharisees disagreed on the day of Passover. The Sadducees believed the Feast of Passover and Unleavened Bread were separate feast days. They held Passover on the fourteenth as God decreed in Exodus, Leviticus, and Numbers. Those of the majority opinion, including the Pharisees, held Passover on the fifteenth. Jesus may have been following both dates by having Passover with the disciples on the fourteenth and becoming the Passover lamb on the fifteenth.

The Feast of Unleavened Bread is actually the feast that lasts for seven days beginning on the fifteenth day of Nisan.