That was the sound of the shofar: “Rise up, O LORD! Let Your enemies be scattered, and let those who hate You flee before You!’’
Shalom, Shalom; peace in the name of Yeshua. This is Crystal Sharpe and welcome to the Ancient Scrolls program. February 3, 2019
If by chance some of you enjoy the teachings on this program, I am now in the process of putting these teachings on a website called Ancient Scrolls online.com.
I will recite the Sh’ma:
Shema, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is One. The first commandment is to love the Lord Your God with all Your heart, with all Your soul and with all Your strength.
Father,
I thank You for being God. You are the King of the universe, King over the heaven and earth. The earth is the Lord’s and the fullness thereof; the world and those who dwell therein. Psalm 24
We desire to have understanding of Your Word, so that we all may rejoice in it, and abide by it. Your Word is relevant for today and we thank You for it. We bless You, Father, in Yeshua’s name.
Today we are going to continue studying Joel, but I am first going to say something about the radical abortion measure that was passed in New York.
January 22, 2019, Governor Cuomo of New York signed a bill to allow the murder of children even as the mother is dilating and giving birth. Of course, this received a standing ovation by those who no longer have a conscience, including the apostate and reprobate ministers who blessed it.
Not wanting to be outperformed by Governor Cuomo of New York, Virginia’s Governor Northam supports a measure that a child can be legally murdered after it is born.
WND reported: “When asked if he supported the measure promoted by fellow Democrat Kathy Tran, the governor said doctors could make decisions to terminate a baby after its birth. ‘If a mother is in labor, I can tell you exactly what would happen,’ Northam explained. “The infant would be delivered. The infant would be kept comfortable. The infant would be resuscitated if that’s what the mother and the family desired, and then a discussion would ensue between the physicians and the mother.’” He then continued, like it is an afterthought: “ . . . and it’s done in cases where there may be severe deformities . . .”
May? So, there is no certainty? Well, they want to leave it open for measures to euthanize children of all ages, and organs are in great demand for the elite. It is profitable. The elite in America are using Belgium and the Netherlands as examples, their measures for abortion and euthanasia.
Belgium, in 2014, authorized doctors to terminate the life of a child, at any age, who makes the request. Most of the 4,337 euthanized between 2016-2017 involved adults. An article posted in The Washington Post related 3 were under the age of 18. From the article, Belgium has made allowances for patients with cognitive and psychiatric illnesses, such as dementia, depression or schizophrenia to be terminated as well. But I would say this will eventually include people that suffer with brain injuries and PTSD: military and emergency personnel, sports players, musicians and artists in vehicular or skiing accidents, etc.
The trendy cure is now euthanasia because it sounds more sterile, more sanitized, more civilized than lions eating humans in an arena 2000 years ago. No, we have gone past that, right? We are now a people of culture with our expensive establishments of higher education, statues, literature, our stately art museums, we have an abundance of musical artists, and the nations certainly love our entertainment staples of porn, human trafficking, deviance, and violence.
The article states a “member of the euthanasia commission resigned in protest because it refused to recommend prosecution when a woman with dementia who had not requested euthanasia was nevertheless put to death at her family’s request.” (The Washington Post: Democracy dies in the Darkness. Children are being euthanized in Begium by Charles Lane. August 6, 2018 at 7:01 PM)
As I am considering these news events a word dystopia is conjured up. It is often characterized by the dehumanization of others. In America the unborn became the first targets of the dehumanizing process. In Germany, it was the mentally and physically disabled that were first targeted. They were dissected without any pain relief. If they didn’t die from the orgy of dissecting, they were murdered. The program didn’t stop there, of course, and other Germans were targeted.
Printed in 1958, at the end of a paper back issue of “The Play of the Diary of Ann Frank was a quote from Pastor Niemoeller, a victim of the Nazis in Germany: “First they came for the Jews and I did not speak out—because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for the communists and I did not speak out—because I was not a communist.
Then they came for the trade unionists and I did not speak out because I was not a trade unionist.”
Then they came for me and there was no one left to speak for me. (The Washington Post: Democracy Dies in Darkness. ‘Then they came for me’: A Hitler supporter’s haunting warning has a complicated history by Michael S. Rosenwald)
The unborn are characterized as inconveniences, as enemies within our bodies, as cancers, as anything but human. So, the elitists have declared this war against the unborn knowing it will eventually be acceptable to destroy other humans because of their defects, and of course, they will determine what defects are applicable for termination. Perhaps because the person is deaf, mute, blind, diabetic, high cholesterol, heart condition, they’re a smoker, old, maybe?
I will say this because it is so obvious, it was never about just killing the unborn. It is a progressive measure to legitimize their other plans of destruction for the human race, and the masses embrace it.
Yeshua said that we are worth more than many sparrows, meaning we are of great value to Him. So valuable that He was willing to sacrifice Himself in order to save us. To the wealthy, the elite, politicians, the powerful specialists in medicine, we are disposable.
I must speak out for the unborn, my conscience dictates it, because they are coming for us. And when they do, the world, as in Roman days, will give them standing ovations. Rome was a very civilized society, that is what we are told. Historians, archaeologists, and engineers still marvel at Rome’s Gothic structures, their embellished pagan temples of gods made in their image, the bathhouses, the gardens, their perfectly sculpted statues, their literature; they were conquerors, and great builders of entertainment: arenas used for chariot races, gladiator fights, and it was exhilarating to pit man against beast, slaves and Christians pouring out their blood on the ground to the cheers and blood lusts of the spectators. They paid to see it. Priceless, the dehumanization of mankind. My conclusion is that we are no better than the Romans. I must speak out against the violence committed against the vulnerable in our society. Just because others are reprobate, having dead consciences, does not mean I have to conform to their loss of conscience. I am to be conformed to the conscience, or the Word, of God; restoring dignity to man. Okay, I must move on.
Last program we left off talking about the locust in Joel which I think represents the end of the age armies that come up as a judgment against Israel. These will be nations under the banner of a global leader, the anti-christ. Not only this, but if interpreting correctly what we see written, it is God that is calling these nations, though they cause great anxiety and grief to Israel, He is calling for the final battle of man against God.
Often we see in history and in the Word itself a pattern that if a kingdom does not recognize God and observe His teachings, eventually it is conquered by another kingdom. The Jewish writers of the books in the Bible understood this. The prophet Daniel said in chapter 2:2 He removes kings and raises up kings. Psalm 75, starting at verse 6: For exaltation (promotion) comes neither from the east nor from the west nor from the south, but God is the Judge: He puts down one, and exalts another.
The Father will allow the final army to destroy the wicked, and all that is left behind is the righteous remnant. Noah, was a righteous remnant.
So let’s get started.
Chapter 1 opens up with Israel being instructed to tell their children, and also, to continue the cycle of relating the story to future generations about what the chewing, swarming, crawling, and consuming locust has eaten. This illustration, it is like a parable, it is for them a visual of gross destruction. Israel was an agrarian society and the destruction of their grains, trees, fruits, and grasses meant famine for their livestock and their families. This would be totally devastating, no matter the generation.
This should cause the generation that is being addressed by Joel to ponder on such a terrible event of locust. What can be done to prevent this ruin, this desolation?
The point, the lesson of the illustration, of the locust invading Israel, as usually it is, is for them to stay in a place of repentance. The locust in Joel is judgment against them and the way to avoid such disaster is to stay in a place of repentance. Repentance is like preventive maintenance—it stays the hand of judgment. Repentance is more than just saying I am sorry. In Jewish understanding it means to confess our sins before Him and to make every effort to not practice them anymore. Repentance is to turn to our Creator, and observe His teachings.
There are a couple places in Joel that instructs them how to repent, and to repent before the Day of the LORD.
Chapter 1:8
Lament like a virgin girded with sackcloth (is a display of deep repentance)
Verse 13, Gird yourselves and lament, you priests; wail, you who minister before the altar; Come, lie all night in sackcloth. It goes on and says: Consecrate a fast, call a sacred assembly; gather the elders and all the inhabitants of the land into the house of the LORD our God and cry out to the LORD.
Here is the acceptable fast of the LORD in chapter 2:12
Now, therefore, says the LORD, turn to Me with all your heart, with fasting, with weeping, and with mourning. So rend your heart, and not your garments; return to the LORD your God, for He is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and of great kindness; and He relents from doing harm.
The program last week I mentioned the oral tradition of Mohammed in the Hadith of a locust falling in his hands and on its two wings it was written in Hebrew: “We are the host of God the Most Mighty.” Some would interpret to say the army of the Great God.
Chapter 2 gives us a vivid description of the Day of the LORD coming. It begins like many angelic announcements in Revelation – the sound of the shofar blast.
Let all the inhabitants of the land tremble; for the day of the LORD is coming (in Revelation 1:10, John says he was in the Spirit on the LORD’s Day—the possibility is he is in the Spirit on Yom Teruah/Rosh haShanah, which is the LORD’s feast around our September/October time. This is not Sunday as some has interpreted), for it is at hand: a day of darkness and gloominess, a day of clouds and thick darkness, like the morning clouds spread over the mountains. A people come, great and strong, the like of whom has never been; nor will there ever be any such after them, even for many successive generations (unique in history. Yeshua also stated this in Matthew 24:21, For then there will be great tribulation, such as has not been since the beginning of the world until this time, no, nor ever shall be.)
Verse 3, A fire devours before them and behind them a flame burns; the land is like the Garden of Eden before them, and behind them a desolate wilderness. Surely nothing shall escape them (the sages would say of this verse: and neither was there any remnant of the wicked)
Verse 4, Their appearance is like the appearance of horses; and like swift steeds, so they run (similar toRevelation 9, it gives us a description of the locusts that come from the bottomless pit at the fifth trumpet under the seventh angel, and they are to torment for five months those who did not have the seal of God in their foreheads. The five months are from April to September, and quite possibly this could be the last five months of the Gog war in Israel. Revelation says: The shape of the locusts was like horses prepared for battle. Now the number of the army of horsemen was 200 million. And thus I saw the horses in the vision: those who sat on them had breastplates of fiery red, hyacinth blue, and sulfur yellow; and the heads of the horses were like heads of lions; and out of their mouths came fire, smoke and brimstone.)
I have run out of time.
Rico Cortes will sing the Aaronic blessing in Hebrew from Numbers 6:24-26.
If it is God’s will I will be here next program. Remember to walk by faith and not by sight. Do two things this week: love and forgive. Ask God to cleanse you from all unrighteousness every day. Keep your spiritual garments clean from wrinkles, spots and blemishes. Love God, love your neighbor.
Back to Joel 2:5
With a noise like chariots over mountaintops they leap, like the noise of a flaming fire that devours the stubble, like a strong people set in battle array.
Verse 6, Before them the people write in pain; All faces are drained of color. They run like mighty men, they climb the wall like men of war; every one marches in formation, and they do not break ranks. They do not push one another; everyone marches in his own column. Though they run between the weapons, they are not cut down. They run to and fro in the city, they run on the wall; they climb into the houses (like locusts), they enter at the windows like a thief.
Verse 10, The earth quakes before them, the heavens tremble; the sun and moon grow dark, and the stars diminish their brightness. The LORD gives voice before His army, for His camp is very great; for strong is the One who executes His word. For the day of the LORD is great and terrible: who can endure it (In Revelation 6:17, it says: who is able to stand?)?
Verse 15, Blow the trmpet in Zion, consecrate a fast, call a sacred assembly; gather the people, sanctify the congregation, assemble the elders, gather the children and nursing babes; Let the bridegroom go out from his chamber (in Hebrew this is an idiom for the Ark that holds the Torah/Covenant in the synagogues. It is a wooden cabinet and the Torah, the prophets and the writings are stored there. The cabinet is called “Aron kodesh”—holy ark), and the bride from her dressing room (the bride here is the Torah. Their figurative language is really neat).
Verse 17, Let the priests, who minister to the LORD, weep between the porch and the altar; Let them say, Spare Your people, O LORD, and do not give your heritage to reproach, that the nations should rule over them. Why should they say among the peoples, “Where is your God?”
