From the Desk of Jeff King

God's handiwork

Standing on the lip of Zigzag Canyon on Mt. Hood's southwest slope, I thought of Psalm 95 as I admired God's handiwork:

For the LORD is the great God

And the great King above all gods.

In His hand are the deep places of the earth;

The heights of the hills are His also.

The sea is His, for He made it;

And His hands formed the dry land.

Oh come, let us worship and bow down;

Let us kneel before the LORD our Maker.

For He is our God,

And we are the people of His pasture,

And the sheep of His hand.

Alisa and I reached the canyon via the Pacific Crest Trail, a trail system that links Canada and Mexico. We made the short hike from Oregon's Timberline Lodge and paused to snap photographs of the steep canyon below Zigzag Glacier. Overwhelmed by the beauty and raw power of God's creation, I looked up, raised my arms and recited a brakhah (blessing in Hebrew): "Baruch atah Adonai eloheinu melech ha'olam." Translation: Blessed are You, Adonai our God, King of the universe.

I also wrote about our trip on my photoblog. Click on the lead picture to view more images and a slideshow.

Casualties of war

This entry was buried in my June 2004 archives and I wanted to share it again. May America never forget:

The bluff overlooking Omaha Beach, France, was crowded by an army of journalists. It was here to chronicle the 60th anniversary of D-Day, a great and terrible day. On these hallowed grounds 9,387 Americans are buried beneath white crosses and Stars of David.

The solemn tribute made headlines around the world. But no mention was made of another June 6 anniversary – a failed landing that cost more than 200 innocent lives. On that date in 1939, five years before the Allied invasion, the Germany luxury liner SS St. Louis steamed slowly off the southeastern coastline of Florida. It carried 937 European Jews who were fleeing Nazi Germany.

The United States, Canada, Cuba and countries in Central and South America rejected the passengers' appeal for asylum. At 11:30 p.m. on June 6, German captain Gustav Schroeder received a cable from the homeland – RETURN TO HAMBURG IMMEDIATELY. According to the book Voyage of the Damned by Gordon Thomas and Max Morgan-Witts, Schroeder walked from his cabin to the bridge and ordered the helmsman to bring the ship onto the heading of east north-east, a course that would return the St. Louis to Germany. Schroeder, who felt deep compassion for the refugees, informed the Jewish passenger committee in private the next day. The Jews knew that returning to Germany meant a death sentence. Some had already spent time in concentration camps and witnessed the murder and torture of prisoners.

The book describes the passenger committee's reaction to Schroeder's news: "Some could not bear even to mention it to their wives and children. It was inhuman, degrading, and endured in private, but it cut deeply into one of the most basic of all human needs: the need to be wanted. Instead, they had been rejected. Even the New World did not want them; now they must rely again on the Old. The committee suffered in silence, knowing it was not just an anonymous group of people who had been turned down, but that they, individually, each one, had had the open door shut in their faces; through them, their entire race had been judged, and found wanting."

A breakthrough in negotiations days later granted the refugees temporary asylum in Great Britain, France, Belgium and Holland. About a third of the St. Louis Jews, however, died in the Holocaust after Germany invaded and overran all but Great Britain. Books and movies have depicted the horrors of D-Day, but the suffering of the St. Louis refugees – as well as hundreds of European Jews who were denied entry on other ships – has largely been forgotten or ignored. Their cries have been silenced.

Yesterday the free world turned its attention to the beaches of Normandy, and rightfully so. D-Day was the defining moment of World War II and the sacrifice of our young men should be honored. But America should not let this day pass without some expression of remorse and repentance. Had we not hardened our hearts, the St. Louis would have reached our beaches without a single casualty.

Jeremiah 29:11

I usually start my day with this prayer: LORD, if there is anyone I can minister to or encourage this day, show me. Too often that petition is met with silence. Either God is not speaking or I'm not listening very well.

I asked again last Saturday during my personal Bible study. Still nothing. When I finished reading I sat quietly for a few minutes, meditating on the goodness and mercy of the LORD. Suddenly a name and face came to mind. It was a female real-estate agent we had met last fall while trying to sell our home. We had not seen her in months. Then the Holy Spirit gave me these directions: Drive out to the housing development where she works and deliver a word of encouragement. The LORD quickened Jeremiah 29:11 and I scribbled the verse on notebook paper:

For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, says the LORD, thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give you a future and a hope.

That afternoon my wife and I drove to the development, which reminded me of a ghost town. It was obvious the sluggish economy and subprime mortgage crisis had paralyzed the real-estate industry. Rows of new homes remained unsold and vacant. We parked and approached the office with the neon "Open" sign beaming from the window.

Our realtor friend, who is a Christian, looked up from her laptop in utter shock. "I can't believe it's you," she said softly. "You picked this day. I haven't been in this office for weeks." She froze when I said the LORD had a word for her. Tears streamed down her face as she read the note. She hugged us tightly and said repeatedly, "I can't believe it. This is a miracle." The night before, she told us, she had cried out to God in tears, asking for a sign of hope. Her business was struggling. Her husband was injured recently in a car accident, preventing him from working. Her smoking habit had returned.

But Jeremiah 29:11 provided a soothing balm. She said the words had lifted a heavy weight. We prayed together and arranged to meet for lunch in three days. As we left for the car, tears streamed down my face. We had just seen Psalm 50:15 come to life: "Call upon Me in the day of trouble; I will deliver you, and you shall glorify Me."

Dear pastor . . .

An open letter from a member of the flock:

I am not going to help you build your own vision or ministry. In God's eyes, you have no authorization to build your own ministry, and if you attempt such, I will not help or assist you or be brought under the evil condemnation that I am obligated to submit to you as you rebel against the LORD you claim to be serving. I refuse to betray Christ and therefore will not join you in your rebellion if you ever begin building your own work/kingdom in lieu of Christ's . . . . I will not be coerced by any manipulative language to pour my money into your physical church-building program. Jesus never built even one physical building to further His kingdom. His true kingdom is only built in the hearts of men.

Read the full letter at SafeGuardYourSoul.

Kodachrome

Kodachrome is the name of my new photoblog that I launched this week using Apple's iWeb program. It is also a Paul Simon song title, named after Kodak's 35mm color slide film. I broke out the color crayons for this art project. It's edgy, fun and entertaining, I hope. The site is best viewed using Apple's Safari browser. Firefox 3 does not display photo galleries created in iWeb. This script patch should fix the problem. Internet Explorer loads iWeb pages slowly.

Lost in translation

When verbal communication of a thought, idea or command is not received or understood, the exasperated speaker might use the expression, "Do I have to draw you a picture?" God drew the ancient Israelites pictures so they would not miss what He was communicating to them in the Torah. He introduced a 22-letter alphabet in pictographic script, using letter symbols or word pictures that a Semitic, tent-dwelling society would understand.

Over time the Hebrew alphabet evolved and the pictographs became a lost language. But a few Bible scholars, including Jeff Benner of the Ancient Hebrew Research Center, are revisiting this ancient script to help translate the Hebrew Scriptures more accurately. Without an understanding of the near-eastern mindset of the people who penned God's Word, the Tanach (Old Testament) gets lost in translation.

Using Benner's Ancient Hebrew Lexicon of the Bible, I looked at the Hebrew words for "creator" and "redeem." I constructed the pictograms, applied Benner's Biblical interpretation and uncovered these nuggets. Hebrew is read right to left.

The ox head (AL) as well as the combination of the ox head (AL) and shepherd's staff (LAM) represent "El" or "God." The ox symbol can identify a chief, leader or father. When ox are yoked together to pull a wagon or plow the animal with more experience leads. Within the tribe the chief is seen as the elder yoked with others to lead or teach. The modern name for the letter AL is Aleph. The shepherd staff represents authority. Combined, AL and LAM mean "strong authority."

As seen above, the identity of the Creator is embedded in the Hebrew word bara.' The combined letters BEYT and RESH form the word "ben" when used in the possessive, meaning "son."

The Hebrew rendering of "redeem" starts with the letter GAM, which is a picture of a foot. In the mind of an ancient Israelite, words represented actions rather than abstract thoughts. Walking with another person was a sign of relationship or friendship. Scripture identifies Yeshua of Nazareth as God's agent of mercy and redemption. Our salvation is sealed by having an intimate, personal relationship with Messiah. Adam walked with God in the Garden of Eden, but after the fall only those redeemed by the blood of the Lamb were eligible to walk with Him.

Good answer

The speech pleased the LORD (1 Kings 3:10)

The word "pleased" above does not capture the depth of emotion God felt while engaging Solomon in a private conversation. Visiting the newly-crowned king of Israel in a dream, the LORD had offered to give him anything he desired. It was an unprecedented demonstration of divine favor.

"Pleased" in Hebrew, yatab, means beautiful, sweet, joyful. Scripture allows us to eavesdrop and hear the sweetness of Solomon's answer: "I am a little child; I do not know how to go out or come in. And Your servant is in the midst of Your people whom You have chosen, a great people, too numerous to be numbered or counted. Therefore give to Your servant an understanding heart to judge Your people, that I may discern between good and evil. For who is able to judge this great people?"

Solomon's selfless response so moved God that He not only made him the world's wisest king, He gave him what he did not ask for: wealth and fame. God also promised to lengthen Solomon's days if he would keep His commandments, which sadly he failed to do after allowing foreign wives to dull his heart toward the LORD.

Solomon chose wisely as a young ruler, and so can we. We don't have to be a king to ask the King for discernment and understanding. When we ask for those spiritual gifts in humility and brokenness, as did Solomon, our speech is beautiful in God's ears.

The mark of God

Ten years ago the LORD revealed to Alisa and I the significance of the Biblical feasts, which were dress rehearsals for the first and second coming of Messiah Yeshua. We also learned that the Christian holidays we once regarded as sacred and honoring to God were in fact counterfeits and offensive to Him.

That introduction launched my study into the Hebraic roots of Christianity, the most enriching and amazing journey of my life. Reading Scripture has become a hunt for buried treasure; I do my digging with Hebrew and Greek Bible software as well as other resources. I rejoice every time the Holy Spirit leads me to a nugget, but I am always humbled by this reality: the more I know, the less I know. God's Word is too vast and deep. Who can know it? Paul writes in Ephesians 3:8 that the riches of Maschiach (Christ) are unsearchable.

In spite of my limitations, God has used the Biblical feasts to build a foundation of understanding. In recent weeks that area of study yielded some fresh insights. The Hebrew word for "feasts," mow'ed, can describe a sign or signal. As Passover approached in late April, I felt the LORD was signaling His church to rally around this Old Testament festival. I didn't know why fully until I heard a teaching by Peter and Christie Michas of Messengers of Messiah, a Hebraic Roots ministry in Southern California. I reviewed the Scriptures they presented and agreed with their conclusion: Passover is linked to the sign or mark of God and our eternal security in Him. Here is what I gleaned from the Michas teaching and my own study:

Passover is the most significant Biblical feast because it points to God's finished work of redemption, the death and resurrection of His Son. Those who honor God's calendar, specifically Passover, receive the sign of God (Exodus 13:9), which we believe is the tav, the last letter in the Hebrew alphabet. In Rev. 22:13 Yeshua identifies Himself the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end. In Hebrew it is translated Aleph and Tav.

In the ancient Hebrew alphabet, which is a pictographic script (see chart), the tav resembles two crossed sticks or a cross. It represents a mark, sign or signature. One of the most significant uses of the tav is found in columns of the Great Isaiah Scroll, one of the original seven Dead Sea Scrolls discovered in 1947. Eleven ancient tav symbols were written in the margins next to Messianic passages.

Before a person can receive the tav of God, he or she must choose wisely. In Rev. 13:16 the beast causes people to receive a mark on their forehead or right hand. This is not an implanted chip, barcode or tattoo as many Christians believe. The mark reflects the belief system we take into our heart and mind, symbolically the forehead and hand. It is unseen by man. Verse 18 asks those with understanding to calculate the number of the beast. The Greek word for "calculate," psephizo, means to count or vote with pebbles. The ancient Greeks voted by dropping pebbles into urns. In a court of justice a white pebble represented acquittal and a black stone condemnation.

Psephizo also is used in Luke 14:28 when Yeshua asks would-be disciples to "count" the cost before following Him. Its derivitive, the Greek noun psephos, is rendered "stone" in Rev. 2:17. Here the Lord says He will give a white stone to those who overcome the beast system. The mark we receive is determined by how we vote with our stone. Our vote reflects what is in our heart and mind.

In Ezekiel 9:4, Jews who grieve over the idolatry polluting Jerusalem are sealed with a tav on their forehead. In the previous chapter, God shows the prophet a series of abominations in the city. The violations include an image of jealousy, which scholars identify as Astarte (also known as Ishtar or Easter), and women weeping for Tammuz, a sun god and counterfeit savior born on Dec. 25. Those two abominations flourish in the church today. Astarte (Easter) and Tammuz (Christmas) were assimilated into Christianity in the fourth century.

Michas believes the Greek letter chi, which looks like an "X," represents the mark of the beast. The chi and the ancient Hebrew letter tav look almost identical to the human eye, but are polar opposites spiritually. Satan's mark is a counterfeit of God's mark, the tav. The "X" is an ancient symbol linked to sun worship. Tammuz, whom the Greeks called Bacchus, was depicted with chi symbols, or crosses, on his headband. When people violate God's calendar by observing Christmas and Easter they invite the beast's mark. They choose the black stone.

Choosing the white stone requires us to heed Exodus 13:3-9, a passage included in the cube-shaped boxes that Jewish males wear on their forehead and left arm in morning prayer: "Remember this day (Passover) in which you went out of Eygpt, out of the house of bondage . . . . It shall be as a sign to you on your hand and as a memorial between your eyes, that the LORD's law (Torah) may be in your mouth; for with a strong hand the LORD has brought you out of Egypt." The Hebrew word for "sign," 'owth, can mean a mark, beacon or signal. The word "remember" in Hebrew, zakar, represents a mark that can be recognized. It is used in the infinitive form, meaning the subject should be remembered constantly. Why remember Passover? Not only did God's strong hand free the Israelites from slavery, it delivered us from the bondage of sin through the Passover sacrifice of His Son.

God grants that pardon freely when we place our trust in Yeshua alone, turn from sin and serve Him obediently. To maintain a healthy relationship with Him it is critical that we mature in our faith (1 Pet. 2:2), divide the word of truth (2 Tim. 2:15) and worship Him in spirit and truth (John 4:24). God will reveal the truth, including the significance of His calendar, to all who seek it earnestly. But with this knowledge comes accountability. When we are exposed to the truth we must choose between the white and black stone, and Yeshua asks us to count the cost. God will mark us accordingly.