If you ever get a chance to visit A Rood Awakening! TV studios in Charlotte, NC, definitely go! There is a cool little museum with Torah scrolls, artifacts from the real Sinai, replicas of the Tabernacle, and more.
If you ever get a chance to visit A Rood Awakening! TV studios in Charlotte, NC, definitely go! There is a cool little museum with Torah scrolls, artifacts from the real Sinai, replicas of the Tabernacle, and more.
If you ever get a chance to visit A Rood Awakening! TV studios in Charlotte, NC, definitely go! There is a cool little museum with Torah scrolls, artifacts from the real Sinai, replicas of the Tabernacle, and more.
If you ever get a chance to visit A Rood Awakening! TV studios in Charlotte, NC, definitely go! There is a cool little museum with Torah scrolls, artifacts from the real Sinai, replicas of the Tabernacle, and more.
+6
The fallow ground of the poor would yield much food, but it is swept away through injustice.
#proverbs 13:23 ESV
Don't put economic stumbling blocks in front of people. God hates predatory business practices and obstructive politics. Let people use their resources for their own benefit.
Thought for Today: Thursday February 16:
Come to Elohiym and rest! He is all about you, to bless and restore. Breathe Him in with every breath. The way ahead of you may be steep, so slow down and cling tightly to His Hand. He may teach you a difficult lesson, learned only by hardship. Lift up your empty hands of faith to receive His precious Presence. Light, Life, Joy, and Peace flow freely through this gift. When your focus turns away from Him, you may grasp other things. Return to Him and regain His Presence.
SERIES H --- THE JUDGES --- LESSON 07
PITCHERS AND TORCHES
THE ARMY OF THREE HUNDRED
From Judges 7
Early one morning Gideon, whose other name was Jerubaal, left with his troops to fight against the enemy. He set up camp beside the Spring of Harod. The camp of the Midianites was north of them in the valley by the hill of Moreh. ‘You have too many soldiers,’ YHVH said to Gideon. ’If you defeat Midian with all those soldiers, you’ll think you did it and brag to Me about the way you saved yourself. Tell your men that those who are afraid may go home.’ When Gideon gave his soldiers permission to leave, twenty-two thousand of them went home. Only ten thousand were left. ‘You still have too many soldiers,’ Adonai said to Gideon. ‘Bring them down to the Spring of Harod and I’ll show you which to keep and which to send home.’ When Gideon brought his troops down to the Spring of Harod, Adonai gave these orders: ‘Separate those who lap up the water like a dog from those who get down on their knees to drink.’ There were only three hundred soldiers who put water up to their mouths and lapped it from their hands. All the other soldiers knelt down to drink from the spring. ‘With these three hundred men, I will conquer the whole Midianite army,’ YHVH promised Gideon. ‘Tell all your other men to go home.’ The three hundred gathered clay pitchers and trumpets from the rest of tile soldiers before Gideon sent them away. Then they stayed with Gideon to do battle with the Midianites, who were camped in the valley below. That night Adonai spoke to Gideon again. ‘Get up now and go down to take the army of Midian, for I have already given you the victory. But if you are afraid to attack, take your servant Purah and go quietly to the Midianite can and listen to what they say. Then you will certainly have the courage to attack.’ Gideon was afraid, so he took Purah with him and went quietly to the edge of the Midianite camp. The valley was filled with the Midianites and the Amalekites and other nations of the east. They had crowded the valley like swarms of locusts, with so many camels that no one could count them, almost like the sand on the seashore. Then Gideon heard a man telling a friend about his dream. ‘In this dream,’ he said, ‘a loaf of barley bread came rumbling into camp and knocked our tent flat.’ ‘That was the sword of Gideon, the Israelite, the son of Joash,’ said his friend. ‘YHVH has given him a great victory over us.’ When Gideon had heard about the dream and what it meant, he bowed his head and worshiped YHVH. Then he returned to camp and shouted orders ‘Get up! Adonai has given us the victory over the Midianites.’ Gideon divided the three hundred men into three bands. Each man had a trumpet and an empty pitcher with a torch inside each pitcher. ‘Watch me!’ he told his men. ‘When we come to the outer edges of the Midianites camp, do what my group and I do. When we blow our trumpets, you will blow your trumpets too. Then shout, ‘For Adonai and for Gideon.’ A little past midnight and the changing of the guard, Gideon and his troops crept to the outer edges of the Midianite camp, surrounding it. Gideon and his band blew their trumpets with a flourish and broke the clay pitchers so that their torches blazed out suddenly to the Midianites. Then the other two hundred men blew on their trumpets, which they held in their right hands and broke the clay pitchers so that their torches suddenly blazed in the night also. ‘A sword for Adonai and for Gideon!’ they shouted. Gideon’s men surrounded the Midianite camp, blowing on their trumpets. The terrified Midianite soldiers ran for their lives, fighting and killing one another as they went. They fled from the camp to places as far away as Beth-shittah near Zererah and Abel-meholah by Tabbath. Gideon issued a call to the soldiers of Naphtali, Asher and Manasseh to go after the Midianites. He sent messages also throughout the hill country of Ephraim, saying, ‘Come and fight Midian! Capture the fords of the Jordan at Beth-barah so that they cannot escape!’ The soldiers of Israel captured the two commanders of the Midianite forces; Oreb and Zeeb. They killed Oreb at a rock that was later named for him and they killed Zeeb at a winepress that now bears his name. Then they brought the heads of Oreb and Zeeb across the Jordan River to Gideon.
COMMENTARY
CANAANITE WEAPONS
Joshua once won a victory with an army that silently marched around Jericho. Now Gideon would win a victory over a great army with only three hundred men, holding pitchers, torches and trumpets. How clear it would be to all Israel that YHVH had again acted to deliver them. The Israelites often had to fight with little more than their farming tools, while their Canaanite enemies were well supplied with bronze and iron weapons. Entire companies of Canaanite swordsmen sometimes went into battle. One- and two-edged bronze swords were sharpened until the edge could slice through a human body. Other swords had a triangular blade designed to pierce very deeply. Sometimes weapon makers would attach a protruding piece of metal on the blades of swords and daggers. Such a mid-rib made a wider wound, thus guaranteeing the victim’s death. In battle each soldier carried as many weapons as he could afford to buy. Many kept daggers sheathed around their waists for use when wooden spears or javelins broke. Others wielded a heavy bronze axe-axe or a spiked mace that shattered the leather and-wood shields of the time. Attached to the wrist, a simple slingshot was just as lethal a weapon. One accurate shot sent stones flying at speeds that would kill on impact. Archers commanded one of the most dangerous weapons of the Canaanite armies. With complicated bows of wood, bone and tendon, they could fire a volley of deadly arrows twice the distance of the simpler Israelite bows. Canaanite archers also used bronze battle bows so powerful a warrior needed his full strength just to draw the string. They commonly carried a leather quiver of arrows with flint, stone and bronze tips. When they had to, Canaanite soldiers used makeshift weapons. Hunting nets, thick cords and even a broken spear shaft could serve in an emergency. But the Canaanites rarely found themselves without the metal weapons they depended on. Bronze was plentiful and iron was becoming more common as the smiths experimented with ways of making the new harder metal. Sometimes a dagger hilt was cast of bronze and riveted to an iron blade. Iron arrowheads were so prized that archers fortunate enough to own them often carved their name on the wooden shaft. Rulers kept heavy-duty battering rams in their armouries to break down gates and walls. They used fleets of ironbound war chariots to transport their archers and spearmen. Some also hired professional warriors from surrounding regions to strengthen their ranks. These superior weapons and skilled warriors gave the Canaanites a great advantage over their Israelite foes.
A PROPOSAL JUSTIFYING THE BANNING OF THE BOOK OF REVELATION - A FIRST DRAFT.
I often tell believers, Messianic Christians and Christians, that the book of Revelation should be banned. The response is always one of shock, and for good reason, no book of the Bible should be banned, and John's Revelation stands out insofar as it contains an exclusive blessing to those who come to understand its great mystery.
Despite this unique blessing and the protestations from all whom become acquainted with my desires regarding the Book of Revelation, I nevertheless persist in calling for the banning of this book. My inspiration in this matter is, and has been, the manifestation of all the nonsense that has been borne out of the endless attempts to decipher the symbolisms contained in the Book, the endless trail of unfulfilled prophecies and the pathetic attempts at justifying and reinterpreting these failed attempts at revelatory insight, and the existence of an entire industry composed of so called believers who make their living exploiting every catastrophe that occurs throughout the world. There is, I am certain, a more biblically grounded foundation that would better justify my admittedly wild demand, however, I have not been bothered, nor had any reason to provide such a justification given the abundance of evidence already supporting my cause.
To provide some clarity regarding the specifics of my seemingly absurd claim, I am not suggesting that the Book of Revelation should be burnt in the streets nor am I advocating that it be banned to everyone. Instead, I am suggesting that it should be banned to a particular type of believer, that is, those who do not yet have the intellectual and theological knowledge that understanding such a text necessarily requires. An appropriate level of knowledge in this regard would include a proper knowledge of the Old Testament and the Mosaic Law, the political and social context within which the Revelation was written, a proper understanding of current international relations and social and economic trends that does not involve reducing human affairs to the cartoon character superficiality of the conspiracy theory world, and a proper grasp of the literary tradition from which this text is associated with. That this would inevitably result in nearly everyone being banned from reading the final chapter in the Bible speaks to the great complexity, depth and mystery of this book than it does to any fault in the believer.
I have come to this decision over time, but the benefits that such a proposal would entail became ever more so apparent during the Covid lockdown years. If those dark times proved anything, it was that, at the very least, the Book of Revelation should be locked away in some far away heavily guarded fortress during difficult times and that any talk of the End Times, and all related topics, should be strictly monitored by some noble power capable of doing so. There has been enough said about those times, but suffice it to say, while many in the faith conducted themselves admirably and as best as they could, many behaved in ways that one would have politely described as unproductive, and impolitely, but more accurately, described as embarrassing, prefixed with a word that rhymes with ducking. When people were forced to make incredibly hard decisions regarding their jobs and livelihoods, when people were under considerable strain, with some committing suicide in distress and alone, that some believers thought it was acceptable to vomit whatever rubbish their YouTube gurus were now sprouting in some Gnostic belief they were privy to secret information that the “sheep” where blinded to while arrogantly believing they were fighting the Illuminati, that is to say, that some believer retreated into some weird Gnostic cess pool on the internet instead of engaging others in practical ways to alleviate the burdens of those times, was more than enough evidence that the Book of Revelation should have been banned a long time ago.
To perhaps get at the spirit of why I say John the Elder’s revelation should be put away, it is probably more accurate to say that the problem with which I have identified is not just that the Book of Revelation and a focus on the end times make believers say and do incredibly stupid things, though that reason is sufficient on its own to justify my cause, it is that such a focus orientates one's faith that is in contradiction to the spirit of the Torah and the teachings of Jesus. God gave the Torah as the framework to participate with Him in the sanctification of this world, we do not strive towards heaven above, but we strive to bring heaven down, as Moses knew. Those who have made obsessing over "the end times" the foundation of their faith have evidently forgotten this and have done so because of their fetishization of the NWO and the Illuminati. There is a fatalism, a weak and back footed defensive posture to this thinking that would have a believer do nothing but complain and hold tight until Jesus returns, confusing their rantings and ravings and online chat forums and YouTube videos as “fighting back”.
I do acknowledge that there are truths that we must always speak that are unjustly labelled a conspiracy theory by interests whose plans are totalitarian in nature, and I also understand why some people get sucked into this world, conspiracy theories and knowing the End Times provides an existential calmness in a world that is changing for the worse at a pace never before seen in human history – but such change, and such challenges, do not excuse stupidity. And while one may joke about wanting to ban the Book of Revelation, one cannot argue against the facts put forward in this brief essay.
KS.
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