Passover and Easter 4/9/17

PASSOVER and EASTER

(All Scripture will be quoted from the One New Man translation unless otherwise noted.)

April 09, 2017

by Pastor Kim Hickcox 

As the Gentile church celebrates Good Friday and Easter Sunday, our Jewish brother and sisters (both Messianic and not) are still celebrating Passover, as this is when and why it happened. See we (Christians – Christ followers) don’t have any legitimate holidays. This made conversion very difficult when Emperor Constantine decided that Christianity should be the “religion of the empire”, because now it was a requirement to avoid persecution. The Holy Spirit was suddenly not the One Who was drawing people to Christ, fear was – the fear of being killed as a traitor of the State. 

So, over the centuries, the Bishops of Rome (whom we now refer to as Popes) created two major holidays for us: Christmas and Easter. The celebration of the incarnation of Messiah is celebrated on Dec 25th, which was during the pagan winter solstice celebration. This was/is where we get the idea of a Christmas tree with its decorations and lights. And save for the overwhelming Santa commercialism, it has pretty much been successfully converted into a Christian holiday. This is why there is so much controversy over it being called Christmas, and nativity scenes, etc. 

Easter however, in my humble opinion, in many ways has been kept a successful pagan celebration with its constant symbols of bunnies and eggs, and seems to be getting more and more in tune with its sexual roots. Ishtar was the Babylonian fertility goddess that was celebrated in the spring. This signified the earth coming back to life after its dormancy of winter. The Greek spelling of Ishtar is Easter, which is why I refer to it as Resurrection Sunday.

There have also been much prejudices and persecutions in the past forcing an incredibly strong wedge between the Jewish and Gentile brothers and sisters in the Body of Christ, much to the devil’s elation. There is the lie that the Jews killed Jesus and some faithful Christians don’t even know that He is Jewish! When the Lord brought Paul to preach to the Gentiles because Y’shua did indeed die for the sins of EVERYBODY, we just sort of took over after a while, and it is now thought of as a totally separate “religion”. 

But today, as we remember and honor our resurrected Jewish Messiah let’s give the devil a black eye and bridge that gap between “them” and “us” right now, because the only real “them” and “us” are the saved and the unsaved. And one of our main missions in life needs to be living and praying so that there are less and less of “them” and more and more of “us”. So today we give total thanks, adoration and our undying love and devotion to “the Lamb of God, the One Who takes away the sin of the world.” (John 1:29)

Isaiah 53:1-5 foretells of Y’shua. His arrival, His ordinary looks and station in life (i.e. He wasn’t born into a current royal, rich or influential family) and His ministry: 

“Who would have believed our report? And to whom is the arm of the LORD revealed? ²For He grew up before Him as a tender plant and as a root out of dry ground. He had no form or splendor, and when we see Him, there is no beauty that we should desire Him. ³He was despised and rejected by men, a Man of pains and having known about sickness, disease, and as one from Whom men hid their face: He was despised, and we esteemed Him not.” To esteem someone is to respect them and hold them in a place of importance in your heart.

“⁴Surely He has borne our sicknesses, our pains; He carried them, yet we esteemed Him stricken, smitten by God and afflicted. ⁵But He was wounded because of our transgressions,” our transgressions are the sins we committed with the intention of angering God. “…bruised because of our iniquities:” our iniquities are the sins we committed on purpose; you know, knowing its wrong and doing it any way for whatever justifying reasons we have. “… the chastisement of our peace was upon Him, and we have been healed by His wounds.” Because Y’shua received wounds that did NOT heal before His death: physical, emotional and spiritual, we CAN be healed form ALL our wounds because His wounds healed them:

            Physical because of the brutal beating He took before His actual      death.

Emotional because of the pain, guilt, remorse, heartache and rage He felt when all of humanities sins were infused into Him so He could actually know what it felt like.

Spiritual because once He became sin for us, He was instantly separated from the Father because God cannot not stay in the presence of sin. This was His heart wrenching cry in Matthew 27:46, “Eli! Eli! L’mah sh’vaktani? My God! My God! Why have You utterly forsaken Me?” Notice that God was not addressed as His Father, in that instant He was only His God. A righteous God turning His back on His unrighteous Son Who had become sin for us, to pay the ransom God demanded for each soul the devil had stolen throughout time.

Isaiah 53:6-12 foretells of His reaction before Pilate and the Priests as well as God’s pleasure at what His mission would accomplish. It also foretells of His death:

“All we like sheep have gone astray. We have turned, each one, to his own way, and the LORD has caused the iniquity of us all to fall upon Him.

“⁷He was oppressed and He was afflicted, yet He did not open His mouth, like a lamb which is brought to the slaughter and like a sheep is mute before her shearers. ⁸He was taken away from rule and from judgment, and who will recount His life? For He was cut off of the land of the living. He was stricken because of the transgressions of My people. ⁹And one made His grave among the wicked and His tomb among the rich, although He had done no violence, nor was there any deceit in His mouth.” This tells us His of being hung between two thieves (Mark 15:27), and being buried in the new tomb of the rich Joseph of Arimathea (Matthew 27:57-66).

This last part is the part that really shakes me. Because it shows how much the Father loves us, and what He and His Son purposed to go through just to buy us back! Take this part personally to heart - read this with the full realization that it was done specifically for you. He knowingly did this just for you, so you could be with Him and know Him and receive His full unbridled love and forgiveness. So you could be with Him for ever and ever in heaven. Know that all these emotions are aimed specifically at you!

“¹⁰But it pleased the LORD to bruise Him. He had put Him to grief: if His very being will consider it a recompense for guilt, He will see His seed, He will prolong His days, and the pleasure of the LORD will succeed in His hand. ¹¹He will see the travail of His soul and be satisfied. By His knowledge My servant will justify the righteous before many, and He will bear their iniquities. ¹²Therefore I shall divide Him a portion with the great, and He will divide the spoil with the strong, because He has laid open His very being to death, and was numbered with transgressors and He took of the sin of many and made intercession for the transgressors.” This is just one of the prophetic messages about our Passover Lamb.

I hope this solidifies that Truth that He purposed to die for us. There are still, to this day, so many good and devout Christians who cannot love the Jewish people because they killed Jesus. Well, let’s check this theory out:

John 17:1-5 “Y’shua said these things and when He lifted up His eyes to heaven He said,‘Father, the time has come: You must now glorify Your Son, so Your Son could glorify You,²seeing that You gave Him authority over all flesh, so that He could give eternal life to everyone that You have given to Him. ³And this is eternal life, that they would know You, the only true God, and Whom You sent, Y’shua Messiah. ⁴I glorified You on earth, when I completed the work which You gave Me to do: ⁵and now You must glorify Me, Father, beside Yourself in the glory which I had beside You before the world was created.’”

John 18:33-37 “Then Pilate entered the praetorium again and called Y’shua and said to Him, ‘Are You the King of the Jewish Nation?’ ³⁴Y’shua answered, ‘Do you say this from yourself or have others told you about Me?’ ³⁵Pilate answered, ‘Am I Jewish?’ Your people and the high priests gave You over to me: what did You do?’ ³⁶Y’shua answered, ‘My dominion is not of this world: if My dominion were of this world, My attendants would have been fighting whomever so that I would not be given over to the Jewish leaders: but now My kingdom is not from here.’ ³⁷Then Pilate said to Him, ‘Therefore are You a king?’ Y’shua answered, ‘You say that I am a king. I have been born for this and have come into the world for this, so that I could bear witness to the truth: everyone who is from the truth hears My voice.’”

And I would also like to displace the image we so often have portrayed of our Messiah as the scrawny, pitiful looking man we so often see:

1.     He was a carpenter until He was 30 and started His ministry. Before electricity! Before pickup trucks to haul wood and table saws and power drills. Our Savior was pumped!

2.     For the next 3 years He walked everywhere and covered miles and miles before He was through, so it’s not like life got cushy after He handed His hammer to his brothers.

3.     After His back was literally ripped to shreds for us, and He had lost enough blood to weaken even Arnold Schwarzenegger (probably showed my age here), He carried that cross beam of his cross, which probably weighed around 70 pounds, as it had to be big enough to hold the weight of a grown man by just 2 nails, most of the way through and then out of the city.  

Does that sound like a pitiful weakling to you? And when the soldiers came fully armed, and there were 600 of them plus the religious leaders, servants, etc. Did He hide? Did He run? Did He cower? NO. Because “I have been born for this and have come into the world for this,”. So when everyone approached Him, He stepped up and asked them, “…‘Whom are you seeking?’⁵They answered Him, ‘Y’shua of Nazareth.’ He said to them, ‘I AM.’ And Judas, the one who was giving Him over, had also stood with them. Then as He said to them, ‘I AM,’ they went into those behind and they, the entire arresting party, fell to the ground.”   John 18:4-6

What just happened? The Great I AM, right there in person, spoke His eternal name. The name He gave Moses from the burning bush so many years before: “‘Certainly I shall be with you, and this will be a sign for you, that I AM has sent you. When you have brought the people out of Egypt, you will serve God upon this mountain.’ ¹³And Moses said to God, ‘Behold, when I come to the children of Israel and will say to them, “The God of your fathers has sent me to you,” then they will say to me, “What is His name?” What shall I say to them?’ ¹⁴And God said to Moses, ‘I AM THAT I AM!’^* And He said, ‘Thus will you say to the children of Israel, I AM has sent me to you.’ And God said further to Moses, ‘Thus you will say to the children of Israel, “The LORD God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, and the God of Jacob has sent me to you.” This is My name forever, and this is My memorial to all generations,’”   Exodus 3:12-15

Therefore when His eternal name was spoken by Him, all lost their strength and fell to the ground. We now call that being slain on the Spirit. It is when the power of Almighty God manifests itself to the point that you can no longer stand because you are in such close proximity to His Presence, that all your strength just disappears and you fall down under His sheer power! And when He withdraws to the point to where you can get up again – you are changed. Isaiah 55:11, “So My Word will go forth out of My mouth: it will not return to Me empty-handed, but it will accomplish that which I please and it will succeed wherever I send it.” This also goes for the Living Word too, in Whose Presence you were when you were slain in the Spirit.

When God instituted the first Passover meal, it was both for the preparation of His people to leave their place of enslavement the next morning and as a sign that told the Angel of Death to pass over each of their houses that night and NOT kill the first born that lived there. It was also a sign of the coming Savior! 

And what was the sign? The blood of the lamb that they were to kill for their meal that night. “Speak to the whole congregation of Israel saying, ‘On the tenth day of this month they will take for themselves – each man – a lamb, according to the house of their fathers, a lamb for each house…⁵Your lamb will be without blemish, a male of the first year…⁶and the whole assembly of Israel will kill it at twilight. ⁷And they will take of the blood and strike it on the two side posts and on the upper door post of the houses in which they will eat. ⁸And they will eat the flesh roasted in fire, and unleavened bread in that night…¹¹It is the LORD’s Passover.¹²For I shall pass through the land of Egypt this night and will strike all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, both man and beast, and I shall execute judgment against all the gods of Egypt. I AM the LORD! ¹³And the blood shall be a token for you upon the houses where you are, and when I see the blood, I shall pass over you and the plague will not be upon you to destroy you, when I strike the land of Egypt.’”  (Exodus 12:3-13, verse 7&13 in bold for emphasis)

Likewise, when we are “covered by His Blood” the plagues do not destroy us either. The plague of sin, the plague of unforgiveness, the plague of bitterness, the plague of transgression, the plague of iniquity, the plague of shame and self-condemnation. ALL of these can be overcome by the Blood of the Lamb of God, Who takes away the sin of the world. Let Him! Let Him take away your sin! Let Him take away your unforgiveness! Let Him take away your sorrow, your hopelessness, your fear. It’s what He came to do. And it is already a done deal. Absolutely everything you need or lack has already been provided by Him. Just go to Him and ask. We believe Lord, but help us with our unbelief. He can do that too, just read Mark 9:24.

When we take communion, most of us know that we are reenacting the last portion of Y’shua’s last Passover Seder with His disciples – hence the Christian label The Last Supper. But let’s just lightly walk through a Passover Seder to better understand where we get this from:

Cup 1 I will bring you out. The first cup of wine is called the Kiddush, meaning the sanctification. Since the Seder is a holy celebration, the table can literally serve as an altar for the celebration.

In Luke 22:17 when Y’shua drank this cup and gave the blessing, He said, “Blessed are You, Lord our God, King of the Universe, Who creates the fruit of the vine.” And this blessing remains the same to this day.

Cup 2 I will rescue, deliver, you from their bondage. This cup is taken during the meal and the blessing Y’shua gave in Luke 22:19 before drinking it was “Blessed are You O Lord our God Who is bringing forth bread from the Earth.”

Cup 3 I will redeem you. The original redemption was from Egypt when their army perished in the Red Sea. However, this is known as the Cup of Redemption and is the one we use during our shortened version of the Seder called Communion because this is the cup Y’shua drank when He said in Luke 22:20 that this was the Renewed Covenant in His Blood. Each time we take communion, we are renewing our covenant with the King of the Universe and essentially telling Him that everything we have is His.

Cup 4 I will take you to Myself. Although this again originally spoke of their release from Egypt, this Spiritually the forth cup represents crossing into eternal life, and has for centuries been known as the Cup of Elijah. It is poured and never drunk.

The Cup of Elijah announces the Messianic reign (yet another reason why I think the 2 prophets in Revelation will be Enoch and Elijah) and therefore cannot be drunk until His Kingdom literally comes down to Earth!

The unleavened bread of course, is matzah.  And it symbolizes Messiah by the holes that it is pierced with (to keep it from rising) and the stripes is receives while being baked.

Passover this year starts at sunset on April 11^th and ends in the 18^th at sunset. If any of you would like to participate in any local Messianic Passover activities I would encourage you to find a Messianic Synagogue in your area and go! I have attached a flyer for those in the Orlando area.

Have fun and have a blessed Passover/Resurrection Season (or Holy Week if you prefer)!!

SHALOM

*This is Ehyeh Asher Ehyeh, which literally means: I WILL BE AS I WILL BE. It is the most power-filled Name the Lord uses when He means business in no uncertain terms! 

GENESIS

April 1, 2017

 By Pastor Kim Hickcox

(All Scripture taken from One New Man Bible unless otherwise noted)

 

Today we are back in Genesis and on chapter 19, which is about the destruction of the city of Sodom. The Biblical story of the sin of Sodom is about the men of the city trying to break down Lot’s door when they discovered he had male visitors and they ALL wanted to have sex with them. Which in and of itself would be enough in my humble opinion. Rape, be it homosexual or heterosexual is a terrible thing. 

 

But when we look at the Book of Jasher (pages 38-41) we find all sorts of reasons why the Lord told Abraham that, “Because the cry of Sodom and Gomorrah is great and because their sin is very grievous, ²¹I shall go down now and see whether they have done everything I told them, which has come to Me.” (Genesis 18:20-21)

 

So in Jasher there is a subtitle called Sodom’s Wickedness. And the first paragraph reads like this:

In those days all the people of Sodom and Gomorrah, and of the whole five cities, were exceedingly wicked and sinful against the Lord and they provoked the Lord with their abominations, and they strengthened in aging abominably and scornfully before the Lord, and their wickedness and crimes were in those days great before the Lord. (pg 38)

 

So as to give them a fair trial and not paint the sinful cities with just one brush, let’s look at what this historical writing says was going on:

 

1.     Four times a year all the cities would gather together for what can only be described as a paganistic free-for-all at the surrounding fountains in the countryside about a half a day’s journey from town. Then they all sang and danced and had a good time! Then we read that it culminated with the following:

And in the time of rejoicing they would all rise and lay hold of their neighbor’s wives, and some, the virgin daughters of their neighbors, and they enjoyed them, and each man saw his wife and daughter in the hands of his neighbor and did not say a word.

 

2.     Then when a stranger came to town who was a vendor, they would all converge upon him, take all his wares and split everything among them, so that when he complained or had the nerve to tell a judge, everyone would go to him and show him the little bit that they had of his, saying that he gave it to them, and he was violently ushered out of town empty and broke.   

 

3.     Then all the judges of the five cities got together (Sodom, Gomorrah, Zabnac, Admah and Zeboyim) and had the ingenious idea to put several beds in the middle of the town squares, so any strangers who came to town would have a public place to be raped and tortured after the sun went down. 

 

4.     If a poor person stumbled into town, they would all gather together and give them silver and gold (wait for it…) and then make a decree that no one is to give them or allow them to buy any food! And on the assumption that they would not let them leave either, Jasher tells us that should the poor person die of starvation while there, everyone would take back what they had given him, fight over his clothes, and then bury him naked under some bushes.

 

5.     Now in the city of Admah, a traveller came into town, was staying out in the courtyard and asked a young woman for a drink of water. She gave it to him, with a little bread (not good). The next morning when someone discovered that she had been nice to this stranger, she was brought before the Judge who sentenced her to death for it! So the whole town dragged her out, covered her from head to toe with honey and threw her into a swarm of bees where she was stung until she died!! 

 

Are you catching the drift of the whole areas wickedness? Is it any wonder the Lord was upset with these people? But before we get to their destruction, there is a story in here that actually isn’t so bad (comparatively speaking):

 

Sarah sent Eliezer (Abraham’s main slave and the one he would make his heir had the Lord not given him a son) to Sodom to see how Lot and his family were doing. So he went, and when he arrived he saw some of the townsmen beating up on this man (no surprise) and Eliezer went to help him. Well one man picked up a rock and hit him in the forehead making him bleed. Then had the nerve to demand money from him because he released all the bad blood from his forehead. Well Eliezer was astonished by this and they took it before the Judge. The Judge of course sided with the citizen of Sodom and demanded that Eliezer pay him for his medical services, for such is the custom and the law of our land. So Eliezer picked up a rock, threw it at the Judge, drawing blood from his forehead and told him not to bother paying him for his services, but to pay the man he owed! And Eliezer left the man of Sodom with the judge, and he went away. Is that Godly wisdom or what? 

 

Taking all this into consideration, is it any wonder that the sins of these cities and the cries of their victims caught the attention of our Lord? 

 

When 2^nd Peter reviews the destiny of Sodom and Gomorrah, we learn that in the Lord’s eyes, Lot was a righteous man, “and He rescued righteous Lot, when he was tormented by the way of life of the lawless in sensuality, ⁸for that righteous man, as he lived among them day after day, was tormented, a righteous being, in seeing and hearing unrighteous works.” (2:7-8)

 

We may not think of him that way because he does offer up is two virgin daughters to the mob crashing down his door to get at the two angels who he talked out of sleeping in the town square that night (see Genesis 19:1-8).

 

But listen to this exchange, “‘I pray you, brothers, do not behave so wickedly. ⁸Behold now, I have two daughters who have not known a man: let me, I pray you, bring them out to you to do to them as is good in your eyes. Only to these men do nothing, for therefore they came under the shadow of my roof.’  ⁹And they said, ‘Stand back!’ And they said again, ‘This one came in to sojourn and he thinks he is a judge. Now we will deal worse with you then with them.’ And they pressed sore upon the man, Lot, and came near to break the door.” (19:7-9) We will now see that Lot was standing outside with them face-to-face while this whole exchange was going on! He may not have had all the righteousness he should have had, but you have to give it to him for courage! 

 

And now the angels finish what the sinners started, “But the men put forth their hand and pulled Lot into the house to them and shut the door. And they struck the men that were at the door with blindness, both small and great, so that they wearied themselves to find the door.” (19:10-12)

 

The next morning, and angels rushed Lot, his wife Ado, and his two [virgin, I think] daughters out of the city before the fire and brimstone came down and destroyed it. Verse 14 tells us that Lot tried to get his sons-in-law to come too, but they didn’t believe him. And why would they? They were raised in Sodom and probably had no clue as to Who the real God was, save for what Lot had told them – and all we know was that it wasn’t enough to convert them, or they would have left with him. 

 

The reason why I think Lot left with his two remaining virgin daughters (just a theory) is because of how this chapter ends. 

 

Back to Jasher for a minute, the city’s turning on Lot and his family wasn’t a new thing. Jasher tells us that he had a daughter named Paltith, who was brought before the Judges for feeding a poor man whom the townsfolk were waiting to starve to death. For this she was thrown into a fire and burned to ashes. Why Lot stayed is beyond me! 

 

But he, his wife and two daughters finally got out with strict orders not to look back. Genesis 19:26 says, “But his wife looked back from behind him and she became a pillar of salt.” Jasher says her compassion was moved on account of her daughters who remained in Sodom, for they did not go with her. I would assume they were her married daughters, who stayed with their husbands.

 

“You are the salt of the Earth…” Y’shua tells us in Matthew 5:13. Perhaps her witness was more about her heart than it was her momentary and compassionate disobedience. Just a thought. 

 

So I think the two single daughters who were the ones who so shamelessly and sinfully got their father drunk two nights on a row and became pregnant by him, weren’t all that righteous either; and probably weren’t too thrilled with him offering them up like he did the night before as well. 

 

Genesis 19:32-38 tells us how two new tribes of people were born. Lot (although he had no idea at the time, the Bible tells us) and his oldest daughter had a son and named him Moab. 

 

Note the Lord’s mercy: Y’shua has a Moabitess in His family tree. Her name was Ruth, and she was King David’s great, great grandmother. The Old Testament Book of Ruth tells her story. It’s a good one! AND Ruth’s mother-in-law was Rahab, the spy the saved the spies in Jericho! Two non-Hebrew believers in His earthly family.

 

Other than Ruth and David, the Moabites and the Hebrews were enemies off and on throughout ancient history. But when John quotes Y’shua as saying “For God so loved the world…”, it is proven more than once in His own genealogy!

 

Lots’ second family of incestuous descendants were from him and his younger daughter, and he was named Ben-ammi, the father of the Ammonites. They were enemies of the Hebrews straight up. 

 

But the Lord was good to Lot and Abraham. We don’t hear any more about Lot until Peter calls him righteous, but that also means that he was not forgotten in Hebrew history.

 

And Genesis 19:27-29 tells us about Abraham at that time, “And Abraham got up early in the morning to the place where he stood before the LORD. ²⁸And he looked toward Sodom and Gomorrah and toward all the land of the plain and there is was! The smoke of the country went up like the smoke of a furnace. ²⁹And it was, when God destroyed the cities of the plain that God remembered 
Abraham and sent Lot out of the midst of the overthrow, when He overthrew the cities in which Lot dwelled.” 

 

And I’m more than sure that He made sure Abraham knew that Lot was alright, because He’s merciful. Always has been, always will be. 

 

So when you feel overwhelmed by life or the world’s sinful surroundings – “Thus says the LORD to you, ‘Do not be in awe! Do not be dismayed because of this great multitude! For the battle is not yours, but God’s…Stand still and see the salvation of the LORD with you!’” (2^nd Chronicles 20:15-17)                                                            

                                                                              SHALOM!