Shiloah
New Member
The light of the world - Yeshua
Posts: 33
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Post by Shiloah on Apr 28, 2005 19:40:02 GMT -8
Brothers and Sisters! My heart is rejoicing and also humbled today. I was listening to a song based on Psalm 137. Suddenly the scales fell from my eyes - halleluia "By the rivers of Babylon we sat down and wept as we remembered Zion. We had hung up our lyres on the willows that were there, when those who had taken us captive asked us to sing them a song; our tormentors demanded joy from us -" Sing to us one of the songs of Zion!" How can we sing the song of Adonai here on foreign soil? If I forget you, Yerushalayim may my right hand wither away!.... Daughter of Babylon, you will be destroyed! A blessing on anyone who pays you back for the way you treated us! I suddenly realise this is how I have felt for years in an "evangelical" church, which is supposed to be preaching the truth. But I have felt confusion - "Babylon" I have tried, oh how I have tried to sing the song of my G-d, but it has been in vain, I have been left dry and empty. Wondering if perhaps I was losing my faith? Going mad? Puzzled by my lack of power (this only comes from Yeshua). Why can't I rejoice on 25th December along with everyone else? Why does what I am told, is bread, feel like dry dust in my mouth? I had hung up my lyre, I had laid down in the dirt and wept. BUT ..... Then I remembered Zion!! (figurative for returning to the ways of  ?) May G-d Ely-n cause blind eyes to open. May He bring the captives out of Babylon. Out of confusion, where the things of G-d are mixed with the things of the enemy, and passed off for truth. Daughter of Babylon - your time is short - Abba is healing the body of his Messiah, and bringing Zion into the minds and hearts of believers everywhere - calling them out of Babylon. Any comments? Shalom, Jenny |
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Post by Mark on Apr 29, 2005 5:09:28 GMT -8
Jenny, The stark parallels between Observant Believers and the "Church" are striking in the 137th Psalm. The Church is not "Babylon", though, it is the children of Edom who said of Israel, "Raze it, raze it unto the very foundations!" We grieve for them- without question, their children are being destroyed by their torahlessness. and yet, they blame us for it, not Babylon- just as Edom blamed Israel for their inevitable consumation as well. My wife has a bracelet passed down to her through generations form her Jewish ancestry. It came from Eastern Europe- what has at various times in history been considered Poland. It says, in Hebrew, "If I forget you, Oh Jerusalem, let my right hand forget her cunning." It's significant to me that the love of Israel has never been lost by her people. I must believe that the love of has never been lost by Messiah's church. Yet, Edom considered itself God's chosen as well, worshipping in the mountains of Samaria, not knowing what. The parallels are uncanny. |
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Post by Blake on Apr 29, 2005 9:13:52 GMT -8
I disagree. Revelation is quite clear that Babylon is the Catholic Church and the Protestant Churches are her daughters.
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Post by R' Y'hoshua Moshe on Apr 29, 2005 10:22:20 GMT -8
Shalom sister, You have heard our Heavenly Fathers call!.... "I heard another voice from heaven, saying, "Come out of her, my people, that you have no participation in her sins, and that you don't receive of her plagues,
for her sins have reached to the sky, and G'd has remembered her iniquities."- Rev. 18:4-5 The above passage is said in the context of Bavel (Babylon). So, at the very least we can conclude that G'd has people whom he considers His and He is pleading with them to come out. I believe Bavel or Babylon is not only what those consider "The Church". Spiritual Bavel is represented by all of the false religions in this world. Adonai is calling His people to come out from all of these false institutions and ways...and not only to come out from the false representative of Christianity. For if we believe that Bavel only represents "The Church", than we can logically conclude that G'd is not calling his people out of any other false systems of worship. I believe you have heard the call. My sister, continue in it. Yes, this is the process of t'shuvah, to turn and repent from our old ways (ways of Bavel) and return to the G'd of Yisrael and His ways.  Hazak, hazak v'nit'chazek b'Yeshua HaMashiach! (Be strong, be strong, and let us be strengthened in Yeshua The Messiah!), Reuel |
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Post by Chizuk Emunah on Apr 29, 2005 18:56:41 GMT -8
May HaShem Avinu be praised! May HaShem bless you as you continue to learn and grow Shiloah. If anyone wants to start a thread on the Church's role in the Acharit HaYamim, they are more than welcome to do so. I'm sure we could more than fill up a thread with such discussion.  BTW - Shabbat Shalom everyone! |
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Shiloah
New Member
The light of the world - Yeshua
Posts: 33
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Post by Shiloah on Apr 30, 2005 13:07:46 GMT -8
Thankyou Chaverim! I feel so encouraged by everything you have said, I needed to hear that. When G-d speaks to you powerfully, you just know that you know that you know! I'm not usually a person who takes note of where my Bible falls open, but that morning after I had listened to the song about weeping by the rivers of Babylon, I came into another room, stunned, sat down, thought "I wonder where that is in the Bible" opened it and it fell open right at Psalm 137! Praise Yeshua! It had been a very rough couple of weeks. I had that challenge of two missionaries from a cult that sounded so close to the truth. (refer to my other posting about that). That was hard to sort out in my head. ;D Then my eldest son, not quite 18, who thinks my dh and I are suddenly wierd for getting into all this "Jewish stuff" as he calls it - keeping Sabbath & Passover - he went out one night with friends and came home @ 5am smelling of pot, and he admits he is experimenting. Never been interested before. I am devastated.  I have been having nightmares (literally) that we are going into error, and if we'd only stayed at our evangelical church and been "normal" none of this would be happening. (false guilt) I believe this is opposition from Hasatan himself. Can't bear to see believers walk away from the False System he controls. So, to suddenly have a revelation from Psalm 137 like that is truly a gift from G-d.  We have started fasting and praying for our ds, for the Ruach Ha Kodesh to do what we cannot - convict him of his sin and need to belong to Abba himself. Can I request prayer for him here, or must I post on the prayer request section? Maybe I'll do that too. Thanks again, dear brothers - Giving thanks, Shiloah (Jenny) |
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Post by R' Y'hoshua Moshe on Apr 30, 2005 21:32:42 GMT -8
Jenny,
We will be praying for you, your husband, and your son.
Shalom aleychem b'shem Yeshua HaMashiach
(Peace be upon you in Yeshua The Messiah),
Reuel
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Post by Mark on May 2, 2005 3:50:48 GMT -8
Dear Jenny's Son,
You don't know me. I know some Jennys and I know some seventeen year old young men; but since you could be anywhere in the world, you're not likely any of those. That makes this a completely safe conversation. I don't have to worry about offending you. You don't have to worry about reading what I've written.
Still, I'm compelled to write to you because the same issues that you seem to be dealing with are the struggles that all people of all time are dealing with all over the world. Everyone has a personal code of ethics or a standard of morality to which they will adhere. The problem is that we don't know what that standard is until we reach the lowest acceptable level. One person's level is different every other person's. That's why there is such great conflict, even within close families.
Either you believe that there is an absolute valuation of what is right and what is wrong or you believe that there is no standard (what's wrong for one person is perfectly fine for someone else). If there is an absolute standard, a universal standard which applies to all humankind, it must have been established by a supreme deity, otherwise, morality is cultural and circumstancial: that it has and will continue to evlove as humankind evolves. If you believe that there is a God, it stands that this Deity will at some point and in some way hold humankind accountable to this basic standard of morality. Your personal code of ethics ought to reflect that which is divinely established if you bear any hope of appeasing God's inevitable judgment.
If you don't believe that there is a God and that moral values are circumstancial; then I heartily recommend drugs and illicit sex. If there is no universal standard for righteousness, then right and wrong is irrelevant- live to please yourself (which will inevitably be at the expense of others); but stay smashed, otherwise you may wake up to the damage you've done.
If you believe that there is a God and there is a universal standard for right and wrong, it is in your best interest ( as well as the interest of others whom you know ) to determine that standard and to seek to live by it. Here's the place where you may appropriately roll your eyes. Did you know that there are over 30,000 different sects of Christianity alone?
Suppose you're in Chemistry class and the instructor is demonstrating a lab that the class will be graded on performing. He takes one student (the one student happens to be his own son) and hand over hand, demonstrates the experiment before the entire class. Well... you don't get it. You look to your lab partner and he doesn't get it, either. There are lots of other students in the room who are busy- some very confident, some looking just as clueless as you. Who do you suppose would be the best student to ask? Would it not e the one who has already been involved in the experiment? The one who has spent his whole life trying to understand the instructions of his father? In Romans 3:1-2, this is the exact type of relationship that has been described concerning Israel. There are lots of folks out there doing their own thing- deciding for themselves what God's standard of right and wrong are; but only one has hasd their hands on the experiment, guided by the Father. Only one has been chosen from the whole class for the domonstration.
We can choose our own standard of right and wrong, just like everyone else in the world. We can even use the Bible to defend the level of righteousness we adhere to. It will always be the lowest denominator that we are defending, though- our standard will always demonstrate what is our worst. The only other alternative is to learn and follow what is God's standard of righteousness- what is His best! We'll never acheive it. We'll always miss; but that's why Yeshua, Jesus, His Son, took the test in our place- He died on the cross as sacrifice for our short comings. We obey, not because we don't want a bad grade but because we want to understand the goodness of the Father and His Son. We want to share that goodness with the world around us.
Every guy I've ever met wants to be good. He wants to be the hero. Every hero has enemies. Every hero faces insurmountable odds. You don't know me. You don't know the circumstances that I've lived through. I don't know you or anything that you face. I want you to understand, though, when your folks chose to pursue the righteousness of God as opposed to be satisfied with the moral standard of the community- they became the enemies of this world. The pressure that they endure is intense. If you choose to follow God, you will experience that same pressure. The world will hate you and condemn you and leave you so that they can enjoy their moral standard without conscience. Yet, by your stand, you may save one of your friends from a deadly car accident, from a deadly STD, from jail time or from a miserable existance of failure. If you cater and go along, you're jumping on the bus that's going the same places they're going... and the ends thereof are the ways of death.
I could give you a resume of life experiences to back up what I'm saying; but I don't need to. You know it's true. You know that there is a such thing as right and wrong and there's a whole lot of hypocrites out there saying that they are right just because they want to keep on doing what they're doing. I'm telling you that God is the only one who's right. The rest of us are more or less out to lunch. So we have to decide if we're going to follow Him or live in despair and contradiction.
I'm available if you want to talk. I'm praying for you and your family and your friends.
May you find peace... and truth,
Mark Staneart
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