Psalm 133

Psalm 133

Behold, how good and how pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity!

It is like the precious ointment upon the head, that ran down upon the  beard, even Aaron's beard: that went down to the skirts of his garments;

As the dew of Hermon, and as the dew that descended upon the mountains of Zion: for there the LORD commanded the blessing, even life for evermore.

Mt. Hermon

Christchurch Earthquake

Our continuing thoughts and prayers are with those in Christchurch, New Zealand. You have the love of so many of us around the world.

May God be with you, may He help you to remain strong in your faith and spirit. May He be with you as you carry on with your lives after this devastating event.

Prayers also for Christ's soon return, and the end of all death and destruction.

And I heard a great voice out of heaven saying, Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and he will dwell with them, and they shall be his people, and God himself shall be with them, and be their God. And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed away.

Revelation 21v3-4

Latest on Suez warships & Saudi Arabia chides U.S.

• US warships box in Iranian flotilla, delay Suez passage: The repeated delays and contradictory statements about the two Iranian warships' transit of the Suez Canal to the Mediterranean is accounted for by a standoff between the Iranian flotilla and five US warships deployed in recent days at the waterway's southern entrance and along its course Read More>>

• Saudi Arabia chides U.S. for vetoing UN resolution on Israeli settlements: Saudi Arabia voiced regret on Monday over a U.S. veto of a U.N. resolution condemning Israeli settlements in the West Bank, in a rare criticism of Washington by its close Arab ally. Read More>>

EU & Turkey in Middle East

• EU seeks more presence in the Middle East: this article also includes a particularly interesting wording of 'political earthquakes' in Tunisia and Egypt. Read more>>

• Turkey plays growing political role in Middle East: As Egypt erupted a few weeks ago, one fellow Muslim country insistently urged President Hosni Mubarak to respond to popular demands. That country was Turkey. Read more>>

UN Resolution Veto, Sinai Troops, Tunisia Jews, Middle East

• Netanyahu lets Egypt build up its Sinai army to 4,000 troops: Without serious aforethought, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Ehud Barak have waved through another 3,000 Egyptian troops into North Sinai, topping their number up to 4,000 and virtually scrapping the key demilitarization clause of the 1979 peace treaty. Read more>>

• Anti-Jewish Demo Raises Fears for Tunisian Jews: Tunisian Jews have raised concerns for their community's safety following an anti-Jewish rally outside the country's main synagogue. Read more>>

• Strategic Puzzle Shifts in Mideast: For more than two decades, the Middle East fell easily into neat strategic pieces like a puzzle: A rock-solid peace treaty tied Egypt and Jordan to Israel; stable, pro-U.S. monarchies lined the length of the Persian Gulf oil channels; autocratic governments across North Africa seemed unshakable. Read more>>

• If Obama opposes Israeli settlement activity, why did US veto UN vote?: In its first United Nations veto, the Obama administration on Friday voted against a resolution condemning Israeli settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem as "illegal." Read more>>

Warships & threats of war

• Iranian warships to cross Mediterranean: Navy to track ships as they cross Suez Canal en route to Syria, "a provocation that proves Iranians' overconfidence," FM says. Read more>>

• Israel says Iranian warships near Suez: The Iranian naval contingent described by Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman would pose no significant military threat to Israel but could spell the closest-ever encounter by the forces of the two old foes, which are geographically distant. Read more>>

• 'Hezbollah will conquer Galilee if there is war': Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah said on Wednesday that he is ready for another war with Israel, AFP reported. Read more>>

• Netanyahu to Nasrallah: Stay in your bunker: "Don't doubt Israel's ability to defend itself," PM says after Hezbollah leader threatens to conquer Galilee; Netanyahu says Israel is interested in a democratic, peaceful Egypt. Read more>>

The water, the blood, and the spirit

Now when a man is "washed in the name of Jesus Christ", there are three witnesses to the fact, by whose testimony everything is established.  These are the spirit, the water, and the blood, and they all agree in one statement. Jesus Christ was made manifest by water at his baptism (John 1:31); and by blood in his death; and by the spirit in his resurrection: therefore, the spirit who is the truth..., and the water, and the blood, or the truth concerning the Messiahship, sacrificial character, and resurrection of Jesus, are constituted the witnesses who bear testimony to a man's being the subject of "the righteousness of God" (Romans 1:17; 3:21,22,25,26) set forth in the gospel of His Kingdom.  The testimony of these witnesses is termed "the witness of God", which every believer of the Kingdom and Name hath as "the witness in himself" (1 John 5:6-10).  

Elpis Israel, John Thomas p.143

Who is he that overcometh the world, but he that believeth that Jesus is the Son of God? This is he that came by water and blood, even Jesus Christ; not by water only, but by water and blood. And it is the Spirit that beareth witness, because the Spirit is truth. For there are three that bear record in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost: and these three are one. And there are three that bear witness in earth, the spirit, and the water, and the blood: and these three agree in one.

1 John 5v5-8

Herod the Great

 Some facts about Herod the Great, aka. Herod I, King of the Jews:

Ruins at Caesarea - built by Herod the Great

• King of Judea, Galilee, Iturea, Traconitis from c.40 - 4BC.  He was made ‘King of the Jews’ by the Roman Senate as advised by Mark Anthony and Octavian (who later became Emperor Augustus)
• He undertook vast building projects including the building of Caesarea, the temple, his palace at Masada, and the Herodian
• Though he was a practicing Jew, he was by descent an Edomite.  
• His father was Antipater, a Jew of Idumaean descent, who was appointed procurator of Judaea by Julius Caesar in 47BC.  
• Herod I’s rise to power began when his father appointed him military prefect of Galilee.
• He killed much of his family including a number of his sons and a wife for fear of being displaced from the throne.  
• He was hated by the Jews supposedly for his Edomite heritage and also for his killing of the Hasmonean family (those who he had displaced from the throne), which included his wife Mariamne.
• After 'being mocked of the wise men' who did not return to tell him where Jesus was, he killed all children up to 2 years of age in Bethlehem and the surrounding area when he heard of a rival king of the Jews (Matthew 2v16).  The gospel of Matthew tells us that this fulfills a prophecy in Jeremiah 31v15 "Thus saith the LORD; A voice was heard in Ramah, lamentation, and bitter weeping; Rahel weeping for her children refused to be comforted for her children, because they were not." 

Remains of storerooms from Herod's palace on Masada

“Now there are some who stand amazed at the diversity of Herod’s nature and purposes for when we have respect to his magnificence, and the benefits which he bestowed on all mankind, there is no possibility for even those that had the least respect for him to deny, or, not openly to confess, that he had a nature vastly beneficent: but when anyone looks upon the punishments he inflicted, and the injuries he did not only to his subjects, but to his nearest relations, and takes notice of his severe and unrelenting disposition there, he will be forced to allow that he was brutish, and a stranger to all humanity; insomuch that these men suppose his nature to be different, and sometimes at contradiction with itself; but I am myself of another opinion, and imagine that the occasion of both these sorts of actions was one and the same; for being a man ambitious of honor, and quite overcome by that passion, he was induced to be magnificent, wherever there appeared any hopes of a future memorial, or of reputation at present; and as his expenses were beyond his abilities, he was necessitated to be harsh to his subjects; for the persons on whom he expended his money were so many, that they made him a very bad procurer of it; and because he was conscious that he was hated by those under him, for the injuries he did them, he thought it not an easy thing to amend his offenses, for that was inconvenient for his revenues; he therefore strove on the other side to make their ill will an occasion of his gains.  As to his own court, therefore, if anyone was not very obsequious to him in his language, and would not confess himself to be his slave, or but seem to think of any innovation in his government, he was not able to contain himself, but prosecuted his very kindred and friends, and punished them as if they were enemies; and this wickedness he undertook out of a desire that he might be himself alone honored."

Josephus The Antiquities of the Jews 16.5.4

References

Josephus, The Antiquities of the Jews 

Charles H. Hyer and Gregory A. Hatteberg, 2006, The New Christian Traveler’s Guide to the Holy Land

New Bible Dictionary, 3^rd Ed. 

A Sound Mind

For God hath not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind" 

2 Timothy 1v7

"A mind sober and self-controlled, sound because it is disciplined, is the substance of Paul's idea...


A mind is sound when it is humbled an brought into subjection by being centred on One outside itself...


"Doctrine" (2 Timothy 1v8-9, 1 Timothy 1v9-10) has first and foremost a moral significance and we miss its meaning entirely if we make it primarily a theological term.  At the same time the teaching was in no sense a mere code of moral precepts: it was teaching of the fact of the risen Christ in whom is God's salvation which imposed a new discipline on life.  When under that discipline men and women develop self-control in every aspect and function of living, they are "of a sound mind". "

Extracts from A Sound Mind L.G. Sargent pp9-13

Isaiah 35

  ¹The wilderness and the solitary place shall be glad for them; and the desert shall rejoice, and blossom as the rose.

 ²It shall blossom abundantly, and rejoice even with joy and singing: the glory of Lebanon shall be given unto it, the excellency of Carmel and Sharon, they shall see the glory of the LORD, and the excellency of our God.

Judean desert looking from Masada towards the Dead Sea

 ³Strengthen ye the weak hands, and confirm the feeble knees.

 ⁴Say to them that are of a fearful heart, Be strong, fear not: behold, your God will come with vengeance, even God with a recompence; he will come and save you.

 ⁵Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened, and the ears of the deaf shall be unstopped.

 ⁶Then shall the lame man leap as an hart, and the tongue of the dumb sing: for in the wilderness shall waters break out, and streams in the desert.

 ⁷And the parched ground shall become a pool, and the thirsty land springs of water: in the habitation of dragons, where each lay, shall be grass with reeds and rushes.

 ⁸And an highway shall be there, and a way, and it shall be called The way of holiness; the unclean shall not pass over it; but it shall be for those: the wayfaring men, though fools, shall not err therein.

 ⁹No lion shall be there, nor any ravenous beast shall go up thereon, it shall not be found there; but the redeemed shall walk there:

 ¹⁰And the ransomed of the LORD shall return, and come to Zion with songs and everlasting joy upon their heads: they shall obtain joy and gladness, and sorrow and sighing shall flee away.

The blessing of being driven from Eden

Genesis 3v22-24 

And the LORD God said, Behold, the man is become as one of us, to know good and evil: and now, lest he put forth his hand, and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live for ever: Therefore the LORD God sent him forth from the garden of Eden, to till the ground from whence he was taken. So he drove out the man; and he placed at the east of the garden of Eden Cherubims, and a flaming sword which turned every way, to keep the way of the tree of life. 

"This is a very remarkable passage of scripture.  It contains much in a few words.  The points which stand out, shining like two stars, are the acknowledgement that man had become as the gods by his offence; and, secondly, that he was expelled from Paradise that he might not live for ever.  I shall defer to another place the exposition of the things suggested by his godlikeness in evil; and after what has already been said on the tree of lives, but little need be added respecting his exclusion from present immortality.  I would, however, so far anticipate another part of this work as to say here, that the finality of creation, providence, and redemption is, man upon earth, glorious, honourable, and immortal, in a state of unmingled good.  It was because God loved man, and out of mercy to him, that He drove him out of the garden.  Had He been actuated by malignity (a feeling, by-the-bye, that has no place in the heart of God), He would have left him free to involve himself in everlasting misery by eating of the tree of lives.  But He did not create the man for such a destiny; nor did He subject his posterity to evil by a stern necessity, that it might in any mode of existence be consigned to interminable torment of mind, of body, or both."

Elpis Israel, John Thomas p. 154-155

Give thanks

NASA Goddard Photo and Video

Praise be to God who has been the preserver of life during cyclone Yasi in Queensland Australia.


Our thoughts and prayers continue to be with those who now begin to deal with the aftermath.


"O give thanks unto the LORD, for he is good: for his mercy endureth for ever....Oh that men would praise the LORD for his goodness, and for his wonderful works to the children of men!" Psalm 107v1,8

Egypt turning violent

News on the development of the protests in Egypt:

• Clashes erupt amidst Cairo protests 
• A scene of violent chaos in Cairo 
• Egypt Protests: Israel watches anxiously 

Egypt's Suez Canal is "a crucial transit route for Middle Eastern oil to global markets via the Suez Canal and home to the Sumed pipeline linking the Red Sea to the Mediterranean" writes this article in the Moscow Times: The downside of high oil prices

Ein Gedi

Ein Gedi is a beautiful oasis in the Judean Desert that looks over the Dead Sea.  You can imagine that when David was running from Saul in the sparse desert, it would have been a very welcome spot with streams and waterfalls.  David 'dwelt in strong holds at En-gedi' (1Samuel 23v29).  You see holes in the rocks and can imagine the caves that he hid in and where he cut off the skirt of Saul's robe (1 Samuel 24).  


'Ein' means 'fountain' or 'spring', while 'gedi' means 'kid'.  This is very apt as there are indeed springs of water, and many rock-goats, or ibex. Also, appropriately, Ein Gedi is referred to in 1 Samuel 24v1-2 as 'the rocks of the wild goats'.

And it came to pass, when Saul was returned from following the Philistines, that it was told him, saying, Behold, David is in the wilderness of Engedi.  Then Saul took three thousand chosen men out of all Israel, and went to seek David and his men upon the rocks of the wild goats. 

1 Samuel 24v1-2