The Clarion, May 2025
Welcome
The saying goes, “April showers bring May flowers.” It reminds me that Yeshua is compared to a rose and a lily and also as an apple tree and other fruits. The song here is speaking about one who is in love with one who will be his bride one day. So too, Yeshua, the Bridegroom will one day marry His Bride.
Song of Solomon 2:1-4 says this, “I am a rose of Sharon, a lily of the valleys. Like a lily among thorns is my darling among the maidens. Like an apple tree among the trees of the forest is my lover among the young men. I delight to sit in his shade, and his fruit is sweet to my taste. He has brought me to the banquet house and his banner over me is love.” Song of Solomon 4:13-15 also tells us this, “Your shoots are an orchard of pomegranates with choice fruit, henna with nard—nard and saffron, calamus and cinnamon—with all the trees of frankincense, myrrh and aloes, along with all the finest spices—a garden spring, a well of living water and flowing streams from Lebanon.”
The rose is in Sharon. Sharon is a plain and it is one of the largest valley-plains in all of Palestine. Back at the time of Solomon, it was considered a wild, fertile plain that had many beautiful flowers in it. Sharon was supposed to have been known for its beauty and majesty back in those days. The rose being a flower of perfect beauty, can only describe our Bridegroom. Yeshua gives Himself totally to His Bride. But He is also referred to as an apple tree, and other choice fruits.
Psalm 17:8, “Keep me as the apple of the eye, hide me under the shadow of Thy wings.” Remember the fruit of the Spirit as in Galatians 5:22-25, “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control.” We too are to bear fruit in John 15:16, “You did not choose Me but I chose you, and appointed you that you would go and bear fruit, and that your fruit would remain.”
Exodus 25: 31, “Then you shall make a lampstand of pure gold. The lampstand and its base and its shaft are to be made of hammered work; its cups, its bulbs and its flowers shall be of one piece with it.” Exodus 25:34 continues, “and in the lampstand four cups shaped like almond blossoms, its bulbs and its flowers.”
Yeshua is also the Light to the world, flowers and fruit, Yeshua and His Bride.
Yeshua our example of a Life in the Spirit, Part 5
Galatians 5:22-23 says: “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law.” So far we have looked at all but one, and that is faithfulness.
Psalm 36:5, “Your lovingkindness, O LORD, extends to the heavens, Your faithfulness reaches to the skies.”
So was Yeshua faithful in all things? Let’s look at the definition of faithfulness. Of course, we know what it means to be faithful, but there is so much more to it. To be faithful implies unswerving adherence to a person or thing or to the oath or promise by which a tie was contracted. So the question is, what oath or promise needed to be fulfilled? I don’t think that Yeshua was running for any office during His time. He certainly was not married so He did not have to keep any marriage vows. But Yeshua was certainly faithful to God the Father. Yeshua was faithful and steadfast and even resolute to His love for the Father and to His people. Since Yeshua was a small boy, He showed His faithfulness to the Father. Luke 2:49 tells us this, “And He said to them, ‘How is it that you were searching for Me? Did you not know that I must go about My Father’s business?”’
Yeshua did not even speak His own words, but only what the Father told Him as John 12:48-49 says, “The one who rejects Me and does not accept My teachings has one who judges him: the word which I spoke. That will judge him on the last day. For I did not speak on My own, but the Father Himself who sent Me has given Me a commandment as to what to say and what to speak.” John 5:19-20, “Yeshua gave them this answer: ‘Very truly I tell you, the Son can do nothing by Himself; He can do only what He sees His Father doing, because whatever the Father does the Son also does. For the Father loves the Son and shows Him all He does. Yes, and He will show Him even greater works than these, so that you will be amazed.”’
Yeshua was very faithful to His Father. But what is this oath or promise that held Yeshua so closely to His Father? You have to go back to the Garden of Eden when God cursed the serpent after the fruit was eaten from the tree of knowledge of good and evil. Genesis 3:14-15 says this, “Because you have done this, cursed are you more than all the livestock, and more than any animal of the field; on your belly you shall go, and dust you shall eat all the days of your life; and I will make enemies of you and the woman, and of your offspring and her descendants; He shall bruise you on the head, and you shall bruise Him on the heel.”
Let’s start with Abraham. Genesis 22:1-8 says. “Now it came about after these things, that God tested Abraham, and said to him, ‘Abraham!’ And he said, ‘Here I am.’ Then He said, ‘Take now your son, your only son, whom you love, Isaac, and go to the land of Moriah, and offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains of which I will tell you.’ So Abraham got up early in the morning and saddled his donkey, and took two of his young men with him and his son Isaac; and he split wood for the burnt offering, and set out and went to the place of which God had told him. On the third day Abraham raised his eyes and saw the place from a distance. Then Abraham said to his young men, ‘Stay here with the donkey, and I and the boy will go over there; and we will worship and return to you.’ And Abraham took the wood for the burnt offering and laid it on his son Isaac, and he took in his hand the fire and the knife. So the two of them walked on together. Isaac spoke to his father Abraham and said, ‘My father!’ And he said, ‘Here I am, my son.’ And he said, ‘Look, the fire and the wood, but where is the lamb for the burnt offering?’ Abraham said, ‘God will provide for Himself the lamb for the burnt offering, my son.’ So the two of them walked on together.”’
Now you may say, what does this have to do with Yeshua fulfilling God’s promise?
This story is very revealing on many levels. First God says to Abraham, “Take now your son, your only son, whom you love, Isaac and go to the land of Moriah, and offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains of which I will tell you.”
Does this all sound familiar? God tested Abraham to see if he would be obedient to Him, in fact, faithful. When God saw what He needed to see in Abraham, He stopped Abraham and provided for him a ram in the thicket. Now if a man could offer up his only son, then God had to do the same also, for God never asks us to do anything that He has not done Himself. Scholars believe that Yeshua may have been crucified near Moriah or at its summit. Mount Moriah was also the site where David bought a threshing floor and we know that it was here that Solomon built the temple. It is strongly believed that the site of Abraham’s obedience, the temple, and the place of Yeshua sacrifice to redeem the world all have something in common. Jewish tradition says that Mount Moriah now known as the Temple Mount is the site of Creation itself. According to “Hebrew for Christians,” the Jewish sages believe that God created the world at Moriah, and that the “foundation stone,” the Even-ha-Shetiyah, is there. In fact, the ground itself at Moriah is where God created Adam, the sages say. This means that at the very site where the Second Adam would die for all of the sons and daughters of Adam is also the site where Adam was born. Everything comes full circle. God does offer up His only begotten Son whom He loves to fulfill the promise that He made to the serpent. The wood that Isaac carried, now Yeshua carried but this time Yeshua was the sacrifice. He was faithful to the Father in Gethsemane. He said “Not My will be done but Your will be done,” knowing that the serpent was going to bruise His heel. Isaiah 53: 7-12 says this, “He was oppressed and afflicted, yet He did not open His mouth; like a lamb that is led to slaughter, and like a sheep that is silent before its shearers, so He did not open His mouth. By oppression and judgment He was taken away; and as for His generation, who considered that He was cut off from the land of the living for the wrongdoing of My people, to whom the blow was due? And His grave was assigned with wicked men, yet He was with a rich man in His death, because He had done no violence, nor was there any deceit in His mouth. But the Lord desired to crush Him, causing Him grief; if He renders Himself as a guilt offering, He will see His offspring, He will prolong His days, and the good pleasure of the Lord will prosper in His hand. As a result of the anguish of His soul, He will see it and be satisfied; by His knowledge the Righteous One, My Servant, will justify the many, for He will bear their wrongdoings. Therefore, I will allot Him a portion with the great, and He will divide the plunder with the strong, because He poured out His life unto death, and was counted with wrongdoers; yet He Himself bore the sin of many, and interceded for the wrongdoers.”
Yeshua did bruise the head of the serpent when He took back the crown that was rightfully Yeshua’s and the serpent’s crushing blow gave us the victory over sin and death as Colossians 3:13-15 tells us this, “When you were dead in your sins and in the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made you alive with Messiah. He forgave us all our sins, having canceled the charge of our legal indebtedness, which stood against us and condemned us; He has taken it away, nailing it to the cross. And having disarmed the powers and authorities, He made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them by the cross.”
Because of the faithfulness of Yeshua the seed of the woman now can have those who will be called the redeemed of the Lord. Hebrews 2:14-18 says, “Since the children have flesh and blood, he too shared in their humanity so that by His death He might break the power of him who holds the power of death, that is, the devil and free those who all their lives were held in slavery by their fear of death. For surely it is not angels He helps, but Abraham’s descendants. For this reason He had to be made like them, fully human in every way, in order that He might become a merciful and faithful high priest in service to God, and that He might make atonement for the sins of the people. Because He Himself suffered when He was tempted, He is able to help those who are being tempted.”
Hebrews 3:1-6 says this, “Therefore, holy brothers and sisters, partakers of a heavenly calling, consider the Apostle and High Priest of our confession: Yeshua; He was faithful to Him who appointed Him, as Moses also was in all his house. For He has been counted worthy of more glory than Moses, by just so much as the builder of the house has more honor than the house. For every house is built by someone, but the builder of all things is God. Now Moses was faithful in all God’s house as a servant, for a testimony of those things which were to be spoken later; but the Messiah was faithful as a Son over His house, whose house we are, if we hold firmly to our confidence and the boast of our hope.”
Safetyzoneforteens.com Are You Sure It’s Love?
John Lennon wrote a song called, “All You Need is Love.”
But the question is, what is love? What you think is love may not be love at all.
Love is more than just a feeling. In fact what we think is love toward someone could very easily be nothing more than lust. You see, in a relationship love has boundaries and it has respect and when you cross over those boundaries, you no longer have respect nor do you have love, but lust. Lust is nothing more than selfishness, which is the opposite of love. There is no freedom in love. Love is a very delicate thing and can easily be broken and shattered and non repairable.
You have to handle love with care. You see it does not matter if you give gifts or spend money or even time, what matters is a relationship that respects one another. We think giving to the poor or being on the streets protesting or saying the right words is another form of love, but again our actions may not equal true love for our fellow beings. We may think that if we have justice we have love, this is true if it is real justice, but when we think something is right for someone, it may not be right. If we give people everything they want, this is not love. We can not take away from a person the dignity that comes from working and the result of seeing the fruit of one’s labor. Humans, from the beginning of time, worked and created, and were productive beings, taking part in this world to do good and not evil. Giving someone a helping hand is one thing, but taking away his incentive to be a productive human being is another. Allowing lawlessness is not love, it is stealing. Stealing, which we now say is right, no it is not right at all, because one person has worked hard to get where they are in life, while the other person takes it away. This is not love, and this is not right. Love does not take from one and give to another, because the one that is being taken from, is also a person who you must love. It is up to that person to give out of love, and that is not your decision. Here are a few things that God considers true love. Love is patient and kind. Love is not jealous, it does not brag, and it is not proud. Love is not rude, it is not selfish, and it cannot be made angry easily. Love does not remember wrongs done against it. Love is never happy when others do wrong, but it is always happy with the truth. Love never gives up on people. It never stops trusting, never loses hope, and never quits. In fact, there is no greater love than one who lays down his life for another. Love is not simple. It is not a matter of fact. Love must be something you consider when you encounter any person, what you say or how you act must all be done in love or else you are a hypocrite, a fake, and nothing more than a self-centered, selfish person. Love is the true test for everyone to use to measure who they really are. Today take a good look in the mirror and ask yourself, “Do I love or is it just lust? Do I give or do I simply take?”
Hebrew Corner: The Third Persecution, Under Trajan
The persecution of believers went on for decades. The third persecution under Trajan takes us to the year 108 Common Era. The Roman Empire expanded under Trajan. Trajan did many great things for the Empire. Pliny the Younger, who governed in the province of Bithynia, which is Turkey, wrote Trajan this letter which concerns an episode which marks the first time the Roman government recognized Christianity as a religion separate from Judaism, and sets a precedent for the massive persecution of Christians that took place in the Second and Third Centuries. A number of Christians were brought into his court. It is unclear what the initial charges were, but he ultimately decided, despite the fact that the Christians seemed generally harmless to him, that he should execute them because they refused to recant their faith. So he is unsure as to whether he should execute them legally for no other crime than their faith, so he writes to his friend the Emperor for advice. The Emperor replies that he did the right thing in executing them, but advises him not to seek out Christians for prosecution. This did not shut the door, but this only opened a door to believers being not only persecuted but martyred. Unfortunately thousands of believers were put to death daily. Their crime was they gathered together for prayer, one of these was Ignatius who was the bishop of Antioch. What is known of Ignatius’ life apart from his letters and later traditions is, Ignatius converted to Christianity at a young age. Tradition identifies him and his friend Polycarp as disciples of John the Apostle. Later, Ignatius was chosen to serve as Bishop of Antioch; the 4th Century church historian Eusebius writes that Ignatius succeeded Evodius. Theodoret of Cyrrhus claimed that Peter himself left directions that Ignatius be appointed to this position. Ignatius was called Theophorus (God Bearer). A tradition arose that he was one of the children whom the Messiah took in His arms and blessed. He was taken from Antioch to Rome by ten soldiers, where he writes, “From Syria even unto Rome, I fight with beasts, both by land and sea, both by day and night, being bound by ten leopards, I mean a band of soldiers. I shall willingly die for God, allow me to become food for the wild beasts, through whose instrumentality it will be granted me to attain to God. I am the wheat of God, and let me be ground by the teeth of the wild beasts, that I may be found the pure bread of Messiah. Rather entice the wild beasts, that they may become my tomb, and may leave nothing of my body; so that when I have fallen asleep [in death], I may be no trouble to any one. Then shall I truly be a disciple of Messiah when the world shall not see so much as my body. Entreat Messiah for me, that by these instruments I may be found a sacrifice [to God]. I am but a condemned man while I am, even until now, a servant. But when I suffer, I shall be the freed-man of Yeshua, and shall rise again emancipated in Him. And now, being a prisoner, I learn not to desire anything worldly or vain.”
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