The Clarion, Oct. 2021
Welcome
Fall is a great time of year. The leaves are changing and a new beauty begins to show. It’s like old age. When you are young there is a beauty that old people wish they had. But as you get into the fall of your life, it has a beauty all of its own. You are more informed and experienced and that gives you greater wisdom. You can appreciate life more, because you know that your years are growing shorter, just like the daylight grows less and less in the fall and our walk with the Lord becomes sweeter and sweeter.
We hope you enjoy this Sandigram/What Season is Best of All Copyright 2010
Autumn
Autumn is a time of beauty.
It is a time when our Lord touches the earth and changes it into a wonderland.
The leaves on the trees change into elegant colors as they reach the height of their beauty.
Weeds become beautiful as the Lord’s hand gently touches them.
Many of us have lived lives like weeds—growing wild, not really caring about others.
But once we found our Lord, we have become beautiful like the weeds in autumn.
Thy Kingdom Come
One day when Yeshua was teaching His disciples on how they should conduct themselves in matters of righteousness, giving and prayer, He began to say this as Matthew 6:7-15 tells us, “And when you are praying, do not use thoughtless repetition as the Gentiles do, for they think that they will be heard because of their many words. So do not be like them; for your Father knows what you need before you ask Him. “Pray, then, in this way: ‘Our Father, who is in heaven, hallowed be Your name. Your kingdom come Your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors. And do not lead us into temptation, but deliver us from evil.’ For if you forgive other people for their offenses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive other people, then your Father will not forgive your offenses.”
We want to look at seeking the kingdom and entering into it today, in other words taking hold of the kingdom today. Yeshua went preaching “Repent for the kingdom of God is at hand” Matthew 4:17. We know that all things start with repentance and so that is where we start to enter into the kingdom. Yeshua was telling the people that they could take hold of the kingdom that very day if they repented. He also taught them to pray in such a manner that they were requesting God to bring His kingdom now, or was He already telling them how to bring the kingdom now? You see He had just been speaking to them about how they should be living. If we look at Matthew 5-7 we see that Yeshua was teaching on all sorts of topics, but they all had to do with how one should live a godly life and actually it is here in these Scriptures that Yeshua expounds on many of the commandments. So let’s take a closer look at how one can take hold of the kingdom today. We see that we must reverence the Father. God is holy and we too must be holy, 1 Peter 1:16. He is set apart and we too, must be set apart as Messiah prayed in John 17:17-19, “They are not of the world, just as I am not of the world. Sanctify them in the truth; your word is truth. As you sent me into the world, so I have sent them into the world. And for their sake I consecrate myself, that they also may be sanctified in truth.”
So I can not say, Your kingdom come. Your will be done, if you are not willing to let go of your will and take upon yourself the yoke of the kingdom. The yoke of the kingdom is picking up your cross and following Yeshua, as He tells us in Matthew 16:24-26, “Then Yeshua told his disciples, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it. For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world and forfeits his soul? Or what shall a man give in return for his soul?”
Paul thought that believers should all be yoked to the kingdom as
2 Corinthians 6:14 tells us, “Do not be unequally yoked with unbelievers. For what partnership has righteousness with lawlessness? Or what fellowship has light with darkness?” But we know that many believers have not put on the yoke of the kingdom. We must deny ourselves. We must let go of the world. We must lose our very lives for the kingdom. Yeshua said this to the Father before His crucifixion as recorded in Matthew 26:39, “And going a little farther he fell on his face and prayed, saying, “My Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me; nevertheless, not as I will, but as you will.”
I suppose so many people never repent because they never have any intention of surrendering their will, let alone their lives to God. But we who call ourselves followers of the Master, we are without excuse. Yeshua goes on to say, give us our daily bread. This sounds like the people in the wilderness when they cried out to Moses as we read in Exodus 16:2-3, “And the whole congregation of the people of Israel grumbled against Moses and Aaron in the wilderness, and the people of Israel said to them, “Would that we had died by the hand of the Lord in the land of Egypt, when we sat by the meat pots and ate bread to the full, for you have brought us out into this wilderness to kill this whole assembly with hunger.”
So what did God give them, but Manna. John 6:31-35 tells us, “Our fathers ate the manna in the wilderness; as it is written, ‘He gave them bread from heaven to eat.’” Yeshua then said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, it was not Moses who gave you the bread from heaven, but my Father gives you the true bread from heaven. For the bread of God is he who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.” They said to him, “Sir, give us this bread always.” Yeshua said to them, “I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me shall not hunger, and whoever believes in me shall never thirst.”
If we do not eat and drink of our Messiah daily, we too, will hunger and thirst. We must eat His flesh and drink His blood, this is what He tells us in John 6:54-56, I am the living bread that came down from heaven. Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day. For my flesh is true food, and my blood is true drink. Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me, and I in him.”
Yeshua is the word made flesh. How many people do not read, study, or live by the Word of God? How many people interpret the Word of God wrong because they either do not understand it, or they are taught wrong, because of denominational teachings. I will just say this, Yeshua and all of His Apostles including Paul were all Jewish and they stayed Jewish and they lived by Judaism and once Yeshua died and ascended to heaven, His followers, including the Gentiles, were nothing but a sect of Judaism. We find up to the 4th century evidence of many believers still keeping Judaism, but the only difference is they have the Messiah. Yeshua goes on to say that we must forgive. If we can not repent and if we have unforgiveness, there are only two kingdoms,one is light and one is darkness, there is no gray kingdom. 1 John 1:5-10 tells us, “This is the message we have heard from him and proclaim to you, that God is light, and in him is no darkness at all. If we say we have fellowship with him while we walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth. But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Yeshua his Son cleanses us from all sin. If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If we say we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us.”
John goes on to say in 1John 2:9-11, “Whoever says he is in the light and hates his brother is still in darkness. Whoever loves his brother abides in the light, and in him there is no cause for stumbling. But whoever hates his brother is in the darkness and walks in the darkness, and does not know where he is going, because the darkness has blinded his eyes.”
This is a good start to taking hold of the kingdom. First, we must repent. Then we must sanctify ourselves by being set-apart and holy. Next, we must deny ourselves and let go of our will and pick up the yoke of the kingdom and follow in the footsteps of our King Messiah. Our food and our drink can only be the Word of God. Yeshua is the Word and He is the King we are following. Then we must forgive all those who, in one way or another, caused us to hold them in debt. The kingdom of light is a kingdom of love and we too, must love our King to walk in His footsteps. Yeshua’s last words were, “ Father forgive them for they know not what they do.” These last words must be our first words when taking hold of the kingdom, then add godliness to your lives and you will see that you are at the gate of the kingdom.
Dutch Apple Pie
Nothing says October like a good Dutch apple pie and we think we have a great one.
Ingredients: Crust– 1 cup of flour
1 stick of margarine or butter
1 1/2 tsp sugar
Filling– 12 apples
3/4 cup sugar
2 tbsp flour
1 tsp of cinnamon
2 tbsp butter or margarine
Topping— 1/2 cup brown sugar
3/4 cup flour
1/3 cup margarine or butter
Combine crust ingredients and press into pie pan. 6-8 SERVINGS
Combine filling and place into crust.
Combine topping and sprinkle on top of filling.
You can double this recipe and you can use a 9X13 pan=12-16 SERVINGS
Bake for 10 minutes at 400 degrees and then reduce to 350 for 50 minute or until the apples are tender.
Hebrew Corner:
פ Pey
Pey is pronounced as a “P”, but when you add a dot on the middle of the letter it has the sound of Fey, “ph”. Pey is the 17th letter of the Hebrew alphabet. It has the numerical value of 80. The word peh means mouth. Since pey (mouth) follows ayin (eyes), many scholars believe that ayin (eyes) is the gateway to reality while pey (mouth) is what brings reality into being.
Pey being 80 is the age that Moses was called to lead the children of Israel out of Egypt. So Pey is associated with strength.
Here is a well known midrash about Moses.
Pharaoh’s daughter “loved” baby Moses as if he were her own. Because he was “so handsome” everyone liked to see him and could not turn away from him. Pharaoh himself kissed and hugged Moses, and Moses would put Pharaoh’s crown on his head. Pharaoh’s magicians, worried about this behavior, thought Moses would eventually take Pharaoh’s crown, and so suggested that Moses be killed. But Jethro (Moses’s future Midianite father-in-law) argued that Moses did not yet have any understanding, and so suggested a test: place a gold piece and a hot coal before Moses. If he reaches for the gold, he has understanding and should be killed, but if he reaches for the coal, he has no understanding and there is no need to kill him. The gold and coal were placed in front of Moses, and he started to grab for the gold. However, the angel Gabriel intervened, shoved the gold to the side, and Moses not only grabbed the hot coal, but then put the coal into his mouth. As a result, he became “slow of speech and slow of tongue.”
Midrash are and can be allegorically speaking, but you have to wonder why a stuttering Moses could become a mighty force against Pharaoh. I guess it has to do with Pey..the mouth that brings reality into being with strength.
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