Branch of Israel

In the spring just like the fall we have different feasts.  The spring brings about two main feasts Passover and Shavuot (Pentecost), in the fall it gives us the third which is the Feast of Tabernacles.  These are the 3 main feasts in which the Lord wanted celebrated in Jerusalem every year.  The same was true in the days of Yeshua (Jesus) when He and His family went there as well as He and His disciples. A lot of people think of Pentecost as a New Testament festival but there was a reason the disciples and everyone else were all in Jerusalem that day, it was for Shavuot. In other words, this is a celebration that has been going on since the days of Moses. Traditionally the rabbis claim it is was the day when Moses received the Ten Commandments, but if you calculate it out according to Exodus19 you see that it was more than 50 days after Passover. Shhh! Do not tell them that, it will be our little secret. Yet… the Lord tells us to celebrate this holiday and how. According...

 This COVID virus has really caused people to do some good things, bad things, and not sure whether the last is classified as strange or weird things. Recently my wife and I were watching the English news channel for Israel and they showed that people were hugging trees.   Now I know that this is not something new but they showed a clip where people were hugging trees not to protect “Mother Earth” but it was helping them to overcome separation anxiety.   The one I really do not get is they interviewed a lady hugging a tree and her “partner,” as she called him, was right there hugging another part of the same tree.   Partner? Is that like a dance partner? The other question to ask, why is she not hugging him instead of the tree?   The tree is hard, cannot hug back and has no emotions or feelings towards you like your spouse, not partner, would give you.   So where am I going with all of this? It is surely not to make you think because of Corona that th...

I do not know about you, but I hunger and thirst to walk in God’s glory and presence just like Moses did. See during the early to mid-90s my wife and I learned how to soak and move in the glory of God.   This was during a time when a movement called Times of Refreshing was moving through the body. What was it and what was it all about? Truthfully, it was a time of God’s spirit being poured out on the body and revitalizing them to be able to have the strength and ability to move on to the next wave of God. How did this work? Soaking was becoming a big thing almost like a fad but for the body of believers. But what is soaking?   It is a time of relaxing in His presence while soft worshipful music would play and the people would just relax and let God minister to them without intervention from anyone else.   Before you can ask, how do you know when God has showed up?   Let me ask you a question, how do you know when someone has walked into the room without you see...

One evening my wife and I were watching a movie of a true story that took place in the early 1900’s around the time of WWI.  Though I was not familiar with the content it was still very moving in how one of today’s hymns came about. Many have written books and songs about the love of God and have done very well at it. Some of you might be familiar with an old hymn called Love of God. Yet out of the 100% of you who know the hymn, I would be willing to say that probably less than 1% are familiar with the derivation of the words in the third stanza.  Frederick M. Lehman was forced to take a job at a packing plant because of a business loss. While there he had written two stanzas to a hymn about the love of God. Unfortunately he was unable to come up with a third stanza. In those days a song had to have three stanzas. In the movie it was mentioned three represented the trinity and a song was incomplete without a third line.  According to Al Smith’s Treasury of Hymn Hist...

I would like to share with you something that I feel is probably not discussed in church and is something I am not sure too many have seen. It comes from the book of Revelation in chapter 6 and deals with the first four seals which I believe very very strongly they have already been released upon the earth. You will see why shortly.     Seal 1: Then I saw when the Lamb broke one of the seven seals, and I heard one of the four living creatures saying as with a voice of thunder, “Come.” I looked, and behold, a white horse, and he who sat on it had a bow; and a crown was given to him, and he went out conquering and to conquer .   I want to first dispute any thought that this is Jesus on the white horse. Why? In Revelation 19:11-16 it describes him on the white horse and He is wearing many crowns and is not described as a conqueror but as Faithful and True.  Seal 2 : When He broke the second seal, I heard the second living creature saying, “Come.” And anothe...

I need to let you in on a little secret about myself. It seems like when I have something that I am very comfortable with, I absolutely refuse to let it go. For example, I have a pair of Israeli sandals that once I got them broken in, or as my wife lovingly tells me, I broke them out , I will not let them go because they are extremely comfortable. Well, the same is true with one of my Bibles. I have had it for well over 20 years and some of the pages in it literally look like something you would see in a Bible museum in Jerusalem with fragmented pages. I rarely call it my Bible but my notebook because I have written so much in it that I tend to use it as a point of reference. I noticed in Deuteronomy 8 a note I had written, Why the Lord had the Israelites in the wilderness .  You shall remember all the way which the Lord your God has led you in the wilderness these forty years, that He might humble you, testing you, to know what was in your heart, whether you would keep ...