NAHEM... (Comfort...)
This request resounds in the prayer of Michna the 9th of the month of AV, the day of Wove Be' AV.
Jews are asking God to comfort them in their mourning of loss of the Temple, the destroyed Sanctuary, and Jerusalem.
Before this prayer, the Jews consider that they are mourning for real, as if they just had lost a relative.
For this reason and according to the tradition, the Jew is inconsolable and does not have to be comforted in such a case.
Death is a thing wanted by God. Consequently lament and consolation are both feelings that are against this will.
Thus the person in mourning can only do one thing:
Turn to God with his pain, and ask personally for consolation...
Nevertheless God invites us to comfort His People!
He invites His People to do that...
This is pretty interesting!
The people in sorrow should console the mourners?
Does it mean that the People are not united then?
Does it mean that some of them don’t mourn, or are not part the sorrow anymore, while the others are still crying?
Another question can still emerge in us: Did the Jews experience mourning in a bad way?
That is why they have to be warned by God so that He would attract their attention?
This is impossible...
Then, would there be no death?
It really seems that there is not!
Or is it rather the question of the promise of resurrection and of the eternal life which would be hidden in this warning?
Even more than that!
It is the act of getting in touch with God, the call of God so that something could finally move and change.
And the God of Israel answers...
"Thus saith the LORD of hosts;
The fast of the fourth month,
and the fast of the fifth,
and the fast of the seventh,
and the fast of the tenth,
shall be to the house of Judah joy and gladness,
and cheerful fasts; therefore love the truth and peace."
(Zechariah 8:19)
The service of the comfort applies to the People of God, so that God can speak through His People to those who are sad or in mourning, or who have pain because of the situation of their people or neighbor. This ministry belongs to those who do not simply show their humanistic feelings by expressing their regrets and sympathy at most, but to those who are linked to and united with the others in their pain, distress and weakness. It belongs to those who are able to support the ones who could even easily loose their faith.
The membership of a People also supposes having already lived and experienced a similar or the same pain to the one the given People is actually suffering from.
Religious Christianity will be able, neither to feel nor to understand the pain of the Jews!
Philo-Semite pity will never be able to create any communion between Jews and Christians and will never have a healing effect.
Only those who live in the Body of the Messiah are able to feel the pain of the People of God. The pain of the People of God means the pain of the members of the Chosen People who are not saved yet, the pain of the members already under the rule of Yeshua HaMashiach, as well as the pain of the members of the People of God resulting from the nations, the Gentiles saved and being part of the Body of Christ.
The comforting promise of God, His work of recovering and the happiness which resulted by this can be mainly understood by the Jews living in the Body of the Messiah and after them, by the Saved ones from other nations.
It means that it is mainly useful to turn our glances towards the Messianic Jews, then towards the other faithful Jews, so that we could understand the particular comfort that God gives to the entire Body of the Messiah!
The words: "First to the Jews" are also true here.
It is moreover true in this case since the promise was given to the house of Judah which is nothing elselike the totality of the Chosen People...
When God grants His comfort and His happiness, those are always preceded by the delivery, the release. The fasts of the different months all remember a certain captivity, a certain period of slavery and always explain the cause and the reason for these difficult tests.
Thus let see these fasts which are held for very long times and also let’s point to their causes and the pain resulting for them. The first four fasts were decreed after the destruction of the First Sanctuary...
We can surely declare that the promise of God is the revocation of the causes of these fasts!
"the fast of the fourth month..."
17th day of the month: Shiva assar b' tamouz...
This day the consumption of any food and drink is completely prohibited... it is then followed by a period of tree weeks of mourning...
The causes of this mourning are clear and precise. The events referring themselves to this date, according to the tradition and the evaluations of the wisemen, are the followings:
- It was on this day that Moses crashed to pieces the Tables of the Law when he saw the golden calf and its admirers...
- It was on this day that the daily sacrifices stopped: Babylonian attacked Jerusalem and there was no more animal to offer in sacrifice (586 before. J.C.). Same thing happened in the Second Temple (in 70 after. J.C.)
- It was the day when the Roman legions broke through the walls of Jerusalem
- Also on this day that Apostamos burned the Torah (+ - 50 after. J.C.)
- The same day when an idol was set up in the First Sanctuary at times of Manasseh (685-642 before. J.C.) Rule of Jupiter at the time of Adrian...
Three weeks of mourning
Ben hamtzaraïm
- in the distress...
These three weeks of half-fast commemorate the time when the removal of the Jewish State and the destruction of Sanctuary started on the 17 of Tammouz.
"the fast of the fifth month..."
A./the ninth day... (Naïn teg)
The first nine days of this month "Ben hamtzarim", the three weekends of mourning, the beginning of the month of AV, the month of the comforting Father...
- According to the tradition it would be on the first day of this month that Aaron died.
- There was no wine and meat to offer that day in both Sanctuaries.
This period and its atmosphere can be illustrated by the words of the following psalm:
Hear my prayer, O LORD, and let my cry come unto thee. Hide not thy face from me in the day when I am in trouble; incline thine ear unto me: in the day when I call answer me speedily. For my days are consumed like smoke, and my bones are burned as an hearth.
(PS 102.1-3)
B/Tisha B' front- 9 of month AV...
- It was the date when the Eternal decided that those who left Egypt would not enter Canaan...
- Also the day when Joseph became slave in Egypt...
- The first Sanctuary was also burned down that day by the Babylonian troops in 586 before J.C. (2.Kings 25:8-9)
- It was on this day that the troops of Titus burned the Second Sanctuary...
- And it was also the date when Jerusalem was destroyed by the Romans... "
...the fast of the fifth month..."
The fast of Gedalia.
He was the friend of Jeremiah who was placed by Nabuchodonosor above the people that were not deported to Babylon to rule over them. He was killed by the members of his own people during a time of growth and economic welfare.
"... and the fast of the tenth month..."
COM assiri, Assara b' tevet (10 of the month of Tevet)
There are three fasts
- 8 taanit caddikim - "the fast of the pious ones"
In was on that day that the translation of You nah (Scriptures) in Greek language (285-246 front. J.C.), the Seventy or Septuaginta was finished...
- the 10th, Nabuchodonosor started the attack of Jerusalem.
- the 10th is a day of "general fast".
This is the day of the commemoration of the death of Ezra and Nehemiah, as well as the day of longing and hope.
Thus remembering the return of the People, the hope of the rebuilding of the Temple, of Jerusalem and Israel increases on this day...
In the list of the fasts, pains are mentioned that appeared during the time which followed Zechariah. Besides the determined dates, there are some which are not precise and coming from the tradition.
Another question rises: To which times can then refer all those promises of God?
Perhaps do these promises relate to the problems already known before Zechariah, or would they also be valid in a prophetic way for events which occurred later on?
I think that today, the People of God were prey to the same attacks of the same spiritualities as the ones that fought against the Chosen People in the times of the destruction of the two Sanctuaries!
All the events we can experience today tend to reinforce this assumption. This is why the promises made by God are not only valid for certain events, but are also the weapons to stop the destroying work of Satan. These promises are unquestionable and were made for the re-establishment of the People and of the Sanctuary.
These are the proof of the fight and the Victory won by the God’s armies, source of happiness, joy and comfort! The goal of the hostile spiritualities of biblical times was always the same:
- To take along the People of God in captivity. To use it at its own ends and to assimilate it in some empire...
- To besiege the Temple and to profane it by the erection of idols to which they made offerings...
- Sometimes it even happened that this profanation was done beside the legitimate worship of God, by obliging the People to make offerings to the idols and the Eternal at the same time.
- Then the destruction of the Sanctuary and the removal of the legitimate offerings came.
- Once this was done, they started the destruction of the city surrounding the Temple, the destruction of Jerusalem.
- The plundering of the treasure of the Temple and the use of the saint objects in the adoration of the idols...
Today we are likely to live these three weeks of mourning again...
Moreover, we should soon reach the end of this period:
There is no more offering, they disappeared...
It is obviously the end: “The enemy climbs on the walls. They have already penetrated in the city and try to force the gate of the Sanctuary, a torch in the hand wanting to burn everything down...
The Empire does not use the Bible as a Holy book anymore, but rather like a deformed tool serving its own goals. The translation of the Bible is good and even can appear to be perfect, but the way it is used serves other aims. It is not used according to the order established by the Lord. It does not speak about the Messiah and goes against the Laws, the Will and the Sovereignty of God.
The Bible became the tool of other objectives. If we analyze the causes of the four decreed fast months, we would see that the same situation stands today too! The spirituality which caused the fast of Gedalia, the fratricide, the profanation of the Sanctuary, the stop of the offering, the destruction of the Temple and the Holy City has always been and will always be the aim of the enemy and it is still going on today.
Only the person knowing the Spirit of God is able to realize this. Because it is only in him that the destruction, the crime, the deformation of the Verb and the Laws of God are able to cause pain and sadness.
This pain and sadness are dug by the tools of the tolerance, humanism, liberalism and much of other Hellenic instrument, or even by the pharisaism.
The situation of the Jewish community and Christianity can only hurt and provoke pain to those who are members of the People of God and who belong to God. The attack against the Temple, the City and it’s gates and walls can only make pain in the hearth of somebody who is born again in Christ. Only that one is able to fear for the Body of Christ, to consider It as a Temple and to realize that the offering is profaned. Only the one who accepts the Election of the Jewish People and its Call in particular, together with the Project of God is able to understand what is happening then and now. The religious Christian is unable to understand all this.
Thus the ministry of comforting is a spiritual ministry.
It is a ministry that has to be fulfilled among the People of God and by the unique Spirit of the Messiah because He, Yeshua HaMashiach, is the Comfort par excellence...
the Comfort of God...
We can be the carriers of this promise of comfort by carrying Him inside us, but this can never be the demonstration of our own will towards the others. Particularly not, when we are not in spiritual unit with the suffering people and mourning with them. Because the ministry of comfort only belongs to Yeshua HaMashiach who lives in us.
When we read about the advent of the Messiah in the book of Isaiah 61: 1-2, we can understand that the deployment of the reign of the Spirit of the Messiah, is not other like the action of the Holy Spirit offered by God to His People for Comfort.
He gives Himself, even since Yeshua HaMashiach who showed the Laws of God to the world again and put it in application and completed them by Grace.
He rebuilt in Him the destroyed temple. He is the high priest and His children are members of the royal clergy.
All the re-establishment and restoration for which the Jewish community makes fast is fulfilled in Him and by Him...
The four months of fast come effective after the acceptance of the reign of the Messiah.
The power of delivery, release, purification and sanctification belongs to Him. The spiritual Temple will set up soon and will be able to welcome the pure offerings on the altar again.
Today, the war is going on to prevent the achievement of all this work.
Sometimes it could even seem as if the moment of the crushing and the total annihilation of the Jewish people and the Body of Christ were very close...
God calls upon someone among His People to fast for His People!
God calls people who are able to pray against these spiritual forces under the command of God of the Armies and the rule of Yeshua HaMashiach for the Body of the Messiah (Christ). He calls people who do not accept ecumenism, tolerance and other religious, Edomian, Babylonian, and Jezebelian spiritualities.
People who can hold up high the received weapons of God against the destroying imperial powers of the Temple and of Jerusalem...
People who do not simply avoid idols, but who also demolish them and sweep of the Temple until the smallest piece, the smallest trace of dust resulting from it, so that the worship and the altar should be sanctified again...
"Blessed are ye that weep now: for ye shall laugh." (Luc 6:21)
Should this promise be the continuation of the preceding one!
God made promises of joy, glory and happiness to His Chosen People...
However Yeshua did already promise joy to each man...
Yet it is necessary to know the Jewish roots as well as the Jewish expressions since these promises were given to Jews and heard by Jewish ears.
The expression cry means much more than the simple sadness felt at such painful moments. Here, it is a question of the pain felt towards those who are mourning, those whose hearths are wounded because of the others, those to whom Yeshua promises comfort!
This is a huge promise.
He promises Himself, the Comfort, as well as the Holy Spirit to the ones suffering for the others.
The promises were made for those who have pain at the sight of the destruction of the Temple, of the alien rule, of the sacrilege of the altar and of the state of the People of God.
For those who feel sorrow when seeing all the things that Satan and all his demons demolish, soil and make impotent.
For those who have pain when they see the Scriptures being used for ungrateful and foreign powers and who are sad at the sight of fratricide among the People.
The phrases of Matthew 5: 4-10 were the passwords of the pilgrims to reach the Temple! They are still the same today. The same formula is valid for all those who move towards the Kingdom of God.
If you feel pain and if you are mourning because of the actual situation, you are closer to the Kingdom of God. If all this hurts you and if you are mourning as a member of the People of God, then it is God Himself who turns your sadness unto joy, happiness and life...
The Chosen People of God can only expect relief in their mourning by God.
It would be great if all those who became part of the People of God through Christ also would learn this. We cannot act differently in the actual situation. Neither man nor human could generate life.
The Temple of the Jewish People is destroyed.
Its clergy disappeared by the judgment of God...
have the Chosen People died since then?
When the Jewish faithful fast, they are not devoted to a seance, they do not pray for any death’s soul or spirit.
As long as Jews will remain on Earth, there always will be a synagogue!
As long as one Jew will remain who believes in God, there will be somebody to carry on the promises of the Eternal inside him.
At the time when more and more Jews recognize and accept the Messiah in Yeshua of Nazareth, more and more of us will be able to meet our Jewish brothers in mourning... Because we already know and experience the work of the recover by Yeshua HaMashiach, we know the life-Yeshua...
Only the mourning person can be comforted.
It is thus wise to see that there are still some who fast, since it is to them that the Relief, Yeshua HaMashiach is the closest.
Because those who cry and mourn are living and receive Life!
God still loves His People and among it especially the house of Judah.
He hears their lamentations, their prayers, sees them and accepts their fasts.
However God has already prepared and called some ones among His People for His People who do not cry and mourn anymore. Some who are able to carry the messages of the promises to their Jewish brothers who are mourning and fasting...
These words are testimonies and not Philo-Semitic "Jewish-rescuing" words, but visible testimonies in our lives:
Those who are Messianic Jews fear for the People of God, Jerusalem and the altar, which are all important things in their eyes. And with our ministry the process of recovering of the Laws starts..
Filled up with life, with Yeshua and under the sovereign authority of the King Messiah, who fulfils the Law, filled up with the Spirit of the Messiah...
Those who are Messianic Jews are able to mourn because of the state in which the Body of the Messiah and the Chosen People are. A double pain since we are the members of the two People at the same time. But our joy is also double since when the promise of God will fulfill in the life of the Chosen People in mourning, when the People of God resulting from the other nations will also recognize the real testimony and possibility of release, purification and sanctification, and will aspire to benefit from all these things.
"Comfort..."
This call is today an order, which mostly applies to the Messianic Jewish community.
The order of the events is also given by God:
Jews first, then the others...
The promulgation of the knowledge of God and the re-establishment of the promulgated Laws are the tasks and the constant mission of the Jewish people since 6000 years and it is still the same today.
Today, mainly among the isolated Christianity...
As big is the amount of ruins in the world as far Christianity has fallen from the Law and from God.
This work is fulfilled since more than 2000 years. The consequence of it is that the offerings in the Temples are made to several gods... A whole army of idols profanes the Temple, the Body of the Messiah...
My dear Messianic Jewish brother!
Let’s prepare, because not only the Jews will fast and mourn soon, but Christians too! They are the ones that you will have to comfort by the testimony of Yeshua HaMashiach, by the comforting love of God so that the Spirit of Yeshua HaMashiach, the Holy Spirit can bring the comfort, the relief, the purification, the restoring and so that It can sanctify all things and all those who belong to God: So that the Body of the Messiah should be prepared.
Today Christendom does nothing elselike observing, Christians even try to run away or to make excuses for their actual situation, and they even devote themselves to the syncretism and tolerance...
But first of all let’s prepare and purify yourself. Do it, because the mission of re-establishment is not only beautiful, but extremely dangerous too.
You will be the target of the fatal anger of the devil!
First, you have to cover the identity which you received from God, because this is the only way to get under God’s protection.
As a Jew, you have been the enemy of the forces of Satan since your birth.
Since Yeshua HaMashiach is your Anointed King, your Messiah and that you are born again, Satan is doubly furious against you.
Prepare that only the ones living in Christ will love, accept and support you. In spite of that, it is your duty to bring them under the rule of Yeshua HaMashiach so that they receive the comfort...
You can do your ministry only under the rule and the authorization of the Comforter:
”... The Spirit of the Lord GOD is upon me; because the LORD hath anointed me to preach good tidings unto the meek; he hath sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to them that are bound;
To proclaim the acceptable year of the LORD, and the day of vengeance of our God; to comfort all that mourn…”
(Isa. 61:1-2)
God thus sends us to the combat with His Spirit to be able to achieve all that, so that the fasts cease and so that the joy of the Winner, of the Messiah would also be yours:
The Temple was restored, Jerusalem was rebuilt, the King Messiah, Yeshua HaMashiach won.
Translated from hungarian by Richard (Zeev Shlomo)
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