Today is the first day of the LORD’s Passover Feast. It is my favorite of the Feast days of Israel, perhaps because it was the first I became acquainted with, but also because of its rich symbolism and its close ties with the coming of Yeshua (Jesus) the Messiah. Every year we celebrate it but every year it is as if I come to it anew. It never grows tiresome and I love the prayers and songs of this time which are full of our collective memory of how God has kept and provided for us through the generations. Its a time that stimulates faith and fills the heart with joy.
The story of the Passover focuses on the Exodus from Egypt, when God stretched forth his hand and brought the Israelite people out of slavery with mighty signs and miracles, and led them through the wilderness for forty years providing for their every need, until they entered into the Promised Land, Israel. For those of us whose Lord is Yeshua, it is a powerful parallel and foreshadowing of our personal salvation in which we were set free from slavery to sin and death, and given a full life of freedom and liberty as sons and daughters of the living God. Of course, it is also especially meaningful because our saviour and Lord, Yeshua, was crucified on the day of the Passover sacrifice and rose on the third day, the first day of the week following the Passover Shabbat, the day of the Wave Offering (Leviticus 23:9).
This Passover my focus has shifted a little. Instead of concentrating on the Exodus from Egypt I have been considering in more depth the entrance into the Promised Land. Perhaps this was largely triggered by a trip a friend and I made last week up into the Galilee and the Golan, during which we were reminded of the abundance and beauty of this glorious Promised Land. It is a good land, full of fruitfulness and health, but one that is totally dependent upon the blessing of God. If He withholds the rain, the land languishes and dies, but when God blesses us with good rain, as he has done this year, the land simply bursts forth with life.
” Observe the commands of the Lord your God, walking in obedience to him and revering him. For the Lord your God is bringing you into a good land—a land with brooks, streams, and deep springs gushing out into the valleys and hills; a land with wheat and barley, vines and fig trees, pomegranates, olive oil and honey; a land where bread will not be scarce and you will lack nothing; a land where the rocks are iron and you can dig copper out of the hills.”
Deuteronomy 8: 6-9
The People of Israel crossed over the Jordan River on the 10th Day of the First Month (Nisan, as it is known today). On the same day, all the men of Israel were circumcised and while they were still raw and healing 4 days later, all Israel celebrated the Passover on the 14th of Nisan. On the next day, the first day of the Feast of Unleavened Bread, the manna stopped and they ate for the first time of the fruit of the Promised Land, their own God-given land. How wonderful that must have felt!
On the tenth day of the first month the people went up from the Jordan and camped at Gilgal on the eastern border of Jericho….
On the evening of the fourteenth day of the month, while camped at Gilgal on the plains of Jericho, the Israelites celebrated the Passover. The day after the Passover, that very day, they ate some of the produce of the land: unleavened bread and roasted grain. The manna stopped the day after[d] they ate this food from the land; there was no longer any manna for the Israelites, but that year they ate the produce of Canaan.
Joshua 4: 19 ; 5: 10-12
Some years ago I was visiting a friend in Eilat and as I left we prayed together for my journey. I was surprised when in the midst of our prayer she asked God to give me revelation as I journeyed northwards to my home. I admit I was a bit skeptical at that moment, but as I traveled I did indeed receive a revelation that has never left me. It was mid-summer and the desert of the Negev was sere and seemingly lifeless, and it stretched on mile after mile after mile. Then suddenly, and it was suddenly, just a few kilometers south of Tel Aviv, the landscape turned green and fertile. In that moment I understood just how vulnerable we were. We teeter on the very edge of the great desert that stretches across the Sahara and the Arabian Peninsula. How desperately we need to cling to God and his provision of rain in order to survive. God has not given us a land of abundant rainfall and lush greenness, as in the countries of western Europe for example, but rather a marginal land, a ‘land of milk and honey’, right on the edge of the desert, so that we may not grow lazy and lax and forget our need for total reliance on God. This is the grace of God for Israel, and indeed it has also been the grace of God in my own personal life.
Israel’s possession of the Land and the enjoyment of its abundance was always conditional. As long as they were faithful to the LORD God of Israel they would remain in the land and be blessed with prosperity, but if they should turn aside to foreign gods or forget the God of Israel, and sin against Him, then He would cast them out. However it was never final, there was always a way of repentance and return. Moses warned the people of Israel saying.
“…but you are about to cross over and take possession of that good land. Be careful not to forget the covenant of the Lord your God that he made with you; do not make for yourselves an idol in the form of anything the Lord your God has forbidden. For the Lord your God is a consuming fire, a jealous God.
After you have had children and grandchildren and have lived in the land a long time—if you then become corrupt and make any kind of idol, doing evil in the eyes of the Lord your God and arousing his anger, I call the heavens and the earth as witnesses against you this day that you will quickly perish from the land that you are crossing the Jordan to possess. You will not live there long but will certainly be destroyed. The Lord will scatter you among the peoples, and only a few of you will survive among the nations to which the Lord will drive you. There you will worship man-made gods of wood and stone, which cannot see or hear or eat or smell. But if from there you seek the Lord your God, you will find him if you seek him with all your heart and with all your soul. When you are in distress and all these things have happened to you, then in later days you will return to the Lord your God and obey him. For the Lord your God is a merciful God; he will not abandon or destroy you or forget the covenant with your ancestors, which he confirmed to them by oath.
Deuteronomy 4: 22-31
We know that on two occasions God did cast the people of Israel out of their land because of their idolatry and sin, but in our days he has had mercy upon us and brought us back home again. Not only that, but he has prospered us beyond all imagining. Today Israel proudly stands amongst the most powerful nations on this Earth and as I travel about the land I am constantly awed by what has been achieved in just 70 or so years. But herein lies great danger, the danger that we will take the glory to ourselves and forget the LORD and his mercies. It is He who has done it and not us. Please pray that the people of Israel will not be puffed up and proud, glorying in our accomplishments, but that we will humble ourselves and pray to God with thankful hearts for what He has done, so that we may continue to enjoy his abundant blessings.
When you have eaten and are satisfied, praise the Lord your God for the good land he has given you. Be careful that you do not forget the Lord your God, failing to observe his commands, his laws and his decrees that I am giving you this day. Otherwise, when you eat and are satisfied, when you build fine houses and settle down, and when your herds and flocks grow large and your silver and gold increase and all you have is multiplied, then your heart will become proud and you will forget the Lord your God, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery. He led you through the vast and dreadful wilderness, that thirsty and waterless land, with its venomous snakes and scorpions. He brought you water out of hard rock. He gave you manna to eat in the wilderness, something your ancestors had never known, to humble and test you so that in the end it might go well with you. You may say to yourself, “My power and the strength of my hands have produced this wealth for me.” But remember the Lord your God, for it is he who gives you the ability to produce wealth, and so confirms his covenant, which he swore to your ancestors, as it is today.
If you ever forget the Lord your God and follow other gods and worship and bow down to them, I testify against you today that you will surely be destroyed. Like the nations the Lord destroyed before you, so you will be destroyed for not obeying the Lord your God.
Deuteronomy 8 : 10-20
OTHER PRAYER POINTS:
Elections:
We prayed, we voted but it is God who establishes our leaders for His purposes. The elections are over and the Likud Party, led by Binyamin Netanyahu, and the Blue and White Party, ed by Benny Gantz, were tied with 35 seats each. To form a government, a party has to have a minimum 61 seats in the 120-strong Knesset (Parliament). This means that each party will have to form a coalition with other parties in order to reach this minimum. There is no way the Blue and White Party can do this, because the left is currently very weak. Only the Likud Party has the possibility of succeeding. This means that Likud is currently negotiating with the right-wing religious parties in order to gain the required 61 seats. It seems likely that Netanyahu is set to serve a record-breaking 5th term as Israel’s Prime MInister. In short, the elections have changed little, with the religious right coming out more powerful than ever. The exceptional success of the Blue and White party may however serve as a warning to Netanyahu that there is growing discontent with the inordinate power yielded by his religious coalition partners, alienating the secular majority. Please pray that the new government, whoever they are, will pay due attention to the internal distribution of wealth, narrowing the gap between the rich and the poor, and boosting the education, health and welfare sectors.
Gaza border tensions:
Since the Egyptian brokered ‘ceasefire’ came into effect the Gaza border tensions eased some. Some of the troops and weapons that had been moved there have now been redeployed elsewhere. The situation still remains very tense and the ‘March of Return’ demonstrations continue IDF forces. On Friday about 6,000 Palestinians demonstrated at the border and according to Hamas sources, 46 were injured (1). A shot was fired at Israeli forces defending the border and in response an Israeli aircraft and a tank attacked two military positions belonging to Hamas (2). As I am writing reports are coming in of a loud blast heard by residents of Israel’s Shaar Negev region, adjacent to the Gaza border. It appears at this stage that two rockets fired at Israel fell short, landed in an open area in Palestinian territory and exploded. The Israeli airforce has already responded. This could signal another escalation of tensions there. Please pray for peace and a long-lasting resolution of these issues.
Passover security
There is always a heightened threat of terrorism during the Jewish Feasts in Israel. As is usual, the West Bank and Gaza are under ‘lockdown’ for the duration of Passover, in an effort to prevent attacks. Today a 20 year old Palestinian attempted to attack soldiers at the Tapuah Junction in the West Bank but was thwarted. Please pray that our streets, synagogues, churches, parks and other places where many people gather during this festive season will remain safe. Pray too for the safety of all those who daily put their lives on the line so that Israeli citizens, pilgrims and tourists can be safe.
May you all have a peaceful and blessed Passover and Easter season, in the name of Yeshua and the LORD God of Israel.
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As always Talia, well stated and uplifting! חג שמח אחות שלי!