Tag: darkness

Are You a Flashlight in the Daytime or a Candle in the Evening?

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What the heck kind of question is that?

Well, let’s see: what do a candle and a flashlight have in common? Right- they both put out light. And aren’t we told that we should be a light unto the world? (Matthew 5:14-16)

“Yes, Steve, that’s right, so if both are a light, why worry about the difference? Whether I am a flashlight or a candle, aren’t I still being “a light” to people?” 

Yes, you’re still a light. But which is more effective?

That’s the point- if I shine a flashlight on something that is in the sunlight, how effective is the light I add? Obviously, it won’t make a very big difference, if any.

But a candle in the dark of evening can be seen by the unaided human eye from over a mile away! And the closer the candle, the more effective the candle light becomes.

Here’s what I want to say….many of us are doing our best at being good representatives of God, trying to be separated (i.e., holy) from the world while living in it (John 17:16), but we aren’t really going where we are needed to be a more effective light. It’s easy to talk with other Believers, and it’s easy (and safe) to hang out with all the people we know are righteous and trustworthy. But when we do that we are no better than a flashlight in the bright midday sun. 

We need (and I am preaching to myself here) to get out into the darkness- to talk with people who do not believe as we do, to demonstrate the way the Ruach haKodesh (Holy Spirit) affects us and helps us be more like God, and to go where we are needed most. 

Now, don’t get me wrong- I am not saying to go to the nearest biker bar and preach the Word, or to walk the streets at night in the worst parts of town and hand out tracts. That’s not being a light, that’s being suicidal!

What I do mean is that we need to have the courage to talk about God and our beliefs to people we meet everyday. Don’t become one of those “Bible Thumpers” who can’t hold a normal conversation, but do try to fit something God-related into the discussion every now and then.  

For instance, when I know I can relate a biblical saying or story to the conversation, I just say something to the effect of, “You know, there was this book I read that said this…” or “I once heard a story about ….” and not even imply it’s from the bible. Then, when I am done, if I see so much as a spark of interest, I will ask if they know where that came from. Now they are leading me into the discussion, and I have their permission to talk about God, even though they didn’t necessarily mean to let me.

And when that happens, go slow.  Don’t jump down their throats about God and Hell and all that stuff, just follow their lead and ask, “Have you ever heard that story? Where did you hear it? Oh, you heard it when you were a kid in Sunday School? Why did you stop going? Do you still go to church/synagogue? ” Again, don’t non-stop grill them, just let them take the lead, and dance them around to what you want to get to, which is how much God has helped you in your everyday life.

 Missionary work is hard, selling is hard, and if you don’t like the idea that as a missionary you are selling, then you need to have an attitude adjustment. Read Og Mandino’s book, “The Greatest Salesman In the World” and it will make your missionary work much more effective.

Today’s message is really a simple message, it’s not too hard to understand, and it takes guts to act on it. We need to make sure that every moment of every day we are candles in the darkness, because being a flashlight in the sunshine is easy, but useless. 

Here is a wonderful paradox: in the real world fruit can’t grow without sunshine, but spiritually you can only produce fruit in the darkness. 

Think about it. 

Parashah Shmot (the names) Exodus 1-6:1

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We all know this story- the Pharaoh that was hundreds of years after Joseph was of a totally different people and enslaves the Israelites from fear of their size. All the male babies are to be killed, Moses is hidden then sent down the Nile by his mother who trusts in God to protect her son. He is found by a daughter of Pharaoh, raised for the first years of his life by his mother, then returned to the Princess to be adopted into the royal family. Years later, as an adult, Moses sees one of his countrymen being beaten by an Egyptian (his mother had taught him about the God of Israel and his heritage), loses it and kills the Egyptian, then runs for his life. He goes to Midian, marries and becomes a shepherd. Years later he sees the burning bush, and is told by God that he will be God’s spokesman in order to get Pharaoh to free the people.

NOTE: If you feel you don’t know what your calling from God is, just be patient: Moses was 80 years of age before he found out.

He goes back to Egypt, faces Pharaoh and declares to Pharaoh, “Let my people go.”

Pharaoh doesn’t take too well to this, and orders that the Israelites are to now make bricks without being provided the straw, so instead of going home at sundown to rest they had to glean the fields all night. That didn’t make them very happy at all, and the Parashah ends with Moses about to get stoned by the people for making their lives even more miserable than before he came to free them.

I want to take one little line, just a few words from this Parashah, and talk about them today. They are found in Chapter 3, verse 14, when God tells Moses His name. The exact translation is: Ehyeh asher ehyeh– I am that I am.

This seems to be a simple statement, but it is in reality, vast. Popeye the Sailor says, “I yam what I yam, and that’s all that I yam…”and in his case, his statement is simple. Popeye is his own man, he is a modest and simple person who doesn’t profess to be anything other than what we see.

However, when God says “I am that I am” He means that He is now what He is, He has always been what He is, and He will always be what He is. Popeye is Popeye only during his lifetime, but God is God, God has been God, and God will always be God- there is no timeline for God.

When we try to put a timeline on God we end up upset and disappointed with Him. But how can we ever expect God to be constrained to our parameters of time and space? He is beyond physics, He is beyond restrictions, He is beyond understanding.

I can count to a Million, but can I really understand what a Million is? I can know who God is, but can I understand Him? Not a chance. He is beyond human understanding; as such, we must trust in His knowledge and timing, and ability to do that which He says He will do. Such was the lesson Moses was learning when he first went to Pharaoh. He had the staff that turned into a snake and the hand-leprosy trick: to Moses that must have seemed like more than enough to get Pharaoh’s attention. When it failed, and failed miserably, I am sure Moses was having second thoughts. In fact, we read how he asks God, essentially, what’s the story? Why isn’t this working as you said it would?

That’s because God had more planned to happen then Moses was aware of, and God kept it that way. God told Moses what He was going to do, but didn’t spell out every step of the procedure. He didn’t need to because He is (after all) God, and Moses didn’t have a “Need to Know” at that time. Faith is walking in complete darkness and trusting God to tell you where to step. Moses needed to develop that level of trust, which is why (in my opinion) God took Moses step by step through the Plagues, telling Moses only that which he needed to know, and only when he needed to know it.

We should be walking as Moses did (once he caught on), trusting in God to tell us where to step and where to avoid stepping. Moses was the most blessed of people in that he got to speak with God, face-to-face, but what we have is the very next best thing- we have the in-dwelling Ruach HaKodesh, the Holy Spirit, to be our spiritual GPS, leading us in the way God wants us to walk. The hard part, for us, is to listen to it.

Well, maybe not for you, maybe you can hear and obey the Ruach, but I confess it is very hard for me to continually be led by the Spirit. Even my language is hard to control (we could do an entire year of lessons on the difficulty of controlling the tongue), so you can imagine how much more difficult is it for me to control my actions. I am happy to report that I am making progress, slow as molasses going uphill against the wind in February, but still, it is progress. Three steps forward and two steps backsliding is still one step closer to God, and that is all we can hope for- getting closer to God, day by day, step by step.

When you feel that God isn’t doing as you thought He should, or you are getting impatient waiting for a prayer to be fulfilled, remember that God is eternal and we are mortal- apples and oranges- and it is unfair to God (and to us) to expect that we will be able to understand what is happening in our lives as God directs us. Work on following God’s instructions, remembering and trusting in the fact that He is what He was, and He will always be that which He is. That’s a really difficult concept to wrap your head around, but don’t worry about understanding it. You don’t need to.

Understanding what God is going to do is not necessary to accomplishing what God is calling you to do: all you need to do is trust Him and follow His lead.

Faith ain’t easy

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Have you ever read the Psalms, and looked past the P’shat (plain language) to see the Drash (underlying meanings) of the writings of David?

I read a little of the “Manual” every day, and I go from Genesis through to the end of Revelations (sometimes I even check out the maps at the end) and then I go back to Genesis, to start all over again. Currently I am in Psalms, and as I read them, I pass the beauty of the writings and see the pathos of the requests.

David is clearly in need of Prozac; he is constantly upset with the conditions of his life. And it’s no wonder: his king and father-in-law, Shaul (Saul), wants to kill him for no reason at all. David constantly talks about his enemies trying to destroy him, Shaul mainly, but there were the Philistines, too, always trying to take land or goods away from the Israeli’s. David spent years wandering in the desert, under constant fear for his life, living as a marauder, plundering the enemies of Israel to survive. He also had nearly 400 men to support. If you have ever been in a position of management or authority, it is a very heavy burden.

Let’s not forget that his own son, Absalom, tried to take over his kingdom. And almost succeeded.

And yet, David was faithful, righteous, kind and forgiving: all of the very best qualities that any God-fearing person should possess. Except for a few biggies, now and then, he was a sinless and upright man and king. So why should he have had to suffer the way he did, through almost all of his life?

The answer is the title to today’s message: faith ain’t easy; add to that righteousness takes a lot of hard work, and when you are righteous and faithful, you are so different from nearly everyone else that you will be alone, often. Not only that, but people will hate you and try to take you down to their level of sinfulness because you represent to them what they can’t, but inwardly want, to have. When someone wants to be like someone else, but they aren’t, they have two choices: they can improve on themselves, or they can make the other person become less than what they are.

Simply put, if I am dirtier than you are, and I am too lazy or sinful to clean up my act, I will throw dirt all over you so that now we are both dirty.

Despite having had so many wives and children, having the loyalty and friendship of his elite guard, having his cousin Yohav as his general ( who may have been loyal to David but was also a source of pain, killing who he believed should be killed, even when David said not to) and, of course, being the king (as Mel Brooks has said in his film “History of the World, Part I”,  “It’s good to be the king!”), overall I believe that David lived a very tough and often lonely life.

So what is the message? The message today is: stay the course! Be prepared to be lonely, to be hated and ridiculed, to be kidded even by your friends, and to suffer for the name of Messiah Yeshua (Jesus) as you live a faithful and righteous life.

When you are a light in the darkness, what that means is this: think about what it is like when you have been sleeping, get up in the dark and suddenly turn the lights on. Your eyes squint, it is uncomfortable, and it is not a pleasant experience. Imagine that feeling multiplied exponentially, on an emotional and spiritual level, and you will have an idea of what it means to those who live (and are quite comfortable) in the darkness when the light of your righteousness shines upon them.

When the light enters the darkness, those who live in the darkness don’t cry out, “Welcome! Thank you for allowing us to see better.” Rather, they will be angry and will scream, “TURN OUT THAT LIGHT!!”

Don’t. Don’t ever let your light go out, no matter how loud they scream, no matter how vindictively they berate you, and no matter what they do to you. Remember that Yeshua told us we will suffer for the sake of His name, but that we will be rewarded for it.

Faith ain’t easy, but after all the troubles and tribulations you will have to suffer in order to maintain your faith, the eternal reward will make it all worth the effort.

 

 

Parashah Chol HaMo’ed Sukkot (Exodus 33:12-34:26) Feast of Tabernacles Intermediate Sabbath

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This special reading recounts when Moses asked God to travel with the people. This is right after the sin of the Golden Calf, and God has agreed not to destroy the people but Moses has removed the Tent of Meeting from within the camp, due to the sin of the camp. Moses asks God to allow him to see His Glory and God agrees, but only from the back.

God has Moses make another set of tablets for the 10 Commandments and after Moses begs God to stay with the people, God tells Moses He will travel with them. God also tells Moses He will destroy the enemies of the people and that the Israelites are to totally demolish all forms of idol worship and all the standing poles and idols they find of the conquered peoples. They are not to intermarry or allow them to be part of their lives. This commandment is also a warning that by not doing so the people will become seduced into idol worship. This special reading ends with God reminding Moses about the major festivals when the people are to go to worship where God has determined to place His name.

It seems pretty obvious why this reading is for this special Shabbat- the Feast of Tabernacles is all about the joy God has when He is able to be with His people, and the joy we have when He is with us. Tabernacles is more than just living in a booth for a week- it is symbolic of the love God has for us: so much love, in fact, that the spiritual wants to dwell with the physical. It is an image of what it was like in Eden, when God was able to walk side-by-side with Adam and Eve. Two different planes of existence, ethereal and corporeal, existing together. That is what Tabernacles is really about: a reminder of Eden past, and a vision of the future when we will live in God’s presence again, forever.

I read once that the “Rabbi’s” said it is impossible for God to “come down” to the Earth, as it is said in the Tanakh, because He is already here. God is everywhere, all the time, so He can’t really “go” anywhere because wherever He wants to go, He is already there! So why, then, do we need the Feast of Tabernacles? If God is always with us, why do we need a special time to dwell with Him?

I think it’s because even though God is always here, we don’t recognize His presence because we are too busy paying attention to ourselves. How many times have you been told that you totally missed the turn you knew you had to take while driving because you were paying attention to someone walking, or talking to another person, or just thinking to yourself about something else?  How many times have you thought of something important, then got distracted for a moment and the thought was gone?

God is always right here. Doesn’t Moses tell us that the Law is not far from us? So close we can reach out and touch it? (Deut. 30:11) God is Torah, and the Torah is God. Just as John said that the Word became flesh (Yeshua), the Word is God- it is who He is, what He is about, His thoughts and desires. That’s why this time is so important. We need to refocus our gaze off of us and back onto God.

When you wake up in the morning and it is still dark, you can see much of what is there. Your eyes have adjusted to seeing in the darkness, although we don’t see everything. When you turn on the light, it makes you squint because the brightness is overpowering. As our eyes adjust to the light, we see much more of what was always there but, in the darkness, we couldn’t see.

We live in a very dark place- a cursed world. We grow up in it, we are used to seeing in it (although we can’t see many things all around us, and I am talking figuratively as well as factually) and for those of us who see the Light (have come to know God), we see as if in the brightness of the noon day. God has opened our eyes to what there is all around us that we couldn’t see in the darkness of our godless existence before- and what we see is sin. Being in God’s presence lights up the sin that is hidden to those still seeing only in the dark.

The world sees TV shows about vampires in love; I see the world accepting demonic creatures as being OK- they’re just like us.

The world sees people who live in defiance of God’s commandments as normal and acceptable, and I see the governments of the world accepting the mark of the enemy.

The world sees technology as wonderful and I see people and nations building their houses on sand (Matt. 7:24-27: the silicon chip is what makes today’s technology possible, and silica is sand.)

Those of us who have accepted God, accepted Messiah Yeshua and who have devoted our lives to T’Shuvah (turning from sin) so that we can honor and glorify God in all we do, we are living in the light and we are commanded to be a light to those still in the darkness. That’s why it is so hard talking to people about God- the light hurts your eyes when you first see it.

Tabernacles is a physical reminder of the spiritual truth that God wants to dwell with us. Although we do it once a year, we should be spiritual tabernacles to the world every day of the year.  And just as God comes from His perfectly wonderful environment and suffers to dwell in this physical world, we should also be willing to go into the darkness to seek those who need the light.

Celebrate this time of the year with joy, and honor God all the rest of the year with your service to His desire for you to bring light into the darkness.