Tag: ezekiel

Parashah Re’eh 2018 (Behold) Deuteronomy 11:26 – 16:17)

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   God has Moses remind the people of the requirements when they enter and live in the land. This Third Discourse of Moses is all about what they are to do now that they will be in the land promised to their Fathers. 

   God reviews with the people that they are to take their sacrifices, vows, and tithes only to the place where God places his name. They are to destroy all the altars and Asherim (poles) they find throughout the land. Anyone or even any town or village that turns to worship other gods, and tries to get others to do so, is to be completely destroyed, even if a close family member or loved one.  

   One of the things they are to do, as soon as they can, is to place the blessings on Mount Gerizim and the curses on Mount Ebal. These two mountains are called the “Shoulder” mountains because they are next to each other, and they overlook the Shechem Valley. When the Israelites got there (under Joshua) and they all shouted the blessings and curses, all the people in the Shechem Valley were able to hear them. 

   God reviews the Kashrut laws and tithing rules, to include the 2nd tithe and the 3rd and 6th-year tithes for the Levites and the poor.  The commandment regarding the Shemittah (7th Year) release is given, which applies only to fellow Hebrews.

   The final part of this parashah is a review of the regulations regarding the Festivals.

   So much to talk about, so many things in here that are valuable to know and understand. Sometimes the hardest thing to do is pick one. I usually just open my mind and as I read through the parashah I pray for God to show me something, a little pop-up, so to speak, or to implant an idea in my skull. What popped into my head today was this: the importance of bringing the sacrifice to the one place in the entire country where God placed his name. 

   The pagan sacrifices were made anywhere the people wanted to, usually on high grounds and under leafy trees.  There was no real management since everyone could do whatever they wanted to do. God told the Israelites this is not what they are to do- they have to bring their sin forgiveness, vow, and tithe offerings to one place, and one place only. That place is the location where God, himself, will decide upon. They are not to offer anything to the Lord anywhere else.

   This rule is, for me, the set-up for needing Messiah. God knows all that will happen, and he knew (of course) that the Romans would destroy the Jerusalem temple, which (because of this rule) would prevent the Jewish people from having the opportunity to ask forgiveness of their sins. You may ask, “Why would God not want people to be forgiven? He gave us the sacrificial system specifically so that we could be forgiven, so why take that away? Doesn’t he tell us in Ezekiel 18:23 that he prefers we turn from sin and live?  How can we turn from sin and ask for forgiveness if he takes away the one place we are allowed to do so?” 

   That’s a good question, and the answer is that God took away our only means of forgiveness under the sacrificial system because the sacrifice of Messiah Yeshua is to be the alternative to the animal sacrifice at the temple. Prior to Yeshua, we sacrificed something that we owned and had value to us. That valuable thing was to be taken from us and given up to God. Messiah was given up by God and given to us, then taken from us back to God. Whereas the animal sin sacrifice was geographically mandated, Messiah’s sacrifice is a universal atonement, allowing all people everywhere to ask forgiveness without having to bring anything anywhere. God sacrificed his most valuable possession, his son, in lieu of us giving up something of our own. 

Because God’s laws are forever the only way God could keep his commandments regarding sacrifice for sin valid but “upgrade” them to the newer version, which is by Yeshua’s sacrifice, was to make obedience to the original sin sacrifice commandments impossible. With the destruction of the temple, the only way anyone could be forgiven of their sins was through Yeshua.

So, way back when, even as the Israelites were just beginning to enter the land, God already had his plan for forgiveness of sin through Messiah configured. He first set the rules for sin sacrifice (in Leviticus), then he set the rules for where that sacrifice should be done (this parashah), then he sent Messiah to replace the sacrifice and, finally, took away that place so that there was no other way to be forgiven except through the Messiah.

   If you haven’t accepted Yeshua as your Messiah, you will have a second chance when he returns. May I suggest, enthusiastically, that you don’t wait.  Review the Messianic prophecies in the Tanakh (there are about 135 of them) then read the New Covenant writings and make a decision. Don’t let the prejudice and hatred between Jews and Christians over the millennia get in your way- it got in my way for over 40 years, but when I made my own decision to study, research and then choose to faithfully believe, I found that my worship and my “Jewishness” became stronger and more fulfilling than it had ever been before. 

Your Past Isn’t Your Future

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I would not disagree with the statement that we are all shaped by our past. The specific experiences each one of us have lived through definitely affect us, forming our viewpoints and our beliefs. However, I disagree with the old expression that experience is the best teacher: that isn’t really accurate. Experience is the best database, and it only serves to offer us the opportunity to learn. We must force ourselves to learn from our experience in order for it to be useful.

I was blessed to meet a young man the other day who has recently converted to Judaism and is a Believer. He is covered with tattoos, many of which imply that he has lived a rough life. His girlfriend is a Christian, and it was she who introduced us. This occurred at a New Jersey hotel where Donna and I were staying over the weekend while attending a family wedding in Philadelphia.

He is a neophyte regarding the Bible and salvation and I sense he is also a fine young man. I was impressed and happy to see that he is open to hearing about Judaism, God and Messiah. His past has shaped him and left it’s scars (visually, as well as emotionally) yet he has learned from his experience and is now on the right path. Hopefully, he will see this post and know that I am talking about him, and how I am proud of him for his courage and devotion to not allowing his past to shape his future.

This is just one of the multitude of wondrous things about God: He is willing to forget the past. In fact, God is very Existential. To be existential means to be living in the moment, in the “existence” of things. No past, no future, just now. When he grants forgiveness he forgets the past and only sees the heart as it is at this moment. Of course, God is beyond time so he knows all that has happened and all that will happen, but he chooses to forget the sins in an individual’s past when that person repentantly asks to be forgiven of them.

This holds true also for the good we have done- no “sitting on one’s laurels” with God! If you did wrong, your wrong will be forgiven when you do right. And if you have always done right, but now do wrong, you are guilty! Your past good deeds are forgotten when you sin just as thoroughly as one’s past bad deeds are forgotten when they repent.

He tells us this! In Ezekiel 18:21-24 God says:

But if a wicked person turns away from all the sins they have committed and keeps all my decrees and does what is just and right, that person will surely live; they will not die.  None of the offenses they have committed will be remembered against them. Because of the righteous things they have done, they will live.  Do I take any pleasure in the death of the wicked? declares the Sovereign Lord. Rather, am I not pleased when they turn from their ways and live?  “But if a righteous person turns from their righteousness and commits sin and does the same detestable things the wicked person does, will they live? None of the righteous things that person has done will be remembered. Because of the unfaithfulness they are guilty of and because of the sins they have committed, they will die.

The past will not be remembered, whether that past was a righteous one or a sinful one. God sees our heart at the moment we are committing our sins just as much as when we are asking for forgiveness. Each moment is a new one, each event is individual and unique, and each time we ask for forgiveness we are given a clean past.

So do not dwell on your past sins, and do not count on your good deeds to help you. If you have accepted Yeshua as your Messiah and asked forgiveness with a repentant heart in his name, as far as God is concerned you have no past. Likewise, if you have been doing good but have sinned, you still need to ask forgiveness because what you did that was right is no longer of any value to you.

Each and every time you look to God for forgiveness, your past is gone and you are given a future that you can shape any way you want to.

And if I may suggest?….asking God to show you how he wants it shaped is the best way to start your new life.

 

 

Parashah V’yashev (and he dwelt) Genesis 37 – 40

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The stories of Joseph and Judah are contained in this parashah: Joseph from the time of his childhood to his imprisonment after asking the Cup Bearer of the Pharaoh to remember him, and Judah from the death of his first two sons to the seduction of Judah by Tamar, his daughter-in-law and birth of her twins.

Why, in the middle of the exciting adventures (or more correctly, trials) of Joseph, would we be told about Judah? It’s like a long infomercial right near the end of a Columbo mystery.

The Chumash says that this is to show us the difference between how these two very influential sons of Israel, one who saves the nation and the other whose descendants lead the nation, reacted to temptation.

Joseph is tempted by Potiphar’s wife, and Judah is tempted by Tamar, his daughter-in-law (while in disguise.) Joseph, while he could easily have gotten away with the betrayal (of the trust) of his master, chose to resist sin. On the other hand, Judah fell easily into the sinful trap that Tamar set for him. Judah had no second thoughts about having sex with a cult prostitute, a representative of a foreign and forbidden god.

Yet, all Judah lost was his staff and seal, which could be replaced; Joseph, on the other hand, lost his position of importance and was thrown into prison for many years.

It just ain’t fair, is it?

Joseph never really showed any lack of morality (although as a child he showed a lack of judgement in the way he made his brothers angry with him) and Judah showed lack of morality in how he associated with prostitutes, but when Tamar revealed that Judah had neglected his duty to provide her a husband, he admitted his guilt and justified her actions, removing the stigma she was under as an unmarried woman who was pregnant. Judah showed the strength of character that is such an important part of true leadership in accepting responsibility for his actions when he was in the wrong.

Joseph also showed his strength of character by accepting the position he was placed in and continuing to do what is right, even when he was not responsible for doing anything wrong. Judah did wrong and accepted responsibility for it when he was made aware of it; Joseph did nothing wrong, yet he accepted the consequences of what happened and continued to do his best.

The lesson for us is that whether we do wrong or right, we will always be OK in God’s sight if we continue to strive to do what is right in God’s eyes. Judah sinned, Joseph resisted sin, yet Judah got off easy and Joseph suffered years in prison. It doesn’t seem fair, but in the long run Joseph was ruler over all the land, and through his trials not only did Egypt survive, but Israel, too. As Joseph tells his brothers later in this book, it was God that sent Joseph to Egypt so that he could save them from starvation. Joseph saw the truth of his suffering, the reason for it, and accepted it as God’s plan of salvation for him and his family. It’s interesting also that Judah’s story is placed smack-dab in the middle of Joseph’s story because it was Judah who first came up with the idea of selling Joseph into slavery, knowing that he would end up in Egypt. Although the brothers never got that chance (the Midianites found Joseph before the sale to the Ishmaelites could occur), Judah would have been the reason for Joseph ending up in Egypt.

When we have either strife or joy in our lives, we never really know where it will lead until we are already there, and by then it’s too late. So what can we do? We can do our best to always do what is right in God’s eyes. Judah did wrong but accepted responsibility for it, which was something that is right in God’s eyes, and ended up as the ancestor of Messiah. Joseph did right but was treated wrongly, yet because he continued to do what was pleasing to God, even in the midst of slavery and imprisonment Joseph was rewarded and honored. Joseph and Judah were like two sides of the same coin: Joseph in the right and Judah in the wrong, but both showed that, in the end, they did what was proper and pleasing to God, and both ended up in positions of honor. It doesn’t matter if you are always righteous, or if you perform an unrighteous act, God wants you to do what is right as you continue to go on with your life.

As God told us in Ezekiel 33:18:

“When the righteous turns from his righteousness and commits iniquity, then he shall die in it. But when the wicked turns from his wickedness and practices justice and righteousness, he will live by them.”

Judah did wrong, but turned from his iniquity (when he took responsibility for it and vindicated Tamar); Joseph never did wrong even when wrongly accused of iniquity, and both were honored by God. It may seem to us that Joseph got the short end of the stick, that what happened to Joseph just wasn’t fair compared to the sin Judah committed (and sorta got away with), but from God’s perspective all went exactly as it should have.

Considering how everything ended up, I think God did alright, don’t you?

We need to remember that no matter what happens in our life, so long as we trust in God and continue to try to do what is right in God’s eyes, we will be OK.  We will all succumb to iniquity at one time or another, and we will all be mistreated at one time or another, but as long as we take responsibility, atone and try to stay on the path of righteousness, then no matter how many times we fall, God will always be there to help us back up.

I guess what it really boils down to is this: “fair” has nothing to do with it. “Fair” is something conceived of by someone who wasn’t treated the way he or she thought they should have been treated. “Fairness” is a condition of the flesh. I don’t care about “fair”, but I do care about God’s will, and how He says we should treat each other. “Fair treatment” isn’t in the Torah, but compassion is, love is, respect is, and justice is. They are in the Torah and they are how God wants us to treat each other.

 

Who’s fault is it?

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Remember the days when, if you needed a medical specialist, you could go to your family doctor and ask for a reference? Not a referral of someone in the HMO Group, but someone who that doctor thought would be good for you.

Remember when you could call a former employer about someone who is seeking to work for you and they would tell you the truth about that person? In fact, they would talk to you and not send you to an HR robot who would tell you the dates the person worked for them and nothing more.

Remember when people used to feel responsible for what they did or said to others?

Deuteronomy  24:16– Parents are not to be put to death for their children, nor children put to death for their parents; each will die for their own sin.

Ezekiel 18:20– The one who sins is the one who will die. The child will not share the guilt of the parent, nor will the parent share the guilt of the child.

Galatians 6:4-5– Each one should test his own work. Then he will have reason to boast in himself alone, and not in someone else. For each one should carry his own load.

The bible tells us that when we come before God we will be held accountable for what we have done in our lives. It won’t be like an American courtroom, where we can claim that the malpractice we suffered is not just the fault of the doctor who worked on us, but can also be blamed on the doctor that told us to go to him. We won’t be able to sue someone for telling a prospective employer (who turned us down) we were fired for having stolen from the company. We won’t get a multi-million dollar payout from the manufacturer of a lightening rod for not telling us we shouldn’t install it in the middle of a thunderstorm.

We won’t be able to blame Satan for suggesting we worship him instead of God when we apostatize.

The world is all about being a victim, and it doesn’t matter who did what to whom: all that matters is that you are the first one to complain. The one who makes a stink about something and claims to have been hurt, or abused, or made to feel uncomfortable, is the one who wins. The accused is immediately considered guilty. I mean, why not? After all, when I told this person they didn’t do a good job and they need to do better in the future, I caused them great suffering and mental anguish: what if they can’t do better? What if they are fired and lose their home? They can’t sleep, they can’t eat, their ulcers are acting up and now they have a cavity in their tooth! It’s all my fault!

Uh…wait a minute. Didn’t they fail to perform their job as they were instructed? Didn’t they refuse to work at getting better?  Didn’t they have anything at all to do with their own actions?

Not in today’s world they didn’t.

Yeshua (Jesus) told His disciples that they should love each other because that is how people will know they are His disciples. The Torah was given to us (all of us) to separate us from the pagan practices of the ancient world, so that society could look at God’s people and see how wise, thoughtful and compassionate they are towards each other and from that example learn to be better, themselves.

Everything about being a person who fears the Lord has to do with becoming more holy, more separated from the world, and (thereby) a monument to the wonder and awesomeness of God. We are to be examples for others to follow.

One way to be an example is to be responsible for yourself. Take onus for what you do and say, accept responsibility for your actions and don’t throw Red Herrings and smokescreens up when you do something wrong. And when someone accuses you of wrongdoing, if you are innocent, stand up for yourself and fight for righteousness.

I once was accused of something and stood up for myself. I took a senior executive of the company to his boss and filed a complaint against him for wrongly accusing me and not following corporate procedures. I won that battle, and lost the war. When my evaluation came up, my immediate supervisor gave me a 3.5 out of 5 score, which was supported by many people writing how much they appreciated me and enjoyed working with me. His boss, the one I complained about, reduced that to a 2.0: his justification was that I usually did a good job but usually isn’t good enough.

Can you believe that? A CIO, a senior executive of a company, wrote that; and, what is worse, is that the HR Director never even reviewed it! Where I come from, when someone gets an unsat evaluation, it has to be justified with documentation and must be reviewed by HR.

The point is not that I was mistreated (which led to me getting a better job with 150% pay raise, so God always takes care of those who love Him) but that when we stand up for ourselves the world may come down on us. So what? We still must do the right thing. In this case, I did not allow myself to be a victim by standing up for what was right. When people accuse us of being wrong we need to stand up for Godly righteousness.

And when we are in the wrong, when we have done or said something that has been harmful or incorrect, we need to be just as willing to accept blame for it. That is also something that will separate us from the world, and demonstrate that one can be “holy” and still make mistakes. Being holy doesn’t mean we are any better or any more efficient, it just means we are separated, that we are different (in a good way) from everyone else.

And, in today’s world, to accept blame for what you do or say is certainly different from what everyone else does.

Why Predestination Doesn’t Work

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The answer is found in Ezekiel 33. This chapter, similar to Ezekiel 18, is where God tells Ezekiel that he, Ezekiel, is like a watchman on a tower. When God tells Ezekiel of upcoming doom for the sinful, like a watchman blowing the shofar to warn people when the enemy approaches , he is to tell them what God says so they have warning and time to turn from their sins. If Ezekiel warns them, he is free of their blood. Therefore, God is saying that people can choose to turn from their sin, or choose to die in it.

God tells us that He takes no pleasure in the death of a sinner while still in his sin:

11 Say unto them, As I live, saith the Lord God, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked; but that the wicked turn from his way and live: turn ye, turn ye from your evil ways; for why will ye die, O house of Israel?

The gist of predestination is that the elect are chosen already, and we don’t have any choice. God has designed and determined everything that will happen. There are some things in the Bible that can be used to make this argument; for instance, God told Jeremiah he was chosen to be a prophet and that God knew Jeremiah when he was still in the womb, Moses being chosen, Gideon, Samson, and there are others. All of these Prophets, Judges, and Saviors of Israel (oh, yeah- don’t forget Esther, who was where she was “for such a time as this”) were determined by God to do His will.

Does that mean they didn’t have a choice? Jonah had a choice, and even though he did get a lot of “encouragement” to turn back to Nineveh when he ran away, he still could have fought off the calling. He probably would have died, and we would not read the Book of Jonah at Yom Kippur services; maybe it would be the Book of Bob, or the Megillah of Myron? In any event, if Jonah had turned from his calling, or Gideon, or even Moses (remember that God almost killed Moses as he was first going back to Egypt), God would have still raised someone up to do His bidding. Even Yeshua, when He was praying before capture, asked if the cup could pass from Him let that be so. Even the Messiah clearly could have changed His mind about what He was to do. That’s not predestination, that’s free will in action.

You can’t make an argument from nothing (this is a very important lesson to remember when interpreting the Bible) but we can never know how many babies were pulled form the Nile. Perhaps there were more than just one baby saved during the Pharaoh’s decree, so if Moses hadn’t chosen to fulfill the role God had for him, there might have been others available to God to serve His purpose.

Ezekiel isn’t the only place where we can see people have had choices, and God has given them that right. We do have free will, we do have the opportunity to chose God. Really, when you think about it (something most religions seem to want you to avoid doing), predestination can’t be God’s plan because if the Lord already chose what and who, then why bother allowing evil in the world? If God knows who will be in heaven, then why put billions of people through the Tribulation, or make innocent people die? Why even tell Ezekiel to warn the sinners? Why send the Prophets? If God has determined, ahead of time, who will live and who will die, why even give those destined to die life?

None of it makes any sense. Not that we can be expected to understand God, but really? God making billions of people go through life for what is, essentially, no reason other than to die is… ridiculous. That makes God out to be a young boy with a magnifying glass digging up ants just to incinerate them. Or creating the ants to watch them die (Oy- that’s even worse!)

God is the captain of our lives, and His ship will sail from Creation all the way to Salvation on Earth, a new Earth, where the people who have chosen to choose God (through Messiah Yeshua) will live in eternal joy and peace.

Those who have chosen to ignore God’s existence and choose sin will suffer eternal damnation.

The bottom line is that it is a choice, and it is our choice. It is your choice, and you are the only one responsible for that decision. You can’t blame your parents, your Priest, Rabbi or Pastor. You can’t say your favorite teacher taught you that God is dead, or that you just don’t know what to believe.

Not believing is a choice. And, take it from me, it’s the WRONG choice!!

Yeshua said that those who are not against Him are with Him. Not accepting or believing is being against Him.

Also, accepting what others say without confirming the truth for yourself is, well, it’s just plain stupid! You are going to have to answer to God, and He will not give you a break because you were too lazy to read the Bible and ask for the Ruach HaKodesh (Holy Spirit) to lead your understanding so that you can make up your own mind. And he won’t buy the, “But that’s what I was taught” line, either.

I will talk about God with anyone, believer or atheist, and if I don’t respect their choice, I respect their God-given right to make that choice.

Make your own choice, and do that with the knowledge that comes from reading the Bible for yourself. There are some parts that are boring and tough to get through, but get through it. Please- at least once in your life do this so that you  have a real chance at having life eternal. It may take a few days or weeks, or even months to get through it- the whole thing, from Genesis through to the end of Revelations. If you are Jewish, read the New Covenant writings, also (it will help if you get a Messianic version of the Bible) and if you are Gentile, read the Old Covenant writings first. You may be surprised at the fact that Jesus did not say anything new. Same thing for the Jewish readers of the B’rit Chadashah: Yeshua taught Judaism, He did NOT invent a new religion.

God has determined what will happen to mankind- no one who says the Bible is true can argue that point. However, because the fate of mankind is settled and already determined, that doesn’t mean the fate of any individual man (or woman) is already determined. The ship is sailing, it will reach it’s final port, and we all have the right and the freedom to decide if we will sail with this ship or not.

It is your choice, so make it a good one.

Heaven on Earth

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Aren’t we all looking forward to Heaven? Wafting joyfully amongst the clouds, basking in the presence of the Holy One of Israel, free of concerns, free of duties and toils, forever elated.

Sounds nice, but don’t bet on it. That ain’t heaven- that’s Hollywood.

The Bible tells us that those who survive the Tribulation, the chosen who have chosen to remain faithful, will be part of the new heaven and the new earth (Rev. 21). In the Acharit HaYamim (The End Days) after all the destruction is completed, the Enemy and his minions are in the lake of fire and the unfaithful in hell, the new heavens and the new earth will be revealed and the faithful (namely, the survivors) will not be in heaven. We will inhabit the new earth. Although Shaul (Paul) says we are citizens of heaven (Philippians 3:20) that isn’t where we reside. We are citizens of heaven but we live on earth.

And there will be work to do, there will also be sickness. Huh? Sickness in heaven? Aren’t we are told there will be no more tears? Yes, we are: it says in Revelations, as well as a few times in Isaiah, that the tears will be wiped from every eye and (essentially) there will be no more crying or mourning.

So, if there will be no more crying, where are the tears from every eye coming from? Or is it that there will be one last big “cry” and from then on, it’ s joyful joy, joy, joy all the time?

If there will be no more sickness then why do the trees that are on the river of living water Ezekiel and Yochanan (John) see have leaves with healing in them? In Ezekiel (47:12) and in Revelations (22:1) they both see the same tree with leaves that heal. Why have healing leaves if there is no more disease?

I can’t speak on these authoritatively, and I don’t believe anyone can give us an exact revelation of Revelations, or of the visions seen by the Prophets, either. I feel confident in saying that we can be certain of the meaning of a vision only when the events after the vision demonstrate what it was about. For instance, Kefa (Peter) on the roof dreaming of the animals on the sheet is clearly about the Roman’s asking him to go to the house of Cornelius so that the new Believers would know that the Spirit of God and salvation can come to the Gentiles, too. The history that came after the vision showed us what the vision was about (and just for the record, it had NOTHING to do with Kashrut, Kosher Laws.)

When I read the Bible and the statements made about the Eternal life promised to those that remain faithful, I do not see us roaming the heavens. That is where God lives with the angels. We are on the new earth. We are still working in an agricultural economy; Micah 4:3-4 says we will turn our swords and spears into farming utensils, so again I ask: why need farming utensils if we aren’t farming? If we don’t farm, and war is over, then wouldn’t we turn the swords and spears into something else? Or just throw them away?

We are also told in those verses that each will sit under his vine and fig tree. Here we again are being given a picture of an agrarian existence. Thomas Jefferson once wrote to George Washington that, “Agriculture … is our wisest pursuit, because it will in the end contribute most to real wealth, good morals & happiness.” Obviously, Jefferson (himself a farmer) thought that agriculture was a very “godly” pursuit. Of course, he also wrote his own Bible and cut everything spiritual and God-related out of it. Oh well, at least he knew farming was a good thing.

Back to the point… we will live on earth, the new earth, when all is said and done. Whether you go for Pre-Millennial, or Post-Millennial, or even Mid-Millennial, whatever! From what I read in the Manual, God will be in the heavens, but I really don’t know where Yeshua will be. I think He will be the righteous king over all the (new) earth, the one wiping the tears from our eyes, the one administering the healing leaves and the one final Kohen HaGadol (Head Priest.) And even though eternity has no beginning and no end, I believe that my “Eternity” will begin when this world’s existence ends.

I look forward to the rewards of honest labor, to the eternal presence of God, to seeing Yeshua’s face, and to sit under my own fig tree and vines, enjoying the fruits of my labor. If you have ever worked at and completed something difficult, and know that you completed it well, then you know a little about what heaven is like. Take that feeling, multiply it by a million and you have a good start at what it will feel like spending eternity with God.

I can’t say for certain what it will be like after the final battle, I don’t think anyone can. I believe from what I read that I will be on a new earth, a farmer, happy, able to live forever without disease (because it can be healed) and without tears (because they will be wiped from my eyes) but I can’t be positive. I can’t be positive because all the images and stories we have about “heaven” are from visions, and (as I said above) we can ‘t really be certain about what a vision is all about and represents until it comes about in reality. Actually, between you and me…I really don’t care what it will be like, just so long as I am there.

I am waiting patiently, faithfully, and with great anticipation for the End Days. I also hope they don’t come until the ones I love and care about that aren’t “saved” have been saved, but it is up to God when these things will happen.

And, despite how much as I care about my unsaved loved ones… Lord? The sooner, the better, if that’s OK with You.  🙂