Taking a Break

Shalom all!

I'm taking a 30 day break from the internet.

If I should come across your mind during this time please whisper a prayer for me.

Thanks

Shabbat Shalom

Truth & Traditions with Michael Rood

The Power of Words...

My name is Gossip.
I am a direct descendant of the father of lies.
I have no respect for justice.
I maim without killing.
I break hearts and ruin lives.
I am cunning and malicious and I gather strength with age.
The more I am quoted, the more I am believed.
My victims are helpless. They cannot protect themselves against me because I have no name and no face.

To track me down is impossible. The harder you try, the more elusive I become.
I am nobody’s friend.
Once I tarnish a reputation, it is never the same.
I topple governments and wreck marriages.
I ruin careers and cause sleepless nights, heartaches, and indigestion.
I make innocent people cry in their pillows.
I make headlines and headaches.
Even my name hisses.
I am called Gossip.

Author Unknown

Tortured for Christ

I'm waiting for my copy of Tortured for Christ, I did a quick search and found a pdf of it. Just kinda glancing through I found this paragraph...

We Made a Deal--We Preached and They Beat

It was strictly forbidden to preach to other prisoners. It was understood that whoever was caught doing this received a severe beating. A number of us decided to pay the price for the privilege of preaching, so we accepted their terms. It was a deal; we preached and they beat us. We were happy preaching. They were happy beating us, so everyone was happy.

The following scene happened more times than I can remember: A brother was preaching to the other prisoners when the guards suddenly burst in, surprising him half way through a phrase. They hauled him down the corridor to their "beating room". After what seemed an endless beating, they brought him back and threw him--bloody and bruised--on the prison floor. Slowly, he picked his battered body up, painfully straightened his clothing and said, "now, brethren, where did I leave off when I was interrupted?" He continued his Gospel message!

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

May Yahweh have mercy on us all, that if we have to go to prison for him someday that we too would count it all joy...if we have to take a beating for him that we would be happy to be chosen to suffer for his name sake...and if we have to die for him we would follow our Messiah and be willing to lay our lives down for Him...

In the name of Yahshua the Messiah

Amen

A Letter

It was once said to me,

"The Lord will not have a tattered bride" meaning she will not be beaten and abused by the adversary...thus the rapture of the church...the snatching away of his bride.

At the time, I had nothing to say as I had not studied the 'rapture' however, I knew in my spirit that we Americans were not held up as a 'special' people to escape such persecution as other nations...what, are we greater than the apostle themselves, who were martyred for Messiah?

If I could have that conversation again this would be my response:

A Letter from Corrie Ten Boom

The world is deathly ill. It is dying.
The Great Physician has already signed the death certificate. Yet there
is still a great work for Christians to do. They are to be streams of
living water, channels of mercy to those who are still in the world. It
is possible for them to do this because they are overcomers.

Christians are ambassadors for
Christ. They are representatives from Heaven to this dying world.
And because of our presence here, things will change.

My sister, Betsy, and I were in the Nazi
concentration camp at Ravensbruck because we committed the crime of loving
Jews. Seven hundred of us from Holland, France, Russia,
Poland and Belgium were herded into a room
built for two hundred. As far as I knew, Betsy and I were the only two
representatives of Heaven in that room.

We may have been the Lord's only
representatives in that place of hatred, yet because of our presence there,
things changed. Jesus said, "In the world you shall have
tribulation; but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world." We
too, are to be overcomers – bringing the light of Jesus into a world filled
with darkness and hate.

Sometimes I get frightened as I read the
Bible, and as I look in this world and see all of the tribulation and
persecution promised by the Bible coming true. Now I can tell you,
though, if you too are afraid, that I have just read the last pages. I
can now come to shouting "Halleluyah! Halleluyah!" for I have found
where it is written that Jesus said,

"He that overcometh shall inherit all
things:

and I will be His God,

and he shall be My son."

This is the future and hope of this world. Not that
the world will survive – but that we shall be overcomers in the midst of a
dying world.

Betsy and I, in the concentration camp,
prayed that God would heal Betsy who was so weak and sick.

"Yes, the Lord will heal me,", Betsy said with confidence.

She died the next day and I could not understand it. They laid her thin body on
the concrete floor along with all the other corpses of the women who died that
day.

It was hard for me to understand, to
believe that God had a purpose for all that. Yet because of Betsy's
death, today I am traveling all over the world telling people about Jesus.

There are some among us teaching there will be no tribulation, that the
Christians will be able to escape all this. These are the false teachers that
Jesus was warning us to expect in the latter days. Most of them have little knowledge of what is
already going on across the world. I have been in countries where the saints
are already suffering terrible persecution.

In China,
the Christians were told, "Don't worry, before the tribulation comes you
will be translated – raptured." Then came a terrible persecution.
Millions of Christians were tortured to death. Later I heard a Bishop from China
say, sadly,

"We
have failed. We should have made the
people strong for persecution,

rather than telling them Jesus would come first.
Tell the people how to be strong in times of persecution, how to stand when the
tribulation comes, – to stand and not faint."

I feel
I have a divine mandate to go and tell the people of this world that it is
possible to be strong in the Lord Jesus Christ. We are in training for the
tribulation, but more than sixty percent of the Body of Christ across the world
has already entered into the tribulation. There is no way to escape it. We are
next.

Since I have already gone through prison
for Jesus' sake, and since I met the Bishop in China, now every time I read a good
Bible text I think, "Hey, I can use that in the time of
tribulation. " Then I write it down and learn it by heart.

When I was in the concentration camp, a
camp where only twenty percent of the women came out alive, we tried to cheer
each other up by saying, "Nothing could be any worse than today." But
we would find the next day was even worse. During this time a Bible verse
that I had committed to memory gave me great hope and joy.

"If ye be reproached for the name of Christ,
happy are ye; for the spirit of glory and of God resteth upon you; on their part evil is spoken of, but
on your part He is
glorified."

(I Peter 3:14)

I found myself saying, "Halleluyah! Because I am suffering, Jesus is
glorified!"

In America,
the churches sing, "Let the congregation escape tribulation" , but in China and Africa
the tribulation has already arrived. This last year alone more than two hundred
thousand Christians were martyred in Africa.
Now things like that never get into the newspapers because they cause bad
political relations. But I know. I have been there. We need to think about that
when we sit down in our nice houses with our nice clothes to eat our steak
dinners. Many, many members of the Body of Christ are being tortured to death
at this very moment, yet we continue right on as though we are all going to
escape the tribulation.

Several years ago I was in Africa in a nation where a new government had come into
power. The first night I was there some of the Christians were commanded to
come to the police station to register. When they arrived they were arrested
and that same night they were executed. The next day the same thing happened
with other Christians. The third day it was the same. All the Christians in the
district were being systematically murdered.

The fourth day I was to speak in a
little church. The people came, but they were filled with fear and tension. All
during the service they were looking at each other, their eyes asking,
"Will this one I am sitting beside be the next one killed? Will I be the
next one?"

The room was hot and stuffy with insects
that came through the screenless windows and swirled around the naked bulbs
over the bare wooden benches. I told them a story out of my childhood.

When I was a little girl, I said,
"I went to my father and said, "Daddy, I am afraid that I will never
be strong enough to be a martyr for Jesus Christ."

"Tell me," said Father, "When you take a train trip to Amsterdam, when do I give
you the money for the ticket? Three
weeks before?"

"No, Daddy, you give me the money for the ticket just before we get
on the train."

"That is right," my father said, "and so it is with God's
strength. Our Father in Heaven knows
when you will need the strength to be a martyr for Jesus Christ.

He will supply all you need – just in time…"

My African friends were nodding and
smiling.

Suddenly a spirit of joy descended upon that church and the people began
singing,

" In the sweet, by and by,

we shall meet on that beautiful shore."

Later that week, half the congregation of that
church was executed.

I heard later that the other half was killed some months ago.

But I must tell you something. I was so
happy that the Lord used me to encourage these people, for unlike many of their
leaders, I had the word of God. I had been to the Bible and discovered that
Jesus said He had not only overcome the world, but to all those who remained
faithful to the end, He would give a crown of life.

How can we get ready for the persecution?

First we need to feed on the Word of God, digest it,
make it a part of our being. This will mean disciplined Bible study each day as
we not only memorize long passages of scripture, but put the principles to work
in our lives.

Next we need to develop a personal relationship with Jesus Christ.
Not just the Jesus of yesterday, the Jesus of History,

but the life-changing Jesus of today who is still alive

and sitting at the right hand of God.

We must be filled with the Holy
Spirit. This is no optional
command of the Bible, it is absolutely necessary. Those earthly disciples could
never have stood up under the persecution of the Jews and Romans had they not
waited for Pentecost. Each of us needs our own personal Pentecost, the baptism
of the Holy Spirit. We will never be able to stand in the tribulation without
it.

In the coming persecution we must be ready to help each other and encourage
each other. But we must
not wait until the tribulation comes before starting. The fruit of the Spirit should be the
dominant force of every Christian's life.

Many are fearful of the coming
tribulation, they want to run. I, too, am a little bit afraid when I think that
after all my eighty years, including the horrible Nazi concentration camp, that
I might have to go through the tribulation also. But then I read the Bible and
I am glad.

When I am weak, then I shall be strong,
the Bible says. Betsy and I were prisoners for the Lord, we were so weak, but
we got power because the Holy Spirit was on us. That mighty inner strengthening
of the Holy Spirit helped us through. No, you will not be strong in yourself
when the tribulation comes. Rather, you will be strong in the power of Him who
will not forsake you. For seventy-six years I have known the Lord Jesus and not
once has He ever left me, or let me down.

"Though He slay me, yet will I trust
Him", (Job 13:15) for
I know that to all who overcome, He shall give the crown of life.

Halleluyah!"

-Corrie Ten Boom, 1974

<>

Should Christians Celebrate Christmas?

After reading this ask yourself, should I be celebrating christmas?


The Origin Of Christmas

Christmas is a holiday shared and celebrated by many religions.
It is a day that has an effect on the entire world.

To many people, it is a favorite time of the year involving gift giving, parties and feasting. Christmas is a holiday that unifies almost all of professing Christendom.

The spirit of Christmas causes people to decorate their homes and churches, cut down trees and bring them into their homes, decking them with silver and gold.

In the light of that tree, families make merry and give gifts one to another.

When the sun goes down on December 24th, and darkness covers the land, families and churches prepare for participation in customs such as burning the yule log, singing around the decorated tree, kissing under the mistletoe and holly, and attending a late night service or midnight mass.

What is the meaning of Christmas? Where did the customs and traditions originate?

You, as a Christian, would want to worship the Lord in Spirit and in truth, discerning good from evil.

The truth is that all of the customs of Christmas pre-date the birth of Jesus Christ, and a study of this would reveal that
Christmas in our day is a collection of traditions and practices taken from many cultures and nations.

The date of December 25th comes from Rome and was a celebration of the Italic god, Saturn, and the rebirth of the sun god.

This was done long before the birth of Jesus.

It was noted by the pre-Christian Romans and other pagans, that daylight began to increase after December 22nd, when they assumed that the sun god died.

These ancients believed that the sun god rose from the dead three days later as the new-born and venerable sun.

Thus, they figured that to be the reason for increasing daylight.

This was a cause for much wild excitement and celebration. Gift giving and merriment filled the temples of ancient Rome, as sacred priests of Saturn, called dendrophori, carried wreaths of evergreen boughs in procession.

In Germany, the evergreen tree was used in worship and celebration of the yule god, also in observance of the resurrected sun god.

The evergreen tree was a symbol of the essence of life and was regarded as a phallic symbol in fertility worship.

Witches and other pagans regarded the red holly as a symbol of the menstrual blood of the queen of heaven, also known as Diana.

The holly wood was used by witches to make wands.

The white berries of mistletoe were believed by pagans to represent droplets of the semen of the sun god.

Both holly and mistletoe were hung in doorways of temples and homes to invoke powers of fertility in those who stood beneath and kissed, causing the spirits of the god and goddess to enter them.

These customs transcended the borders of Rome and Germany to the far reaches of the known world.

The question now arises: How did all of these customs find their way into contemporary Christianity, ranging from Catholicism to Protestantism to fundamentalist churches?

The word "Christmas"itself reveals who married paganism to Christianity.

The word "Christmas" is a combination of the words "Christ" and "Mass.

The word "Mass" means death and was coined originally by the Roman Catholic Church, and belongs exclusively to the church of Rome.

The ritual of the Mass involves the death of Christ, and the distribution of the "Host", a word taken from the Latin word "hostiall" meaning victim!

In short, Christmas is strictly a Roman Catholic word.

A simple study of the tactics of the Romish Church reveals that in every case, the church absorbed the customs, traditions and general paganism of every tribe, culture and nation in their efforts to increase the number of people under their control.

In short, the Romish church told all of these pagan cultures, "Bring your gods, goddesses, rituals and rites, and we will assign Christian sounding titles and names to them.

When Martin Luther started the reformation on October 31st, 1517, and other reformers followed his lead, all of them took with them the paganism that was so firmly imbedded in Rome.
These reformers left Christmas intact.

In England, as the authorized Bible became available to the common people by the decree of King James the II in 1611, people began to discover the pagan roots of Christmas, which are clearly revealed in Scripture.

The Puritans in England, and later in Massachusetts Colony, outlawed this holiday as witchcraft.

Near the end of the nineteenth century, when other Bible versions began to appear, there was a revival of the celebration of Christmas.

We are now seeing ever-increasing celebrating of Christmas or Yule, its true name, as we draw closer to the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ!

In both witchcraft circles and contemporary Christian churches, the same things are going on.

As the Bible clearly states in Jeremiah 10:2-4, "Thus saith the Lord, learn not the way of the heathen; and be not dismayed at the signs of heaven. For the heathen are dismayed at them. For the customs of the people are vain. For one cutteth a tree out of the forest. The work of the hands of the workman with the axe. They deck it with silver and with gold. They fasten it with nails and with hammers that it move not."

So, what is wrong with Christmas?

1. To say that Jesus was born on December 25th is a lie! The true date is sometime in September according to the Scriptures.

2. Trees, wreaths, holly, mistletoe and the like are strictly forbidden as pagan and heathen! To say that these are Christian or that they can be made Christian is a lie!

3. The Lord never spoke of commemorating his birth but rather commanded us to remember the sacrifice of His suffering and death, which purchased our salvation.

Think about it!
Can we worship and honor God by involving ourselves with customs and traditions, which God Himself forbade as idolatry?

Can we convince God to somehow "Christianize" these customs and the whole pretense and lie of Christmas, so we can enjoy ourselves?

Can we obey through disobedience?

So what is right about Christmas?

1. Nothing!