BE STILL ...

Be still, and know that I am God...

Psalm 46: 10

 

הַרְפּ֣וּ וּ֭דְעוּ כִּי־אָנֹכִ֣י אֱלֹהִ֑ים

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This week the summer vacation ended for Israel's schoolchildren and their teachers, and schools opened their doors for the 2015-16 school year. Our school began earlier, and I returned to work a month ago. Already I feel exhausted. Each day, six days a week, I hit the ground running at 5:30 in the morning, and I don't stop until I collapse in a heap at the end of the day.  It is madness, this ceaseless round of frantic activity and stress. There is no time for rest, relaxation, fun or friends.  For the last two weeks I have been sick  and I cannot even stop long enough to let my body heal. Yet I, like most people in Israel, feel trapped in this madness. A friend this week likened it to a hamster in his wheel, running, running, running, and getting absolutely nowhere.

One of the characteristics of Israeli life is this frantic busyness, which at least in part is driven by the determination to live every minute of life to the full. It may be a reaction to the Holocaust and the centuries of persecution, destruction and death, and a sense that we who have survived must live for all those who perished. Or then again, it might just be a bad case of 21st Century-itis.  Whatever the cause, the pace of life here in Israel is insane. I believe that one of the reasons that Israelis are so impatient and irritable is due to a chronic lack of sleep. I once sat with a group of neighbors who, over coffee, were trying to outcompete each other boasting of how little sleep they could live on. They saw sleep as a waste of time. On another occasion I surveyed the high school students in my school and found that, during the week, the average number of hours they slept per night was 4!!! . Tel Aviv proudly advertises itself as the 'City that Never Sleeps'.

I feel like that hamster running in its wheel, and I long to get off, but how? The bills keep coming in and I must work to pay them.  Yet, I keep thinking, that God does not want us to live like this. Did he not promise a Sabbath rest to all those who are born again in Yeshua? Did he not warn us to beware of failing to enter into that rest?

Therefore, since a promise remains of entering His rest, let us fear lest any of you seem to have come short of it. 

Hebrews 4:1  

 

Of course the rest spoken of here is a spiritual rest, the rest from trying to save ourselves by our works. But should that not also result in a physical rest? God's Sabbath, the weekly day of rest  commanded by the LORD, is after all physical, and not just a spiritual metaphor. Must we inevitably be caught up in the whirlpool of the world? It seems that this is all a clever ploy of the Enemy, Satan. If he can keep mankind so frantically busy and constantly exhausted, then we cannot not stop, be still and know God.

 

One of my favorite Bible verses is the one quoted above: Be still and know that I am God.... This verse loses something in its translation into English. The Hebrew  word for 'Be still' is 'harpu' הַרְפּ֣וּ which is an active form implying an action, not a passive lack of action. It would perhaps be better translated as 'still yourself' or 'make yourself still'.  In addition the word for 'know' here is d'u      דְעוּ

This is not the word usually used for knowing a person, but rather the word used in the Bible to denote sexual intercourse, as in Abraham knew Sarah.  This degree of intimacy and knowing is not possible without spending time and investing in a deep relationship. How can we know God like that if we do not stop rushing about?

 

This ceaseless activity combined with all the other stressors of life in Israel (economic problems, the constant terrorism, the threat of war just to name a few) has a very negative effect on the life of all believers in the Land. Not only are many of us exhausted, sick and 'burned out', but it makes meeting together for encouragement and support almost impossible. It is hard to find the time to build friendships, to sit and talk, to pray together, to lend a hand or comfort someone in need. Consequently many feel isolated and very few feel they have the strength to reach out and minister to others. It is difficult to maintain any semblance of congregational life. It leads to a weakened Body and undermines our witness to the unbelieving. 


What to do? How can we get off the wheel?  Are we in disobedience when we allow ourselves to get caught up in the world's busyness? Does it come from lack of faith?

And to whom did He swear that they would not enter His rest, but to those who did not obey? ¹⁹ So we see that they could not enter in because of unbelief. 

Hebrews 3:18

 

Can I not trust God to provide for all my needs without having to work myself to exhaustion? Perhaps we just need to pause, reconsider how we live, learn to live according to the LORD's economic system and not the world's? I am not sure how we can do that but my sense is that somehow we have to find the way or the Enemy will suck us dry. Perhaps this is why the end times church is described in the Book of Revelation as being 'lukewarm';

 

 So then, because you are lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will vomit you out of My mouth. ¹⁷ Because you say, ‘I am rich, have become wealthy, and have need of nothing’—and do not know that you are wretched, miserable, poor, blind, and naked— ¹⁸ I counsel you to buy from Me gold refined in the fire, that you may be rich; and white garments, that you may be clothed, that the shame of your nakedness may not be revealed; and anoint your eyes with eye salve, that you may see. ¹⁹ As many as I love, I rebuke and chasten. Therefore be zealous and repent.

Revelation 3:16-19

 

Next week the High Holy Days of the Hebrew calendar begin, a period including Rosh Hashana, Yom Kippur and the Feast of Tabernacles. This is a time set aside for reflection, repentance and atonement. Sadly, far too often, the preparations for these holy days just add to the busyness, as we shop, cook, clean and entertain family and friends till we drop. I pray that this year will be different. Please pray with me that we all will stop, spend time in quiet reflection, repent of our busyness, and find time to find God and His rest. Perhaps he will show us all a better way. 

Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. ²⁹ Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. ³⁰ For My yoke is easy and My burden is light.”

Matthew 11: 28-30 

The Blood Moon controversy.

This brings me to the current controversy in the Body, and also amongst some Jewish scholars, regarding the significance of the sequence of four lunar eclipses (blood moons) and a solar eclipse and their coincidence with the Jewish festival cycle this year. As some are predicting a significant event for Israel occurring on the 28th of this month, a number of people have asked me my opinion. I therefore feel constrained to comment.

Let us not be easily swayed, 'tossed to and fro and carried about with every wind of doctrine' (Ephesians 4:14) but rooted on solid rock. Scripture is indeed the word of God, and I believe that every word is significant, however our interpretation of that Word is easily flawed. One can read into Scripture just about anything you want. In my now nearly 47 years as a believer there have been many interpretations of end time prophecies that have failed to come to pass. Remember the Y2K fiasco?  It makes one rather cynical when yet another arises. What is more, when these things fail to come to pass, it makes us all look rather silly and undermines the power of our witness.  I prefer to take a 'wait and see' attitude. I believe the end time prophecies will be clear to all at the time the events actually take place,  and they are given to us to comfort us and give us hope.  

Someone once taught me that if someone is putting a time on the day of the second coming of the Lord then you can be sure He will not come on that day, because it is written that He will come suddenly like a thief in the night, when we are least expecting it.

But concerning the times and the seasons, brethren, you have no need that I should write to you. For you yourselves know perfectly that the day of the Lord so comes as a thief in the night.

I Thessalonians 5:2

True, Paul then goes on to say, "But you, brethren, are not in darkness, so that this Day should overtake you as a thief. ⁵ You are all sons of light and sons of the day. We are not of the night nor of darkness.... (v. 4),  but he does not say that we will therefore know the times and the seasons, but rather that we should be always be ready -  "be sober, putting on the breastplate of faith and love, and a helmet the hope of salvation" (v. 8)

Although no one, as far as I know, is saying that the Lord will return on the 28th of September, the principle remains. It is my belief we should all be sober and not easily swayed by each and every interpretation we hear. We need to be solidly founded on the Word of God and prayerful that he will lead us by His Spirit to interpret it correctly.  As for something significant happening on the 28th? It could well be so, since scarcely a day passes that something significant for Israel does not occur!

For a more thorough examination of this matter I would recommend the excellent article written by Mike Moore on

http://fromthetopcom.blogspot.co.uk/2014/01/blood-moon-rising_20.html

I want to wish you all a Shana Tova u'Metucha (a Sweet and Good New Year) and may we all find rest in Yeshua from all our busyness.

The Lord is my shepherd;
I shall not want.
  He makes me to lie down in green pastures;
He leads me beside the still waters.
He restores my soul.

Psalm 23: 1-3

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