THE GATHERING

THE GATHERING

                In the middle of the night, Bonnie got a text from our wonderful (night owl) friend Glenda from our Messianic congregation in Vancouver Washington. The message said that this was time sensitive, and that Jim _____ was going to be in Morristown, Tennessee the following day. He is one of the leading coordinators of the Joseph Project in Israel and he was going to be speaking at a small Messianic fellowship on Shabbat and at 1^st Baptist Church of Morristown on Sunday. Bonnie and I could go over to Morristown and meet with him to set up connections for shipping the dresses and other items that Bonnie sews to Israel.

                The Morristown 1^st Baptist Church is a strong supporter of Israel and more specifically of the crowds of people from every nation that are returning home from exile in these last days as predicted in Scripture.

                Jim was a pleasure to meet and to listen to as he spoke animatedly about the ministry that Messianic Jews are carrying on in helping the Jewish exiles to come home. With great excitement Jim opened up Isaiah 49 for us and combined it with Romans 11 and the fullness of the Gentiles that will come in just prior to God’s turning back to Israel and to restore them to the Olive Tree from which they have been broken.

                Romans 11 talks about the Gentiles, as wild olives, being grafted into the olive tree, even as certain branches of the Jews were broken off for rejecting their Messiah. Through Yeshua the Gentile nations are being grafted in until the times of the Gentiles be fulfilled. So right now we are seeing the exiles being gathered in from every corner of the globe even as it says in Isa. 49:11-13

                “And I will make all My mountains a road and My highways will be raised up. Behold these shall come from afar; and lo, these will come from the north and from the west and these from the land of Sinim. “(China) Isa. 49:11, 12

                Speaking of the current situation in Israel Isaiah said: “Lift up your eyes and look around; all of them gather together, they come to you.  “As I live, declares the Lord, “You shall surely put on all of them as jewels and bind them on as a bride. For your waste and desolate places and your destroyed land- surely now you will be too cramped for the inhabitants and those who swallowed you will be far away. The children of whom you were bereaved will yet say in your ears, ‘The place is too cramped for me; Make room for me that I may live here.’ Then you will say in your heart, ‘Who has begotten these for me, since I have been bereaved of my children, and am barren an exile and a wanderer? And who has reared these? Behold I was left alone; from where did these come?” Isa 48:18b-21

                But God answers back to the Jews:
“Thus says the Lord God, “Behold I will lift up My hand to the nations (Gentile nations) and set up My standard to the peoples; and They will bring your sons in their bosom and your daughters will be carried on their shoulders.” Isa. 49:22

                So we, from the Gentile nations will help to bring the exiles home to Israel in the last days. And if you will notice in verse 12, God has bigger plans for the final harvest and the final gathering than we often picture for He will bring them in from the North, the South, the West and even from the East even from China His exiles will return.

                So this Messianic movement is sponsoring what has become the largest importer of help to Israel, bringing in containers of food and clothing, medical supplies, even furniture and beds  and such to help with the great influx of peoples from distant lands as they return to Israel. So we are involved in the fulfillment of Bible prophecies that are leading right up to the Time of Jacob’s Trouble.

                This supply does not go to the Israeli government per se, but directly to the returning exiles, helping them to find food and housing and jobs and it is being distributed by the many small Messianic fellowships in Israel. This is a ministry of love for the Jewish people and love for God’s plans that span beyond the politics of man and into the visions of the prophets for God’s people.

                We Christians really need to take a more serious look at Romans 11. We cannot ignore it and hope it will go away. Listen to what Paul said about this: “But if some of the branches were broken off, and you, being a wild olive, were grafted in among them and became partaker with them of the rich root of the olive tree, do not be arrogant toward the branches; but if you are arrogant, remember that it is not you who supports the root, but the root supports you Romans 11:17, 18.

                But isn’t that exactly what Christianity did? Did we not arrogantly claim that we had replaced the Jews and that God was finished with them? Have we not been responsible for the “Wandering Jew” by driving them out of every country where they tried to make a home for themselves? Was it not us, both Catholics and Protestants, who either endorsed, or remained silent during the holocaust? And in our day, are not some Christians trying to divorce the old Testament foundations from the New and is not anti-Semitism growing by leaps and bounds in those same groups?

                But we Gentiles must now pay close attention, for if God has healed Israel’s barren land and restored Israel as a nation, causing them in just seventy years to become one of the most powerful nations in the world in spite of their minuscule size… if God is now gathering them from all the nations where He has scattered them, can we not see that our number is about to come up…that the times of the Gentiles is quickly drawing to a close?

                Have we not been told a lie, that God’s promises to Israel were conditional and that He was done with them? We should have studied our Bibles more carefully  before we made such statements for Romans 11:28, 29 says: From the standpoint of the gospel they are enemies for your sake, but from the standpoint of God’s choice they are beloved for the sake of the fathers; FOR THE GIFTS AND THE CALLING OF GOD AR IRREVOCABLE.”  And instead of blaming the Jews for their present ignorance concerning the Messiah, consider this: “that God has imposed a partial hardening or blindness upon them until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in. It is for our sakes then that Israel has been put on hold until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in. We as Christians need to understand these things if we want to be a part of God’s final harvest.

                Listen to God’s intentions:

“Hear the word of the Lord, O nations, and declare in the coastlands (continents) far off and say, He who scattered Israel will gather him…”

                “Thus says the Lord God, “I shall gather you from the peoples and assemble you out of the countries among which you have been scattered and I shall give you the land of Israel.”

                “For behold in those days and at that time, when I restore the fortunes of Judah and Jerusalem, I will gather all the nations and bring them down to the valley of Jehoshaphat. Then I will enter into judgment with them there on behalf of My people and My inheritance, Israel, whom they have scattered among the nations and they have divided My land.” Joel 3:1, 2

                But what does Joel mean by saying “In those days and at that time?” Well, it comes immediately after Joel 2:28-32 where He says:

                “And it will come about after this that I will pour out My Spirit on all mankind and your sons and daughters will prophesy and your old men dream dreams and young men will see visions. And even on the male and female servants I will pour out My Spirit in those days and I will display wonders in the sky and on the earth, blood and fire and columns of smoke. The sun will be turned into darkness and the moon into blood before the great and awesome day of the Lord comes and it will come about that whoever calls on the name of the Lord will be delivered; for on Mount Zion and in Jerusalem there will be those who escape as the Lord has said, even among the survivors whom the Lord calls.”

                So if we want to know where we are in God’s prophetic agenda, we need to look to Israel. Israel is God’s timepiece. What is going on in Israel physically is going on in the rest of the world spiritually. We are entering a time of both harvest and judgment and we often like to forget that harvest is the time when the crops have come to maturity and the wheat must be separated from the chaff.

                It is hardly worth arguing about when the “rapture” will take place. We are entering the time of the harvest, the final maturing of the grain prior to the threshing. Harvest is when the Wheat and the Tares are separated, for Jesus told His disciples to let them grow together until the harvest. Mt. 13:30

                But we also need to pay close attention to what Jesus said in Mt. 13:49, 50. He said: So it will be at the end of the age; the angels shall come forth and take out the wicked from among the righteous and will cast them into the furnace of fire; there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth.”

                Today we have it turned around there the righteous are taken from among the wicked, but Jesus said her that the wicked would be taken from among the righteous. Okay, so He may not have been talking about the rapture here, but the great shaking as mentioned in Hebrews 12 where everything that can be shaken will be shaken. I get it.

                But the point is, we are entering this final harvest time and we can either be a part of it, or we can be victims of it. We most certainly need to be coming into maturity and God’s primary way of maturing us is to put us through adversity, persecution and the heat of refining.

`               “Beloved, do not be surprised at the fiery ordeal among you, which comes upon you for your testing, as though some strange thing were happening to you; but to the degree that you share the sufferings of Christ , keep on rejoicing; so that also at the revelation of His glory you may rejoice with exultation. If you are reviled for the name of Christ , you are blessed, because the Spirit of glory of God rests upon you…For it is time for judgment to begin with the household of God; and if it begins with us first, what will be the outcome for those who do not obey the gospel of God? And if it is with difficulty that the righteous is saved, what will become of the godless man and the sinner? Therefore, let those also who suffer according to the will of God entrust their souls to a faithful Creator in doing what is right.” 1Peter 4:12, 13 17-19

                I have to ask the question: Is it possible that God sometimes takes us out of what seems like a perfect situation in the center of His will and throws us back into the fire simply because our security is in our routine rather than in Him? Is it possible that He will at times take us out of our comfort zone, forcing us to question Him and thus to reconfirm our commitments to Him as our God and King?

                Bonnie and I loved the comfort zone that we had in Washington and we were living by divine appointment and we lived every day with a sense of purpose. But then the Lord told us to move 2600 miles away and to find His purposes for us in a new place?

                We have not by any means come to full terms with His purposes for us here, but we do see light behind certain doors as they begin to crack open… and besides, there is nothing quite like having nothing to cling to but Him. We cannot look to our own works for security, or even our sense of purpose. And so we are learning to live in a new level of faith.

                God has an agenda for you too… and that is to bring you into maturity… perhaps apart from programs, or any other forms of security that comes from belonging to a loving church family. After all, our forefathers sang their worship songs from a prison cell. They found the glory of God amidst rats and refuse… while we worry if the air conditioning is set between 68 and 72.

                Maturity doesn’t often happen in our comfort zone, but in the fiery trials. So the Gathering, both in Israel and among the Gentiles is a time of judgment and harvest … and for us maturity may mean becoming tough and resilient and gaining a more focused commitment to the one and only Yeshua ha Maschiach… Jesus Christ our Messiah.