(#20 5984) Day 4 - Reflections (Do This in Remembrance of Me)

FIRST POSTED ON 15 MAY 2019.

Shalom Aleichem and welcome to my Shabbat blog!

Why do we celebrate the Holy Communion?

For most of us, it is to remember and proclaim the Lord’s death (1 Cor 11:26a). Here, the bread and wine represent His body and blood which was given to save us. Now, in order to fully appreciate this, we need to realise that Jesus gave us this command during His Last Supper with His disciples. This meal took place on the eve of the annual Jewish Festival of the Passover, which was to commemorate how God’s judgment passed over the Israelites the night before their exodus from Egypt 1,500 years earlier. As part of the Passover celebration, the Jews were to sacrifice and eat the Passover lamb like how their original ancestors did. This was so as to ultimately point to Jesus, our true Passover Lamb, who was sacrificed on this appointed day so that God’s eternal judgment would pass over us. He is the perfect Lamb of God who died for our sins as we saw in our last session. Jesus is also the True Bread that came down from heaven to give us eternal life, like the Manna that God sent to sustain the Israelites during their subsequent wilderness journey from Egypt to the Promised Land. In Jesus’ death, God revealed His love for us (Jn 3:16), adopting us as His children at the price of His one and only Son.

However, Jesus’ death is also the dowry and bride price to make us His Bride. As we see here, the cup of wine symbolises His blood of the New Covenant - which is essentially a marriage contract. You see, when Israel failed to keep the Law - her old marriage contract with God - the punishment was supposed to be divorce or death. We can read about this in Lev 20:10 and Deut 24:1-4. But God in His love and mercy did neither - He chose instead to die in our place to pay the price of our spiritual adultery. He then rewrote the marriage contract, this time not on tablets of stone but on our hearts, paying the bride price again with His own blood and sealing it with the Holy Spirit, so as to guarantee our eternal union with Him.

We could say that Jesus performed two miracles at two weddings, one at the start and the other at the end of His ministry - turning water into wine in Cana (His first miracle), and turning wine into blood (His last miracle, spiritually speaking); in these acts, we see why He is our Living Water that wells up to eternal life.

The Bible speaks of at least two weddings and a funeral as we see here, but of only one marriage made in Heaven - that of the Lamb and His Bride. Until that Day, until He comes (1 Cor 11:26b), we are called celebrate the Holy Communion, to share in common the bread and wine representing Jesus’ body and blood. When we do so, let us remember that salvation is not about us, our exodus from bondage to sin and journey to the Promised Land; it is about God and His sacrificial love to restore our broken relationship with Him. We are no longer slaves to sin, but children of God and Jesus’ redeemed bride.

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(#19 5984) Day 4 - Priesthood & Sacrifices

FIRST POSTED ON 1 MAY 2019.

Shalom Aleichem and welcome to my Shabbat blog!

In our last two sessions, we saw firstly how - through the Law - Israel pointed to man’s utter sinfulness and need for Jesus, who alone could meet all its requirements so that we could be forever reconciled with God. Then we saw how God gave Israel the Tabernacle as a way for a sinful nation to serve as His priest drawing all men to worship Him. More importantly, the Tabernacle reflected God’s desire to be reconciled and dwell among us. Knowing that we are unable to find our way back to Him, God took the first step to find us - all out of Love.

Now, although God gave Israel the Tabernacle, as well as a Priesthood and Sacrificial system to carry out its mission to the world, these were all imperfect and insufficient. Otherwise, there won’t be a need for a permanent solution in Jesus and for Israel to act as God’s lesser light pointing us all to Him. We know from the Bible that God chose Moses’ elder brother Aaron to be the High Priest and Moses’ tribe - the Levites - as priests. But they, like the rest of the Israelites and indeed mankind, were sinful and fallen individuals.

The blood of the animal sacrifices were also only of symbolic value and could not really atone or serve as payment for man’s sin. The author of Hebrews tells us how “Day after day every priest stands and performs his religious duties; again and again he offers the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins … [because] it is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins.” (Heb 10:11, 4). Surely we do not think that an animal could take our place. We are made in the image of God and therefore only one among us - but who is perfect in God’s eyes - could properly represent and pay the price for our sins.

God had purposely made it such because His intention was for Aaron and the Levitical priests to point to Jesus, our true and perfect Great High Priest, whom we saw before was of the mysterious priestly and royal line of Melchizedek, while the inadequate animal sacrifices that had to be offered day after day, year after year, pointed to the all-sufficient sacrifice of Jesus the Lamb of God, the one and only perfect and sinless man who could therefore by His one sacrifice atone for the sins of mankind for all time.

As we end this session, we can see how the Law, Tabernacle, Priesthood and Sacrifices, all point to Jesus. May He who fulfills all the Law’s requirements for us, who came as a man to tabernacle and dwell among us, our Great High Priest who now intercedes for us at the right hand of God, and the perfect Lamb of God who died for our sins - Jesus - may He bless you until we meet again in our next session.

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Annual Introduction - AM 5984 (2 October 2024 - 22 September 2025)

Shalom Aleichem and welcome to the Issachar B7D Fellowship!

Jews celebrate the Feast of Trumpets at sunset today by blowing the Shofar to mark the beginning of a Jewish New Year. We are another year closer to the end of the Sixth Millennium before Yeshua returns to usher in His Millennial Sabbath Rule as symbolized by the Seventh Day of the original Creation account. Until then, we pray for the day when Israel will celebrate this Feast recognizing Yeshua as their promised Messiah who will return at the Last Trumpet.  

We will soon mark the first anniversary of the October 7 attacks, the first territorial invasion of Israel since 1948. Our prayers go out to those affected by this tragedy. Others however have criticised Israel’s retaliation, putting the country under intense international pressure and isolation. Meanwhile, the entire region is on the brink of war, as tensions escalate between Israel and Iran. How do we make sense of all this in light of Yeshua’s soon return?

As Yeshua ministered over Jerusalem for the final time days before His crucifixion, He lamented, “how often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, and you were not willing. Look, your house is left to you desolate. For I tell you, you will not see me again until you say, ‘Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord’” (Mt 23:37-39). Centuries earlier, Jeremiah had described this desolation as a “time of trouble for Jacob” when “‘cries of fear are heard … [when] every strong man [has] his hands on his stomach like a woman in labour, every face turned deathly pale … How awful that day will be! No other will be like it … but he will be saved out of it” (Jer 30:5-7). Elaborating on that day, “when all the nations of the world are gathered against her” (Zech 12:3), Zechariah said God would “set out to destroy all the nations that attack Jerusalem” (v. 9) while “pour[ing] out on the house of David and the inhabitants of Jerusalem a spirit of grace and pleas for mercy, so that, when they look on me, on him whom they have pierced, they shall mourn for him” (v. 10). God has allowed these things to happen to Israel as part of His merciful plan to redeem His rebellious and sinful people when they finally recognise Him in Yeshua. 

Last year, I spoke about how we are now living in the period of birth pains. What is happening to Israel today is part of this beginning of birth pains as described by Jeremiah earlier. We can expect more to come over Israel and the Church before Yeshua returns to birth His new creation. As citizens of God’s kingdom and Gentile members of the “commonwealth of Israel” (Eph 2:12), let us therefore look to God’s Truth and not be swayed by divisive arguments over Israel. Let us know His Will and seek Israel’s restoration, recognising that Israel’s “hardening in part” is only for a season “until the full number of Gentiles has come in, and in this way all Israel will be saved” (Rom 11:25-26). Let us not be conceited, “do not consider yourself superior … do not be arrogant, but tremble. For if God did not spare the natural branches [Israel], he will not spare you either” (Rom 11:18-21). Finally, let us approach Israel with God’s heart of mercy and not with a judgmental spirit, “because judgment without mercy will be shown to anyone who has not been merciful. Mercy triumphs over judgment” (James 2:13).

God bless you and God bless Israel,

Stephen & Wei Ling Lim

Song credit - Yamma Ensemble (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rnkb7...)

Link to e-Book - https://5722a1c4-623d-4701-a1bb-fc17c...