Messianic Viewpoint

Guest (Male): When it comes to spiritual warfare and overcoming, we use Yeshua as our greatest example. Right from the start in Genesis 3:15, God declared war on Satan, and we are still in that same battlefield today. So what can we learn from his method of warfare? Yeshua didn't win the battles through military might or through intellectual philosophies. He didn't win it through bribery or through unnecessary compliments. Faced with being rejected, faced with being despised, humiliated, and hated for no cause, condemned to die for no reason, and crucified in a manner that was both painful and shameful, Yeshua used two kinds of ammunition.

First, the external ammunition, the deeds, the actions, love for the world, unconditional forgiveness, mercy and grace, and a life committed to righteousness, holiness, patience, and peace. And as for the internal ammunition, it was his state of faith. Yeshua placed his thoughts in total subjection and submission to the word of God and to his father's will. What are we to do to remain dedicated overcomers? Hebrews 12:2 says, fixing our eyes on Yeshua, the author and perfecter of faith, who for the joy set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.

Let our hearts therefore be wholly devoted to the Lord our God, to walk in his statutes and to keep his commandments as at this day. Let us be fully dedicated. Be blessed as you listen into today's message and shalom shalom.

Jacques Isaac Gabizon: Considering all these things, we can ask ourselves, are we overcomers? And if the answer is yes, let us then ask ourselves, do we overcome as we should? Are we easily intimidated or we can by tribulation and persecution and hard labor? Everything is given to us so that we do not fall. We have everything we need. The Holy Spirit who lives in us and provides for us the armor of God and the many spiritual gifts, just ask, he'll give it to you. Now let us skip on with our quest of finding those things which pleases Yeshua and which makes up the character of a victorious overcomer.

There's one more word I want to bring to you that Jesus repeats a few times. Something he notices, perseverance, perseverance. He repeats it twice to the first church of Ephesus. They had it, but they lost it, right? And then to the believers in Thyatira, Yeshua commends the remnant in there for their perseverance and promises security and blessing and then speaks highly to the good congregation of Philadelphia because they strongly kept a perseverant walk. It is so true that perseverance is one thing that is lacking. So many begin, but few finish the work. Their commitment, their ministry, even their sanctification is hindered.

The word to persevere in the Greek means to remain behind, to abide. It also means having the power to withstand hardship or stress. Behind this word lies a solid and firm foundation of a believer who is in the world but not of the world. This Yeshua, he notices and he waits to see a reaction to these things. He's testing our perseverance. Perseverance is another, by the way, evidence of salvation. It is. Many who enter the life, the life of Christianity, if you want, think that they are entering heaven right away. That's not the case. In a way, yes.

In a way, they are. Okay, since we are so blessed with so many riches, but on the other hand, it is a very demanding life. The book of Hebrews explain the opposites of perseverance, Hebrews 2:1. Therefore, we must give the more earnest heed to the things we have heard, lest what? We drift away. Drift away. That is to float away, to slowly disappear, then be carried by the flow, by the flow. Nothing in the world is easier than drifting. One may not even be aware that he or she is drifting until it is too late and the boat is on the rocks.

Satan is very wise, and we're going to see him in these seven letters. You know, he's mentioned at least five times in there, five times. Lack of perseverance, this is what Yeshua clearly explains to in the first of the seven parables of the kingdom of heaven, the parable of the sower. He spoke of four soils that received the seed. The seed is the word and the soil is the one who receives it. Of the four different soils, we can only be sure of the first and of the last. The first one received the seed by the wayside and the devil takes the word from him.

The soil did not produce anything. So many people receive it, you know, and then the day after they they forget everything. The last soil Jesus said is the one which receives the seed on the good ground, and it is he who hears the word and understands it and indeed bear fruits and produces. These receive the word, they persevere, and they overcome and they produce. But what about the two middle soils mentioned in the parable? Let me read you what it says that these are the ones who drift away, by the way. Are they believers or not?

Opinions are divided. It says verse 20, but he who received the seed on a stony place, this is he who hears the word and immediately received it with joy, yet he has no root in himself, but endures only for a while. For one tribulation and persecution arises because of the word, immediately he stumbles. He may be a believer since he received the word and heard it, but why did it drift away for so long? Is he a believer or not? No one knows, but there's no perseverance. Listen concerning the third soil. Now he who received seed among the thorns is the one who hears the word and cares from what?

Okay, of this world, and the deceitfulness of riches choke the word and he becomes unfruitful. Here is another one. He received the word, but the world was stronger and choked him and he becomes unfruitful. Was he a believer or an unbeliever? Who knows? It's a real danger for believers to drift away when we flow with the world and forget who Yeshua is. This is why he commands and encourages us to persevere. Along with this, there is one word that Yeshua repeats to the five problematic churches. A word whose result gives rest and joy to the savior.

One word that he notices and repeats, okay, with the overcoming and perseverance is repentance, repentance. It's there. To Ephesus, the first church, after pinpointing the problem, this is what he said. He says, remember therefore where you have fallen and repent. I'm here. I can forgive. To Pergamos, which is in many ways is also the first of a series of downfall, he says to repent, or else I will come to you quickly and will fight against them with the sword of my mouth. To the other one, Thyatira, it seems that the tears in there reach a point of no connection of her past.

And to her he says, I gave her time to repent. She did not repent. To Sardis, he tries to bring its member back to their first love and says, remember therefore how you have received and heard, hold fast and repent. And to the last one, Laodicea, speaking to a few gems, okay, of wheat that are left, he says, busy listen repent. Keep on, right? We'll notice that as he does not ask the good churches, Smyrna and Philadelphia, to repent for they were surely doing it and constantly freeing themselves from sins. They were doing it. That why he doesn't ask them.

While repentance is a gift from God, but we need to exercise that gift in our actions and repent daily, daily of those things that limit our growth and our walk in the Lord. To repent is not just to feel sorry about our sins, but to change one's way of thinking and acting. So there's always growth. Repentance in the scriptures is always connected with our need to adjust our behavior to avoid trouble and to escape the temporal judgment of God. Repent, it'll go away. It's a key. It's a secret key for the believer, not so secret, by the way.

One of the Hebrew words for repentance is actually meaning to be sorry, to repent. And it's from this word where we get the word You know what means? Comfort, comfort. For recognition of sin and repentance will lift such a heavy weight we often carry and will give us great comfort. And gives comfort to God, by the way, because he always says this sweet smelling odor to the Lord because sin disturbs God. Repentance fixes it. And there's nothing better than to walk with Yeshua on our side as he's the spirit of comfort. Now before we can get into each of these congregation in detail, something we'll do by the way next week.

There is one important thing we can see in the overall message of the churches. This is important. While these seven churches were chosen because together they represent all possible variations of what a congregation of God, so that is a congregation could be. And what is also addressed to every individual for the ecclesia actually is the people, not the building. These seven churches also carry a prophetic message of the development of the churches throughout the last 2,000 years since its birth. Now there's something there I want you to pay attention. They also follow the same evolution of the seven parables of the kingdom where the tears take over the kingdom of heaven.

Something we have seen happen in history. But how are these seven churches prophetic in nature? That's the question. Let me first show you a map and how each of these seven churches so well portrays the evolution of the church for the last 2,000 years. Ephesus represents the church from the years about 30 to 125. This is the time of the apostles and what follows, it begins very well actually, but they started to lose touch with the Messiah and so they drift away. Smyrna is the church that suffers during the Roman persecution at around 125 to 315 or 330.

Yeshua has nothing wrong to say about this church, but encourages us to stay in the faith. Pergamos is the church that was present when Christianity, I think the worst of the worst event in history. When Christianity became a state religion in the Roman Empire, when the church got married with the state, for this is what her name means, married. This period of time is from about 315 to 680. Yeshua accuses this church of tolerating Balaam, whose sole purpose was to destroy Israel and here destroys the church. Thyatira represents the dominance of the tears. It is during this period when the church was devoid completely of the word of God.

This is when Jezebel is found in the congregation of God. This is when the main religion of Christianity became oppressive. Instead of helping, instead of serving, this period of time is from 600 to 1,500. And Sardis deals with the Reformation church where protestation over the previous dominance begin to rise, but it did not do much better. Today, books of history of the church uplift the Reformation, but Yeshua says that their work wasn't complete. This period lasted from 1500 to about 1650 and then you have the great beautiful church Philadelphia. This is the congregation which rises up and triggers the revival with so many emphasis on the missions that came.

Then this is when Jews started to come back to the church and this is when commentaries of the scripture started to be written. This church is from 15 1650 to 2020 approximately. It is fading away. And Laodicea is the worst. It is the church of the tribulation time, I believe, which has already begun to rise. It is a church where the word of God is not taught in its entirety, where this they pick and choose what they want from the scriptures. It will end up as a church of non-believers, really, as we will see soon.

All these things will become more obvious to us as we move along. And there is something quite powerful about the prophetic aspect of the seven churches because one cannot say that they were meant to be prophetic. They cannot because believers from the last 2,000 years expected the Lord to come during their lifetimes and they were encouraged to do so in the letters. The question is how could it be? How could these seven churches be prophetic? Theoretically, these believers should not have looked at these seven churches in any future prophetic way. They were hoping for the soon coming event of the Messiah.

If they were, then the believers waited in vain then for the last 2,000 years. This is a situation which makes the study of prophecy, I want to tell you, so interesting. In this case, we can say that it became prophecy, but it was not intended to be prophetic. How could something become prophetic in the scriptures? By the way, they are many many examples. First, let me show you the development of this prophecy before we get there and how commentator through ages slowly relies that it was prophetic. I say this because today they say, oh, it was Darby who invented this, he was Darby who invented that.

Darby wrote the Bible, right? This is what they say. This is a scapegoat, scapegoat. It was around the year 600 that one man, Andreas of Caesarea, who wrote what is believed to be the first complete commentary of Revelation that he begins to see the prophetic aspect of the seven churches. He identified Ephesus as the first church and Smyrna as the persecuted church and Pergamos as the wicked church and Thyatira as the ongoing wicked church which he witnessed. Some 500 years later, a commentator by the name of Peter of Tarentaise also saw Ephesus as the church of the apostles, Smyrna as the persecuted church under the Roman dominance and Pergamum as the heretic and Thyatira as well.

He could not go further than that. With him were many others until another 500 years later in the year 1600, Thomas Brightman also understood the progression of the church in history and saw Sardis as the Lutheran church, the godly Philadelphia as the Calvinist church. I guess he was a Calvinist. And the Laodicean as the Anglican. Okay, however, we will agree with the first five. See that the progression in history was not invented by a man called Darby as many are saying commentators toward the ages and the stewed this progression. Now let's try to answer this question, how could something become prophetic?

Perhaps we should ask Peter who dealt with this type of problems already. They ask him, how come the Lord did not come? Since they expected the Lord to come right away. This is his answer, first answer. Second Peter 3:9, the Lord is not slack, he says. He's not slack concerning his promise as some count slackness, but he's patient, longsuffering towards us, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance. If the Lord waited 2,000 years, it is because of his great love and patience for us and because he wanted to populate heaven with as many believers as he could.

And we're coming, by the way, very close to the end of this era, but there's something else that Peter says in the same chapter. Something else that Peter says concerning this long periods of time between the birth of the church and the coming of the Messiah. We see what he says in second Peter 3:11-12. Something that we don't often deal with. Therefore, since all these things will be dissolved, what manner of person ought we ought you to be in holy conduct and godliness, looking for and hastening the coming of the day of God because of which the heavens will be dissolved being on fire and the elements will melt with fervent heat.

I want to ask you something. What does Peter mean when he speaks of hastening the coming of the Lord? How can we ever hasten the coming of the Lord? The Greek word for hasten is one that you will easily recognize. It's where we get our word speed, meaning hurry up, to hurry, to speed up. But what is the meaning of all this? Seeing that everything will disappear, be dissolved and replaced, Peter encourages the believer to live a godly life and in so doing they will hasten the coming of the Lord. If what Peter is saying is that good action and faithful walk in God will hasten his coming, we can deduce that for the last 2,000 years the nominal church has done a pitiful job in lingering all the way as the evolution of the seven churches describes us.

In that sense, the work could have been done in a much shorter time then. So while God's suffering worked to bring into the kingdom as many as possible in the ecclesia's poor job over the centuries in their lack of love and disregard for the word delayed the rapture. In that sense because so many more could have been brought in a much earlier date. The ecclesia that is the nominal one did not do their job at all. As you know, we often accuse Israel for not doing her job, but her sister, the church, worked her path as well.

Both show us we need the spirit of God to do all this work for God. Another example of what turned out into a long prophecy instead of coming to pass quickly quickly concerns the land of Israel itself, for instance. God had promised Abraham and his descendant a parcel of land that was never yet fully attained even up to today. And if you remember in the book of Deuteronomy, God says to Israel, all that you see will be yours, the land of Moab and all this land up to the Euphrates. And when they got near, God says, oh, stop.

Moab you don't touch. The other land you don't touch. Why? Because of sin, because of Israel's sin. And so it is the same thing with the church. I believe that Jesus was going to come very fast, okay, but they did not hasten the coming of the Lord. And so it dragged and dragged and dragged. And God with his longsuffering, with his love, waited and he waits until the last person comes to believe before the rapture. And getting back to what Peter said, there's another Jewish connection concerning the hastening of the coming of the Lord Jewish thought at the same time agreed with this, by the way.

In other words, the Jews very well understood what he was saying. They thought, by the way, that if Israel, they thought it then and today, that if all Israel repents, then the Lord will come back. We're reading the time with this phrase which sounds so much like what Peter says. It is written in its time will the Messiah come and it is also written, I the Lord will hasten it. What is the meaning of the contrast if the Israelites have merit? He will hasten it. If they do not, the Messiah will not come in due course.

He actually did not come in due course in the history of the church. Today they say that if all Jews study the Torah, the Messiah will come. Same idea. As for us today, there is a way where this verse of second Peter 3:12 take on a much stronger meaning. We can understand from the situation of our world and from prophecy that the Lord is indeed coming soon. All the elements necessary for the tribulation times are now in place and his coming is very eminent now while the day and the hour is in God's mind. It seems that we can contribute to the speeding up of this time by doing the work of God.

I have a feeling that every work that is not done will delay his coming even today. For this work cannot be just forgotten and left undone. Someone has to do it. It took 2,000 years to do a work that perhaps should have been done in a much much shorter time. This is what this verse seems to indicate and if so, that is some pressure on the believers, no? The faster the coming of the Lord, the better it will be and and the faster the Messianic times will be established. And so let us study the word and pray and serve and bless.

To close and to encourage you to to allow the fire of the Lord to keep burning in our hearts, there is something else that the Lord repeats seven times that I want to bring to you. Okay, I want to finish with this. These are the rewards. Many do not like to hear about rewards because they don't want to be accused of doing the work of the Lord for profit. Okay, but this is not the case at all here. The nature of the rewards is explained by Yeshua at the end of the second parable of the kingdom in Matthew 13:43.

This is what he says. Then the righteous will shine forth as the sun in the kingdom of their father. The theme here is light, light shining like the sun. This verse is coupled with the one found in Daniel 12:3 which says, and those who are wise shall shine like the brightness of the firmament and those who turn many to righteousness like the stars forever and ever. Both verses and other such as in first Corinthians 15 especially indicate that the higher the reward, the brighter we will reflect his light. In other words, the more fruits we produce in this life, the closer we'll be to our father in heaven, the source of life.

Okay, don't you want to be close to God? The closer you can be to God, it's time. It's time now to produce these fruits. See that whatever we do here on earth has eternal eternal consequence or effect. I believe any produce fruits will bring us closer to God. Cleaning the floor, leading someone to the Messiah, calling and comforting the sick and the elderly. For God, it says in Hebrews 6:10 is not unjust to forget your works and labor of love which you have shown towards his name. That's his promise. What then are these rewards promised by Yeshua?

They really don't need any explanation. I will close by just reading them. Later we'll get to know them a little more. Okay, so and it's really a lot. To Ephesus, he promised, I will grant you to eat of the tree of life which is in the paradise of God. To the believers of Smyrna, Yeshua promises, and I will give you the crown of life and you won't be hurt with the second death. To the overcomers of Pergamos, he promised, and I will give some of the hidden manna to eat and I will give him a white stone and on the stone a new name written which no one knows except him who receives it.

To the remnant of Thyatira, Jesus promised, and I will give authority over the nation and I will give him the morning star. I don't know what that means. To those believers in Sardis, he promised that he will clothe them with white garments and will not erase their names from the book of life and that he will confess their name before his father and before the angels. To the godly congregation of Philadelphia, he promises that there will be a pillars in the temple of God and I don't then he will write the name of God and the name of the city of God, the new Jerusalem and his new name.

To the remnant of the church of Laodicea, he promises to grant them the blessing of sitting down with him on his throne. Imagine with his father on his throne. This is too generous, right? So great it is that it is hard to imagine what the Lord has prepared for the one who actually follows him. It's worth it, isn't it? Let's bow our head in prayer. Now heavenly father, father of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, we are grateful for the way you reveal our hearts in your word. It's like a mirror in our of our minds and we ask you this morning for wisdom so that we do not take you for granted.

And so that we we do not rest on false premises and false assumptions so that we do not lose our first love. Lead us to your truth and make us free and always available to glorify your name. Make us like David, like Paul, like Ruth, and the other cloud of witnesses who who are so faithful in all the duration of their lives. Make us like them in the way they in turn blessed the people around them and still are blessing us. Bless this congregation, bless those who have come today to see you and are listening also, those who are listening.

They want to feel your presence rather and to them the manifold blessing for their faithfulness and commitment to you. And the Lord bless you and keep you. The Lord make his face shine upon you and be gracious to you. The Lord lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace. Amen and amen.

Guest (Male): Shalom Ariel is a daily radio program emphasizing the Jewish perspective of scripture. God is not through dealing with Israel, nor will he renege any of the promises he has made to her. Our teacher for this program, Jacques Isaac Gabizon, is a Messianic Jewish believer and Messianic leader at Beth Ariel congregation right here in Montreal. If you've been encouraged by the messages, we'd love to hear from you. Give us a call at 1 888 685 5902 or you may write us at info at Beth Ariel b e t h a r i e l all one word .

c a. You are also welcome to join us for our Saturday morning services. We are located at 6297 Monkland Boulevard, corner of Madison in NDG. The message is given in English, but we do offer simultaneous translation into French and Russian. Services begin at 11:00 a.m. We have Shabbat school for children of all ages up to and including teens. You may also download audio messages from our website at Beth Ariel . c a and enjoy other in-depth teaching from Jacques Isaac. If you would like to sign up for informative newsletters, log on to our website and add your name to our email list.

Shalom Ariel is a listener supported program. If you have it on your heart to donate, it will be a great blessing for the continuing ministry and outreach of Beth Ariel. Thank you and shalom shalom.