"Speak to the
sons of Israel that they bring you an unblemished red heifer in which is not
defect and on which a yoke has never been placed ...Now a man who is clean
shall gather up the ashes of the heifer and deposit them outside the camp in a
clean place, and the congregation of the sons of Israel shall keep it as water
to remove impurity; it is purification from sin" (Num. 19:2b/9 Read 2 through 13).
Hey Gang: Before I
begin this segment of “What's Happening Man?" let me say how much I
appreciate the opportunity of preparing and sending out these morning
messages. I learned many years ago what
the teacher meant when she said, "I am the one who gains the most from
these lessons for I must do the research.”
I hear daily what a tragic time it is to be alive on earth, but I thank
God daily for allowing me to be here at this time when He is preparing to wrap
up His plan for the Gentiles. There is
great excitement among Jewish Orthodox Communities of the world over a
cow. Yes, a simple cow! Well may be not so, for it is a “cow without blemish”.
Aside: On every trip
we have taken to Israel there has been something or somethings that have caught
the fancy of the Jewish people. Our Arab
guide warned us that in Israel you evaluate everything by a rule of three: ’Yes,
maybe it happened that way", no "it probably did not happen at
all" or” yes, we can say with conviction that "it did happen that
way.
On that particular trip, the subject at hand was two- fold,
one pertaining to a three-year-old red heifer that was kosher and fit the
description of Numbers 19. Bus loads of
people were traveling to Tiberius to see ‘Josephine’, which the press had so
named. But, at the peak of the
excitement, a rabbi discovered two white hairs that were hidden by the heifer's
ear. This moved the heifer from the ‘anointed status’ to just a plain old cow.
The other phenomena
that had caught the attention of the people of the land was a flask of
anointing oil had been found in the Qumran archeological dig which turned out
to be a "Yes, it did happen that way". Why so phenomenal, because God gave specific
orders as to what five elements should be included in the anointing oil and one
of the elements is no longer available.
One of the five ingredients in this oil is the rare persimmon or balsam
(afarsimon) oil which was so valued by the Egyptian queen Cleopatra that she
asked her lover, the Roman general Mark Antony, to give her a grove of Balsam
trees in a wadi near Jericho.
There were only two such groves in all of the Middle East,
the second in a wadi near the beautiful area called En Gedi. When the priest realized that Jerusalem and
the Temple were going to be destroyed by the Romans, they burned both groves to
keep them from falling into the hands of the Romans.
In my study of the Prophetic Word I certainly give attention
and credence to what I would call the anchor points of prophecy: the re-establishment
of Israel, the restoration of the Hebrew language and many prophecies
pertaining to Israel becoming a thorn in the side of the world, but I love the
less traveled roads of prophecy such as the seeking of the perfect red heifer,
the finding of the anointing oil, the reestablishment of the Sanhedrin, and the
on-going preparation for the building and establishment of the Third Temple. I tend
to be more practical in my thinking and these are things I can wrap my mind
around and really get excited about.
I have enjoyed
reliving the stories of the red heifer, anointing oil, rebirth of the Sanhedrin
and the preparation for the rebuilding of the Temple with you. It is like the salesman story I related in
the Gramps Morning thoughts about the elderly lady and her first flight. It is a message that I have pounded through
the years of how important it is for us to come along side people who are
struggling with some of the battles we have struggled through. They need to hear someone say, Hey, with
God's help I became an overcomer.
Blessings,
Gramps
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