The answer is “jugo de manzana”, literally translating to: “Juice from (or of) apple.”

For a great story, please read on…

Several years ago, exhausted and slouched in a chair, I tried my best to be responsive to a family member.  He had just returned from school.  How was school today?  What did you learn in Spanish class?  He said, “We are working on how to say different foods in Spanish.”  I said, “Oh, like jugo de naranja, for orange juice.”  I had remembered a little from several years of high school Spanish.

My mind wandered.  I thought, “How do you say apple juice in Spanish?”  Has that ever happened to you…you know something; it just doesn’t come into your mind?  Thank you middle age!

Well, I decided to take a walk to check the mail.  Our mail was delivered to a central location about three quarters of a mile from the house.  As it was late fall, it was beginning to get dark.  I thought to myself, “You don’t start walking by yourself in the dark.”  I reasoned that I really needed to check the mail and get some exercise.  So I went.

For the first half mile not a soul was around.  I was picking up speed as the sun had set.  Finally I saw a woman walking slowly.  I said a quick hello as I rushed by.  Then in my heart I heard, “Go back and speak with her.”  I turned around and introduced myself.  She was an older woman with a Spanish accent.  She was from Puerto Rico.  She introduced herself and then she told me her last name.  It was German.  I asked her if her husband was also from Puerto Rico.  “No, he is from Germany.”  I made a quick assessment (wrong) that he could be one of those anti-Semites that went to Latin America and other Spanish speaking countries after World War II.

She interrupted my thoughts, “He is a Holocaust survivor.  He was six years old when his mother was sent to Auschwitz.  When she got out five years later and went to retrieve him at the orphanage, he did not recognize her.”

My throat tightened as I tried my best to hold back sobs.  Can you imagine being a mother and not have your child recognize you, particularly after years of devastation, deprivation, and degradation?

We changed topics and began to speak about politics.  I decided not to check the mail.  She said, “Would you like to meet my husband?”  I said, “Sure” and we headed back to her home, which was in the same direction as mine.

When her husband, George, opened the door, I saw a six foot man about seventy years old.  I burst into tears.  I did not see a seventy year old, but a six year old who had been devastated by the Holocaust.

The couple tried to comfort me.  I told them I did not need to be comforted.  I was sharing in the grief, the generational grief that my people have gone through.  I explained in English and Spanish that my tears were because of his pain, which I felt.

Maria then asked if I wanted something to drink.  She asked, “Would you like some apple juice?”  “Apple juice!  By the way, how do you say that in Spanish?”

“Jugo de manzana.”

Then I told them that an hour and a half before I sat tired in a chair thinking about how to say that.  They were amazed.  So was I.

Sometimes we think we are alone in our thoughts.  The Living God knows our thoughts…and showed me He “hears” me…whether I speak, cry, or think!

Three weeks later I came back to their house with the Prophetic Prints.  I gave them their choice.  “Choose as many as you would like.”  George selected “A Father to the Fatherless is God in His Holy Habitation.” (Psalm 68:5)  I insisted that he choose more than a 5 x 7″ print.  He then selected the lithograph, “The Prophetic Regathering of Israel.”

We chatted a little and I began to leave.  Maria walked me to the car.  I knew George was to have another print.  I felt I could not leave the driveway until he was given the framed “The Lord is near to the brokenhearted and saves those crushed in spirit” (Psalm 34:18)  that I had brought.

“Maria, the LORD wants George to have this.”  Maria happily took the framed print, confirming that she knew he was to have it.

I have since bumped into George on several occasions – in the grocery store, on a sidewalk… and at another amazing time which will be in an upcoming post involving another Holocaust survivor!

Please pray for this couple–for the love of God, the healing power of the Word and the Good News of salvation to enter their hearts and lives.  Surely, the LORD sets up these divine appointments with the purpose of showing His tender love and grace, wanting to fulfill what is written in Jeremiah 31:2-3:  “Thus says Yahveh, “The people who survived the sword found grace in the wilderness–Israel, when it went to find its rest.”  The LORD appeared to him from afar, saying, “I have loved you with an everlasting love; therefore I have drawn you with lovingkindness.”

Welcome to the Prophetic Prints blog!  May the content bring you a measure of encouragement, peace and joy…and cause you to open your heart to the love and wisdom of the Living God.

For over thirty-five years I have drawn water from the “wells of salvation” (Isaiah 12:3b)!  This blog will thus focus on what I have drawn from these wells.

The context of ‘wells of salvation’ is as follows:

“I will give thanks to You, O, Yahveh (Hebrew for LORD); For although You were angry with me, Your anger is turned away, And You comfort me. Behold, God is my salvation (Hebrew: Yeshuati), I will trust and not be afraid; For the LORD God (Hebrew: Yah Yahveh) is my strength and song, And He has become my salvation! Therefore you will joyously draw water from the wells of salvation.“  Isaiah 12:1-3

Today’s passage in Isaiah Chapter 12 shows us the progression from being separated from a Holy God (Yahveh) to being comforted, strengthened and refreshed:

1. “Yahveh was angry with me”

For some, the idea that the Master of the Universe is angry with you is outrageous and unrealistic because you doubt the very existence of a Supreme Being.  For others, you carry a heavy weight of sensing deep in your psyche, every day, that He is angry with you.  Most of us hope there is, in reality, a God who is indeed personal…so personal that He could touch us in the empty places of our hearts and lives.  The fact is He does know us and is indeed intimately acquainted with all of our ways (Psalm 139:3)  He also knows where we have blown it…come short of His holy standard (not your pastor’s, rabbi’s, priest’s, mother’s, friend’s standards). The God revealed in Scripture is indeed angry with sin and sinful, unredeemed mankind.  HOWEVER…Please note the tense of the action:  was angry.

2. “Your anger is turned away”

How is His holy wrath turned away?  Let me use the truths drawn from the Passover story (Exodus Chapters 3 – 13) to illustrate.  For those unfamiliar with the facts related to the Jewish feast of Passover, I’d like to give you a brief summary: Thirty five hundred years ago, the Israelites were enslaved in Egypt for 400 years.  Moses, whose name means “drawing out of water”, was instructed by the One whose name is I Am That I Am (In Hebrew called Yahveh, Yehovah, Yod Hey Vav Hey, the tetragrammaton and commonly referred to by the name “LORD” in English) to deliver the Israelites out of bondage.  Thus he commanded Pharoah, the ruler of Egypt, “Let My people go!”  Nine plagues were inflicted on the land and people of Egypt, in response to Pharoah’s hardness of heart and refusal to let the Israelites go.  The final plague was the killing of the firstborn son of all the Egyptians.  Sadly, the consequences of bad leadership can affect an entire nation.  In Exodus Chapter 12, the LORD instructed Moses to tell the Israelites to take a lamb on the tenth day of the first month (Nisan–in the Spring), an unblemished male a year old; they were to examine it and keep it until the fourteenth day of the first month.  Then the whole assembly of the congregation of Israel was to kill it at twilight.  They were then instructed to “take some of the blood and put it on the two doorposts and on the lintel of the houses in which they eat it.”…The blood shall be a sign for you on the houses where you live; and when I see the blood I will pass over you, and no plague will befall you to destroy you.”  (Ex. 12: 7, 13)

Sometimes we excuse ourselves from adhering to G0d’s standards by thinking that we are sincere, relatively good people, we have a relative who is a rabbi, pastor or priest, or we’ve already suffered enough in life.  However notice, it was not enough to be sincere, to be related to Moses, or to claim that years of suffering should exempt one from this plague. Unless the blood was (1) on the doorpost of the house in which they abided,  and (2) the first born was in the house, the first born would have been destroyed.  Intellectual assent was not enough.  Action was required (go in the house).  Have you gone into the house?Also, In the Torah, in Leviticus Chapter 17, verse 11, it says:  “For the life of the flesh is in the blood, and I have given it to you on the altar to make atonement for your souls; for it is the blood by reason of the life that makes atonement.”

In the New Covenant (Testament), Yeshua (Jesus) is called the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world (John 1:29) by John the Baptist (who was not a Baptist, but an Essenic Jew).  Yeshua is also called the Passover Lamb (1 Corinthians 5:8).  In 1 Peter 18-19, we read:  “…we are redeemed from our futile way of life with precious blood, as of a lamb unblemished and spotless, of Messiah.”

Are you aware that Messiah Yeshua (Jesus the Messiah) was presented as the Passover Lamb to be slaughtered on the fourteenth day of the month (Nisan) approximately 2000 years ago?  As a Jewish child, I used to wonder why the Christians had their holiday (Easter) around the time of Passover.  It’s because the atonement and the resurrection were accomplished by the Jewish Messiah during this Jewish Feast in Israel!

In summary, the sacrifice of the Lamb (seen through the Passover story) is the means Yahveh (the LORD) initiated to atone for our sins and soothe His very real wrath.

3. “You comfort me”

In Revelation 7:13-17, we learn that those who had suffered (in the great tribulation) “have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb. For this reason, they are before the throne of God; and they serve Him day and night in His sanctuary; and He who sits on the throne will spread His tabernacle over them.  They will hunger no longer, nor thirst anymore; nor will the sun beat down on them, nor any heat; for the Lamb in the center of the throne will be their shepherd and will guide them to springs of the waters of life; and God will wipe every tear from their eyes.” Note here that the believers are cleansed.  They are comforted.  They are shepherded by the Lamb Himself.  Yeshua the Messiah is the same: yesterday, today and forever (Hebrews chapter 13 vs. 8). This same Lamb can cleanse, comfort, and shepherd you today.

4. “I will trust and will not be afraid for the LORD my God is my strength and my song”

Trust has to be earned.  The Living God can be trusted because He proved His love for us: “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son (the Lamb of God) that whosoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.” (John 3:16) The reward of trusting God as your strength and song is your not being afraid! Hundreds of times in the Scriptures we are exhorted to not be afraid, because God is with us, God is for us, God Himself fights for us. Many times He commands us not to fear.  Why? Because He loves us, knows us, is with us, and wants to help us.  What a promise!  It is important to note that the basis of being fearless in this life is to change the object of our fear/fears: To fear (and reverence) the LORD rather than life, the economy, people, etc.”Do not fear, for I AM with you.  Do not anxiously look about you for I AM your God.  I will strengthen you, surely I will help you.  Surely I will uphold you with my righteous right hand.”  (Isaiah 41:10).  Messiah is the One seated at the Father’s right hand.  He became flesh and dwelt among us (John 1:14) and has been touched with the feeling of your infirmities (Hebrews 4:15 KJV) and knows the basis of your fears.  Trust Him.

5. “He also has become my salvation”

Notice however, that Isaiah says “Yahveh (the LORD) my God, is my strength and my song.” (Isaiah 12:2, italics mine)  This is not just an intellectual thing.  Yahveh must become your LORD, my LORD.  As Bob Dylan rightly sung a few decades ago, “You gotta serve somebody.”  We are all serving/trusting someone or something to make us feel valued, or simply feel better in this painful world. The Great Someone is the Master of the universe, whether we acknowledge Him or not.  “In Him (the Creator) we live and move and have our being/existence. (Acts 17:28).  To be disconnected from the Source of life is like an electronic device that is not plugged in.  It doesn’t work!

6. “Therefore you will joyously draw water out of the wells of salvation”

We already noted, in Revelation 7:17,  that the Lamb guides us to the springs of the waters of life.  However, He Himself is the well of salvation! The word “salvation” in Hebrew, as already noted, is “yeshua”/Yeshua (these translations have the same Hebrew root letters: yod, shin, ayin).  Indeed, Yeshua said in John Chapter 7, verse 37, on the last day of the Jewish Feast of Tabernacles (Sukkot):  “If anyone is thirsty, let him come to Me and drink.  He who believes in Me, as the Scripture said, ‘From his innermost being will flow rivers of living water.’”

Are you thirsty?  Has life dealt you many heavy blows where you have felt sadness, disappointment and the lack of love?  Come to the Well of salvation.  “Whoever is thirsty let him come to Me and drink!”  (John 7:37)  This is a personal invitation from the One who proved His love for you!

Here’s what to do: Acknowledge the truth that your thoughts and actions, like mine, have offended a Holy God–the God of Israel.  “…if you confess with your mouth (acknowledge/declare) Yeshua as Lord, and believe in your heart that Yahveh raised Him from the dead, you will be saved; for with the heart a person believes, resulting in righteousness, and with the mouth he confesses (literally ‘agrees with, acknowledges’), resulting in salvation.  For the (Hebrew) Scripture says (in Joel 2:32), “Whoever believes in Him will not be disappointed” (literally ‘put to shame’).  For there is no distinction (with respect to how we are saved and sanctified) between Jew and Greek (Gentile); for the same Lord is Lord of all, abounding in riches for all who call on Him; for ‘Whoever will call on the name of the LORD (Yahveh) will be saved’.”  (Romans 10 verses 9-13)

Please write and let us know if you went to the Well today in humble repentance.  There is much more to know about your inheritance as a child of the Living God!

Blessings and shalom!

P.S. There’s a simple Israeli folk dance called “Mayim”, which means ‘water’.  Many of you know it. The Hebrew words sung to the music are, “U-shav-tem mayim besasson, mi ma-ah-ney ha-yeshuah”.  Most of us did not know that what we were singing was, “With joy you will joyously draw water out of the wells of salvation!”