Some twenty years ago while on business in a rural area, we passed a honey farm.  It was about 4:45 in the afternoon.  The owner said he was closing in fifteen minutes.  We got into a nice conversation, having learned that we attended the same university years before.

Ten minutes into the conversation, an orthodox Jewish man and his wife walked onto the farm.  I could not tell from his clothes if he was Orthodox or Hasidic.  He looked at me.  There I was in short sleeves and slacks.  Normally Hasidic men do not speak with women (other than those in their families), let alone one that is not “appropriately” dressed in a long skirt/dress and long sleeves.  Summoning the courage to speak with him, I asked: “Are you Orthodox or Hasidic?”.  He said, “Hasidic.”  I told him that my ancestors were Hasidic and mentioned the family name.  He said, “I just completed the artistic genealogy of that family name!”  “But, beside being an artist, I am also a rabbi”, he added.

Sensing I was in a “divine appointment” with a Hasidic rabbi in the middle of nowhere, I asked what he thought about Messiah.

“Messiah will come in on a white donkey,” he said firmly.  He then added, “But, we do not know when He will come.”

Tears came to my eyes.  The rabbi thought I was in need of his counsel.  I was overcome with emotion because I saw how my steps had been directed in the middle of nowhere to this rabbi, who under normal circumstances, might never have had the chance to hear about the love of God through Messiah Yeshua.

Through my tears I said, “Rabbi, Messiah has come.  His name is Yeshua.”  I then offered the English translation (Jesus), so he did not think I was speaking about a Messiah named “Joshua”.  (Please note that the names Joshua, Hosea and Isaiah all come from the same Hebrew root, and have the meaning “salvation” or “Yah saves”.  Incidentally, when I was growing up, I thought Jesus was his first name, Christ was his last name, and Mr. and Mrs. Christ had a son, Jesus.  ”Christ” is actually the anglicized form of the Greek “Christos”, which means “anointed one”.  This is translated from the Hebrew word for Messiah, “Mashiach”.  In another post I will discuss how Yeshua of Nazareth was so far removed from his Jewish roots after the first century, that many Jewish people could not recognize or embrace Him as one of their own.)

The rabbi was a little taken aback, but was not hostile.  I asked him, “How would you recognize the Messiah when He came?”  Are you aware that there are many prophetic clues in the Hebrew Scriptures that identify Messiah.  For instance, the Hebrew prophet, Micah, (who prophesied in the 700s BC (BCE))(chapter 5 verse 1 (Hebrew Bible; vs. 2 in other translations)) states the where of Messiah’s birth: “But thou, Bethlehem Ephrathah, which art little to be among the thousands of Judah, out of thee shall one come forth unto Me that is to be ruler in Israel; whose goings forth are from of old, from ancient days (literally, ‘eternity’–Hebrew word is “Olam”). The ruler of Israel, was said to be from eternity, and yet was to come out of Bethlehem.  It’s common knowledge that Yeshua was born in Bethlehem.  The Hebrew prophet, Daniel, (chapter 9 verses 24 -27) states the when of Messiah’s coming:  Messiah will be cut off, and then the city and the sanctuary will be destroyed. (summary)  The city is Jerusalem; the sanctuary is the Temple.  Both were destroyed in 70 AD (CE) by the Roman Titus.  Messiah thus had to be “cut off” before 70 AD (CE).  Yeshua was “cut off” in 33 AD (CE).

Back to the story…We spoke for a half hour.  I was able to distill down the main difference between a Messianic Jewish believer in Yeshua, and a Hasid or Orthodox Jew who did not acknowledge Yeshua as the Messiah.  “Basically,” I said, “it breaks down to two things:”

1. I KNOW I have the blood atonement (I know my sins are forgiven and on Yom Kippur every year I don’t have to hope that God forgives me for I have been forgiven completely and forever when I trusted Messiah’s atoning work on my behalf when he was led like a lamb to the slaughter 2000 years ago and died for me, “the Just for the unjust to bring me to God.”) 
2. I also KNOW I have the Ruach HaKodesh, the Spirit of God, living in me. This gift of the Holy Spirit was imparted when thirty five years ago I came into a personal relationship with Yeshua as my Savior and Messiah.

While acknowledging our differences, he then shared what had happened earlier that day:  “My wife took a nap in the afternoon.  About a quarter to five she awakened and insisted we go to the honey farm.  For sixteen years, every summer, we stay at a (Hasidic) camp next door to this farm. In all those years, we have never been to this farm before!”  I replied, “I know that happened because the G-d of Israel loves you and wanted you to hear about Messiah.”  He answered, “Maybe it was to bring you back to Judaism.”  I said, “On the contrary, I know whom I believe…I didn’t find a religion but a person.”

Seven years later I searched and located him.  I sent him one of my Prophetic Regathering of Israel lithographs and a Jeremiah 31 print (these can be seen in our gallery on this site). The latter print contains the words, “Behold, days come saith the LORD, when I will make a new covenant with the House of Israel and the House of Judah, not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day that I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, which, my covenant, they broke.  But this shall be the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel:  After those days, saith the LORD, I will put my law within them, and write it in their hearts, and will be their God, and they shall be my people.  And they shall teach no more every man his neighbor, and every man his brother, saying, Know the LORD, for they shall all know Me from the least of them to the greatest; for I will forgive their iniquity and I will remember their sin no more.”  (Jeremiah 31:31-34 Jewish Publication Society translation.)  Clearly, the basis of “knowing” the LORD is to have the problem of personal sin dealt with.  The basis of forgiveness is through faith in the atonement provided through the death of Messiah Yeshua.

He responded by sending me a six page letter filled with hostility.  Most of it was not against me personally, but directed against the New Testament and people who believe in that book.  This is not hard to understand.  Please note that the Hasidic Jews have suffered greatly over the past few centuries, with whole populations wiped out in Europe during pogroms and the Holocaust.  Clearly this rabbi grouped the perpetrators of the crimes against our people, who claimed to be “Christians”, with the New Testament.  He never read that Yeshua wept over the Jewish people, as did Rav Shaul (also known as the Apostle Paul) who said “I am telling the truth in Messiah, I am not lying, my conscience testifies with me in the Ruach Hakodesh (Holy Spirit), that I have great sorrow and unceasing grief in my heart For I could wish that I myself were accursed, separated from Messiah for the sake of my brethren, my kinsmen according to the flesh, who are Israelites, to whom belongs the adoption as sons, and the glory and the covenants and the giving of the Law and the Temple service and the promises, whose are the fathers and from whom is the Messiah according to the flesh, who is over all, God blessed forever.”  (Romans 9:1-3)

Readers, I share the same grief.  Pray for the Jewish people, and all people everywhere, to find peace and healing through Messiah.

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!”