I haven't blogged in quite awhile. Today is a day of celebration being the 4th of July, but also the day I will always remember my Uncle Freeman (one of GOD's greatest gifts to the body of CHRIST). While as a minister of the gospel of CHRIST I should rejoice as the Bible declares, "...to be absent from the body is to be present with the LORD", while yet I do rejoice, but also I ponder the question why from time to time???
The last month or so has been a whirlwind of sorts and even on tonight, body aching with pain, not able to sleep, hurt by people that I didn't think I'd ever get hurt by and again I ponder the question why??? Why me??? Then I heard a small voice saying, "why not you?"
As is my custom of late, I had to look for what season/month we're according to the Hebraic calendar; the 4th of July to us is the 2nd day of Tammuz (the 10th month of the Jewish/Hebraic calendar). It was following this information I came across the following passage:
Ezekiel 8:14, "HE brought me to the entrance of the north gate of the LORD'S temple. Women were sitting there and crying for the god Tammuz."
In this case, consideration of the use of the name in Ezekiel would make it appropriate to say that the name "Tammuz" brought down the Jewish People. The verse in Ezekiel 8:14 cited above speaks of the worship of a Babylonian idol, known as "Tammuz." And it seems most odd, at first glance, that this name would be chosen as the name of a Hebrew month.
However, in the context of the month that we are dealing with, a month of tragedies which would lead to still greater tragedies, the appropriateness of the name becomes clear. The Prophet Ezekiel was being shown by GOD the reasons for HIS great Anger against the Jewish People, namely, the various forms of idol-worship which had been adopted by them to replace the Divine Service. This behavior would result, if the Jewish People would not repent, in the Destruction of the Once-Holy, but now desecrated, Temple.
Earlier Biblical Significance
We read in the Book of Joshua (10:11-14) of the Battle of Joshua and the People of Israel against the five kings of the Emorite Nation. In the Biblical account, we find mention of "great stones" thrown, as it were, by GOD, upon the Emorites. This could refer to hail, as the verse itself mentions (Joshua 10:11). But in light of the great astronomical miracle detailed in the following verses (12-14), in which the sun and the moon are pictured as having not advanced, until the People of Israel had achieved complete victory, there is here the suggestion of a tremendous suspension of the paths in Heaven, perhaps caused by a contact of the Solar System with an intense meteor, or asteroid, shower.
Joshua 10:14, "Never before or after this day was there anything like it. The LORD did what a man told HIM to do, because the LORD fought for Israel."
As my assignment given to me by the LORD in 2010 was to build a spaceship of sorts....that GOD was taking us beyond our fathers or even beyond what our hearts and mind can conceive; a secret to success is found here in Joshua 10 - the LORD will grant our request; hearken unto our voice because HE fights for us...(if we just stay still)...
Just like the Prophet Ezekiel (in Ezekiel 8), I was at home, minding my own self business, trying to watch particular television shows that were clogging our DVR and there HIS power came upon me...and HE began to show me great, mighty and terrible things. HE showed me not only those in leadership, but also those whom leadership depends upon to make the work of the ministry effective. Too often we scold leadership for improprieties and fail to look at those who should be interceding for us.
I am in one of the biggest challenges of my life and it would be rather easy (in a sense) to fall down, come down, give in, give up; I now wonder who is really praying for me? Who is standing in the gap for me, while I attempt to stand for those who look towards my leadership for examples, for my wisdom, for an answer to life's challenges.
Like Ezekiel, I was shown where even today Christian men and women are doing things and believe that GOD doesn't see what it is they're doing behind closed doors; and said even now, there's more disgusting things that will be shown unto me....what perplexed me the more was how the women in v14 of chapter 8 were at the church crying about the absence of Tammuz.
Here, GOD supernaturally reveals to the prophet some of the secret sins of the nation of Israel. One of these sins is lamenting for a pagan god named Tammuz. Who was Tammuz and why would women be weeping for him? The New Encyclopedia Britannica writes in the article "Tammuz": ". . . in Mesopotamian religion, god of fertility embodying the powers for new life in nature in the spring" (Vol. 11, p. 532).
The cult of Tammuz centred around two yearly festivals, one celebrating his marriage to the goddess Inanna, the other lamenting his death at the hands of demons from the netherworld. During the 3rd dynasty of Ur (c. 2112—c. 2004 BC) in the city of Umma (modern Tell Jokha), the marriage of the god was dramatically celebrated in February—March, Umma's Month of the Festival of Tammuz. . . . The celebrations in March—April that marked the death of the god also seem to have been dramatically performed. Many of the laments for the occasion have as a setting a procession out into the desert to the fold of the slain god. (ibid. Emphasis ours.)
In the midst of it all! Thanking God for all blessings, knowing its under His control. My Lord! My Lord! Asking God to continuosly direct our path. Amen
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