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"But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, meekness, self-control; against such there is no law." (Gal. 5:22-23) |
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"But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, meekness, self-control; against such there is no law." (Gal. 5:22-23) |
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Recent Newsletters
May 2007 Newsletter In those days, some said “John, Elijah, Jeremiah or one of the prophets”. I wonder what many Christians would answer today? If you ask a believer, ‘Who is Jesus Christ?’ they answer, ‘Saviour’! Among Gentile believers there has been little understanding of the deep history making revelation that Peter received and enunciated in Matthew 16:16 “You are the Messiah [Christ] the Son of the living God”. Most Gentile Bibles have generally translated ‘Messiah’ as ‘Christ’ which comes from the Greek ‘Christos’. While this word literally has the same meaning as the Hebrew based word ‘Messiah’, the designation of Jesus as Christ has no particular meaning to the Christian Gentile mind. The English Jewish Bible, New Testament, never uses the word ‘Christ’ but rather calls Jesus ‘Messiah’, and generally Jews who believe in Jesus have formed Messianic groups, not being willing to join Gentile Christian churches. This is partly because of anti Jewish sentiment and practice by some of the Gentile Christian churches over many centuries. However the deeper issue at stake is the lack of understanding among Gentile believers concerning “who is Christ?” CHRIST ‘Christ’ #SC 5547 Gr. ‘Christos’ from
#5548 to smear or rub with oil, i.e. (by implication) to consecrate
to an office or religious service, translated anoint. ‘Christos’ means anointed, i.e. the
Messiah, an epithet of Jesus, translated Christ. This is the exact entry from Strong’s
Concordance, Nelsons Comfort Print Edition, 1995. An ‘epithet’
is an additional descriptive word or name and this illustrates the
historic problem in the Gentile churches ‘to not understand who
Jesus is’. ‘Christ’ has been ‘an epithet’ to the name of Jesus only,
not a revelation of who Jesus is! MESSIAH ‘Messiah’ #SC 4899 Hb. ‘Mashiyach’
from #4886 to rub with oil, i.e. to anoint, (by implication) to
consecrate. ‘Mashiyach’ means anointed, usually
a consecrated person [a king or a priest], specifically the Messiah,
translated anointed, Messiah.
Messiah is only used twice in the Kings James Bible in the Old
Testament, and twice in the New Testament, the Hebrew word being
carried through. Messiah is the promised King, the
deliverer The word Messiah, translated Christ in most Gentile Bibles means ‘the commissioned one’, ‘the anointed one’, but also refers to ‘the greater son of David who was promised (2Sam.7:12-14, 16) to ascend David’s throne and rule forever; therefore the Messiah is the promised King who will deliver God’s people from all their enemies. In the Jewish New Testament, in English the word ‘saviour’ is translated ‘deliverer’. Both words are legitimate translations but I want us to begin to understand the more powerful [even military] nature of the historic Jewish expectation of Messiah: He would be a mighty deliverer! Jew and Gentile together in Messiah In Romans 11, Paul is speaking about the
fall of the majority of the Jews who did not receive Jesus as Messiah
in the first century. At that time “a remnant according to the election of grace”
was saved v.5. Through
the fall of the Jews, “salvation has come to the Gentiles, to
provoke them to jealousy” v.11.
However in history, the Christian church also fell and went into
apostasy, among their sins being the persecution of Jews. Now at
the end of the age Jesus, the Head of the church, is restoring His
church and preparing His church to be His glorious Bride church
(Eph.5:26-27). This church is a fellowship
of joint heirs: Jew and Gentile (Eph.3:6 & 2:14-16), and the final true church that
will emerge will be a perfect fellowship of Messianic Jews and Christian
Gentiles [such names will of course disappear]. The Jews who have
continued to have some faith in the teachings of the Old Testament
and still expecting Messiah to come to deliver them, will be provoked
to jealousy when the church begins to understand who Jesus is as
the MESSIAH. When Gentile believers are truly “preaching and teaching Jesus the Messiah”
without ceasing, publicly and in every house (Acts 5:42), the Jews will hear and be
impacted even as many were in the early years of the church when
the first apostles were clearly preaching and teaching Jesus the
Messiah and proving that “this Jesus of Nazareth whom you crucified,
God has made both Lord and Messiah” Acts 2:36. It will be
as the knowledge of the mystery is made known again and the apostles
are “preaching the unsearchable riches of Messiah”
that the “fellowship of the mystery” will be
made known (Eph.3:3, 8-9)
to both Jew and Gentile, bringing them together in the body of Messiah. WHO IS MESSIAH? The Messiah is the promised King, that is, the ‘Anointed
One’; the one anointed to sit upon David’s throne and rule forever.
The first clear reference to this One who will rule is in Gen.49:10 where Jacob is prophesying
over his son Judah, of things that will come to pass in latter times.
He said “the
sceptre [rod of authority; in Ugandan Bible the reference
is to the chief’s spear] shall not depart from Judah, nor a lawgiver
from beneath His feet until SHILOH comes; [Instead of SHILOH
the Swahili Bible puts in ‘Him who will rule’ – this is the literal
meaning of SHILOH] and
unto Him shall be the obedience of the people.” The one
who was to come to rule was to come from the tribe of The promised Son of David In Acts 2:30-31
Peter presents a double witness concerning the raising up of the
Messiah from David’s house. Firstly, Peter says David, “being a prophet”, prophesied
the resurrection of Messiah [David prophesied many other things
about Messiah as well] and secondly, that “God
had sworn with an oath to him” that Messiah would come from
his family line. The promise to David is found in 2
Samuel 7. The context is that David had built himself a house
and then wanted to build a house for God whose presence was still
in David’s Tabernacle [a tent]. God spoke to David through Nathan
the prophet and in v11 told David that He would “make a house” for him. This is not
a literal house but refers to a family line that will have a long
posterity. Then God promised David “I will set up your seed after you, who will
come from your body, and I will establish his kingdom. He shall
build a house for My name, and I will establish the throne of his
kingdom forever. I will be his Father, and he shall be My son”
v12-14a. In the natural, Solomon ascended the throne and built
God’s house [the temple] but this promise is not to a natural son.
This promise speaks of a “forever” throne and kingdom; this
promise speaks of the promised son building “a
house for My name”; this promise speaks of the son being
the son of the “Father”! Then is v16 God confirms the promise “your house and your kingdom shall be established
forever. Your throne shall be established forever.” The King that God sets in Zion In Psalm 2,
David prophesies of the coming Messiah. The nations are in rebellion
against God and “against His anointed” v1-3. God’s
response is firstly laughter, then derision, then wrath (v4-5) and God moves against the rebellious
nations and their kings saying, “Yet
I have set My King on My holy hill of Zion”v6. The promise
of Messiah, the promise of a great ruler coming [ The Son of God Then in v7,
the Messiah responds saying “I will declare the decree: the LORD [YAHWEH]
has said to Me, ‘You are My Son, today I have begotten You.”
So the King that God has promised to be set upon the throne of The one who receives the inheritance Then in v8
the Son is promised the inheritance “I will give the nations for Your inheritance,
the ends of the earth for Your possession.” The Son who
is the King is also the one who receives the inheritance. All of
these points are important as we come to understand who Jesus is
and who we are as His sons. The one ruling upon the throne In Psalm 110:1
David prophesies further “The LORD [YAHWEH] said to My Lord [Adonai],
‘Sit at My right hand, till I make Your enemies Your footstool’”.
This is confirmed “for He [Messiah] must reign till He has put
all things under His feet” 1Cor.15:25. The King/Priest In Psalm 110:4
David then reveals that this ruling King will actually be “a
priest forever according to the order of Melchizedek.” This
is confirmed in Zechariah
6:11-13 where the High Priest Joshua is crowned and seated upon
the throne, ruling; He is the same one who “shall build the temple of the LORD”.
Of course Jesus fulfils this and all of the Messianic prophecies.
MESSIAH IS CHRIST AND HE IS IN US The understanding of Messiah comes
from the Old Testament In Isaiah 9:6-7
the prophesy is of a child being born, “a
Son is given; and the government will be upon His shoulder… of the
increase of government and peace, no end, upon the throne of David
and over His kingdom, to order it and establish it with judgment
and justice from that time forward, even forever.” Again
it is the Son who is given by God who is the ruling King and His
kingdom will forever increase. There are many other powerful Messianic
promises in the Old Testament [in particular the book of Daniel]. Peter had grown up knowing many
of these prophecies and his generation was caught up in Messianic
fervour as Messiah was expected to come at that time. We know that
Peter’s brother Andrew was a disciple of John the Baptist and as
soon as Andrew met Jesus he went and found Peter and brought him
to Jesus (Jn.1:40-42). The church is built on the revelation
of who Jesus is! When Peter answered Jesus in Matthew 16, he was already an apostle
called by Jesus (Matt.10).
However, when he recognised Jesus and said “You are the Christ [Messiah], the Son of
the living God. Jesus answered and said to him, ‘Blessed are you,
Simon Bar-Jonah, for flesh and blood has not revealed this to you,
but My Father who is in heaven’” Matt.16:16-17. Jesus was
very amazed and impressed and maybe felt a wonderful sense of breakthrough
– at last somebody could understand who He was. Jesus responded
and said, “And I say to you that you are Peter and on
this rock I will build My church and the gates of Hades [Hell] shall
not prevail against it” v18. It took the revelation of somebody
understanding from the Old Testament prophecies, ‘who Jesus is’,
for Jesus to be able to announce that He could now begin to build
the church, the house of God. Remember the prophecies concerning
the Messiah included that He would build the house of God and also
the oath to David included that the promised Son would not only
be King but would build the house of God. Further the Messiah would
be a King and a Priest of the order of Melchizedek. A deeper revelation of Christ The word Christ appears in the New Testament over 550
times. If we will re-read the New Testament substituting ‘Messiah’
for ‘Christ’ or at least understanding that when we read the word
‘Christ’ that the Scripture is referring the promised Son of David
who would ascend the throne [now in the heavenly Zion] and rule
and reign from that time, having all authority and all power, then
we will walk in a much greater dimension of authority and victory
as His church. Jesus has been sitting upon the throne and reigning
as Messiah since He ascended. Peter declared that the proof of Jesus
having been “exalted to the right hand of God”
was the manifest outpouring of the promised Holy Spirit on the day
of Pentecost (Acts 2:33).
Isaiah declared that once He was exalted to the throne His government
would increase forever from that time (Isa.9:7).
As we receive this revelation of ‘who Jesus is’, our understanding
of the gospel is radicalised and our prayer life is revolutionised.
Over 550 times we have reference to Messiah [Christ] and the Scripture
declares that He is in us. How awesome is that! “Christ in you, the hope of glory” Col.1:27.
It is this Christ who has all authority in heaven and
earth (Matt.28:18) who
has sent us as apostles and as an apostolic church to all nations
to make disciples, baptising them in the revealed name of the Father
and the Son and the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to observe all
of Jesus’ words. CALENDAR May Sat. 19th – Training Day at Warwick, 25th
– Teaching
meetings in Mackay 26th
& 27th House church meetings at Proserpine; phone Col Krueger
– 49470134 June 8th to 10th Apostolic/Prophetic
Conference and Community gathering at SHILOH
Fri.8th – 7pm; Sat 9th – 9.30, 11am
& 2pm; Sun. 10th – 9.30am & 10.45am OVERSEAS TRIPS INDIA/PAKISTAN: Pastor Peter De-Bressac & Nicholas Jackson dept. May 28th, Ministering in Vishakahapatnam from 31st to 2nd June,
and then in PRAYER ALERT: Apostle Peter Akeck is leaving West
******************************************* INTERNATIONAL TRAINING
2007 Two weeks full-time schoolMonday 25th – Saturday
7th July plus two weeks consultations
& regional visitsMonday 9th
July – Saturday 21st July for Pastors, Leaders and those
called to minister in the body of Christ we are expecting ministers
from Asia and Training School
for Children & Youth to age 13 Monday 2nd
July to Friday 6th July to be held at:
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