Bible, Israel

God sometimes takes unusual ways

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When Israel leaves Egypt, God lets his people walk along the trade route towards modern-day Eilat. The goal was taking them to the mountain of God in Midian, as He promised Moses in Exodus 3:12: “When you have brought the people out of Egypt, you shall serve God on this mountain.”

The area of Midian is today where the place Neom arises. Neom should also include the mountain of God (Jebel al Lawz) or reach to its edge.

Now there is an unexpected turn. God is leading them to an impasse on the left bank of the Gulf of Aqaba, to the Sinai in the Red Sea desert.

They stayed near Nuweiba. The Pharaoh thinks: They are lost. Therefore, I can bring them back. I deliver them from Moses who is leading them astray.

But behind all of it is God, who brings together piece of piece to show his glory. God has a clear purpose. We read in Exodus 14:4: “I will show my glory to Pharaoh and to all his army, and the Egyptians shall know that I am the LORD.”

God sometimes takes unusual ways. Some we never understand, others we later understand what God intended. It’s the challenge of faith to endure.

Bible

sometimes an unexpected extraordinary path

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God does not always act as we expect, but in ways that increase our trust in God. One such story is the Exodus from Egypt.

There is a direct route from Egypt into the land where milk and honey flow. The way to Gaza. But the Philistines were a strong war nation. They came from Crete and had tried to conquer the Egyptians. Since Pharaoh managed to stop them, he made a deal with them. They defended the north flank for him and he gave them wheat in return.

This is how we can understand Exodus 13:17: “God did not lead them by way of the land of the Philistines, although that was near. For God said, Lest the people change their minds when they see war and return to Egypt.”

This was the risen God let Israel take a detour. God knows what he can lay at us. That is why he sometimes lets us take an unexpected, extraordinary path.

Bible

Why a sacrifice? Isn’t belief in a forgiving God enough?

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The image of the Passover lamb in Exodus 11 is a preview of the cross of Jesus.

In order to understand the picture, we have to look back to the first sacrifice. When human beings wanted to decide for himself what should be good for him, he lost the familiar relationship with God and hid from him. He realized that he had nothing to offer God and stood before God without anything. Mankind tried to cover himself, but it was only fig leaves.

God took an animal, slaughtered it, and gave them the skin for clothing. Only through a skin could man continue to exist before God. Man experienced the result of turning away from God’s orders. Someone had to die because of their disobedience. They were made aware of the consequences of turning away from God. Death is the result of missing the aim – of sin.

The Passover sacrifice adds a deeper aspect. The Lamb appointed by God protects from judgment. The point is to trust and do God’s instructions.

In Jesus we now have a place to put our sins away. At the same time, it is a place where the victim experiences reparation. God does not simply ask us to forget, but he carries our burden in Jesus. In this way he understands us even in our need because he has suffered through it himself. God is not a distant God, but a God who helps us. He is close to us.

At Passover, Jesus uses the bread of the Exodus and the cup of redemption as a sign of renewed faith. The Lord’s Supper is an expression of the belief that Jesus died for me on the cross as the Passover lamb and rose again at Easter and that I have a part in his resurrection power. Death does not have the last word in my life.

Death and resurrection of Jesus is an offer of reconciliation that we can step into. It is not about religious accomplishment and not about a fig leaf, but about trust in God. We don’t create a path to God, we take up His offer of salvation.

Islam

The Sharia

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Sharia is not a codified law. It has never been fully applied at any time or place.

Sharia is the entirety of Islamic law as recorded in the Koran, Islamic tradition and the interpretations of authoritative theologians and jurists.

The term “Sharia” is often rendered as “Islamic law” or “Islamic law”; however, this is incorrect because it suggests that Sharia is about a body of clearly defined laws enacted by a legislature, which is not the case: Sharia remains open to some interpretation.

This means that “the Sharia” cannot exist as a constitutional law. Continue reading The Sharia →

Bible

The beginning of a free life

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The tenth plague of Egypt (Exodus 12) leads to Passover, the first festival in the biblical calendar. Israel celebrates with Passover or Pesach, the beginning of a free life with the opportunity to build up their faith in God. The key to this story is in the first and perfect sacrifice.

God does not save because of ethnicity, but because of practiced faith. Faith is not about developing our ideas about God, but about listening to what He says.

The point is that the Egyptians trusted in other gods and despised the God of Israel. The attempts to wipe out Israel now hit them themselves.

Some think why should an animal be slaughtered, and the blood painted on the doorpost?

There are things in faith that we cannot explain as human beings because they come from a divine order, because they are important to God.

Perhaps it will help us if we remind ourselves that this story leads to the Jewish Passover festival. It was on this feast that Jesus, the perfect sacrifice, died. The death of Jesus is the fulfilment of Passover.

Bible

God is the light of the world

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God says to Pharaoh, “I am the light of the world. It’s terrible when I’m excluded.” In the darkness there is disorientation. There is no plague more terrible than total darkness in hearts.

God asked Moses to release the darkness so that the Egyptians might know their condition. It got dark for three days. This is the absolute disorientation. But in Exodus 10:23 we read, “The people of Israel had light where they lived”.

God wants to redeem people and show them the way out of darkness. Everyone chooses for himself whether he wants to remain in Egypt or join the people of God.

The plagues are about the revelation of the power of God against the power of the gods of Egypt. The first plague affected the Nile, one of the most important gods of the Egyptians. This is about the main god: the sun. Re or Ra is the ancient Egyptian sun god. This means that the sun itself is a god and therefore was not created by a divine being. From this sun god the pharaoh borrowed his power, authority, and name.

David writes in Psalm 27:1: “The Lord is my light and my salvation”.

In Isaiah 49:6 it says about the Messiah: “I will make you as a light for the nations, that my salvation may reach to the end of the earth.”

John writes in John 3:19, “This is the judgment: the light has come into the world, and people loved the darkness rather than the light.”

Bible

Despots tend to stick

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Despots seem to tend to stubbornly stick to their plans, even if their people perish in the process. Exodus 10:7 says, “Let the men go… Do you not yet understand that Egypt is ruined?”

A power struggle ensues. The Egyptians also had a god for the wind. But now the wind drives innumerable locusts, which also eat the sacred trees. There was also a god named Seraiah who was considered a protector from plagues of locusts. But he was powerless against the God of Israel.

The Pharaoh plays with deception. But you can already see the pitfall in his wording. His admission “Forgive my sin, … and plead with the Lord your God only to remove this death from me” (Exodus 10:7) is only superficial. He does not ask God for deliverance himself, but let’s others pray for him.

Anyone who changes his mind turns by himself to God for mercy.

The locusts consumed whatever was left of the hail. Instead of seeing the light and giving in, Pharaoh’s heart grows dark.

Israel

Middle east

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23.6.22 The remarks made by Israeli Defense Minister Gantz yesterday regarding Lebanon receive particularly widespread coverage in Arab and Lebanese media. Last night, the Israeli Defense Minister was quoted saying: “If necessary, we will march again to Beirut, Sidon, and Tyre…”

According to Arab and Western media: Colonel Vadim Zimin, the former officer in charge of Putin‘s “nuclear briefcase” was found injured his home. According to reports, he was found with a single shot to the head.

22.6.22 The International Atomic Energy Agency: “Iran has announced that it has begun enriching uranium to new levels.”

Hamas spokesman Fawzi Barhoum responded to the expected dissolving of the Knesset: “The collapse of the Bennett government is a testament to the fragility and weakness of the Zionist entity and its internal structure. Yet another indication that our people’s steadfastness and the ability of the resistance to embarrass this government, eventually broke its willpower and prevented it from achieving its goals.”

Following the visit of the chairman of the Hamas Politburo to Lebanon, Reuters reports from its sources that Hamas decided to renew its ties with the Assad regime which were severed at the beginning of the Syrian civil war following Hamas’ support of the Syrian rebels.

Pressured by Iran, Hamas has long wanted to renew its relations with Assad, a member of the Shiite-axis, but so far it has been Assad who has turned a cold shoulder on Hamas ever since he expelled their senior officials from Syria about a decade ago.

Hamas’ return to Syrian territory could pose headache for Israel, serving Iran’s interest in the region well.

Lebanese Energy Minister Walid Fayad officially announced that Lebanon has signed an agreement with Egypt to import 650 million cubic meters of natural gas, expected to add about four hours of electricity a day for the people of Lebanon.

The United States has exempted this agreement from the American sanctions imposed on economic activity in Syria under the “Caesar Act”, allowing the transfer of Egyptian (Israeli) gas to Lebanon with the pipeline that runs from Egypt through Jordan and Syria.

Egypt has recently increased its gas purchase from Israel significantly. Egypt has not enough gas for themself.

Bible

If you do not learn from history

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It doesn’t usually rain in Egypt. They did not depend on the sky, but on the Nile. With Moses, instead of rain and blessings, they feel the harshness of the hail. Those who meet God’s blessings with coldness will be hit hard.

God let’s Pharo say in Exodus 9:14: “For this time I will send all my plagues on you yourself, and on your servants and your people, so that you may know that there is none like me in all the earth.” The grace of God is exciting. From verse 20 we read, “Then whoever feared the word of the Lord among the servants of Pharaoh hurried his slaves and his livestock into the houses …23 the Lord rained hail upon the land of Egypt… 26 Only in the land of Goshen, where the people of Israel were, was there no hail.”

The god of the air (Nut) could not help the Egyptians, the pharaoh feels compelled to speak of YHWH as the “Thunder-God” (Exodus 9:28). The earth belongs to YHWH (29).

Sometimes people say that if God only intervenes more clearly, then people will also listen to him. But the reports teach us that only a few took the right steps from the experience.

Islam, Israel

Doubts about Muhammad’s night journey from Jerusalem

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In a talk show on Egyptian television, Ibrahim Issa publicly described the night journey/ascension as a “completely delusional story”. He was heavily criticized for these statements by Islamic theologians in Egypt and also on social media and was then briefly arrested by state authorities.

Mohammed is said to have raced on a mythical creature, the winged white horse al-Buraq with a woman’s head, from Mecca to Jerusalem, from there to heaven and then back again.

The Ascension is not clearly mentioned in the Koran. It is also interesting that at the time of Mohammed there was only the ruins of St. Mary’s Church on the Temple Square.

According to MoroccoWorldNews, Saudi Oussama Yemani claims the real Al-Aqsa Mosque is in al Ji’ranah near Mecca in Saudi Arabia.

read more https://www.obrist-impulse.net/zweifel-an-mohammeds-nachtreise-von-jerusalem

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