Ecclesiastes 4:12 And though a man might prevail against one who is alone, two will withstand him—a threefold cord is not quickly broken.
Our relationship with the Lord is repeatedly expressed as a marriage. And human marriage has been expressed as a type of the Divine union of Messiah and His Bride. When a man and a woman are joined together in a marital union, the two together acquire a new level of strength according to this word. In that context, here in Israel and elsewhere, it is also said that, “A threefold cord is not easily broken.” But where is the third cord?
An answer may be derived from the Hebrew words for “man”, (eesh איש), “woman”, (eesha אשה), (because she was taken out of man), and “fire”(esh אש). The root letters for both “man” and “woman” are the same letters in the Hebrew word for “fire”.
We also notice that the “yod” (י) in the Hebrew word for “man”, and the “hey” (ה) at the end of the Hebrew word for “woman”, together form the word “Yah” (יה), a shortened version of YHVH, God’s Name given to Moses. Thus, implicit in the Hebrew spelling of the two genders, when joined together, we find the “third cord”, the Name of God, who identifies Himself as a “refiner’s fire”.
Take God (יה Yah) out of the marital relationship, and you are left with (אש, “fire”), human passion, often a fire of lust, which more than ever now is totally unable to sustain marriages, when the human “fire” dies out, and they burn and collapse. But keep Yah (יה) in the marriage, and this “third strand”, binding the couple together to withstand the fires of life, will strengthen the unity exponentially!
Marriage is under attack. We have all seen it and many have experienced it up close. Few have been spared the devastation caused by divorce somewhere in their circle of friends and family, and sadly many of those who divorce call themselves “Christians”. Yet, believers, betrothed to be the Bride of Christ, and sealed unto Him by His Holy Spirit, married or not, are being refined to be without spot or wrinkle for a Divine nuptial. And human marriage is almost invariably a vessel of that refining process for those who are joined as “one flesh”. If you’re in a marriage like that, please stick it out, persevere, by weaving in that “third strand”. Yah, with His Holy fire in your crucible marriage is burning the impurities out of you, both for the sake of your earthly union, but even much more, for your impending marriage to His Son.
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[worthy_plugins_devotion_single_body]With the war breaking out in Ukraine there is a lot of speculation that we are in the end of days with the apocalypse on the horizon. Everyone who knows me knows I’m not a gloom and doomer, that I do acknowledge the days we are living in, but remain expectant and focused on the birth of the Kingdom.
The children of Israel were delivered into the hands of the Philistines for 40 years for doing evil in the sight of YHVH. Then a wonderful event takes place: an announcement to a barren and childless woman that she will conceive and bear a son. The announcement is given by one who is called “malach-YHVH”, literally “Angel (of) YHVH. This messenger, in two separate appearances, reveals God’s commandments concerning the boy to be born. At the angel’s behest, the couple offers a sacrifice to YHVH, then they ask to be told his name.
This interesting passage speaks of a time when Israel had no blacksmiths to make weapons and was without any armament to defend themselves. The enemy had succeeded to disarm Israel by removing their weapons, and those who forged them! He’s attempting the same tactic today.
From the moment we were conceived we began aging, growing older by the day. We may slow down the physical aging process by exercising, eating right and other natural techniques – but we cannot ultimately stop it. This mortal flesh, our outer man, is “wasting away” and moving toward decay as we await the immortal bodies promised us in the Resurrection.
In his letter to the Colossians, Paul reveals the prophetic nature of Shabbat and the Biblical Feasts as “shadows of things to come”, whose substance is the Messiah Yeshua (Jesus). My study of the feasts therefore seeks to discover their relevance to the Lord, His identity, work, and purpose for my life in relationship to Him.
A few years ago, I was in a debate with an atheist who had a legal background, and the Lord gave me a revelation about the tactics of the enemy. At Yeshua’s first coming, his tactic was to destroy the infant before He could grow up; [Revelation 12:4-5]. After the Lord’s death and resurrection, Satan continued his direct assault by attacking the church through persecution, which lasted through the first three centuries. The tactics of the enemy were to destroy any “eyewitnesses” of God’s goodness.
An interesting parallel exists between these two passages of scripture: Isaiah 53:9 and Acts 3:15. Isaiah renders the “death” of the messiah in the plural form, “deaths” (“motav”). Acts renders the life of the Prince of Life as “lives” (“chaim”). Some scholars suggest that the plurality of the word death indicates a violent death this servant would suffer, and that making the noun plural is a way of emphasizing the terrible intensity of his experience. Jewish counter-missionaries suggest that the “death” in plural shows that the suffering servant is not an individual man, but a group of people, specifically the nation of Israel, thus denying that the passage refers to an individual messianic figure.