Load up your ship without balance in mind and you will sink. John and Yeshua mark a turning point in divine revelation and intervention in addition to announcing that time was right (up and fulfilled). The ship that concerns us began its journey in the Book of Acts and its listing became obvious as wolves began loading the ship with idolatrous and useless objects: chiefly the beliefs and practices of the Jewish people. In the 21st century the ship’s listing can be felt everywhere.

Study to shew thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth.

2 Timothy 2:15

Very often there is no dividing. It is all the same to one group: the ostriches. They want to stone people and keep barriers in place between people. They see no difference between the kingdom of God and the law and prophets.

Interpretation for balance

The reason for dividing is not the anti-Jewish agenda that many Christians espouse and love to deny. The reason for dividing is to put things in their rightful place. It is balance enough for Christ to be sole boss of God’s words and deeds. It is idolatrous and ostrich-like to even try to make all things in the Bible equal, and it is definitely abominable to put Yeshua as subordinate to anyone.

A ship can list only so far before the captain calls “abandon ship”. Correct a list early, my friends, otherwise the ship will not reach port.

490 years is a lot of time to encourage, exhort,  or coerce ones family to do the right thing.  Iraq, Iran, Egypt, Ethiopia, India, Greece and France have had millennia to get their act together.   What happens if they don’t?  What has happened when they did not?  America and British decline, evident in the 21st century are minuscule compared to the atrocities of kings of Israel and Judah.

God does not give time or extensions of time and walk them back. When John the Baptist aand Yeshua announced “kingdom at hand” they were in lock step with the divine timetable. They both knew what time it was. They were the tic and toc of God’s alarm clock.

And saying, The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand: repent ye, and believe the gospel.

Mark 1:15

From that time Jesus began to preach, and to say, Repent: for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.

Matthew 4:17

It does not and should not surprise and literate or intelligent person that capitalism is dead, religious ritual is dead, the ethnic state is dead. If anyone wants to pretend that criminal enterprises did not define Levitical systems at the time of John’s announcement cement, let them.

All of them, priests, prophets, kings, scribes, and patriarchs, took to themselves honours and privileges that belonged only to God. Hence they can all be rightly called thieves and robbers.

The capitals of Israel and Judah are the smoking guns of their incurable wounds.

For the transgression of Jacob is all this, and for the sins of the house of Israel. What is the transgression of Jacob? is it not Samaria? and what are the high places of Judah? are they not Jerusalem?

Micah 1:5

In the gate – the very place where justice and judgement should prevail a stink prevails.

For her wound is incurable; for it is come unto Judah; he is come unto the gate of my people, even to Jerusalem.

Micah 1:9

They will call the truth a lie and ensure that their national treasures – Senate and Sanhedrin – become rubbish heaps and landfills. The axe is at the root the tree.

If we throw around the sacred name of the Light from Nazareth and think that doing so is a power play we had better rethink the issue. It is already clear from the gospels that doing miracles, prophesying and exorcising demons are not a sure sign that one has found grace. So when the sons of a Jewish High priest saw an occasion to use Yeshua’s name to grab a headline as people with access to heavenly power they ended up in shreds.

Ephesus was the first place to which our Lord sent a letter by John bar Zebedee. It was the place where people could be found in transition: some between Moses and John, others between John and Yeshua (Acts 19:1-2). The widespread display and progress of both teaching and miracles could hardly be ignored by the Jewish faith.

And this continued by the space of two years; so that all they which dwelt in Asia heard the word of the Lord Jesus, both Jews and Greeks. And God wrought special miracles by the hands of Paul: So that from his body were brought unto the sick handkerchiefs or aprons, and the diseases departed from them, and the evil spirits went out of them.

Acts 19:10-12

People can say “Christ” and mean the Son of Gid who became human to redeem humanity. People can also say “Christ” and mean anything from the Bible but the Messianic mission. These Jewish boys got a lesson in secondhand fallout. They were obviously not followers of Christ but thought they could use his name to grab a spot in the news.

What they did showed how little they actually knew about God, Yeshua, or Paul.

Then certain of the vagabond Jews, exorcists, took upon them to call over them which had evil spirits the name of the Lord Jesus, saying, We adjure you by Jesus whom Paul preacheth.

Acts 19:13

The demons (evil spirits) responded to the powerplay of these wannabe exorcists with an assault.

Acts 19:15

And the evil spirit answered and said, Jesus I know, and Paul I know; but who are ye?

Acts 19:15

The demonic response also sent them packing with action. The demons launched the demoniac against the would be exorcists.

And the man in whom the evil spirit was leaped on them, and overcame them, and prevailed against them, so that they fled out of that house naked and wounded.

Acts 19:16

All the people who have pedigree, like these Jewish men, and want to sling Yeshua’s name and blood around without a personal relationship with Him need to reconsider the personal injury that they may run into. How well do we know the Light of the World?

Walking in light is not a sinless pipedream. It is not theological clarity on every question. It is the stumble-free offer that accompanies salvation. The person who is able to keep us from stumbling would not be one of the stumblers, would he?
Can anyone see who gets ongoing cleansing?

If we walk in the light as he himself is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin.

1 John 1:7 CSB

The righteous expect to be kept. David put it in a michtam (there are only 6 michtamim). Unlike many of our comrades in arms we have to make our way in concert with Fact. Forecast, and Faith.

For [[Fact] thou hast delivered my soul from death: [[Forecast] wilt not thou deliver my feet from falling, [[Faith] that I may walk before God in the light of the living?

Psalms 56:13

Since David knew something about salvation- the man even secures his mortal enemy and his mortal enemy’s progeny- he deposits a query in the negative: “will you not keep my feet from falling?” The eternal salvation has the answer: our Keeper does not nod off or sleep.

I cannot believe that my falling has more power than God’s keeping. God is author and finisher. The Help we have to stsy on our feet is perfect: the Holy Spirit. Let’s twist and shout; let us dance to display the majesty of our new gospel-clad feet. This is comely wordless praise!

Forget what you heard, recognize what you see.  I know you heard the rumors.  Now here’s the real me.

What Yeshua must be assumed to have said as he travelled all over the Holy Land had to look like the opening paragraph of this message. Attitudes to him were all over the place. He respected the things that deserved respect, and that my friends, was not everything. What he had to display was new and surprising. I love the way he cleaned lepers and forgave sin. Those two activities accentuate the real God’s attitudes and methods.

Unbelief: wow

I think it is safe to say that even a little faith was hard to find in Israel and its absence disturbed and discouraged him.

And he marvelled because of their unbelief. And he went round about the villages, teaching.

Mark 6:6

Respect for the respectable. Wow.

When Jesus heard these things, he marvelled at him, and turned him about, and said unto the people that followed him, I say unto you, I have not found so great faith, no, not in Israel.

Luke 7:9

A notabable appearance

Demon exorcism and disability

Matthew 9:33
And when the devil was cast out, the dumb spake: and the multitudes marvelled, saying, It was never so seen in Israel.

Good mistaken for evil – oh my

The devil does not do good things.

Matthew 9:34
But the Pharisees said, He casteth out devils through the prince of the devils.