When Aslan moves, the days of evil are numbered.
When Aslan moves, the days of evil are numbered. And right now, Aslan is on the move. The excitement of partnering with him, declaring the end to all the cultural and global darkness, the end to icy cold, pragmatic hearts that use people without remorse, while also declaring the beginning of Yeshua’s true warmth, the light of His love softening and tenderizing consciousness, is profound to my soul. The process is good… but challenging. The body of Messiah is rising up in Victory.
As we enter into Thanksgiving and prepare for Chanukah, my heart is considering these thoughts from a historical perspective. Let’s start with Chanukah, when a small group of Jewish priests overcame the Syrian army. Traditionally, we think of the Maccabees’s battlefield miracle and the miracle of the oil lasting eight days as we think of the cleansing of the Temple and our rededication as a culture to God. It is a symbol of our recommitment to purity before Him.
As a child, I loved Chanukah. It was full of fun, celebration, chocolates, presents, victory and mystery. But as an adult, I love it because it points me to Yeshua’s salvation.
Why? The miracles of Chanukah culminated in the Maccabees, a priestly Levitical family, declaring themselves the rulers of Israel, doing the work God designated both for the tribe of Levi and the tribe of Judah.
God had distinguished their work for good reason, as we can learn from this story. Judah attended to Israel’s government and her international relations, largely responsible for her physical safety and well being. Levi attended to God and Israel’s purity before Him, largely responsible for her spiritual well being. Levi ultimately also provided the foundation for Israel’s physical well being because it sought her best relationship with God from whom her blessings flowed. But when the Levitical Maccabees mixed the two, defying God’s law,God’s wisdom was disregarded and love for mammon horribly perverted the priesthood. The purity of worship dissolved into political intrigue as the Maccabees sought for ever greater power.
By the time Jesus was born, the Maccabees, who called themselves the Hasmonean Dynasty, had been in power for approximately 168 years. They had become increasingly corrupt, eventually engaging in subterfuge, lying, political murders, and many other dastardly things, acting strikingly like their Roman counterparts. What they had gone to the battlefield to protect, they were now violating. Having died to protect Jewish Law and customs, they were now blasphemously lying and cheating and killing, as the guardians of those laws. No wonder Yeshua said their father was the devil. (John 8:44) Meanwhile, they were sacrosanct, declaring that God was guiding them and was blessing all their actions. No wonder Yeshua called them white washed tombs full of dead man’s bones. (Matt 23:27-28) The high priest and his consorts were acting like some of the worst Kings in Israel’s history.
Yeshua established a global reset. His Goodness illuminated the darkness, warming the icy cold hearts of the people, bringing forth His Resurrection redemptive glory, and rending the veil separating the people from the Holy of Holies. But ultimately that epoque ended with the destruction of both the temple and Jerusalem itself, with its religious leaders and almost all its people killed or exported from Jerusalem. God’s Glory returned, in purity and holiness, through Yeshua, and then the old corrupt system was nearly wiped away. The miracle of oil at Chanukah became the miracle of God’s anointing resting on believers forever. The miracle of a battle won, restoring and rededicating a humanly built temple, became the miracle of our bodies refashioned as God’s temple, fully dedicated to Him. The failure of the Maccabees to sustain their faith became our humility, our brokenness, before a holy God, allowing Him to redeem our lives through the blood of His Son.
We see the same pattern of reset redemption from wide scale evil in the time of Noah, in the time of the Passover from Egypt, in the Book of Revelation and we see it now. Yeshua’s second coming will force the destruction of everything that stands in His way. The demonic will crumble before Him.
We are at a major threshold. Aslan is on the move. Yeshua is coming and the darkness will be defeated. Right now, the faithful are stopping the demonic from reaching its zenith. We are saying no. Because of our united stance, we are growing in faith and communion. We are more unified, internationally, than I can remember.
I pray your Thanksgiving is or was sweet, that you have much to give thanks for in this season, and that your Hanukkah is filled with the revelation of God’s light, his victory and our joy in relying upon him for everything. I thank you all for your friendship and I thank God, above all, for His friendship, love and Shalom. be blessed in everything, in and out of season.
FREEDOM 