Rabbi Zalman Shmotkin wrote to me recently;
Because of the unrest in the Middle East ' Many feel helpless. High school and college students have been writing to us at Chabad.org with a sense of worry and dread: Your world is coming apart, their screens scream at them. We feel helpless, they emote. How do we cope, they ask. '
But we are not hopeless as we have the promises of our God. We have hope in our Savior.
Isaiah 1;18 says;"“Come now, let us settle the matter,”
says the Lord.
“Though your sins are like scarlet,
they shall be as white as snow;
though they are red as crimson,
they shall be like wool."
One of the greatest things that has ever been done for us happened in Jerusalem and it is the work Jesus ( our Savior) did for you on the cross 2000 years ago!
The Son of God came down to pay the price for our sin by shedding His blood and His forgiveness is available for everybody who accepts it. This is our Messiah who loves us and covers our sins by His blood.
We wonder why there is no peace in this world now?
No man can live in a 'paradise'. God won't live among people who are sinners and constantly disobey Him.
Therefore He set a plan of redemption for us to set us free from sin so that His presence would dwell among us one day.
Because of the unrest in the Middle East ' Many feel helpless. High school and college students have been writing to us at Chabad.org with a sense of worry and dread: Your world is coming apart, their screens scream at them. We feel helpless, they emote. How do we cope, they ask. '
But we are not hopeless as we have the promises of our God. We have hope in our Savior.
Isaiah 1;18 says;"“Come now, let us settle the matter,”
says the Lord.
“Though your sins are like scarlet,
they shall be as white as snow;
though they are red as crimson,
they shall be like wool."
One of the greatest things that has ever been done for us happened in Jerusalem and it is the work Jesus ( our Savior) did for you on the cross 2000 years ago!
The Son of God came down to pay the price for our sin by shedding His blood and His forgiveness is available for everybody who accepts it. This is our Messiah who loves us and covers our sins by His blood.
We wonder why there is no peace in this world now?
No man can live in a 'paradise'. God won't live among people who are sinners and constantly disobey Him.
Therefore He set a plan of redemption for us to set us free from sin so that His presence would dwell among us one day.
We need a Savior! His involvement in our lives is what can change our hearts! This is what God promised through different prophets that one day He would send a Redeemer. A Savior whose mission is not just to create a 'peaceful world' with sinful people who are dying but with people whose hearts will be transformed by God's love and they can expect resurrection into life with God one day ( like David who had hope of it.).
As`soon as the sin entered the world, Adam and Eve were removed from a paradise. Death entered the world and other bad things we know as the result of sin. The only way to be free from eternal death is through the promised Redeemer. We can't limit the Savior to the earthly things only. What is He going to accomplish is much more than gathering all Israel into their land, building the Temple and bringing peace on earth.
There is a prophecy that the woman's offspring would destroy the devil; Genesis 3;15
"And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel."
There is a promise about the end of death;
Isaiah 25;8 "He will swallow up death in victory; and the Lord God will wipe away tears from off all faces; and the rebuke of his people shall he take away from off all the earth: for the Lord has spoken it."
Isaiah 65;17 "For, behold, I create new heavens and a new earth: and the former shall not be remembered, nor come into mind."
God is the God of love and justice. He didn't create us with the purpose of life for a short time He is the author of everlasting life and created us for the fellowship with Him. We are created for a purpose. Our earthly life is to get to know Him! Only He offers us the way out of sin and out of eternal death!!
That is why Christ's accomplishments are beyond the earthly things!
Even David was holding to God of fellowship and to hope of everlasting life. David knew that the things God was going to accomplish through Christ were more than expectations relating to earthly life.
Psalm 37;28
"For the LORD loves the just and will not forsake his faithful ones. They will be protected forever, but the offspring of the wicked will be cut off;"
Psalm 41;13
"Because of my integrity you uphold me and set me in your presence forever."
Psalm 49;16 "But God will redeem my life from the grave; he will surely take me to himself."
God put eternity in our hearts because`He created us with the purpose so that we would live with Him forever. But not in our sinful nature. We need a Redeemer who will set us free from our sin. About our Redeemer God has been telling throughout the centuries through different prophets.
God's grace is free but it cost God a lot to pay for our redemption. He gave us His Son to pay the price of our sin or else would be all a subject to His judgement. Sending a Savior wasn't costless.
We usually imagine a Savior as a great mighty hero a great politician who will impose his power over sinful people and force them to be good. It is not like that. God doesn't force people, He wants a change of heart. A Savior is to deal with our sinful heart. First- redemption from sin, before we can expect any peaceful future God is talking about in the Scriptures!
We have to be forgiven and start with a clean new heart!
Christ was to take the penalty for our sin and that is what he did!
Do we have a right to reject the only one person in the history that manifested power over death and life witnessed by thousands? Many hide behind the words " he is just not ours to consider" yet thousands of people all over the world accept Christ's forgiveness and find peace in heart. Christ is real!
Isaiah 53 talks about God's Savior for us ;
"He shall see of the travail of his soul, and shall be satisfied: by his knowledge shall my righteous servant justify many; for he shall bear their iniquities."
It says ' he shall justify many, he shall bear their iniquities
V 12." (...)numbered with the transgressors, and He bore the sin of many,and made intercession for the transgressors."
God is not going to put up with peoples sin forever. Those who are rejecting His forgiveness, they will be a subject to judgement. God is holy and will judge every sin. But God is also love and mercy and knows that nobody would stood up righteous before Him. That is why He is giving us a Savior to redeem us from our sin. His Son has already paid a high price to buy us out. He paid the high price by death for us, as the wages of sin is death.
As already Genesis 3;15 foretold, the woman's offspring - the promised Savior-will get wounded while conquering the evil;
"(...)it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel"
God said ' Now is the time of salvation"
In all the religions of the world -what differs all 'man-made up' gods from the real one God is " The true one God sent a Savior to rescue the mankind and confirmed Christ coming in hundreds prophecies in the Biblical Scriptures written in the period over 1000 years before Christ came.
Christ said; " He that rejects me, and receives not my words, has one that judges him: the word that I have spoken, the same shall judge him in the last day." (John 12;48)
"He that believes on the Son has everlasting life: and he that believes not the Son shall not see life; but the wrath of God abides on him." (John 3;36)
