Responding To God Call

"I gathered them to the river that runs to Ahava, and there we camped three days. As I reviewed the people and the priests, I found there none of the sons of Levi." (Ezra 8:15)

The first group of returnees had already accompanied Ezra back to Jerusalem and the temple had been rebuilt. It is 50 years later and the sacrifices and spiritual life of the returnees is ongoing. The next generation is coming up. However, it hadn't taken long for the people to start abandoning the LORD'S ways once again. Even the priests were carnal. So God sent priest and scribe Ezra to Persia bring back another group of exiles who had been carried off to the Babylonian captivity, for the purpose of teaching the people at Jerusalem. (Ezra 8). This calling was prompted by Persian king Artaxerxes' letter to Ezra which decreed "that anyone of the people of Israel or their priests or Levites in my kingdom, who freely offers to go to Jerusalem, may go with you."

The Levites were the tribe of Levi, and when land was being distributed to the 12 tribes, the Levites received none. They were to be consecrated for service to the LORD at the Temple, (sort of deacons to the priests) (Numbers 8:6; Numbers 8:14). They were not to be farmers. Therefore they needed no land. (1 Chronicles 15:2; Numbers 3:6). The entire tribe is set apart for temple service on behalf of the people in submission to God.

So Ezra trudged back 900 miles, and put out a call for the people of Israel and priests and Levites. They came. They assembled. And Ezra reviewed the assembly and he saw people and he saw priests. He saw no Levites. (Ezra 8:15b)

No Levites showed up. Not one.

Can you imagine, the personal call of God to the very people He raised up for the purpose, declining the call. They were comfortable. They were settled. They likely thought, 'Let someone else go.' They ignored the reason they were put on earth: to glorify God in active service to Him.

The verse in Ezra 8:15 where no Levite showed up is one of the saddest. I like to picture the actual circumstances. I imagined in my mind the hillsides where the families were assembling, the donkeys and camels and trunks and baskets. The running children, and the sense of purpose and excitement. I imagine the women pitching the temporary tents as they waited for the rest to show up who would show up. I picture Ezra in his robe walking among the groups and clusters, and frowning as he finds no Levite. How sad! How awful!

As with every scripture, there is application to our day. Are we a Levite? Settled and comfortable? Do we fail to respond to His call of the one thing we are put on earth to do, which is to glorify God with our hearts and mouths and minds and our lives? Beware! It is easy to look back through the lens of 20/20 hindsight and say that they were foolish not to show up. But while living out our own lives do we do the same? We are human, like they were, so yes, we do the same.

I pray that if you receive a call to do a work for God that is outside your comfort zone, that you will respond. I'm not talking about the big things, like being a missionary in North Korea or something, but responding to any call that puts us either permanently or temporarily outside our comfort zone. I pray that for myself, too. I want to serve and I want to respond to the call, no matter what it is. I pray I respond like Samuel, like Isaiah, (1 Sam 3:4, Isaiah 6:8) "Here I am Lord! Send me!"

God brings us to a place to do a work or to grow in His light and that may be where He wants us for the rest of our lives. It may be, though, that He may prompt us to do something outside of where we feel comfortable. If He does, will you show up? Will I?

Source: animals-and-shamanism.blogspot.com

Religion Belief Artaxerxes I Of Persia

ARTAXERXES I OF PERSIA

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Spiral to: navigation, grub " Probable serious of Artaxerxes I of Persia in Naqsh-e RustamARTAXERXES I (Latin; Greek ; Persian (Ardeshir) corruption of Old Persian Artaxsaca", "whose regulation is main "arta" (truth)"; the name has go to do with Xerxes) was king of the Persian Progress from 465 BC to 424 BC. He was the son of Xerxes I of Persia and Amestris, young woman of Otanes.

He is correspondingly surnamed "Macrocheir (Latin = Longimanus)", hypothetically ever since his ample hand was longer than his spent.

A long time ago Persia had been bested at Eurymedon, armed forces action relating Greece and Persia was at a gridlock. Formerly Artaxerxes I took power, he introduced a new Persian goal of exhaustion the Athenians by allow their enemies in Greece. This on a slope caused the Athenians to move the assets of the Delian Union from the islet of Delos to the Athenian acropolis. This allow practice repeatedly encouraged converted battle in 450 BC, somewhere the Greeks attacked at the Fight of Cyprus. A long time ago Cimon's injury to cuff distant in this pursuit, the Peace of Callias was solidify relating Athens, Argos and Persia in 449 BC.

Artaxerxes I approaching asylum to Themistocles, who was the triumph of the Fight of Salamis, just the once Themistocles was hated from Athens.

Satisfying

[joke about]

* 1 Sketch in the Wording of Ezra and Nehemiah
* 2 Interpretations of Artaxerxes undertakings
* 3 Childish
* 4 References
* 5 See correspondingly

[Scratch] Sketch IN THE Wording OF EZRA AND NEHEMIAH

Artaxerxes (Hebrew:, discontinue [artaast]) commissioned Ezra, a Jewish priest-scribe, by gadget of a square of answer, to possess charge of the ecclesiastical and courteous relatives of the Jewish nation. A bit of this answer may be found in Ezra 7:13-28.Ezra thereby spent Babylon in the previous month of the seventh time (~ 457 BC) of Artaxerxes' regulation, at the pointer of a assembly of Jews that included priests and Levites. They indoors in Jerusalem on the previous day of the fifth month of the seventh time (Hebrew Calendar).The renovation of the Jewish community in Jerusalem had begun under Cyrus the Colossal, who had official Jews gripped interned in Babylon, to return to Jerusalem and redo the Place of pilgrimage of Solomon. Consequently, a gush of Jews returned to Jerusalem in 538 B.C., and the set up of this "Minute Place of pilgrimage" was laid the at the back time.In Artaxerxes' 20th time (445 B.C.), Nehemiah, the king's cupbearer, apparently was correspondingly a friend of the king as in that time Artaxerxes inquired just the once Nehemiah's alarm. Nehemiah significant to him the go by of the Jewish family connections and that the municipal of Jerusalem was undefended. The king sent Nehemiah to Jerusalem with script of compress lobby to the governors in Trans-Euphrates, and to Asaph, prison officer of the stately forests, to make beams for the fortress by the Place of pilgrimage and to redo the municipal bulwark.

[Scratch] INTERPRETATIONS OF ARTAXERXES Deeds

Roger Williams, a seventeenth-century Christian priest and founder of Rhode Atoll, interpreted sure passages in the Old and New Tribute to fasten limiting guidance infringement in dutiful matters. Williams published "The Bloudy Tenent of Stalking," recounting his review of why a courteous guidance indigence be free from religion according to the Bible. Williams alleged that Israel was a distinctive contract state-owned and not an steal ideal for New Tribute Christians who alleged that the Old Tribute contract had been broad. Consequently, the bigger constructive Old Tribute examples of courteous guidance were "good" non-covenant kings such as Artaxerxes, who tolerated the Jews even nevertheless he was a pagan and did not stipulate that they follow his "introduce" religion.

[Scratch] Childish

BY Sovereign DAMASPIA

* Xerxes II

BY ALOGYNE OF BABYLON

* Sogdianus

BY COSMARTIDENE OF BABYLON

* Darius II
* Arsites

BY ANDIA OF BABYLON

* Bogapaeus
* Parysatis, ensemble of Darius II Ochus

BY Recent(?) Confuse Next of kin

* An unknown young woman, ensemble of Hieramenes, mother of Autoboesaces and Mitraeus

By sundry wives eleven other children

[Scratch] REFERENCES

* ^ Ghias Abadi, R. M. (2004) (in Persian). "Achaemenid Inscriptions ( )" (2nd release ed.). Tehran: Shiraz Navid Publications. pp. 129. ISBN 964-358-015-6.
* ^ The Greek form of the name is convinced by "Xerxes" (Directory Iranica). The Biblical Hebrew form is "Artakhshasta". In Insert Persian, he is called Ardeshir.
* ^ Plutarch, Artaxerxes, l. 1. c. 1. 11:129 - cited by Ussher, Story, para. 1179
* ^ Nehemiah 2:1-9
* ^ James P. Byrd, "The challenges of Roger Williams: Pious Self-rule, Strong Stalking, and the Bible" (Mercer University Motivation, 2002) (accessed on Google Wording on July 20, 2009)
* ^ Xenophon, Hellenica, Wording II, Chapter 1

* Directory Iranica

[Scratch] SEE Likewise

* Artoxares

Artaxerxes I of PersiaACHAEMENID DYNASTYBORN: ? DIED: 424 BC

Preceded by

Xerxes I Colossal Ruler (SHAH) OF PERSIA

465 BC-424 BC Succeeded by

Xerxes II

PHARAOH OF EGYPT

465 BC-424 BC

Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artaxerxes I of Persia"Categories: 424 BC deaths Crowned heads of Persia Pharaohs of the Achaemenid building of Egypt Achaemenid kings 5th-century BC rulers

Prophecy

This is a reply from Ann Broomhead to a Christian on the
E-Net. Previous to this the Christian had given a list of
prophecys fulfilled in the birth of Christ. Here is Ann's very
adept reply.

In.8 you gave a list of prophecies which you said foretold the
coming of the Messiah, whom you identified as Jesus Christ. I
have several problems with this list.

First, however, what is "typology"? I know what typography is,
and what topology is, but not that. (And I certainly hope that it
doesn't refer to the use of capitalization in the Old Testament.)

I suppose the best way to cover your list is in the order given.

1. He would become offspring of a woman

Charles, you do realize that this is not an astounding revelation,
don't you? Judaism is indeed patriarchal, but it is not devoid of
all sense on that account! Eve is the acknowledged mother of Cain
and Abel, but that doesn't make one of them the Messiah. King
Solomon is given as the son of Bathshua, and fulfills your
prophecies 3 through 8, but that doesn't make him the Messiah
either.

Let me tell you a few things about the story of Eve and the
serpent. For one thing, the date 1450 bce is wrong. It is wrong
by about a thousand years. Genesis was one of the last books of
the Bible to be written down. Second, the image of the woman, the
tree, and the serpent is far older than the Bible; I have a
picture showing this combination that is dated to 2330-2150 bce.
The Bible version is a reworking of the elements to conform to the
worldview of the Jews. If you keep in mind that the enemies of
the Jews worshipped a Goddess who had a serpent for a consort, and
whose priestesses handled venomous snakes in their religious
rituals, you will easily grasp why the Jews wished to teach that
"good" women had nothing to do with serpents.

Now, the explanation you give for "he shall bruise your head and
you shall bruise his heel." is certainly ingenious, but it is
wrongheaded, and blatantly ex post facto. After all, when a
poisonous serpent fangs someone in the ankle (which is the only
way such a small creature could "bruise" a heel), that someone is
liable to die. Further, if a man clubs a snake over the head on
soft ground, it may well have no effect beyond bruising. Snakes
don't have much brain to scramble, after all.

But it does explain the byplay between the "Fat Broad" and the
snake in the "B.C." comic strip.

2. He would be born of a virgin and called Immanuel

The term "almah", which Christians persist in translating as
"virgin" means *only and always* "a young woman". "Bethulah"
means virgin. The prophecy is trying to convey the idea of, well,
"a nice Jewish girl"; i.e., a woman who is married young, and who
promptly produces a boy as her first offspring, with no false
starts. (This contrasts with Sarah, for example.)

Jesus isn't called Immanual. Nor is his name called Immanual.
(C.f., the name of the Hartford Science Fiction Society is called
Fred.) Immanual means "God is with us" but Jesus means "God is
salvation". It is not the same.

Now Jesus fulfills the first part of the prophecy begun in Isaiah
7:14, but so do a few zillion other people. But he does not
fulfill the second part of the same verse, nor the REST of the
prophecy, which is that before he is old enough to eat solid food,
"the land before whose two kings you are in dread will be
deserted."

3. He would be a descendent of Abraham

It would be absolutely astonishing if the Savior of the Jews was
*not* a descendent of Abraham. This is not a prophecy; it is only
a truism. Also, the verse can (and should) be taken to refer to
the Jewish people, who, according to the Bible, were created to be
"a light unto the nations".

4. He would be a descendent of Isaac

Since Isaac is a descendent of Abraham, this subsumes 3.

5. He would come out of Jacob

Since Jacob is a descendent of Isaac, this subsumes 4.

6. He would belong to the clans of Judah and a descendent of Judah

Since Judah is a descendent of Isaac, this subsumes 5.

7. He would be a descendent of Jesse

Since Jesse is a descendent of Judah, this subsumes 6.

8. He would come out of David and be a descendent of David

Since David is a descendent of Jesse, this subsumes 7.

So let us look at the published ancestry of Jesus, and the
published descent of David:

According to Luke 3:31, we have..."the son of Melea, the son of
Menna, the son of Mattatha, the son of Nathan, the son of
David"... and according to I Chronicles 3:1 "These are the sons of
David..." and in verse 5 "These were born to him in Jerusalem:
Shimea, Shobab, Nathan..." (The same as in II Samuel 5:14.)

So far so good. But it ends there. There is no indication that
Nathan had any children. (Nathan of Zobah had a son, Igal, but
that is a different Nathan (II Samuel 23:36). There was a Nathan
in the court of Solomon who had two sons, Azariel and Zabud, but
since Zabud was a priest, that means that Nathan was of a priestly
line, and not a son of David (I Kings 4:5).)

Looking to Luke 3:27, we read..."the son of Joanan, the son of
Rhesa, the son of Zerubbabel, the son of Shealtiel, the son of
Neri"... and to I Chronicles 3:17-19, we find references to both
Zerubbabel and Shealtiel, but Zerubbabel is the son of Pedaiah,
the younger brother of Shealtiel, and the father of Shealtiel is
Jeconiah, not Neri, and the sons of Zerubbabel do not include a
Rhesa. This is a strike out.

Let us try the alternative geneology in Matthew 1:2-16. This
matches up with I Chronicles 3:1-24, until we reach Matthew 1:8-9:
"... Joram the father of Uzziah, 9 and Uzziah the father of
Jotham..." In Chronicles, the only son of Joram listed is Ahaziah,
whose only listed son is Joash, whose only listed son is Amaziah,
whose only listed son is Azariah, whose only listed son is Jotham,
and now we are back on track -- after dropping three generations
of the royal family, and misstating one. In verse 11, we lose
Jehoiakim between Josiah and Jeconiah. In verse 12, Matthew makes
the same mistake about the relationship about Zerubbabel and
Shealtiel that Luke makes. In verse 13, we depart from the
geneology of Chronicles entirely.

Interestingly, Matthew shows only 10 generations from Zerubbabel
(born circa 570 bce) to Joseph, whereas Luke has 19 generations.
The two even disagree on the identity of Joseph's father; he is
Jacob to one and Heli to the other.

Lastly, since Christians claim that Joseph is *not* the father of
Jesus, his geneology is singularly unimportant to these prophetic
claims. Only that of Mary should be, and it isn't given.

9. He would be born in Bethlehem

Actually, since his parents lived in Nazareth before he was born,
and since he was raised in Nazareth, there is a school of thought
which holds that he was born in Nazareth.

Also, since Micah 5:2 refers to "Bethlehem Ephrathah,... among
the clans of Judah, from you shall come forth..." it is referring
to the *lineage* of Bethlehem Ephrathah, not the *location*, and I
have already demonstrated that, taking Christian beliefs into
account, we know *nothing* about the lineage of Jesus.

10. Wise men or kings from the east will come to the child Christ
and present Him with gifts.

You point to a reference to "the kings of Seba and Sheba", which
are from the *south* of Judea and Israel, so kings from the *east*
would not fulfill the prophecy. Magi are usually priests of
Mithra, but the term can also be used to refer to healers, miracle
workers, and astrologers. (Also, see.9.) They are never kings,
so their putative presence does not fulfill any prophecy.

Let's look at the full verses: Psalms 72:10-11 is "May the kings
of Tarshish and of the isles render him tribute, may the kings of
Sheba and Seba bring gifts! May all kings fall down before him,
all nations serve him!" Tarshish? The isles? Their kings
weren't around at the birth of Jesus, were they? And what of the
use of the subjunctive "may"? This isn't a prophecy at all. It's
a wish, like "O King! live forever!"

Isaiah 60:6 says "A multitude of camels shall cover you, the young
camels of Midian and Ephah; all those from Sheba shall come. They
shall bring gold and frankincense, and shall proclaim the praise
of the Lord." Camels? I recall no miracle of well-behaved
camels. Proclaim? I don't recall the Magi doing that, either.
Jesus doesn't match this verse at all well. And there is the
matter of the myrrh.

There is no number 11.

12. He would come out of lowly background and be despised

This directly contradicts the direct descent from David, King of
Israel, doesn't it? Also, as a carpenter, raised as the son of a
carpenter, he had an upper-class background, and a skilled and
highly-respected profession. Carpenters didn't just slam boards
on posts, y'know, they were stonemasons, and decorative carvers
too. (This should make the reference to publicans and prostitutes
more comprehensible.)

Also, since *any* prophet is without honor in his own land, anyone
claiming to be a prophet is going to be despised by someone; it
comes with the territory, and is more a truism than a prophecy.

13. He would be in Egypt before returning to Israel

If Jesus had been raised in Egypt, and only left there out of a
strong compulsion to return to his homeland, I might believe that
"out of Egypt I called my son" referred to him. As it is, it
clearly refers only to the Exodus.

14. Children will be slaughtered by Herod because of his fear of
the rise of another King.

The verse Jeremiah 31:15 says "... A voice is heard in Ramah...
Rachel is weeping for her children..." You say that Ramah is
between Bethlehem and Jerusalem. It is not. It is four miles
northwest of Anathoth, which in turn is north of Jerusalem, while
Bethlehem is south of Jerusalem. Ramah is between *Nazareth* and
Jerusalem, but so is just about everything else in Judea, since
Nazareth is so far north, and does nothing for an undocumented
massacre in Bethlehem.

Ann Broomhead