Now is such a distinctive time!
Concluding the Feast of Tabernacles is a special celebration called Simhat Torah (rejoicing in Torah). This celebration focuses on the first five books of the Old Testament, and yet, it’s a party with joy (and candy for children!) as the scrolls are brought out in synagogues! (It goes from October 17-18 this year.)
Torah readings spoken simultaneously across the globe on Shabbat have come to an end for the year—and begin again! This day—the ending and the beginning of reading Father’s written Word—is celebrated with great joy!
The Word and the Spirit
Why is this important for us?
One reason is that it mirrors the relationship between the Word and the Spirit like Pentecost does. Our Heavenly Father gave us His Word and the Spirit to transform, guide, and give us grace to live, to war, to build, and to rule through the darkness in this world with the light from Heaven.
Key of Access
Another key reason is its access.
It is astounding that everyday people such as you and I (not simply the wealthy or scholars) have only had access to Father’s written Word for the last 460 years.
Consider the previous thousands of years of human history. Consider that the Reformation (1517), which began the journey out of the Dark Ages, started without the written Word of God being in the hands of everyday people. Consider now–for only 460 years–since the advent of the Geneva Bible in 1560 that the written Word of God has been accessible to everyday people.
Now, juxtapose the advances in every level of society, and in the rise of nations, over these last 460 years compared with the thousands of years filled with war and barbarous practices before this pivotal moment.
Our Heavenly Father handed His Word to Moses. Led by the Levites, Israel has cared with great honor and respect for His written Word. With sacred care by scribes, it was painstakingly copied verbatim and read weekly to His people. This remained their only access to it. The rest of the world had no access.
Jesus entered human history, revealing Himself as The Word of God in human form. After His resurrection, He poured out His Spirit on those first disciples and then the early believers. Still possessing only extremely limited access to His written Word, they turned the world upside down for good!
Without personal, unlimited access to the written Word of God, early believers relied on Holy Spirit and transformed cultures for about 300 years. Then, Rome institutionalized the church. In this new configuration, many leaders who were not even true converts to the Lord Jesus Christ read and sang the written Word of God to everyday people in a foreign language! The people were commanded to sit in the pews silently and listen to what they could not understand. People were banned from meeting in their homes, as they had done previously. They were denied access to the written Word of God. Now, they “heard” the Word of God in a foreign language!
The Light has Come!
“The unfolding of your words gives light; it gives understanding to the simple,” (NIV, Psalm 119:130).
Talk about darkness! The absence of hearing the written Word of God in the small measures they had stole faith and initiated the plunge of the world into darkness.
Amazing groups of believers gathered in Ireland to study and scribe the written Word of God in their native language and stewarded it for years until Father launched them as missionaries back down in Europe in waves with the revival of the written Word of God in the native language of the people and preaching of the Gospel.
Reformers—men and women—laid down their lives in a bloody spiritual war to get the written Word of God in the hands of everyday people in their own language. Gutenberg, inventor of the printing press in 1455, met with many trials and tribulations to get his invention into action. The first book he printed was the Bible! His moveable-type printing press made it possible for everyday people to access the written Word of God.
Persecution continued against the reformers—and, by a Romans 8:28 move, gathered them in Geneva, Switzerland, where from 1557-60, they researched, translated, and compiled the Geneva Bible. This Bible was the major component that fully moved the English-speaking people out of the Dark Ages and into the light that birthed the Modern Age.
The Geneva Bible, first published in 1560, was affordable, accessible, and had bountiful study notes! For the first time in history, everyday English-speaking people had the written Word of God in their own language with chapters and verses that aided memorization and with study notes to help them understand the Word which they’d been separated from these thousand+ years.
Changed and Birthed Nations!
Scotland’s government made a law that every household above a certain income level had to own a copy of the Geneva Bible. It was the Geneva Bible that covered England. In only twenty-eight years after receiving the first copies—I have to repeat that, only twenty-eight years later–they were known as a “people of the book” by the year 1588. That year, 1588, saw the Spanish Armada come to invade England with the intent to return that nation to Catholicism. They’d returned to their Heavenly Father through His written Word. As a result, He granted a miracle in the weather! A providential storm just happened to occur which shook the Spanish Armada up in the English Channel—and England was saved and continued the Protestant Reformation! This foundation gave rise to the Pilgrims.
It was the Geneva Bible that Pilgrims carried with them in 1620—only four hundred and one years ago—as they came by faith to their Promised Land.
From the written Word of God in the Geneva Bible, the Pilgrims laid the first foundation-stones of the first Constitutional Republic in the waters of the Atlantic Ocean; it was called The Mayflower Compact.
Consider that—because of the written Word of God, which they could read in their own language—the Pilgrims formed a government with civic morality on the basis of moral law based on the written Word of God that allowed them freedom to live in peace with each other without fear. Consider the opposite scenario—the barbaric tribes of Europe and other nations through the Dark Ages that swept in and killed the people to steal land and wealth. Consider the early settlements out West in the United States where lawlessness reigned. Though one may have had the right to “stake their claim” in the West, some died without experiencing its goodness due to lawless bands of thieves who took advantage of no law and no law enforcement by killing those who had the right to the land and taking it themselves.
The Pilgrims wisely circumvented all this sorrow and loss by implementing civic rule under a representative government formed on the basis of moral law through the written Word of God.
Many English-speaking nations were built on the foundation of the Word of God. Many other nations have been impacted by the influence of the foundation of the written Word of God.
The freedom and prosperity that we have enjoyed are fruit of governments founded on the written Word of God.
These famous documents and laws were founded on principles in the written Word of God:
The Magna Carta
The Mayflower Compact
The Declaration of Independence
The Constitution of the United States
The Amendments to the U.S. Constitution
Today, let’s join the global rejoicing in the written Word of God and the powerful, expedited impact it created ‘round the world and for the generations!
Activate His light by taking full advantage of this costly gift—the written Word of God—by reading it with great frequency and allowing His Spirit to lead!
His Now Word
Beloved, I prophesy to you that your Heavenly Father is the God of the suddenlies. Though the promise has waited long and been long dead, there comes a day of What speaks in the blood of the Reformers and birthed the freedom in nations is the blood of the Lamb, from the foundation of the world, who is the Lord Jesus Christ, the written Word of God in human form. It is the written Word of God, His Blood, and His Spirit that expedites His promise to you, your family, and your nation!
Without Internet access, modern transportation, and with little funding, a nation was transformed by the written Word of God in twenty-eight years. They took the written Word of God and added their faith, study, meditation, reflection, and action! A new nation emerged sixty years after access to that same Word.
I prophesy to you that the time for the Word of God and the Holy Spirit of God to merge in resurrection power is now here. Greater things have yet to come, greater things have yet to be done in you, your family, your city, and your nation! So be it, in the mighty name of the Lord Jesus Christ, amen!
Read His Word. Listen to His Word. Soak in His Word. Meditate on His Word. Do His Word. Be led by His Spirit. Use His Word as Your Sword!
Prayer response:
Father, I give great, great thanks and great, great rejoicing to You, to the Lord Jesus Christ, and to His faithful ones who gave their lives so that we may have access to Your written Word. I honor Your sacrifice and theirs. I raise the shield of honor over Your Word! Your Word brings light! Your Word brought us out of the Dark Ages and into the light of a new day in history! Your Word is bringing us out of a dark cycle today and into a new cycle of light today! I receive and welcome by faith the power of Your Word, Your written Word, Your manifested Word in the Lord Jesus Christ, and Your Holy Spirit who wields the Word! Change me in Your Presence and Your Word! Change me, my family, my city, and my nation. I welcome You and Your Word back! I rejoice that holy foundations were built on Your Blood and Your Word! Glory to God! Lift up doors and gates, come in, King of Glory. Lift up, doors and gates, come in, King of Glory! I worship and welcome You in the mighty name of the Lord Jesus Christ, amen.
This is an updated edition of a post originally published on Hope Streams
Featured Image by Maicon Fonseca Zanco from Pixabay
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