Our annual Scripture Reading Schedule for 2020-2021 with daily readings that began on 10/11/20 is available to download and print. The link to the previous 2019-2020’s Scripture Reading Schedule will still be available on the right sidebar under “Helpful Links” into next year. If you are using a mobile device or tablet, the link may be below, meaning you’ll need to scroll down instead.
Most of this week’s blog discussion points will be on these passages. If you have general comments or questions on the weekly Scripture readings not addressed in a blog post, here’s a place for you to post those. Just use the “leave a reply” link or the “share your thoughts” box below.
The full “Read Through The Scriptures In A Year” schedule, broken down by each day, can be found on the right sidebar under “Helpful Links.” There are 4 sections of scripture to read each day: one each from the Torah, the Prophets, the Writings, and from the Testimony of Yeshua. Each week, the Torah and haftarah readings will follow the traditional one-year reading cycle.
Weekly Blog Scripture Readings for 8/15 through 8/21/2021.
The story below is very alarming and only the beginning of what is to come.
I live 20 minutes from this park. In the past, I have preached the gospel there.
What is the sickest part of it all is that the police did not show up to protect the Christians from the lawless Satanists. In the past when we street preached in Portland, the police were there to help keep the peace. The leftist thugs have now replaced the police. These Antifa goons have become the SA Brownshirts warlords in control of the Portland streets, and no one, not even the police, are able to stand up to them or stop them. This is because the politicians have defanged the police and rendered them impotent.
The church is largely impotent to do anything as well. I used to preach to skinhead gangs and the like in downtown Portland. The anointing of Elohim was all over us when we did it. When the gangs and Satanist came against me, I’d lift up the name of Yeshua and they’d back off. They couldn’t touch me. We saw miracle after miracle. Now all the Christians do is stand around with their fingers in their mouth and say “peace in the name of Jesus” as the thugs mace them and toss their sound equipment in the river.
Moreover, where are the preachers to preach sin and repentance at that moment to these Satanist? Signs and wonders follow the preaching of the gospel, not thumb sucking and Kumbaya singing Christians. That’s what we used to do and YHVH was there to protect us. Now all these impotent Christians can do is stand there with their fingers in their mouths and sing Kumbaya. Sick and sad how the church as devolved.
YHVH bless any Christians that may not have been in the videos who stood up and preached the gospel as Yeshua commissioned us to do.
And what’s with the sissy pastor standing in his slick suit off to the side looking all dapper, but saying and doing nothing? As I’ve said many times, as long as the pastors are behind their acrylic pulpits in the safety of their churches standing behind their security detail, they’re powerful “men of God.” But get them out into the streets, and they wilt like the real pansies that most of them are. I stood behind a pulpit for 18 years, and I also spent years on the streets preaching the gospel, so I know what I’m talking about. — Natan
Antifa members assaulting a prayer and worship event in downtown Portland, Oregon. | YouTube/Mary Todd
Dozens of black-clad Antifa militants carrying shields and melee weapons on Saturday assaulted Christians, including children, who were attending a prayer and worship event in downtown Portland, Oregon, featuring Canadian Pastor Artur Pawlowski.
Portland police looked on as Antifa bear-sprayed Christians and their children, lobbed “flash bombs” into the crowd, and reportedly threw the sound equipment being used for the prayer event into the Willamette River, PJ Media reported.
In black bloc and riot gear, armed Antifa could be seen in a video physically confronting the Christian attendees. One of the members sprayed a congregant with what appeared to be pepper spray. The attendees stepped back to evade the assault, The Post Millennial reported.
“Where is your God now?” one of the Antifa members can be heard shouting in the video.
A woman attending the prayer event described the group as “ruthless.”
“Antifa just rolled in like an angry mob, started throwing flash bombs at everybody, macing everybody … rotten eggs,” CBN News quoted her as saying. “They threw a flash bomb into a group of kids that were out there from 4 months old to like 10.”
Pawlowski, who serves as pastor of Street Church and Cave of Adullam Church in Calgary, Alberta, Canada, and has been seen in viral videos documenting his encounters with law enforcement over COVID-19 restrictions, was also sprayed in the face with mace.
An attendee who helped the pastor was quoted as saying, “Walked up to ask them to stop throwing things at the children. There’s kids down there. I mean, they’re toddlers and they sprayed me too.”
“Welcome to Portland. You won’t like it here, pastor,” tweeted an Antifa member, who identifies herself as Melissa Lewis on Twitter.
In an earlier interview with The Christian Post, Pawlowski spoke about his interactions with authorities over the past year and doubled down on his characterization of local law enforcement as Nazis and communists.
Pawlowski has compared the measures taken by law enforcement officials to enforce novel coronavirus restrictions on churches to the actions taken by authorities in his native Poland when it was under communist rule.
In March 2020, he was informed that Street Church would have to “shut down and stop taking care of the poor.” Pawlowski refused to obey that order, concluding that by issuing “orders to stop feeding them [and] giving them necessities of life, they were sentencing them to death. [And] some of them did die.”
“All of those people wandering the streets, if I don’t feed them or someone like me does not feed them … they’re going to attack your house or break into your car,” he added. “You got to provide people with food if they cannot get it on their own for whatever reason. … Addictions or mental illness or whatever it is, those people will eat this way or that way. I prefer to feed them instead of letting them go and hurt other people to get what they need.”
The Saturday prayer and worship event in Portland was announced a month ago, which gave Antifa enough time to plan the attack.
Antifa has also attacked several churches in Portland.
As I rapidly move through my sixth decade of life, I have watched many people come and go, rise and fall, live and die. I have travelled to more than 20 countries on four continents, 25 U.S. states, lived in Europe, started businesses and ministries, been married for decades, raised four children, pastored a church for years, and written and published many writings. I have traversed, climbed and skied the mountains, hung from dizzying heights on ropes, swam in rivers, lakes and oceans, climbed 15 to 20 thousand trees, encountered demons, stared death in the face too many times to remember, and even been sprayed by a skunk. I have been loved as well as hated by those I thought were my friends. Much water has passed under the bridge called life, and now it is time to ponder it all.
Each of us has a story to tell, and as we grow older, we feel the need to share it, but why bother? Who will listen to it anyway? Most people are too wrapped in their own lives to care. Nevertheless, this all causes us to keep searching for meaning and purpose for our existence. And this compels me to return again and again to the Rock of Ages—the Bible, the Word of Elohim and to the source of the Truth that is above and way beyond each of us, for understanding and wisdom in order that I may more fully comprehend the complexities, that is, the whys and wherefores of life.
This all brings me to the book of Ecclesiastes (in Hebrew Kohelet meaning “the Preacher”) to hear from a wise man who had done it all. Here are my recent reflections on the wisdom found in this often overlooked and forgotten book of the Bible. Please enjoy and maybe something said will resonate and bless the reader. —Natan
Ecclesiastes 7
Ecclesiastes 7:1–15,Practical keys to lessening the vanity or emptiness of life. So far the Preacher has taught us that life’s endeavors ultimately amount to vanity or nothingness. In spite of this, he has also taught us how to find some meaningful, though temporal, enjoyment in this physical life although all humans are in the endless cycles of this earthly prison of time and space. Now the preacher gives us some more practical wisdom on how to squeeze some meaning out of an ultimately meaningless existence (if this physical life is all that there is).
Ecclesiastes 7:16–17,Do not be overly. Moderation in all things is a key to happiness and will help to prolong life.
Ecclesiastes 7:18, He who fears Elohim. The fear of Elohim is a recurring them in Ecclesiastes. It is as if the Preacher is toying with the reader to provoke him to look beyond the ultimately meaningless existence of this physical life. He seems to be teasing us with the proverbial carrot on a stick in front of the mule routine. Despite the ultimated meaninglessness of life on this earth, in the Preacher’s mind there must be some over-arching benefit to both acknowledging and fearing the Creator. Is this perhaps a key that unlocks the iron door to the prison called life and is the only means to escape the empty vanity and meaninglessness of it all?
Ecclesiastes 7:19–24, More practical keys to lessening the vanity or emptiness of life.
Ecclesiastes 7:27–29, Here is what I found. The Preacher sums up what he has found to this point in diligently seeking to find the meaning of life. The more he searches, the deeper he drills down to find the answer to this perennial and universal questions as to the meaning of life, the more the answer still eludes him.
Elohim made man upright. Man was initially created upright and righteous, but the serpent in the tree conned man into disobeying the Creator’s laws, and man has been scheming to circumvent them ever since.
Ecclesiastes 8
Ecclesiastes 8:1–17,More ponderings on the conundrums of life. In this chapter, the Preacher continues his musings trying to make sense of the injustices and ironies of life. But through it all he is certain of one thing: It will be well with those who fear Elohim, but it will not be well with the wicked (vv. 12–13). For certain, the Preacher knows that there is a wrong way and a right way to live one’s life, and that those who chose the path of good will be better off than those who do not. This may not seem like a stunning revelations, but a rather simple truth. But this truth escapes many people who blithely and thoughtlessly go about the business of life from day to day satiating the lust of the eyes and flesh and the pride of life and think nothing more about it.
So once again, the Preacher tosses into the mix a “God principle” to encourage us to take our eyes off of the mundaneness of the endless cycles life and begin to begin, if every so slightly, to fix our gaze heavenward.
Our annual Scripture Reading Schedule for 2020-2021 with daily readings that began on 10/11/20 is available to download and print. The link to the previous 2019-2020’s Scripture Reading Schedule will still be available on the right sidebar under “Helpful Links” into next year. If you are using a mobile device or tablet, the link may be below, meaning you’ll need to scroll down instead.
Most of this week’s blog discussion points will be on these passages. If you have general comments or questions on the weekly Scripture readings not addressed in a blog post, here’s a place for you to post those. Just use the “leave a reply” link or the “share your thoughts” box below.
The full “Read Through The Scriptures In A Year” schedule, broken down by each day, can be found on the right sidebar under “Helpful Links.” There are 4 sections of scripture to read each day: one each from the Torah, the Prophets, the Writings, and from the Testimony of Yeshua. Each week, the Torah and haftarah readings will follow the traditional one-year reading cycle.
Weekly Blog Scripture Readings for 8/8 through 8/14/2021.
Our annual Scripture Reading Schedule for 2020-2021 with daily readings that began on 10/11/20 is available to download and print. The link to the previous 2019-2020’s Scripture Reading Schedule will still be available on the right sidebar under “Helpful Links” into next year. If you are using a mobile device or tablet, the link may be below, meaning you’ll need to scroll down instead.
Most of this week’s blog discussion points will be on these passages. If you have general comments or questions on the weekly Scripture readings not addressed in a blog post, here’s a place for you to post those. Just use the “leave a reply” link or the “share your thoughts” box below.
The full “Read Through The Scriptures In A Year” schedule, broken down by each day, can be found on the right sidebar under “Helpful Links.” There are 4 sections of scripture to read each day: one each from the Torah, the Prophets, the Writings, and from the Testimony of Yeshua. Each week, the Torah and haftarah readings will follow the traditional one-year reading cycle.
** A different Haftarah and/or Maftir is read when it is a special sabbath in Jewish tradition. This week it is Shabbat Machar Chodesh (Shabbat that is immediately followed by Rosh Chodesh) on the traditional calendar. Otherwise, Isaiah 54:11 – 55:5 would be read.
Weekly Blog Scripture Readings for 8/1 through 8/7/2021.
Our annual Scripture Reading Schedule for 2020-2021 with daily readings that began on 10/11/20 is available to download and print. The link to the previous 2019-2020’s Scripture Reading Schedule will still be available on the right sidebar under “Helpful Links” into next year. If you are using a mobile device or tablet, the link may be below, meaning you’ll need to scroll down instead.
Most of this week’s blog discussion points will be on these passages. If you have general comments or questions on the weekly Scripture readings not addressed in a blog post, here’s a place for you to post those. Just use the “leave a reply” link or the “share your thoughts” box below.
The full “Read Through The Scriptures In A Year” schedule, broken down by each day, can be found on the right sidebar under “Helpful Links.” There are 4 sections of scripture to read each day: one each from the Torah, the Prophets, the Writings, and from the Testimony of Yeshua. Each week, the Torah and haftarah readings will follow the traditional one-year reading cycle.
Weekly Blog Scripture Readings for 7/25 through 7/31/2021.
Wash your brain clean of the dirt and grime of the past week as you feast on these flower pictures from my garden.Give YHVH the glory, for these are his creations, not man’s.—Natan
