Q. God brings us into struggles and battles. Why does He do this and how do we handle them?

A. The Lord brings us into struggles and battles to teach us something. It is an unpleasant business for sure, but that’s the way He does things. In Judges 3.1-2 it says “Now these are the nations which the Lord left, to test Israel by them (that is all who had not experienced any of the wars of Canaan: only in order that the generations of the sons of Israel might be taught war, those that had not experienced it formerly)”. You see, the Lord left some of the nations intact in Canaan because He wanted the inexperienced to learn about Him through warfare. He does the same thing today. He will purposely bring us into struggles and battles so that we learn how to fight and what it takes to win a battle. The problem is too many resist it and turn from the battle and run. If we don’t face the enemy and resist the Lord will continue to place you in situations and battles until you finally stand up and get strong in the Lord. That’s why some people keep going through the same struggles again and again. He wants to work out something in your life and you are going to have to stand and fight sometime, so you might as well get it over with. Israel today is making that mistake. Sooner or later they will have to realize who they are and who the Lord is, and fight His battles in His name. But they are trying to be political and they are afraid of the world’s opinions and certainly listen too much to the United States. Someday they are going to have all that stripped away, all their defenses will be of no use and they will be forced to turn to the God of their fathers for help and He will respond in a way they will understand. It’s the same with us. He will strip away our defenses until we acknowledge Him and turn to Him, so it’s better to enter the battle right away and learn what the Lord is trying to do. But, there is way to go to battle and way not to. First, we are to be obedient to Him before the battle begins. In Num 4.1-3 it says that they were to take a census from the sons of Kohath “from 30 years and upward, even to 50 years old, all who enter the service to do the work in the tent of meeting.” The word for “service” there is the word for warfare in Hebrew. In other words, as we are serving the Lord as He commanded, it is a type of spiritual warfare. The best spiritual warfare you can do is to obey the Lord and keep His commandments. Then He will be a shield and a buckler to you and drive out your enemies. What is taught today in many circles as “spiritual warfare” is not the biblical example. So, you will need to believe in the Lord and keep His commandments. When you have done that and a battle comes, there are several Scriptures I use. The first is found in 1 Sam 24.12. David had a conflict with Saul and he says “ May the Lord judge between you and me, and may the Lord avenge me on you, but my hand shall not be against you.” David left it all in God’s hand and did not seek his own revenge or justice, he left it up to the Lord. The second one is dealing with a battle between Israel and the sons of Ammon found in 1Chr 19.10-15. Ammon had hired the Syrians to fight with them against Israel and they surrounded Israel. Joab takes his elite forces and positions them against the hireling Syrian forces. Abshai is Joabs brother, and he takes his forces and positions them against the sons of Ammon. Joab says if you need help, I’ll come to you, and if I need help you come to me. After he has done all he can in the natural he says this: “Be strong and let us show ourselves courageous for the sake of our people and for the cities of our God; and may the Lord do what is good in His own sight.” In other words, they have done all they can do in the natural to take on the enemies of the Lord, but what happens is up to the Lord. Well, the hireling Syrians took one look at the elite Israeli forces and they had no heart for the battle and they ran. When Ammon saw that the Syrians fled, they lost courage and ran also. The battle was never fought and Israel won the victory without a fight. That’s how we should approach our battles. Be obedient to the Lord, do what needs to be done in the natural and leave the rest up to the Lord. Having done all you can do, stand and be ready to fight and no matter what happens, leave it up to the Lord. There is so much more to the concept of biblical spiritual warfare but I hope this answers your question for the most part.

Q. In Zechariah 8.19 there are four fasts listed. What is their significance today?

A. These fasts are still done in many Jewish circles but they were never commanded by the Lord. In fact He has a very interesting take on them. These fast days commemorated the taking of Jerusalem and the destruction of the Temple by the Babylonians. They were self-appointed times of mourning, which in and of themselves doesn’t make them bad, but they had become mundane rituals and a way to get God to do something for them. God sees them suffering without food, God feels sorry for them and owes it to the participants to grant their requests. But that is not how the Lord works. The key, from God’s point of view, on the fasts can be found in Zechariah 7.1-14. I won’t get into detail but the idea is that the Lord was not concerned over whether they continued the practice of fasting, He never commanded them to begin with, but over the reality of why the destruction happened . It was an empty ritual void of any real repentance over the things that caused the Temple and the city to be destroyed in the first place. If repentance was there, then the Lord would have found value in their fasting. The people needed to remember why the Temple was destroyed and repent, not weep and fast over the loss of a building with an empty ritual. In 7.9 He tells them what they should have done to avoid the destruction of the city by the Babylonians, but they didn’t do it. They hardened their hearts so that they would not hear the Torah or listen to the prophets (7.12). In Chapter 8.16 He told them what they should do instead of an empty, ritualistic fast. He then says in 8.19 that when genuine repentance is done, He is going to turn those fast days into days of feasting. This can be applied to us today in many ways. We tend to replace genuine repentance with traditions and rituals that make us feel like we are doing something or makes us feel good. Many fast for the same reason today, they feel that God must respond to their suffering, or what they have given up when He doesn’t have to respond to anything if he chooses not to.. These fasts would not even have been necessary had the people obeyed the Lord in the first place. That should have been the conclusion the people reached. When we find ourselves in similar situations, go before the Lord and find out what went wrong so you can correct it. Sometimes fasting is necessary because it helps us focus on the Lord so He can speak to us about what the real problem is, but it should never be the main focus in and of itself.

Q. What is Romans 14.4-6 speaking about?

A. This chapter is dealing with several groups of people. In the 1st century, Gentiles who believed in Yeshua went to the local synagogue to learn the Scriptures (Acts 15.21). There were also Jews who believed in Yeshua in these synagogues who went back to Rome after Acts 2.10. Another group consisted of Jews who did not believe that Yeshua was the Messiah. These three group co-existed in these synagogues and with that came contention. Paul is dealing with some of these contentions in those synagogues and Romans 14 is continuing with that thought. In Romans 14.1 he uses the term “weak” to describe those synagogue Jews who did not believe that Yeshua was the Messiah (Rom 4.19-20, 10.2, 15.1)). The believing Jews and Gentiles there were not to pass judgment on their opinions. So right there he is talking about their oral traditions, not written Scripture which were not the opinions of men but the commands of God. In verse 2 he discusses the fact that some of the Jews would not eat meat or drink wine sold by Gentiles. There is Jewish law today that says the same thing. That was a part of their “halakah” or how to walk their faith before the Lord and this was an oral law. So, they would just eat vegetables because vegetables could not be considered ritually unclean (Dan 1.8-16). This offended the believing Gentiles and Paul was telling them not to be offended. He is telling those who are “strong” (have faith in Yeshua –Rom 4.19-20, 15.1)) not to look with contempt on those who do not eat meat from Gentiles because God accepts the actions of the weak and the strong. They are serving God the best they know how and it is their opinion that their actions were correct, so leave them alone. God will make their actions stand or fall, in other words reveal truth to them eventually. In v5 he talks about certain days they regarded over other days. This has nothing to do with Sabbath days or biblical festivals, everyone in the synagogue agreed about those because they were not the opinions of men but written by God Himself. These days were certain days regarded by the synagogue Jews there as being important, like certain fast days (Lk 18.11-12). Others there didn’t regard them as that important. What Paul is saying is when it comes to certain traditions, let each man do what he considers right, and not to judge the other about it. After all, each person does it to the Lord so let the Lord deal with it. A modern example would be candle-lighting in Friday nights. There is no commandment to light candles and some do it and others do not. Those that do should not force others to do it or look down on them for not doing it, and those that don’t should not try to convince the others that they shouldn’t do it. When a tradition does not violate the Torah, it’s permissible to do it but it should not be imposed on others one way or the other. There are many traditions like that, and many different variations on how to do them, even today. On the other hand, if a man-made tradition violates or goes against written Scripture, then that is a different story and that is not what Paul is talking about. Modern examples of this is Sunday “Sabbath” over Saturday. The Scriptures are clear that Saturday is the Sabbath. Another issue is eating pork or not. Some will take these verses to justify eating pork and one should not judge the other. But again, the Scriptures are clear about eating pork and it is sin. If we are not to judge one another when it comes to sin you could never raise a child. If your child tells a lie, are we to judge it and deal with it, correct it or just let it go. Of course not, and it’s the same with any other clear commandment God gave. I’ve seen preachers get on homosexuals and quote Leviticus, then turn around and eat pork and tell someone they weren’t to judge them about it. I guess it depends on whose ox is getting gored! So, in conclusion, this portion in Romans is dealing with how to get along in a congregation where unbelieving Jews, believing Jews and believing Gentiles co-existed and that we were not to pass judgment on another’s opinions on how to walk before the Lord as long as the opinion was not in direct conflict with the Scriptures. I hope this answers your question. Keep this in mind as you read the book of Romans and the different groups he is addressing.

Q.In Revelation 16.13 three frogs come out of the mouth of the dragon, out of the mouth of the beast and out of the mouth of the false prophet

Q. In Revelation 16.13 it says that three frogs come out of the mouth of the dragon, out of the mouth of the beast and out of the mouth of the false prophet. What does this mean and how does that relate to us today?

A. To fully understand this we will start in 16.13 and go to verse 16. The Scriptures teach that good and evil will exist together in the Kingdom of God. God uses the demonic realm to achieve His purposes and one of the purposes is to test the earth, to test His people and so on. He will use lying spirits to do it ( 2 Chr 18.19-21) if He wants, God is sovereign. I am going to give my opinion on these verses and why. In the verse you mentioned, a similar thing is going on and it is completely under the control of the Lord. Satan, the False Messiah and the False Prophet are not running out of control in the Birth-pains, it is all according to the Lord’s purpose. In V 13 it describes the power behind these beings in apocalyptic language and symbolism. Frogs are used because a frog captures it’s victim by the tongue and so do false prophets. These three will deceive many by their “tongues” also. The next verse tells you it is the power of demons and their job is to gather the world together for a war. This war has been going on since Eden, and notice it does not say “battle.” It is an ongoing war and during the Tribulation it is going to be even worse. I don’t really see a literal “Battle of Armageddon” here, as taught in many prophecy scenarios. These lying spirits will try to convince the world to go against God’s commandments and to embrace replacement theology Christianity, or whatever religion is in their country. The key verse in understanding their purpose is verse 16. John says they will try to gather them to a place called in the Hebrew Har-magedon. Now, why did he say “in the Hebrew” and not just say it in Greek. It’s because there is something to be understood about this and it can only be understood if you have been taught from the Torah and the Prophets and the concepts found there. The Greeks didn’t have these concepts (Jn 4.22). The term “har-magedon” has been used before in Scripture. You will find it in Isaiah 14.13. It talks about Satan’s desire to sit on the “mount of assembly” (har-moe-ghed) and be worshipped. It refers to the people coming up to Jerusalem, to the Temple on Mt. Moriah at the appointed times (Sabbath/Festivals) to meet with God. So this term is used again in Revelation 16.16 to describe why these lying spirits go out to deceive the world. This term does not mean “Mount Megiddo” because there is no Mount Megiddo in Israel. This is a war over whose holy days are the people going to keep. Dan 7.25 says the False Messiah and the False Prophet will replace the biblical festivals with other ones because he wants to be worshipped on the “Mount of Assembly (har-moeghed).” The war being described here is over obedience to the Torah. These lying spirits, described as frogs (because of their tongues) go out and tell people that the Law has been done away with, Sunday is the Lord’s Day, Christmas is godly, go ahead and eat unclean meats like pork, lobster, catfish, and that is just in this country. He has deceived the whole world with many different religions. Satan doesn’t care what you follow as long as it isn’t biblical. And if it isn’t what God said, then by implication you are really following Satan, and he is now on the “Mount of Assembly” (har-moeghed) and that is what he has wanted (Isa 14.13) and that is what the verse is saying. Notice God uses an unclean creature like a frog to signify a demon, and there are people reading this article right now who eat frogs and say God says it’s alright! The war has always been over whether you will obey the Lord or not. So, in short, these frogs signify demonic spirits/teachings, who go forth and try to capture victims with their tongues. The place for this war is the “the mount of assembly” or true worship as described in the Torah (Jn 4.19-24). Do you follow the Lord’s festivals or do you follow replacement festivals? I don’t really see a physical last “Battle of Armageddon” here. That is part of the deception. People are looking for a physical battle when the real war is spiritual and it is over obedience to the Word of God. That is not to say there won’t be physical battles in the Tribulation because there will be, but there is something greater going on in these verses. The world is being prepared right now to embrace these three frogs, the theology is in place and growing and there are plenty of “frogs” capturing their victims with their tongues right now in any religion that does not follow the written word of God as found in the Torah.