Reaching out to Jacob
by Richard W. Fischer, Jr.

Founder/ Mourning Glory Ministries
(Turning Mourning Into Joy)
http://www.kingdomdomains.ws/page7.html
e-mail: MourningGlory3@aol.com
Cell/Voice mail: 865-719-9096
††† Scriptures quoted below are from the New King James Version of the Holy Bible.†††

     On Friday evening, March 28, 2008, one of the elders in our congregation was led of the Lord to share with us a dream he'd been given earlier in the week, and after doing so, our Pastor encouraged us that this was a word from God for not just our congregation, but the Church as a whole, and suggested it would be good to pass this on to others. I believe the message God has for us through this dream is of great significance during the season in which we are now living, and God wants us to not only listen closely to this word, but to act on what He is saying to His body, the Church. After reading this, if you agree, please let others know about this article so they too can be encouraged by the Lord!

     In the dream, our elder saw a large ship, about the size of an aircraft carrier. The ship was surrounded by ice, and couldn't move in any direction. The captain and several crew members had gotten off the ship, and were standing on the ice. Then, a source of heat, something like a lava flow, began melting the ice from below, and the ice started to crack and break apart. As this happened, several crew members became isolated from the others, and some of them even fell off of their piece of ice into the water, and got trapped under the ice, trying desperately to get back to the surface to breath. As the leader who was having this dream watched what was happening, he became concerned that neither the captain or the members of the crew were doing anything to help the men who were drowning under the ice, and nobody but he seemed to care at all that these men where dying. At this point, he tried to reach under the ice he was standing on to save the man passing below him, but the man's coat he had been able to grab came off in his hand.

     I believe the interpretation of this dream, is that the great ship represents the Church, and the events which took place represent how many Church leaders and other members of the body of Messiah (Christ) don't understand that all around us, people are suffering and dying, both physically, as well as spiritually, and many Christians don't seem to care, because they are doing nothing to try to reach out and save them from certain death! This brings to mind the words of Yeshua (Jesus' name in Hebrew) which He spoke to "the goats," from the parable of the sheep and the goats, found in Matthew chapter 25. In verses 44-46 of that chapter He says, “Then they also will answer Him, saying, ‘Lord, when did we see You hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison, and did not minister to You?' Then He will answer them, saying, ‘Assuredly, I say to you, inasmuch as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to Me.' And these will go away into everlasting punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.” In other words, if we see someone in need, and we don't at least make an effort to help them, Yeshua (Jesus) takes it rather personally! In fact, our actions, or lack of actions, are a demonstration of our faith, or lack there of.

     What makes this all the more powerful to me is that sometime between last Thursday night and Friday morning, before the above dream was shared with me and our congregation that Friday evening, I was given a confirming dream by the Lord! In my dream, I saw a man laying face up on the ground, and he was about to duck his head under a large metal structure into some filthy water. His purpose in doing so was to save some sort of animal that was trapped under the water, and I understood in the dream that this animal was in danger of dying without his intervention. With a calm, peaceful smile on his face, saying, "I'd rather be blind than let this creature perish," the man submerged his head under the polluted water for several seconds, and when he came back to the surface, he stood up, opened his mouth, and with his right hand , pulled out an earth worm .

     When I woke up and began to pray about this dream, the Lord gave me two passages of Scripture. The first is found in Isaiah 41:13-14 which says, "For I, the Lord your God, will hold your right hand , saying to you, ‘Fear not, I will help you. Fear not, you worm Jacob, you men of Israel ! I will help you,' says the Lord."

The second passage of Scripture, located in Mark 9:47-48 says, " And if your eye causes you to sin, pluck it out. It is better for you to enter the kingdom of God with one eye, rather than having two eyes , to be cast into hell fire—where ‘Their worm does not die, And the fire is not quenched.' " (Yeshua quotes this from Isiah 66:24)

     As it relates to the greater body of Messiah, all this reminds me of God's promise that, "All Israel shall be saved," (Romans 11:26), but in order to see this accomplished, we as the body of Christ need to remember that God has charged us as believers not to be ashamed of the Gospel, for according to Romans 1:16, "...it is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believes; for the Jew first, and also to the Greek (Gentile/non-Jew) ." So, since the Gospel is to be taken first and foremost to the Jewish people (those who descended from Jacob through his son Judah, from whose lineage Yeshua was born to Mary and Joseph), in my opinion, it would be very helpful for us to gain some insight into how the Jewish mind thinks, and what it really means to be Jewish. Speaking for myself, until I spent more then 20 years of my life as a member of a Messianic Jewish congregation (Jews who believe in Yeshua [Jesus] as their Messiah), and had logged significant time with Jewish people who had accepted Yeshua as their means of salvation, I knew almost nothing about how to effectively minister to unbelieving Jews. Though I'm certainly still in the process of learning myself, if you are at all like me, and have a desire to see more and more Jews accept their Messiah, and would like to begin to learn some of the insights I've gleaned during those 20+ years, please contact me via the information contained at the bottom of this article, and I'll be happy to begin to share what I know with you. In the mean time, I'd like to leave you with a couple of other miraculous events from the last week that relate to the above word in a personal way.

     The Friday morning I woke up with the dream of the man that saved the worm from drowning, I began to get a sense from the Lord that a friend of mine might know someone who really needed a touch from God. At the time, he couldn't think of anyone, but miraculously enough, that weekend, he learned that a relative of his was in the hospital on life support. At this point, I knew instantly God wanted me to pray and believe God to restore this young man to health. After several days of praying when this young man's situation came to my mind, I fell asleep on the sofa one evening (April 2), and a couple hours later, right around midnight, I was awakened instantaneously from a deep sleep because I saw an incredibly bright flash of light. I don't know if the light was from a natural or supernatural source (though I can't imagine a natural light from outside with closed curtains could wake me from a sound sleep), but the light so startled me, that my wife heard me moan from the other room, and asked me if something was wrong. As I walked into the bedroom telling her what had happened, she noticed my face was very pale, and immediately, I knew the Lord wanted me to do a word study in the Bible to find the references to the word, "pale." With this, I turned on the computer, opened my Bible software, and plugged in the word. Much to my surprise, two of the three references retrieved from the New King James Version related to Jacob ( Israel ), just like the previously mentioned verse I'd been given. As I read one of the verses in the context of the chapter in which it was contained, I noticed the very next two verses said,

"Alas! For that day is great,
 so that none is like it;
 and it is the time of Jacob's trouble ,
 but he shall be saved out of it.
    
When I read this, I knew the Lord was going to heal the young man I'd been praying for, and only two days after receiving these verses, I learned he had been taken off life support , and he is now home and doing well! Praise God for his mercy and faithfulness!!


The fringes (tzitzit in Hebrew) on the above prayer shawl (talit in Hebrew), are likely very similar
to those on the hem of Yeshua's garment, which the woman with the 12 year issue of blood touched and was miraculously healed!
(See Luke 8:43-48)

     Then very early this morning, April 5, the day I'd planned to start writing this article, after only a couple hours of sleep last night, I was awakened again (this time much more gently), by the sound of the television I had tuned to a Christian network before I went to bed. The show that was playing was an infomercial about a line of animated Bible videos, and as I opened my eyes, the first thing I saw was an excerpt from the parable of the prodigal son just as he returned home to his father after spending all his inheritance on unrighteous living. As his father embraced his repentant son, though to my knowledge the Bible never mentions the son's name, the father in the video addresses him by the name, "JACOB!!"   I think most of us are familiar enough with that story to remember that the very next thing the father did after welcoming his son home, was he had his servants place his best robe on his son, put a ring on his finger, sandals on his feet, and held a big party in his son's honor with an entire cow for the main course! There was also a great deal of music and dancing as part of the celebration. I know there are still some people in Christian circles that believe all dancing is evil, but the story of the prodigal son goes on to say that when the elder son, who had been working out in the field when his brother returned, heard the music and dancing for his younger brother, he complained to his father, and the father told him in Matthew 15:32, " It was right that we should make merry and be glad, for your brother was dead and is alive again, and was lost and is found."

    
     If you or your congregation would like to learn Hebrew style dance to use during times of worship and celebration,
or if you'd like to learn more about the Jewish roots of your faith, and how best to witness to those descended from Jacob,
please contact me (I'm the one in the white shirt in the photo) via the information below.

     To read more miraculous personal testimonies, please click on the link below!

Shalom and Blessings in our Messiah!
Richard W. Fischer, Jr.
Founder/ Mourning Glory Ministries
(Turning Mourning Into Joy)
http://www.kingdomdomains.ws/page7.html
e-mail: MourningGlory3@aol.com
Cell/Voice mail: 865-719-9096