The Sanhedrin

 

What Was the Sanhedrin? By What Authority Did It Act?

“Appoint judges and enforcement officers in all your cities.”—Deuteronomy 16:18

Nine Groups That Made Up The Great Sanhedrin Council

Elders   -   Essenes   -   Herodians

John's Disciples   -   Pharisees   -   Priests

Sadducees   -   Scribes   -   Zealots

Who were the members of the Great Sanhedrin? What kind of power did they possess? Where did they meet? Were they the driving force that got Jesus crucified?

 

The Great Sanhedrin (which in Greek means 'a sitting together' or 'council') was the supreme council of the Jews who met within Jerusalem's temple in a place known as the chamber of hewn stones (although they sometimes met in the house of the High Priest). The Sanhedrin was like the U.S. Supreme court in that they were the final authority on decisions that affected the religious and political life of all Jews.

 

The council convened each day of the week except the Sabbath and the annual Biblical Holy Days. In New Testament times, the Sanhedrin was composed of seventy-one members (the High Priest, a vice chief justice and sixty-nine lower courts). The Pharisees (e.g. Nicodemus, John 3:1 - 10) as well as the Sadducees, scribes, elders and possibly others, were represented on the council. The High Priest always wore a black robe. 

The United States Supreme Court is made up of nine Justices and one Chief Justice (High Priest)  and operate the same way as the Sanhedrin did. They render opinions based on their interpretation of "legal and illegal" and "political correct" rather than the common sense law of right and wrong.

 

The simple black robe has quite a tradition as the "uniform" of justice in the United States dating back to Deuteronomy. The black robe links judges together as they interpret and apply the law in hundreds of courtrooms throughout the United States. 

 

Tower of Babel

 

 

Organized religion is the modern day equivalent of the Tower of Babel. Organized religion says we need to get it together to find God. Jesus says we need to find God to get it together. The "know-it-all-we-are-the-one-and-only" type religious organizations do the Gospel of the Kingdom great harm.

 

“Woe to you, scribes (Bible translators) and Pharisees, hypocrites! (self-righteous preachers), For you travel land and sea to win one proselyte (a new believer), and when he is won, you make him twice as much a son of hell as yourselves." (with false doctrines) ~ Matthew 23:15 

Jesus said, “I thank You, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that You have hidden these things from the wise and prudent and have revealed them to babes." (people with a sincere humble spirit to learn the truth) ~ Matthew 11:25 

 

The Church Jesus built is not an earthly organization. It is found in the hearts of true Believers who seek first the Kingdom of God.

All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness,  that the man of God may be complete, thoroughly equipped for every good work. ~ 2 Timothy 3:14-17

 

You are cordially invited to join Renew Your Strength Bible Study Group

 

Renew Your Strength is not a "know-it-all" type ministry. Renew Your Strength challenges people to think about what they believe and why they believe it, not debate who's right or wrong. To learn the revealed truth of God we must know and understand the true meaning of the original words God inspired to be written. Use Strong's Concordance to check the original word before it was translated. Do your own research, make up your own mind, rely on the Holy Spirit to guide you. 

 

 

Great Day of the Lord

 

Zephaniah is a book of the Bible that is seldom read. However, God gave Zephaniah insight on what will happen when the day of the LORD is near.

The word of the Lord which came to Zephaniah 1:14 -19

The great day of the Lord is near; (the Lord has spoken). It is near and hastens quickly (quicker than we think). The noise of the day of the Lord is bitter; (a resentful, angry feeling towards God's word) There the mighty men shall cry out. (power comes from God not our own arrogance, experience, or strength.

 

That day is a day of wrath, (righteous judgment).A day of trouble and distress, (everyone who does evil will suffer trouble and distress). A day of devastation and desolation, (infrastructure destroyed and people dying young). A day of darkness and gloominess, (mental illness and anxiety. A day of clouds and thick darkness, (God's word is hidden in thick darkness to unbelievers).

 

A day of trumpet and alarm (ignoring God's warnings). Against the fortified cities (relying on military power for protection). And against the high towers (thinking there is safety in modern buildings or bomb shelters).

You are cordially invited to Renew Your Strength Bible Study... https://mlf1070.blogspot.com/2021/01/renew.html

 

The Promise to Abraham

 

God Made an Unconditional Promise to Abraham and His Descendants.

The story unfolds in the Old Testament in the book of Genesis and confirmed in the New Testament.

• Genesis 17:5
  No longer shall your name be called Abram, but your name shall be Abraham; for I have made you a father of many nations (nationalities). Abraham is indeed the father of many nationalities: His son Ishmael grew into a mighty nation and adopted Islam as his religion. 
   
  Abraham's younger son, Isaac had twin sons. Esau and Jacob whose name was changed to Israel, which means overcomer with the Mighty One. God always calls people by their personality traits. Esau who God hated for selling his birthright married the daughter of Ishmael, and adopted Judaism as his religion. 
   
  Jacob/Israel had 12 sons and one daughter. That family grew very large and became Christians when they heard the gospel. Most of Israel's descendants moved from Judea and Galilee to Europe, Great Britain, North America, Australia, and many other countries when they colonized the world. As bad as colonization was, it helped spread the gospel and the promise to Abraham. ~ Genesis 22:18
  
  
  
• Genesis 17:9
  And God said to Abraham: “As for you, you shall keep My covenant, you and your descendants after you throughout their generations."

In Genesis 22: 15-19, Abraham's faith was rewarded.

In the New Testament the Promise is Remembered

 

Acts 7:5

And God gave him no inheritance in it, not even enough to set his foot on. But even when Abraham had no child, He promised to give it to him for a possession, and to his descendants after him.

In 1910, about two-thirds of the world’s Christians lived in Europe, where the bulk of Christians had been for a millennium, according to historical estimates by the Center for the Study of Global Christianity. Today, only about a quarter of all Christians live in Europe (26%). A plurality – more than a third – now are in the Americas (37%).

A comprehensive demographic study of more than 200 countries finds that there are 2.18 billion Christians of all ages around the world, representing nearly a third of the estimated 2010 global population of 6.9 billion. Christians are also geographically widespread – so far-flung, in fact, that no single continent or region can indisputably claim to be the center of global Christianity, in the United States 62% identify as Christian, the highest percentage of any country.

Where Are the Descendants of Abraham Today? 

Galatians 3:29

And if you are Christ’s, then you are Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise.

No only does Abraham have physical descendants, but also spiritual "descendants" of every nation who have accepted Christ and are grafted into a better covenant.  

 

Hebrews 8:6

But now He has obtained a more excellent ministry, inasmuch as He (Jesus) is also Mediator of a better covenant, which was established on better promises.

 

Genesis 26:4

When you think of all the people who have lived and died since God made the promise to Abraham, they really are as numerous as the stars. God always keeps His promises.

 

You are cordially invited to Renew Your Strength Bible Study... https://mlf1070.blogspot.com/2021/01/renew.html

 

 

Career Politicians Are The Scourge of The Earth

Don’t be naive. Nobody who has spent their entire career in politics “cares about you.” They just tell you what you want to hear to get re-elected. 

 

Never re-elect anyone. Public service is a brief civic duty, not a career. If voting changed things it would be illegal.

People who care about other people go into nursing, not politics.

 

 

Forgotten Book of the Bible

 

 

^{Curses For Disobedience ~ Deuteronomy 28:15-68}

¹⁵ “But it shall come to pass, if you do not obey the voice of the Lord your God, to observe carefully all His commandments and His statutes which I command you today, that all these curses will come upon you and overtake you:

¹⁶ “Cursed shall you be in the city, and cursed shall you be in the country. (rampant crime, mass murders)

¹⁷ “Cursed shall be your basket and your kneading bowl. (frankenfood and sky high groceries prices)

¹⁸ “Cursed shall be the fruit of your body and the produce of your land, the increase of your cattle and the offspring of your flocks. (increase in childhood diseases, bio-engineered food, animals filled with toxic chemicals)

¹⁹ “Cursed shall you be when you come in, and cursed shall you be when you go out. (domestic violence, carjacking)

²⁰ “The Lord will send on you cursing, confusion, and rebuke in all that you set your hand to do, until you are destroyed and until you perish quickly, because of the wickedness of your doings in which you have forsaken Me. (non-believers and pretend Christians) 

²¹ The Lord will make the plague (AI, pandemics, and chemical weapons) cling to you until He has consumed you from the land which you are going to possess.  

²² The Lord will strike you with consumption, with fever, with inflammation, with severe burning fever, with the sword, with scorching, and with mildew; they shall pursue you until you perish.  

²³ And your heavens which are over your head shall be bronze, and the earth which is under you shall be iron.  

²⁴ The Lord will change the rain of your land to powder and dust; from the heaven it shall come down on you until you are destroyed. (destructive weather)

²⁵ The Lord will cause you to be defeated before your enemies; (United States has not won a war since 1945) you shall go out one way against them and flee seven ways before them; and you shall become troublesome to all the kingdoms of the earth.  

²⁶ Your carcasses shall be food for all the birds of the air and the beasts of the earth, and no one shall frighten them away.

²⁷ The Lord will strike you with the boils of Egypt, with tumors, with the scab, and with the itch, from which you cannot be healed. (heart disease and cancer)  

²⁸ The Lord will strike you with madness and blindness and confusion of heart (LGBTQ)^.  

²⁹ And you shall grope at noonday, as a blind man gropes in darkness; you shall not prosper in your ways; (drowning in debt) you shall be only oppressed and plundered continually, and no one shall save you. (IRS and government regulations)

³⁰ “You shall betroth a wife, but another man shall lie with her; you shall build a house, but you shall not dwell in it; you shall plant a vineyard, but shall not gather its grapes.  

³¹ Your ox shall be slaughtered before your eyes, but you shall not eat of it; your donkey shall be violently taken away from before you, and shall not be restored to you; your sheep shall be given to your enemies, and you shall have no one to rescue them. (confiscation laws)  

³² Your sons and your daughters shall be given to another people, (illegal aliens) and your eyes shall look and fail with longing for them all day long; and there shall be no strength in your hand.  

³³ A nation whom you have not known shall eat the fruit of your land and the produce of your labor, and you shall be only oppressed and crushed continually. (China)  

³⁴ So you shall be driven mad because of the sight which your eyes see. 

³⁵ The Lord will strike you in the knees and on the legs with severe boils which cannot be healed, and from the sole of your foot to the top of your head.

³⁶ “The Lord will bring you and the king (president) whom you set over you to a nation which neither you nor your fathers have known, and there you shall serve other gods—wood and stone. 

³⁷ And you shall become an astonishment, a proverb, and a byword among all nations where the Lord will drive you.

³⁸ “You shall carry much seed out to the field but gather little in, for the locust shall consume it.  

³⁹ You shall plant vineyards and tend them, but you shall neither drink of the wine nor gather the grapes; for the worms shall eat them.  

⁴⁰ You shall have olive trees throughout all your territory, but you shall not anoint yourself with the oil; for your olives shall drop off.  

⁴¹ You shall beget sons and daughters, but they shall not be yours; for they shall go into captivity. (sin).  

⁴² Locusts shall consume all your trees and the produce of your land. (swarms of government agencies)

⁴³ “The alien who is among you shall rise higher and higher above you, and you shall come down lower and lower.  

⁴⁴ He shall lend to you, but you shall not lend to him; he shall be the head, and you shall be the tail.

⁴⁵ Moreover all these curses shall come upon you and pursue and overtake you, until you are destroyed, because you did not obey the voice of the Lord your God, to keep His commandments and His statutes which He commanded you. 

⁴⁶ And they shall be upon you for a sign and a wonder, and on your descendants forever.

⁴⁷ Because you did not serve the Lord your God with joy and gladness of heart, for the abundance of everything,  

⁴⁸ therefore you shall serve your enemies, whom the Lord will send against you, in hunger, in thirst, in nakedness, and in need of everything; and He will put a yoke of iron on your neck until He has destroyed you. 

⁴⁹ The Lord will bring a nation against you from afar, from the end of the earth, as swift as the eagle flies, a nation whose language you will not understand,  

⁵⁰ a nation of fierce countenance, which does not respect the elderly nor show favor to the young.  

⁵¹ And they shall eat the increase of your livestock and the produce of your land, until you are destroyed; they shall not leave you grain or new wine or oil, or the increase of your cattle or the offspring of your flocks, until they have destroyed you. (Russia)

⁵² They shall besiege you at all your gates until your high and fortified walls, in which you trust, come down throughout all your land; and they shall besiege you at all your gates throughout all your land which the Lord your God has given you.  

⁵³ You shall eat the fruit of your own body, the flesh of your sons and your daughters whom the Lord your God has given you, in the siege and desperate straits in which your enemy shall distress you.(this happened in 70 AD at the siege of Jerusalem and could happen again).  

⁵⁴ The sensitive and very refined man among you will be hostile toward his brother, toward the wife of his bosom, and toward the rest of his children whom he leaves behind, 

⁵⁵ so that he will not give any of them the flesh of his children whom he will eat, because he has nothing left in the siege and desperate straits in which your enemy shall distress you at all your gates. 

⁵⁶ The tender and delicate woman among you, who would not venture to set the sole of her foot on the ground because of her delicateness and sensitivity, will refuse to the husband of her bosom, and to her son and her daughter, 

⁵⁷ her placenta which comes out from between her feet and her children whom she bears; for she will eat them secretly for lack of everything in the siege and desperate straits in which your enemy shall distress you at all your gates.

⁵⁸ “If you do not carefully observe all the words of this law that are written in this book, that you may fear this glorious and awesome name, YAHWEH YOUR GOD.  

⁵⁹ then the Lord will bring upon you and your descendants extraordinary plagues—great and prolonged plagues—and serious and prolonged sicknesses. 

⁶⁰ Moreover He will bring back on you all the diseases of Egypt, of which you were afraid, and they shall cling to you. 

⁶¹ Also every sickness and every plague, which is not written in this Book of the Law, will the Lord bring upon you until you are destroyed.  

⁶² You shall be left few in number, whereas you were as the stars of heaven in multitude, because you would not obey the voice of the Lord your God. 

⁶³ And it shall be, that just as the Lord rejoiced over you to do you good and multiply you, so the Lord will rejoice over you to destroy you and bring you to nothing; and you shall be plucked from off the land which you go to possess.

⁶⁴ Then the Lord will scatter you among all peoples, from one end of the earth to the other, and there you shall serve other gods, which neither you nor your fathers have known—wood and stone.  

⁶⁵ And among those nations you shall find no rest, nor shall the sole of your foot have a resting place; but there the Lord will give you a trembling heart, failing eyes, and anguish of soul.  

⁶⁶ Your life shall hang in doubt before you; you shall fear day and night, and have no assurance of life.  

⁶⁷ In the morning you shall say, ‘Oh, that it were evening!’ And at evening you shall say, ‘Oh, that it were morning!’ because of the fear which terrifies your heart, and because of the sight which your eyes see. (those days are coming)

⁶⁸ And the Lord will take you back to Egypt (symbol for bondage and sin) in ships, by the way of which I said to you, ‘You shall never see it again.’ And there you shall be offered for sale to your enemies as male and female slaves, but no one will buy you.” (this is speaking of being offered for sale, but so worthless no one will buy you. It also refers to employment. Who wants an employee with no integrity?)

Notice it is the Lord who does all things, not the devil. That's why Satan is so popular... he encourages you do anything that is contrary to God's instructions.

 

​There is hope... 2 Chronicles 7:14

 

Plant A Tree

 

Even Rocks Can Grow A Tree

Plant A Humanitarian Tree