I want to tell you a story about a tree. Not a metaphor yet, but a real one. A hundred years ago, on the edge of a small town, a grandfather planted an apple sapling for his newborn son. He tended it. His son climbed it, built a treehouse in it, and as a man, harvested its fruit for his own family. The neighborhood knew that tree. Kids knew which branch would hold their swing. The scent of its blossoms meant spring; the tart crunch of its apples meant fall. It was a landmark, a silent witness to generations.

Now, I want you to see that same spot today. The house is gone, replaced by a concrete slab. The yard is a tangle of weeds and litter. And the tree? It’s a twisted, skeletal thing. Its bark is scarred with graffiti. Its few remaining branches are brittle, bearing only hard, worm-ridden knots that no one would call fruit. It’s not dead, but it is diseased to its core. It no longer gives life. It’s a monument to decay.

This tree is our story. The story of the last hundred years.

We look around at our world, at the normalized lawlessness, the fractured families, the hollowed-out churches, the tension that hums in every city street…and we wonder, “How did we get here?” We’re like the grandson staring at the gnarled, fruitless tree, struggling to imagine it ever being healthy. We’re told this is progress. We’re told we have more freedom, more rights. Yet we feel a deep poverty. We work more for less. We are connected yet profoundly lonely. We have entertainment, but no peace. We have information, but no wisdom. We have rights, but no righteousness.

We are living in the harvest of a diseased tree. And we must understand that this harvest did not appear by chance.

The rot began where all life begins: at the root. And our root, our first and most fundamental institution, is the family, under the headship of the father, under the authority of Yahusha, under the blessing of Yahuah. When that order is rejected, the entire organism sickens.

The Unraveling: A Chain Reaction of Failure

Our spiritual autopsy must begin where Paul directs our gaze: “For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.” (Ephesians 6:12, ESV). This is the critical first truth. Our battle is not primarily against people, policies, or social trends. Those are merely the symptoms manifesting in the flesh. The war is first waged and lost in the spiritual realm.

The chain reaction is visible, but its origin is invisible.

Churches failed. They ceased being pillars of truth and lamps on a hill. They traded the narrow way for the broad path of cultural relevance. They offered therapy, not transformation; comfort, not conviction. They stopped teaching the Bible from beginning to the end and began teaching selective passages, which are embedded in man made doctrine and traditions. When the Church abdicated its role as the guardian of divine Holy truth, it created a spiritual vacuum.

As a response to failed churches, churches became businesses. The focus shifted from discipleship to attendance, from holiness to budgets, from the message of the cross to the method of the market. The house of prayer became a corporation with a spiritual mission statement. More buildings sprung up, but the power was departing.

When the Church, the spiritual foundation, crumbled, the earthly foundation was next to crack. Fathers failed. They abandoned their posts. They traded their sacred duty as protector, provider, and priest of the home for the pursuit of comfort, prestige, or mere escape. They left a void where godly authority and loving discipline should have been.

As a response to fathers failing, mothers were forced to play the role of both mom and dad. This was not a liberation; it was a crushing, doubling of burden. The rational, necessary response to this abandonment was a social movement that sought to empower women to do it all, because men would not do their part. Feminism, in its modern form, is the logical fruit of widespread paternal failure.

The fruit of this broken family unit was inevitable. As a result of broken families, the children in the neighborhood became lawless. A child with no father has no living picture of a loving, strong, protective authority. He rejects all authority. A child raised in instability, stress, and the chaos of a broken home learns that the world is not safe, that commitments are not kept, that love is conditional. He becomes a fortress of self-reliance or a vacuum of neediness. He becomes easy prey.

Neighborhoods fell apart. The communal fabric, woven from strong families who knew each other, looked out for each other, and held each other’s children accountable, frayed and tore. Suspicion replaced trust. Anonymity replaced community.

Entire communities, followed by cities, broke up and fell apart. We traded front porches for fenced backyards, then for high-rise balconies. We replaced the shared responsibility of a village with the cold, distant bureaucracy of a city department.

This was not an accident. It was a cascade. A spiritual failure at the top (the Church) led to a failure of earthly authority (fathers), which collapsed the primary cell of society (the family), which destroyed the connective tissue (the neighborhood), which doomed the larger body (the community, the city).

We can trace this sickness through the headlines of the last century. Watch the language shift. Watch the “troubled youth” of the 50s become the “delinquents” of the 70s, the “gangs” of the 90s, and the “violent flash mobs” of today. Watch the celebration of the “single mother doing it all” morph into the normalization of fatherlessness as just another “family structure.” The fruit tells you everything about the tree.

The Seeds of the Thistle

So what seeds were planted to produce this harvest of thorns? You named them. They are the tools of the “cosmic powers over this present darkness.”

Drugs to numb the pain of the fatherless, to pacify the angry, to enslave the searching soul to a chemical master.

Guns in the hands of the lawless, a symbol of the fear and chaos that fills the vacuum where peace and order should be.

Media to shape the perception, to sell the lie that broken is beautiful, that rebellion is freedom, that you are the god of your own universe.

Educational System Programming to institutionalize the lie, to separate generations from His story, from truth, from the very concept of a Creator to whom we are accountable.

These are not random social ills. They are strategic weapons in a spiritual war. Their purpose is to cement the delusion.

And what is that delusion? The prophet Isaiah named it a millennia ago: “Woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkness, who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter!” (Isaiah 5:20, ESV).

We are living in the age of the Great Exchange. Paul diagnosed it in Romans 1:25: They “exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator.” We traded the infinite for the finite, the eternal for the temporary, a world of multiplication for one of extraction, the Creator for the creations.

And when a society persistently, willfully makes that trade, a terrifying judicial act occurs. Yahuah, in His righteous judgment, hands them over. “Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity…” (Romans 1:24, ESV). And for those who refuse to love the truth, “God sends them a strong delusion, so that they may believe what is false” (2 Thessalonians 2:11, ESV). The lie becomes our reality. The inverted moral compass becomes our only guide.

This is why our leaders proclaim madness with a straight face. This is why the culture celebrates what Yahuah calls an abomination. Jeremiah saw it in his day: “The prophets prophesy falsely, and the priests rule at their direction; and my people love to have it so” (Jeremiah 5:31, ESV). We have learned to love the lie because the truth demands something of us: repentance, humility, surrender.

A Life Under the Hater

This brings us to the stark choice laid out before us. We must open our eyes to whose world we are living in.

Imagine living in a time where we are taught by the one that hates us. From kindergarten through graduate school, we are taught a story of cosmic accident, of human sovereignty, of moral relativity. We are taught we are advanced animals, our lives have no inherent purpose, and our highest goal is our own pleasure and fulfillment. This is the curriculum of the hater, designed to separate us from the knowledge of our Creator.

Imagine living in a time where we toil for the one that hates us. We spend 40, 50, 60 hours a week building systems, companies, and economies that are fundamentally built on greed, exploitation, and vanity. Our labor is co-opted to enrich the very principality that despises the image of God in us.

Imagine living in a time where who our enemy is, is defined by the one that hates us. We are told our enemy is our neighbor who votes differently, or a people group across the globe, or a “system” that we must tear down. We are never told our true, ancient enemy is the spiritual force that feeds on this division and hatred.

Imagine living in a time where the food we eat is produced and concocted by the one that hates us. It is designed not for nourishment, but for addiction, for sickness, for dependency. It weakens the temple of the Holy Spirit.

Imagine living in a time when we are taught who we are and where we come from by the one that hates us. Our identities are reduced to race, gender, sexuality, political tribe, or consumption habits. We are told we are products of meaningless forces, not beloved creations fashioned in the very image of God.

Imagine living in a time where the medicine we use to heal our bodies is produced by the one that hates us. It often treats symptoms while ignoring root causes, creates lifelong customers rather than healed people, and often becomes another chain of dependency and profit.

This is our reality. We have become walking advertisements for the products of our own destruction. We consume the poison and call it progress. We wear the chains and call them jewelry. This is the pinnacle of lawlessness: a life willingly surrendered to a rebellious creation, while spurning the loving Creator.

And we think the solution is more laws. More regulations. More government programs. But we cannot legislate a heart. We cannot reverse spiritual decay with a political policy. Chaos, once unleashed, has only one natural direction: increase. A society can, at best, build a dam to hold it back for a season. But the pressure builds. The dam cracks. The chaos floods through again, worse than before. We are watching the dam crack.

The Good Tree: A Life Under the Creator

But there is another reality. A parallel kingdom. It exists right now, in the midst of the chaos. It is the Kingdom of the One who created us, who loves us, who redeemed us.

Imagine living in a time where we are taught by the one that created us. His Word becomes our lens. We learn wisdom, not just information. We understand our origin, our purpose, our destiny. We are taught by the Spirit of Truth Himself.

Imagine living in a time where we toil for the one that created us. Our work, however mundane, becomes an act of worship. We see our labor as a stewardship, a way to provide, to create, to serve others, and to glorify Him. Our vocations become our ministries.

Imagine living in a time where who our enemy is, is defined by the one that created us. We recognize the true battle is “against the spiritual forces of evil.” Our human neighbor is not the enemy; he is a captive we are called to love and free. Our fight is against the lies that bind him.

Imagine living in a time where who our friend is, is defined by the one that created us. Our fellowship is with those who fear the Lord. Our community is the body of Messiah. We are surrounded by a great cloud of witnesses, past and present.

Imagine living in a time where the food we eat is produced by the one that created us. We seek to nourish the bodies He gave us with what He designed for them. We eat with gratitude, seeing it as provision and a reminder of His faithfulness.

Imagine living in a time when we are taught who we are and where we come from by the one that created us. We are the children of the King. We are image-bearers of the Most High. We are known, chosen, and loved from before the foundation of the world. Our identity is unshakeable because it is rooted in Him.

Imagine living in a time where the medicine we use to heal our bodies is produced by the one that created us. We seek the healing properties in His creation. We understand that true healing often involves the spirit and soul as much as the body. We trust in His wisdom for our health.

This is not a fantasy. This is the offered reality for those who are in Messiah Yahusha. It is a transfer of kingdoms. It is a shift in citizenship. It is choosing which tree we will draw our life from.

Yahusha was brutally direct about this. “Beware of false prophets… You will recognize them by their fruits. Are grapes gathered from thornbushes, or figs from thistles? So, every healthy tree bears good fruit, but the diseased tree bears bad fruit. A healthy tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a diseased tree bear good fruit” (Matthew 7:15-18, ESV).

Look at the fruit of the last hundred years. Look at the harvest of our cultural tree. Is it love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control? Or is it anxiety, depression, division, rage, addiction, perversion, and death?

The fruit tells you the root. We are feasting from a diseased tree. A thornbush. A thistle.

The Path Back: Grafting onto the Good Tree

So what do we do? We don’t start by trying to fix the tree. We start by fleeing from it. We start by being grafted onto the good tree.

The path back begins with a question from the Psalms, a question that cuts through every layer of delusion: “O LORD, who shall sojourn in your tent? Who shall dwell on your holy hill?” (Psalm 15:1, ESV).

The answer is not a politician, a program, or a policy. The answer is a person. A person who “walks blamelessly and does what is right and speaks truth in his heart.” It starts in the heart. It begins with us, in our closets, on our knees, speaking truth in our own hearts. Admitting the delusion we’ve believed. Repenting of the lies we’ve loved. Turning away from the diseased tree and its rotten fruit.

It means looking at our own lives, our families, our choices, and asking: “What fruit are we producing? Does it resemble the fruit of the Spirit, or the fruit of this present age?” This is the personal autopsy that must precede the cultural one.

We must stop consuming from the orchard of the hater. We begin the slow, often difficult process of aligning every part of our lives, what we learn, what we watch, what we buy, what we eat, how we work, how we raise our children…back under the authority of the One who created us and loves us.

We reconnect with the true Vine. Yahusha said, “I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing” (John 15:5, ESV). Our power to produce any good thing, to resist the decay, to be a source of life in a dying world, comes only from abiding in Him. It is not a self-help program. It is a total dependency on divine life.

This is how order is derived from chaos. Not from within the chaos, but from outside it. “The earth was without form and void, and darkness was over the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters” (Genesis 1:2, ESV). The Spirit hovered. Then He spoke. And order came. Light broke in.

He must hover over the chaos of our hearts, our families, our lives. Then we must let Him speak His Word into it. His Word brings order. His Word brings light. His Word brings life.

The societal decay may have begun in desperate and poor neighborhoods, but the spiritual decay began in the human heart. The healing must begin there, too. One heart at a time. One family at a time. One small, grafted branch on the good tree, beginning to bear the faint, first blossom of true fruit.

It will look foolish to the world. It will look like retreat. It will look like we are not “engaging with the culture.” But we are. We are engaging at the root level. We are planting a seed of the Kingdom in the ruined soil of our own lives. We are becoming a pocket of order within the chaos, a point of light within the darkness.

Woe are we, yes. The diagnosis is dire. The tree is diseased. The fruit is poison.

But hope is not found in nursing the diseased tree. Hope is found in the Good Tree. Hope is found in the One whose name is worthy. The One who brings order from chaos, light from darkness, and life from death.

The harvest of lawlessness is fully ripe. But so is the offer of the Kingdom.

Which tree will you draw your life from?

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I feel a nudge to share this video with you. It’s just shy of an hour in duration.

Check it out when you have some time and see if it speaks anything to you. I am not affiliated with them in any way. But I do own one of their Bibles and I use it conjunction with two other translations that I keep in physical form in my prayer closet.

That is all, and thank you for reading…and watching.

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I am sharing a variation of my prayer from this morning.

As I spoke the words, a specific name surfaced in my heart, a person I realized I hadn’t fully forgiven. In that moment, I repented, released the debt in prayer, and lifted that individual up. The act was less about them and more about a chain being dropped from my own soul.

So, if a face or a name comes to mind as you read this, don’t dismiss it as random. Listen. It may be the Spirit’s gentle nudge toward your own liberation.

“For if you forgive others their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you.” (Matthew 6:14, ESV)

Forgiveness isn’t a favor we grant another; it’s the freedom we grant ourselves.

Is there a name that surfaces for you today?

A Sunday morning prayer.

Good morning, Father Most High,

Hallowed, set-apart is Your name, here and nigh.

Your kingdom come, Your will be done,

On this spinning earth, beneath our sun,

As it is in heaven, where Your reign’s never undone.

Give us this day our daily bread,

And forgive our trespasses, as Your Word has said.

As we forgive those who’ve trespassed against us,

Teach us to release, without fret or fuss.

So, Father, I ask, search this heart of mine,

For any hidden grudge, any bitter line.

If there is one whom I hold unforgiven,

Shine Your light there, let that prison be riven.

I forgive them now, I release the debt,

For the one who wronged me, I won’t fret.

He is a good man, a family man, it’s true,

His problem with me is not mine to construe.

You are in him, just as You are in me,

We’re both Your creations, though broken we be.

Not sinless in my eyes, nor I in Yours,

We stand in the shadow of heaven’s opened doors.

But by grace, by mercy, Abba, so sweet,

By Yahusha’s sacrifice, laid at Your feet,

We are saved through Your resurrection, made complete.

Thank You, Father, for peace in this season’s embrace,

A stillness of soul, a gift of Your grace.

I pray now for loved ones, near and afar,

Bring clarity of thought, a circumcised heart.

Facilitate a path for their eyes to see,

The love that You are, that You’ve shown to me.

I believe Your timing is perfect, divine,

Your sovereign will in its own design.

May this simple prayer, in its imperfect rhyme,

Find its place within Your perfect time.

For I’ve come to see, in my walk so frail,

Your logic in moments will often veil.

We can’t understand the work that You do,

In the midst of the storm, in the grey and the blue.

But in the rearview mirror, looking back on the road,

Your purpose shines clear, Your mercy bestowed.

So I trust in this moment, though the picture is dim,

I trust in the path, though the edges are grim.

Give me ears to hear Your whisper, soft and low,

Give me courage, Father, Your commands to sow.

Give me a softened heart, pliable and true,

To walk through these days reflecting only You.

An image-bearer of Yahuah, honest and kind,

In the mighty, majestic name I find,

Yahusha the Messiah, just and loving, I pray,

Take these words, this heart, this new- dawning day.

Amen.

That is all, and thank you for reading.

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Today’s article was partly inspired by a note I saw from a fellow writer on Substack. Regardless of whether you have the gift or not, there is a healthy exercise in the article that we can all benefit from.

She shared an article titled “Are We Using Tongues to Avoid Talking to God?” and posed a simple, piercing challenge: can you praise Jesus in your native language for longer than two minutes? It struck a chord. It connected to a tension I’ve carried for a while, one I need to speak into today. I want to talk about something that makes many believers uncomfortable: the gift of tongues. Specifically, the fine line where a gift from the Most High can, in practice, become a stumbling block. Where edification for one can feel like alienation for another. Where the Spirit’s language can, in the wrong context, sound like a spell.

I don’t “think” I have ever spoken in tongues. I put “think” in quotes for a reason. On the night Yahuah revealed Himself to me for the first time, I fell to my knees, face to the floor. I prayed with an intensity I’d never known. It was a direct line from my heart to His. The edification that followed was a brand on my soul. Later, I grabbed my journal, desperate to capture it. The words I wrote were pathetic shadows. I had transmitted my entire life in three syllables, but my human language failed. I was alone. No one could tell me if what poured out was glossolalia…a heavenly language…or just the raw groanings of a spirit undone.

I’ve had a few more episodes like it since. Always alone. So I can’t confirm it.

Here’s my tension, and confession: the quickest way to lose my attention is for someone to break into tongues mid-message. Sermon, speech, lesson, once the words become indistinguishable, I tune out. My heart posture shifts to covert rejection. I don’t make a scene. I simply withdraw.

My justification is simple: if Yahuah wanted me to understand, to receive what was being said, He would have it delivered in a manner I could understand. The apostle Paul was crystal clear in 1 Corinthians 14. This chapter isn’t a suggestion; it’s a manual for order in worship, for the building up of the body. He writes, “If any speak in a tongue, let there be only two or at most three, and each in turn, and let someone interpret. But if there is no one to interpret, let each of them keep silent in church and speak to himself and to God.” (1 Corinthians 14:27-28). The purpose is stated plainly: “Since you are eager for manifestations of the Spirit, strive to excel in building up the church.” (1 Corinthians 14:12).

When one speaks in a tongue without interpretation in a gathering, who is being built up? The speaker may feel a profound, personal edification. I do not doubt that. But for the listener, it can feel like noise. At best, it’s a distraction. At worst, it becomes a barrier…a wall of sound between them and the Word. In a room full of seekers, skeptics, or young believers, it can feel like insider code, a performative display that separates the “spiritual” from the rest. It creates a caste system in the pews, and that should grieve us.

This is where it can edge toward something wicked. Not in intent, perhaps, but in effect. The enemy seeks to divide, to confuse, to elevate self over service. An uninterpreted public display, however sincere…can play right into that hand. It can turn a gift meant for building up into a tool for isolation. It becomes about the personal experience of the one, not the edification of the many. It risks becoming spiritual performance art.

This connects to that challenge: can you praise Jesus in your native language for longer than two minutes? If we cannot, what does that say about the depth of our relationship? Are we using a spiritual gift as a shortcut, a substitute for the harder, more vulnerable work of articulating our love, our need, our repentance, our awe in words we…and others can understand? Tongues can become a hiding place. A place to feel spiritual without having to be vulnerable, without having to craft a prayer of thanksgiving or confession that costs us something.

The true gift, I believe, is clarity. The Spirit’s primary work is to reveal Yahusha, not to obscure Him behind a veil of impenetrable mystery. “For God is not a God of confusion but of peace.” (1 Corinthians 14:33). If a message is for the body, the Spirit will provide the understanding. If it is private, between a person and God, it belongs in the closet, like my own uncertain experiences. Out in the open, our chief concern must be love, and “love builds up.” (1 Corinthians 8:1).

So, I am not against the gift. I am for the body. I am for the stranger in the back who needs the clarity of the Gospel, not confusion. I am for the young believer who needs doctrine they can grasp, not ecstatic experience they cannot. I am for the unity that comes when we speak not to showcase our spirituality, but to serve each other in love. Let all things be done decently and in order. Let all things be done for building up.

Otherwise, we risk speaking not in the Spirit’s language, but in a spell of our own making a spell of exclusivity, of confusion, of self-focused spirituality that forgets the stranger in our midst. The challenge stands. Let us strive to excel in building up the church, starting with the profound, difficult, and glorious work of praising our Savior in words we all can share.

Walk in the light you’ve been given.

That is all, and thank you for reading.

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I was doing some research on the words below and thought I’d share. Maybe there is something within that you find informative.

The word “hallelujah” comes straight from Hebrew. It’s a combination of two parts:

”Hallel” (הַלֵּל) means “to praise,” specifically to shine a light on or boast about something glorious. It’s an active, joyful command to celebrate.

”Jah” or “Yah” (יָהּ) is a shortened form of Yahweh, the personal name of God. You see it in names like Elijah (”My God is Yahweh”).

So, Hallelujah literally means ”Praise Yahweh” or ”Praise the Lord.”

You find it often in the Psalms as a call to worship. For example:

“Praise the Lord! Praise God in his sanctuary; praise him in his mighty heavens!”

(Psalm 150:1, ESV)

In Hebrew, that verse begins with ”Hallelujah.”

It’s a powerful word because it’s a direct address—a command to give all praise to the specific, covenant God of Israel, Yahweh. It wasn’t just a general exclamation; it was rooted in who He is and what He has done.

In the New Testament, “Hallelujah” bursts forth in heavenly worship in Revelation 19, celebrating God’s final victory:

“Hallelujah! Salvation and glory and power belong to our God.” (Revelation 19:1, ESV)

For us today, every time we say “Hallelujah,” we’re joining that ancient and eternal chorus, directing our praise specifically to Yahweh, the God who reveals Himself in Scripture and in Yahusha.

Now, some of you may have noticed I’ve recently began using Yahuah (sometimes Yahua) when referencing the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.

I’ve also been using Yahusha or my Master when referencing The Son, Jesus the Messiah.

Why?

I pray, meditate and speak to my Father in heaven. Some things are placed on my heart and these things change my behaviors in specific ways. This is one of those things. A relatively new personal conviction placed upon me.

The titles, god and lord feel broad to me. These titles are used synonymously with many gods and lords. I want to be explicitly clear who I am referring to when I am writing about the one I worship, my Father in heaven, the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. The creator of ALL.

Likewise, when I write about His Son, Yahusha. The one I glorify, praise and the name I pray in because He is perfect, sinless in the eyes of The Father Yahuah.

With all that said, I hold no judgements or opinions over what you choose to use when referring to The Father and Son. My decisions is perhaps something I’ll write more about in the future.

That is all, and thank you for reading.

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After these (almost) two years of reading my Bible almost daily, of wading through its infinite wisdom, its brutal history, its cosmic science and its raw sociology, I keep arriving at the same, simple, terrifying conclusion.

For the believer, for the walker of The Way, the point of the story isn’t hidden in a cryptic verse…

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I don’t wander often into fiction. But this morning, I woke up with a creative itch. So I sat down, fed some quirky parameters into the machine, and blended them with a few Bible passages that have been living rent-free in my head lately. This is what came out. I sat with it for a bit, and it resonated. So I’m sharing it with you.

In the days of the fathers, when the people dwelt in the land given to them, a word was spoken that became a curse woven into their bones: “You will soon utterly perish from the land… And the LORD will scatter you among the peoples, and you will be left few in number among the nations where the LORD will drive you.” They had forgotten. They had grown old in the land and acted corruptly, making carved images and doing what was evil in the sight of the LORD their God, provoking Him to anger. Heaven and earth themselves stood as witnesses against them.

So it came to pass. The One who had gathered them now scattered them. The winds of judgment blew from the four corners of the earth, and they were driven out. The once-chosen people were pulled from their ancestral soil and cast like seafoam upon the shores of strange lands. They were carried to the north country, to the coasts of the sea, to Egypt and Pathros, to Cush and Elam, to Shinar and Hamath, to Assyria. They were taken to the east country and the west country, their bonds burst only to be reforged in foreign shapes. They became servants in lands not their own, where they served gods of wood and stone that could not see, hear, eat, or smell.

Generations turned to dust in exile. In the far north, under iron skies, a people once called Israel huddled against the cold, their songs of Zion replaced by the guttural tongues of their captors. Their children knew the stories of a land flowing with milk and honey as a fairy tale, a cruel joke whispered before a meager fire. They faced contempt and violence, a byword among nations. In the southern deserts, others labored under a relentless sun, building monuments to kings who knew not Jacob. Their identity faded, bleached by the sun and seared by the lash. To the west, across the Great Sea, families were bartered and sold, their lineage dissolving into the sprawl of empires that rose and fell. In the eastern empires of vast wealth and deeper decadence, they were pressed into service, their souls dwindling like a guttering lamp.

They were few in number. They were outcasts in the uttermost parts of heaven. They were the remnant, a people overflowing with unrighteousness, leaning on those who struck them. Destruction had been decreed. A full end was promised to all the earth. They wandered, a flock without a shepherd, fearing, dismayed, many missing. They walked through fires of persecution and were consumed by waves of assimilation. The yoke was on their neck; foreigners made servants of them.

This was their portion for days without number. The world listened to its own; it spoke from the world, and the world heard it. A spirit of error covered the earth, a strong delusion given to those who refused to love the truth and had pleasure in unrighteousness. The ruler of that world worked with all power and false signs and wonders, and with all wicked deception. Yet, in their tribulation, a memory stirred. A law written on the heart, not on stone, echoed. “But from there you will seek the LORD your God and you will find him, if you search after him with all your heart and with all your soul… For the LORD your God is a merciful God. He will not leave you or destroy you or forget the covenant with your fathers that he swore to them.”

And so, in hidden rooms and barren fields, by foreign rivers and in slave quarters, they began to return. Not in body, but in spirit. They turned their faces toward a name they had nearly forgotten. They sought the LORD their God. They obeyed His voice from the depths of their distress. They were the blind and the lame, the pregnant woman and she who was in labor, brought low by the journey. They came with weeping and pleas for mercy. They chose the things that pleased Him. They held fast to a covenant they could barely remember. They kept their hand from doing any evil. They sought justice and did righteousness, waiting for a salvation they could not see.

And the LORD heard.

A day, great and like no other, a time of distress for Jacob, was also the dawn of his salvation. The word had come to the prophets: “Write in a book all the words that I have spoken to you. For behold, days are coming, declares the LORD, when I will restore the fortunes of my people, Israel and Judah, and I will bring them back to the land that I gave to their fathers, and they shall take possession of it.”

Thus says the Lord GOD: “I will bring you out from the peoples and gather you out of the countries where you are scattered, with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm, and with wrath poured out.” He who had scattered would now gather. He who had driven them with wrath would now lead them back with the tenderness of a father. “I will make them walk by brooks of water, in a straight path in which they shall not stumble, for I am a father to Israel, and Ephraim is my firstborn.”

The call went forth, a signal raised for the nations. “He will raise a signal for the nations and will assemble the banished of Israel, and gather the dispersed of Judah from the four corners of the earth.” To the north, He said, “Give up.” To the south, “Do not withhold.” He commanded: “Bring my sons from afar and my daughters from the end of the earth.” From the farthest parts of the earth, from the coastlands far away, He saved them. “I will save my people from the east country and from the west country, and I will bring them to dwell in the midst of Jerusalem.”

A great company, the remnant that remained, began the journey home. Not the great multitude as the sand of the sea, but a remnant saved. They leaned no longer on him who struck them, but on the LORD, the Holy One of Israel, in truth. They were the flock, once fragmented, now gathered. “Then I will gather the remnant of my flock out of all the countries where I have driven them, and I will bring them back to their fold, and they shall be fruitful and multiply. I will set shepherds over them who will care for them, and they shall fear no more, nor be dismayed, neither shall any be missing, declares the LORD.”

They returned to the land of Jacob. They rebuilt the ruined cities and inhabited them. They planted vineyards and drank their wine. They made gardens and ate their fruit. They built houses and dwelt securely. None made them afraid. The LORD executed judgments upon all their neighbors who had treated them with contempt. They were cleansed. They defiled themselves no more with idols or detestable things. “I will save them from all the backslidings in which they have sinned, and will cleanse them; and they shall be my people, and I will be their God.” He manifested His holiness in them in the sight of the nations. He was their God in faithfulness and in righteousness.

But the story did not end with the bloodline of Jacob alone. For the word had also gone out: “Hear the word of the LORD, O nations, and declare it in the coastlands far away.” The gathering was not merely a return of flesh, but a ingathering of spirit. The root of Jesse stood as a signal for the peoples. The nations inquired of him.

And the LORD, who gathers the outcasts of Israel, declared: “I will gather yet others to him besides those already gathered.” Who were these others? The foreigner who had joined himself to the LORD. The one who, though not born of the scattering, said, “The LORD will surely separate me from his people.” To them, the word came: Do not say you are a dry tree.

For thus said the LORD: “To the eunuchs who keep my Sabbaths, who choose the things that please me and hold fast my covenant, I will give in my house and within my walls a monument and a name better than sons and daughters; I will give them an everlasting name that shall not be cut off. And the foreigners who join themselves to the LORD, to minister to him, to love the name of the LORD, and to be his servants, everyone who keeps the Sabbath and does not profane it, and holds fast my covenant…these I will bring to my holy mountain, and make them joyful in my house of prayer; their burnt offerings and their sacrifices will be accepted on my altar; for my house shall be called a house of prayer for all peoples.”

The path was open. It was not of blood, but of spirit. It was of holding fast. It was of choosing the things that please Him. The one who worked, presenting themselves to God as one approved, a worker unashamed, rightly handling the word of truth, such a one could find a place. They would be grafted in. They would be brought to the holy mountain. They would partake of the joy. They would be gathered to the already-gathered flock.

A king was raised up for them, a righteous Branch for David. He would reign and deal wisely, executing justice and righteousness in the land. In his days Judah would be saved, and Israel would dwell securely. His name would be called: ‘The LORD is our righteousness.’ They would serve the LORD their God and David their king. The booth of David, fallen, would be repaired. Its ruins rebuilt.

And the people would say no longer, ‘As the LORD lives who brought up the people of Israel out of the land of Egypt,’ but ‘As the LORD lives who brought up and led the offspring of the house of Israel out of the north country and out of all the countries where he had driven them.’

The final gathering came. “For behold, in those days and at that time, when I restore the fortunes of Judah and Jerusalem, I will gather all the nations and bring them down to the Valley of Jehoshaphat. And I will enter into judgment with them there, on behalf of my people and my heritage Israel, because they have scattered them among the nations and have divided up my land.” Justice, long awaited, arrived.

And they dwelt. Secure. Planted. Never to be uprooted again. The promise to the fathers was kept. The scattered were found. The outcasts were brought home. And others, from the four corners, joined them. The tree, once shattered, now stood whole, its branches wider, its roots deeper, its fruit for the healing of the nations.

The LORD had done it.

Relevant Passages Utilized:

1. Deuteronomy 4:25-31

2. Nehemiah 1:8-9

3. Isaiah 10:20-23

4. Isaiah 11:10-12

5. Isaiah 41:8-10

6. Isaiah 43:1-6

7. Isaiah 56:1-8

8. Jeremiah 23:3-8 (utilized twice)

9. Jeremiah 30:1-4

10. Jeremiah 30:7-11

11. Jeremiah 31:7-11 (utilized twice)

12. Ezekiel 20:33-34

13. Ezekiel 28:25-26

14. Ezekiel 37:21-23

15. Hosea 3:5

16. Joel 3:1-2

17. Amos 9:11-15

18. Zechariah 8:7-8

19. Luke 23:26-34

20. John 14:29-30

21. 2 Thessalonians 2:9-12

22. 1 John 4:5-6

23. 2 Timothy 2:15

That is all, and thank you for reading.

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Thanks for your time and support.

Shashue Monrauch

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