Because HE Promised ! ! !
How awesome a thought is that…. Because HE Promised.

God has made so very many promises in HIS Word. If you look back into the past you will see that HE has kept each and every one of them. And because HE has kept every single one of them in the past, HE cannot but help to keep all the others that HE has made for the future.

Because GOD does NOT Lie! (Titus 1:2) Jesus is the one who IS and WAS and IS to Come.

He already came the first time and has promised to come the second time for you and I. He said I have the keys and I am coming. Those are the keys that will unlock our eternal homes in heaven that He has prepared for each of us…personally.

Did you know for a while God had a home here on earth? For 40 years He lived in a Tabernacle / tent with His people. Then later He lived in a building called the Temple in His City called Jerusalem.
Today He lives within born again clay pots with hearts of flesh that pump Royal Blood.

In the early days of the Tabernacle there was a veil. This was the veil drawn across the opening to the Holy of Holies. The veil was 4 inches thick, 60 feet wide and 30 feet high. Behind this Veil was the Holy of Holies that contained the Ark of the Covenant. The Ark of the Covenant contained 3 items. The two Stone tablets upon which God wrote His 10 Commandments into the stone using His Finger.

The Rod of Aaron, forever young with buds on it that Moses stretched out before the waters of the Red Sea as the very breath of God parted the waters into canyon walls on either side of the dry land so that the Israelites could walk away from the Egyptians to safety. And a Bowl that contains Angel Food called Manna. God provided Manna every morning to the generation of Jews that turned to the golden calf in their unbelief, and were cursed by God to wander 40 years in the desert, until they were no more.

On top of the Ark of the Covenant was the Mercy Seat that God sat on when He came into the Tabernacle to be with His wandering Jews and to meet with Moses face to face. God led those wandering Jews in the desert by a Pillar of Cloud by day and a Pillar of Fire by night. A Pillar that could be seen from 40 miles away from any direction within the camp.

Later in the Temple Building the High Priest was able to go through the veil one day a year and stand before the Mercy Seat to offer a Sacrifice on behalf of the Nation of Israel in Atonement for the Sins of the Nation. It took many priests on either side pulling this magnificent 4 inch thick Tapestry apart to allow one priest, once a year to gain entrance to stand before God with the offering.

It was this Veil this curtain that blocked the entrance into the Holy of Holies that God Himself tore apart with His finger opening it wide for all to come in. God tore open the Veil at the exact moment His Son Jesus gave up His life on the Cross.

Then in 70 AD God allowed the Temple to be destroyed sending another message to all people throughout time.
The Jewish sacrificial system was now finished, forever. Jesus had died as the unblemished Lamb of God to take away the sins of all who turn to His Cross and Believe in HIM. He died once for all sins, past, present and future.

Yet the Nation of Israel, that had visibly seen the miracles of God; continue to this day to have another veil blocking them from coming to God. This veil is in front of their eyes and minds and their hearts that are currently made of Stone.

When a Jew dies there is a Tradition that no headstone be placed at the gravesite. The headstone is placed one year later during an unveiling ceremony. At that time the living, are called to come to honor the dead at the gravesite. If you were there you would notice, that a veil covers the headstone. We come together to honor the dead and for the family members to say the mourners prayer for the soul of the departed. When finished the veil is removed. Then each person places a small stone on the headstone, indicating they visited to honor the departed.

I remember the unveiling of my 92 year old Aunt who was the last Holocaust Survivor of my immediate family. It was 12 months since her burial and we had gathered for the Jewish tradition of this headstone unveiling ceremony. As the events began I could not help but get lost in the rush of memories that overtook me. Even though God tore the veil of the Temple to the Holy of Holies opening the way to HIMSELF, there remains to this day a veil over the eyes of the Jewish people, ( Isaiah 6: 9-13 ) and ALL of Mankind.

That veil is just as large and just as strong, just as insurmountable as the first veil was in the Holy of Holies. It took God to open that veil and it takes God to open the veil over the eyes, hearts and minds of ALL People who do not know the Son of God, Jesus as their Savior, their Messiah and Lord.

I came to this unveiling with dead emotions, because this was the last Holocaust Survivor in my family to become a memory to me. She has taken her place in my mind and heart along side my Mother and Father and Aunts and Uncles. All who died not knowing their Savior. This was the same Aunt that threw me out of my family when I came to her asking that she listen to my explanation of my newfound faith in Jesus as the Jewish Messiah.

When I met her again after the passing of 10 years she embraced me with tears. She had forgotten it all, as she opened her arms to me wondering why she had not seen me for so long. I now find myself looking down at her headstone. There were people crying all around me, her daughter, and her son, and her grandchildren…my first cousins, all recognizing this moment in life that is so bitter for us all.

Then they went through this prayer for the dead. I recalled saying the very same prayers for my Father and my Mother before I became a believer in Christ. And then the rabbi said to us that God has taken my Aunt into heaven because of the many mitzvah’s, good works she had done that God now counted to her Soul as Righteousness. Then I thought again of the veil covering the eyes, and hearts and minds of the Jewish people today.

NO ONE can be Righteous before God who is Holy, Holy, Holy. You CANNOT earn your way into heaven. It says that in the Old Testament and its even clearer in the (Jewish) New Testament. So as everyone repeated this Prayer for the Dead, I was praying as hard as I could that God would lift the veil, on that day, off of those standing around me at the grave site. Pleading in my heart of hearts that they would no longer be Blind and Deaf having no Discernment of the Words of God written in their own Torah.

I prayed that God would lift the veil so they might see their Messiah, Jesus the Son of God lifted on High.
That they would be able to step out of the long, long, tragic line of people that do not know Christ as their Savior and Lord. A line that began formation outside the Garden of Eden, and has continued throughout history to this very day.

A line made up of all Non Believers in Christ. A line like the one that was formed during the Holocaust as Jews continued on their way into the gas chambers…into an Eternity without God…never coming to know their Savior. When we think of the tearing of the veil we need to think of the body of Christ, which was torn open by the spear, just as the veil was.
The way to the FATHER is now open to ALL through HIS SON.

I keep trying to look at the events of Scripture through Jewish eyes because the events happened in Jewish context. I found something interesting. It opens yet another way to look at the event of the tearing of the veil when Jesus died on the Cross. “And Jesus uttered a loud cry and breathed His last. And the veil of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom.” (Mark 15:37-38).

“It is as if God in person acts as any devoted Jewish father would have done standing by His own Son’s deathbed… He rent ( tore open) His garments. The customary Jewish mourning gesture of a father was to tear his outer garment.” Anonymous.

The more I read Scripture, the more the Holy Spirit helps me to find deeper Truth. No one could have written our Bible but God. Weaving a tapestry, a Love story so layered, interwoven and deep that it rewards us with Gold Nuggets in the most unforeseen places if we but look.

The Apostle Paul (Rabbi Sha’ul) said it best in (Romans 11:33)

“O the depth of the riches
And the wisdom and knowledge of God!
How inscrutable are His judgments!
How unsearchable are His ways!
For from Him and through Him
And to Him are all things.
To Him be the Glory forever!

In Jerusalem the Archeologists found a graveyard where the first century Messianic Believers (Christian’s) were buried. Almost one hundred gravestones were unearthed from the Judean soil. Each had the same word engraved in the stone. No name, no birth date or date of death, no quip or slogan left behind. Only one word that covered each of them for Eternity was engraved on their gravestones.

AMEMTAS. A Greek word that means BLAMELESS.

If you believe in Jesus, then your name is already Engraved on the very Palm of Gods Hand.
Heavenly Father, Holy Spirit, What we know not…Teach US. What we have not…Grant US. What we are not…Make US.
ABBA, I ask this of you, in the Name Above All Names…JESUS.

Lord JESUS… SAVE US from ourselves so that we will be BLAMELESS when we stand before you at the door of Heaven. AMEN and AMEN