“What’s the use? I’m gonna die anyway?”
His reply to my question was rather listless.
It started after Shabbat when I asked a young man in our fellowship what he wanted to study for and do when he finished school. He just shrugged his shoulders and said, “What’s the use? I’m gonna die anyway?”
I probed him with a couple more questions to diagnose the problem and quickly figured out that he was deeply concerned about the state of the world and the coming Great Tribulation. In his mind, there is nothing much to live for.
Why try?
My immediate response was a vigorous reminder that we have at least 1000 years to go! The Tribulation is not the end. It is a beginning!! A beginning to the millennial reign! Others gathered around, wondering what the hubbub was, and it turned into a wonderful impromptu lesson for all who had lingered.
What I realized is that we do not do a very good job casting the vision for our youth as to why they are called into this set apart Torah walk, why Yah is preparing them, and how critical obedience and righteousness are to their preparation and survival.
As part of our conversation, I challenged those gathered with some things I had written earlier in the day to a group of men from various denominational/doctrinal backgrounds that I fellowship with online. Our shared passion is learning and understanding what Scripture actually says and teaches regarding family structure and patriarchy. Maybe this helps paint a picture for us, a critically important picture that we must pass on to our youth!!
An army is defined by unity, not uniformity. Even at the squad level, there are riflemen, machine gunners, grenadiers, etc… Also, differing jobs, roles, etc… The point is, they work together for a common goal: The objective.
As a body, we can have differing understandings of how eschatology plays out just as we can debate/discuss the General’s next move, but we clearly see this hilltop [patriarchy and headship] and know that it must be taken.
Knowing that the battle is more spiritual than physical, i.e., prayer and fasting is more effective than memes, we can coordinate on several levels of action and activity. To that end, several of us have already been entering into coordinated days of prayer and fasting while seeking the Father on behalf of particular objectives within our own spheres of influence….
[in a follow on post I detailed more clearly in response to someone asking if ‘denominations’ don’t fit the ‘differences’ in uniformity I had mentioned…]
Okay, consider [us] a ‘special operations unit’ with specific tactical objectives behind enemy lines. We don’t do or care to do what the regulars are doing. Our mission is greater, harder and more dangerous. Lesser men need not apply.
We may have differing philosophy of warfighting, derived from SunTzu or Clauswitz, but we are still in the same unit. We can gather at the bar and have rollicking debates on the merits of particular weapons, maybe even a good fist fight, but….
When we face the enemy, it better be shoulder to shoulder with weapons pointed down range, each engaging our own field of fire with lethal vigor trusting our brother to be similarly engaged.
As a combat blooded airborne Ranger from the 82nd, I can tell you, the brawls were bigger and more vigorous than even ‘leg’ infantry, but when we went to battle, personal differences and disagreements were set aside until we returned from the field. Survival and success depended on it.
We are brothers and we are at war. We need to be acting like it!
Carry on.
After reading this to the group gathered around me, a group of young men and women and several married adults, I proceeded to charge them with a vision for righteousness because Yah is not raising up this generation of Torah keepers so that we can be layed low in the wilderness or in a tribulation. HIS desire is a people who, like special operators, will be ready to walk through the fire and secure the objective: Return to and restoration of the Land!
Yah is doing an AMAZING work in our day, but we need to lift our eyes and see it. We need to show it to our youth. We need to cast the vision frequently that trial by fire is not a bad thing if we are prepared. And, more importantly, if Yah believes one is worthy of this calling and preparing them to be tried, then He must plan to bring them through it.
My challenge to this young man and the youth gathered around was to ask, ‘What skill, what talent, what ability and strength are you bringing to contribute to the restoration of kol Israel?’
To the men and women, I asked, ‘What aspects of Egypt in you are you dealing with and getting rid of? Israel in the millennial kingdom will not be a Greco-Roman influenced place. Leviticus 18:1-5 clearly demonstrates that the traditions and doctrines of Egypt and Canaan will not be in kingdom. Life, or living, is contingent upon embracing the Instructions of Yah and leaving behind the falsehoods we have inherited. How can we further step into these things as men? As women? As family units? As a small community?’
Brothers and sisters, we must gain a greater vision for the restoration of kol Israel, then we must become very good at articulating it for those who do not yet understand that kol Israel will not be restored from the top down. It must begin with the proper building blocks and be raised up from the bottom. Restoration begins with the men, then the women, then families, to clans and Yah will gather it into tribes and a nation. Both halves!! Two houses brought together.
Instead of ‘disabling’ our children with fear of the unknown, we must enable them with a clear picture of what is on the other side of a very short period of time commonly referred to as the Great Tribulation. We must show forth the future and the hope that we have as a treasured possession, set apart for the purpose of walking through it!!
I’ll stop here, but for more clarity and understanding as well as depth and insight, I recommend the whole Restoring kol Israel series, our current Torah portion series and any linked materials out of them.
11:3 Restoration 