When Hilary and I emigrated to the USA 27 years ago with our 7 children, no job, and into a house we had bought without seeing, it was ‘a leap of faith’. That is no credit to us, as the ‘faith’ by grace, comes with the call.
Every Sunday for 5 years we then shared that ‘faith’ at Saint Brendan’s Launch, through the medium of our Irish culture with the wonderful variety of people God brought from all over the world through the doors of Kieran’s Irish Pub in Downtown Minneapolis!
We had a special kinship with the Irish saint (nicknamed ‘The Navigator’) whom we named the event after, and who courageously set sail from the west coast of Ireland 1500 years previously, in his little leather hulled, wood framed coracle on a ‘wild goose’ adventure, trusting God would use the winds and the waves to get him to the desired destination. It was a pilgrimage to discover ‘a world beyond’ that which he had known in his native Ireland.
One of my Irish readers, who happens to also be called Brendan, carries that same spirit, and he frequently sends me links he has found in a search for truth, a quest to discover, “What is really going on?”
Here are two he recently sent me. The first I would entitle, “The Good News About Covid 19″ (You have to listen to the end to get the Really Good News.)
This ‘Merrititious’ perspective helped me with some of my questions about “What is really going on?”
Why did WHO change the definition of ‘pandemic’ just before Covid surfaced, facilitating this current panic – demic about an illness with a mortality similar to the seasonal flu (CDC figures) creating fear that will likely generate more deaths than ‘the virus’ ?
Why has ‘conventional’ management of a ‘pandemic’ changed overnight from the tried and tested centuries long approach of quarantining sick people to the Chinese Communist Party approach of putting a healthy population under house arrest?
Why do authorities continue to ignore over 30 scientific studies proving the ineffectiveness of such ‘lockdowns’ which have caused untold hardship and suffering for millions of people?
Why has WHO now also changed the definition of ‘herd immunity’ to exclude ‘naturally acquired’ immunity to something that can only be achieved using a vaccine?
Why an hour after Biden was ‘inaugurated’ did WHO change the PCR testing criteria reducing ‘case’ numbers, and governors in New York and California began to ‘open up’ again?
……and Why the name ‘Covid 19‘? Could this be revealing a ‘dark’ agenda?
Certificate Of Vaccination ID. The first and 9th letter of the alphabet are A.I.
Thankfully, the number 19 in scripture represents FAITH**
Faith is the foolproof antidote to fear, as we trust that God who is LOVE, is also ‘All Seeing’ ‘All Knowing’ and Sovereign over ALL things that he is working together for good! (Rm.8:28)
I commented in the previous blog about the ‘offensive’ style of ‘God’s Chaos Candidate’ whose courage has exposed the utter corruption and blatant hypocrisy of many other leaders.
Bob Jones used to say, “God offends the mind to reveal the heart.”
This prompted Brendan to send this second insightful clip,
Good to hear from another In Exile!
May we all continue to with Faith and Courage search out the truth… that will set us free!
**Nineteen (yod-teth)
Faith and Hearing
To write nineteen in Hebrew, they wrote two Hebrew letters: yod-teth. These signify the hand (outworking) of the serpent (wisdom). This can, of course, be seen in a negative sense, for the wisdom of this world is foolishness with God. But when viewed in the positive sense, we see Jesus Christ as the Serpent on the pole in the wilderness, picturing Jesus Christ on the Cross, as Jesus in John 12:32, 33,
32 And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men to Myself. 33 But He was saying this to indicate the kind of death by which He was to die.
The number 19 in Hebrew was meant to illustrate the fact that one must have faith in Christ and His cross, where He died as the Serpent on the pole. Those who listen to Moses and look upon Him (Num. 21:9) are those who hear and who have faith.
The number 19 includes two things: faith and hearing. Though we have said little up to now about the Hebrew letters themselves, it would be helpful to do so now. The 19th letter of the Hebrew alphabet is the kof, which literally means “the back of the head.” The word picture has to do with hearing God’s voice in “the back of your head (mind).” The Hebrew word for “voice” is kol, which begins with the kof. When God spoke to Elijah, it was not through the tempest, the earthquake, or the fire, but the “ still small voice ” (1 Kings 19:11, 12). Jewish author, Lawrence Kushner, says in his Book of Letters, p. 68, 69,
“Kof is one of the letters made by two marks. Hay is the other. The lower mark of the kof is man calling G-d. But G-d also calls man. With the upper mark of the kof He whispers very softly to see if you are really listening. kol d’mama daka. A voice which is still and small. A little girl. The daughter of a voice, God’s voice, bat kol. Like an echo. Always listen.
“Such is kof. The voice by which man allows G-d to be present by calling: Holy (Kadosh).”
It is significant that this Hebrew letter is in two parts. The first pictures God reaching down to man by speaking to him; the second pictures man responding to God by faith. This is the force behind the number 19. It has two parts to it: God’s voice and faith. Hence, it requires God to make a declaration before man can respond to His voice.
There are 19 people of faith in the great faith chapter, Hebrews 11. It begins in verse 3 with “ By faith we …” Verse 4 says, “ By faith Abel …” Verse 5 says, “ By faith Enoch …” The 19th one listed is in verse 32, “ By faith the prophets …” All of them heard the voice of God, and this produced faith in them, by which they preached the Word and even suffered for it at the hands of those who could not hear.
In Paul’s great discussion of justification by faith from Romans 3:21 to 5:2, he uses the word “faith” nineteen times, and then the word is not used again until Romans 9:30. Paul also says in Eph. 2:8,
8 For by grace [5] you have been saved [14] through faith [19]; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God.
Five plus fourteen equals nineteen. Faith is a gift from God, because it depends totally upon God speaking first. One cannot hear God until God speaks and He opens our ears to hear. We love Him because He first loved us (1 John 4:19). In Jer. 31:18 (KJV) the prophet prays, “ Turn Thou me, and I shall be turned, for Thou art the Lord my God.” We can only respond to God when He takes the first step.
The salvation of Noah and his family came by faith as well, after they had heard. They believed what they heard. That is why they entered the ark and were saved through the flood. Thus, the 19th time Noah is mentioned is in Gen. 7:13,
13 On the very same day Noah and Shem and Ham and Japheth, the sons of Noah, and Noah’s wife and the three wives of his sons with them , entered the ark.
The 19th time Abram is mentioned is in Gen. 13:1, where he leaves Egypt and returns to Canaan. This is a prophetic picture of salvation after learning a lesson in faith. He went into Egypt having very little faith, and for this reason he allowed Sarah to be taken by Pharaoh, being too afraid to tell people that she was his wife. He left Egypt with a lot more faith in God’s ability to protect him than when he went to Egypt earlier.
The 19th time Isaac is mentioned is in Gen. 24:66,
66 And the servant [Eliezer] told Isaac all the things that he had done.
As we said earlier, Eliezer means “God of help,” and he pictures the Holy Spirit, the Helper, or Comforter, an advocate or helper in a court of law. Faith comes by hearing the Spirit of God. So this is a picture of the Holy Spirit speaking to Isaac, giving him understanding concerning the Bride that he has found for him.
The 19th time that Paul is mentioned is in Acts 15:36,
36 And after some days Paul said to Barnabas, “Let us return and visit the brethren in every city in which we proclaimed the word of the Lord, and see how they are.”
Take note that once again, the number 19 is associated with the preaching of the word and the faith-response to that word. Paul wanted to return to these cities and see if their preaching had produced any lasting faith.
https://godskingdom.org/studies/books/the-biblical-meaning-of-numbers