God's Private Garden
But here it is - just for you – a solo venture into the heart of God, as expressed in His Holy Word, to stir your hearts and your spirits yet again to the awesomeness of our wonderful Father. Through the tunnels and across the bridges of time the revelation of God’s beautiful gardens has been basically untapped – or just plain ignored. Teeming with mystery, and tended with love, the gardens that flourish do so in His pleasure alone. Plants that fail to bloom or produce fruit are plucked up and discarded as weeds. These gardens are not just a metaphor, a figure of speech, they are real and they are visible to the naked eye. Many of them are very small – called postage stamp gardens. These are not your typical gardens of many colors and varieties. They do, however, like most gardens, grow and spread from year to year. Unlike most gardens, and because they are so small, they are continually threatened and battered by the brute intrusion of repulsive weeds. God has always had sprinklings of little gardens, bigger gardens, large gardens and national gardens scattered and transformed season by season as generations fade away and new ones take their place. They constitute a private pleasure that He reserves just for Himself as He quietly and affectionately watches over them. Weeds try again and again to invade and push at the plants but God will not allow the weeds to take over. Consequently, when such a threat is posed, the weeds are plucked up and cast into the fire... In the beginning the garden was not scattered through far-reaching migrations, rather its care and perennial strength was passed down to each succeeding generation. It was up to the holy men of God to keep the garden flourishing, however small it was, and God would monitor their growth and their needs. It began with Adam and Seth and passed through the royal seed line through Jared, Enoch, Methuselah, etc. to Noah. Relatives were not mentioned in the Scriptures because the relatives joined the Cain crowd and were not part of God’s garden. After the flood, Shem, son of Noah, planted the Royal Seed that multiplied until Abraham passed it on to Isaac who passed it on to Jacob who passed it on to Judah. In time it became the “Seed of the woman,” a virgin named Mary, who was overshadowed by the passing over of the Holy Spirit and who, in the time of life, brought forth the only begotten son of God… But before that – about seven hundred years before that – one of God’s prize gardens was found to be neglected, overgrown with briars and filled with weeds, and thorns. Though the land wept in torment and in shame (as the blood of righteous Abel had cried from the ground), the gardeners were found without excuse. As punishment for this gross neglect, the gardeners, together with the contaminated seeds and all the weeds, were carried away into a strange land, a land that had no gardens planted or tended by the Lord… It happened when the Assyrians invaded Samaria in 722 B.C. and took the ten northern tribes of Israel captive, resettling them in the vast lands of the Assyrian Empire and in the cities of the Medes. Why had God allowed so massive a dispersion from Israel? He allowed it because they had profaned His Sabbath, changing it from the 7th day to the first day of the week. He allowed it because they had altered the feast days, perverted His commandments, worshipped idols, sacrificed their sons and daughters to the fires of pagan gods, followed the false teachings and moral decay of their successive evil kings, and because they refused to heed the warnings of the prophets to repent and turn back to the God of their fathers. As captives, they died in a foreign land, most of them still corrupt. Their offspring, unto the third generation, were stripped of all knowledge or guidance back to their roots. And so it was that, by the time Assyria was destroyed, and the captives began to migrate northwest across the lands of Europe to the great sea and beyond, they had lost their language, their identity and their religion. Assimilated into the tribes and movements of migrating and settling Gentiles they became Gentiles for all intents and purposes for they had no historical reasons to guide them otherwise. They didn’t know they were the children of Jacob. They didn’t know they were a chosen people. They didn’t know about Egypt, the law given at Sinai, the wilderness wanderings, the taking of Canaan, Joshua, King David, Solomon, Jeroboam and Hezekiah. They didn’t know God was watching them, keeping records of each new birth, every wedding and every death within every tribe. He knew every name of every child, who their parents were and where they lived… For 2,700 plus years they wandered, new generations settling in this country or that, becoming postage-stamp gardens in a world teeming with migrations and lost identities. At times they were even the enemies of Judah, Levi and Benjamin, the tribes that wandered for 1,900 years following 70 A.D. It was hidden from the postage stamp gardens that they were the brothers of Judah, Levi and Benjamin. To this day, only a handful of these scattered little gardens have been identified and restored to their former heritage. Over the past 2,000 years, untold millions out of the lost tribes of Israel and their Jewish neighbors died without knowing they were brothers and sisters. As time and civilizations progressed, many of these hidden family gardens had become devoted Christians and some were even martyred for their testimony of the Jewish Savior. It is what made them postage-stamp gardens of the Lord - brethren of Christ and the completeness of His Bride… It would be difficult to number the Jews that became first, second and third century Christians and martyrs for Christ. It would be impossible to number the ever-multiplying Israeli-Gentiles of the ten lost tribes who have answered the call of Christ in the last 2,000 years, especially since the reformation. And the greatest miracle of all - throughout 1,900 years - there was a vibrant Godly faith that sustained the dispersed observant Jews of 70 and 130 A.D. in all the lands they wandered, and who never, at any time, lost their language, their identity or their religion. Unfortunately, there were millions of descendants of others that did lose these treasures of their inheritance because they neither observed nor practiced their inherited faith in the new lands they called home. These knew they were Jews, but over time they became secular and as a result, their descendants were also deprived of their faith because they lived in atheist countries or were born of secular parents. Those in Russia and many European countries did not always have the fellowship of their fellows because of fear and political restrictions. The Spanish Inquisition, the Holocaust and today's growing anti-Semitism, forced many of them to hide their true identity because a hostile world wanted only to destroy them. Unfortunately, many Jews coming home to Israel today arrive in the Holy Land without a foundation of faith, understanding or practice of the Hebrew language, or any real connection to their Jewish roots. Imagine if you will – the multiplied thousands of Gentiles that have died in the faith of Jesus Christ - only to discover at the feet of Jesus that they are the children of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob… Imagine if you will - those who have died without Christ who have discovered in the pit of hell the awful truth that they were an Israelite instead of a Gentile and that those they persecuted, tortured and slaughtered in horror-filled prisons were Jewish brothers and sisters they had thought were unfit to live on the earth. Imagine if you will - those millions in the Bride of Christ, already gone home or looking toward home, that are descended from the lost tribes of Israel. Imagine if you will - the joy of our Lord over every hidden Israeli that receives Him as Lord. Imagine if you will - the delight of the Father who rewards His Son's agape love with this glorious restoration of brotherly brokenness. Remember, the ten northern tribes were not there when Jesus came to Israel the first time. But He knew where every family could be found, He knew every name and every situation, just like He knew about the woman at the well in Samaria. It was to these lost tribes that Jesus directed the Apostles to preach when he said to them, “Go to the lost sheep of Israel.” He was referring not only to the occupied Israel of His day, but also to the ten wandering tribes from the northern kingdom of Israel. God promises in His Word that, in the end-times, the descendants of these sons and daughters of Israel will be identified and called home. “Fear not; for I am with you; I will bring your seed from the east, and gather you from the west; I will say to the north, ‘Give up;’ and to the south, ‘Keep not back:’ bring my sons from far, and my daughters from the ends of the earth” (Isaiah 43:5-6). I asked the Lord, “Why weren't they identified and reunited when the Jews returned to the Holy Land?” This, paraphrased, is what was downloaded into my spirit... "I allowed Joseph to be abused, rejected and sold into slavery by his brothers, endure prison for something he didn't do, and fail to be recognized by those same brothers twenty years later, so he could prepare the way to save his father's house in the time of famine. I exalted him because of his faithfulness to me. Then I rewarded him with a joyous restoration of his family because of his deep love for his father and his brethren even though his brothers had wanted to kill him. "In a similar way, the northern tribes of Israel rejected me. Nevertheless I had promised Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, vowed by my own name, that the covenant I made with them would never be broken. One day the sons of Israel will regain all their land and the families of Jacob will once again be reunited and redeemed. "I allowed the dispersion of the northern tribes to purge them of their arrogance and their wickedness against me. I had to hide them in many different places, I had to separate them from their brethren in Judah who, in time, would also know the sword of captivity, then I had to keep them hidden from the Romans, the Crusaders, the Muslims, the inquisitions, the Holocaust, and the enemies that surround Israel today. I had to hide them and keep them only unto myself in order to save them from the destroyers of this world. "Like Joseph, who was hidden for twenty years, they are also hidden from their brethren, only I know each and every soul and where they are, and no one can pluck them out of my remembrance or out of my hand. It is for their sakes, and for the sake of my covenant with Abraham that those that seek to steal my land and destroy my inheritance, do not destroy completely the seeds of the fathers. When the time is right, when Judah is again filled with the sons of Jacob and the mountains of Israel are decked with flocks at peace, Ephraim and his brothers will come home, and there will be so many there will not be found room in all Israel for them to settle. The borders of Israel will then be extended to Covenant borders and they shall all dwell in My land of milk and honey in peace again.” Imagine it if you will - the frustration of all the world's dictators who attempted to annihilate the Jews from off the earth. Had they known there were millions hidden by God throughout all the earth, hidden ones they could not hope to identify or wipe out, they would have screamed in maniacal protest. Fortunately, no one could have appeased them - no democrat, no liberal - no judge - no political voice of any party - or leader of any nation. Imagine if you will - the faithfulness and unfathomable love of God for His only begotten Son and all His children, including those from the ten dispersed tribes of Israel. There have been heavenly interventions that have opened the truth to some, for example: former Secretary of State Madeline Albright who spent her entire life as a Gentile, discovered after George Bush became President that she was the daughter of Jewish parents who successfully hid their Jewish identity in WWII Europe. Because of their seeming ability to pass as Gentiles, and no doubt to protect Madeline, they never told their daughter about her Jewish heritage. One day soon, born-again Israelites and Gentiles will stand together in their inheritance as the Bride of Christ. And Jesus will reign in the midst of His people, as King of kings and Lord of lords forever. As for those who survive the Great Tribulation…looking toward the thousand year millennial reign of Christ, God says… “I will hiss for them, and gather them; for I have redeemed them; and they shall increase as they have increased. And I will sow them among the people; and they shall remember me in far countries; and they shall live with their children, and turn again. I will bring them also out of the land of Egypt, and gather them out of Assyria; and I will bring them into the land of Gilead and Lebanon; and place (room) shall not be found for them (they will be so many) (Zechariah 10: 8-10)” “Thus sayeth the Lord God, Behold, I will lift up my hand to the Gentiles, and set up my standard to the people: and they shall bring your sons in their arms, and your daughters shall be carried upon their shoulders.” (Isaiah 49) “In those days, and in that time, saith the Lord, the children of Israel shall come, they and the children of Judah together, going and weeping: they shall go, and seek the Lord their God” (Jeremiah 50:4).
Joan Krempel
|