Khanukah

Tonight, Khanukah begins.

For someone who grew up in the deep south among protestant believers, this “Khag” makes the season very different. The “Khanukiah”, or “Khanukah Menorah”, looks like a “Jewish Symbol,” and it very much is. But, it is reflective of the very symbol of Messiah Yeshua, the only one given in scripture, THE Menorah. Yeshua “Walks among the seven Menorahs”, according to the book of Revelation. He warns the seven congregations that He will REMOVE THEIR Menorah, if they do not return to doing the Truth.

The implication is that He gave that Menorah to them, and He alone has the authority to REMOVE IT, and that He will certainly do so with persistent DISOBEDIENCE.

Another thing is that HE gives a Menorah to EACH INDIVIDUAL congregation. Even though His ‘Body’ is ONE, and there is indeed one complete Congregation, each LOCAL congregation is responsible to possess and keep its own Menorah.

This, of course, is not the coveted, pure gold Menorah of the Temple era. By the time of the Revelation, that one had been stolen from Israel and taken to Rome. This was something FAR MORE valuable: The “Ru’akh HaKodesh”, the very BREATH/SPIRIT of G-d the Creator, given to us by Yeshua as individuals, and as congregations.

The one seen in the picture above is not, in fact, a “menorah” per se, but a Khanukiah, fashioned after the Menorah. It is specifically made to have eight lights, originally. In Medieval days, in Ashkenazi communities, a mistake was made when many menorahs were smithed, and a ninth branch/light was added. The Rabbis made do, and called the ninth light the “Shammash”, or ‘servant’ candle. It is now used to light the other eight lights.

This, of course, would not have been done in Yeshua’s day, when they lit a tiny oil lamp that had eight lights only. But, the implications seem to have the finger of G-d on them.

There are seven powers of the Ru’akh listed in Isaiah 11:1-2. There are seven ‘spirits’ mentioned in Revelation 4. But, there are nine ‘gifts’ of the spirit mentioned in Brit Khadashah scriptures. There are seven feasts listed in VaYikra [Lev] 23, but there are nine on the calendar, when we include Purim and Khanukah. Purim manifests in the book of Esther, and Khanukah in Psalm 30 and John 10. Khanukah is not mentioned in any ancient, divinely inspired scriptures BUT “New Testament” scriptures. It is indeed a very “Messianic” feast.

Yeshua was conceived on the first night of Khanukah. He was born nine months later on the 1st night of Sukkot. The miracle of His coming was His CONCEPTION, and NOT His birth. He was born the way of every other man, but was conceived by way of the Ru’akh, through a woman, without the help of man, in the darkest time of year, to be born during the “Season of our Joy” in the fall.

The image above was put by Jewish people in the window, as is customary, in Nazi Germany, in defiance of the Nazi flag hanging just across the street. This invokes the courage of the Maccabees, who were farmers who defied the Greek king who had outlawed the worship of יהוה and the calling on His Name, the circumcision of Jewish children, and the study or reading of the Torah. These “Hammers”, these hard Jewish men, raised an army of misfits and miraculously defeated the Greeks, and they restored the Temple by cleansing it, and by lighting THE Menorah, which had not been lit for 3 and 1/2 years. They celebrated Sukkot “out of season”, as the “Dedication of the House” done by Solomon was done at Sukkot. The cleansed “House” had to be dedicated, and the dedication could not begin without lighting the Menorah; there was just enough oil to celebrate the feast. The oil was very hard to find and/or make, especially at that time of year, after so much oppression.

This year, as we put our “Khanukiah” in the window, I feel just as defiant: defiant of false doctrines, and of tyrannical people who would just as soon snuff us out, should the gain/retain power. These people are drunk on power, and of the notion of ‘transforming America’, of winning the ‘soul of America’. They are far worse than were the Seleucids. They are godless communists who hide behind a veil of feigned righteousness, pretending to care for ‘the people’, all the while caring only about robbing the people and creating a ‘classless’ society of two groups: those who rule, and those who serve their every whim.

But, right now, I do not defy them, but all those who are absolutely BLIND to the attempted takeover of our government. We have sat and allowed them to take over hollywood and create the perfect propaganda machine, to transform our schools into communist indoctrination houses, including k-12 and the colleges and universities, to take over the whole of media so that they could persistently drone into the heads of the masses their false narrative, and vilify anyone who disagrees or tries to expose them.

Khanukah is about LIGHT. The “Ru’akh” is the VERY Light of G-d, and it is the purveyor of TRUTH. There is only ONE G-d, and His Name is יהוה . He SENT His Son, the MAN, Yeshua from Nazareth, who was conceived at this time of year, to be born in the fall during Sukkot, “Tabernacles”, who would, after 33 and 1/2 years die on the Passover, be buried on Unleavened Bread, rise from the dead at the first Omer on the first day of the week, and send the Ru’akh to His followers in power after seven sabbaths on the feast of Weeks.

His Ru’akh convinces/convicts us of our OFFENSES against G-d and both compels AND empowers us to CHANGE, to be transformed into the image of the Messiah, to be bearers of His Menorah, His Ru’akh/Breath, to give light to the world by obeying in TRUTH. EVERYTHING that HIS WORD instructs us to do, we are to do that. What HE tells us we are not to do, through HIS WORD, we are not to do it. It is so incredibly simple. Yet MAN has come along and distorted, and even perverted His Word, in order to justify EVERY sin. “He who sins breaks the Torah. Sin IS the breaking of the Torah.” 1 John 3:4

May our country’s patrons find COURAGE to look for LIGHT, to SEE it in HIS WORD ALONE, and to RESPOND to it, to follow the NARROW path onto which His Word directs us. There truly is no other way.

Shalom, and may you have the delight of the Oil of Khanukah for all EIGHT NIGHTS, as we commemorate this time of the triumph of LIGHT over darkness.