PRAYER UPDATE FROM ISRAEL  (May 3, 2006)

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1.  FIFTY-EIGHT:  A YEAR FOR CROSSING OVER AND ENTERING OUR REST

THEREFORE, LET US FEAR IF, WHILE A PROMISE REMAINS OF ENTERING HIS REST, ANY ONE OF YOU MAY SEEM TO HAVE COME SHORT OF IT . . . TODAY IF YOU HEAR HIS VOICE DO NOT HARDEN YOUR HEARTS . . . THERE REMAINS A SABBATH REST FOR THE PEOPLE OF GOD...THEREFORE LET US BE DILIGENT TO ENTER THAT REST, SO THAT NO ONE WILL FALL . . ." (Epistle to the HEBREWS 4:1, 7b, 9, 11)

Today (May 3rd) is Independence Day in Israel; she is celebrating her 58th birthday.  We find this age of 58 to be very interesting.  In the Hebrew letter numbering system the number 58 is "nun-chet".  This actually spells the Hebrew word "nach" (the ch sounded in the back of the throat), which in Modern Hebrew literally means "HE RESTED" or "I REST" (From the infinitive "la-nu'ach"-to rest). 

Nun-Chet also is the way NOAH is spelled in the Hebrew...thus, Genesis 5:29 (NASB-Updated): "Now he called his name Noah, saying, 'This one will give us rest from our work and from the toil of our hands arising from the ground which the LORD cursed.'"

Regarding an important aspect of "rest", our friend Chuck Pierce recently wrote the following: 

      "The first three months of the year produced much testing for many of us.  These testings have developed our faith and caused a new strength to arise within us.  This has been a time of striving to enter into God's rest.  Most people think rest is where we pull aside and do nothing.  Rest actually means that you cross over and enter into your promised destiny.  Ask the Lord to reveal the redemptive purpose of your testing.  Remember, His blood paid the price for you to break out of every prison."

Today at 58, Israel is in perhaps the most "restless" place of uneasiness and uncertainty she has yet been; she is under many bondages from which she is in sore need of "breaking out".  ISAIAH 58 speaks to her of a way to "LOOSEN THE BONDS OF WICKEDNESS, AND UNDO THE BANDS OF THE YOKE, AND TO LET THE OPPRESSED GO FREE AND BREAK EVERY YOKE..." (vs. 6), but that way involves a type of sacrifice which only a remnant within her and in the nations can at this time make.

As Israel moves into this 58th year of rebirth, fifty-eight years in which much striving seems to have produced so little, in which she seems in many ways further than ever from her "promised destiny"...LET US AS BELIEVERS IN THE SOVEREIGN PURPOSES OF HER GOD "BE DILIGENT" ON HER BEHALF:

* That she "make her next crossing",

* That she "enter and retain her promised destiny",

* That she "endure the present testings and come to understand the testings ahead",

* And through the blood of her Messiah, "Break out of the prison" which for the most part has held her bound since the day she had her part in shedding that blood.

PLEASE PRAY FOR BELIEVERS IN ISRAEL - THAT THEY WILL LAY HOLD OF THE PROMISES, CEASE STRIVING IN THE FLESH AND COME INTO A NEW PLACE IN LIVING, WARRING AND WORSHIPPING IN THE FINISHED WORK OF HER KING!! 

TAMMY ULSUP