A Messianic Hanukkah

I attended a Messianic Hanukkah service tonight at South Canyon Baptist Church in Rapid City. It was very interesting and inspirational.

Hanukkah, also known as the "Feast of Dedication" or "Festival of Lights," is mentioned in the New Testament in John 10:22-30 when Jesus was in Jerusalem for the Festival.

Hanukkah means "dedication," and it commemorates a miracle at the time the Jewish Temple was cleansed and rededicated to God.

The story of Hanukkah takes place in the Second Century BC. Alexander the Great had conquered Judea along with pretty much all of the Middle East, and after his death in 323 BC his empire was divided into four parts among his generals--a fulfillment of the prophecy of Daniel 8:5-14.

After several years, Antiochus IV, ruler of the Syrian area, waged a campaign to erase the Jewish faith and replace it with Greek culture. In an act of unforgivable sacrilege, Antiochus sacrificed a pig to Zeus on the altar of the Jewish Temple. This led to what is known as the Maccabean Revolt, led by the Maccabeus family and Judas Maccabeus.

In a couple of miraculous and decisive battles (47,000 Greeks against 3,000 Jews, and the other with 65,000 Greeks against 10,000 Jews), the Syrian Greeks were defeated and the Jewish nation was free for a time.

After the victory, the Jews destroyed the desecrated altar and dedicated a new one on December 14, 164 BC. According to tradition, there was only enough sanctified oil to light the Temple menorah for one day, and it would take eight days to prepare more oil. But in the Hanukkah miracle, a single days' supply burned for eight days.

It was either during or near the Festival of Lights that Jesus declared, "I am the light of the world."

The service tonight included several Scripture readings, several songs, the lighting of the menorah, and a first-person telling of the Maccabean Revolt and Hanukkah miracle with Dr. Richard Wells, Senior Pastor of South Canyon Baptist Church, dressed in Old Testament garb as Judas Maccabeus telling the story.

Happy Hanukkah and Shalom!

Recommended Reading

Key Newspapers Back Clinton, Obama and McCain

This is from Associated Press (AP), probably the biggest news wire service in the country. Notice how this report spends all but about 5 seconds on the Democrats, and mentions McCain in an "oh, by the way..." manner?

Gotta love objective journalism...

Consider The Truth Project

A promo for Focus on the Family's 'The Truth Project' - An In-Depth Christian Worldview Experience

South Canyon Baptist Church in Rapid City will be hosting a Truth Project study for 12 weeks starting January 6, 2008. The study will be from 8:57 am to 10:15 am, so if you attend another church, you could come to the Truth Project and still make your morning worship service elsewhere.

Global Warming Scare Useful for Socialist Dreams

NewsBusters has exposed what the global warming apostles have been up to at Bali recently: they're pushing a "global warming tax" to accomplish wealth redistribution on a massive scale.

In other words, in the manner of hypocritical power grabbers the world over, the method in which they gain the purse strings is less important than the results of gaining control of said purse strings. Morano continues by the eyes by quoting yet another advocate, one Emma Brindal.

The environmental group Friends of the Earth, in attendance in Bali, also advocated the transfer of money from rich to poor nations on Wednesday. “A climate change response must have at its heart a redistribution of wealth and resources,” said Emma Brindal, a climate justice campaigner coordinator for Friends of the Earth.

So there we have it. I think a more honest name for Brindal's group would be Friends of Taxing the US to Give Money to the Unaccountable UN. The real goal of all these so-called climate change advocates is the taxation of rich nations so that they can transfer money to poor nations- socialism in action. This is highlighted by the concerns Inhofe's blog also states. Morano quotes several skeptics of global warming, such as Professor Richard Lindzen of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Writes Morano,

MIT climate scientist Dr. Richard Lindzen warned about these types of carbon regulations earlier this year. "Controlling carbon is a bureaucrat's dream. If you control carbon, you control life," Lindzen said in March 2007. In addition, many critics have often charged that proposed tax and regulatory “solutions” were more important to the promoters of man-made climate fears than the accuracy of their science.

As I've said before, this is just nothing but an elaborate, overblown socialist wealth-redistribution scheme. The proof was before us all along, as the filthiest nations have been let off in schemes like the Kyoto Protocol while the West, which has the cleanest industries, was taken for a ride.

That, and the chief purveyors of this bunk are the same socialists who have always been out to exploit class envy.