Beach Insights
After living in Florida for five years, I decided to start my day at the beach.
Why did I wait so long to do this? (I’m an idiot, that’s why.)
It was a wonderful experience, mainly because only a few people were there, not the usual crowds. The Naples beaches face west, overlooking the Gulf of America. As the sun rose behind me, the shade of the trees edging the beach overshadowed me, keeping me cool and tempering the very bright daytime sunshine.
Believe it or not, my wife encouraged me to do this. What a woman! So, I grabbed my chair, a travel cup with my morning coffee, and some writing tools to record anything the Lord might impress on me for this week’s blog.
It didn’t take long.
Even though the tide was rising ever so slowly, it stopped at the sand. The scene reminded me of Job 38:8-11,
“Who enclosed the sea behind doors
when it burst from the womb,
when I made the clouds its garment
and total darkness its blanket,
when I determined its boundaries
and put its bars and doors in place,
when I declared, “You may come this far, but no farther;
your proud waves stop here”?
And Jeremiah 5:22,
“Do you not fear me?
This is the Lord’s declaration.
Do you not tremble before me,
the one who set the sand as the boundary of the sea,
an enduring barrier that it cannot cross?
The waves surge, but they cannot prevail.
They roar but cannot pass over it.”
Both of these reminded me of my Heavenly Father’s overwhelming power and sovereignty. Truly, nothing can come to me without the Lord’s permission. Even then, He sets the limit as to how much it affects me.
As I watched the low waves roll in, I noticed how the retreat of a previous wave undercuts the next, diminishing its impact on the shore. What an object lesson! Over the last two thousand years, our Father has sent wave upon wave of renewal to His people. Each of these waves has not only refreshed the Christian community, but has often restored a “lost” or ignored biblical truth.
The Christian community began as a Jewish movement. Over the first three hundred years, the Way morphed into a primarily gentilized faith mixed with Greek philosophy. Over time, Church doctrines were defined not in the light of Christianity’s Jewish origins, but by man-created ideas and beliefs, which often obscured or twisted the Bible’s truths and led to the scriptural abuses of the Roman Catholic Church.
Then the waves began to break upon the theological shore.
The Protestant Reformation arrived with its emphasis on Salvation through God’s grace, and the five Solas:
Of course, this did not please the Catholic powers that be. The Catholic Church undercut and tried to diminish the Protestant Reformation, often resorting to persecution and execution. There was even a Catholic Counter-Reformation attempt (Council of Trent (1545–1563). Despite that, the Reformation reached the shore.
Next came “Pietism (beginning with Philipp Spener), which stressed personal devotion and small-group piety within Lutheranism. Methodism, led by John and Charles Wesley in England, emphasized holiness, evangelical preaching, and social outreach.” (Grok.com) Out of Methodism emerged the Pentecostal movement in the early 1900s, then the Healing movement in the mid-1900s, followed by the Charismatic Renewal beginning in the 1960s, out of which came the Jewish Roots movement.
What’s fascinating is how previous renewal/restoration movements often seek to diminish or undercut the “newcomer” because “they aren’t us,” or the rediscovered truth doesn’t fit the previous movement’s paradigm. Yes, when a new movement rises, we should wisely give it time to mature to make sure it’s biblically on track. We should not dismiss it immediately.
The latest movement and subsequent fight that I’m watching is how our Father is restoring the truth of Christianity’s Jewish foundation. Many Christians rejoiced in the early Charismatic movement when the Holy Spirit highlighted Christianity’s Jewish roots, and many Jews realized they could embrace Jesus without surrendering or denying their Jewish ethnicity or practices.
However, in recent years, especially following the October 7, 2023 Hamas massacre of Jews in Israel and the ensuing rise of antisemitism around the world, too many Christians have turned against the Jewish roots movement. I’m appalled by what I read on social media that comes from Christians. The brazen and ignorant antisemitism has risen to the level of well-known Nazi propaganda, as many of the perpetrators try to snuff out any idea that Christianity might somehow relate to Jews and Judaism.
The remarkable thing is, like the successive waves on a beach, this wave-like movement will reach shore. The tide of biblical truth about our Jewish origins is rising relentlessly. Why am I sure of that? Because I see the biblical signs of Jesus’ return and He is not only our Savior, but He’s Israel’s anointed king, their Messiah, who will restore David’s geo-political throne on earth; “He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High, and the Lord God will give him the throne of his father David” (Luke 1:32). This isn’t a heavenly throne. It’s an earthly throne. Seeing that Jesus didn’t sit on David’s throne during His first time on earth, we await His fulfillment of this prophecy when He returns.
And now for my final Beach Insight that I want to share.
As I sat in my chair and looked up, I saw a jet flying far above me in the cloud-bedecked sapphire sky. I sat amazed, soaking in the incredible scope of the sky. Suddenly, I believe the Holy Spirit impressed upon me the following;
“There is coming a time when Jews will flee the United States because it will no longer be safe for them here.” I knew that they would be fleeing to Israel.
I felt pushed to search for verses that I had read about the Jews fleeing like birds. I found Hosea 1:10-11, which says,
“They will follow the Lord;
he will roar like a lion.
When he roars,
his children will come trembling from the west.
They will be roused like birds from Egypt
and like doves from the land of Assyria.
Then I will settle them in their homes. This is the Lord’s declaration.”
Wow.
And then I wondered, “How will they be kept safe with so many enemies around them? The answer came quickly,
“Like hovering birds,
so the Lord of Armies will protect Jerusalem;
by protecting it, he will rescue it;
by passing over it, he will deliver it.”
Was this a prophecy? No. But I think it was prophecy illuminated.
I’m not sure how soon the final wave will rise to crash on this world’s shore, but it will be a doozy. If you’re a student of End Times prophecy, we know that the Tribulation was first called the Time of Jacob’s Trouble. “How awful that day will be! There will be no other like it! It will be a time of trouble for Jacob, but he will be saved out of it” (Jeremiah 30:7).
Is the virulent antisemitism of our day another sign of our approaching King?
It “shore” looks like it could be.
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Shining the Light of God’s Truth on the Road Ahead
Pastor Jay Christianson
The Truth Barista, Frothy Thoughts