Passover

Passover
“The LORD said to Moses and Aaron in Egypt,  
“This month is to be for you the first month, the first month of your year.  
Tell the whole community of Israel that on the tenth day of this month each man is to take a lamb for his family, one for each household.  
If any household is too small for a whole lamb, they must share one with their nearest neighbour, having taken into account the number of people there are. You are to determine the amount of lamb needed in accordance with what each person will eat.  
The animals you choose must be year-old males without defect, and you may take them from the sheep or the goats.  
Take care of them until the fourteenth day of the month, when all the people of the community of Israel must slaughter them at twilight.  
Then they are to take some of the blood and put it on the sides and tops of the door frames of the houses where they eat the lambs.  
That same night they are to eat the meat roasted over the fire, along with bitter herbs, and bread made without yeast.  
Do not eat the meat raw or cooked in water, but roast it over the fire—head, legs and inner parts.  
Do not leave any of it till morning; if some is left till morning, you must burn it.  
This is how you are to eat it: with your cloak tucked into your belt, your sandals on your feet and your staff in your hand. Eat it in haste; it is the LORD'S Passover. 
“On that same night I will pass through Egypt and strike down every firstborn—both men and animals—and I will bring judgment on all the gods of Egypt. I am the LORD.  
The blood will be a sign for you on the houses where you are; and when I see the blood, I will pass over you. No destructive plague will touch you when I strike Egypt. 
“This is a day you are to commemorate; for the generations to come you shall celebrate it as a festival to the LORD—a lasting ordinance.” 
                                                                                   Exodus 12:1-14.
Yesterday as I write this our Jewish friends started to celebrate Passover. The time when the death angel passed over the children of Israel and struck the first born of Egypt.
Egypt can be looked on as the symbol of oppression for all generations.
Over the centuries the Jews have been oppressed by it seems like an endless stream of tyrants. All of these oppressors have come to a sorry end.
Hitler the worst in recent memory killing six million men women and children. Their only crime being born Jewish.
The Jewish people are a remarkable people.
Leo Tolstoy wrote,
“The Jew is the emblem of civil and religious toleration, ‘Love the stranger a sojourner,’ Moses commands, ‘because you have been strangers in the land of Egypt.’  And this was said in those remote and savage times when the principal ambition of the races and nations consisted in crushing and enslaving one another. 
 As concerns religious toleration, the Jewish faith is not only far from the missionary spirit of converting people of other denominations, but on the contrary the Talmud commands the Rabbis to inform and explain to everyone who willingly comes to accept the Jewish religion, all the difficulties involved in its acceptance, and to point out to the would be proselyte that the righteous of all nations have a share in immortality.  
Of such a lofty and ideal religious toleration not even the moralists of our present day can boast.  
The Jew is the emblem of eternity.  He whom neither slaughter nor torture of thousands of years could destroy, he whom neither fire nor sword nor inquisition was able to wipe off from the face of the earth, he who was the first to produce the oracles of God, he who has been for so long, the guardian of the oracles prophecy, and who transmitted it too the rest of the world—such a nation cannot be destroyed.  The law is everlasting as is eternity itself.”
I am a firm believer in blessing Israel when ever possible. In Genesis God made a promise to Abram,
“The LORD had said to Abram, “Leave your country, your people and your father’s household and go to the land I will show you. 
“I will make you into a great nation and I will bless you; I will make your name great, and you will be a blessing. 
I will bless those who bless you, and whoever curses you I will curse; and all peoples on earth will be blessed through you.”
                  Genesis 12:1-3.
Today the 15 Nissan 5754 (April 15th 2014) take time to pray for Israel, the Jewish people throughout the world and the peace of Jerusalem.