Asking in His Name–His Hebrew Name Yahshua (Conversations with the Seer)

      “Nothing happened when I prayed in Jesus’ name,” I said to the wise man, who was sitting under a white oak tree.  He motioned for me to sit down, and I did.

     The sage looked at me, peering into my eyes as if searching for the bottom of a water well.  “Yes, Christ has promised that if we ask anything in His name, He would grant it.  It is obvious that since you did not receive, you did not ask in His name.”

      “But I did ask in His name.  At the end of my prayer I said, In Jesus’ name, Amen.”

      “You are trying, my son, but you are asking without knowledge of what His name is and what His name means.  That is the key to answered prayers.”

      “His name is Jesus, isn’t it?”  Confusion was starting to set in.

      “We in the English speaking world know Him as Jesus.  But He was not known in the days of His earthly sojourn by the sound of that name spoken.”

     “What do you mean?”

      “The arch-angel Gabriel appeared to the virgin, known to most people as Mary.  He told her that she would conceive a child by the Holy Spirit and that the child would be called by the Hebrew name Yahshua.”

      “You mean His name is not Jesus?”

      He smiled at me knowing that I was having trouble believing Him.  “Millions know Him by Jesus, but that is the name given to Him in the English versions of the scriptures.  ‘Jesus’ is not, however, a Hebrew name.  Gabriel did not speak English because English did not exist 2,000 years ago.  He spoke in the timeless language of heaven, telling her  that the Messiah’s name would be Yahshua. Christ did say that He came in His Father’s name.  Biblical scholars confirm that the Father’s name is YHWH, pronounced Yahweh, or Yah.”

     The sage saw that my mouth was agape with no sound issuing forth, so he continued.   “The English name Joshua is taken almost verbatim from the Hebrew name Yahshua.      Joshua the patriarch who took Moses’ place, whose book of Joshua we have today—that patriarch had the very same name as the Savior who came 2,000 years ago. You may read and confirm all this by the study of books.  The point is that if we ask in His Hebrew name Yahshua, He will answer our prayers.”

     “But they taught us to say at the end of our prayers,  ‘In Jesus’ name.'”

     “Yes, we were young children of God.  And as all children believe in magic, we took the words ‘in Jesus’ name’ to possess a magical promise of getting what we want.  Then we thought as children, but now He commands us to be young men and women in Him, where we put away those concepts of the past and strive for more of His understanding on ‘asking in His name.

      “So how do we ask in His name?”    

        “If we ask anything that agrees with what His name means, then He will grant it.  If we ask anything that comes under what His name means, then He will grant it.  If we ask anything that glorifies His name…If we ask anything that trusts in the promises contained in the meaning of His name…If we ask anything that can be seen as having to do with what’s in His name…If we ask anything that honors the meaning of His name—then, He will grant it.”

     “So, what does His name mean?”

     “His Hebrew name Yahshua means  ‘Yah is Savior.’  Yah means ‘the Self-Existent One’ and shua means ‘Savior.’  This means that the Father Yahweh is the Savior and the Father dwelt bodily in the Son and was and is the Savior.  Christ confirmed this when He said, Believe me that the Father is in me, and when He said, I and my Father are one. Christ was called Immanuel, meaning ‘God with us.’  If you ask Him with all this in mind, giving honor to His name, which glorifies the Father, then you will get God’s attention.  He will answer your prayers if you ask in His name this way.”

     I thanked the wise man for his help and went my way.  I did not understand it then, for it was a lot to take in.  But I studied it out, and now I see confirmation all the time of what he told me.  One example:  In Mt. 1: 21 there is a footnote on the word “JESUS” in my King James Version published by World Bible Publishers.  The footnote in the column says, “SAVIOR.”  There it is.  The translators and publishers knew that His original name meant SAVIOR.  “You shall call His name YAHSHUA (which means ‘Yah is Savior’), for He shall save His people from their sins.”     Kenneth Wayne Hancock  [See my book at the top of the website Yah Is Savior: The Road to Immortality]

Apples of Gold–Missing the Wife of My Youth

I am like an ancient apple tree

That knows innately April is nigh.

The sap still wants to rise,

But no white blossoms smile at passersby,

Enticing them to breathe our joy

And taste the promise of our love.

The sun still frowns, begrudging a ray or two.

So come back soon and with you bring the latter rain,

That the  storehouse of every heart

May overflow with  apples of gold.

Kenneth Wayne Hancock

You Just Can’t Fight the Love*–My Testimony in Song

I once was a lost and bitter young man

Till Christ showed me He’s the way.

The way for a man to be like God is

Doing what He did.

And what did He do but give up His life

That other people might live.

And compassion like that is from above,

And I couldn’t fight the love.

So I gave up my life, and He gave me His.

Now I don’t sin anymore,

For “he that is dead is freed from sin.”

There’s only love now within.

And God and His love obeys all His laws

Inside me, loving neighbor as self.

And action like this is from above,

And you just can’t fight the love.

Until that day you hear the Master say,

“I want to make you my son.”

And, oh, that light from up above,

And you just can’t fight the–

You’d better not fight the–

You just can’t fight the love.     Kenneth Wayne Hancock

 

* {I wrote this song back in 1973.  Someday I’ll record it on You Tube and share it.}

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Conversations With the Seer–What is the Light of God?

(Formerly in Israel, if a man went to inquire of God, he would say, “Come, let us go to the Seer,” because the prophet of today used to be called a Seer. I Samuel 9: 9)

I came to the Seer with a question about the Light.  I was reading the words, but I just could not wrap my mind around it.  So I asked, “What is the Light?”

“The Light is the life of God,” he said with a smile.  “Whenever a person receives His life, then they are receiving the Light.”

“How does this tie in with Christ being the Light of the world?”

“Eternal Life was and is in Christ.  The fulness of the very life of God dwelt bodily in Christ, and it is this Eternal Life that is the Light.  His Life enlightens natural man.  Man sits in darkness, drifting aimlessly, a victim of kneejerk responses that oftentimes land him into trouble.  When unregenerate man runs into this Eternal Life, a light shines brightly into his dark soul.  His “heart of darkness” is exposed.  He sees that someone is leading a righteous life, revealing his life to be unrighteous and sinful.  He doesn’t understand at this point how all this happens.  This is how the Light shines into darkness, and the darkness comprehended it not (1).

“How does this work?”

“God’s Life in Christ is Light.  The very nature of Light is to shine into darkness.  But to understand this spiritual Light, we must examine natural light that enters our earthly eyes every morning.  Just like the light from the sun searches out and dispels corners and pockets of the darkness of night, even so the Life of God in Christ searches out and reveals the darkness in the hearts of sinful human beings.  The positive creative goodness of His Eternal Life can’t help but go where sin, evil, and darkness resides.”

“I understand this, but why does it do this?”  I ask.

“It hinges on why God created human beings in the first place.  Mankind was created to house the Eternal Life of God.  Nothing less.  And since what God does, He does forever, He still is seeking out a place to reside.  He’s looking for a home.  Our bodies are designed to be His temple.  And He has not stopped searching for a people to live in.”

“Yes.  ‘He seeketh such to worship Him–in spirit and in truth.’  Christ and the woman at the well” (2).

“Exactly.  This incident actually shows us what true worship is.  He told her that God is a Spirit, and those who worship Him will have His Spirit, His very Life, living in them.  God is searching the hearts of men and women everywhere as sunlight searches out darkness.”

“But why doesn’t everyone surrender to the Light when it enters into their thinking?”

“When the human heart is doing evil, it shies away from the Light, which is His Life.  The sinful heart is selfish and does not want to surrender to God’s Life, which demands a change.  Most prefer to continue to live their old lives.  But He wants His temple clean of all the evil because He can’t dwell where evil is.  But some persist in their evil ways.  The scriptures say, For everyone that does evil hates the light, neither comes to the light, lest his deeds should be discovered.  But he that does truth comes to the light so that his deeds may become known” (3).

“So everyone makes his or her choice.”

“Yes.  This one thing all must realize.  This Eternal Life which trumps death, which is the key to immortality, the thing that everyone wishes for–this Eternal Life is in Christ.  When someone rejects Him and His words, they are not rejecting some nice man who taught good principles in Galilee 2,000 years ago.  No.  They are rejecting Life and their chance at immortality.  He said, I am the way, the truth, and the life.  When we believe that God (Yahweh), the supreme Creator, dwelt bodily in Christ, we have LIFE.  And His LIFE is man’s Light that shines into the selfish heart and drives the darkness out (4).     Those that receive the Light, those who receive this Eternal Life into their hearts, these are the ones that He will give power to, to become the sons and daughters of God, which is believing what His name means.  But that’s another day” (5).

And with that, I thanked the Seer for sharing his thoughts on the Light.  I went out, wondering if I would ever be able to contain the Light.  And then the thought came, I will not put on you more than you are able to bear.  And that made me smile.     Kenneth Wayne Hancock

(1) John 1: 4-5          (2) John 4: 23-24             (3) John 3: 19-21         (4)  I John 5: 10-12     (5) John 1: 12

Gay Marriage–An Oxymoron, Biblically Speaking

The gay blogger was blasting the “bigots”–those who voted in California against legalizing gay marriage.  Hypocrites even, he said, especially blacks who voted 70% to 30% against.  “Now you are discriminating against another minority–gays,” he wrote.  He implied that the majority thought of gays as less than human.

This was my response to his rant: 

I agree wholeheartedly that gays are human beings–people with rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.   However, “holy matrimony” or marriage is a spiritual and physical joining together by God of a male and female.  These two become one and are the only two human beings that “God hath joined together” scripturally.  God has not changed His position on this.  He did say, “I am the same yesterday, today, and forever; I change not.”  

Marriage between male and female is a moral right granted by the Creator.  It was never granted to those of the same sex.  You are trying to forge gay marriage into a civil right, erroneously basing it as a moral or inalienable right.  “…That they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights…life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”  According to the Declaration of Independence, it is the Creator that gives the moral or unalienable rights to mankind.  He gave “holy matrimony” to males and females.  Civil rights are manmade laws; a civil union, therefore, should be the route you should attempt at equality.  

For you see, this male/female spiritual union is in the internal genetic fabric of human society with roots going back thousands of years, planted there by a purposeful Creator.  That is the reason that “gay marriage” was rejected, first by the Creator and now by the people of CA and FL.  It doesn’t set well in the human heart and psyche because it never was part of the divine plan, according to the scriptures.  

To get extra legal rights that married couples have, gays should call it civil unions, etc. 

“Gay” and “marriage” is the ultimate oxymoron because of the Creator’s plan; they cannot go together.  Marriage is a spiritual thing that God does with males and females.

I do say this in love: the God of the Bible rejects homosexuality in the strongest of terms (See Genesis 19 and Romans 1: 26-27).  

But I do not condemn you; I just want to inform you as to the reasons you are running up against a brick wall, or rather, a Rock wall…Marriage is a spiritual thing, a religious institution in the eyes of God.  Calling your relationship a “marriage” is at the root of the problem many heterosexuals have with it. And most people still sense this though our national sins are separating us from Him more and more.  Biblically, God’s got His own thoughts about what marriage is.  We all are commanded to pray and seek His will in all matters, including holy matrimony.  KWH

Lost Tribes of Israel in Earth Today–Three Scriptural Proofs

     Proof #1: An end-time prophecy in the book of Revelation puts the lost sheep of the whole House of Israel—12 tribes—in the earth in the last days. 

     In chapter 7 we read of 12,000 from each of the twelve tribes being sealed as the servants of God.  “And I heard the number of them which were sealed: and there were sealed an hundred and forty and four thousand of all the tribes of the children of Israel” (7:4).  And then he begins to list them by the specific names of the tribes of Israel.  Some say that these are all Jews.  This is impossible, for the Jews of the lineage of Abraham were comprised of only two the the twelve tribes, Judah and Benjamin.

     Question: If the 12 tribes of Israel are no longer in the earth or are no longer recognizable as such, then how are they to be found and sealed in the latter days?

 Proof #2: Yahweh will cause the house of Israel to wander among all nations.

      “For, lo, I will command, and I will sift the house of Israel among all nations, like as corn is sifted in a sieve, yet shall not the least grain fall upon the earth” (Amos 9:9).  The word “sift” is from #5128 in Strong’s Hebrew, meaning “to wander, move.”  In fact, it is translated “wander” and “move” in several passages such as Numbers 32:13: “He made them wander in the wilderness.”

     All authorities agree that the passage in Amos speaks of the last days—a time of destruction for the wicked and a time of restoration for the people of God.  “Behold, the eyes of the Lord GOD are upon the sinful kingdom, and I will destroy it from off the face of the earth; saving that I will not utterly destroy the house of Jacob, saith the LORD” (Amos 9:8).  Here the evil empires of the earth will come down, but God will spare certain of the tribes of Israel.  They will be recognizable; they will be in tact.  They will be known by God and by the world at that time.

 

Proof # 3: The Savior Yahshua, when sending his twelve disciples out in Matthew 10, was sending them out as a type and shadow of what will take place in the future.  The lost sheep of the House of Israel are to be the target audience of the end time preaching of the kingdom of heaven.  In fact, the Master tells them to not go to the Gentiles or the Samaritans, but to go to the “lost sheep of the house of Israel.” 

     He then commissions, empowers, and instructs them.  But it is not only for them; it is actually written for those of us who will come in to work in his vineyard in these latter days.  How do we know that all of this in Matthew 10 is for us?  The answer is found in verse 23.  “Ye shall not have gone over the cities of Israel, till the Son of man be come.”

     Two points emerge here.  First, by this time, the cities of the northern Kingdom of Israel are not inhabited by Israelites.  By 721 B. C. the Assyrians had emptied the cities of Israel and had deported them to upper Mesopotamia.  The Assyrians had then brought in people from their cities to repopulate the Israelite cities.  Seven centuries later, the disciples could not physically have gone to the new cities that the dispersed Israelites had migrated to—not in that short time frame.  Besides, they did not know where they were; they were lost.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Let No Errant Bullet Find My Son–A Poem and a Prayer

Let no errant bullet find my son.

Let no screaming shrapnel shred his limbs

And mar a life that’s just begun.

Nor let the carboned dead curled in the sand

Begin to stir his mind into a bitter brew

Of fear, disgust, contempt for humankind.

Let his desert march through death’s shadow

Reveal to him not just what man to man can do,

But let him see the need for him to trust in You.

 

 

Kenneth Wayne Hancock

For his son, Joby,

A sargeant in Iraq,

3rd Infantry Division,

March 21, 2003

 

 

These words rushed into and out of a heart feeling vacant, lonely, and helpless that day.  War has a way of doing that to a man.  It puts things into a new perspective, far away from the bravado of foolish ego.  Being close to death does that to you–makes you come down off your high horse.  That this is good for the soul is one of life’s mysteriously sad ironies.  I felt this first hand in Vietnam and was feeling it again vicariously with my son that morning.

 

And so my only recourse was to call upon the Giver of life to become the Sustainer of life, the life of my son.  And He did answer this prayer.  KWH