Ancient Words, Modern Message

Shalom!  I’m Roger Wambold, Director of Hebrew Christian Fellowship.
I look forward to each of these “Bagel-side Chats,” normally scheduled to be heard every seventh episode in the “Ancient Words, Modern Message” series of podcasts.  Frankly, I enjoy the informality of the format, and I even allow myself the luxury of considering it a “virtual visit” with each of you who listen in.
In this fifteenth “Bagel-side Chat” (It’s hard for me to believe we’re already up to that number), it is my privilege to introduce you to a special friend and his connection with what you are hearing right now.
Especially in this time when anti-Semitism is alarmingly on the rise worldwide, including our own country, the United States, it is important to determine its insidious root cause and its potential solution.  It is for this reason that I’ve chosen to introduce you to Michael and to share his story.  In fact, that’s the title of this episode, “Michael’s Story.”  Thanks for listening, and may God use his story to bless, encourage, and help you.
Thank you for listening to Ancient Words, Modern Message. You can expect episodes twice a month on Monday. Ancient Words, Modern Message is supported by Hebrew Christian Fellowship. To learn more about our ministry, or to ask a question, contact HCFellowship4819@gmail.com. We might just answer your question on a future episode of Ancient Words, Modern Message.
If you know a person that you think would benefit from this teaching, please share it with them. And if you’d like to support Ancient Words, Modern Message, please leave a review on Apple Podcasts. Your input helps us make the podcast even better and reach new listeners.
Ancient Words, Modern Message is produced by Studio D Podcast Production and hosted by Rev. Roger Wambold, Director of Hebrew Christian Fellowship.
 

In his 1981 inaugural address, Ronald Reagan famously said, “In this present crisis, government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem.”  In his inimitable fashion, our 40th president “cut to the chase” and “hit the nail on the head,” recognizing and acknowledging that so long as men with a sinful human nature are elected to office, make laws, and govern nations, the nation over which they preside will be woefully imperfect.
But what happens if “the Chief Executive” is a man not possessing a sinful human nature, one who is perfectly righteous, perfectly just, perfectly holy?  What happens if the only One who fits this description, Jesus Christ, is finally in complete control, completely in charge of human affairs on earth?
The results are nothing short of extraordinary as can be seen in the prophet Zechariah’s description of a time in the future when this unprecedented government will be unveiled, a time when even the most ordinary of items will bear the hallmark of a holy God.
In this sixth and final study in the series, “God Remembers:  Studies in Zechariah 12-14,” we carefully consider what the world will be like when Jesus rules and reigns on the earth, as all of the Old Testament prophets assure us He will,” a time “When the Right Man’s in Charge.”  And that is the title of this episode of Ancient Words, Modern Message, so let’s turn to Zechariah 14 and “dig in."
Thank you for listening to Ancient Words, Modern Message. You can expect episodes twice a month on Monday. Ancient Words, Modern Message is supported by Hebrew Christian Fellowship. To learn more about our ministry, or to ask a question, contact HCFellowship4819@gmail.com. We might just answer your question on a future episode of Ancient Words, Modern Message.
If you know a person that you think would benefit from this teaching, please share it with them. And if you’d like to support Ancient Words, Modern Message, please leave a review on Apple Podcasts. Your input helps us make the podcast even better and reach new listeners.
Ancient Words, Modern Message is produced by Studio D Podcast Production and hosted by Rev. Roger Wambold, Director of Hebrew Christian Fellowship.

As the impact of the Great Depression in the fall of 1929 began to reverberate throughout the United States, Jewish composer Milton Ager and Jewish lyricist Jack Yellen released their song, “Happy Days Are Here Again,” at a time when the sufferings of the American people had just begun.
Democrat presidential candidate Franklin Delano Roosevelt adopted the song for his 1932 campaign, resulting in his election to the first of three terms as president, likely due to the musical theme of better days waiting beyond the time of hardship (particularly if people voted for him!).
Throughout history people have looked to the future in hopes of a better day when, as the song goes, “the skies above are clear again, so let’s sing a song of cheer again; happy days are here again.”
In sixth century B.C. Israel, the prophet Zechariah received visions of the future of Israel and the Jewish people, a future characterized by enormous, in fact unprecedented, suffering.  However, those visions included the promise of a bright future awaiting them, not only them, but awaiting all of those who know Jesus as their Savior, Lord, and coming King.  
For more on this, let’s turn to Zechariah 14 in the next study in this series, “God Remembers,” an episode entitled, “When Happy Days Are Here Again.”
Thank you for listening to Ancient Words, Modern Message. You can expect episodes twice a month on Monday. Ancient Words, Modern Message is supported by Hebrew Christian Fellowship. To learn more about our ministry, or to ask a question, contact HCFellowship4819@gmail.com. We might just answer your question on a future episode of Ancient Words, Modern Message.
If you know a person that you think would benefit from this teaching, please share it with them. And if you’d like to support Ancient Words, Modern Message, please leave a review on Apple Podcasts. Your input helps us make the podcast even better and reach new listeners.
Ancient Words, Modern Message is produced by Studio D Podcast Production and hosted by Rev. Roger Wambold, Director of Hebrew Christian Fellowship.

Rarely does a day pass in which the state of Israel is not mentioned early on in the news media’s reporting of current events, which is quite remarkable, given the unimpressive land-mass and “junior-size” population of a country the size of the State of New Jersey and home to only ten million people. 
And rarely does a day pass without any report, even the regularly understated ones, of an incident of violence against Jewish people as an expression of anti-Semitism somewhere in the world.
One can’t help but have the distinct feeling that the future holds some kind of major eruption involving that little country and that small group of people—less than seven million Jews in Israel and a total of only slightly over fifteen million Jews worldwide.
And that feeling is entirely consistent with the Old Testament prophecies regarding Israel and the Jewish people, including a remarkably dramatic depiction of the ultimate outcome of movements appearing center-stage right now, as reported in today’s news.
It is important to note that the Old Testament prophets never “hedged” on their statement of what God is going to do with, and for, Israel.  Bible-believing people still embrace the statement—trite, but true—“God said it; I believe it; that settles it!”
And one of the prophets even answered to a name which, every time it was spoken, was a reminder of the certainty of his prophecies:  Zechariah, meaning in Hebrew, “God remembers.”
So let’s look into what Zechariah declares as the future of Israel and the Jewish people in this fourth installment of the series, “God Remembers!,” an episode we call “The Glory Returns!”
 
Thank you for listening to Ancient Words, Modern Message. You can expect episodes twice a month on Monday. Ancient Words, Modern Message is supported by Hebrew Christian Fellowship. To learn more about our ministry, or to ask a question, contact HCFellowship4819@gmail.com. We might just answer your question on a future episode of Ancient Words, Modern Message.
If you know a person that you think would benefit from this teaching, please share it with them. And if you’d like to support Ancient Words, Modern Message, please leave a review on Apple Podcasts. Your input helps us make the podcast even better and reach new listeners.
Ancient Words, Modern Message is produced by Studio D Podcast Production and hosted by Rev. Roger Wambold, Director of Hebrew Christian Fellowship.

In Psalm 32 King David offers a personal testimony—from his own experience—of the sweet  assurance of sins forgiven when he writes:
Blessed is the one whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered.  Blessed is the man against whom the LORD counts no iniquity, and in whose spirit there is no deceit.  (Psalm 32:1-2 in the English Standard Version)
Though even so great a leader as Israel’s King David could speak confidently of this assurance, the fact is that the concept is foreign to Jewish people today, as evidenced by the uncertainty with which they conclude their personal and corporate observance each year of Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement.
And yet, the prophet Zechariah declared the message of a time when this joyful assurance of forgiveness will be extended to all of Israel, but sadly after a time of great adversity and persecution.
The source of that forgiveness is the same for Jews and Gentiles alike, found only in the atoning death of Jesus.
With that in mind, let’s open our Bibles to Zechariah chapter 13 for the third in the series, “God Remembers: Studies in Zechariah twelve through fourteen,” an episode entitled, “There Is a Fountain.”
Thank you for listening to Ancient Words, Modern Message. You can expect episodes twice a month on Monday. Ancient Words, Modern Message is supported by Hebrew Christian Fellowship. To learn more about our ministry, or to ask a question, contact HCFellowship4819@gmail.com. We might just answer your question on a future episode of Ancient Words, Modern Message.
If you know a person that you think would benefit from this teaching, please share it with them. And if you’d like to support Ancient Words, Modern Message, please leave a review on Apple Podcasts. Your input helps us make the podcast even better and reach new listeners.
Ancient Words, Modern Message is produced by Studio D Podcast Production and hosted by Rev. Roger Wambold, Director of Hebrew Christian Fellowship.

While there are those who say that God is finished with His dealings with national Israel, with the Jewish people as a whole—which essentially means that “The Chosen People” have become “The Un-Chosen People—both the Old and New Testament Scriptures indicate a future scenario quite to the contrary.
It is certainly true that Jacob’s descendants have rarely walked in obedience and service to God (but then, whose descendants HAVE?), that doesn’t mean that the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob who chose the Jewish people to have a special relationship with Him and to be used by Him in special ways has moved from “Plan A” to “Plan B”!
In this episode of “Ancient Words, Modern Message,” we look again at the Old Testament Prophet Zechariah’s message concerning the future of Israel, a future that is both frightening and reassuring.
So I invite you to open your Bible to Zechariah, chapter 12 for today’s study in our series,“God Remembers!”, one entitled, “Israel’s New Birth."
Thank you for listening to Ancient Words, Modern Message. You can expect episodes twice a month on Monday. Ancient Words, Modern Message is supported by Hebrew Christian Fellowship. To learn more about our ministry, or to ask a question, contact HCFellowship4819@gmail.com. We might just answer your question on a future episode of Ancient Words, Modern Message.
If you know a person that you think would benefit from this teaching, please share it with them. And if you’d like to support Ancient Words, Modern Message, please leave a review on Apple Podcasts. Your input helps us make the podcast even better and reach new listeners.
Ancient Words, Modern Message is produced by Studio D Podcast Production and hosted by Rev. Roger Wambold, Director of Hebrew Christian Fellowship.

There is a “catchy” little gospel song that has been around for a long time, but originated among troubled people in a very difficult time.
“Do Lord, O Do Lord, O Do Remember Me” has been sung joyfully, performed, and recorded by many, many people over many, many years, but it was African slaves in the mid-nineteenth century, prior to the War Between the States, who first put those words to music.  With lives full of  seemingly endless toil, despair, and hopelessness, they looked to the future, to the end of their lives and sang. . .
“I’ve got a home in glory-land that outshines the sun.”
It was that hope that enabled them to face each wretched day, and they couldn’t help but ask God in song to remember their hope and trust in Him when they were called into His presence.
Throughout many centuries the Jewish people have likewise been in the most desperate of circumstances when the only real source of strength and comfort was the deliverance and joy awaiting them in the future.  They, too, likely cried out, “Do Lord, O Do Lord, O Do Remember Us!”
God sent a prophet to the Jewish people at a crucial time in their history when they greatly needed encouragement and strength, and the very name of that prophet characterized the message he would bring to them.  Zechariah, meaning “God remembers!”
And that is the title of this series of studies from the Old Testament Book of Zechariah, chapters twelve through fourteen, beginning with this first episode entitled, “When All Hope Is Lost, Look Up!”
Thank you for listening to Ancient Words, Modern Message. You can expect episodes twice a month on Monday. Ancient Words, Modern Message is supported by Hebrew Christian Fellowship. To learn more about our ministry, or to ask a question, contact HCFellowship4819@gmail.com. We might just answer your question on a future episode of Ancient Words, Modern Message.If you know a person that you think would benefit from this teaching, please share it with them. And if you’d like to support Ancient Words, Modern Message, please leave a review on Apple Podcasts. Your input helps us make the podcast even better and reach new listeners.Ancient Words, Modern Message is produced by Studio D Podcast Production and hosted by Rev. Roger Wambold, Director of Hebrew Christian Fellowship.

Roger Wambold here:  Once again as your host in this series of podcasts, “Ancient Words, Modern Message” I have the privilege of settling in at my desk with a bagel and a beverage for an informal chat about things Jewish.
With tongue-in-cheek one Jewish pundit opined that “We Jews have a blessing for everything!”
In a similar humorous vein, another Jewish observer theorized that “Since every Jewish holiday includes special foods, and since we Jews love to eat, we had to come up with lots of Jewish holidays!”
While it is true that the Jewish calendar does seem to have an inordinately large number of “special days,” some of these “special days” were ordained by God and commanded in Scripture.
It is the subject of one of these divinely-commanded “special days” that is the focus of this new “Bagel-side Chat.”
So. . .I invite you to join me—maybe even with your own bagel and beverage—for this episode entitled, “Heavy on the Leaven:  The Feast of Pentecost.”
Thank you for listening to Ancient Words, Modern Message. You can expect episodes twice a month on Monday. Ancient Words, Modern Message is supported by Hebrew Christian Fellowship. To learn more about our ministry, or to ask a question, contact HCFellowship4819@gmail.com. We might just answer your question on a future episode of Ancient Words, Modern Message.If you know a person that you think would benefit from this teaching, please share it with them. And if you’d like to support Ancient Words, Modern Message, please leave a review on Apple Podcasts. Your input helps us make the podcast even better and reach new listeners.Ancient Words, Modern Message is produced by Studio D Podcast Production and hosted by Rev. Roger Wambold, Director of Hebrew Christian Fellowship.
 

God’s people throughout history have always used the medium of music to express their praise, worship, and gratitude to God. 
And so it was when Israel’s fourth judge, Deborah, the “stout-hearted woman,” reflected on a glorious victory over the Canaanite Confederacy “against all odds” more than three millennia ago, the details of which are recorded in Judges, chapter four.  The next chapter provides a record of the song of praise that she wrote and sang on that occasion. 
The last verse—really the chorus—of the song is Judges 5:31:  “So may all your enemies perish, O LORD!  But your friends be like the sun as he rises in his might.” 
In essence, Deborah is declaring that in every contest between God and man, between good and evil, the final score is always the same:  “God wins, and His enemies lose!”  So the question that begs to be asked of every one of us is:  “Which side am I on?” 
Many years after Deborah’s song, another song writer, Maltbie Babcock, reminded himself and all of us that, “Though the wrong seems oft’ so strong, God is the Ruler yet.”  A few years after that, Eugene M. Bartlett gave us his musical reminder of “Victory in Jesus”: 
I heard about a mansion He has built for me in glory, And I heard about the streets of gold beyond the crystal sea;  About the angels singing, and the old redemption story, And some sweet day I’ll sing up there the song of victory. 
So the question remains: “Who is on the Lord’s side?”   
And that is the title of this sixth and final episode in the series, “Stout-Hearted Men and Women:  Studies in the Book of Judges.”
Thank you for listening to Ancient Words, Modern Message. You can expect episodes twice a month on Monday. Ancient Words, Modern Message is supported by Hebrew Christian Fellowship. To learn more about our ministry, or to ask a question, contact HCFellowship4819@gmail.com. We might just answer your question on a future episode of Ancient Words, Modern Message.If you know a person that you think would benefit from this teaching, please share it with them. And if you’d like to support Ancient Words, Modern Message, please leave a review on Apple Podcasts. Your input helps us make the podcast even better and reach new listeners.Ancient Words, Modern Message is produced by Studio D Podcast Production and hosted by Rev. Roger Wambold, Director of Hebrew Christian Fellowship.
 

It is significant that the longest book in the Bible is a songbook, referring, of course, to the book of Psalms in the Old Testament, which is a collection of songs of praise written by various  men (and possibly women) of God to be sung to His glory. 
It is also significant that there are so many examples in Scripture of God’s people “breaking into song” in response to demonstrations of God’s greatness and goodness on their behalf. 
And so it is in the book of Judges when, against all odds, God delivered Israel from twenty years of oppression at the hands of the Canaanites.  When the dust settled after the heat of battle, Deborah the Judge composed lyrics and music for a song of praise. 
Though we don’t have the tune, we do have the words to that song recorded in Judges, chapter five. 
And so, let’s enjoy and be challenged by these words in this fifth in our series, “Stout-Hearted Men and Women:  Studies in the Book Judges,” an episode entitled simply, “Deborah’s Song.”
Thank you for listening to Ancient Words, Modern Message. You can expect episodes twice a month on Monday. Ancient Words, Modern Message is supported by Hebrew Christian Fellowship. To learn more about our ministry, or to ask a question, contact HCFellowship4819@gmail.com. We might just answer your question on a future episode of Ancient Words, Modern Message.If you know a person that you think would benefit from this teaching, please share it with them. And if you’d like to support Ancient Words, Modern Message, please leave a review on Apple Podcasts. Your input helps us make the podcast even better and reach new listeners.Ancient Words, Modern Message is produced by Studio D Podcast Production and hosted by Rev. Roger Wambold, Director of Hebrew Christian Fellowship.