In the last segment of our presentation of Paul’s epistle to the Romans, we completed Romans chapter 8, which, as we explained, summarized many of Paul’s statements in the chapters which precede it. Paul ended Romans 8 by stating that nothing could separate the love of Christ away from the creation of Adamic man, which in its entirety and without exception awaits liberation from the bondage of decay. Tonight we shall present Romans chapter 9, where after explaining these things Paul turns his attention to his kinsmen Israelites in Judaea.

One cannot truly understand Romans chapter 9 without understanding the demographic makeup of the Roman province of Judaea during the time of Christ. This is because an understanding of Paul’s statements in this chapter, and the chapters beyond where he continues the same topic he presents here, hinges on two statements which are made by Paul in the opening verses.

The story of Jesus’ resurrection is well-known and celebrated by millions of Christians worldwide. However, there are some lesser-known details surrounding this miraculous event that can deepen our understanding and appreciation for this central moment in our faith. Let’s explore four intriguing facts about Jesus’ resurrection that you might not be aware of.

Background

These verses occur at the end of Paul’s letter to the believers in Galatia back in the First Century. Galatia today is in Central Turkey.

Controversy

The controversy that caused Paul to write this letter, was that the believers who accepted that Jesus Christ was the promised Messiah, were comprised of ethnic and religious Jews, as well as “Gentiles” or “Greeks,” who were not ethnic Jews, and had no physical genealogy back to Abraham.

Some of the Jews were insisting that the Gentile believers had to convert to the Jewish religion, including becoming circumcised.

Paul explained that the New Covenant, started by Jesus and his death and resurrection, abolished the ethnic and religious divisions that separated people, and that those who had the same faith as Abraham, were his spiritual descendants, regardless of race, religion, nationality, gender, or any other way of classifying human beings.

Learned helplessness is a method of manipulation based on the premise that people, subjected to an undesirable element outside their control, eventually lose the power to remove it. For example, a man may finally resign himself to the fact that he’ll keep hearing the neighbor’s barking dog because his efforts to silence the animal have failed and the pet’s owner doesn’t respond to requests for action. A parent stops fighting with school administrators regarding “required” sex-ed classes she doesn’t want her daughter attending; she’s given up because it feels as though nobody is listening and her protests aren’t getting her anywhere. An elderly man in a care facility experiences a loss of vitality; as a result, he becomes inactive, relinquishing his independence and trusting the medical staff to care for his needs.[i] Again, this type of manipulation stems from the response to a situation—more specifically, it depends on a person’s sense of empowerment.

Here’s a quick illustration of how this works, using a financial analogy. Let’s say that two people—we’ll call them Judy and Steve—are given identical budgets, and are observed to see whether they are able save any money. Judy regards saving money as hard; she won’t be able to make it work. On the other hand, Steve thinks that it’s always possible to save money, regardless of how tight the funds.

We are in the Great Awakening, similar to back in the day, when the people were led by God out of Egypt and into the Promised Land.

They had an amazing awakening. They were awakened to true freedom and it’s just as we are experiencing it right now.

We can see when looking at a map, that the Promised Land (then known as Canaan), was not that far from Egypt where the people were being held captive, working their hearts out under their hard taskmasters… the Egyptians. But, it took them a long time to arrive there.

Canaan was the land ‘flowing with milk and honey’. In other words, everything they would ever require was there.

Was it handed to them on a plate?

Not really, they had some fairly major battles they had to fight along the way… just as we have!

There are many similarities to what we face today:

The Hebrew people had worked all their life under the task masters. For 400 years the people lived in the land of Goshen, a northern part of Egypt. To start with, while Joseph was alive, they were well looked after, but once Joseph died and a new Pharaoh reigned, life changed very dramatically for these people.

A few months ago, I wrote an open letter detailing the events of five red heifers arriving in Israel. The replies I got indicated that everyone would like to hear more, so that is the reason for this letter. From a prophetic perspective the red heifers are a highly significant event that brings us another step closer to the manifestation of end time happenings. In that first letter, the connection between the red heifers with Joseph, Noah and the Ezekiel 38/39 war was made (see HERE for refresher or to read for first time).

The information given in that open letter still stands as we watch regional events in the Middle East with the escalation of tensions between Israel and Iran plus with Israel’s many other neighbours. In reality, the information given in the previous letter is that much more poignant now.