The Rod of Comfort – Holy Spirit – Holy Friday

“I will fear no evil for thou art with me: thy rod and thy staff, they comfort me.”

Imagine that you are in a battle not for just your self, but for all of mankind. Also imagine that you love everyone in the world as if they are your own flesh and blood. There is such a passion and burden for your mission to be accomplished that no physical, emotional or spiritual force can rattle your determination. Your ability and talent are irrelevant. In fact, it isn’t even your will that is operating; it is the will and strength of God, and you know it.

You also realize that your mission will cause you the deepest agony that you could ever imagine or have ever experienced ~ EVER!

You will experience physically, mentally, and emotionally the uncontrollable rage and anger of Satan himself along with his staff who are totally determined that your mission will be a failure. You will be forced to hear every lie to try and persuade you that you are not doing God’s will and this staff of evil will try to cause you to give up and into the chaos of confusion.

In addition, you know there is a plot for your assassination and a traitor in your midst.

The Rod of Comfort. A three stranded cord, which will never be broken. The Father, Son and Holy Spirit will lead, guide, comfort, and protect us.

His presences shall encompass round about us as a fort even in the darkest hours and deepest valleys.

As we approach Good Friday (Chinese translation Holy Friday), the LORD spoke to my heart how bittersweet those final hours must have been for Jesus as He crossed over the Brook of Cedron with his disciples less one to the garden of Gethsemane (John 1:1).

Denial, betrayal and trauma like no man would ever experience would try to rock our Savior and all of His follower’s worlds but nothing could destroy them.

The One True God, Creator of the Universe, The Great I AM, The Word of God made flesh and blood would not only endure the rod of punishment for mankind’s sins and depravity, but would send The Rod of Comfort to empower and enable us to endure to the end.

A Millennial prior to Jesus walking over the exact brook in the valley of the shadow of death, King David agonizes over Ahithophel, his friend and counselor turned traitor. The bitterness of this traitorous act of Ahithophel (David’s wife Bathsheba’s Grandfather) is commemorated by David in Psalm 55:12-14,

“For it was not an enemy that reproached me; then I could have borne it: neither was it he that hated me that did magnify himself against me; then I would have hid myself from him: But it was thou, a man mine equal, my guide, and mine acquaintance. We took sweet counsel together, and walked unto the house of God in company.”

I’m certain there are those who have felt denied, broken and betrayed by those closest to them. I know this is a difficult place for anyone to be.

But we can take hope knowing that the sacrifice Jesus made on the cross can carry us through these type of valleys.

I’ve experienced many great trials, burdens, betrayals and heartaches in my life, but the depth of unconditional love and comfort outweighs any sorrow or regret. The Rod of Comfort, The Holy One, the Father, Son and Holy Spirit is mighty to save, deliver and heal.

Holy Friday is a time to remember the pain, the sorrow the suffering that Jesus endured for mankind that He created. Hebrews 5:7 tells us that Jesus knelt in prayer, even with “strong cryings and tears.”

“Who in the days of his flesh, when he offered up prayers and supplications with strong crying and tears unto him that was able to save him from death, and was heard in that he feared.”

As with Jesus, and David when we experience the dangers of the valleys, “And there appeared an angel unto him from heaven, strengthening him” (Luke 22:43); we can take refuge in the Holy Spirit, The Rod of Comfort, and staff of heavenly hosts.

I’ve know the protection & discipline of a wise Father, the provision of a Savior and Redeemer, and the comfort and peace of the Holy Spirit all who make up the trinity of One who will never fail to lead us to the highest mountains tops or bring us through the deepest valleys.

The Spirit of the Lord GOD is upon Me, because the LORD has anointed Me to preach good tidings unto the meek; He has sent Me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim the acceptable year of the LORD, and the day of vengeance of our God; to comfort all that mourn. Isaiah 61:1-2

Searching for God’s Treasures,
Marlene

Marlene has been called to go and serve others
wherever God calls her.

She combines teaching, prayer, worship
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from ashes to beauty…
Cinderella Released
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The Kidron Valley

KIDRON (Heb. קִדְרוֹן), valley to the N. and E. of Jerusalem, separating the city from the Mount of Olives. The name derived from the root kdr (“dark,” “shady”), refers to its depth. The valley begins near the Sanhedria saddle, northwest of Jerusalem, at a height of 2,585 ft. (788 m.), close to the watershed. It continues eastward for about 1½ mi. (2½ km.) as Naḥal Egozim (Wadi Jauz). At a height of 2,346 ft. (715 m.) the valley turns south. Several valleys converge with the Kidron as it runs southward: the Bethzeita Valley, which traverses the northeast corner of the Old City, at 2,260 ft. (686 m.) from the west; the Tyropoeon Valley, which bisects the Old City, at 2,035 ft. (617 m.); the Ben-Hinnom Valley, which passes the Old City on the west, at 2,000 ft. (606 m.). The Kidron then continues in a southeasterly direction, the banks becoming steeper and more craggy. It passes the monastery of Mar Saba and issues into the Dead Sea 2 mi. (c. 3 km.) south of Ra’s al-Fashkha.

The great importance of the Kidron for Jerusalem lies in the fact that it and its confluents determined the orographical shape of the area on which the city was built. The valley protected the City of David and its northern continuation, the Temple Mount, on the east. The Gihon, Jerusalem’s only spring, issued from its west slope. Only toward the end of the Second Temple period, when Agrippa I built the Third Wall there, was the westward bend of the Kidron utilized for protection of the city. Situated on the leeward side of the city and presenting rock surfaces suitable for the cutting of tomb caves, the valley served from early times as a necropolis of Jerusalem, the early tombs culminating in the magnificent rock-cut monuments along the eastern slope.

The first biblical reference to the “brook” Kidron occurs in connection with David’s flight before Absalom (II Sam. 15:23). In the time of the divided monarchy, the reforming kings of Judah, Asa, Hezekiah, and Josiah, cast away and burnt the various idols which defiled Jerusalem there (I Kings 15:13; II Kings 23:4, 6, 12; II Chron. 15:16; 29:16). Jeremiah included the Kidron within the area holy to the Lord (31:39–40). In later times the central part of the valley was called the Valley of Jehoshaphat and was assumed to be the place where the dead were resurrected. In this legend, as adapted by the Muslims, all men had to cross the valley on a sword suspended over it.

BIBLIOGRAPHY:

Abel, Geog, 1 (1933), 400–1; N. Avigad, Maẓẓevot Kedumot be-Naḥal Kidron (1954); M. Avi-Yonah (ed.), Sefer Yerushalayim (1956), passim. ADD. BIBLIOGRAPHY: Y. Tsafrir, L. Di Segni, and J. Green, Tabula Imperii Romani. Iudaea – Palaestina. Maps and Gazetteer. (1994), 102, S.V. Cedron Torrens.

[Michael Avi-Yonah]

Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit 1