Mary’s Ordeal

 

 

Betrothed to one person

And pregnant for another,

Can’t you see the dire implication

And why I was bothered?

 

Joseph was a good man

And didn’t deserve this

And I was virtually out of my mind

When the period I missed.

 

I had been faithful

And a virgin I still was

But just imagine all the chatter-

The incessant buzz.

 

Who would believe me?

Joseph certainly did not

And being the kind of gentleman

He couldn’t let it drop.

 

Even after I told him

What the angel had said,

He still thought of breaking it off

Privately instead.

 

He did not make a fuss

And appeared quite calm

But I knew he felt disappointed;

He was a man.

 

But God told him

To still take me as his wife,

I am sure some of you would say,

Not on your life.

 

Well Joseph did

As history has shown

And in my pregnancy, you’d recall

I had to leave home.

 

 

 

We went to Bethlehem

To be registered

And it was there in that little town

That I delivered.

 

 

 

You view the nativity

And you do so with delight

But you do not have the first clue

Concerning my plight.

 

Innkeeper after innkeeper

Just turned us away

And not one of them would give to us

Even the time of day.

 

 

When at our wit’s end,

One had compassion

And my precious baby was born

In the unlikeliest fashion.

 

Dried hay for a bed

And for a crib, a manger,

Yes, in an animal’s feeding trough

Lay our Saviour.

 

The Saviour of the world

And my Saviour as well

As in the reflective Magnificat

I also did tell.

 

This was not a fanfare

But more so an ordeal,

Even after the father of my son

Was revealed.

 

 

 

I kept it all to myself

And inwardly pondered

While nursing my tiny baby boy

And my Saviour.

 

The ordeal that this was

Could not compare

With the fact that God in the flesh

Was finally here.

 

I was the chosen one

Though without merit

To be the mother of the Messiah,

Holy Spirit’s deposit.

 

Stewart Russell © December 21, 2025

 

The God that Saves

 

 

Who is this God that saves

None other than YAWEH

Whom the Jews acknowledged

And to whom they prayed.

 

But they had a difficulty

When Jesus forgave sins

And decided among themselves

To disregard him.

 

They knew him well:

His father and his mother

And his words and his works

Were to them a bother.

 

He could not have been

The Messiah they expected

And despite his miraculous works

Him they rejected.

 

They believed not

He was come in the flesh

So consequently, there was no chance

Of entering his rest.

 

They worshipped YAWEH

But ignored His Son

And thus, from the God that Saves

Away they had run. 

 

 

The God that Saves

Is the meaning of a name

Which speaks of two when interpreted

That are one and the same.

 

Yeshua is that name

And it means YAWEH Saves

So that the interpretation really is

Jesus is the God that saves.

 

The stone rejected

Is the chief cornerstone

And to all that believe on his name

Become YAWEH’s own.

 

The Father and I are one

Declared Jesus, God’s Son

But when the Pharisees heard it

They were stunned.

 

Is this not Jesus?

Is not he Joseph’s son?

And is not his mother Mary?

Yes, to all bar none!

 

But there is more!

He is Jesus the God that saves

And unlike the Pharisees and others

There’s no position he craves.

 

 

Co-essential with God

And co-existent too,

He is from eternity to eternity

Unlike me and you.

 

Salvation is in no other

As stated in God’s Word

And God the Father and Holy Spirit

With this concur.

 

Who is this God that saves?

Yeshua is his name!

King of kings and Lord of lords

And who eternally reigns.

 

Philippians 2:10-11

 

That at the name of Jesus

Every knee should bow,

Of things in heaven, and things in the earth,

And things under the earth;

 

 

And that every tongue

Should confess

That Jesus Christ is Lord

To the glory of God, the Father.

 

Stewart Russell © June 12, 2025

 

A Tale of Two Cities

 

 

A tale of two cities

As chronicled in God’s Word

Is far different from Dicken’s novel

Of which many have heard.

 

Dickens begins:

 

“It was the best of times

It was the worst of times

It was the age of wisdom

It was the age of foolishness.

 

It was the epoch of belief

It was the epoch of incredulity

It was the season of light

It was the season of darkness.

 

It was the spring of hope

It was the winter of despair

We had everything before us

We had nothing before us.

 

We were all going directly to heaven

We were all going directly the other way.”

 

 

One was about London and Paris

Before and during the French revolution,

The other paints the picture

Of man’s glorious redemption.

 

One is a fictional narrative

Of a historical past,

The other is a Divine chronicling-

Future, present and past.

 

London and Paris:

Two cities in a United Kingdom,

The Old Jerusalem and the New:

And the footprint of God’s Son.

 

One is a tale

That basically came to an end,

The other is still unfolding

As the New Jerusalem.

 

England and France

Israel and the Church:

The latter to be continued,

The former we will skirt.

 

That Israel was God’s wife

Is clear in God’s Holy Word

But that He gave her a bill of divorcement

We have also heard.

 

Israel went a-whoring

That is, trusting in other gods,

Her history is replete in idolatry

As this sin is called.

 

On numerous occasions

God passed judgment on them

And on each occasion

Idolatry was the problem.

  

The first commandment is clear

Concerning who we must worship

But Israel worshipped idols

Making harlotry her habit.

 

Israel became a harlot

As well as did her sister Judah

This is clearly chronicled

In the book of Jeremiah.

 

Jeremiah 3:8

 

And I saw, when for all the causes

whereby backsliding Israel committed adultery

I had put her away, and given her a bill of divorce;

yet her treacherous sister Judah feared not,

but went and played the harlot also.

 

Do note Idolatry and harlotry

Are one and the same

And in this case of a marriage

Adultery is another name.

 

Prostitution is fornication

While Israel’s harlotry is Idolatry,

The former is the oldest profession

While the latter is adultery.

 

Eve, aware of God’s directive,

Still yielded to the serpent’s temptation,

Her act of spiritual prostitution

Was her acceptance of Satan.

 

When she saw

That the fruit was to be desired

She ate and gave to her husband also

And their Edenic stay suddenly expired.

 

 

The United Kingdom of Israel

Was under Saul, David and Solomon

But after the reign of Solomon

It became a dual region.

 

God divided the kingdom

Into the North and South’

Yes, this was at God’s insistence

Straight out of His mouth.

 

 

The North comprised ten tribes

While the South was made of two

But even then, as the Bible shows,

Israel’s adultery grew.

 

Of their twenty kings

Not one followed the Lord

Until eventually came further judgment

When by the Assyrians conquered.

 

Judah was just as treacherous

For she also went a-whoring

Though a few of her nineteen kings

Stuck to God’s instructing.

 

Consistently they forsook God

And followed counter to His ways

And though many were his rescue acts

Their obedience was still delayed.

 

Throughout the Old Testament

Israel was often judged

But they had become so hard-hearted

That they never seriously budged.

 

Seventy years captive in Babylon

To the rebuilding of the temple

And this is indicative of that time

Highlighting Nehemiah and Ezra.

 

It appears also commensurate

With the time of fair Queen Esther

That foiled the plan of wicked Haman

Who was hanged on his own gallows.

 

Imagine the outcome

Had wicked Haman succeeded,

The ancestry of the Saviour, Jesus,

Would surely have been deleted.

 

The Philistines had also tried

But God used a shepherd king

To defeat the Philistine champion

With a single stone and a sling.

 

God was especially longsuffering

But Israel was continually unrepentant

And they murdered the prophets

That God had sent.

 

Upon them lay the righteous blood

Shed upon the earth from righteous Abel

Unto the blood of Zacharias

Whom at their hands also fell.

 

Thus, the lament of Jesus,

As expressed Matthew 23 verse 7:

O Jerusalem that killest the prophets…

And the judgment on that generation.

 

Her house was left unto her

Desolate!

And thus, was Israel’s judgment

And soon coming fate.

 

Exiled in 586 BC

And judged again in the 1^st Century

As prophesied by Jesus himself

Regarding their oncoming misery.

 

From Mount Sinai to Pentecost

From the Old covenant to the New

From a harlot to a chaste bride-

A better covenant in Hebrews.

 

From the Old Jerusalem

To the one John saw coming down,

The new Jerusalem where one day

We shall wear a shining crown.

 

From the earthly Jerusalem

To that of a heavenly kingdom

Evidenced on the day of Pentecost

As promised by Father and Son.

 

John 14:26 & 15:26

 

The Holy Spirit sent by the Father

But in the name of His Son

While simultaneously sent by the Son

But of the Father therefrom.

 

A tale of two cities

With one having done away

To a New and glorious Jerusalem

And an infinitely brighter day.

 

Isaiah 9:2

 

The people that walked in darkness

Have seen a great light:

They that dwell in the land of the shadow of death,

Upon them hath the shined.

 

Seventy years in Exile to Babylon

And the rebuilding of the first temple

Seventy years of weeks to Pentecost

And the spreading of the Gospel.

 

No parenthesis in between

Daniel’s seventy weeks,

A straight-up count of seventy

With no modified tweak.

 

Midway in the seventieth week

Messiah was cruelly cut off,

When he was offered a pardon by Pilate

The Jewish leaders scoffed.

 

Crucify him!  Crucify Him!

We have no king but Caesar!

His blood be on us and our children

And they the Saviour marred.

 

The marred body of Jesus

Displayed on Golgotha’s cross

Just thirty pieces of silver

Was all to them he cost.

 

But from the grave He rose

As the champion of the elect

Now heirs and joint-heirs with Christ

With no outstanding debt.

 

The generic body of Jesus Christ

As represented by the born-again,

The heavenly Jerusalem John saw

Over which the Saviour reigns.

 

1 Corinthians 15:25-26

 

For he must reign

Till he hath put all enemies under his feet

The last enemy that shall be destroyed

Is death.

 

No separation of Jew and Gentile

No middle wall of partition

But altogether one in Christ Jesus

In the glorious plan of redemption.

 

 

A tale of two cities:

The Old Jerusalem and the New

The Old was established at Mount Sinai,

But the New is a Mount Sion view.

 

Hebrews 12:22

 

But ye are come unto Mount Sion,

And unto the city of the living God,

The heavenly Jerusalem

And to an innumerable company of angels.

 

Stewart Russell © March 31, 2023