We’ve all heard people say, “He can’t see the trees for the forest“, or “He can’t see the forest for the trees.”
Both of those old sayings have the same message: people get involved in seeing what they want to see, and miss out on what is really there.
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I have often come against people who write about the actual shape of the Tabernacle, the pronunciation of the Tetragrammaton, the “correct” calendar, how many people actually did go into Egypt when Israel moved his family there, what certain numbers mean, and other such minutia that some people just HAVE to know, even to the point of thinking it will affect salvation.
They get so involved in these facts and figures that they lose sight of what is important:
- God exists;
- He chose the Jewish people to bring his Torah to the world (Ex. 19:6);
- God sent Yeshua as our Messiah so that when we fail to live according to God’s way (not the way some religion tells us to live), by means of his sacrifice we can receive the forgiveness we need for salvation.
It’s really that simple; just like Moses said in Deuteronomy 30:11-14, when he told the people that obeying God is not that hard.
And he was right- it isn’t that hard, but it is impossible for us in our present state, being filled with iniquity (the desire to sin) from birth. The only real hope we have now is in Yeshua, because with the destruction of the temple in Jerusalem there is no way (under the Torah) for us to receive forgiveness, and without forgiveness of sin we cannot enter into God’s presence.
So, am I saying that studying the Bible in detail is wrong? No.
Am I saying that it is not important to know how certain numbers relate to ideas, such as 7 being the representation of completeness? No.
Am I saying that people who study the Bible in detail and want to know everything they can about every little detail are wrong? No, BUT…they may be missing the point if they let their desire to know everything make them forget the most important thing.
And that most important thing is that we are not saved by pronunciation (do you hear me, Holy Namers?), or by intricate and detailed knowledge (do you hear me, Gnostics?), or by hidden messages in the numbers (do you hear me, Numerologists?), or by strict adherence to man-made traditions (do you hear me, Ultra-Orthodox Jews?), but by faithfully following only those rules regarding worship and treatment of others that are specified in the Torah.
Oh, yes, one more significantly important thing: you must accept that Yeshua IS the Messiah God promised to send, that he was an acceptable sacrifice for sin, that he was resurrected, and that he is now at the right hand of God acting as our Intercessor.
By the way, just for the record…Yeshua is the Intercessor for our prayers, not the Interceptor of them. We are to pray to God for what we need, and we are to pray to God for forgiveness, and Yeshua’s only role in this is that as one of his flock, God sees us through Yeshua’s righteousness, not our own.
I believe God will not reject someone’s heartfelt prayer just because they do not believe Yeshua is the Messiah, but for those of us who do, we have Yeshua’s promise that God will listen and answer us.
You can disagree, but I believe that even though Yeshua said whatever we ask for in his name we will receive (he says this in three of the four Gospels), that doesn’t mean we will get exactly what we request, or when, or even get it at all if what we request is not in line with what God wants for us.
Remember that Yeshua asked his father to let him off the hook, or execution tree (as the case may be), but ended up accepting that God’s will takes precedence over our desires. And I believe that includes prayer, even when we pray in Yeshua’s name.
That brings me to the last point of today’s message: besides getting enmeshed in minutia, so much so that you miss the goal, don’t expect that just because you are a “Believer” that you are in good standing with God. Yes, it is better than one who rejects him, but are you really obeying God, or some man-made religion? If you reject God’s instructions in the Torah, you reject God, and (even Yeshua said) if we reject God, we reject the one he sent, and vice-versa.
Here is today’s message in a nutshell: read the Bible, get to know it well, but do not get all tangled up in the insignificant details which do not affect your salvation and will, in fact, throw you off the track. The Torah is how God says we should worship him and treat each other, and that is all you really need to know. Everything else in the Bible is just historical narrative and commentary.
Thank you, as always, for being here and please remember to subscribe and share these messages with everyone you know, especially unbelievers because you never know how good the soil is until you plant a seed in it.
That’s it for today, so l’hitraot and Baruch HaShem!
