There are so many different areas of study that people investigate from the Bible: Eschatology, Numerology, Apologetics, Inductive method, SOAP (Scripture, Observation, Application, Prayer), Verse mapping, Devotional, etc..

They are all designed to help us understand the road we must travel, but do they really get us where we need to be?

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Now don’t get me wrong- there is nothing bad about trying to understand the Bible, but studying about the End Times or researching how numbers can hide or show us important relationships may end up inhibiting our ability to be saved.

You know, there is an old saying about how it’s not the destination but the journey; however, my thoughts are that when we are talking about salvation, when on that journey we need to remember that what really matters is where we end up.

And that, I hope we can all agree on, is to be in God’s presence forever.

From what I have seen over the past three decades of being in the company of believers, of which there are so many different beliefs, too many people are way too focused on things that are not really helping them get any closer to God.

For instance, let’s take those who are deeply into Eschatology. They want to know when it will happen, and will there be a pre- or a mid- or a post-tribulation. They seem to either forget or ignore the fact that Yeshua, himself, said that God isn’t even letting him in on when that will happen (Matthew 24:35-37 and Mark 13:32).

Hey, people- if God won’t let his own son know when the hammer is going to fall, why does anyone think that God will let them figure it out?

Didn’t God tell us about the secret things that belong only to him?

If you forgot what he said, it is in Deuteronomy 29:29 :

Things which are hidden belong to Adonai our God. But the things that have been revealed belong to us and our children forever, so that we can observe all the words of this Torah.

So what we are to know, he has already told us, and that is all we really need to know; for example, people want to know how to be saved and God told us all he requires of us in Micah 6:8.

So go ahead and jump right in to all these different fields of study, because if you remember that they are good to know things, but not what you need to be saved, then you probably will remain on the right track.

All I want to do today is give a warning: what God wants us to know he has already told us, and if you go looking for something you will usually be able to find it, but it may not be the right thing.

I think we all, at one time or another, have a thought about God or something we read in the Bible, so we go to the Bible to see it we are right. Now doing that, in and of itself, isn’t wrong as long as you remain open to the possibility that you may not be right. What I have seen, way too often, is that what happens is that people pull things out of context to make what they want something to mean appear to be true.

There is a difference between looking in the Bible to determine if what you think is correct and taking Bible verses out of context and reordering them to make it appear that what you think is correct.

All the knowledge in the world won’t get us where we need to be, but simply doing what God said he wants us to do will. And all you need to know in order to do what God wants you to do is in the Torah.

I have nothing against questioning because the truth can stand up to questioning, and without questioning we never really learn or advance our understanding.

My concern is when people want to know what God knows, absolutely needing to know what, when, where, how and why about everything.

The Book of Kohelet (Ecclesiastes) is such a “downer” because that poor guy was so disheartened that he saw everything in life as useless. The truth is he felt that way because he wanted to know what God knows, and he finally figured out that he can never know the what-when-where-how-why of everything, and that the best we can do is enjoy what we have.

Faith is accepting like a child (Matthew 18:3), and the way to do that, if you ask me, is to read the Bible so you can tell what God wants you to do (that’s in the Torah), to know right from wrong, to accept that what God says is all you need to know, to keep your eyes on the prize and not be misled by seeking knowledge that doesn’t help you get to where you want to be.

Yes, it is a thin line we walk on when we want to know everything we can about God and what he wants us to do, and about all the other things in the Bible that are interesting but don’t really direct us towards salvation.

Always read and study what is in the Bible, and pray for discernment to know what knowledge leads you towards salvation and what knowledge leads you nowhere.

Thank you for being here and please remember to comment and share these messages with everyone you know, even non-believers. Hey, after all, you never know how fertile the soil is until you plant a seed in it.

That’s it for this week so l’hitraot and (an early) Shabbat Shalom!

I believe that technology is a two-sided sword; one side is a boon to humanity, giving us better ways to help mankind, and the other side is destroying the nuclear family and our ability to express ourselves.

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When I grew up in the 50’s, we were all concerned about “the Bomb”, but what really destroyed us was that nasty old “boob tube” which replaced discussion at dinner time.

Today, it isn’t just the streaming services on TV but the ones you can hold in your hand which have interfered with people’s ability to actually communicate.

Let me ask you: how many times have you found yourself texting back-and-forth with someone on your phone? I can remember when using the phone meant actually talking with someone else!

So, what does this rant have to do with heaven?

Okay, first of all, we all know that no one really goes to heaven after the Acharit haYamim (End Days), but rather that we are on the earth- the new earth- with the new Jerusalem, with Yeshua as king and living in God’s presence, forever.

But the one thing about being forever in God’s presence, according to all the references I’ve read in the Bible, is that we will be back in an agrarian society.

According to Micah 4:4, we will be enjoying life sitting under our own fig trees, and enjoying the wine from our own vines.

And this agricultural lifestyle is confirmed in Isaiah 65:21-22 where he says we will plant and enjoy the things we grow without anyone else taking them from us.

Technology is designed to do one thing, and one thing only- take work away from us.

Whether it be medical (robotic surgery), to make driving safer (automatic braking or warning us when another car is in our blind spot), communicating (texting) researching (the Internet) or entertainment (streaming TV): it is making us do less and less on our own by having more and more things being done for us.

Many may say that is great, but I say it is destroying our ability to communicate with each other personally, as well as reducing our physical skill-sets.

Kids today cannot spell, they cannot write, and they cannot express themselves with any level of artistry. They are addicted to their phones; instead of being mature and responsible, they are lazy and entitled.

Read some of the letters written by our founding fathers or the works of the masters, such as Shakespear, Keats, Frost or Dickenson and tell me you see that when your son or daughter text or have to write a report for school.

And don’t even get me started on Ai!

You may be thinking I am raging over a pet-peeve of my own, and you wouldn’t be too far off. Yes, I really believe technology is taking over, but there is still a spiritual lesson here- if we cannot communicate ideas and ideologies effectively in person, how can we ever hope to be a light? When we are using technology, we can be turned off, but in person we have a better chance of using human interactions to our advantage.

You can’t smile in a text (emoji’s don’t count); you can’t see how someone is reacting to your message if you can’t see their face, and you cannot have eye contact even with a video call (most of the video calls I have made are with me looking up someone’s nose).

I look forward to being in God’s presence forever because that will be heaven on earth (literally and figuratively), and I am just hopeful that what I believe the afterlife will be like will be proven true.

So, why shouldn’t we start off getting used to that way of life today?

Next time you are thinking of someone, write them a letter; next time you are actively texting with someone, close the message app and give them a call.

Trust me- you will feel so much better and so much more connected with that person.

It will be heavenly.

Thank you for being here and please remember to comment and share these messages with everyone you know, even non-believers. Hey, after all, you never know how fertile the soil is until you plant a seed in it.

That’s it for today, so l’hitraot and Baruch HaShem!

There are many times in the Bible where God has sent calamity to a nation.

Some people wonder how a loving God can be so cruel, but is it really cruelty, or an attempt at adjustment?

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Punishment by a human being is the result of doing something you have been told not to do, or not doing something you were told to do. In any event, the aim is to get you to do as ordered. Obedience to human rules generally results in not getting punished.

God punishes for pretty much the same reason: he has told you what you should do (in the Torah) and you are punished when you don’t obey. However, with God, obedience will get you more blessings than you could ever count (Deuteronomy 28).

The one highly significant difference between when God punishes and when human beings punish is this: humans (not all, of course, but I believe most) punish more out of prideful anger because the one being punished didn’t do as they wanted, so they feel insulted and ignored, and punish in order to teach someone to be obedient.

When we sin, which is disobeying God, he also feels ignored and insulted, even angry, but he punishes in order to save us from eternal torture.

Humans punish in order to be obeyed, and God punishes in order to save us from ourselves.

Human history, especially in the Bible, has proven that, as a species, we have an inherent desire to disobey. That must be because of the little guy with a pitchfork and horns on our shoulder shouting louder than the little guy with the wings and a harp on the other shoulder.

That is why David wrote how the rod and staff of God comfort him (Psalm 23). As a shepherd, David knew how those two tools worked: if a sheep began to stray from the herd, the shepherd would gently lead it back with the hook at the end of his staff.

However, when the sheep resisted the staff, the rod was then used to whack the obstinate ovine upside its head to get it to obey.

The Bible is rife with warnings from God, through his prophets, to get back on track and obey the Torah because when they do they will receive blessings and to keep anyone from having to die, which God says he did not want anyone to suffer (Ezekiel 18:23).

But, as you probably already know, most every single one of those warnings was ignored, resulting in God leaving his staff (i.e., the Prophets) alone, and using his rod to get our attention.

And what was his rod? Well, there were the Philistines, the Ninevites, the Hittites, the Egyptians, the Ethiopians, the Babylonians, the Assyrians, the Amorites, the Edomites, and all those other -mites.

And let’s not forget the ever-popular usage of famine and plague.

So God’s “cruelty” was (indeed) hard to endure, but the purpose was not to be cruel: it was to get their attention in a way that they will return to obedience and save themselves from further destruction.

When we read Isaiah 9:13, God shows how disappointed he was in the people because despite how often and how much worse he would cause them to suffer, they still refused to turn back to him. This same stubborn refusal to submit to God is repeated in the Book of Revelation.

And the obedience God wanted was not to make God feel superior or better about himself, but to ensure that the people would be blessed and able to be with God throughout eternity.

Let’s face it, humans want you to obey them and it is often because it is better for you, but just as often it is in order to demonstrate their superior authority and to make them feel better. If you have children who obey you, don’t you feel better about yourself when they obey?

And be honest: is it because you know that when they obey it is good for them, or because you feel better that they obeyed you?

So, the next time you read about how God has sent plague or armies against his people, remember that he didn’t do it from pride, or to teach them a lesson, or to get back at them. No, he did it to prevent them from doing more harm to themselves by ignoring his instructions, which he gave to everyone who worships him so that we can be in his presence, forever.

God does things to us for one reason, and one reason only- for our own good!

Thank you for being here and please remember to comment and share these messages with everyone you know, even non-believers. Hey, after all, you never know how fertile the soil is until you plant a seed in it.

That’s it for this week, so l’hitraot and (an early) Shabbat Shalom!

Israel has been under attack long before it was an established state in 1948.

In fact, the attack on Israel is just a part of the real attack, which has been on God’s chosen people since he decided to choose us as his own.

If you prefer to watch a video, click on this link: Watch the video.

I recently posted on my Facebook page that the reason Israel is still under attack is because we haven’t learned from Joshua’s failure to do what God told him to do, which was to utterly destroy the sinful peoples of the land to which God was giving to the Tribes of Israel.

When God brought us out of Egypt and to Cana’an, the enemies of God living there had polluted the land with their sinful ways, which is why God told us to totally destroy them. God would give the land to us so that we could restore it to its full fruitfulness and cleanse it of sin.

But Joshua and the people failed to do as God commanded them, showing distrust (as they had been doing since being freed from Egypt) and not having the self-reliance to do as God said. Hence, those peoples have remained in the land, and have grown to such a large number that today they outnumber us by a ratio of 60-70 Arabs per single Jew.

Yet, despite the many times they have tried to destroy us, God has saved us.

The problem today is that Israel is still going against what God said to do, which is to totally destroy their enemies, who are the enemies of God. As God’s rod of punishment, we have been as limp and useless as a wet noodle.

Why is that? It is because we are trying to please the world instead of doing as God said we should!

Israel needs to tell the UN (which should be renamed the UNAI- United Nations Against Israel) that the idea of a two-nation peace is ridiculous because the enemies of Israel do not want peace, they want Israel destroyed, and that from this moment on Hamas, ISIS, Hezbollah, and every other terrorist anti-Jewish organization throughout the Middle East and the world is on the Israeli Hit List.

And anyone who is in the way will be an unfortunate casualty of war; sorry, but you have until we get there to get the heck outta Dodge, otherwise your blood is on your own head.

Now THAT is what will place God completely on our side, and no one can stand against God when he is using his chosen people as his rod of punishment. We need to be separate from the world, which is where we should have been centuries ago.

The world is a sinful place, ruled by Satan, and the more Israel tries to appease the world, the weaker our relationship with God will become.

And if that doesn’t scare the heck out of the Knesset, nothing will.

Thank you for being here and please remember to comment and share these messages with everyone you know, even non-believers. Hey, after all, you never know how fertile the soil is until you plant a seed in it.

That’s it for today, so l’hitraot and Baruch HaShem!

I have seen many posts where there is an image of God or Yeshua and pointed out that this is not really allowed. Sometimes I get the response that it is acceptable because it is “church art”.

So, is church art different from images?

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I think the best way to settle this is to look at the 2nd Commandment and see what God says (CJB):

  You are not to make for yourselves a carved image or any kind of representation of anything in heaven above, on the earth beneath or in the water below the shoreline.

I don’t know about you, but this seems pretty clear to me.

Yet even within Judaism, which does not make any three-dimensional images (i.e., statues or busts), two-dimensional images of biblical scenes, animals, and biblical persons (such as Moses) have been seen in synagogues as far back as the 3rd century AD.

The 2nd Commandment goes a little further saying that we should not bow down to or pray to these images, which is never done in Judaism, but I regret to say in most any Catholic Church I have ever been in- and I’ve been in a lot of them having traveled to many countries and throughout the USA- I see three-dimensional images and people bowing down and praying to them.

I have been told that they aren’t really “praying” to them but simply asking them to intercede with Jesus to intercede with God. Funny… the Catholic Church pretty much says Jesus is God, so how do you intercede with yourself? And Jesus said that the only way to the father is through him (John 14:6), so again- why go to anyone else?

And isn’t praying asking for something? And when you ask for something isn’t that praying?

I have no definitive answer other than the safest thing to do is not make any images of anything, ever. That way there can’t be confusion, but on the other hand, people learn from three different types of input: visual (65%), aural (30%) and tactile (5%). Since the vast majority of people learn through visual stimulation then to help get the word out, it seems to make sense that some sort of artwork would be helpful.

(My personal opinion is that 100% of the people learn best by doing)

I doubt that we will never be without some form of artwork relating to religion so maybe we can just settle with church art should be restricted to biblical scenes that allow for representation of animals, background, and people who are involved in an activity spoken about in the Bible, but absolutely no images of any kind of God or Messiah.

Images showing what the idols of pagan religions looked like as part of a learning experience would be okay, as long as they are just that- part of a lesson to introduce what those idols looked like to teach us how to recognize them.

What do you think? I’d like to know your opinion on this.

That’s it for this week. Thank you for being here and please comment and share these messages with everyone you know, even non-believers. Hey, after all, you never know how fertile the soil is until you plant a seed in it.

That’s it for this week, so l’hitraot and (an early) Shabbat Salom!