Recently I have been teaching about the lies and misrepresentations of being automatically “saved”, so I thought I would do a little more on why it is important to be aware of what we do, every day.

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

I was somewhat motivated to review this topic by someone’s response to my recent post, saying that because I said OSAS is a lie (and I really don’t think they understood it, at all), I was not spiritual, not saved, and worshiping a false God.

Wow! Well, in case that person who, by the way, didn’t even show their face on their avatar, is still reading or watching my videos, let me try this, again.

When someone believes that there is nothing they have to do after professing faith in Yeshua, believing that they are now saved from the eternal consequences of their sins no matter what happens, then they WILL eventually begin to lose respect for that salvation, take it for granted, and eventually stop repenting.

How can I make such a profound statement? Easy- I read the Bible and I know human history!

We can see throughout the Tanakh that as soon as the Israelites got comfy-cozy, they began to do exactly what God told Moses they would do in Deuteronomy 31. And after Yeshua went back to God, and the Jewish leadership of the movement he began died out, with only Gentiles now leading the people, what was then being called Christianity morphed further and further away from Judaism, and they made the same mistakes we made, only they made even worse ones!

They rejected God’s Torah, and instead of properly representing Yeshua, they formed their own “savior” (they don’t even use the term “Messiah”!), created their own holidays (rejecting the ones God said to celebrate), their own ceremonies, rites, and even their own Sabbath day.

So, with all that history to go by, I am positive that when someone thinks they are saved, forever, and that it can’t be lost, they will become totally devoid of any concern when they sin, and that is equivalent to being unrepentant. And, on top of that, since they believe they are automatically forgiven, they won’t be repentant, which has to result in them not even asking for forgiveness!

Geeze! Even the Roman Catholics know enough to ask for forgiveness, although they are not going to have any success by asking a man to forgive them instead of God.

And, again, from what I read about God in the Torah, I strongly doubt that he will forgive a sinner (which we all are) who doesn’t recognize their sin, repent, or ask forgiveness.

Sadly, that is the condition the vast majority of Christians are in, without even knowing it.

So, if you think that I am not really saved, or that I worship a false God, or that I can’t be “born again” because I think that we can throw our salvation away by sinning without being repentant, well… I suppose we will both have to wait until we are in front of God at Judgement Day, and then we’ll find out who gets the nice place and who doesn’t.

To the rest of you, thank you for being here and please remember to share these messages with everyone you know, even non-believers. 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!

In my last message (a link to it is in the description) I mentioned I would talk about FUNT this week.

To start with, it is not a reference to Alan Funt, of Candid Camera fame.

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

To review, OSAS is “Once Saved, Always Saved”, and the reason it is a lie is because there is no such thing as automatic forgiveness of sins.

There is a never-ending desire by God to forgive your sins (Ezekiel 18:23), but to even suggest that your sins will be forgiven automatically just because you have accepted Yeshua as the Messiah is unbiblical.
The forgiveness system has 5 steps to it:

1. You must sin (after all, you can’t be forgiven if there is nothing to forgive- DUH!);
2. You must confess your sin (if you refuse to accept that you sinned, it is a rejection of recognizing God’s authority);
3. You must repent of your sin (God will not forgive an unrepentant sinner);
4. You must ask to be forgiven with the shedding innocent blood (Hebrews 9:22); the Torah allows for a sacrifice to be substituted for your own blood;
5. You must do t’shuvah (turn from sin) and rededicate yourself to obedience to God.

Yeshua, the Messiah, died as a once-and-for-all (meaning all people) sacrifice of innocent blood in lieu of bringing an animal to the temple in Jerusalem, the only place according to the Torah where sacrifices could be made (Deuteronomy 12:5; 2 Kings 21:7). Once the temple was destroyed (70 AD), there was no possibility to be forgiven without Yeshua.

Once you accepted Yeshua and asked to be forgiven by means of his sacrifice, the sins you had committed UP TO THAT POINT were forgiven, but any future sins (and we all continue to sin) are separate and new, not covered by that initial request.

When Shaul said that our sins were nailed to the tree with Yeshua (Colossians 2:14), he was referring to the prior sins, not any future ones.

The real danger of OSAS is that people who think they are doing what is right stop asking for forgiveness, assuming they are already forgiven, And, given human nature, if we know we are already forgiven, then we will think it is OK to sin, which means there won’t be confession, or repentance, or t’shuvah!

How many of you think that God will accept a person who has sinned continually, not confessing, repenting, or even trying to be better?

Yeah, me, too.

The way forgiveness really works is FUNT– Forgiven Until Next Time.

Believing that Yeshua is the Messiah is not enough- after all, every demon in hell knows he is.

And obedience to the Torah is not enough, because no one can be 100% obedient, 100% of the time.

What we need is a combination of accepting Yeshua and trying our very best to be obedient to the Torah (not to a religion), which is God’s User Manual for Righteousness.

So, when you screw up (and you will), if you confess, repent, ask forgiveness by means of Yeshua’s sacrifice, and try to be better (t’shuvah) in the future, God will forgive you…THIS TIME!

We know that the next time we sin, if we do all these steps that God outlined for us in the Torah, we will (again) be forgiven because, as I pointed out in Ezekiel 18:23, God is not only willing to forgive, but desires to do so.

But only when we go through the proper procedure.

God desires to forgive us, and Yeshua made forgiveness available to us any time, any where, but forgiveness, itself, is not automatic.

Thank you for being here, and please 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!

How easily we all throw around the expression, “I’m saved!”, like it was tartar sauce at a fish fry.

The truth is that no one who is alive can truthfully say that they are saved.

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

Now you may be thinking how I can say such a crazy thing as no one who is alive can say they are saved, but what is really crazy is using a word that is clearly representative of a past event to identify a current condition.

The word “saved” is in the past tense, and we are in the present. No one can really know that they are saved until after they have died, have come before the Lord, have had Yeshua intercede on their behalf, and received God’s final judgement of salvation.

Only then can anyone say, “I am saved!”

If you are thinking that once saved you are always saved, that is a lie from the pit of Sheol. The true acronym isn’t OSAS, but FUNT!

(If you think you know what that means, hold that thought until my message next week because FUNT is the subject of that drash)

How many times does the Bible talk about those who will apostatize in the Acharit haYamim (End Days)? Shaul mentions it to Timothy in both his letters to him; and the writer of Hebrews says in Chapter 6 that for those who turn from the faith, it will be impossible for them to return.

The frightening truth is that we may be forgiven, and will be able to seek forgiveness every time we sin (which we all will continue to do- don’t fool yourselves!) by means of the sacrificial death and shed innocent blood of Yeshua, BUT… we are always threatened by our own, sinful nature and too easily controlled emotions (which then control us) to throw our faith away, even when we think we are being faithful.

HUH? How can I be unfaithful when I am acting in a faithful way?

Easily- by following the wrong teachings.

Are you being taught that the instructions God gave in the Torah for worshiping him are just for Jews? Well, if you ignore the Torah, you ignore God!

Do you believe what John says when, in his Gospel, he said the Word became flesh? The only word at that time was the Torah, and if it became flesh in Yeshua, and Yeshua said that when we reject him we reject the one who sent him (Luke 10:16), then rejecting the Torah is rejecting the flesh that it became, which is rejecting Yeshua, which is rejecting God.

Who here thinks that they will be accepted by God after having rejected him their whole life?

OY! I suggest you go back and read that again to make sure you understand that if you don’t obey the Torah, you are rejecting God, and no amount of false worship, man-made ceremonies or holidays will have any effect on your salvation, other than to throw it away, while all the time you think you are doing what is right.

If you are following a religion, any religion, you are probably going in the wrong direction. I would say, although it sounds bias, at least Judaism, despite its many improper man-made traditions from the Talmud (called Halacha, the Way to Walk), is still the closest way to follow God since we try to be obedient to the Torah as best as we can.

It’s so simple that people cannot understand it – the only proper way to worship God is to do as he says to do, and the only place God tells us what he wants us to do is in the Torah. Modern Christianity is not based on the Torah or on Yeshua’s teachings, as much as it is based on misinterpretations and misuse of the letters Paul wrote to Gentile congregations.

And, sorry to burst anyone’s bubble, but Paul is not God, and his letters are not God-breathed scripture; they are nothing more than managerial directions to Gentile Believers who were having issues of faith, and interpersonal relationship problems. Read those letters with an open mind, and you will see the closest thing to scripture they come to is when he quotes from the Tanakh.

The bottom line is this: I believe by saying “I’m saved” we are actually fooling ourselves and creating a false sense of security. What we should be saying is “I am on the path to salvation”, because that is the reality of our condition. We aren’t saved until after we are dead; what we are is walking a path, a path with many misleading road signs such as religious non-biblical doctrine and false teachings which can make us lose our way.

By remembering there is only one path to God, and that map is the Torah, we are better equipped to stay on the right path.

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

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

I have been absent for the past two weeks as Donna and I have been on a cruise, but I am back now.

Before we start, if you are thinking this might be one of those messages where I tell you that God intended the Torah to be for everyone, let me address that concern right away… of course this is about how God intended the Torah to be for everyone!

And today I am going to give you the proof of that statement!

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

The title of today’s message tells us it all starts with Exodus 19:5-6, so let’s take a look at that:

 ⁵ Now if you will pay careful attention to what I say and keep my covenant, then you will be my own treasure from among all the peoples, for all the earth is mine; ⁶ and you will be a kingdom of cohanim for me, a nation set apart.’ These are the words you are to speak to the people of Isra’el.”

Moses is told that the Jewish people will be God’s nation of priests.

So, nu? what does a priest do? Well, according to the Internet version of the Merriam-Webster dictionary, the priest is…

Someone who is authorized to perform the sacred rites of a religion especially as a mediatory agent between humans and God.

Well, that certainly sounds correct…for a priest of today, but what about the priests back in the days when God chose us to be priests?

According to the Bible, yes- they performed the sacrifices and acted as mediator between the laity (common folk) and God (divine person). Those duties were outlined in Leviticus 1-7.

But the priests also served in a judiciary position, judging the people in criminal matters, with the Cohen HaGadol (High Priest) acting as the court of last appeal (Ezekiel 44:24).

But that wasn’t all- they were also to serve as medical consultants regarding problems with skin diseases (Leviticus 13).

The priest also served as teacher, teaching the people how to properly serve and worship God (2 Kings 17:28).

Knowing the multiple functions of a priest at the time God chose the Jewish people to be a nation of priests, let’s backtrack a bit to when God separated the Levites to be priests to the Jewish people in Deuteronomy 18:15. He didn’t name all three families (Gershon, Kohath, and Merari) to be priests, only the sons of Kohath were chosen to be cohanim, and from them only the direct sons of Aaron were to serve in that position.

All the Levites were priests, technically, but only the sons of Aaron were Cohanim, those who presented the sacrifice and officiated over the ceremonies and rituals.

Now let’s start to put this in order…God first chose the Levites to be his priests to the Jewish people, and that means (as we have identified from the Tanakh) they served as intermediaries between the laity and the Divine, performing services to both people and God. The sons of Aaron were the Cohanim, while the other Levites served God by caring for the Sanctuary.

After God told Moses that the Jewish people (which meant all 12 tribes) were to be God’s nation of priests, since priests act as intermediaries between the common and the divine, and they were already intermediaries, they couldn’t really be priests to themselves, right? Therefore, when God said the Jews are to be a nation of priests, they must be serving as intermediaries between some laity other than the Jews, which leaves only the Goyim- the nations.

In other words, when God chose us to be a nation of priests, he clearly meant we are his priests to the entire world.

And right after God told Moses we are priests to the world, the very next thing that happened was in Exodus 20, when God gave Moses the 10 Commandments, and (as many believe) the entire Torah while Moses was on Mount Sinai.

The Torah is not just a bunch of laws- it is God’s User Manual for Righteousness, with rules about how to worship him, how to treat each other, how to conduct business, how to identify skin diseases, a penal code for capital crimes, torts, and other misdemeanors, even including formulae for making restitution, and many other societal and spiritual guidelines for proper living.

Do you now see the logical and absolutely obvious sequence of events? God chooses the Levites as priests to the Jews, then he chooses the entire nation of Jews to be his priests to the world, and then he gives the Jews the Torah, which contains God’s instructions on how to worship him and how to treat each other. And so, as priests to the world, with the instruction manual from God, we are to learn it then teach it (remember teaching is a function of the priest) to the rest of the world.

Which means, like it or not, that anyone who professes to worship the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob- whether or not they accept Yeshua as their Messiah, but especially MORE so if they do- is to be taught by us Jews how to live in accordance with the Torah.

The Jews that accepted Yeshua didn’t change from living in accordance with the Torah, and the Gentiles that accepted Yeshua were being taught how to live in accordance with the Torah. And, for the record, Shaul (Paul) never told anyone to ignore the Torah; rather, he allowed the Gentiles learning it to learn at their own pace, concentrating first on faith and love. And this process was confirmed by the Elders in Jerusalem, when James said in Acts 15:21 these believing Gentiles will learn the Torah as they attend Shabbat services.

Hey, look, if now maybe you realize that you have been ignoring what God wants you to do, which is to live according to the Torah, don’t be angry with me- go complain to your religious leaders who have been misdirecting you!

But be kind to them, because they have also been misdirected; in fact, Christians have been misdirected for two millennia.

Thank you for being here, and please remember to share these messages with everyone you know, even non-believers. 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!

Many of us have memories of places we have been, physically, emotionally, and spiritually, but I believe that as bad as some of these places were, pretty much everyone has one place that they feel is the worst place they have ever been.

But I’m telling you that no matter what your experience has been, there is one place that is ultimately the worst place anyone can be…

But first! A word from our sponsor…
(If you prefer to watch a video, click on this link: Watch the video.)

The worst place anyone can be, especially if we are talking about your spiritual condition, is…

Locked into your comfort zone.

Now, I am not saying you should go out and ride rollercoasters, or bungee jump off the Golden Gate Bridge, or even just tell your wife that those pants make her look fat.

No. Neither should you give up being comfortable nor forego those things that make you feel safe and secure.

When I say the worst place to be is locked into your comfort zone, what I mean is when you are so comfortable that you no longer want to learn anything new, or do anything different, or even order something other than Chicken Parmigiana every single time you go to an Italian restaurant.

And this is especially true of being so comfortable with what you have been taught regarding God or Yeshua (Jesus) or salvation that you will not even be open to hearing anything that someone has to say which is different than what you already think you know.

I am very secure in my beliefs, but I confess that I have had to change my mind at times. And when I say you should be open to listening, that means to investigate and verify anything you are told about anything, especially if it is different from what you already believe.

One more thing: if you haven’t/don’t read the Bible regularly, from front (that is, Genesis) all the way through to the end of Revelation, then you are already in trouble because whatever you think you know, you are probably wrong.

And if you are stubbornly comfortable with your golf game, or your favorite chair, or with whatever books you have already read, and no matter what anyone says, you don’t want to order something different at your favorite restaurant, the only thing that mindset will effect is how interesting you are and how exciting your life will be.

BUT…if you stay locked into your comfort zone regarding your spiritual condition, meaning that you don’t want to hear or know anything other than what you have been told, then you are risking your eternal soul!

What things am I talking about? How about once you’re saved, you are always saved (that’s a lie!); or all you have to do is call on the name of the Lord and you are saved (that won’t be enough!); or howzabout the one where they say if you love each other you get to go to heaven (again, that’s not enough, and for the record? -no one goes to heaven).

When it comes to God, Yeshua, and the truth about obedience to God, which can only be done by being obedient to God’s instructions for righteousness in the Torah, these are things that we should NEVER be comfortable with. You must always verify whatever you hear, whenever you hear something different from what you have (hopefully) already verified to be true, and do so with an open mind. Make sure people aren’t making up what they want the Bible to say, then taking verses and passages out of context to create the illusion that what they are saying is truly in the Bible.

Yeah, all the parts of what they say are in the Bible, but they have taken bits and pieces, here and there, to make it seem that is what the Bible means. But that isn’t always true.

I have written a teaching series on how to properly interpret the Bible, and here is a link to it: Bible interpretation.

So, my friends, please always stretch yourself beyond what is comfortable, and the way to know that you need to stretch is when you are so comfy-cozy that you do not ever want to change. Read a new book, talk to people who disagree with you (nicely, of course) to get an idea why they feel that way, and then spend some quality time verifying their opinion, or being able to (nicely, of course) rebut it.

But do something different, now and then! Your life may be comfortable, but your life is temporary, and eternity is….well, it’s eternal!

If you aren’t willing to spend the time to expand your understanding of God, Messiah, the Bible and salvation, then you are risking your eternal soul.

Are you really that lazy?

Thank you for being here, and please remember to share these messages with everyone you know, especially non-believers. Hey! 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!