Shakespeare once wrote, “What’s in a name?” His point was that whatever we call something, whether a person or a rose, does not change the nature and essence of that thing.

I believe that this same thought holds true for the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

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There are a lot of people- and my experience with them is that they are exclusively Gentile- who are so obsessed with using God’s name, especially how to pronounce it, that they have created a new, Christianized form of legalism.

Okay, first… what is legalism, really? It is not obedience to the Torah, as Christianity has misinterpreted it, but rather obedience to the Torah IN ORDER TO EARN SALVATION. Legalism is doing what the Torah says to do, just to do it; faith is not a requirement. It is a performance-based salvation, and the reason why it can never work is that no one can be 100% obedient to the Torah 100% of the time.

So, why do I say these “Holy Namers” are being legalistic? It’s because they are so passionate about using the name of God that they have come to worship the name more than the entity it represents.

They insist the name we use for God must be pronounced the way they say it should be pronounced, and more than that, they misuse the term “in the name of..” to mean we should pronounce God’s name, when the proper meaning of that term has nothing to do with the title or name we use to identify God, but rather refers to the reputation and renown of God.

When you drop a name, such as “So-and-so sent me”, we recognize who so-and-so is, but the name isn’t as important as the person behind it, because when that person sent me, he was authorizing me to be there. It was the reputation, power, and authority of so-and-so that is what the person I am talking to recognizes.

So, to get back to Shakespeare’s question, what is a name, really?

According to the Oxford dictionary, a name is…

A word or set of words by which a person, animal, place,
or thing is known, addressed, or referred to.

Okay, that’s the definition, but why do we even need names? The answer is obvious- to identify something or someone as being unique from some other thing or person. I am called Steven so that when someone wants to get my attention, they call out, “Yo! Steven!’ and this way I turn around, but John, Harry, Eleanor, Mary Lou, and everybody else who isn’t named “Steven” will ignore the call.

We need names for the things on the earth to identify one from another, and that is because there are so many things that are similar, such as the many different types of flowers or animals, or people, who without names we could never be able to effectively identify or communicate with.

But what about God? I mean, how many of him are there?

There’s only one, and he is totally unique in the Universe, so there is, technically, no need for a name for him because he cannot be anyone or anything else other than…God.

And God, itself, is not a name as much as a title, like El Elyon (God on High), or Adonai (Lord) or HaShem (The Name) or…well, you get the point. He is known by his title, position, and authority, and even the Tetragrammaton, those 4 letters (יהוה) can’t be pronounced correctly because we have no idea which vowels are to go where.

No matter who says they know the true pronunciation, they can’t.

God says how he wants us to know him in Exodus 3:15 (CJB):

God said further to Moshe, “Say this to the people of Isra’el: ‘Yud-Heh-Vav-Heh (Adonai), the God of your fathers, the God of Avraham, the God of Yitz’chak and the God of Ya‘akov, has sent me to you.’ This is my name forever; this is how I am to be remembered generation after generation.

Yes, the 4 letters are there, but (as I said) we don’t know how to pronounce them, so we should use the next description God gave us to identify him, which is the God of our fathers, etc.

People need to make God into what they want him to be in order to feel more comfortable. Because we are self-centered and sinful beings, we can’t raise ourselves to God’s level, so we have to bring him down to our level, at least, a little bit, so we feel more comfortable in our relationship with him.

One way to do this is to give him a name so he is more like the rest of us.

And the ones who can’t accept that he is above all things, including needing a name to identify him as separate from others like him (which don’t exist), insist on how to pronounce that name, and to use it every, single time the word “name” appears in the Bible, ignoring the proper meaning of the term “in the name of” or “call on the name..”

What I am saying is that legalism isn’t dead in modern Christianity, they have just redirected it from the Torah to God’s name. It reminds me of what happened to the brass snake Moses made, which went from a symbol of God’s protection to being worshiped as a god, itself.

Today’s message, in a nutshell, is this: don’t worship the name used for God, worship God.

He knows your mind and heart, and whichever name you know to mean the one who told us to know him as the God of our fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob will not be confused or upset when you use a name that you know to be him.

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

We have all heard that the word of the Lord never returns unfulfilled, but does the word ever not return?

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Let’s look at the entire statement, Isaiah 55:10-12 (CJB):

“For just as rain and snow fall from the sky and do not return there, but water the earth,
causing it to bud and produce, giving seed to the sower and bread to the eater;
so is my word that goes out from my mouth — it will not return to me unfulfilled;
but it will accomplish what I intend, and cause to succeed what I sent it to do.”

OK, someone may say that rain and snow which falls to the earth does return eventually through evaporation. Yet, for the rain or snow that is absorbed by the earth and ends up as sustenance for the plants or animals, that doesn’t really return, does it? That is the rain and snow that accomplishes what God sent it to do- bring life.

We know that God sent his word into the world, to the Jews first and then to the rest of the nations (Goyim), instructing us all how to worship him and how to treat each other, yet there are so many who haven’t made any adjustment to their sinful lives, so what’s up with that? How can God say his word never returns unfulfilled for the purpose he sent it, yet here we have an undeniable truth- most of the world has ignored it, including most of the Christian religions who profess to worship him!

It seems we have a real conundrum: we know that what God says he will do, will be done. Period. But yet, here we have his word sent to the world, but his word doesn’t seem to be accomplishing what God sent it to do.

I could use a Predestination view (which, for the record, I do not believe in) and say that those who do not hear the word were never meant to hear it, and that nicely answers the problem of how it can not return unfulfilled.

But I don’t think that is the real answer.

I am thinking of what Yeshua told his Talmudim as he sent them into the world (Luke 10), when he said as they come to a house, to give it their “Shalom”, and if the house returns their shalom, to stay there. That meant that if the place they came to was open to hearing the word, then their shalom, i.e., the message of peace, will return to them, meaning that its purpose to teach them how God wants them to live, will not be unfulfilled.

God’s word is to teach us how to be righteous in his eyes; however, when his Torah (meaning teachings) fall on deaf ears, it is the shalom that was not returned.

What I am trying to say is that when God’s word is has been spoken to those who are willing to listen to it, it returns to God fulfilled. However, if the word sent falls on deaf ears, it will not return to God.

The fly in the ointment is Free Will- God’s word is life eternal, but for those who refuse to listen, the purpose God sent his word to fulfill will not be accomplished. Not because of any inability of God’s word to accomplish his purpose, but because of our ability to reject that word.

So there’s the answer to the conundrum: the only word that returns to God is the word that has fulfilled its purpose. The word that is ignored does not return to God, but like rain falling in the ocean, or snow falling on a mountaintop already full of snow, it has no impact or change to what is already there.

God’s word is a powerful medicine that can cure any disease, but if it is not taken by the person who is sick, its purpose is unfulfilled.

Thank you for being here, and please remember to subscribe and share these messages. That’s it for today, so l’hitraot and Baruch HaShem!

Depending on the version you read, Shaul refers to the Torah (Galatians 3:24) as either a guardian, custodian, or even as a schoolmaster (KJV).

But whatever which way that Greek word was interpreted, it shows that the Torah was all we had at that time to teach us how to be righteous in God’s eyes.

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To understand this passage, as well as anything we read in the Bible, we need to ensure we are looking at the entire context of what was being written, to include what comes before and after the passage, and to interpret it within the context of the entire paragraph, letter or book, who wrote it and to whom, and why.

Briefly, Shaul is writing to the Galatians who are under pressure from the Jewish population to make total conversion to Judaism in order to be saved. This strict adherence to the letter of the law, in lieu of faith, is what we know as “Legalism”. Shaul was trying to convince the Gentile Believers that they needed to be faithful, first and foremost, because following the Torah (which is too often incorrectly thought of as being “under the law”) was only to be the way until the Messiah came.

In other words, to put it without all the “Jewish logic” that Shaul uses (Jewish logic is my term for how we Jews argue- we will tell you everything something is NOT before we tell you what it is), the Torah was given to us to teach us (as a guardian or schoolmaster) how we are to act in order to be righteous in God’s eyes, and thereby to be given eternal life. i.e., to be “saved”.

The point Shaul was making is not that the Torah was not needed anymore because through Yeshua we can be saved, which is the traditional Christian use of this passage, but rather that through the faithful trusting in Yeshua as the Messiah, we can be saved not just from death, but from our failure to obey the Torah completely.

You see, the bottom line (unspoken in so many ways) is that the Torah IS life eternal, and that was proven when Yeshua was raised from the dead, which was the result of his having lived in 100% obedience to the Torah for 100% of his life.

Yeshua was the epitome of Torah obedience, which is why he never saw decay and was resurrected to eternal life in God’s presence. The truth is, people, if any one of us could do that, then we would also be resurrected to eternal life.

The problem us is that no one can do that, which is the very reason God sent us the Messiah. Through our faithful acceptance that Yeshua is the Messiah God promised, we can find forgiveness of sin.

Look- being righteous in God’s eyes can never happen if we are stained with sin, and the way we are saved is not really just through faith in Yeshua, but through being forgiven of sin. The faith in Yeshua is the means by which we are forgiven, and being forgiven is the path to eternal life.

Yeshua is not salvation: he is the means by which we can be forgiven of our sins, and when we are no longer stained with sin, we can live in God’s presence.

Now, as for the guardian no longer being necessary, let’s think about what a guardian does: he or she guards us (DUH!), but from what? The guardian guards us from making mistakes, from being hurt or hurting others, and prepares us (as a schoolmaster) to know what we need to know in order to survive in the world when we are on our own.

When you were in school (under a guardian), you learned about the world, you learned about science, social studies, history, art, etc. When you graduated, you were no longer under that guardian, but let me ask you- when you were no longer under the guardian, did you reject and ignore everything that guardian taught you?

This is what Shaul meant when he said that through faith in Yeshua, the guardianship under the Torah was not needed anymore because through Yeshua we could find the one thing that the Torah, alone, offered us to be saved: forgiveness through the sacrificial system.

That system didn’t exist after (approx.) 70 AD, when the temple in Jerusalem was destroyed, and from that moment on, the only path to God (meaning being able to be cleansed of sin) was through the forgiveness we receive by means of Yeshua’s sacrifice.

When we leave school, or reach legal majority at which time we no longer require a guardian, what we learned from our experience under that guardian is (hopefully) going to be the foundation for a successful and meaningful life. Proverbs 22:6 says,

“Train up a child in the way he should go; even when he is old he will not depart from it“.

The same is true for the Torah as our guardian- it is to teach us the way to go, specifically the path to salvation, and so under the Torah we learned how to live, how to worship God, and how to treat each other. Certainly, Shaul would never have meant that all of that was to be rejected in lieu of faith in Yeshua!

The Torah teaches us all that we need to know to be faithful to God, and to live a righteous life. Yeshua taught us the deeper, spiritual meaning of the Torah, fulfilling not so much the law as the new covenant God made through Jeremiah (Jer. 31:31), which said that he would write his Torah on our hearts. Yeshua taught us how to have the very “heart” of the Torah on our hearts, but never to ignore it; neither did any of the disciples or apostles teach to ignore the Torah.

The Torah was our guardian, teaching us what we need to know to be righteous, and it is still a valid and necessary to anyone who professes to believe and worship the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob as it was when God first gave it to us through Moses. The only thing that as changed is how we receive forgiveness: because we cannot do so under the Torah (no temple to bring our sacrifice), we now find that forgiveness of sin through the sacrifice Yeshua made, and that means of forgiveness (which is, again, how we are saved) is only available to those who accept Yeshua as their Messiah, the one God promised to send.

That’s how it works- the Torah as our guardian taught us how God wants us to worship him and treat each other, and just like you do not reject or ignore all that you were taught in school, the Torah is as valid today for everyone worshipping God as it has always been.

Yeshua is the means by which we can be forgiven when we sin, replacing the need to bring an animal to the temple, but he did not replace the Torah, or the need to be obedient to God’s commandments.

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

Too often I have heard people say that all they need to be saved is faith in Christ, but then James said that faith without works is dead.
They say Jesus did away with the law, but if that is true, doesn’t that lead to the conclusion that through Jesus, there is only lawlessness?

So what IS the relationship between faith and works?

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Faith is believing, simple as that. So, when someone says that they believe in Yeshua what do they mean?

My experience is that nearly everyone who says that has no idea what they mean, and can’t come up with any better explanation than that they believe he is the Messiah.

So what? Every demon in hell, and the guy in the red suit with the pitchfork also believe he is the messiah, so are they saved? Do they go to heaven?

I don’t think so!

Faith is believing without proof (Hebrews 11:1), but true faith cannot be invisible. As James said, true faithfulness in the belief Yeshua is the Messiah means you must also faithfully believe in God, and that means also faithfully believing that God is in charge, the ultimate authority in the Universe.

With me so far?

So, if God is the ultimate authority, and we believe that, then why does Christianity base all its tenets and laws on what Shaul (Paul), a human being, says?

The only answer is that they never really had faith in God, but rather placed their faith in a human being because (this is what I believe!) what he said was easier to do than what God said.

And people are still that lazy, today, which is proven by how many people come against my messages of Torah obedience being for everyone who professes to believe in God, as being wrong.

If you truly believe that God is in charge, and the ultimate authority, and that he loves his children, then you have to accept that he gave us the Torah (first to the Jews to learn, then as his nation of priests- see Ex. 19:6– to bring to the Goyim/Nations) for our own good.

The Torah is where God, himself, directly instructs us how he wants us to worship him and how he wants us to treat each other. Have you ever considered how Christianity can say it is God-fearing and God-ordained, when it has, for millennia, taught to ignore the Torah, God’s own instructions?

It’s really very simple, but very hard for Gentiles to accept- faith and works cannot be exclusive but must be inclusive. Works without faith is legalism; it is a performance-based salvation and, as such, will never be successful.

On the other hand, faith without any demonstration of that faith, is just so many words, and I learned this truth long ago: people don’t mean what they say, they mean what they do.

Jimmy had it right all along: if you are truly faithful to God, and truly faithfully believe Yeshua is the Messiah and that he taught us the true, spiritual meaning of the Torah, then you MUST be obedient to the Torah as the demonstration of your professed faith.

You can make up all the excuses that Christianity has taught its followers for millennia, but I tell you- absolutely- that when you come to face God at Judgement Day (which we will ALL have to do), and tell him that you did everything those men at your church told you to do, I won’t speak for God, but I am sure he will reply with something to this effect:

“I understand, my child, that you did what they told you to do, but it is what I say that counts!”

Thank you for being here; that’s it for this week so l’hitraot and (an early) Shabbat Shalom!

There are many statements about salvation, one of the best-known being “All who call on the name of the Lord will be saved.” (Joel 2:32)

And in the New Covenant, we are told that all who believe in Jesus will be saved (Romans 10:9)

But what is being “saved”?

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Before I tell you what I believe being “saved” means, let’s go over what is doesn’t mean:

1. It doesn’t mean all your sins from now on are automatically forgiven (this is called OSAS- Once Saved, Always Saved). If you do not repent of a sin, honestly repent, and ask for forgiveness, it won’t be forgiven.
2. It doesn’t mean that you (and those you love, too!) will not suffer the consequences of your sins committed on earth; being saved is not a “Get Out of Jail Free” card.
3. It doesn’t mean that you can never lose your salvation. True, no one can take it away from you, but we all have to realize we can backslide, and even reject the free gift of salvation through continuing to sin without repentance.

So, now, what I believe being saved means is simply this: when you accept that Yeshua (Jesus) is the Messiah God promised to send, and that he taught to obey the Torah as a result of faithfully trusting in God and wanting to do as God says out of love for him and not as a means of legalistically obeying the Torah (which means trying to earn salvation), at Judgement Day Yeshua will be there for you, to identify you as one of his sheep, and through his righteousness you will be able to live in God’s presence for all eternity.

God’s actual “new covenant” is not in the New Covenant writings, also called the Christian Bible. No- it is found in the Tanakh (“Jewish” Bible) in Jeremiah 31:31, where God says he will make a new covenant, not like the old one, because this time he will write his Torah on our hearts.

And to have that done you need to understand more than just what the Torah says, you need to understand what it MEANS! That is what Yeshua taught us- the deeper, spiritual understanding of the Torah God gave to the world.

And this can be best found in Yeshua’s Sermon on the Mount, where he tells us it isn’t enough to not kill, we must not hate in our hearts. Also, it isn’t enough to just not commit adultery, we mustn’t so much as lust with our eyes.

You see? These are not just legalistic (ooh, there’s that word, again!) actions, performed as rote acts of righteousness, but they are heart-felt emotions! We do not do what God says is wrong because we are not like that, it is no longer a part of our make-up because our hearts have his Torah written on them.

This is what Yeshua brought to us; this is the real new covenant, the real means of being saved.

So, get to know the Torah (if you don’t, already) and take it upon your heart. Make it something you don’t just know, but something you breathe with every breath, see when you close your eyes, speak of when you walk by the way, and take with you when you arise and when you lie down.

If you have the Torah on your heart, which I believe is only possible when you accept Yeshua as the Messiah, and thereby will apply them to your life, repenting when you sin and always asking God for forgiveness and strength to be better, you will be truly “saved”.

Thank you for being here and please remember to share these messages and subscribe to this ministry.

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