How Does God’s Punishment Help Us?

It is very hard to recognize the value of punishment when it is happening to you. Especially if that punishment is not one just designed to teach you a lesson, but the sort of vengeful punishment that human beings generally dish out to each other.

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God, on the other hand, punishes us without malice or anger, although we can tick him off now and then. When God punishes us, it is because we deserve it, yet he always tempers his temper, so to speak, with mercy.

“What’s so merciful about killing 250 high-ranking members of the tribes, as well as having the ground swallow Abiram and Datan, with their entire families, down to Sheol?” (Numbers 16)

“What’s so merciful about allowing the Philistines to constantly raid and harass the people all during the time of the Judges, and throughout the kingdoms that came afterward?”

“What’s so merciful about having the Assyrians kill thousands of Northern Kingdom people, destroy property, and sell survivors into slavery throughout the Diaspora?” (1 Chronicles 5)

“What’s so merciful about letting the Babylonians raze Jerusalem and destroy the temple while bringing hundreds or more of God’s people into slavery in a foreign land?” (2 Kings 25)

“What’s so merciful about allowing the Romans to not just totally destroy the temple and the walls protecting Jerusalem, but to rename Judea- the land God gave us- after our ancient enemies, the Philistines?” (Circa 70 CE)

“You call that ‘merciful’?”

Yes, I do.

“How can you say that is showing mercy?”

Simple: despite all that, we are still here.

And not just still here in the world, but now we are back in the Land, and we are not just surviving- we are thriving!

Have you ever been in a fight? Not a verbal battle, but a swing the fist, hit the body, and hurt someone fight? It isn’t like what you see in the movies, where the fighters hit each other, kick each other, throw each other around but constantly get up and continue.

That’s not real life. Let me tell you about real life, having been a student of martial arts for a number of years in my youth: all you need to make you think twice about fighting is to get the wind knocked out of you once. You can’t breathe, you can’t even stand, and while you are turning blue the only thought going through your mind is “Will I die?”

When God punishes us, it is so that we stop everything we are doing, stop thinking of whatever we were thinking of, and fall to our knees with the wind knocked out of us thinking only one thing: “Will I die?”

That is why when God has to resort to punishment, it can seem so terrible; you see, we make it necessary for him to do that because our stubborn, self-centered, and sinful desires are so strong that God needs to get our attention.

He will do so gently at first, giving us little hints, helping us to see the light, but when we refuse to accept what we are doing is wrong, he will turn up the juice. And, after he has given us all the time in the world to repent, that’s when God will drop the hammer.

And even then, he is merciful in that despite the pain we feel, it isn’t going to kill us.

Well, wait a minute… I stand corrected: there are many thousands who have died suffering from God’s punishment, as we have noted earlier, but their death isn’t necessarily eternal death. There have been many righteous people over the centuries who have died as collateral damage when God punished the nation, but dying to the world isn’t the death that we should be afraid of.

There is one thing I want to mention before finishing: too often I have heard people say they are under attack or being punished by God because things are going badly for them. Now, it may be true; the Enemy may be harassing you if you are doing something wonderful for God’s kingdom, or God may be making life difficult if you are on the wrong path (remember I said he starts off gently letting us know we are going the wrong way?), but in most cases, I believe people are just having a bad day or a bad week, and that is all there is to it.

God sees and knows all that we do, and he cares, but being in charge of everything doesn’t mean always doing everything. I believe many times God just lets things happen, and if I am right, I think that is a good thing.

It allows us to learn to use what God teaches us in the Bible and is a way we can test ourselves in how we handle tsouris, which is inevitable because we live in a cursed and fallen world.

So if you feel you are being punished by God, check yourself against the Torah and what Yeshua said about loving each other. Take a long look in the mirror and see who is looking back at you.

In Judaism, we say the Torah should be like a mirror: when you look into it, you see yourself. This is very much what Yeshua meant when he said that when we see him, we see the Father (John 14:9): this is too often misunderstood because Yeshua wasn’t saying he is God, he was saying he is the mirror image of God in that he did and said what God wanted him to do and say.

That is why God tells us to be holy, as he is holy- we can never be God, and we can never be as holy as God is, but we can be like God in how we treat others and by living in accordance with the instructions God gave us in the Torah.

We will all be punished, sooner or later, either for our own sins or as collateral damage to the nation. It is inevitable, but don’t let that bother you. Remember that what happens on the earth is temporary, and we who believe in God and accept Yeshua as our Messiah aren’t to worry about what happens temporarily because we are focused on eternity.

God’s punishment, even when mercifully administered, is terrible. But it is temporary, and so long as you do your best to worship and treat others as God said to do, then you can get through it and look forward to eternal peace.

Thank you for being here and please share these messages with everyone you know, subscribe to both my website and YouTube channels, buy my books, join my Facebook group called “Just God’s Word”, and “Like” my Facebook page.

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

The Psalms Remind Us of God’s Faithfulness

Have you read the Book of Psalms?

I just finished it, on my way through the Bible, and besides the beautiful poetry, the heartfelt yearning for God, both the pain and joy that the different psalmists felt (that’s right- King David wasn’t the only one writing psalms), one thing I am always reminded of when going through these emotional songs is how faithful God has been to his people.

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I am not going to review each and every one of the 150 psalms, but challenge you to go through, picking one out every now and then, and you will psalms that both thank God for his blessings and protection, as well as pleading to God to provide the blessings and protection that he once did.

The psalms take us on a roller-coaster of emotions, from praising God for his protection to pleading for God for protection; from thanking God for his mighty victories to asking God why he no longer goes to battle before his people; from praising God for the love he has shown us to asking God when will his anger against his people ever cease?

The psalms were written by a number of different people, at different times during our history. Many were written by King David, but there are one or two from Solomon, Moses added a couple of his own, Asaf has written many, and we even find some from the sons of Korach. Yes, the very same Korach who rebelled against Moses and Aaron: although Korach and his followers were destroyed by God’s fire coming out from the Tabernacle, it was only the families of Datan and Abiram who were swallowed up by the earth.

The psalms are a historical narrative, as well, with David’s sad songs of betrayal while hiding from Saul or running from Absolem to songs of praise and joy at being placed in the kingship and for the many years of the military superiority he was given by Adonai.

The psalms of Asaf, however, are quite different in that they seem to have been written during those years when the Israelites were in exile. They reflect the sadness of feeling abandoned by God, even though we know that later God did return his chosen people to their land.

What demonstrates the faithfulness of God’s people is that despite their pleas for help, their questioning of why God has abandoned them, and their prayers for him to turn from his anger and redeem them, they always end with the hope and trust that one day God will again be as he once was to them.

And looking back in history, we see God’s faithfulness in that he did answer the prayers for the redemption of the communion his people once had with him. We know that God did relent from his punishment, God did return his people to their land, and he never truly abandoned them, only turned his face from them for the time they needed to be humbled.

In truth, God has never rejected the Jewish people, or for that matter, anyone who truly calls to him. When we, the Jewish people, turned from him, although he said he would hide his face and ignore our prayers, he still saw us and he still heard our prayers. He was just allowing us enough time to become truly humbled and repentant.

God always knows the exact right time to act on our prayers; he knows the difference between false humility and genuine repentance.

God never really abandons us, he just allows us to abandon him until we come back to our senses. And when we do, we will find him there, waiting with outstretched hand, to gather us under his wings, once again.

If you feel like you are abandoned or separated from God, you are probably right but don’t blame God for it: if you want to know why God isn’t with you, look in the mirror for the answer. God always wants to be with us, but when we reject his instructions we reject him, thereby separating ourselves from the blessings and protection of the Lord.

God never abandons us, he allows us to abandon him. And even when we do, he still watches out for us. He is always there, waiting for us to return, and strongly desiring to answer our repentant and heartfelt prayer for forgiveness with a “Yes, you are forgiven, and welcome back into the fold.”

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

The Dual Purpose of God’s Punishment

How many times have you heard people ask why, if God is forgiving, loving, and compassionate, does he punish us?

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How many times have you heard people say that the God of the Old Covenant is harsh and cruel, but the God of the New Covenant is loving and forgiving?

Of course, that raises the question of which God is the real God?

The answer is, of course, there is only one God, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the father of the Messiah, Yeshua. He is the same God in the Old Covenant as he is in the New Covenant, and if someone needs proof, just read Acts 5:1-11 and see how “forgiving” the God of the New Covenant really is.

God punishes the guilty, but not right away, well, usually not right away. He holds his punishment in order to give us time to repent and save our lives. God doesn’t want anyone to die and says so in Ezekiel 18:23.

In fact, God is not only willing to forgive, he strongly desires to forgive, but because he is also holy and trustworthy, he MUST punish the unrepentant for their sins.

God ALWAYS follows the rules he sets.

The punishment God metes out is designed to do two things:

  1. Punish the wicked for the sins they have committed, as he promised he would do; and
  2. Bring people into communion with God by having them turn to him so they can be saved.

That’s right! God will slam you down hard not because he is trying to hurt you, but because he is trying to save your life!

Humans punish and hurt each other in order to make themselves feel better. I know you are denying that is what YOU do, but the truth is we punish almost always, from anger. And that anger comes from being ignored, which comes from our pride and that is what causes us to lash out at others, even those we love.

When your children disobey you, do you allow them to continue their bad behavior, and only after a while punish them? If so, then you are the rare exception because almost everyone I have ever known with kids, myself included, punishes in one way or another the moment the kids misbehave.

If someone at work is performing under their required standard and you are their boss, do you allow it to continue? Do you wait for a while, hoping that they will come around and get better? Do you give them a bad review without ever having told them where they needed to improve?

I hope not. Having been in charge of people most of my career I have learned that when people don’t do a good job it is often because they haven’t been trained or supervised well. However, there are those who just refuse to do what they are supposed to do, and they receive punishment after they have been told how to do it correctly, but refuse to do so.

These examples are based on being in a finite world where the punishment can’t last longer than your life. God, on the other hand, is not finite and his punishment is designed to set us straight while we are still alive because the ultimate result of disobeying God is eternal suffering.

I might lose my job if I continually ignore my boss, but I will be forever in torment if I continually ignore God.

God punishes us because he has to: he said he will and that is all there is to it. He waits for us to repent, and when he has waited long enough (which is entirely up to his timetable, not yours) the punishment for your crimes against God will first be to slam you down so hard that you have to look up to look down.

And that brings us to the second purpose for his punishment, to leave you no option other than to look up… up to God!

God’s punishment is designed to force you to realize that your way will not work, is not going to be acceptable anymore, and if you want to have joy and peace you had better get your head out of your southern-most orifice and get with the game.

God tells us exactly how he wants us to worship him and how to treat each other- that is found in the Torah, the first 5 books of the Bible. In fact, that is the ONLY place where God, himself, dictates to Moses the way he wants us all to act. There is no place, anywhere else, throughout the entire Bible, Old and New, where God gives direct instructions on what we are to do.

As you read in the letter to the Romans, God has always been to the Jew first, then to the Gentile. The Torah was given to the Jewish people to learn, and then as God’s nation of priests (Exodus 19:6) to bring it to the world.

Humans punish almost exclusively as a result of their anger at being ignored, or at seeing someone doing wrong to others. God is the same way, in that he becomes angry with those who disobey him, but God’s anger is not a fit of selfish, prideful anger like a human being feels.

This is my belief: God’s anger is not based so much on people ignoring him, but on people spiritually killing themselves after he has done so much to provide eternal joy for us. Whereas we become angry for selfish reasons, God becomes angry for selfless reasons- he hates to see us hurt ourselves.

That is why I believe his punishment is not just to keep his word, but to bring us back into communion with him by making us realize that we cannot be successful by looking only to our own power. We need to realize the best path to success in this life, and eternal joy in the next life is through the power of God.

God makes us eat crow to teach us humility; when we accept his sovereignty, humble ourselves, and obey him, he then provides a feast of wonderful delicacies which we can enjoy for all time.

Thank you for being here and please share these messages with everyone you know. Subscribe to both my YouTube channel and website, “Like” my Facebook page, and join my Facebook discussion group, Just God’s Word.

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And I always welcome your comments.

That’s it for now, so l’hitraot and Baruch Ha Shem!

Faith Isn’t Enough

We all have been taught that we are saved by faith, not works, but that isn’t the whole story.

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Faith is not something that we are born with, and it is not something we can earn or purchase: faith is a choice. Faith is a decision to believe, without any proof to justify that belief.

The letter to the Messianic Jews, supposedly written by Shaul (Paul), says it best in Hebrews 11:1:

Now faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see.

In other words, any absolute proof of God or that Yeshua is the Messiah is the antithesis of faith because Abraham, the “Poster Child” for faith, never had any proof of God’s existence or trustworthiness, yet when he heard from God, he believed. That is why in Christianity they say only by faith are we saved, not by works, because (this is their favorite verse) in Romans 4 we are told that Abraham believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness (which Shaul quoted from Genesis 15:6).

But to say that faith is all we need is wrong, as stated by James in James 2:14, where he says that faith without works is dead.

So, nu? Who’s right? Shaul says through faith we are saved, and James says without works we are dead: someone has to be wrong, right?

The answer is they are both correct: the missing part that brings these two seemingly opposite statements into concordance is understanding what God said is the real reason Abraham was considered righteous.

Let’s back up for a minute: people have, for centuries, been taught that faith brings salvation, but it doesn’t: salvation only comes from forgiveness of sin. A sinful person cannot be in the presence of God, no matter how strongly they believe in him.

The general understanding of “works” is strict obedience to the commandments God gave in the Torah. Before Yeshua’s ministry, the Pharisees taught only the literal value or written word (called the P’shat) of the Torah commandments, and that only through obedience can we be forgiven, accompanied by the appropriate sacrifice. This is what I call “performance-based salvation”: they placed works over faith.

Yeshua taught us that we needed more than just a literal understanding, we need to know the deeper, spiritual meaning of God’s commandments (called the Remes). This was a totally new way to see the commandments, yet Yeshua never taught to ignore the commandments; obedience was still necessary, with the proper sacrifice brought to the temple in Jerusalem, in order to be forgiven of sin. The only thing that changed was after Yeshua’s sacrifice and resurrection, there was no longer a need to bring an animal to the temple, which was destroyed leaving Yeshua as the only means to attain forgiveness of sin.

By the end of the First Century, when the number of Gentiles joining the “Way” began to vastly outnumber the Jews, they began to separate themselves from the Jewish population (which was in big trouble with Rome) and started to change things around, such as a different day for the Sabbath, rejecting some of the basic Torah commandments, and totally ignoring the rabbinic (later to be Talmudic) additional requirements that the Pharisees demanded. By the end of the Third Century, Christianity had become a totally different religion, and the teaching that faith is all we need not only took precedence over obedience but was used to justify ignoring God’s Torah!

The Pharisees taught performance-based salvation over faith, and Christianity taught faith-based salvation over obedience.

Both are wrong.

Now we can get back to what God tells us is his reason for crediting Abraham as righteous, which had seemingly been lost to everyone, except to James.

In my 67+ years of experience with Christians, I have never heard any of them quote Genesis 26:5; that is where God confirms the promise he made with Abraham to Isaac and says the reason is:


because that Abraham hearkened to My voice, and kept My charge, My commandments, My statutes, and My laws. (JPS Hebrew-English Tanakh)

When God said that Abraham hearkened to his voice, he meant that Abraham believed him, but that wasn’t all. God said Abraham did more than just believe him, he did everything that God told him to do!

What God is saying is that faith isn’t enough for him! Abraham was righteous because he believed AND DID what God told him to do!

That is what James was saying- faith without obedience to what God tells us to do will not save us. We must do as God said Abraham did: we must be more than faithful, we must be obedient.

The early Christians wanted to separate themselves from the Jewish people because of the political strife between the Judeans and Rome, and they succeeded so well they also separated themselves from God by teaching those who had faith in Yeshua did not have to obey the Torah.

And the only place (how many times do I have to say this before people realize it?) that God tells us what he wants us to do is in the Torah! Nowhere else, people- only in those first five books will you find God saying, “Tell the children of Israel this is what the Lord, God says to do…”.

Read Genesis 26:5 for yourself- make sure that what I am telling you is true. Abraham was considered righteous, which is why he received the promises from God, because he did more than just faithfully believe: he also did everything God told him to do.

It has never been either faith or works, it has always been both. If your faith doesn’t motivate you to be obedient to God’s instructions, then you do not have the kind of faith that results in forgiveness of sin, which is the only way we are saved.

Thank you for being here and please subscribe, share these messages with everyone, “Like” my Facebook page, join my discussion group (Just God’s Word), buy my books, and remember that I always welcome your comments.

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

The Greatest Threat to Your Salvation

You may be thinking that salvation is a gift from God that no one can have taken from them.

And you are right- no one can take our God-given salvation from us, but we can certainly throw it away.

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We are warned against apostasy, but that isn’t the threat I am talking about.

We are warned about how the Enemy can confuse and mislead us, which is a definite threat, but I don’t believe it is as big as the one I want to tell you about.

The greatest threat to your salvation is…RELIGION!

When we ask God, through Messiah Yeshua, to forgive our sins and take us into his presence, we will be “saved” from the spiritual and eternal consequences of our sins. But that is just the first step: the road leading to that salvation still lays before us and it is a long and treacherous one.

The guide taking us down that road, which almost everyone who worships God in one way or another is led by, is a religion. It may be Judaism, it may be Catholicism; you might be a Protestant or maybe even a Mennonite. There are some 6 sects with Judaism and dozens of Christian religions and sects.

Here is why I say religion is the greatest threat to your salvation: religion is not from God. God tells us exactly what he wants from us regarding how to worship him and how to treat each other, in the Torah. There is no other place, anywhere, in the Bible where God gives us a direct commandment regarding these things.

Religion is the creation of people who want to have power over other people. Religion tells you what you can and cannot do, and also tells you that this is what God really wants. Some religions tell you to ignore the Holy Days that God told us to celebrate, but if you don’t celebrate their man-made holidays, then you will go to hell.

Religions tell you what you want to hear so that their leaders can control you. God has told us all how he wants us to act, but religion tells you it is OK to ignore some of the things God says and do what the religion says you should do. What is worse is that they say it’s OK to ignore the Torah commandments because you believe in Jesus!

For the record, Yeshua (Jesus) NEVER told anyone to do anything other than what his father, God, said to do! And religion tells us that Yeshua is our savior, but that is wrong! We can have our sins forgiven through Yeshua’s sacrifice, but he is NOT our savior- God is.

We are saved because of what Yeshua did but it is God who is our savior because he is the one who forgives us!

Yeshua replaced the need to bring an animal to the temple in Jerusalem, which was the way we used to be forgiven under the sacrificial system. God would forgive our sins by means of the shed innocent blood of the sacrifice, but did anyone ever say that the goat or the bull or the lamb was their savior? Of course not- the sacrifice is not the savior, it is the thing which makes forgiveness possible, and that forgiveness is what saves us, and that forgiveness comes from GOD!

And let’s not forget that it was God who provided the Messiah in the first place!

Religions also attract people, especially today’s Mega-churches, by appealing to their comfort zone. Religion is the greatest threat to your salvation, and next in line after that is your comfort zone.

People love to hear that if they are a good person and believe in Jesus, they will be saved and get to go to heaven.

Anyone who really knows the Bible should immediately realize both of those statements are wrong. First off, no one is good- even Yeshua refused to be called “good” when someone addressed him that way, rebuking them and telling them that only God is good (Mark 10:18). And Revelation 21 tells us that there will be a new heaven and a new earth, so if everyone goes to heaven, why do we need a new earth?

The answer is that no one goes to heaven- that is where God and the angelic beings live. We live on earth. And we can confirm that from the prophecy of Micah, in Micah 4:4 where he says in the Acharit-Hayamim (End Days, meaning after the Messiah has come and is ruling the world) that each man will sit under his own fig tree and drink wine from his own vineyard without fear. Not in heaven, but here on earth (well, the new earth).

Religion teaches you what is OK with God based on what that religions’ originator believed (and NO- Yeshua did not create Christianity, men did). And one of the biggest comfort zone appeals I have heard all my life from religion is that when you die, if you have done what your religion has told you to do, you get to go to heaven and you will see all your loved ones there, waiting for you.

What a load of drek!

C’mon, people- get real! Do you really believe that everyone you have loved is in heaven? What about people who you may have loved who had a different religion? Doesn’t your religion teach you that it is the ONLY way to be saved? Doesn’t a Catholic Priest say a Protestant is doomed? Doesn’t a Rabbi say that a Mennonite isn’t worshipping God correctly? Don’t the Jehovah’s Witnesses tell you that all but 144,000 people will be in hell?

I’m Jewish, and I can tell you from personal experience that the Chasidic Jews call the Reform Jews “Goyim” (meaning “Gentile”), and because I believe Yeshua is the Messiah they say I am not Jewish anymore but a Christian!

Let me throw a plug for myself in here quickly: my latest book, “The Good News About the Messiah for Jews, Debunking the Traditional Lies About the Jewish Messiah” is all about how religions have misled people about what the Messiah really taught, and what religions have said about him that isn’t true. You should seriously consider reading it if you want to know whether or not your religion has guided you to salvation or sin.

Let’s bring this to a close…look, I can’t speak for God and would never even think of doing so. And, I won’t tell you what you should believe. But, on the other hand, what I know about God- based on what he tells us about himself and what he wants from us- is that when we meet him at Judgement Day (which we will all do), it may go something like this:

You: “I did everything that my religious leaders told me to do.”

God: “My child, I understand that you did what they told you to do, but it’s what I say that counts.”

Now, if that doesn’t rattle your comfort zone, I don’t know what will.

Thank you for being here and please share these messages with everyone you know. Subscribe to my website, to my YouTube channel, “Like” my Facebook page, and join my Facebook discussion group called Just God’s Word.

Oh, yeah- it wouldn’t hurt to buy and read my books, either.

I’m done for today, so l’hitraot and Baruch HaShem!

Where Yeshua Fits Into Forgiveness of Sin

When we read the Bible, we know that God is a loving, compassionate, and forgiving God. We also know that he promises to punish the guilty, guilty being anyone who purposefully rejects and ignores God’s instructions.

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“So when I disobey God, does that make me a guilty person, deserving of punishment?”

Yes, it does.

“But, but, but…wait a minute! I am a Believer: I accepted Yeshua (Jesus) as my savior, so I can’t be guilty because he forgives my sins.”

Well, actually, no- that’s not accurate. Only God forgives sins; yes, Yeshua did say that he was authorized when he walked the earth to forgive sins, but that was only to prove he was (and still is) the Messiah. Believing in Yeshua as the Messiah does not automatically cleanse you of sin.

“So, then my religious leaders lied to me?”

Yes, and no, because they were only telling you what they had been told.

Why do you think Yeshua had to die? It was so that by his sacrifice we could be forgiven by God, in accordance with the sacrificial system God defined in Leviticus. Yeshua replaced the need to bring an animal to the temple in Jerusalem, that’s all. We still need to confess our sins, repent of them, and ask God to forgive us in Yeshua’s name, i.e. by means of his sacrifice on our behalf.

“OK, so when I sin, I am guilty, and still need to confess, repent, and ask God to forgive me, which he will do because I have accepted Yeshua as my Messiah and ask forgiveness by means of his sacrifice. Is that right?”

Now you have it!

Sin is something no one can escape or completely overcome, even if the sins we commit are accidental. Before Yeshua, when the temple existed, we could sacrifice there to be forgiven, but only there- God commanded a sacrifice had to be made only where he placed his name (Exodus 20:24). When the temple was utterly destroyed (around 70 CE) there was no place we could go to be forgiven. This is where Yeshua’s sacrifice comes into play: as the Messiah, God’s anointed, his sacrifice replaced the animal sacrifice that had to be made at the temple. Yeshua’s sacrifice is acceptable to God anywhere, anytime, for all time.

“So what about the Jews? I know the Messianic Jews have accepted Yeshua as their Messiah, but what all the other Jews?”

Yes, that’s a problem. The mainstream Jewish population rejects Yeshua as the Messiah God promised to send because, for no other reason, they have been taught to reject him. It’s not really that much different than with most Christians, who have been taught they can reject the Torah commandments.

Jews aren’t the only ones left out of salvation by rejecting Yeshua; many, many Christians who believe they are saved are not because they have been taught to reject God’s commandments, or that they do not have to confess and repent of their sins because they are automatically saved by believing in Jesus.

It seems they don’t realize that believing Jesus is the Messiah isn’t enough. C’mon, people! Every demon in hell believes Jesus is the Messiah!

The sacrificial system requires confession of sin (once you have been made aware of it), repentance (you have to feel bad about having committed that sin), and the shedding of innocent blood to cleanse the sin (Hebrews 9:22.) When the temple existed, that is where the sacrifice had to be performed. As I explained, Yeshua’s sacrifice replaced the animal sacrifice and, as the Messiah, his sacrifice is acceptable anywhere, anytime.

After the destruction of the temple, in accordance with the Torah (do you hear this, my Jewish brothers and sisters?) forgiveness of sin can only be accomplished through Yeshua, the Messiah.

The teachings of Yeshua are, of course, also very important, and what he taught was exclusively from and about the Torah laws. He did not change or replace a single stroke of the pen, but what he did do was to explain the spiritual meaning of the laws, which is called the Remes.

Before Yeshua, the Pharisees only taught the plain language or literal meaning of the law, which is called the P’shat. In other words, the Pharisees taught performance-based salvation: do exactly what the law says to do and that is all you need. Yeshua taught the deeper, spiritual understanding of the law: just doing the right thing wasn’t enough, you had to feel it in your heart!

Just like God said in Jeremiah 31:33, the New Covenant will be written on our hearts.

The Torah teaches us what we must know to do, and Yeshua taught us what we must feel in our hearts. The Torah says do not kill, Yeshua says do not even hate; the Torah says do not commit adultery, Yeshua says do not even lust with your eyes.

Can you see? Yeshua didn’t just teach us what the Torah says, but what the Torah means!

This is why Yeshua came the first time: to teach us more than just what to do, but how to feel, and to replace the need to bring an animal to the temple for forgiveness.

The next time Yeshua comes will be to complete God’s plan for the redemption of his people, all those who have accepted Yeshua as their Messiah and been faithfully obedient (as best as we can) to God’s instructions in the Torah.

Thank you for being here and please share these messages with everyone you know. Subscribe to both my website and YouTube channel, like my FaceBook page, and join my discussion group called Just God’s Word.

And remember that I always welcome your comments.

I have written 4 books regarding God, religion, prayer, and (most recently) debunking the traditional lies about Yeshua that both Judaism and Christianity have proliferated over the millennia, so please consider getting these for yourself. They are available on Amazon Books or use the links on my website.

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

Having a Dry Spell

You know, when I started this ministry about 7 years ago, I used to blog every morning and I never seemed to run out of something to say.

If you prefer to watch a video of me with nothing to say, click on this link: Watch the video.

After a while, I was finding that somewhat difficult. So, before I got to the point where I burned myself out just to write every day, I decided to blog only on Tuesday and Thursday, with Friday’s message being based on that Shabbat’s Torah reading.

When I was working, for many years I had a long commute by car and found it an excellent time for prayer. I sort of got in the habit of praying in the car, and I still do even though being retired I am in the car just for 20 minutes or so, two days a week when going to play golf. I ride my bicycle about three times a week and during those times, while praying, I often go off on a tangent, and that is when I get most of my inspiration for these messages.

Well, as today’s title suggests, lately I have been in a dry spell. I have nothing for today. Even my daily Bible readings aren’t providing me anything; I am in the book of Psalms, and generally, although I love the wonderful worship of David’s writings, I don’t get a lot of inspiration from them.

Maybe I can write about how faithful David was; even when in the midst of terrible tsouris (Yiddish for bad luck, difficulty, or troubles), he always relied on God for his salvation.

Of course, we can always rely on God for salvation, whether it be from human problems or on a more eternal basis, which is where the Messiah, Yeshua, fits in.

I don’t know? Maybe I need a dry spell? It is nice just to talk with you all, and tell you how much I appreciate you being subscribers to either my website or YouTube channel, or (better yet!) to both. I do, occasionally, like to share my personal life with you and hope that you don’t mind.

I am not a really “holy” person (ask anyone who knows me) and I believe that to know me as just another rather ordinary guy is helpful to anyone who may think too highly of me (if anyone does) just because I have written books and have this ministry. I am somewhat proud that there are over 165 members of this ministry, but since this is on the Internet, that is really a very low number. I mean, truth to tell, some video of a dog chasing a squirrel will get over a million views, so what I do is almost statistically irrelevant.

Believe me, I am not anything great. And whatever I do that is worthwhile, honestly, it is not from me but from God working through me. Really, I mean this! This is not some false humility- I am being realistic because I know what thoughts and feelings I have, and they are VERY human. When I do or say something that is edifying or spiritually mature, helping others to know God better, that is from God, not from me.

I have said this many times and will continue to say it:

When I do something really good, that is God working through me; when I totally screw something up, then I can take full credit.

And when I have nothing to say, no message of spiritual edification, no wisdom to dispense, when I can only say I have “Nuttin’, Honey!”, I can still always offer this: my thanks to God for all that he has done for me.

He has blessed me in so many ways, so many times, even before I knew him, and this ministry is such a blessing to me, I can’t even begin to tell you.
My calling, if you will, is to teach. I do not have the compassion or patience to be a Rabbi- trust me on that- but teaching is the gift God has given me, which has been confirmed to me by many people, much more spiritually mature than I will ever be.

And that is why I write books, and why I constantly blog, and why even when running dry, I will say something because what is more important than anything is that the ones who I can reach learn what God wants from them.

Religion was not something God ever intended: God tells us what he wants from us, clearly, in the Torah and that is for everyone to know. He first gave it to the Jews to learn, so that they could teach it to the world. Yeshua taught us the Torah- the Pharisees had only taught the plain language meaning. Yeshua taught us the deeper spiritual meaning, but it was always the Torah, God’s only instructions to the world.

People created different religions because they wanted to tell us what they think God wants.

And for those who have been taught by their religion that Yeshua (Jesus) did away with the Torah, well…do you really think that the obedient son of God would tell anyone to disobey his father?

Would the Messiah, who God sent to lead us back into communion with him by providing the means for forgiveness (which couldn’t be given after the temple in Jerusalem was destroyed) say that forgiveness comes from rejecting what God said to do?

Have you ever thought, religion aside, if it really makes any sense at all that we can receive forgiveness by ignoring God’s instructions?

Hey, whaddya know? I found a message, after all!

I think I’ll stop now because what I just said needs some time to sink in.

Thank you for being there and please help this ministry to continue to grow.

L’hitraot and Baruch HaShem!

Cautious or Afraid?

We are living in pretty scary times, aren’t we?

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

There is social upheaval, the political polarization of American’s, crime in the cities, college students destroying our historical monuments, financial problems, businesses going under, and let’s not forget the pandemic.

With all this going on, anyone would be justified in being cautious, right? But when does being cautious turn into being afraid?

When do we go from being aware of our surroundings to being scared of every shadow?

When does “I’m coming down with a cold” become “Oh no! I think I have Covid!”

I know someone with a 10-year-old child, and this kid told his mother he had the sniffles. What did she do? She whisked him off to a Covid testing station! The kid said he had a runny nose- no fever, no aches, no headache, nothing that indicated he had anything but maybe a slight cold, but WHAM! Straight to the Covid testing center.

And he didn’t have Covid.

I had a slightly sore throat when I came back from a long weekend in New York City, and no other symptoms, and in a few days I was better. I didn’t run off and get tested, but I did watch for any other symptoms to appear. I wasn’t afraid, I was cautious- my wife and I didn’t kiss until I felt better. A few days after I felt better, my wife developed a cough, but no other symptoms. She was told by people at an animal hospital where she volunteers, that there is a “cough” going around. Are we going to get her tested? No. Why not? Because that is not necessary. If she develops a fever and other symptoms, then we will, but it is already getting better. In the meantime, we don’t get to kiss each other, which I hate.

We are being cautious, but we are not scared.

Do I wear a mask in the car when I am alone? Duh! Of course not, but I see so many that do. And when someone tells me it is probably because they forgot they had it on, I just roll my eyes. I have worn the stupid mask for hours when I was forced to do so because I was traveling by air and I can guarantee that NO ONE finds these masks comfortable. No one forgets they are wearing it. Everyone, absolutely everyone I have talked to who has had to wear a mask for hours at a time hates doing it.

The people who wear a mask while driving alone are afraid.

The people who test themselves or someone else at the first sign of any problem are afraid.

The people who insist they can’t go anywhere or see family members who may not be vaccinated are afraid.

And please don’t tell me they are concerned for the health of others, because that doesn’t really make sense- people who are truly at risk will protect themselves and not depend on others to do so.
When you know you are at risk, you make sure you are cautious, or even afraid, and in those cases, I don’t really blame them for being a little more than just cautious. If I had COPD, diabetes, or was a member of a high-risk group, I would trust in God but still make sure I was safe.

The Bible tells us the difference between being cautious and being afraid:

Isaiah 41:10; Lamentations 3:57; Matthew 10:28 (this is a major source of strength); 2 Timothy 1:7; Hebrews 13:6; Psalm 23:4 (you should have already thought of this one); Psalm 27:1; …and there are more.

Cautious is wearing the right kind of mask. If you believe wearing a mask will prevent the spread of Covid and is necessary, then don’t wear some fashion mask with a face on it or some banner, and especially not one of those gaiters, which are totally useless as any kind of protection. Wear a mask that is OSHA certified, or an N95 (that you change after every 4-6 hours of use), or the mask made by Sonovia Tech, an Israeli company that guarantees their mask will kill the Covid (and Delta variant) germs completely for a full year (it is washable and reusable.)

If you are cautious, you are being smart; if you are afraid, you are being faithless.

I am not saying you should open a kissing booth in the middle of a leper colony and expect God to protect you. We are told, after all, not to test the Lord, our God, but we can be certain that he is watching out for us.

The fact is that 97% of those who have been infected with the Covid-19 virus have survived, and there have been few (if any) long-term problems from it. The vast majority of those in the 3% that died already had pre-existing conditions that rendered their immune systems weak. They could have died from the regular flu or even a bad cold.

The vaccine is proving itself to be a short-term bandage, and nothing more since so many people that have been vaccinated are getting sick 6 or more months after they received their shots. Now they tell us we are supposed to get a booster?

When I was in Sales, I learned of something called a “Loss Leader”- you take a hit on the profit from selling something because that product will need a constant upgrade, which costs money. The real profit is not in selling the product, but in the constant need to refurnish what the product needs to operate. I believe these booster shots are just that.

Someone has to pay for the constant research and production of the vaccines, and since the only money the government has is yours, guess who will be paying for it? Expect increased taxes, increased insurance premiums, and increased costs of health care.

But, this isn’t about the actual pandemic issue, it is about your reaction to it- are you being cautious or scared?

God is always here to protect us and help us, and frankly, if he decides I should get sick and die, what have I lost? Doesn’t Shaul (Paul) tell us that if he dies, he considers that gain because he gets to be with God? (Philippians 1:21)

Personally, I have no problem with getting to be in God’s presence for all eternity sooner than I expected to be. Hey- if I gotta go, I gotta go, and frankly, the sooner the better. It’s getting to be a real drag here on earth.

Not that I wish to die, but I have no fear of it because I have faith in God. I am cautious, usually, but I am not afraid to go around maskless, or to be with family and friends, or to refuse to get a booster shot. That doesn’t mean I don’t believe Covid is real or can be deadly (heck- driving your car can be deadly), but I am not afraid of it and I would rather spend my time enjoying my life than being afraid of death.

You need to ask yourself how much of what gives you pleasure in life is being lost to fear of getting Covid, or of crime, or of having to (maybe) take a vaccine that is beginning to show itself to be as deadly to a select part of the population as the disease!

You need to ask yourself “Am I cautious, or am I afraid?” Because, if you honestly admit that you are afraid, then you need to work on strengthening your faith.

Thank you for being there and please subscribe, check out the entire website (especially my books- I just finished my 4th book which debunks the many traditional lies about the Messiah), and please share these messages with everyone you know.

I also have a Facebook discussion group called Just God’s Word you can join.

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

Plugging My Books

I hope you don’t mind, but today I am going to take a total break from spiritual messages, even from a socially relevant message, and instead talk about something that is no more than pure, unadulterated self-interest.

If you prefer to watch me pitch my books in a video, click on this link:
Watch the spiel.

Well, maybe not all self-interest, since the books I have written over the past years are designed to spread not just God’s word, but who God is and what he wants from us, without the impurity of religion polluting the waters of life with their own man-made rites, holidays, rituals, and anti-Torah propaganda.

The first book I wrote is called “Back to Basics: God’s Word vs. Religion”.

This book discusses the differences between what God said we should do in the Torah and how religion (both Judaism and Christianity) has changed what God said to do, to what the religion wants to do. The book covers topics such as Kosher, celibacy, Holy Days or holidays, Tanakh or Talmud, and other topics where religion has added to or taken away from what God said in the Torah. It is an easy read, and the people who have given me feedback have found it interesting, to say the least; except for one rabbi who told me, “Well, you’re no Hemingway.”

The next book I wrote is called, “Prayer…What it Is and How It Works”.

The title is pretty much self-explanatory. I discuss the different ways people pray, the value of prayer, and what we can expect from it. Again, it is an easy read.

My third book is called “Parashot Drashim” and is subtitled “Commentary on the Weekly Torah Readings for Both Jews and Gentiles”.

For those of you who may not know this, the Torah is separated into 54 sections, called parashot, and these sections are read every Shabbat, sometimes with two parashot being read at the same time. It is all designed so that when we come to the eighth day after Shavuot, which is called Simchat Torah (Joy of Torah), every synagogue in the world is on the last lines of Deuteronomy and we all turn the Torah back to Genesis in order to start reading it all over again.

This book is my thickest book to date and is a compilation of the different parashot teachings I have been doing for over 7 years. I have combined, condensed, and edited the Shabbat teachings I have written and designed each one to show Jews and Christians who Yeshua really is and what he really taught. This book is not just a commentary, but also can be used for Bible studies.

My most recent book, just published a month ago, is called “The Good News About the Messiah for Jews“, and is subtitled “Debunking the Traditional Lies About the Jewish Messiah“.

Even though this is directed to my Jewish brothers and sisters, it is also valuable to Gentiles because many of the Christians I have known don’t know who Yeshua really is any better than Jews do.

I feel that this book is the culmination of all I have learned in the past 25 or so years of being a Messianic Jew and a student of the Bible- that is, the entire Bible, Genesis through Revelation. I attack many of the lies that have been spread throughout both Judaism and Christianity, lies such as Jesus doing away with the Torah, believing in Jesus means you have to be a Christian, all sins are forgiven automatically (the “Once Saved, Always Saved” lie), that Paul converted to Christianity and other lies that have been promulgated by both Jews and Christians which have totally turned Jews away from their Messiah and Christians away from God. This book will change someone’s life, somewhere- maybe even yours?

All of my books are available on Amazon, in both paperback and Kindle format. I kept the pricing low so that they are affordable for everyone, even though I would like to get something for all the work I put into each one of them (after all, a worker is entitled to his wages, right?), but I don’t expect to see any of them on the Bestseller List anytime soon.

Who knows? Maybe Oprah will find one and then I’ll be set for life!

Nah! Not likely, but if even one of these books can help someone come closer to God, then it is all worthwhile.

So, nu? Why not try one or all of these books? I don’t have a bibliography in any of them because I only use the Bible as my source document, and reference where I get each and every verse I use to teach about God and his Messiah. After all, if the Bible isn’t a good enough source document, what else could be?

Thank you for letting me blow my own horn, as the expression goes, and even if you feel this isn’t an appropriate thing to do, please don’t let that stand in the way of you reading these books. I really do believe I was led by the Ruach HaKodesh (Holy Spirit) in writing these and guarantee that even if you disagree with what I write, you will find these books interesting and educational. Maybe even a little entertaining.

God bless you and thank you for subscribing.

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

How Do We Show Humility When We Feel Offended?

Recently on my Facebook page (my personal page, not my ministry page), I posted something that while receiving confirmation from some, was offensive to others.

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

I never intended to insult or offend anyone, and never even thought that anyone would feel that way since I was talking about how I feel.

Now, having learned something from that experience, I want to make sure I make this disclaimer: to those who may be reading this and recognize themselves, please do not take this as a chiding or insult or even meant to be about you, personally- it was the nature of your response which made me realize something about offending statements and humility, which is the other side of the coin from pridefulness. So, instead of feeling offended, again, please take this message as nothing more than what I think I have learned about myself.

So, what happened? I wrote how I don’t like hearing something that everyone is saying today, which reminds me of the movie “Demolition Man.” If you haven’t seen that movie, it is about a future despotic government run by a megalomaniac who is forcing people to live to his standards of social interaction. One of the things that they do is, upon greeting each other, say “Be well, Steven Bruck” and there is no physical contact allowed.

It is “Be well” saying hello and “Be well” saying goodbye, and so sickeningly sweet it makes you want to puke. What really gets my goat is that in the movie you can see that they say it without genuine feeling but as a conditioned response, which is the result of the government telling them how they should be.

My complaint was that I have been hearing people say “Be safe” whenever someone says they are going somewhere, as well as all over the TV and radio. This is, to me, just like what I see in the movie: we say it because we think we mean it, but in truth, we are being conditioned by the powers-that-be to create an environment where everyone is constantly forced to remember that there is a disease on the loose.

As I said in my post, I do appreciate it when people care about me and stated that I feel the term “Be safe” has become so passé that I prefer “Have a good time” or “Safe travels”, which is general enough to show concern for me without telling me to be safe (as if I wouldn’t be.)

After some of my friends told me they felt insulted or offended and told me they really mean it when they say that, I thought about my response to this greeting. Was I being prideful in saying how much I hated hearing that because I felt insulted and coerced into acting a certain way? Or were they being prideful in reacting insulted and defending the statement, as if this was directed at them, personally? I mean, I was talking about how I feel when people (not anyone in particular) tell me to be safe, so why would they take offense or feel the need to defend the statement?

I think the lesson for all of us here is to be willing to listen to what people say without personalizing it. Of course, the way we relate to the world is to take the words and actions of others and pass them through our own experience, so it is pretty much impossible to not feel something when someone does or says something that “hits home”, so to speak.

And that is where, I believe, we either react with humility or pridefulness. Humility will remind us that it is their issue, their feelings, and their experience that is the subject, and not ours. If someone is speaking in general, yes, what they say may get us a little hot under the collar if they are speaking to something near and dear to our heart, but unless they are looking right at me and/or pointing to me, I have to remain humble and remember that the person is talking about themself, and not about me.

Today, our nation is polarized on almost everything: from politics to history to race to religion to what to have for dinner. Being able to remain humble and overcome our own feelings is so important to remain spiritually pure. It is a sin to be prideful, and that means not just in what we say but also in how we accept what others are saying.

Here is why I believe the world has become too self-centered: everyone wants us to speak to them compassionately and be careful how we say something, but no one is trying to listen compassionately. It is all about how what you say affects me, and no one seems to want to try to slow down when they hear something offensive or insulting, and think “Why would someone say something like that?” Maybe that person is in pain? Maybe that person has been told a lie? Maybe that person is upset about something totally different than what they are saying?

Or maybe that person is a major A-hole? The best way to answer these questions is to remain humble and overcome our initial prideful feelings when something someone says affects us, emotionally.

In the case where we are being insulted, directly, we can still remain humble in simply ignoring that person, which to me is the most insulting thing anyone can do to someone else. Better yet, we should ask them, “Why are you saying this to me?” showing compassionate listening by giving them a chance to explain. It may be a misunderstanding that can be resolved so that the end result isn’t two people angry with each other, but two people coming to an understanding and remaining on good terms with each other.

Doesn’t that sound more like the way Yeshua would act?

So, if anyone is feeling insulted, put upon, offended, or just put out by this message, I do apologize and hope that you will see this isn’t about YOU, but about all of us, me included, and how we should be just as careful listening to someone as when we speak to someone.

Yeshua had the advantage of the Ruach HaKodesh (Holy Spirit) letting him know what people really thought, but we don’t, so please listen with compassion and humility; and when something you hear bothers you, personally, step back a moment and ask yourself, “Is this about me or about them?”

If you can do that, then you are showing true humility, compassion, and love for others. And, if you ask me, that is the best way to be safe.

Thank you for being here. If you haven’t done so already, please subscribe here and on my YouTube channel, and check out my books when you are on the website. My newest book is called “The Good News About the Messiah for Jews, Debunking the Traditional Lies About the Jewish Messiah”.

And remember, I always welcome your comments.

So, l’hitraot and Baruch HaShem!