Most everyone is familiar with the Christian idea of the Trinity, composed of the Father (God), the Son (Jesus), and the Holy Spirit.

But there is a trinity within Judaism, as well: the trinity I am thinking of is the relationship between God, Israel, and the Messiah.

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Christianity concentrates on the relationship between God the Father and Jesus the son, with the Holy Spirit being given to each individual who accepts Yeshua as their Messiah so that they can join that relationship. In Judaism, God doesn’t see the individual as much as he sees all individuals, collectively as one nation, Israel. The Messiah’s role in this relationship is as God’s High Priest to the nation, bringing them back into communion with God by re-establishing the kingdom of David, rebuilding the temple and thereby bringing back the sacrificial system so we can be forgiven of our sins, in accordance with the Torah.

The main difference between the Christian trinity and the Jewish trinity is how the relationship with God is formed: Christians see their relationship as a personal one with the Messiah, through whom they have a relationship with God. Judaism sees itself as having a national relationship with God where the Messiah serves everyone as High Priest and King.

The one thing they have in common is that they are both looking at this from a human-to-God order, meaning that even though God sends the Messiah, our relationship is from humans through the Messiah to God.

I see a third trinity, one which is not us to God, but from God’s down to us.

And this trinity doesn’t include the Messiah or the Holy Spirit, but simply God and humanity.

In Genesis 22:18, God told Abraham that the entire world would be blessed by his descendants. A couple of hundred years later (in Exodus 19:6), God gives his Torah to Moses (this is the ONLY place in the entire Bible where God dictates, directly, how he wants us to worship him and how to treat each other) and he tells Moses to teach it to the Israelites because they will be his (God’s) nation of priests.

So far, we have seen two parts of the trinity: God will bless the world through Abraham, and through Moses gives us his instructions on how to act and charges the nation of Israel to learn them and teach them to the world. Now for the third part.

In Deuteronomy 28, God promises the Israelites (and, consequently, the world) all the blessings they will receive when they follow the instructions in the Torah.

So, God chooses a man through whom all the world will be blessed, then gives that man’s descendants (the bringer of the blessings) the instructions for how to receive those blessings, charging them to be priests to the world. Finally, God tells us exactly what those blessings will be when we do as he says.

This, to me, is the ultimate trinity: (1) God’s promise to bless the world, (2) he gives his instructions to his chosen people to bring to the world, and (3) through obedience to those instructions we receive the blessings.

This is a little complicated, so let’s go over it one last time:

Christians see a trinity of God to Messiah to people, with the Holy Spirit acting as a means to communicate what God wants us to do. Jews see God and the nation of Israel, with the Messiah acting as an intermediary to bring that nation back into communion with God.

I see a trinity where God chooses a man whose descendants become a nation of priests to bring God’s instructions to the world in order for everyone who obeys them to be blessed.

The problem with my proposed trinity is that it never worked out that way, which is why God had to send the Messiah. He sent him first to the Jews to get them back on board, then allowed him to go to the rest of the world. After all, Yeshua (Jesus) is a descendant of Abraham and one of the Nation of Israel, which is who God promised would bless the world. Yeshua is the epitome of the Cohen HaGadol, the High Priest, to both Israel and the world; and what better blessings could there ever be than the one God sent with his Messiah- eternal peace and joy?

Three trinities, three different forms of relationship between God and humanity, and none of them able to be accomplished until God sent Messiah Yeshua. But, when all is said and done, all three result in the same end product: communion with God and eternal joy and peace.

Thank you for being here and please share these messages with everyone you know. Subscribe to both my website and YouTube channel and check out the books I have written (I just finished my 4th book, which debunks the traditional lies about Yeshua) and “Like” my Messianic Moment Facebook page. I also have a Facebook discussion group called Just God’s Word which anyone can join.

And one more thing: I always welcome comments, even if you disagree.

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

I have always thought that God gave us free will and would never do anything to abrogate our right to make our own decisions. But, reading through the Tanakh- especially the books of the prophets- I wonder if I am wrong about that.

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For instance, in Joel 3 God says that in the End Days he will pour out his Spirit on all people, even their slaves.

In Numbers 11, when Moses appoints the 70 Elders to help him in judging for the people, God pours his Spirit on the Elders.

When God chose Shaul as king, he poured his Spirit on him; not just once, but twice during his kingship (hence the old saying, “Is Shaul a prophet, too?”)

In Ezekiel 36, God says he will replace our hearts of stone with hearts of flesh.

I am sure there are other passages we could review, but these are enough to make me wonder if God will supersede the right to make our own decisions, which he gave us in the first place?

We are told that God is the same today, yesterday, and tomorrow, and that because he is the holiest of holies he will never go against his word or change his mind about what is right or wrong. So, if that is true, can we trust him to stay the course with regards to free will after he tells us that there will be times he will overrule our own choices?

You know, I don’t really have an answer for that. I am not so sure now. I mean, I trust God to always know and do what is best for me, so if he does force me to think or act a certain way, which pouring out his Spirit or changing my heart will do, is that OK?

I can’t answer for anyone else, but my feeling is that whatever God wants to do for me or to me is OK with me. I trust that whatever he does it is always for my good because he tells me that he wants me to live (Ezekiel 18:23), so even if he seems to abrogate my right to make my own choices, it is for my own good.

This is weird for me. I have always said free will is for us to have and God will not change it, and that is my strongest argument against Predestination. And now, well…I still do not believe that everyone is predestined to heaven or hell, but if God says he is going to give us a new heart, that’s hard to believe without also accepting this is predetermined.

So, how can this be reconciled? How can we have free will and still be given a new heart, with God’s Spirit being forced upon us?

Give me a sec, here….hmmm….maybe, yes, you sure? Hmm…yes, I think that’s good. OK, here we go!

The one thing I was missing in this argument was that what God gives to us, we can refuse to keep. It’s called Apostasy. God can replace our heart of stone with a heart of flesh, but we can always plaster over it. God can pour his Spirit on us, but we can always refuse to listen to it.

Free will still exists within us; even though God can cause his Spirit to indwell and change our heart, we can still refuse to work with what he gives us.

Look at Adam and Eve- there was no sin in them, but when given the chance, they took to sin like a duck to water. If they could do that, so can we. We are all born with iniquity (the desire to sin) in our very DNA. God said he would give us a new spirit and a new heart, but the DNA is not changing. Iniquity was found even in the most perfect of angels, Beelzebub, and if he could turn to sin, so can we.

And in 1 Samuel, after Shmuel anointed Shaul we are told that God gave him a new heart then and there! Yet, later we see how Shaul rejected God’s instructions and ended up sinning against God. So Shaul’s new heart and spirit didn’t last. How can that be? It must be that Shaul was still able to make his own decisions!

God will do whatever he thinks is best for you; even his punishments are delivered with mercy, designed not to be punitive but to bring you back onto the path of righteousness. It is up to you, up to me, up to each and every one of us to decide if we will do what is right.

When we do wrong, God will try to gently lead us with his staff; and if that doesn’t work, he will take the rod to our heads. And if that still doesn’t work, we will be on our own. The decision to remain faithful or to sin has, is, and always will be our own choice!

In Joel 3-4, God’s pouring of his Spirit will happen before the great Day of Adonai. So, he will do this to all humanity and THEN judge, telling us that all who call on the name of the Lord will be saved, so it must be that God will do these things without taking away our right to choose.

God will make himself known through this pouring out of his Spirit and changing of our hearts, but it will not supersede free will. It will be his last-ditch effort to help us save ourselves. Because God says that after he pours out his Spirit all who call on his name will be saved, we can imply there is the opportunity to not call on his name. If we didn’t have a choice, no one would have to call on his name, right? But, since we are given the chance to call on his name, we still have a choice.

Well, I am glad that I figured this one out because, I have to tell you, I was a little worried there when I started this message.

In case I lost you, sooner or later God will pour out his Spirit on everyone and give us a heart of flesh to replace the stony one that is there, but even after that, we will still have the chance to choose to call on his name or not.

We all have the right to decide whether to reject or accept God, and because he wants everyone to choose life, he will go as far as to give a new heart and pour out his Spirit on each and every one of us, but that will NOT supersede our free-will ability to refuse him.

No one knows when the Day of Adonai will come and the Bible tells us we can expect to see a worldwide spiritual awakening before it comes, but why wait? I think the best thing to do if you haven’t done it yet, is to accept God and his Messiah, Yeshua, and do it now!

Thank you for being here and please share these messages with everyone you know, subscribe on my website and my Youtube channel, buy my books, and let me know what you think of these messages. I really appreciate feedback, even if you disagree. Hey! You might be right, and if you can help me better understand God we will both be blessed.

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

Ezekiel was a prophet who certainly had a rough time of it. He was tied with ropes and forced to lie on his side, being fed just bread and water for years, some years on his left side and some on his right side. He was made mute, God had Ezekiel’s wife die suddenly, and Ezekiel was made to do other things that were uncomfortable and even torturous, all to be a demonstration to the people of Israel what would happen to them if they continued disobeying the Lord.

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God also told him to prophecy to the Israeli people, and to their mountains, animals, and also to the foreign nations surrounding Israel. In Chapter 36, God tells Ezekiel to prophesy that the land which has been taken over by the nations surrounding Israel, naming Edom as one, will be returned to them. He tells how after God dispersed his people, the surrounding nations all came in and took possession of the land, angering God because they bragged about their ownership.

Isn’t this what has happened in modern times? During the 18th and 19th Centuries, Israel was barren land, untilled, unformed, and essentially uninhabited except for nomadic peoples, mostly Jordanians and Syrians, using the land for grazing their herds. They would come in, graze the land until it was denuded, and then move back to their own country.

That is how it was until Israel was declared a state and the Jewish people were being regathered, as God promised, back into their land. Now, all of a sudden, these nomads who were never interested in true ownership, are crying that they have been ejected from their land!

Yasser Arafat was a very influential and wise leader, creating one of the most enduring propaganda lies ever formed, which he called the Palestinian People. The only real Palestinian people were the Jews living there when Israel was renamed Palestina by the Romans, after their defeat of the Bar Kokhba rebellion in 132-135 AD. This was not just to eradicate any relation of the land to the Jews, since the Romans now wanted to make it a Roman city, but it was also an insult to the Jewish people because Palestina was the Roman form of the name of their ancient enemies, the Philistines.

Just look at any pictures of the land of Israel, or to be historically accurate, Palestine during the 19th and early 20th Centuries; all you will see is desert. No olive trees (millions have been planted on the West Bank by the so-called Palestinian people as a way to lay claim to the land), no buildings, no cities, no development, no agriculture…nothing!

But look at the pictures of Israel in the 21st Century and you will see a garden where there was a desert; you will see cities, communities with homes, houses of worship, and recreational buildings. Israel developed a strong economy, science and agricultural advancements, and a growing population composed of both Jews and Arabs, who (for the most part) get along fine in Israel.

The truth of the matter is not that Israel is apartheid (as the United Nations accuses them of being) or that they are evicting people and destroying their homes (as the Media would make you think), but they are developing the land and sharing it with whoever wishes to live there in peace. Arabs have the same rights as Israelis, and the fact remains that the Palestinian people are nothing more than terrorists who want the destruction of Israel, while the peace-loving Arabs living in Syria and Jordan wish they could live in Israel because it is better than where they live.

The ones that are the real threat to the lives and families of the surrounding Arab peoples are not the Israelis, but the Arabs! Syria, Jordan, Iraq, Iran, and Egypt are all economically devastated by their own poor leadership. Their people are tortured, taken prisoner, and their homes destroyed more by Jihad, ISIS, and the other terrorist groups than the Israelis have ever done. Israel has given land rightfully belonging to them to the Palestinians in order to make peace, but that has never worked out: not because of anything Israel did, but because the Palestinians aren’t really interested in peace.

God said that the surrounding nations who took over the land after he dispersed the Israelis would be shamed, and we see that happening in our times. Despite the overwhelming odds against Israel, being surrounded by nations that outnumber them and only want their total destruction, Israel has kicked their butts every time they tried to attack. That’s because what the Arabs don’t understand is that God is still protecting his people, as he has done for millennia, and he will keep his word that once he has regathered his people, which is still being done, he will never again allow them to be dispersed.

Assyria destroyed the Northern Kingdom and dispersed them; Babylon destroyed the Southern Kingdom and dispersed them; Alexander, through his program of Hellenism, almost totally obliterated the Jewish religion; Rome destroyed the temple in Jerusalem, killed tens of thousands of Jews and routed almost all the rest from their homeland; England killed thousands of Jews during the Crusades; Spain killed thousands upon thousands of Jews during the Inquisition; Nazi Germany killed millions of Jews… but we’re still here and stronger than ever!

No other civilization has been so decimated, so often, and not just survived but is flourishing. Today, Israel is a world leader in science, technology, and agriculture. How is this possible? It’s possible because as Yeshua said in Matthew 19:26:

“Humanly, this is impossible; but with God everything is possible.”

We are living in prophetic times, my friends, and we are seeing prophesy come to fruition. It is at once wonderful and terrible because as Israel grows stronger and more Jews return to their homeland (this is called “making Aliya”), we come closer to the Acharit HaYamim, the End Days when all the nations of the world will turn against Jerusalem.

We are seeing this already: the United Nations has taken a position against Israel, the Arab nations are (as always) attacking innocent Israeli civilians while accusing Israel of attacking them, and now even the one most trustworthy friend of Israel, the United States, is turning against them with the Democratic Party accusing Israel of human-rights infractions, sending billions of dollars to the enemies of Israel (this happened under Obama), and recently leaving billions of dollars of American top-secret arms and weapons to Afghanistan terrorists while simultaneously cutting billions of dollars of funding for the Iron Dome program.

As bad as things are, they will get worse, but what we know- and history has proven- is that God will no longer abandon his people. We may be in for rough times ahead, but in the end, Israel will emerge triumphantly with Messiah Yeshua ruling the world and God’s promises of eternal peace and joy finally being fulfilled.

Thank you for being here. Please share this message with everyone you know, and subscribe here and on my website, as well.
If you have any comments or suggestions, please do not hesitate to let me know.

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

In my last message, I talked about how despite all the different ways we can sin which God tells us in the Torah, there is really only one sin, and that is always the sin against God. No matter what we do, or don’t do, sin is always just the one type: against God.

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However, there are two distinct ways in which we can commit that sin: purposefully or accidentally.

The sin we commit on purpose is easy enough to know because you do or don’t do something that you know, unquestionably, is a sin because God said it is. And knowing this, you decide to ignore God and do it, anyway.

Now, since we all sin and many times we do it knowingly but are incapable (at least, for the moment) to overcome it, we can repent of that sin and ask forgiveness through Yeshua ha Maschiach (Jesus Christ). If we repent and ask forgiveness through Yeshua, we will be forgiven.

Yes, even though we did sin on purpose, we can still be saved and in God’s presence when we are resurrected IF we repent, try not to sin, and (even when we fail) ask forgiveness for our sin through Yeshua. How can I be sure of this? I am sure because in Matthew 5:19 Yeshua says that even those who sin and teach others to sin will be called least in the kingdom of heaven. So, here is clear evidence that sinners will be allowed into heaven, even if they teach others to sin.

How can that be? Well, the answer (as I see it) falls under the other way we sin, which is doing so accidentally. Or, in many cases, ignorantly.

There are many, many people I have come across in the past quarter-century since I came to accept Yeshua as my Messiah who sin, violating God’s commandments about the Holy Days, about Kashrut (Kosher), the Shabbat (Sabbath), and many other “lesser’ commandments found in the Torah, yet they believe that they are worshiping God as they should. They have been taught to commit these sins by their religious leaders, family, and friends, who they, themselves, have been taught this by their religious leaders, family, and friends, and this goes all the way back to the end of the First Century.

These people are sinning against God, but they think they are worshiping him as he desires. It’s the epitome of the situation where the blind are leading the blind.

Because they are totally ignorant of this sin, they do not repent of it and that is a problem, but I believe that this falls under the category Yeshua was talking about in Matthew.

True, they are sinning, and true, they do not repent, but it is also true that this is accidental on their part, and although they are guilty, if they ask forgiveness of their sins, the ones they know and the ones they don’t know, then they can be forgiven.

God tells us in Leviticus 5:17:

“If someone sins by doing something against any of the mitzvot of Adonai concerning things which should not be done, he is guilty, even if he is unaware of it; and he bears the consequences of his wrongdoing.

This is also confirmed in John 9:41, where Yeshua tells the Pharisees that if they were ignorant of the law, they would not be guilty, but since they know it, they are guilty. And in James 4:17 we are told that anyone who knows the right thing to do and fails to do it is committing a sin.

There seems to be a fine line between purposeful and accidental/ignorant commission of a sin, and I think what separates one from the other is repenting of it when you find out.

For instance: if someone is raised Christian and told they are not obligated to celebrate a Saturday sabbath, that they can eat pork and shellfish, and do not have to celebrate those “Jewish” holy days, they are sinning but they are, for the most part, ignorant of those sins because they have been mistaught what the Gospels and Epistles in the New Covenant really mean. As such, they will be forgiven if they repent and ask forgiveness, once they actually are made aware of these sins. And, in my opinion, they must also try to overcome what they have been taught. If they cannot overcome their sins, but repent, feel sorrowful at their weakness, and constantly ask God to forgive them and help them to overcome these weaknesses, I believe from what I have read in the Bible and personal experience that God is not just willing to forgive but will forgive because he desires to forgive them, understanding our human weaknesses.

On the other hand, if someone knows they are sinning and just doesn’t care, or (as many people do) rationalize their sinfulness by saying health codes make food safe, or they were born this way so it means God is OK with them like this, or any other kind of rationalization (I have even heard people say that God is wrong!), well that isn’t going to be of any use to them at Judgement Day.

The way I handle this situation is to ask for forgiveness of my sins, those I know I committed and especially those I don’t know I committed, and through his Ruach HaKadosh (Holy Spirit) to recognize sin before I do it and strengthen me to be able to overcome it. This is part of my daily prayer, and I recommend it.

Remember this: most everyone you will ever meet who tells you what God means is telling you what someone else told them God means, so you can choose to trust people, or read for yourself what God really said and ask him to show you what he wants from you.

Thank you for being here and please share these messages with everyone you know, subscribe to my ministry here on my website (messianicmoment.com) and on my YouTube channel, and check out my books. Buy a hundred or so and distribute them where you worship.

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

I bet some of you are expecting me to talk about the Akidah, Genesis 22 (the Binding of Isaac) because that is the traditional reading for Rosh HaShanah. Other traditions are the eating of sweets, such as apples with honey and carrot tzimmes. We stay away from nuts because the value of the letters used for the Hebrew word for nuts, אגוז (egotz) adds up to the same number that you get from the Hebrew word for sin (חטה), so we don’t want to begin the new year with any association, even a numerological one, to sin.

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As for me, we had neighbors over for a Labor Day celebration, which was also a Rosh HaShannah celebration, so we did the traditional Labor Day barbecue of burgers and hot dogs (Hebrew National, of course), and for dessert, I made a Carrot Cake with cream cheese frosting. כל טעים מאוד!! (everything was very tasty). The reason for the carrot cake was to incorporate carrots into the menu; actually, I really wanted to try that recipe and this was the perfect opportunity because there is a tradition that comes from Ashkenazi Jews. They dubbed carrots “mehren” which sounds much like “merin”, the word for prosperity. So having a carrot dish of some sort at Rosh HaShannah symbolizes prosperity for the coming year.

So, having shared a little of my personal life with you, let’s get to the spiritual stuff.

Because this is the beginning of the Jewish civil new year (the spiritual one begins on the first of Aviv), and the last thing we want to start this new year with is sin, I thought we’d go against the grain and talk a little about sin.

Here’s the low-down on sin: there is only one sin. There are many different kinds of sin, but when it comes down to it there is only one sin, and that is the sin we commit against God.

King David knew this. After he committed a few really bad sins, some of which were on the Top Ten List, when he was forced to be faced with these sins by Nathan the prophet, he confessed and asked God for forgiveness.

Now, in case you haven’t counted them, let’s see what old Davie did (2 Samuel 11):

1. He coveted his neighbors wife, Bat-Sheba;
2. He committed adultery with her;
3. He lied about it (by not telling Uriyah, who was her husband and a trusted friend);
4. He tried to cover it up by getting Uriyah drunk, hoping he would sleep with his wife;
5. When that failed, he committed murder by having Joab place Uriyah where he was sure to be killed;
6. He implicated Joab to commit murder, forcing him to also have the man’s blood on his hands.

And after doing all these sins, not to mention being the reason for the death of all those other men who didn’t have to die in order to make sure Uriyah was killed, after all this when David confessed his sin to God in Psalm 51:4, what did he say to God? He said:

Against you, you only, have I sinned and done what is evil from your perspective; so that you are right in accusing me
and justified in passing sentence.

Whoa! Wait a minute here…what about Bat Sheba, Uriyah, Joab, and the men that died with Uriyah. Didn’t he sin against them too?

Of course, he did, but sin is first and foremost against God. When we do what God says we should not do or do not do what God says we should (that’s the one most Christians are guilty of), that is a sin against God.

If anyone else is involved, well, it’s certainly a sin against them, too, but in reality? – they’re not the ones we need to be forgiven by. They can’t condemn us to hell, but God can, so when you sin, you sin against God, and your first and most important confession and apology must be to God.

You also should apologize to the ones that you sinned against, ask their forgiveness, but that forgiveness is only between you and them. Whether or not they choose to forgive you, that is between them and God.

It is ALWAYS first between us and God, then between us and them. And, for the record, we are not told we must be forgiven by other people, but we are told that we must forgive other people.

And bringing this back to Rosh HaShannah, for a moment, one of the traditional actions we take is called tashlik. This is when we go to a stream or river, some moving water, and throw bread or rocks into it, asking that our sins be taken as far away from us as these items are, to sink and never return. This is also accompanied by going to anyone we think we may have sinned against or upset in any way, and ask for their forgiveness. Sort of like starting the new year with a clean slate. You may recognize this from Matthew 5:23-24; after all, where do you think Yeshua got this from?

The Bible defines all the different types of sin that exist, but no matter which one of the many types of sin you commit, it is always just the one sin: the sin against God. Confess it, repent of it, and then ask forgiveness through Yeshua the Messiah.

That covers you with God, then go and do the same with any and all the people that are affected by this sin.

Thank you for being here and please subscribe to my YouTube channel and this website, like my Facebook page and share these messages with everyone you know to help this ministry keep growing. You might like to check out my books, as well.

That’s it for today, so l’hitraot and לשנה טובה!! (For a good year!)