In Jeremiah 11:14, God told Jeremiah that he should not pray for the inhabitants of Jerusalem.

It seems odd, doesn’t it, that the Lord would tell his own prophet that he shouldn’t pray for the security or peace of God’s children, but there is a reason for it.

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God is a loving and compassionate father. He understands our weaknesses and he is not just able to forgive us when we repent, but he desires to forgive us, as he demonstrates in Ezekiel 18:23 where he says he doesn’t want anyone to die.

But, God is also a fair and just God, holy and not one to change his mind. He says the guilty will not go unpunished, and although salvation is available to everyone, those who refuse to repent and continue to sin will be found guilty and their own deeds will come back on their own heads.

God has more patience than any human ever could have, and often he has waited to judge and punish for centuries, hoping against hope (since he already knows what will happen) that somehow the guilty will repent.

But sooner or later, the hammer has to come down.

What sins were so terrible in Jerusalem that God told his prophet to stop praying for the people? What could they have possibly done to bring God to the point where forgiveness was no longer possible, and judgment (meaning punishment) was the only option left to God?

Well, let’s see: we read about their worship of many of the pagan gods of the Semitic tribes around them, building and worshipping of idols, sacrificing on the high places, burning their children to Molech and K’Mosh in Vadi Kidron, cult prostitution, use of divination and spirit guides (necromancy), as well as many other horrible sins. And despite the good kings that we had along the way, with the sins of King Manasseh the point of no return had been reached.

This all happened circa 600 BC, but I believe we are seeing the same conditions today, here in America, only there is no prophet to warn us.

How does this apply to America, today?

Well, to start with, our government has not only legalized abortion but subsidizes it: I have posted in the past how this is no different than burning children to Molech (Abortion is More Than Just Murder).

We haven’t erected idols to Ba’al or Dagan, but we do hold our celebrities and sports figures in such awe that it is nearly a form of worship.

Every newspaper throughout the country has a section by an Astrologer, which is not much different than worshiping the army of heaven.

And in our society, we honor sinful relationships which include (but aren’t limited to) homosexual marriages, transvestites reading to children, and government removal of prayer from schools and from our courts.

When you take a close look, it really isn’t that different from the way society lived in the days of Manasseh, is it?

That’s why I believe if there was a prophet in America today, as Jerusalem had Jeremiah, he would be told by God something to the effect of:

"Geeze! I thought they would have learned their lesson after what I allowed Nebbie to do to Jerusalem! Oh well, here we go again- don't bother praying for this bunch because they have gone too far."

Look, I am not anti-American: I was an Executive Officer of a Combat Engineer Company in the United States Marine Corps and was willing to give my life to protect and preserve the America I grew up in. That was an America where people said they were Americans first, not something-Americans; that was an America where people had opportunities and weren’t chained to a system of welfare which reduces your chance of being able to pull yourself up out of your current social and economic class.

That was an America where nationalism was the rage, and racism was not used as a political weapon to usurp elected officials.

That was an America where education taught our children proper ethics, didn’t try to change history (although it was somewhat white-washed), and respected all life, in and out of the womb.

And in that America, the government asked for God’s direction and help, instead of rejecting him as unconstitutional!

No, my friends, we are seeing the beginning of the end of the America in which I grew up, the America that was a world leader, not just economically but ethically, and which represented the best opportunity for a person to really make something out of themselves. Sadly, that America is diminished to the point where it can’t come back.

No, my friends, the best we can hope for is that Messiah returns soon, because the ignorance and sinfulness of the youth today, as evidenced in YouTube videos, video games, TV shows, and movies, demonstrates that America’s future looks bleak. Even our professional athletes, heroes of the people who represent the best America has to offer, kneel at our national anthem and turn their back to the flag at Olympic events!

No, my friends, this is the end of the America I knew and the start of a different America, a godless and sinful country with no hope.

Although on the outside we seem to be strong, we have rotted away on the inside, just like a centuries-old Baobab tree, and one day (just like with those trees) we will suddenly collapse, and be no more.

So stop praying for America and start to pray for the return of the Messiah, because America is past help. And don’t tell me that God will forgive anything because he won’t- the Bible is clear on that. Yes, he is able to forgive anything, but he will not forgive an unrepentant sinner and that is what America has become, for more than a few decades now. The time for repentance and forgiveness is passed, and I personally don’t believe there are enough true American’s left in America to save the country.

Sorry for being such a “Debbie Downer” in my message today, but I preach what I believe to be the truth. If I wanted to be popular and go viral, I would do what the mega-churches do and tell you all the wonderful things God has for you and how wonderful everything is going to be.

I would rather be unpopular with people but do what is right in God’s eyes; people can only do so much for me while I am alive, but God can do everything for me throughout eternity.

He can do the same for you if you learn who he is, what he wants from you, and then deliver.

Thank you for being here and please subscribe to my YouTube channel and website, share these messages with everyone you know, and if you like what I do here you will like my books, as well. That’s it for today so l’hitraot and Baruch HaShem!

I was having a discussion with one of my Facebook friends, a sister in the Lord (Yes, Sarah- I am talking about you) about the red heifer, and I said something that I think is worth sharing. I doubt it will be of any great significance or a wonderful revelation to anyone, but still and all, this is my ministry and so I will talk about it.

Seriously, I think it might be of interest to some.

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The red heifer is an important animal in Judaism. It is a rather rare birth, and when born the cow is to be sacrificed and its ashes used to cleanse those who have become ceremonially unclean when touching a dead body. You can read about the red heifer in Numbers 19:1-10. One of the interesting aspects of the process of preparing the ashes that purify and cleanse people is that for every step in that process, the one performing it is made unclean and must wash their clothes and their body in water, remaining unclean until the evening (i.e., the next day.)

I have read the red heifer is considered a foreshadowing of Yeshua, in that the death of the heifer cleansed people, just as did Yeshua’s death. Personally, I don’t really think that is such a good comparison.

True, the red heifer was killed outside the camp, and Yeshua was killed outside Jerusalem; and true, the death of the red heifer led to a process by which people could be made clean, and the death of Yeshua cleanses us of our sin.

But there are significant differences that I believe make this comparison weak, if not invalid.

For one thing, no one became unclean associating with Yeshua, but the person who burned the heifer, the one who watched it (the Cohen), and the one who collected the ashes all became unclean by their association. The ones who were around and in close proximity to Yeshua not only were not made unclean but instead received the Ruach HaKodesh!

The ashes of the red heifer were used to remove only the uncleanliness that one receives from being in contact with a dead body. There’s no sin in being exposed to or touching a dead body, only ceremonial uncleanliness. The ashes make you clean, ceremonially, but they do not remove sin.

That is a significant difference: the ashes of the red heifer are useful only to remove ceremonial uncleanliness, but they do not remove sin because being unclean is not a sin. God never says, anywhere, that if you are unclean you are in sin. You are not allowed in the sanctuary when unclean, and if you go to the sanctuary when you are unclean or participate in any service (such as a Seder), THAT would be a sin and the ashes of the red heifer would be useless to you. You will need to go through one of the sacrifices outlined in Leviticus 1-7 to remove that sin, and the red heifer ashes are not part of any of those sacrifices.

On the other hand, Yeshua’s sacrifice and the blood he shed cleanses from us our morally wrong sins.

Yes, when in sin we are “unclean”, but not in the same way as when touching a dead body. There is a BIG difference between being unclean because we touched someone’s dead body and being unclean because we killed that person; the former is a ceremonial condition and the latter is a mortal sin.

Now, let’s talk about something I do find to be a valid comparison between the red heifer and Yeshua.

As mentioned above, everyone involved with preparing the red heifer becomes unclean, and what I find interesting is that when we are first introduced to the Torah, the closer we come to the Torah, the more we become aware of our own moral uncleanliness.

In the letter he wrote to the Roman Believers, Shaul mentioned how the Torah created sin because before we were given the law, there was no way to identify sin. As we become more knowledgeable, or better yet let’s say “in contact”, with the Torah, we become more aware of our own sinfulness (uncleanliness) before God.

With Yeshua’s sacrifice, we can be cleansed of our uncleanliness (from sin) just as those who had the ashes of the red heifer sprinkled on them became cleansed of their (ceremonial) uncleanliness.

The red heifer made people unclean and clean, first in contact with it and later after it had been properly prepared for them.

Yeshua, the Living Torah, makes us unclean by identifying that which we do as a sin, and he also makes us clean through his sacrifice, i.e. after he had been “properly prepared” (by means of his crucifixion and resurrection.)

The red heifer and Yeshua initially make us unclean (through touch and learning about sin, respec.), and both have the power to make us clean after they have been “prepared”.

Interesting? I thought so, and I hope you found this little conversation to be interesting, as well.

That’s it for today. I thank you for being here and if you haven’t already subscribed, please do so on my website and on my YouTube channel as well, because they are different lists and I don’t always do a video.

You might also consider buying one or more of my books, and with that I will say l’hitraot and Baruch HaShem!

How many times has someone called you “judgmental” because of something you said or wrote regarding an article or a person’s opinion? Me? More times than I care to remember.

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But aren’t we to judge the world? (1 Corinthians 6:2-3) And didn’t God tell Moses that he will take some of the Holy Spirit he placed on Moses and place it on others so that they can share in judging the people? (Numbers 11:16-30) Heck, even God thinks we should be able to judge others.

So why is it that when someone comments regarding an opinion or a statement, they are called judgmental, indicating that it is wrong to judge anyone?

If you ask me- and even if you don’t I will tell you, anyway (after all, it is my ministry, right?)- the difference between judging and being judgmental is not so much in what we say, but how we say it.

Once I was given (what we call) a back-handed compliment: My Boss told me that when we are in meetings what I say is usually correct, but because of the way I say it no one listens.

In other words, I judged correctly, but the way I expressed myself caused people to ignore my comment.

So, nu? How can we judge without being judgmental?

Here’s what I think the difference is: when we judge, we are looking at both sides of a situation and fairly and unemotionally making a statement regarding that situation. The focus is on the event and not the people involved with the event. When we go past the event and begin to make comments about the people involved, specifically their ability, their knowledge, or their emotional and spiritual state of mind that is when judging crosses over into being judgmental.

We can tell the difference between these two words simply from their proper grammatical usage: we can judge, but we are judgmental. “Judging” is something we do, but “judgmental” is something we are.

Of course, whenever someone judges they are, by definition, being judgmental, so where does it turn sour? It turns sour when we stop talking about the issue and turn it onto the person.

Here’s what I mean:

Judging: I understand what you said but when I look at the Bible references you quoted, there is more to them than what you gave us, and in their proper context the meaning you gave is not biblically sound.

Judgmental: I understand what you said but when I look at the Bible references you quoted, there is more to them than what you gave us, and if you were more spiritually mature you would have known that.

The difference is pretty obvious, isn’t it? Both times the comment is being judged, but in one case it is just the comment and in the other case, it is not the comment, alone, but the person, as well.

No one can tell what someone else’s spiritual state is. We can get an idea from what they say and write, and we can usually have a pretty good understanding of whether they know what they are saying or not, but even when we are positive, in our own mind, that the person is an idiot, it is not for us to say.

God is the only one who truly knows the heart, and even when we are absolutely certain someone is way off base, God knows if that is because they are really an idiot, or maybe a truly repentant and God-centered person who has been taught all the wrong things and speaks with concern but from ignorance.

I have never seen anyone who is in agreement with someone else be called judgmental; I assume that is because when someone says something we agree with, well, then, they are a genius! It seems we pull out the “You’re so judgmental!” card only when someone disagrees with us. Whether or not they really were judgmental, if I don’t have an answer to their comment I can always pull the judgmental excuse to redirect the issue.

In my experience, when someone accuses someone else of being judgmental it is little more than a defense mechanism designed to take the focus off the person accused of being wrong and placing it on the other person. It is nothing more than “smoke and mirrors”, and even when it is justified, it shouldn’t be used.

“Wait a minute, Steve! Why shouldn’t I call someone out when they are being judgmental?”

I’ll tell you why, and this is (of course) just my opinion: it won’t help. Even if you put that person in their place, so to speak, how will that help edify anyone? Sure, after you tell that person off they may open their eyes to what they were doing, but now the focus is totally off what you originally wanted to say and on this argument between the two of you. What you said in order to help people know God better, or edify them, or help console them, is now lost in the smokescreen that this name-calling has created.

If you find yourself being called judgmental, don’t reply and don’t just shrug it off: be humble enough to review what you said and if you think, even just think “maybe” you were judgmental, apologize.

And if you just have to let them know why you are right, you are no longer talking about God but just feeding your own pride.

Better that you should show humility and compassion for the feelings of others than to be correct because (just as I had to learn) being correct won’t be of any use if you are correct the wrong way.

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

It’s easy to see the relationship between Yeshua and Moses, right?

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Moses was sent and empowered by God with supernatural authority in order to free God’s chosen people, the Israelites, from slavery to Pharaoh. He was also given instructions by God teaching us how to worship God the way God wants us to and how to treat each other the way God wants us to, which Moses taught to the people.

Yeshua was sent by God, empowered by the Ruach HaKodesh (Holy Spirit) to free everyone, Jews and (eventually) Gentiles, from slavery to sin. He taught the spiritual meaning of the laws and commandments that Moses taught so that people’s hearts could be changed, in order that they would be more receptive to the New Covenant God was making through Yeshua, which we read about in Jeremiah 31:31.

Now, what about Absalom?

We read about Absalom in 2 Samuel, Chapters 13-19. We see he was prideful and also very deceitful, killing his own brother.

In 2 Samuel 15, we read how Absalom had conspired to steal the throne from his father, David. He would greet people coming into the city and befriend them, telling them the King didn’t appoint anyone to hear their case but if they followed him, Absalom would give them justice. He would be friendly and kiss them, stealing their hearts and making himself popular among the people while intimating that King David didn’t really care for them as much.

When he had won enough of the popular vote, so to speak, he defied his father and proclaimed himself king.

Eventually, he found himself hung on a tree (by his hair) and when discovered there, he was killed by the kings’ general and David regained his throne, at the loss of his son.

So, nu? What does Absalom have in common with Yeshua, other than being the son of the king?

Actually, nothing, But Christianity has created a “son of the king”, their Savior, who defies his father by telling people they should follow him and reject his father’s rule (which we call the Torah) so that they can be given justice, i.e. salvation.

WOW! That’s a hard word to hear and at first, it sounds so wrong, doesn’t it? I mean, Yeshua the Messiah as a rebellious son who is acting like Lucifer, trying to wrest the kingdom from God? C’mon- du bist meshuggah!!

Truth be told, I am not crazy. Think about it: by using, or should I say mis-using, the letters from Shaul (Paul) addressed to the Gentile Believers who were first learning about God, Yeshua and the Torah, Christianity has separated itself from Judaism and the ways God taught us to live and worship him. Christianity, over the millennia, has taught that the Jewish people are no longer God’s chosen (misusing Galatians 6:16, which provides the foundation for Replacement Theology); that the Kosher laws were done away with (misusing Mark 7:19 and Acts 10); that obedience to the Torah has been replaced by Grace (misusing Romans 6:14); and that Yeshua is God, himself (misusing the Gospel of John.)

Every single one of these theological beliefs screams rebellion against the Father.

When Yeshua said that he would be raised up like the snake in the desert (John 3:14), he wasn’t talking only about being crucified: he was also saying that he would be idolized and worshiped instead of God. That is exactly what happened to the metal snake Moses made; at first, it was a symbol of God’s salvation (from dying by snakebite) but later was turned by people into a god, replacing the true God and being worshiped (Numbers 21:8 and 2 Kings 18:4).

Yeshua is the Messiah God sent, and he is, by divine conception, God’s son. Everything he did and said was meant to glorify God, his father, and he was so humble that he even refused to be called “good” saying that the only one who is “good” is his father in heaven (Mark 10:18). Yeshua taught the spiritual meaning of the laws and commandments that God gave to Moses. Moses, as the Pharisees had been doing, taught only the literal meaning, called the P’shat, so “Do Not Murder” means just that- don’t kill anyone.

But Yeshua taught us the spiritual meaning, called the Remes, so “Do Not Murder” became more than just don’t kill anyone- it became do not even hate people in your heart!

Yeshua did nothing against God, and everything for God, even to tell people that he only does and says what God tells him to do and say, which is why when we see him we see God. That wasn’t mean to say Yeshua is God, which is what Christianity’s Trinity Theology proclaims, but simply that because Yeshua is doing only what God tells him to do and saying only what God tells him to say, in him we see an exact image of God, but he is not God, himself.

So whereas Yeshua is the prophet which Moses said God would send (Deuteronomy 18:5), Christianity has replaced Yeshua’s role as Messiah with that of Absalom, a son who rebels against his father and tries to take the kingship away from him by endearing himself to the people, which has been accomplished through the teaching of Christianity that no one who follows Jesus Christ has to obey any of those “Jewish” holidays or laws.

God gave Moses those laws to teach to the Israelites for them to teach to the world; God said that the Jewish people are to be his nation of priests to the world (Exodus 19:6), meaning to teach the world (Jews and Gentiles) how to worship God and how to treat each other.

Yeshua is the epitome of that commission, and he NEVER did, said, or taught anyone, ever, to disobey the Torah or to worship him.

So, if you are a follower of any of the Christian teachings I specified above, please reconsider what you are doing and re-read the Gospels- forget about the Epistles for a moment- and find out what Yeshua said. After all, he is the one God sent as the Messiah: not Paul, not James, not John, or Mark, or Luke. Not Matthew, and not Peter.

Yeshua is the Messiah, Yeshua is the one who we should listen to and obey, and Yeshua never taught anything but to follow God’s instructions in the Torah. Not as the means of salvation, because faith is how we are saved, but as the means to please God and remain free of sin.

This is how salvation works: we are saved by faith in God and Yeshua as his Messiah. The Torah has God’s instructions on how we should live, Yeshua is the means for us to be forgiven of the sins we accidentally commit when we violate the laws in the Torah, and of which we repent, and Grace is God’s forgiveness which he is willing to give when we accept Yeshua as our Messiah.

The Torah was never done away with and God promised that we would be blessed when we obey the Torah (Deuteronomy 28), which is exclusively what Yeshua taught us to do.

God is still the King of the Universe, and even when Yeshua is king of the world, he will still report to his father, whom he loves and obeys.

Yeshua is the prophet Moses talked of, and not the Absalom which Christianity has turned him into.

Thank you for being here. Please like, subscribe, and share these messages with everyone you know, and remember that I always welcome your comments. You don’t even have to agree with me, so long as you are respectful.

Until next time, l’hitraot and Baruch HaShem!

If you are not familiar with accounting processes, there are two systems for calculating net profit from the goods your company sells, and these are founded on the cost of manufacturing the goods, known as the COGS (Cost of Goods Sold.)

These cost calculating systems are called LIFO and FIFO, which stands for Last In, First Out and First In, First Out.

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The way it works is that when calculating your profit, using FIFO your COGS is going to be what it cost you to manufacturer the goods that are the oldest in the inventory (first ones there) against what you sold them for now. If the manufacturing costs have risen since those older items were made, then the profit margin will be higher using FIFO.

On the other hand, if manufacturing cost has decreased, then calculating your profit based on the most recent items made will give you a higher profit, so you would want to use LIFO.

So, nu? What’s any of this have to do with God or salvation?

Plenty!

In Ezekiel 18:21-24 we are told this:

However, if the wicked person repents of all the sins he committed, keeps my laws and does what is lawful and right; then he will certainly live, he will not die.  None of the transgressions he has committed will be remembered against him; for the righteousness that he has done, he will live. 

“Do I take any pleasure at all in having the wicked person die?” asks Adonai Elohim. “Wouldn’t I prefer that he turn from his ways and live?“

On the other hand, when the righteous person turns away from his righteousness and commits wickedness by acting in accordance with all the disgusting practices that the wicked person does, will he live? None of the righteous deeds he has done will be remembered; for the trespasses and sins he has committed, he will die.

What God is saying is this: whatever type of person we are when we die, that is how we will be judged.

It doesn’t matter how wicked we had been in our past life – or, let’s say how many sins we have in our inventory- because when we repent and ask forgiveness through Yeshua ha Maschiach (Yeshua the Messiah, also known as Jesus Christ), since God uses LIFO those sins will not be used in calculating our spiritual worth.

The righteous acts we now are storing away are the ones that God will use when judging us, or better yet, let’s call it calculating our spiritual profit margin. This is such good news that it should make one jump up and down, like a newborn calf (remember that Psalm?) because there is no way for us to ever make up the profit lost through sinfulness.

What God does is to allow us to change our accounting system, so that when we do face him, it is only the recent COGS that he sees, which are the righteous acts we have committed since we repented and accepted Yeshua as our spiritual CFO.

Thank God for his merciful nature, and especially for his (not just) willingness to forgive, but desire to forgive us for the sins we commit against him; when King David wrote Psalm 51, he knew that every sin we commit, no matter what it is or who we hurt, is first and foremost against God.

So if you are reading this and haven’t yet repented or accepted Yeshua as the Messiah God sent, for you and for me, then please consider that you can change your accounting system before God holds his final audit, but you never know when that will be, so the best time to do that is NOW! Repent, accept Yeshua as your Messiah and ask God to forgive you for your sins, and change the accounting system he will use to judge you when you come before him.

Then start to build your inventory of righteousness.

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

I have read that Yeshua gave 6 commandments, and we read about them in Mark 10:17-20 when Yeshua relates a story about when a young man asks what he has to do in order to be saved. Yeshua answers that he has to follow the commandments, and the six he gave were:

Do not kill,
Do not commit adultery,
Do not steal,
Do not bear false witness,
Do not defraud,
Honor thy father and mother.

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I found this on the umass.edu website, and that article states these 6 commandments are the only ones people have to follow, essentially replacing the original 10 Commandments, as well as everything else in the Torah. Of course, that idea is just plain ridiculous, if for no other reason why would Yeshua, the son of God, not consider it important that we acknowledge there is only one God and that we should not bow down or worship other gods?

I also found on the Internet from the “Institute in Basic Life Principles” (some title, huh?) a list of commandments that Yeshua gave that is quite extensive. Some examples are: to go the extra mile, give charity in secret, beware of false prophets, repent, follow me, keep your word, do not lust, and many other things, all of which are from the Torah. I don’t see these as being new or unique commandments, but repetition of what God already told us to do in the Torah.

The only place I can find where Yeshua, himself, says he is giving a commandment is in John 15:12 (CJB) where Yeshua says to his Talmudim right after the last Pesach Seder:

This is my command: that you keep on loving each other just as I have loved you.

And that is not new: it is found in Leviticus 19:18.

Yeshua did not give any new commandments. In fact, he stated clearly in Matthew 5:17 that he is not changing anything that is already in the Torah. Now, we have to remember that “Torah” does not mean “law”, but “instruction” or “teachings”, and that being said, what Yeshua did was not give any commandments but teach the spiritual meaning of the existing commandments.

Yeshua didn’t change the Torah: he changed the understanding of the Torah.

I believe it is very dangerous when Christianity teaches that we should obey Yeshua’s commandments. The danger is that by even implying Yeshua gave commandments to us which are different from God’s commandments and that those are the ones we must follow, it means Yeshua placed himself above God. If Yeshua had ever said that we must do what he says and not what God said, that would be rebellion against God and, as such, a sin!

Do you recall that one of the issues Yeshua had with the Pharisees was that they considered some of their man-made traditions more important than the commandments God gave? If he had a problem with that, how could he possibly go even further astray from proper worship and teach that we should obey him and could ignore God’s commandments?

You know what they call that? Rebellion!

No, the truth is that Yeshua never did anything to override or ignore what God taught us to do in the Torah; he simply taught the spiritual meaning of those commandments. That is the only thing that is “new” in the New Covenant.

Yeshua is the Messiah, and as such he is to be listened to, respected, and acknowledged as God’s true representative on earth. He now sits at the right hand of God and when he returns, he will then be recognized as King Messiah, ruling the entire earth. He would be the first person to tell you not to worship him but to give your worship to his father in heaven, just as he told the young man in Mark 10:17.

The Torah is where God tells us how we should worship him and treat each other, and everything Yeshua taught was from and about the Torah. He did not give any new commandments or instructions, only the deeper, spiritual understanding of what people already had been taught.

Think of it this way…First Century Judea was the place where people could go to attend Salvation University, and both the Pharisees and Yeshua taught there, using the same textbook, the Torah. The Pharisees taught the Undergraduate level and Yeshua taught the advanced Ph.D. course.

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

We all know this statement, the one Yeshua made to Kefa (Peter) when Kefa chided him for saying that he must die.

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Yet, I don’t think anyone really believes that Yeshua was accusing Kefa of being the Devil. What he meant, as he explained right after saying this to him, is that Kefa was thinking not on a spiritual plane, or in accordance with what God has decided should be done, but on a personal, selfish, and human level.

In other words, Kefa wanted things to go the way he wanted, not the way God wanted; the feeling of “Your will be done, not mine” was not in Kefa’s heart.

So, how many times have we been like Kefa?

For example, right now Israel has been under the worst attack it has been through for a while, and all I see are postings about praying for peace there. And, yes- we are told to pray for the peace of Jerusalem (Psalm 122:6), but if we pray for men to make peace, is that really God’s will? Are we “pulling a Kefa”, meaning are we asking for what we want even when we know that God has a different plan?

How do I know that God has a different plan for Israel? Well, he’s told us he does, and quite often! All the way back to even before the Israelites entered Cana’an, God showed Moses the apostasy that would take place in the future, the punishment they would have to endure, and the eventual regathering of the dispersed tribes to Israel.

Through the Prophets, God told us what the people living then should expect in their immediate future and at the Acharit HaYamim (End Days).

And if there is still doubt that God’s plan for this world is terrible, full of violence, injustice, anti-Semitism, hatred, and worldwide destruction, then you must not have ever read the vision given to John, who recorded it in Revelation.

I am not saying that we shouldn’t be concerned or feel pity for those being tortured and mistreated throughout the Middle East, and the rest of the world, for that matter: no, what I am saying is that we should pray for this tsouris to stop, but not by anything men do. On the contrary, history has proven that the best peace men can make is a temporary one, and since the Middle East conflict of brother verse brother has been going on since the time of Abraham, it doesn’t even make sense that it will stop until something more influential and powerful than mortals intervenes.

And we all know who that is- Yeshua!

So, when you see the rockets coming down on innocent Israelis, as well as the Arabs who are innocent but forced to live with Hamas and Jihad in their backyards (did you know that there were hundreds of Arab deaths caused by Hamas and Jihad rockets that misfired and landed in the Gaza Strip?), and you read of the torture and imprisonment of Christians throughout the world, and you see the United States of America, the symbol of freedom and independence, turn into a socialistic enabler giving housing, food and medical service to foreign invaders while ignoring their own people and the veterans who are sleeping on the streets, then you know that this is all coming about as part of God’s plan for the world.

So, yes- pray for peace, but not for the peace that men make- pray for the ultimate and eternal peace that will come ONLY when Yeshua returns. He told his disciples that if not for the short period of tribulation, no one would survive (Matthew 24:22), so pray that the tribulation comes quickly and is over quickly… and that you survive it.

Don’t pray for what goes against God’s plan; and, whether or not you like what God has planned, get with the program because IT WILL HAPPEN! What God has planned for humanity is going to come about, no matter how we feel or what we pray for, so pray for that which is keeping with God’s will.

I hate to see the suffering and the injustice being done to Israel by the media and the world, especially by the American public and government, but this all has to be!

You can pray for whatever you want to, but as for me, I pray that the Tribulation comes and goes and that those suffering will be able to find eternal rest in God’s presence because I never want to hear “Get thee behind me!”

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