Category: Messianic 101

parashah chayye sarah (the life of Sarah) Genesis 23 – 25:18

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We begin this parashah with the death of Sarah. She is mourned by Abraham, and buried in the Cave of Machpelah, which Abraham buys from Ephron, a Hittite. As he is also old and close to death, Abraham makes Eleazar, his servant, swear to him not to bring Isaac back to Haran. This shows that Abraham was thoughtful enough to make sure that his son, the son of the promise, would not accidentally reverse God’s work by returning to a place they were told to leave.

Later, after the Exodus, God tells His people that they have left Egypt and they are not to return. This warning, if you will, is repeated through the different writings of the Prophets.

I see here something that I think is important: once we begin our walk with the Lord, we need to keep walking. Lot’s wife looked back, she yearned to return to her previous life, and look what happened to her. Yeshua said that anyone who plows the field but looks back is not worthy of the Kingdom of God, so from the beginning to the end, and throughout, once we commit to walking the way God wants us to walk we need to keep going in that direction. We can stumble, we can fall, and sometimes we get a little lost and wander about, but we need to keep going forward. Returning to Sodom, returning to Harran, returning to Egypt…all these places were where we lived separate from the Lord.  It is said that while in Egypt only the Levites remained faithful to worshiping God correctly  and the rest of the tribes took up the Egyptian religions. This makes sense, as they were totally enslaved by the Egyptians. But once they left Egypt, they were not to return. I don’t think that means just not return to that place, but more than that, do not return to that way of life.

The walk with God is hard. Although He blesses us for obedience, and (because He is who He is) He even blesses us when we aren’t obedient, it is hard to worship God and do as He tells us in a world that doesn’t want to worship Him or do as He says. To be with God means to be against the world. That’s why Yeshua said to follow Him we need to pick up our execution stake. We need to die to self, and die to the world (it’s sinfulness and its hedonistic teachings and temptations) so that we have room for the Ruach HaKodesh (Holy Spirit) to “move in” and take residence. We need to walk in faith and be spirit led, and not to look back at where we were and who we were. We are to move forward, and look to where we are going and to who we are becoming.

If you are new to being saved, it is easier to keep moving because you are infatuated. Your joy of salvation is fresh and new, and God will honor your decision to accept His grace. But as you keep walking you will encounter troubles, and these troubles will test your faith. And you will begin to get ‘used’ to being saved, you will start to remember how it was, and you will find yourself somewhat influenced by the world and begin to yearn, maybe a little and maybe a lot, for how it used to be when you “fit in” with everyone.

Even David asked God to renew a right spirit in him, and return to him the joy of his salvation (in Psalms.) He didn’t want to remain in the worldly place he was and wanted to return to the proper walk. He had fallen, he backslid, and he wanted to return to walking with God. We need to remember this when we feel the desire to “return to Egypt.” And don’t think, despite how enamoured you may be at this time with God and your salvation, that you are not able to succomb to “returning” because you are! You can’t fight what you don’t see, and if you aren’t willing to see that you are, and always will be, human with human weaknesses, then you are fooling yourself.

In the End Days , MOST will turn from the faith. Not some, not one or two, but most. They will “return to Egypt”, or to Harran, or to Sodom…wherever they were before they accepted Messiah, that is where they will go back to. In the letter from John he warns that those who have known Messiah, and afterwards chose to return to their previous way of life (return to Egypt), will be much worse off than if they had never known Messiah at all. There are other references in the B’rit Chadashah about people who apostatize. With regards to salvation, the Lord giveth and the Lord will not taketh away, but  we can throweth away what He gaveth. It is up to us to ask for salvation, to accept it, to keep it and work with it. To show our faith through our works, and to keep walking forward. 

Keep up the good fight, keep your eyes on the prize, pick up your execution stake and get going! It’s a hard road, it’s a long walk, and the pathway is narrow so it is easy to get off track. Pray that God provides a hedge of thorns on your right , rocks to your left and destroys the road behind you so that you stay on the straight and narrow pathway towards salvation. Don’t look back, don’t dwell on the meat and leeks of Egypt, and recognize that the plain manna and water that the Israelites complained about was miracle food and drink, provided by God. Better one day with the Lord than a thousand in the tents of sinners. God will give you what you need now, and the rewards you receive later will be more than you can imagine.

I like the movie, “Finding Nemo”; in it, there is a fish that is a little screwy. Her name is Dory, and she tells Marlin (the Dad) as they are searching for Nemo that he need to “just keep swimming, swimming, swimming…just keep swimming”,  over and over and over. He complains to her that now that song is going to be stuck in his head.  We need that: we need to keep walking with God.

We need that message stuck in our head like a song that just won’t stop, reminding us ,” Just keep walking, walking , walking…”

Reply to my post from yesterday

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Thank you, John, for your interest and comments. I am replying here because I think the points you brought up are so important that I need to make sure they get a separate posting and not be hidden in a comment thread.

For those that didn’t see John’s comments, go to the post for yesterday, November 10, and scroll down.

Here is my answer to your counterpoints (good ones, and well made):

Your comments are the very reason I tell people to read the Bible for themselves- you point out that Yeshua did, indeed, give the authority (or so it seems) to the Disciples (except Thomas) to remit or forgive sins in John 20:19-24.I forgot about that part, and stand corrected. At least, in that there is a reference indicating authority over sins. I’m not quite ready to agree that this is absolutely for every “priest” to have. There is no reference that this authority was transferable. Your comment that it was thereby conferred to their successors is not specifically confirmed in the Bible. I learned a long time ago that when reading or interpreting the Bible one cannot make an argument from nothing. If Yeshua did give authority over forgiveness of sins to these men, He did not say it was transferable. If you would, please verify if there is anything else in the writings, either in the Gospels or the letters that follow, that specifically mentions these Elders transferring the authority over forgiveness of sins.

I read a few commentaries about this verse, and I have some questions. One is if Yeshua gave authority to forgive sins, and the same authority to not forgive sins, then is He saying that there are sins that can’t be forgiven? He did say that blaspheming the Ruach HaKodesh is an unforgivable sin, but if say, Kefa (Peter) said someone was going to die in their sin, does that mean there are sins that the Grace of God cannot overcome? Isn’t that against what Shaul (Paul) says? Doesn’t he say (I believe this is in Romans) that as sin increases so too does Grace? Can a man state that a sin will not be forgiven, and then God has to abide by that? I agree that Yeshua did give more authority to the Disciples at that time than He did when He sent them out, but I don’t necessarily agree that they were allowed to forgive or to convict the sins of others. I believe (maybe only because I choose to) that what Yeshua was saying was that these men had the authority to identify sins, to hold people responsible for the sins they committed and accuse them of such, and to lead people to forgiveness when they ask for it, by praying to God for them. Hermeneutically,this makes sense since God often has asked others to pray on behalf of sinners. Abraham for Abimelech and Job for his friends, just to mention a couple of examples. I believe that is what Yeshua meant. No commentary, no “true” interpretation, just me, Steve, saying what I believe. No one has to agree.
Next: I am Messianic- thank you for noticing. I also believe that Yeshua was/is God in the flesh, but He was 100% human when He walked the Earth for those 30+ years. He was also 100% human when He died- if God dies, then raises Himself, big deal, right? I mean, after all- God can’t die. Something else God can’t do- He can’t sin or be associated with sin. But Yeshua took on the sin of the world, so how could He be God and take on sin? He had to be human.

Another question: did Yeshua come to Earth and do what He did to replace God? If you worship Yeshua as God, or even just pray to Yeshua for forgiveness, then you place Him between you and God. That’s the definition of idolatry, isn’t it? To have something that is between us and God?

Thirdly, Yeshua is the Messiah, yes? As such, His role (if you will) is to be the ultimate High Priest, in the manner of Melchizedek, forever. As High Priest, He intercedes between us and God. Not replacing God or coming between us by superseding God’s position, but interceding. The purpose for His “birth”, life, death and resurrection is to be the Messiah, and to rule the Earth. If we continue to worship Him as God, we are rejecting the whole reason He came to Earth, aren’t we? Unless you can show me the new Temple, the New Earth, and Messiah ruling the world from Jerusalem, His role is still the Messiah. When the Acharit HaYamim (End Days) have come and gone and we are all resurrected and the Enemy is in the Lake of Fire with all his pals, then, and only then, will we see what is what and who will be whom. For now, I still see Yeshua/Jesus as the Messiah, the Saviour of the World, God’s son and God in the flesh but not the one, true, and only God. Dad is still Dad, and the Son is still the Son.

The Trinity exists and it is a Trinity- three in one, yes; three the same, yes; but three. I think the best example of this impossible to understand idea is ice in boiling water. You have a solid, a liquid and a gas- all three exactly the same at the atomic level, but in different forms physically. All three the exact same thing, but each one performing a different function. Ice to cool, water to slake thirst and cleanse, steam to heat up and provide power. All three the same exact thing, all three different in form and function. The function of Messiah, His “job”, if you will, was to bring the Good News of God’s salvation to the world and provide the means for everyone to be reconciled to God through the blood of His perfect sacrifice. After that His job is to intercede for us, to be our High Priest. Finally, His last position will be to rule the world. After the final battle, when all is done and we are all in the presence of God, well…I don’t know what Yeshua will do then. I don’t know what will happen to the Holy Spirit. Will they return to God? Once we are all perfect beings, will we need the Spirit or Yeshua? Will the ice and steam return to the Living Water and be one, again? Was it ever just One? Heck- I don’t know! The Bible doesn’t really help here, does it? John says there was the Word, and the Word became flesh. That implies a physiological change of existence. Something non-physical became physical, so can we assume or expect that when the plan of salvation is complete that things will go back to what they were? Again- I don’t know. Frankly, if I am there, I don’t care what happens. I’ll be there, and (for me) that’s all that matters.

One more final note, my new friend in the Lord: you say that Catholics don’t pray to statues. I have read some of the prayers that are directed to saints, and heard people pray TO Saint Peter, or pray TO Mother Mary. It makes no sense at all to “remember” a Saint when you are praying for something for yourself. And if the Saints don’t have special powers or authority, why is there an entire menu of things to pray for, each with it’s own Saint? Pray to Joseph for healing, pray to Mary to intercede with Yeshua, Pray to St. Jude for this, pray to St. Paul for that…c’mon, face it. Catholic people pray to the Saints.

The prayers of the saints, as mentioned in Revelations, is not the saints carrying the prayers of people to God- the context of that verse is that the saints (those who have died for Messiah and God- not the ones some Pope declared as a Saint) are sending God their own prayers. That’s why they ask, “How much longer?” Their prayers are for themselves. Yeshua said the only way to the Father is through the Son. “Only” doesn’t mean “only me, but you can also get to me through these others.” It means “only me.” Das ist alles! Nothing else, no interpretation, no malarkey about praying to others doesn’t affect the unique mediatorship of Christ (I saw that on a Catholic Answers web page.) Really? Praying to someone else doesn’t affect Yeshua’s unique position as the only path to God? How can something be unique if it is not singularly available? If I can pray to a saint, that does interfere with my prayer to Yeshua or to God. It is another level, an additional plea to another person.  I understand this is a doctrine of your faith, but it seems to be in direct conflict with what Yeshua said. I guess Jews could never make good Catholics: why pray retail to second-level saints when we can pray wholesale, right to God? It just don’t make sense! No-how, no-way.

God wants to hear our prayers, and He wants us to turn to Him for help. Not ourselves, not someone else, but to Him. That is clear throughout the Tanakh and the New Covenant. God is in charge, and He is the one to go to. Yeshua said when we look at Him we see the Father because He was the reflection of God’s holiness. Just as the Talmud says when we look in the Torah it should be a mirror in which we see ourselves. It is not literal, it is metaphoric. When Jeremiah told us about God’s New Covenant in 31:31 he was telling us that the Torah will be in our minds and written on our hearts- in other words, we will be living Torah, just as Yeshua. That’s why John said the Word became flesh- it is in keeping with Jewish thought about the Torah being a mirror.
One more, last, final note: you mention Paul writing about how no one is without sin. Not to pick on you, directly, but that is representative of the anti-Semitic attitude the Catholic church has had since day one! Paul did NOT say those things- he was quoting from David, Elijah and other prophets of the Old Covenant. That is the Catholic “uber-holy” mindset- they give all credit for God’s word to the New Covenant and are so adamant about not having any relationship or reference to the Jewish roots of Christianity that they plagiarize the word of God and associate all that he said in the Tanakh to being solely from the New Covenant. I don’t hate Catholics, but I have very little respect for the way the Catholic church has treated the Jewish people, and the very root of their “religion”. Yeshua said he won’t come back until Jerusalem (the Jewish people) say He is welcomed (I am paraphrasing) and Shaul confirms that by stating He won’t return until the full compliment of the Gentiles are brought into the kingdom, making the Jewish people jealous for their Messiah (implying the influx of Believing, or Messianic, Jews). The Catholic church is way, way behind a lot of the rest of Christianity in that they don’t want to recognize their Jewish roots. It is still as it has been: the Catholic church doesn’t want anything to do with the Jewish people, and they just don’t want Jews around, apparently. Convert them all to Catholicism, the only “true” religion. Until they get that rid of that ridiculous attitude, they are going to be unpleasantly surprised when the stuff hits the fan.

Was Peter really the first pope?

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The Pope is supposed to be God’s representative on the Earth, and (also supposedly) infallible. And, as I understand it, this is from Matthew 16:18-19. This is where Yeshua tells Kefa (that would be Jesus and Peter) that he (Kefa) is the rock on which the “church” will be built, and whatever Kefa looses on Earth will be loosed in Heaven, and whatever Kefa binds on Earth will be bound in heaven.

It sounds like Yeshua was turning over the ministry, and more than that, giving Kefa even more authority than Yeshua had, Himself.

I have researched this passage  (briefly, I confess) and have gotten mostly the same results. It seems the general consensus is Yeshua was not telling Kefa that he will be in charge. Neither does the statement about things being loosed and bound mean that whatever decisions Kefa makes will be acknowledged and allowed in heaven. Actually, it is quite the opposite.  What the Greek meaning is, based on the way Greek is interpreted and the proper use of past and future tenses, is that Kefa is to make decisions that are based on what has already been bound or loosed in heaven, and that he is to continue those programs here on Earth.

Think about it, hermeneutically: Yeshua said that He couldn’t do anything that His Father in heaven did not approve, Yeshua did not change any of the laws in Torah, Yeshua said that when we pray we should ask that we be forgiven on Earth as it is in heaven, and there is nothing , anywhere, in the entire New Covenant writings that indicates, even hints at, the fact that Kefa was the sole authority for the Messianic Congregations.

And infallible? Didn’t Shaul set Kefa straight about treating Gentiles and Jews differently in Galatians?

Not to pick on the Catholic Church, although they do make it very easy to do so, but c’mon, Guys? There is no way, when interpreting the Greek correctly and looking at Yeshua’s ministry and all that He taught, and especially when you look at His relationship with the Father, that you can justify Yeshua giving Kefa all that authority, and especially the forgiveness of sin. Yeshua said that He, the Son of Man, had been given the authority to forgive sins, but he never, not even once, said that His Disciples could. He gave them authority over the demons and powers to cure diseases. In the NIV version it says, “…he gave them power and authority to drive out all demons and to cure diseases 2 and he sent them out to preach the kingdom of God and to heal the sick.”

Nothing there about forgiving sins.

Who came up with this “pope” idea, anyway? I have read that Leo I is generally accepted as the one who organized the Petrine Doctrine. I don’t think it really matters whose idea it was, so far as which human being decided there should be a single authority figure within the Catholic church. What matters is that Yeshua did NOT make that decision, so it should not be done.

According to the Word of God, there is one Cohen HaGadol, or High Priest, and that person is to be a direct descendant of Aaron. The Tanakh tells us that the Mashiach (Messiah) will be a priest forever, as Melchizedek. One high priest, once and forever: that seems to be a clear statement that the Messiah will be the last high priest. If the Catholic church is to be built upon the teachings of Jesus, shouldn’t it respect, obey and and work within the parameters of what Jesus taught? If Jesus said He was the only way to the Father, why does the church pray to the saints? If God said not to have any graven images, of anything or anyone, why do Catholic churches look like an art museum devoted to statues? And if Yeshua said to Kefa that what he loosed or bound is to be what is loosed or bound in heaven, why did that get “turned-around” to make it seem that the ruler of Jesus’s church on Earth has the authority to make decisions that God has to obey? Isn’t God in charge?

If you are Catholic and you say you believe Jesus is your Saviour, you better start to bone up on what your Saviour taught. Get off the “just do as I tell you” wagon and start to find out the truth. Read the Bible, the WHOLE Bible, and get to know who the Messiah really is, from the guy who sent Him here. You won’t find that in the New Covenant because that story is about when He came. You need to find out who the Messiah is supposed to be and what He is supposed to do in the Tanakh. The B’rit Chadashah (New Covenant) relates that Yeshua was foretold about in the Torah and the Tanakh- it doesn’t go into detail. When you read the second volume of a two-volume story, the second volume is the continuation of the first one. You need to read the first one, first, to understand what the second one is about. I don’t know any Catholic (and I have known a few) that even thinks the “Jewish Bible” is important. Oh, yeah- a few may know what the Torah is, or heard of it, but they have been taught the same gibberish that the Jews have been taught- Jesus created a new religion.

That is a lie from the pit of he…well, actually it isn’t a lie from Hell. It originated right here on Earth. It originated by men, but the real idea came from Ha Satan. The separation of the believing Jews from the non-believing Jews in the first through third centuries is the greatest (in my opinion) counter-attack the Enemy has made. Yeshua won the battle, the war is over and all we have been doing for the past 2 Millennia is the mop-up work.  But the Enemy gained back a lot of ground by separating people from God through wrong teachings. It was a strong counter-attack, although it won’t win the war. That’s done and over. He loses, in the end.

As they say, the Kingdom of God has arrived, it just isn’t here, yet. In the meantime, be aware, keep alert, and for your soul’s sake, get your head on straight! Even those who are faithful, who know the proper teachings of Yeshua, who know the word of God and who are ready to serve the Lord as He said we should, will be turned in the end days. The Manual tells us- indeed, warns us- that most will be turned from the faith in the last days. Not some, not a few, not maybe a handful or two, but most. That means significantly more than half.

I will go out on a limb and say that there are many who already have been turned from the true faith. There are many today who think they are serving God but are serving the Enemy, instead. Those who have been taught wrong teachings, and teach them to others, are cursed by their own ignorance and laziness. That’s what I said- laziness! They refuse to learn on their own, to make the effort to know the truth as God wants them to know it, and prefer to just sit around and be told what to believe.

The Pope is not infallible, and he is not Divinely decreed to be the leader of the Church. Nothing against the Pope, himself, but it’s just not what Yeshua wanted. It is a religious thing, created by someone, not by God or by Yeshua. And the Church is full of heresy: they teach and promote idolatry by making their people pray to saints instead of God, they defile the house of God by filling it with graven images, they defile the altar by burying their dead under it and defile the sanctuary by bringing their dead right into it. Read the Tanakh- how did the ancient peoples of God desecrate the holy places of the pagans? They laid the bones of the dead on the altars. God has stated, clearly, that if you touch a dead person you become unclean, and anything associated with the dead is unclean. Yet in a church they carry their dead right up to the altar, bury them underneath it, and surround the house of God with the dead (ever see a church that didn’t have a cemetery right next to it?)

This may seem like an anti-Catholic rant, but it isn’t a hateful attack on the Catholic church. It is a warning. It is a man crying out in the digital desert- make straight your paths! Many Gentiles (not to mention the majority of the Jews, too-don’t even get me started on that!) may already be beyond hope, and those that honor the ways that dishonor God will be drawn down to Sheol with their leaders. It isn’t a good scenario, and I am sorrowful for these poor, lost sheep that have leaders who,they themselves, are so lost and mired in religion that they have all this knowledge, yet they don’t even know what they are doing.  I believe the vast majority of the priests and leaders of the Catholic church are God-fearing, wonderful people who have devoted their lives to serving the Lord. It’s just that they are blinded by centuries of man-made religious ideals and rules and traditions that have them walking straight to the Enemy’s doorstep and bowing down to him to take the mark, all the time thinking they are serving God.

The blind are leading the blind and they will all fall into a hole. I am not happy about that, and I don’ think God is happy about it, either.

GOD HAS NO RELIGION!! How many times do I have to say that? It’s just His rules, that’s all we need. For everyones sake, can’t we just follow those rules? The answer is NO! That’s why God sent Yeshua…because we can’t follow the simple rules He gave us. So nu? What do we do? We make up more rules, and then more rules about the rules, until the rules are ruling us and God has been shoved over to the sidelines.

OY!!  To paraphrase Shakespeare, “What fools we mortals be!”

Look, if you feel insulted, sorry, but it’s for your own good. The Prophets of old were never popular, and I am not writing this, today or any day, to be popular. I am writing this to save souls, to bring people closer to God, and to teach them to seek out the Lord, personally. Don’t take my word for it- take His! Read His word, let the Ruach guide you, and if you haven’t accepted Yeshua/Jesus as your Messiah because you want to, go to a Proctologist and get your head out of the place it’s in now and back on your shoulders because time’s running out!  Don’t think that just because someone who is in a position of religious authority tells you you are saved that you are. The only human who can save you is yourself- you need to ask God for forgiveness, to accept from God His gift of Grace made possible through the sacrificial death of Yeshua the Messiah, and do T’Shuvah in your heart so you can accept, because you want to ask for it, the Ruach haKodesh (Holy Spirit) to guide you from now on. You need to be ready to change “for the God.” You don’t need to change overnight, you don’t need to be a “Holy” person like in the Old Covenant, you just need to become holier than you are now. You need to walk in the pathway God tells you, you need to do what God says to do and not just what people tell you He says you should do. And you won’t know what that is until you read His Manual for Salvation.

Get ready for the end, Brothers and Sisters, ’cause it’s a-comin soon. Don’t be left out in the cold.

parashah vayyera (He Appeared) Genesis 18:1-22:24

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This portion starts with the telling of the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, and ends with one of the most well-known passages, the Akedah, also called the Binding of Isaac. This is seen by most everyone, Jewish and Gentile alike, as a precursor to the sacrificial death of the Messiah.

Those of us who are Messianic or Christian accept that the Messiah is Yeshua, Jesus. I say Messianic or Christian because being Messianic is NOT being a Christian.

This has been a problem I have faced during my walk with the Lord- that people (especially Jews) who hear that I believe Jesus is the Messiah figure I have to be Christian because, as most any Jew will confirm, any Jew who believes in Jesus can’t be a Jew anymore.

What a load of…well, let’s just say you could grow roses in that statement.

Today I want to show how “Jewish” the teachings of Yeshua are (notice I said “are”, not “were”- that’s because His teachings are still valid, and because He is still alive what He said is still current.) And to do that I am going to use the commentary from the Chumash I still have from my Bar Mitzvah (that was so long ago I got a “Mazel Tov !” from Moshe, himself!) For those that are familiar with the Chumash, this is the Soncino edition with commentary from the Chief Rabbi of the British Empire, Dr. Hertz.

The first commentary note is in reference to chapter 18, verse 7 when the Angels visited Abraham. He ran to get them food and wash their feet, and Dr. Hertz references Leviticus 18:7 where we are told to love the stranger, for we were once strangers in Egypt.  Later,  when Abraham made the covenant with Abimelech and told the king about his servants taking away the well Abraham had dug, there is another reference to Leviticus, this time it’s 19:17 about not hating your brother in your heart.

Both of these teachings about being kind to strangers and not hating people are constantly mentioned by Yeshua. In fact, He said the two most important commandments are to love the Lord and love each other. These are not foreign ideas that formed a new religion- these are direct from the Word of God given to Moshe at the Mountain. Yeshua never taught anything but Torah, and he taught it correctly.That is why He said, in Matthew 5:17 that He came to “fulfill the law.” In First Century Rabbi-speak that didn’t mean to complete it or finish it, but to interpret it correctly. To interpret correctly was to complete and to interpret wrongly was to trespass.

Another lesson to show how Yeshua was not teaching anything different than what is in the Torah is when Yeshua tells us that anyone who puts his hand to the plow and looks back is not fit for the Kingdom of God. We can see this lesson clearly in this parashah when Lot’s wife looked back to Sodom and turned into a pillar of salt. She was going forward, protected and led by the Lord (or, in this case, His angel- close enough!) to a promised salvation. But she looked back. And what did she miss out on? Despite the Sodom-like actions of Lot’s daughters, they were the genesis of two of the greatest kingdoms of the times: the Ammonites and the Moabites. True, these peoples were godless and enemies of the Israelites, but they were great nations. Because Lot’s wife looked back she was not the progenitor of these kingdoms.

I see these two events, Yeshua teaching that you can’t look back and be worthy of God’s kingdom and what happened to Lot’s wife, as the same teaching. We can’t walk a straight path forward when we are looking behind us. And what are we looking at that is behind us? It’s our comfort zone. It’s what we are used to, it’s what makes us feel secure. It’s the place where we trust ourselves and others and not God. Yeshua taught to trust in God and walk in His way, leaving behind the faithlessness we had when we looked to our own devices and others for guidance. Yeshua was teaching what is in the Chumash. That’s real Jewish stuff!

Lastly, when Abraham told Abimelech about the well that Abimelech’s servants stole from Abraham, Rabbi Hertz refers again to Leviticus 19:17, where we are told to love they neighbor and also to rebuke them. This seems to be an oxymoron, to rebuke someone you are told to love, but it is meant (I believe) to demonstrate that it is for the good of the person doing wrong that we rebuke them. Not in a mean and spiteful way, but to lovingly bring to their attention their wrongdoing so that they can be aware of it, and as such, do T’Shuvah and turn from that sin. What we are being told in the Torah is not to enable wrongdoing, even by those we love, but to show “tough love” and not condone or allow wrongful actions. We are, actually, required by Torah to advise people when they are killing themselves (sin is death.) The prophets are often told by God that if they fail to warn the people, no matter what the people say or think of them, then the blood of those sinners will be on the head of the prophet. However, if the prophet does warn them and adjoin them, constantly, to do what is right, then if the people fail to pay attention their blood is on their own heads.

This is what Yeshua meant when He taught that if we are bringing a gift to the Lord but have some level of strife between us and another person, we are to leave the gift at the altar and make right our relationship. Then we can offer our gift. This is just what Abraham did- he was making a covenant of peace with Abimelech but first he settled this issue about the stolen well. After that was done, then there was the covenant of peace and the covenant of the well, with the exchange of gifts.

Yeshua did not start a new religion, and in this parashah we can see that the commentaries made by one of the most “Jewish” of Jews, the late, Great Rabbi of the British Empire, is exactly the same lessons that Yeshua taught. There is nothing new in the New Covenant writings- it is all Jewish. Yeshua taught from and about the Torah, Shaul (Paul) taught that Torah is correct, all scripture is useful (BTW…the only scripture then was the Tanakh) and the writer of Hebrews also told the Jewish Believers in the Diaspora that Torah was still valid. The New Covenant is not “new”- it is the continuation of and brings to completion God’s plan of salvation that He told Abraham about way, way back in Genesis.

If you are reading the New Covenant and ignoring the Old Covenant, it is like trying to build a house starting with the second floor. God’s plan is simple: since humans can’t save themselves He will provide the Escape Clause, the ultimate Get Out of Jail card- The Messiah. All though the Tanakh we read about His coming, what He will do so we can know Him, and what will happen when He takes charge. It never happens in the Tanakh. Messiah’s coming isn’t written for Season One of this show, it happens in Season Two. That’s also the Final Season, when the show called “God’s Plan of Salvation” is taken off the air, forever. Season Three is Eternity. If you missed Season One, you can’t possibly understand or appreciate the subtleties of the plot and characters in Season Two. Oh yeah, you can get the main point, but you miss a lot of why things are so important and the history of how things got that way.

If you are Jewish and reading this, please think about getting familiar with the New Covenant, but find a Messianic version. Read Dr. Stern’s “The Jewish New Covenant” to see the ‘Jewishness” of those writings. Allow yourself the right to make up your own mind. And if you are a Gentile Believer and reading this, talk about Yeshua’s teachings and don’t use the name “Jesus”- that will not go over well with a Jew. Use His real name, Yeshua. And relate the teachings to the Torah- stay out of the New Covenant.

Everything Yeshua taught us about the Kingdom of God, how we should live, how we should treat each other and how we should treat God was from the Tanakh: if that was good enough for Yeshua, why isn’t it good enough for you?

To reach Jewish people with the Good News, you need to show it to them in the Tanakh, and then let them know that Yeshua said the same thing. Before they can accept Yeshua as their Messiah, they need to see Him as He really was and is: a Jewish Messiah teaching Jewish lessons from the Jewish book of law, the Torah. Once Yeshua stops being a Jew-hating Gentile and is revealed as He truly is- the Jewish Messiah- then and only then can a Jewish person begin to accept Him as their Messiah.

And until the Jewish people say, “Baruch haba b’shem Adonai” (Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord), Yeshua said he would not return.

You want Messiah to return? So do I, so get started teaching your Jewish friends the truth about their Jewish Messiah!

Force-fed spirit

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Have you ever seen a horse get a pill? They take a sort-of gun, stick it deep down the horse’s throat, put the pill inside and push a plunger that forces the pill down its gullet. It’s not very easy to do, and it doesn’t sound like a lot of fun for the horse, either.  I am willing to bet the more you do it, the less likely the horse will be willing to cooperate. And I guarantee he will hate that gun!

It is the same way with humans and religion. When we are brought up with religion as a part of our lives, it can be either an edifying and pleasant experience, or it can be a pain in the tuchas, generating resentment. I wanted to have a Bar Mitzvah, and I am appreciative that my parents went along with it, but they didn’t really care one way or the other. I know many Catholics who went to Catholic school, all the way through high school, and never learned one thing about God. They didn’t want to because it was force-fed to them. They read the Catechism, studied hard, and at their Confirmation, when the Priest told them they had the spirit of Christ in them, all they felt was relief that it was over.

I am sorry, but no one can tell you you have the spirit of God in you- you need to accept it yourself. You are saved by faith, not by giving the correct answer on a quiz.

How many of you know someone who has turned from God only because they had Him shoved down their throats from an early age? I met a woman once (and that was enough) who was raised Ultra-Orthodox, and as soon as she grew old enough to be on her own, she converted to become a Quaker. Then she started to find any other Jew-turned-Quaker person she could. I met her when I was leading the Shabbat services for an assisted living facility. I did a totally Jewish (i.e., non-Messianic) service and the funny thing is: there were only 1 or 2 Jewish people, and about 10-12 Gentiles attending. Yet, this “converted” woman raised a stink that I was teaching about Jesus and she insisted (now remember- she turned her back on Judaism and became a Quaker) that Jesus has nothing to do with Shabbat services. She even told me, after I confirmed that I was Messianic, that we were alike, both of us have given up our Judaism.

No, I didn’t hit her, although…..

It ended up that I stopped doing the services because the management was afraid of upsetting her. That’s what comes from force-feeding people religion. They grow up hating the religion, but still feeling tied to it, so they end up confused and bigoted. It turns them away from God.

Whether Catholic, Jewish, Protestant, whatever- when we raise our children we need to teach them about God, not about religion.  Remember: God has no religion, only people do. And look how we screw up everything we touch, so maybe it’s best to teach our kids about God and let them decide about religion on their own.

Yes- this is a somewhat radical thought. I confess I can’t give any experiential advice since I didn’t get to raise my children. All I can suggest is that they be taught the word of God, straight from the Bible. If you are a church-going worshipper, taking them along is necessary when they are too young to be on their own. But once they can be left at home, they should get to choose. It is important that the parents show them the “fun” side of worship, keep them involved in the congregational and social aspects of worship. If the place where you worship doesn’t have children-friendly activities, you should find another place.  It is important that children are raised with God representing fun and peacefulness. We need to fill them with the joy and wonder that David felt.

Of course, this means the parents have to know the Lord, intimately. Everyone of the people I know who is not “saved” is religious by practice, but they don’t practice their religion. They just go through the motions: go to services on Shabbat or Sunday, go to the main Holiday or Holy Day celebrations, write a check for what is comfortable (i.e., not tithing correctly, but tithing conveniently), follow the regulations they are comfortable with and find excuses to ignore the ones they don’t like. You know what I am talking about, don’t you?

And this isn’t just for non-Believers. Oh no! We all know some “Buffet Believers”, too.

The Ruach HaKodesh, the Holy Spirit, is available to all of us. In the days before Yeshua, it was given and then taken back. Once the breach sin causes between God and people was repaired by the sacrificial death and resurrection of Yeshua, the Ruach became available for us to have and keep. It is now a lifetime gift. We need to treat it with the respect and awe it deserves, and not hand it out like someone calling for the next deli customer:

“OK. Number 17- got your answers ready? Hello? Number 17?  Number 17!- speak up now or you will go to Hell!”

No, no,no…the giving of the Holy Spirit can only be from God. It always has been from God, and can only be from God. And only when someone of age asks for it. The Elders of the Messianic Community laid hands on people and they were given the Spirit, but it didn’t come from the Elders- it came from God! The Elders were nothing more than a conduit for the Spirit to transfer through. Just as the miracles that were done were from the power of God and not from the power of men, so ,too, the Spirit is transferred through us. It can be given directly from God, or through those God chooses to use. But it is ALWAYS from God. And we must want it.  We must ask for it; at least, if we want to keep it. There are some stories in the Bible when God did give His Ruach for a time, even though the people didn’t ask for it: for example, the few elders who refused to attend Moses’s meeting when he called for the 70 Elders and Shaul, the King, when he first was to be anointed.

But if we want to have God’s Holy Spirit in us forever, we must ask Him for it. It can’t be handed out like Halloween candy or grade school test papers. It is way too valuable to just throw to someone who may not even care about it and are just doing what they are doing because they are told they have to. That’s not how to teach others to love the Lord with all their heart, soul and might.

Here’s the hardest part of all- the best way (I think) to teach our children, and anyone else (for that matter) about God’s wonderful peace and the joy of salvation, is to show them what it is. We need to be living water ourselves, and to demonstrate how accepting the Ruach has changed us for the better. How it has given us peace in a world full of disarray, how it holds us together during times when we just want to fall apart, and how it gives us hope for the future. I don’t see how anyone can feel peaceful when they think everything that exists, everything that has ever happened, and anything that might ever happen, is all by chance. No control, no plan, no way that anything you want will come to be except by luck. How can anyone live with that? No wonder they are so lost; in fact, they are so lost they think they know where they are. They think they are in control. It is the blind leading the blind.

Teach your kids, your friends and loved ones, even your enemies, about God by showing them what He has done for you. Make them jealous for His spirit, make them desire the peace you feel (which you need to show) and the joy you get when you worship. If they don’t go to worship, talk about it. Don’t ram it down their throat, just mention it in passing. And always find a way to bring God into the  conversation; gently, just as an aside (‘you know, there is a story about that I read in a book once….’ Don’t tell them it’s from the Bible until after you have told it. They will think it’s gossip and be all-attentive, so by the time you tell them the meaning and the source, God’s word will have been spread. And His word never returns void.)

OK, that is a little sneaky, but we are lambs in a fold of wolves- we need to be gentle as doves and wise as serpents (that’s from the Bible, you know. I’ll give you a hint- look for it in Mattitayu.)

This is a hard thing to do- live as God wants us to live. None of us do it totally correct. I confess I don’t do it well, at all. But I try, and I know that it does work sometimes. I am so totally blessed when someone asks me if I am a Believer because they noticed how I act. I am so proud of myself, and happy that I must be pleasing the Lord to get asked that question. Oh, Lord- if only I was asked that question daily! I am so sorry that I am not.

How do your kids feel about God? How do your friends, the ones that aren’t Believers, feel about God? Do they see Him in you?

No Pain; No Gain

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Having been very active in sports during High School, and throughout my life, I have a deep and intimate understanding of the title for today’s Drash.

It’s not wise to hurt yourself, but when you push your muscles to their limit, you will feel it over the next couple of days. It is a “good” hurt because, although having sore muscles does hurt, it represents that you have done a good job, you pushed yourself to the limits of your ability, and (so far as physical exercise is concerned) that means you will gain more muscle and endurance.

Real muscle grows when you destroy it. When you feel that “burn” and your muscle is “pumped”, the excess blood flow that causes that feeling is going there in order to help the destroyed tissue. The destroyed tissue isn’t just replaced; the body builds more tissue than there was originally. That is how body-builders get those large muscles (even without the ‘roids’). The constant destroying of muscle and careful rebuilding through proper diet and rest results in larger and stronger muscles, with greater endurance.

Faith is a spiritual muscle that we need to work with, every day. And, just like biceps, pecs and abs, we need to push it to it’s limits; indeed, we need to destroy it so that we can rebuild it to be stronger and more enduring. The way we exercise our faith is to live  in a way that pushes us to do more than we want to do. In other words, we need to force ourselves to get outside our spiritual comfort zone.

Get more involved in activities at the place where you worship, witness to friends and family, even strangers, more often. Risk their disapproval. Go on mission trips, help the homeless and needy, volunteer, just get off your butts and do something that takes faith. Pray more often (see my section on Prayer for some ideas about that), read the Bible more often, trust more often (oh, that is a hard one). And here’s the really difficult one: forgive more often, and more completely.

Exercise your faith by using it. I gave you some ideas above, but I don’t know what you need to do. I don’t know where your faith is weak…but you do. You know what makes you feel uncomfortable, you know what you don’t like to do, and you know what God is telling you to do. Finally: it’s all about you now.

Search your heart, seek those things that God tells us we should all be doing and that you know you don’t do, and do it!

That’s pushing your spiritual muscles to the limit. And just like the professionals, rest and eat properly. The proper diet is to read the Word of God (Man doesn’t live on bread alone but every word from the mouth of God) for food to nourish your spirit, and rest through intimate and private prayer time with the Lord. Prayer is refreshing to both your soul and your spirit, and even to your physical body.

So get on out there and work those spiritual muscles! Feel the burn, get pumped; Yeshua worked His spiritual muscles completely and showed us how we are to do it. Stop being a Weakling of Worship, and become a Schwarzenegger of Spirit!

Remember: Yeshua was the first one to say, “I’ll be back!”

Where Did the Salvation GPS Go Wrong?

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How did it happen? In the First Century, if you were a Gentile (read that as Pagan, ’cause that’s all there was if you weren’t Jewish) and you accepted Yeshua as your Messiah, you were becoming Jewish. In Acts we read how the Elders decided, in regards to what the new Believers had to do, on four things (not eat food sacrificed to idols, not eat anything strangled, not eat the blood, and no fornication) that were initially forbidden. These were never meant to be the only things that were forbidden, it was just a stepping stone. When you read the rest of that section you see they justified this as being the start because the law of Moses would be read every Shabbat, indicating (clearly) that the new Believers were expected to be worshipping at Shabbat services and they would learn the other laws and requirements there. So, in essence, being a Gentile who wanted salvation during Yeshua’s time meant becoming Jewish.

Today, when a Jewish person wants to accept Yeshua as his or her Messiah, the Gentile world, which has overall rejected Torah, tells that person they must stop being Jewish and become a Christian. And what requirements are there? Do they have regulations regarding food- no. Do they have regulations regarding the Ten Commandments- not really, since Grace is supposed to cover everything. Actually, the only regulation they have is that you must reject the Torah and Judaism! I have been told, and I have heard from many others that they were also told, “You aren’t really under the blood of Christ if you still do those Jewish things.”

So sad.

When I was studying for my Certificate in Messianic Studies, I had an essay question asking how the separation between Judaism and Christianity occurred. Here is what I said:

As more and more Gentiles came to be grafted in, the Jewish representation became less and less. As persecution of the Jews grew during the 3rd and 4th centuries it actually was safer for believers to be “less Jewish”. Of course, Constantine didn’t help things, either. Eventually the Jewishness was overwritten with Gentile ideals and cultural ways, so that the church grew apart from the roots. It is like the scientific principle of phototropism. Phototropism is the tendency for a plant to grow towards the sunniest area, which explains why so many trees have trunks that are weirdly shaped. The church, which was grafted in and at first learning about the light (of the world) grew towards that light. What happened was the Enemy shone another light that detracted them from the true light and their branches grew in the wrong direction.

Did I mean to say that the “Church” is now of the Devil? As dangerous as this may be to admit, the truth is: that is exactly what I meant.

Now, now…don’t get all up in a fury. It is a hard word to hear, but before you send hate mail and stop following my ministry-blog, think about this: God gave us the Torah. He gave it to everyone who is to follow and worship Him. John says that there was the Word (Torah- it was the only word of God there was then), and the Word became flesh (he was talking about Yeshua- duh!). Now, later on Yeshua tells us that a house divided against itself cannot stand. So…if the Word/Torah became flesh, that means Yeshua is the living Word of God, or the Living Torah. If He taught that we should not obey or follow Torah, He is a house divided against Himself. In fact, it would be the same as Yeshua saying, “Don’t pay attention to what I say.” Now, no one will argue that Ha Satan is the enemy of God, right?  And does the Enemy want us to become closer to God, or does he want to drive a wedge between us and God so that we get so far from God we will worship the Enemy, instead? Okay- I am hoping we are all on the same page here, which is that the Enemy of God doesn’t want us to be close to God.

God says the way to be close to Him, and Yeshua says the way to show we love Him, is to (get ready- here it comes)… OBEY HIS COMMANDMENTS!!!

And where are His commandments? (three guesses, and the first two don’t count)… IN THE TORAH!!!

Get it? Telling people that want salvation that they do not have to obey the Torah separates us from God, it rejects Messiah and demonstrates we do NOT love him. That is the work of the Devil, and anyone who teaches that Yeshua did away with even so much as single stroke of the Torah is doing the work of Ha Satan because it is drawing that person away from God.

Judaism and Christianity should not be different, they should be the same thing. The Manual warns us that in the Acharit HaYamim (the End Days) there will be one world religion and one world government. This is not a bad thing, in and of itself; what makes it work or not work will be who is the one in charge. The Enemy will initially be the one to run things but he will be put down forever and then Yeshua will be the Eternal King of the Earth. Actually, if there is going to be only one religion throughout the world, there really won’t be any religion, will there? It will be  just us and God and the way we live.

In the beginning, salvation was for the Jews. “Jews” meaning anyone and everyone who worshipped the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob as He commanded us to worship Him. As early as the Exodus we see many Gentiles sojourning with the Jewish people, converting to their way of life and way of worship. When Messiah came, many Jewish people (maybe as many as a quarter of a million Jews) accepted Him and the Grace that God gave through Him. They never stopped practicing Judaism. And through Messiah, salvation now came not just to the Jews, but to the Gentiles, as well.  They were grafted in and thereby saved, so long as they took their spiritual nourishment from the root of the Etz Chaim (Tree of Life, i.e., the Torah.) Gentiles who were saved were becoming Jews, accepting and worshipping a single way before God, as God said they should. That is the way it was at the very beginning, and how it was supposed to be. But we lost our way.

We need to get everyone back on the path that God said to follow. We all need to be getting closer to God, not further away. We need to reset the spiritual GPS so that we follow the straightest path to God, and that leads us to the Torah trail, not the Christian crossroads.

God has no religion, only Torah. Yeshua taught nothing different from Torah. Shaul never taught anything but Torah. John tells us that Yeshua is the Torah.

Hello? Christianity? You there? You listening?  Get with the program and return to working for the right guy.

 

 

Parashah Bereshith (In the Beginning)

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This Shabbat we joyfully open our Torah, and just like in this parashah , we begin at the beginning.

This first of the cycle of parashot is a little long, going all the way to Chapter 6, verse 8. It covers the beginning of everything, takes us through creation of man, Cain and Abel, and ends with God’s reluctantly regretting His creation and deciding He needs to start over. The whole Earth is full of sin and wickedness, all except Noah.

What I see in this is the entire plan of God’s salvation. I see creation, the world forming, people coming to know each other and God, then rejecting His rules and killing each other, lusting after their own desires. I see God patiently waiting for people to come back to their senses, which will eventually lead them back to God. But it doesn’t happen. Noah is the only righteous one in the world, and through him there will be a new life, a new beginning, and his descendants will live in a new Earth that will be formed from the remains of the previous one.

It’s not a perfect picture of the Messiah and the Tribulations, true, but I see the same elements in this parashah as we will see when all things come to pass. We have mankind (Adam and Eve) in union with God, but then they break their union by sinning. They are mercifully allowed to live, but no longer in perfect communion as they are ejected from God’s presence. They are fruitful and multiply (one of the more enjoyable commandments to fulfill) but sin is still here, in a cursed world, and although there are some who will form a union with God (Abel), there are those who will not (Cain). And we see that evil will hate and attack righteousness, out of jealousy and frustration. These emotions are the children of the mother of all sin, Pridefulness. Cain’s pride was hurt when God accepted Abel’s sacrifice but rejected his. The Soncino version of the Chumash explains that Abel gave the best he had and his heart was right, but Cain’s heart was not right and his sacrifice was, therefore, unacceptable. Cain’s pridefulness resulted in jealousy, which led to the inevitable result: murder.

Here’s my take on the way things played out, and (if I may say so) I think it is a good template for most every sin:

1.Cain’s pride prevented him from humbling himself;

2. Unhumbled, his frustration grew each time his sacrifice, still unacceptable, was rejected;

3. His frustration grew into anger as he continually saw Abel accepted while he was continually rejected;

4. His anger grows, and without humbling himself he couldn’t direct it at the source (himself) so he projected it against God and Abel;

5. Cain couldn’t do anything against God but he could take out his anger on Abel;

6. Result: the first murder.

Maybe the ultimate sinful expression of our own situation won’t be murder (God forbid!) but it could show itself as gossip, maybe hating in our heart (which Yeshua said is murder, anyway), maybe violence, verbal abuse, adultery, who knows? I believe that pridefulness is the foundation stone upon which almost every sin rests. It is a vicious cycle.

Now the world’s population grows and sin grows with it. There is righteousness, which we see coming through Seth’s bloodlines, but (just like today) the sin is greater than the righteousness. Even in the beginning, those who are God fearing are but a remnant, and it has remained that way even until today. Ultimately, judgement comes with only one chance of survival, and that is through only one man, Noah.

I am not saying that Noah is the Messiah, or ever was supposed to be. What I am saying is just that I see the plan of salvation being shown to us, in a way, in this parashah. It is a “teaser”, like the TV commercial about a new movie shows you pretty much what the story is about, without giving away the details. Creation, sin, loss of perfect communion with God, sin vs. right throughout the world, one righteous man chosen to begin a new relationship with God, judgement and destruction, renewal and a new beginning on a new Earth.

Of course, with Noah things started going downhill almost right away. We can be thankful that with Yeshua, and the “real” final judgement, those  of us who are of the remnant (the Believers who follow God’s laws and commandments as He gave them, not as religion tells us)  will have eternal communion with God, basking in His presence. We will see the new Heavens and the new Earth, and we will return to the way it was in the beginning, before sin entered the picture.

Every Simchat Torah we can look forward to what the Torah, and particularly this parashah, is showing us- that we will return to Gat Eden, we will once again be in the physical presence of the Lord God (Adonai Elohim), and we will be eternally joyful and serene.

I love each time I start reading God’s Word all over again.

Self-Absorbed Salvation

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When we become saved, are we better off? Let’s see: saved=Eternal joy; not saved=Eternal suffering.  I would say being saved is better off, wouldn’t you?

When we become saved, do we treat people better than we used to? Being saved should produce good fruit, we should be treating others as we would have them treat us, fruits of the Spirit should be growing within us …yeah, I think it’s safe to say we will be better to people when we are saved, don’t you?

But, when we are saved , does that make us better people?

There are some who treat the Jewish people as reprobate, and say they are rejected by God because they rejected His son. These are called Replacement Theologists. They think that they are the “Israel of God”, as Shaul put it at the end of Galatians (what was he thinking when he wrote that? I don’t know!) They say they are the “real” Jewish people, the true Israel.

They think they are better than real Jews because they are saved.

I don’t know what Bible they read, but it isn’t the one that God gave Moses, that has the writings of the Prophets, or the one that the Talmudim of Yeshua wrote, or the one with the  letters that Shaul sent to the Messianic Congregations he started throughout Asia. I just don’t know how they can think, for a moment, that God lied to the Jewish people when He said they are the apple of His eye, that He will never (note: N-E-V-E-R) forget or forsake them. That unless the heavens above and seas below are measured they will not stop being His people.

But, despite all that God said, these Replacement Theologists think that the Jews are rejected and that they, the Born Again Christians, are better than the Jews. And not just better on Earth, but better in God’s eyes, too.

In Romans, Shaul wrote to the Gentiles warning them against bragging about their salvation and becoming proud and arrogant. He reminded them that if God was willing to lop off a natural branch to graft them in, how much more will He be willing to lop off a branch that never belonged! And how much easier will the natural branch be able to be grafted back in, which is the plan. And when God makes a plan, He sticks to it, and it gets done.

We need to remember that we are all sinners, and no matter what particular sin you do the most, from telling lies, to murder, to adultery, to homosexuality, to stealing, to refusing to celebrate the festivals, to being unforgiving, to …well, the list goes on and on, doesn’t it? The point is that no matter whether or not you are “saved”, you are no better a person than anyone else.

Yeshua warned His Talmudim (Disciples) not to “lord it over each other, as the Gentiles do” but that whomever wants to be the greatest must be the least. If you want to know how a truly saved person should be, he or she should be humble.

Before I was saved, I was a sinner who rationalized my sins; now, I am a sinner who regrets my sins. And because I have asked God’s forgiveness, and accepted the sacrificial death of Yeshua, who I acknowledge as my/the Messiah, I am “saved” from the spiritual consequences of my sinfulness. By the way, note that I am saved from the spiritual consequences- sin still causes injury and will always have serious consequences in the natural world.

Replacement Theology is a lie from the pit of Sheol. All I can say about it is this: in the vision (revelation) given to Yochanan when he was on Patmos Yeshua warned against the Synagogue of Satan. In the Greek, synagogue doesn’t mean a Jewish place of worship. That is a modern meaning. The word refers to a gathering, or collection. You could have a synagogue of chairs, of rocks, or a synagogue of people with a common purpose. The pagan temples were synagogues. So, a “Synagogue of Satan”, in First Century terminology, meant a group of people who were of Satan. Yeshua also went on to define who these people are: they are people who say they are Jews but are not.

Gee, that sounds like the exact definition of Replacement Theologists- people claiming to be Jews who aren’t Jews.

Whether you are a Replacement Theologist or a Gentile who has been grafted in and appreciates God’s wonderful gift of Grace that He made available to you, unless your blood is Jewish blood passed down from your parents and grandparents, you are an adopted son or daughter of Abraham. You are a member of the Family of God, if you will, but an adopted one. The Jews are God’s chosen people- not chosen because they are better, but because they are no better. In fact, in some ways, they are worse. Throughout our history we have been stiff-necked, we have rejected God over and over, and the ultimate rejection is, truthfully, that congregationally (pardon the pun) we have rejected our own Messiah. And, to make it even more embarrassing, the Gentiles have welcomed Him. Doesn’t sound like anything to brag about to me.  But we are still God’s chosen- He is absolutely clear, with no chance of mistake, and repeated throughout His Word,  He reminds us that despite how stupid we have been and still are, despite how stubborn, despite how foolish, and despite how adulterous we have been over the Millennia, He will always accept us back when we do T’Shuvah and just as God always has been, is, and always will be, we (Jewish people) have been, are, and always will be God’s chosen people.

Chosen not because we are better, but chosen because of one man’s faithfulness, and the faithfulness of many others after him, and the continued faithfulness of the Messianic community within Judaism. And the faithfulness of the “mainstream” Jewish people- don’t think that not accepting Messiah Yeshua means that all Jews are faithless. Most are just ignorant of the truth because they have been taught that Yeshua is not the Messiah. They are just what Yeshua called them- lost sheep. But they have not lost their faith in God or His promise of a Messiah- they faithfully wait. They just don’t realize, yet, His true identity.

Being saved should make us better to other people, but it doesn’t make us better than other people. And it certainly doesn’t make you a “Jew” if you are saved.

Be appreciative for God’s plan of salvation, partake in it wholly and joyfully, and help others to find their way back to God through Messiah Yeshua. But never, never, never think you are better than anyone because you are saved. You, I, all of us- we are still sinners, and being saved makes us no better than anyone else in the world.

It just makes us saved.

 

Holy Day or Holiday?

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I would like to start this Drash with an excerpt from the chapter in my book (see link at bottom right of page) dealing with this topic:

“Two men talking…,”…so I came to the conclusion that I’m agnostic, but when I realized they don’t have any holidays I thought it best to just stick with my reform synagogue.”

    Why is it important to know the difference between a holiday and a Holy Day? After all, don’t they both mean the same thing? Probably so, to most people. But I think there is a difference between the two, and I also think it is important to know what that difference is. And, since it’s my book, I get to write about what I want to.

   Seriously, it is important to know the difference, and in that light I will ask you to accept (for the purposes of this book) the following definitions: a Holy Day is a celebration, or festival, which God has commanded to be observed. A holiday is a celebration, or festival, which has been created by humans and is a traditional, not biblical, observance. 

   Please understand that I have absolutely nothing against man-made celebrations. I also have nothing against traditions, EXCEPT when a tradition is given more importance than the actual word of God. Traditions are fine, but He comes first.”

We are just about at the end of the High Holy Days in Judaism. Tomorrow is Simchat Torah (that means the Joy of Torah) when we read the last part of Deuteronomy and then, while we sing and dance, roll back the scrolls to the very beginning and read the first few lines in Genesis. Often this holiday (note: holiday, not holy day) is also celebrated by parading the Torah through the streets (And the Word shall go out from Yerushalayim…) with Shofar blowing and joyous singing. It is truly a wonderful thing to start reading the Torah all over again. Ya gotta love the Bible!

But it is not a festival that God told us to celebrate. It is a holiday– a man-made event that is a traditional celebration, just like the netilat yadayim (hand washing) ceremony that we read about in Mark. Just like promising a Korban (again, see Mark) or any of the many, many other Rabbinic traditions and ceremonies that are Talmudic but not Biblical. And if you really want pomp and ceremony, check out some of the Gentile holidays and traditions. You’d think they would have learned from the Jews, but it was not to be.

Why care about the difference? Maybe it doesn’t matter. I guess you could make an argument that every religious holiday (I am not talking about anything in Leviticus 23) is meant to honor God, and how can that be wrong? I think that would be a good argument, and I wouldn’t have a problem with that, except that today most of these holidays do not honor God: they only create more retail sales. They honor the economy more than they honor God.

I mean, it’s not even Halloween (clearly, no one can think that Halloween honors the Lord!) and already I see Christmas commercials on TV, stores are putting up Christmas decorations, and I haven’t even partaken of my November tryptophan yet!  Oy! If we keep going at this rate, we will “lap” Christmas and by April of 2016 they will be running Christmas 2017 sales!

The traditions of our people (Jews and Gentiles, alike) are not bad, in and of themselves. Traditions help create solidarity, a common foundation, and can often help one to get closer to God, so long as they do not interfere or overrule what God has commanded of us. This was the point that Yeshua was making during His ministry. He didn’t have an issue with the traditions, He had an issue with the Pharisees forcing the people to perform traditions at the expense of what God said they should do. There are plenty of examples of this throughout the Good News books.

We need to be careful about this, i.e., knowing the difference between what God has told us to do and what our religious leaders tell us we should do. And we need to know the difference, especially now, as we see prophecy coming to fruition all around us.

I believe the Enemy will make Himself known slowly, and we will not know what he is doing to us until it is already done, unless we keep our spiritual eyes open and trust no one. Not the Rabbi, not the Priest, not the Minister or Chaplin…not no one, not no how, not no way.

What we need to do is trust in the Word of God. You need to read it and thereby learn the difference between what is man-made and what is God-commanded. Like I said, I believe the Enemy will take charge slowly, and the best way to do that is through what we are all comfortable with. He isn’t going to jump out of a cake and say, “Hiya!! I’m the Son of Perdition and I am here to destroy you. Line up and take the mark- be the first on your block to suffer in hell for  all Eternity. Order your very own mark now…operators are standing by.”

Uh-uh…not going to happen that way. He will appear, at first, to be somewhat powerless. A nobody that came up with a popular notion or fad. Then the fad will become a tradition, just like the other traditions we all find comfortable and easily follow (like sheep) and practice. Eventually, once we are suckered into the traditional practices, the tradition will become a regular part of our life, and he will introduce activities that are God-less and satanic, but it will be so subtle, it will fit so easily into what we are doing already, that before we know it we will be lining up for the mark and not even realize what we are doing.

OK, maybe I am getting a little too apocalyptic, thinking that celebrating Simchat Torah will lead me to satanic worship. Honestly, I don’t think that’s a concern. But human stupidity, ignorance and pride is a concern, and it is as much a part of us as breathing and eating. If we aren’t watching with spiritual eyes, and discerning using the Ruach, we are doomed. The Enemy is much more devious than we are, and he knows how to get in our brains, in our daily lives, and how easily we can be led (or misled, for that matter.) And he has no fear of God. He knows he’s lost, he just doesn’t want to admit it to himself, so he is going to take as many down with him as he can. Remember this: in Revelations it says that “most” will be apostatised. Not a few, not a lot, but most- that means a lot more than just half . That means more like 70-80% of all Believers will reject God and throw away their salvation.

Worship God as He said to worship Him- celebrate the Holy Days that God has commanded we should celebrate. And I mean everyone- these are not “Jewish” holy days, these are the festivals that God (your God and mine) said that those who worship Him are to celebrate. Everyone! Start there, and slowly, carefully review and scrutinize every non-Biblical holiday you have ever enjoyed. If it seems “correct” according to the Manual, celebrate it as it should be celebrated- in a way that honors God. Leave K-Mart, Target, Amazon, et.al. out of it.

As the old saying goes, “Keep the Christ in Christmas.” And be careful to celebrate only those celebrations, and only in those ways, that give glory to God.