Tag: idolatry

The All-American Religion

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I like to listen to the Oldies station, and the one here in Melbourne, Florida has a weekday session at 1400 (that’s 2 PM to you non-military types) they call “The Impossible Question”, where they ask a question that has an answer which is hard to know, and when someone guesses the correct answer they get a $25 gift certificate to one of the restaurant sponsors of the show.

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

The other day I was in the car listening to the station and the question was something along the lines of “18% of all relationships break up for this reason.”

I thought the answer would be money, how to raise the kids, abusiveness, cultural or religious differences, or something along those lines.

Would you like to know what the answer is?

(I hope so because this entire message is based on it.)

The answer is the relationship fails because one of the partners cheers for a different NFL team.

That’s right- not something as significant as money, children, addiction, mental illness or abusive treatment, but simply that I like the New York Giants and you cheer for the Greenbay Packers. Hey – pack your trash and go!

Even if we have a relationship based on mutual trust, love, and common interests, we cannot have a lasting relationship unless you are a fan of my favorite football team.

I guess that also means if I am going to start dating someone, I better do it at the end of football season so that I might have a chance at getting 7 or 8 months with this person before we have to break up.

When I thought about it, I realized that the relationships fail because of religious differences: those people follow that All-American religion called:  Professional Sports.

It is a pantheistic religion because there is not a singular deity but multiple deities we call Athletes. There are demigods called Coaches and the Priest is called an Announcer, and the temple where they worship is called ESPN.

They read their Bible every day, which is found in the newspapers under the title “Sports Section”, and they tithe monthly through their cable channel. Every February there is a pilgrimage to whichever place their god says the Super Bowl will play, and some pay thousands of dollars for choice seating at the altar, which we call a Stadium.

How many people do you know that are devotees of this religion?

I’ll bet those who pay thousands for season seating at their favorite team’s stadium, and monthly fees for sports channels, don’t spend anywhere near as much money for tithing to their church or synagogue (if they even go to one.)

Idolatry is allowing anything to come between you and the one, true God, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. If you have more devotion to something or someone than you do to God, that is idolatry.

I know you feel physical and emotional love for your spouse more than what you feel for God, but you know what I mean. Of course, your spouse may not be all that important to you if he or she cheers for the wrong NFL team.

I am not saying that anyone should cancel ESPN and forego any sports events from now on; I would ask that they think about their level of devotion to a bunch of guys who probably don’t even know they exist. People don’t just honor their skills, which are God-given, to begin with, but many people literally worship their favorite sports star. They hang pictures of them, want their autograph, follow their life and read everything they can about them. And when they die, they are devastated.

But do they read their Bible every day? Do they pray to God for peace or salvation for their friends? I know that if they pray at all, it is probably that God will let their team win, which, I think it is safe to say, isn’t really all that important to God.

I don’t want you to stop watching your favorite sports teams or participating in your favorite sports but think about this situation for a second: one out of every four relationships in America is ruined because of something that has nothing at all to do with the other person’s personality or compatibility. One out of every four relationships is ruined because of a difference between which sports team they prefer.

Would they break up if I like steak and she likes fish? Would we break up if I loved purple and she loved Yellow? What about if she drove slowly and I drove like the New York driver I am? Probably not, but if I am a NY fan and she is a California fan? Then our chance of having a meaningful, rewarding and lasting relationship has an 18% chance of failing, right from the get-go.

If that statistic doesn’t shake you down to the soles of your feet, then if you’ll excuse my saying so, I believe you need to sort out your priorities.

The Enemy wants us to worship him, but if he can’t get someone to worship him he is satisfied to get them to stop worshiping God through seducing them (as Balaam did) to worship something or someone else.

Think about that the next time you watch a football game.

Thank you for being here and please subscribe and share this ministry with others. I welcome your comments and look forward to the next time we get together.

Until then, L’hitraot and Baruch HaShem!

Parashah Va-ayra 2020 (I appeared) Exodus 6:2 – 9

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In the previous parashah, Moses had complained to God asking why God hasn’t freed the people but instead, now they are treated worse than ever before. God told Moses that this was all designed so that God could now show his might.

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This parashah starts with God telling Moses that he and Aaron will bring the people out, and that to Pharaoh Moses will be like God, and Aaron will be his prophet (we will come back to this later.)

From this point on we begin one of the most well-known and wonderful events in all of human history: Moses and Aaron continue to ask Pharaoh to let the people go, he refuses, and God sends his plagues on Egypt. These plagues start easily enough, meaning that Pharaoh’s magicians can mimic the miracles, but soon even the magicians cannot duplicate these events and by the 4th plague, everyone within Pharaoh’s government is asking Pharaoh to let the people go, but he refuses.

This parashah ends with the plague of hail that turns to fire when it lands.

We all know the story of the 10 Plagues. These plagues showed God’s strength as each plague overpowered one of the many Egyptian animal gods. First, they were duplicatable, then they were not, and soon enough God demonstrated not only his power to send these plagues on Egypt but his ability to keep his own people safe from them.

When I read a parashah I ask for some message, some insight that might be new, and today I think I received something. That’s what great about reading the Bible over and over – you never know when something you have read a million times will suddenly have a different meaning for you.

For me, it was when I read Chapter 7 in the book of Exodus, which begins with this:

And the Lord said unto Moses: “See, I have set thee in God’s stead to Pharaoh; and Aaron thy brother shall be thy prophet. Thou shall speak all that I command thee; and Aaron thy brother shall speak unto Pharaoh, that he let the children of Israel go out of his land.”

If we imagine that Pharaoh represents the people in the world, and Moses and Aaron are God and his prophet, respectively, then this can represent more than just God giving Moses and Aaron roles to play. What is interesting is that nowhere does it even imply Aaron was considered to be the progenitor of those miracles. No, it was always Moses who got the credit for the miracle: Moses turned the water into blood, Moses brought the locusts, Moses stopped the locusts, etc.

Throughout the ages we have seen prophets and judges perform great miracles, and when you think about it, how many times have those miracles been credited to the person? Elijah and the 400 Prophets of Ba’al, Gideon and his military victory, Samson and his strength: these and other stories are about the prophets and judges who performed great deeds, but wasn’t it God who actually did it all?

Too often we ignore the “man behind the curtain” and give credit to the false wizard who demonstrates the fearsome feats.

And the best example, which could just as well be called the worst example, is how so many people worship Jesus Christ and give him all the credit for what God wrought through him.

Messiah was no different from any of the prophets or judges God sent to do his work in the world.  True, Yeshua was a miracle baby, and he was the only prophet from God who died and was resurrected to life (Samuel being called from Sheol by Saul doesn’t count), and it’s true that Yeshua was the only one of all God’s prophets who was acceptable to act as a substitutionary sacrifice for us all.

But when it comes down to it, Yeshua tells us over and over, and over again throughout the Gospels that he was only doing what he was told to do. Just the same way that Aaron did what Moses told him to do. Yeshua should NOT be worshiped any more than Aaron should have been, or Moses (for that matter) because only God is deserving of worship.

Yes, I know the Bible tells us that people at times bowed down and worshiped Yeshua, but when I looked at dozens of biblical verses regarding the worship of Yeshua, the only place that I found anything indicating that Yeshua was worshiped was in the New Covenant.

One day I shall write about how the New Covenant, which is scripture which quotes from and is based upon the Tanakh, was composed by non-Jews for Gentiles who didn’t want to be Jewish anymore, and has many questionable references, such as making it seem to be okay to worship a man instead of God.
But…that is for another time.

How many times have you heard it said by people, Pastor’s, Ministers, Priests, or Rabbis that God deserves all the credit and our worship? I know that in my experience, almost every single time we have a Shabbat or Holy Day service, somewhere in there we are told that it is all about God.

Then we hear people pray to saints or to Yeshua for help, or ask a human being to provide forgiveness, or worship the Messiah and call him our God. In some places, people actually bow down before a graven image of a human being and pray to it.

There is only one savior- God. There is only one who can help us and forgive us- God. Even when someone performs a miracle, that person is only the tool through which the real power is working, and that real power is- God.

There is one God whose power is often manifested through whomever he chooses, and the rest of the world can accept that or reject it. And, for the record, when you reject the true originator of the power behind the Messiah, you have placed a wedge between you and God and are practicing idolatry.

Moses was, in fact, the prophet through whom God worked his power, and eventually (as we get further along in Exodus) we see that Aaron’s position changes from performing God’s miracles to being the intermediary between the people and God, teaching and leading them in the proper worship of God.

We are not saved by the sacrificial death of the Messiah, but in fact by his resurrection. That resurrection was not brought about by Yeshua but by God. So, you see, even though it is true that through Yeshua we can be saved, the actual “savior” is God because God provided the Messiah.

Always give credit to God, worship God alone, and ask God for what you need. Remember: Yeshua never said pray to him to receive, but when we pray (meaning to God) we are to ask for what we need in Yeshua’s name. When God answers a prayer that is made invoking the name of his Messiah, not only does it honor the Messiah but that, in turn, will glorify God.

We can credit Yeshua for all the suffering he endured on our behalf, and we can be thankful to him; we can honor him and praise him for what he did, but we cannot worship him or put him in the place of God, who is our true rock and redeemer.

To paraphrase the famous line from the Wizard of Oz,  “Don’t ignore the man behind the curtain.”

Thank you for being here, please subscribe to both this website and the YouTube channel (use the link above) and share these messages with others if you think it will edify and help them.

Until next time, Shabbat shalom and Baruch HaShem!

Is Either Believing or Rejecting the Trinity a Sin?

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I recently wrote a message about different ways that verses from the Bible are used, and misused, to prove one’s beliefs. I mentioned the belief in the Trinity as one of those “hot” topics where the same verses can be used to justify either side. When reviewing some of the comments I received, I began to wonder if either belief in or rejection of the Trinity is a sin.

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Before we begin, let me state that I personally, having been raised (and still am) Jewish, do not believe in the Trinity. I believe God is a separate, unique spiritual entity and that the Messiah (Yeshua), although 100% filled with the Holy Spirit, was born as a 100% mortal human and remained that way throughout his lifetime. As for the Holy Spirit …well, I am not really sure how to explain the Ruach HaKodesh, but it is not God and it is not Yeshua.

That being said, I do not deny anyone their right to believe in the traditional Christian teaching of the Trinity, meaning that God, the Messiah, and the Holy Spirit are the same entity, one being in three different forms.

Considering that these beliefs seem to be polar opposites of each other, it would seem that either side would consider the other side as being in sin. The Non-Trins say that the Trins are making Messiah into an idol and thereby violating the 2nd commandment about worshiping other gods. The Trins say that the non-Trins are rejecting the Messiah’s deity and thereby rejecting him. In my opinion, there will never be absolute proof of either of these beliefs until such time as we face God and Yeshua, who will then tell us the truth.

The funny thing about that is when we finally get the definitive answer, it will be too late to make any difference.

Here is what I believe regarding the sinfulness of believing either side: neither side will be in sin so long as we respect and observe the position of each entity with regards to God’s plan of salvation. What that means is this: God is the only one who will forgive our sins; Yeshua is the Messiah, our Cohen HaGadol (High Priest) and our Intercessor, through whom we and our prayers are justified in God’s sight; and the Ruach HaKodesh (Holy Spirit) is a comforting spirit which God gives to those who accept Yeshua as their Messiah and who helps us to better understand God’s word and guide us in the path of righteousness.

If I believe Yeshua is God in the flesh, but I do not pray to him or ask him for forgiveness, then what if he really isn’t God? If I still pray only to God and ask God for forgiveness, then I have not worshiped Yeshua as God. If I believe he is God, but I worship and pray to God, the Father, then I have not placed Yeshua in a position where he is idolized, and I have not violated the 2nd Commandment.

On the other side, if I do not believe Yeshua is God but he really is, again- so long as I worship God the Father, then I am following Yeshua’s lead because he prayed to God and he talked about God as something other than himself. Even in the Gospel of John where he often refers to himself and God as one, he is not saying they are the same entity; in John 12:49 he tells us that he only says what the Father tells him to say and only does what the Father tells him to do, so when he said that when we see him we see God he is talking metaphorically. He is saying he is the image of God. He is not God’s puppet, without his own thoughts or feelings, but his teachings are directly from God and his works are directly from God. Jews would understand this relationship because a traditional Jewish thought is that the Torah is a mirror and when we look into the Torah we should see ourselves. That is what Yeshua was saying about himself- he is the mirror image of God.

So the bottom line is this: believing in the Trinity, or not believing in the Trinity, is not sinful in and of itself. I believe there is nothing sinful if we do these two things:

  1. Worship God alone and respect his position as the Father;
  2. Accept Yeshua as our Messiah, looking to him to intercede with God the Father and when we pray for forgiveness or for other things, we pray to God in the name of Yeshua: Yeshua is to be the Intercessor of our prayers, not the Interceptor of them.

If we do anything else, such as praying to Yeshua for forgiveness, praying to a saint to intercede with God, or praying to anyone other then God, himself, then we have committed a sin. Praying to anyone or anything other than God the Father, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, is idolatry and a sin.

I believe you can trust in this: pray only to God, ask only of God in the name of the Messiah, and whether you believe them to be the same personage or not, you will not be sinning.

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I welcome any comments or suggestions (just be nice) and I want to thank you for your interest.

Until next time, L’hitraot and Baruch HaShem!!

When God will reject the Jewish people as His own

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There is a movement called Replacement Theology. The basic premise is that because the Jewish people rejected Yeshua (Jesus) as their Messiah, God has rejected the Jewish people as His chosen people and only the Born Again Christians (right-wing, in my opinion) are now God’s “Chosen” people.

This belief system is not only against what God has said throughout the bible, but is essentially calling God a liar. There is one who is a divine creature, created by God as an angel, who also believes that God is a liar. In fact, he accuses God of lying, and did so as far back as when he told Eve that if she ate the apple, she wouldn’t die (even though God said she would); he was created as one of the most beautiful of all the angels, but he wanted to be more than a messenger for God- he wanted (and still wants) to rule as God. He was named Lucifer, but we know him as The Accuser, Ha Satan, the Enemy- he is the Devil. And the Replacement Theologists, many of whom I expect don’t even know it, are helping him reach his goal of separating them from God.

Whenever we believe something other than what God has said in the bible, we are guilty of faithlessness and idolatry.

However, God does tell us, exactly, when He will reject the Jewish people as His chosen people. It is here, in Jeremiah 31:35-37:

This is what the Lord says, he who appoints the sun to shine by day, who decrees the moon and stars to shine by night, who stirs up the sea so that its waves roar— the Lord Almighty is his name: “Only if these decrees vanish from my sight,” declares the Lord, “will Israel ever cease being a nation before me.” declares the Lord. This is what the Lord says: “Only if the heavens above can be measured and the foundations of the earth below be searched out will I reject all the descendants of Israel because of all they have done,”

So, there it is: the day the Lord, God Almighty says that He will reject the Jewish people. When the sun stops shining, and the moon and stars all disappear, when the entire Universe is known and every square inch of the ocean bottoms are mapped out and explored, then (and only then) will God reject the Jewish people.

In other words, God will NEVER reject the Jewish people! Never, ever, despite what they have done, which includes rejecting Yeshua when He first arrived.

In fact, throughout this chapter (Jeremiah 31) God reaffirms the Jewish people as His own, and confirms all of the promises He has made to regather His people to Israel, to give them a new heart, and to resettle them in their land, which He promised to them (which, by the way, is actively being done this very day.) Jeremiah 31:31 IS the “New” Covenant, and all through this chapter God verifies and confirms that the Jewish people are His chosen people, forever. There can be no valid argument against this.

But, since there always is some argument, here are some other biblical verses that you can check out for yourself confirming that only the Jewish people, and no one else now or ever, are God’s chosen people:

Exodus 19:5;  Deuteronomy 7:6-8;  Deuteronomy 14:2;  Deuteronomy 26:17-19;  2 Samuel 7:23-24;  1 Kings 8:53;  1 Kings 10:9;  1 Chronicles 17:20-21;  Psalm 105:8-15;  Psalm 135:4;  Isaiah 41:8;  Isaiah 43:1-3;  Isaiah 44:21;  Jeremiah 31:1-4;  Jeremiah 31:9-11;  Jeremiah 46:27-28; Ezekiel 36:24-28;  Ezekiel 37:21-25;  Joel 3:1-2;  Amos 3:1-2;  Romans 11:1-2;  Hebrews 8:8-13

 And there are more places in the bible where God has confirmed, through his Prophets or directly through Moshe (Moses), His irrevocable and eternal choice of the Jewish people as His own.

Replacement Theology is not only a lie from the pit of Hell, but it is also specifically identified by Yochanan (John) in Revelations 3: Yeshua is talking to the Messianic Community in Philadelphia, confirming that they are following His words and comforting them to continue to do so. And, in 3:9, Yeshua says:

“I will make those who are of the synagogue of Satan, who claim to be Jews though they are not, but are liars—I will make them come and fall down at your feet and acknowledge that I have loved you.”

In the First Century a synagogue was not a Jewish place of worship- the Greek word means a gathering, or grouping- so the correct usage and understanding is that the synagogue of Satan is a grouping or collection of those who call themselves “Jews.”

Throughout the bible God defines the Jews as His chosen people, therefore, if you say you are Gods chosen people, then you are saying you are a Jew.

Replacement Theologists are the synagogue of Satan, declaring God to be a liar and to have reneged on His promise to always love and keep the Jewish people as His own, special people. Anyone who says the Jews are rejected by God is a blasphemer, and someone who, whether by knowledge or ignorance, is working for the wrong guy.

Let us all pray that these people, misled and mistaken, will acknowledge the truth before it is too late for them.

Jesus was ……what?

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I mentioned in my last post about Jesus (real name is Yeshua) being a man. I believe that He had to be a flesh-and-blood human being, and I know that many are taught He was God in the flesh, which (by definition) agrees with me about Him being flesh and blood.

But many people state He was and is God. I just can’t accept that, and I thought I should explain why.

To begin with, let me say that I capitalize the “H” when referring to Yeshua in the third party as a form of respect; I capitalize the “G” in God when talking about Elohim, Adonai- the one and only God. If I was talking about any other god, it is (well, as I just did here) with a small “g” instead.

I believe that Yeshua had to be a total human being, but He also had to be of a supernatural birth if, for no other reason, He had to be born outside of the original sin we all carry with us from the womb. He was conceived by the Holy Spirit, but He came from a human egg, matured in the womb as a human does, was born from a human and grew as a human grows. Isaiah 53 says this about the Messiah (bold added by me):

He grew up before him like a tender shoot,  and like a root out of dry ground. He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him, nothing in his appearance that we should desire him. He was despised and rejected by mankind, a man of suffering, and familiar with pain. Like one from whom people hide their faces he was despised, and we held him in low esteem. Surely he took up our pain and bore our suffering, yet we considered him punished by God, stricken by him, and afflicted. But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was on him, and by his wounds we are healed. We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to our own way; and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all. He was oppressed and afflicted, yet he did not open his mouth; he was led like a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before its shearers is silent, so he did not open his mouth. By oppression and judgment he was taken away. Yet who of his generation protested? For he was cut off from the land of the living; for the transgression of my people he was punished. He was assigned a grave with the wicked, and with the rich in his death, though he had done no violence, nor was any deceit in his mouth. Yet it was the Lord’s will to crush him and cause him to suffer, and though the Lord makes his life an offering for sin, he will see his offspring and prolong his days, and the will of the Lord will prosper in his hand. After he has suffered, he will see the light of life and be satisfied; by his knowledge my righteous servant will justify many, and he will bear their iniquities. Therefore I will give him a portion among the great, and he will divide the spoils with the strong, because he poured out his life unto death, and was numbered with the transgressors. For he bore the sin of many, and made intercession for the transgressors.

Isaiah 53 is considered by almost everyone to be purely Messianic. Not about a king, not about a prophet, but about the Messiah. All of the areas where I have bold printed the words indicate, unquestionably, that whomever Isaiah was talking about was human; totally separated from ,and couldn’t possibly be, God. The Messiah was to be crushed and punished by God (how do you punish yourself?), pierced, he had wounds (God is not human so cannot be killed or hurt), the “Lord laid on him”, i.e., there is someone doing something to someone else here. It was the Lord’s will to crush him, the Lord made his life an offering, he poured out his life unto death. This is someone who is not the Lord because the Lord is doing things to him.

Everything that the Messiah was to go through as God’s sacrificial lamb could not be done to God, and God could not do that to Himself. God cannot suffer sin or be sinful, yet Yeshua had to take on the sin of the world. No one argues that Yeshua took on the sin of the world, so if He did that how could He be God? He couldn’t be- He had to be human.

What did He cry from the execution stake just before He gave up His spirit (oh, wait! If you are God, how can you give up your spirit?): “My God, my God- why have You forsaken me?” Yes, He was quoting the 22 Psalm, which also indicates that there is someone else He was speaking to who had a superior position.

The Messiah is the servant of God, not God. He is of supernatural birth, but human, He performed miracles not from his own power but by the power of the Ruach HaKodesh (Holy Spirit). Yeshua didn’t perform any miracles that prophets (no one argues they aren’t human) performed before Him, and nothing that the Talmudim (Apostles) didn’t perform after He ascended.

And since the time that Yeshua ascended, He has been sitting at the right hand of God. OK- so, if He is God, how can He sit at His own right hand? Maybe He can scratch His ear with His elbow, too?

What is the function of God?- to run the universe. What is the function of the Messiah?- to bring people into reconciliation with God and to be our Intercessor, our Cohen HaGadol (High Priest.) These are two separate and unique things, and one of them has to be superior to the other. You can’t be the drone and the Queen Bee at the same time, and even though God is above any laws of physics or science that we understand, still and all, He doesn’t sit on the throne and at His own right hand at the same time. Everything God has had people write about Him in the bible, both Old and New Covenants, indicates absolutely that He and the Messiah are different. God is the CO, and Messiah is the XO.

God can’t die, and if a sacrifice doesn’t die, then it isn’t a sacrifice. So, if Yeshua is God, His sacrificial death didn’t really occur; therefore, we have no absolution from our sins. It comes down to this: if Yeshua is God, we have no hope of salvation through Him.

If Yeshua is God, then why did he tell us to pray to the Father using His name (Yeshua’s name, that is)? When we reference someone, such as “Joe sent me” we are using the credentials and reputation of the one we mention as the means to justify our acceptance. When “Joe sent me” is used, that means since Joe is OK, and he said I was OK, then I am OK. If Yeshua is God, then there is no reason for Him to say to pray to the Father in His name because He is the Father, and we don’t need to mention Yeshua in our prayers because we are praying to Yeshua, right? It just makes no sense , even on a spiritual and ethereal level.

Anyway you look at it, when you read the bible and accept the P’shat (the literal meaning) as valid, the Messiah had to be a human being to be the Messiah. God could not do what the Messiah had to do, namely be completely human to make His sinless life meaningful to all the rest of us humans as an example of how we are to live. I mean, so what if God lives a sinless life? He is sinless; that is not something He manages to do, it is what He is. God could not accept the sin of the world on His shoulders because God cannot associate with sin in any way, whatsoever.

How about this? God cannot die, so if God cannot die, then God cannot be resurrected. But Yeshua was resurrected, so either He wasn’t resurrected (hence: no salvation) or He wasn’t God (hence: we are saved.)

Everything that Messiah had to do, God can’t, so Yeshua (if you believe He is the Messiah) had to be human. And although He is resurrected, He is still not God- He is still the Messiah. The 1,000 year rule has not come, the Tribulation is not over, the enemy still rules the earth (how can anyone argue against that- just read the newspaper!) and the new Jerusalem is still in heaven. And we still need the Messiah.

Let’s finish with this thought: idolatry is placing something in a position of more importance or in place of God. To pray to anyone or anything other than God is idolatry, a violation of the 2nd Commandment. Praying to Yeshua, just like praying to a saint, is idolatry. To claim (and worse, to teach!) that Yeshua, Jesus, is God and that it is all about Jesus, and we should worship and pray to Jesus, is placing Jesus in the position of the Father. This is what we are told the Antichrist is going to do: he (or she, who knows?) will come and present himself as the Messiah, then eventually will take hold of everyone and force them to worship him instead of, or as, God, Himself.  As such, anyone preaching that we should pray to anyone other than God the Father, the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, is preaching blasphemy and idolatry, and preparing the way for the enemy of God.

If you pray to God, and invoke the name of Yeshua the Messiah, you are honoring them both. If you pray to Yeshua in lieu of God, then you are dishonoring them both and doing Satan’s work.

That leaves just one question: Who’s your Daddy?

Hidden Idolotry

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The below is an excerpt from my book, “Back to Basics: God’s Word vs. Religion” (there is a link to it somewhere around here, and it’s on Amazon and Barnes and Noble websites):

“I must have read at least four different versions of the Bible over the years, and read the Bible itself from cover to cover over 2 dozen times, not to mention all the commentaries I’ve read to prepare a Bible study or a sermon.  And yet, after all that reading and study, I don’t recall anywhere where Yeshua said to worship Him (Yeshua). Yes, He says He is the Son of God, and He says He is the Messiah, and He told His Talmudim (Disciples) that they should call Him Lord, for He is their Lord, but He never told anyone to worship anybody or anything other than His Father in heaven. If we worship anyone or anything other than the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, we are guilty of idolatry.

    Strong words. And words that might make some readers uncomfortable, since most of the Christians I know almost always pray to Jesus, exclusively. Yet, as I said, I have never found anywhere in the Manual the instructions for praying to Yeshua. All I have ever read is how we should be praying to God.

   But didn’t Yeshua tell us that anything we ask for in His name we will receive? (John 14:13) Yes, He did, but that’s not the same as saying, “Pray to me and you will receive what you ask for.” Far from it! He is simply saying that what we ask for from God will be given when we ask Yeshua to intercede for us (there is an implied understanding here that what we ask for “in His name” will be something that is within God’s will, and not just for selfish or evil purposes). We are to utilize the fact that Yeshua sacrificed Himself for us, and by means of that sacrifice we are able to receive the salvation that used to be attainable only through the sacrificial system with the Temple. Yeshua is the one and last, ultimate sacrifice, and he sits at God’s right hand, interceding for us. That is why we pray in His name, to utilize the pathway He has provided. Maybe that’s why He both instructs and reminds us that the only way to the Father is through the Son ( John 14:6).

   It was by Yeshua’s death that we can now get past the Parokhet, the curtain separating the Holy of Holies from the average person. That’s why the curtain was torn from the top down, from God to us, when Yeshua died. He provides the pathway, He says to follow Him (and no one else), and He is the one who tells us how to pray (Matthew 6:9), which is to “Our Father, who art in Heaven…”.  He didn’t say, “pray to me”. He told us to pray to God. If we pray to anyone else, we are placing a barrier between God and us. Yeshua is an intercessor, not a barrier.”

I hear people, especially in one of the oldest “Christian” religions, where the prayer is almost always to Yeshua/Jesus. They also pray to saints, people. Not God, Adonai, El Elyon, but to people. They ask people to ask Jesus to ask God! But they kneel before a graven image and pray to that person. And they see nothing wrong with that!

Oy!! No graven images, pray to Our Father, ask in my name…what part of this don’t they understand? Where do they come up with this stuff?

Who do you pray to?  Is it God, the Father? Is it Jesus/Yeshua? Is it somebody that is supposed to intercede with Yeshua to ask the Father? Why so many middlemen? No wonder Jewish people are uncomfortable with this program- we would never purposely do retail when wholesale is available!

Think about the hidden idols in your life, and I’m not talking about statues of Ba’al in the living room.Is football more important than Church? Do you read the Bible for a few minutes each morning or the newspaper (which is always the same?)

Think about it, and if you see the hidden idols in your life, get rid of them.