Tag: philistines

Parashah Lech Lecha (walk) Genesis 12-17

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This parashah is known as the History of the Patriarchs. We read how Abram (later called Abraham) was called by God. How he went to Egypt where he gained wealth, how he took care of his deceased brother’s son, Lot. We learn of the separation between Abram and Lot due to both of them having such wealth in cattle, and we see how Abram allowed Lot to choose the best land.

Lot is captured when the 5 kings attacked Sodom and Gomorrah, and Abram and his 300 men save them. This is where we first meet Melchizedek, the righteous king of Salem and the High Priest (Cohen HaGadol), a precursor to Yeshua .

Sarai (not yet Sarah) gives birth to Ishmael through her handmaiden, and God promises Hagar that Ishmael will also be a prince of many tribes, and that he will always be at war and in conflict with his own brothers.

We end this reading with God’s promise to (now called) Abraham that he will bear a son through Sarai (now called Sarah), and they shall name him Isaac, and through Isaac God’s covenant with Abraham will be fulfilled.

The sign of this covenant is the circumcision, which Abraham performed on himself, Ishmael and all his men the very next day.

Wow! The stories alone are wonderful, and demonstrate God’s majesty and power, as well as the weaknesses of humanity. If anyone should ever doubt the truth of the bible, all they have to do is ask themselves this: if the bible is supposed to make God and all those who worship him look like powerful and saintly people, why then do they act the way they do?

Abraham pimped his wife to save his skin (twice!); Lot moved next door to the most sinful and disgusting place in the world; Sarah asks her hand-maiden to bear a child for her, then when she does Sarah throws her out into the wilderness to die, along with her son.

These are wonderful people? These are the saintly Patriarchs and Matriarchs of the Jewish people? They sound just like you and me!

That’s the reason the bible is verifiable and believable- because these people are just like you and me! That is also why these stories are so wonderful and empowering: because the people in the bible are like you and I, that means you and I can be chosen by God to do great things, just like they did.

The part of this parashah I want to discuss, and this will be brief (no, really- it will be!) is right at the very beginning: Genesis 12: 2-3, where God is talking to Abram and tells him:

I will make you into a great nation, and I will bless you; I will make your name great, and you will be a blessing.  I will bless those who bless you, and whoever curses you I will curse; and all peoples on earth will be blessed through you.

God made the Jewish people His vessel for blessing the world. That is what being the “Chosen People” means, to be chosen to bring God’s blessings to everyone. And the two greatest blessings of all that God gave the world through the Jewish people were the Torah, and Yeshua ha Maschiach- Jesus Christ, the Messiah.

I have written before about the blessings the world has received through the Jews, the number of Nobel prize winners who are Jewish (a percentage that is far greater than the percentage of Jews in the population), the many wonderful performers, the writers, the poets, the financiers (no stereotyping now!), and many other things.

And I have also written about how God’s promise to curse those that curse the Jews has been proven to be trustworthy: Pharaoh in the time of Moses,  The Assyrians, the Babylonians, the Philistines, Spain, the Nazi’s- all demolished or reduced to nothingness. Not even a shadow of their former glory left to them, those that are left at all.

And for those that have blessed the Jews, well, America is about the only country that has done so, but we are moving away from that and soon will be cursed and judged, just as all the other nations will be (and are being judged, even now.)

These two lines in Genesis are the beginning of the Jewish people’s influence on the world and God’s plan of salvation, and they are also the end of it. Judgement is not coming, it is here! The countries that have cursed the Jews are being cursed, the countries that have forsaken God and rejected His Torah are suffering punishment (global warming, hurricanes, earthquakes, tsunami’s, war), and it is getting worse every day.

Here is the simple lesson that God is telling us in this parashah: choose sides.

On the one side, you can choose God by accepting and supporting His people (chosen to save you), accept the Messiah He sent to bring you back into communion with Him, and obey the teachings (the Torah) that He gave you to know how he wants to be worshiped and how He wants you to treat each other.

On the other side, you lose. Everything. You lose blessings while you are alive, and you lose heaven on earth and eternal peace after this life is over.

When you look at it, you have to ask yourself: what the heck is wrong with people? Why would anyone give up eternal joy for a short-lived reward of hedonistic pleasures that will never really satisfy?

Because we’re stupid, that’s why.  The definition of stupid is one who is lacking common sense. Rejecting God and His path to salvation is, well, stupid. There is no better word for it, and even Shaul (Paul) used that word in Galatians: 3:1 (some interpretations use the word “foolish”, but I believe the correct word is “stupid.”) Those who reject God, reject His Messiah, reject His Torah and refuse to support the Jewish people and Israel are just plain stupid!

And as Forrest Gump said, “Stupid is as stupid does.” So if someone out there doesn’t appreciate being called stupid, then stop acting stupid!

I am not calling you to give up your life as it is and run an underground railroad from the former Soviet Union countries to help Jews escape and make Aliyah (return to Israel)- we have organizations already doing that. Ezra International, Bridges for Peace, and others like Jacobs Hope, helping Jews when they get to Israel.

I am not asking you to convert to Judaism.

I am simply asking that you think about your choices; God has given you free will and intelligence so you can think about your choices. Think about how much better your life will be if God is blessing you, how much better your life will be when you are helping others (treating them as you would want them to treat you), how much more peaceful you will feel knowing that you are promised eternal joy.

I spent 2/3 of my life rejecting all this, and I can remember why I did. It seemed to make sense at the time, but it was, now knowing better, truly senseless. And I can tell you this, unequivocally: I am so very, very glad I came to my senses!

 

 

Parashah Vayyera (And He Appeared) Genesis 18 – 22

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Not much here- only the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, not to mention the Akedah, the binding of Isaac (traditionally read at Rosh HaShannah.)

There is also the second time Abraham “pimped” Sarah, when Abimelech took her to wife because Abraham (with Sarah’s agreement) said she was his sister, not his wife. Abimelech was the king of the Philistine city and his entire household was cursed with not bearing children because he took Sarah as wife.

There is so much written about the Akedah I am not even going to try to comment on it, but I do feel that the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah has a lesson for us, something more personal than the story we read.

The people living in these two towns were wholly and unashamedly depraved. The bible makes sure we know that both young and old, meaning everyone, was depraved and sinful. I am not surprised, though; after all, doesn’t the society create it’s own morals? If you were alone in the desert, wouldn’t you form your own ideas about right and wrong? Look at modern cultures: some drink coffee, some drink tea, some nap in the afternoon and some don’t nap at all. Some believe that salad should be after the main course and others eat it first. There are many, many different cultural mores and values, not just about food and work, but about childbirth, capital punishment, education of the young, just to name a few. Lot offered his virgin daughters to the mob of men so they can gang rape the girls instead raping the guests in his house, the cultural ideal at that time being that to protect and care for a traveler was of the utmost importance. The care of a stranger was more important than protecting your own daughters from sexual abuse. We see this cultural standard also in Judges, 19.

Our society today, right here in the good old U S of A, is becoming more and more like Sodom. In the days of Sodom, people learned about social mores by observing their neighbors. There was no Face Book, Twitter or NetFlix to see what was happening all over. But today? We can see depravity as acceptable everywhere, in the newspapers, on TV, on our phones, and even inside the house of worship! How many of you have heard of “churches” that are pro-abortion? Churches that are specifically for homosexual and trans-sexual people? Churches that are abusing children, both physically and sexually? Churches? Places of worship? That’s what they call themselves.

Have you ever watched the History or Discovery channel specials on anything biblical? They debunk God, almost making it seem that He is a myth. I have more often than not heard references to biblical stories and lessons as being nothing more than passed down myths. The narrator refers to the “writer of these stories” as having made them up from existing legends. They show many biblical “scholars” who talk about the truths that God gave us in His word with cynical, disrespectful terms, as if they were referring to some fictional novel. And when they have someone who speaks of the bible with reverence for God, they make him or her look like some idiot, whose opinion is childish and uneducated; essentially they make faith-based obedience look like some uneducated, sect-like conditioned thinking.

Halloween is tomorrow- we give the kids candy because if you give no treat your house gets tricked. We know that the small children don’t understand anything about what their costumes and that day really represent, so we (myself included) condone, as it is, the demonic foundation of this day because we don’t want to hurt the feelings of the small children.

And what effect does that have? It plants a new seed of Sodom. This is how societies become depraved: little by little, one small concession to the mob mentality after another, until you have God thrown out of the courtroom, out of the schools, and even out of the places of worship.

Anyone who says they worship God cannot also acknowledge as acceptable those things God says are not.

God destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah. We need to destroy Sodom and Gomorrah, too- not the towns of millennia ago, but the sinfulness and depravity that exists in our own hearts. Yeshua said that which goes into the body doesn’t defile us, but that which comes out of the mouth is what defiles us (Matthew 15:11), so exorcise that which defiles you. The words we speak, especially in anger, are straight from our hearts. We later apologize, and say, “I didn’t really mean it”, but isn’t that a lie? If we didn’t mean it, we wouldn’t have said it! THAT is the truth- what we say in anger or under stress is what is in our hearts. When we lie to the one we said it to we are really lying to ourselves because no one wants to face the truth of what is in his or her defiling, evil heart.

The towns and people of Sodom and Gomorrah were destroyed by God, but we need to destroy the spirit of Sodom and Gomorrah in ourselves. When we call on the Holy Spirit we can get the spiritual strength to overpower our evil hearts. Eventually, the Torah will be written on our hearts, these hearts of stone will be replaced with hearts of flesh and we will be living Torahs, just as Yeshua is the living Torah.

Until that day, we need to work at destroying Sodom in us.