Category: A Drash to Start the Day

Once Saved, Always Saved Results in Unsaved

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You may be asking yourself, “How can I be saved for all time and end up not saved at all?”  That’s a fair question, and the answer is that the “Once Saved, Always Saved” teaching is a lie. 

From this point I will write “once saved, always saved” as OSAS.

Here’s the reason why I say this: first off, I think we can agree that someone who doesn’t repent of their sins will continue to sin. And, as far as salvation is concerned, we all sin but those are unrepentant will not be able to be saved. The Bible is clear that God will not forgive someone who sins over and over because they choose to sin rather than to obey. 

Messiah died so that we can have a shot at salvation, and the first step in gaining salvation is to repent of our sins and desire to sin no more, which in Hebrew is called T’shuvah.  After we repent, if we haven’t already accepted Yeshua as our Messiah, that is the next step. The third step is to ask forgiveness in Yeshua’s name by means of his sacrifice, and the last step is to go forth from that point working out your salvation through learning God’s word (all of it- from Genesis to Revelation) and obeying it as best as you can. 

That’s how salvation is gained, in a nutshell.

OK, Steve- I get it. That’s how we are saved, but that doesn’t tell me why OSAS is a lie.  After all, that is what many Christians have been told is how it works. We have been told, “Yeshua died for your sins which were all nailed to the Cross” (Colossians 2:14), so why should I worry anymore? 

Here’s why: the sins that were nailed to the Cross were only the ones that you already had performed. In the days when crucifixion was the standard punishment, above the head of the one being crucified was a list of the crimes against them.  So, when your sins were nailed to the Execution Stake along with the Messiah, it was only those sins (crimes) that you had committed up to that point in time. The sins that you do AFTER your T’shuvah and AFTER you receive forgiveness are not automatically forgiven. That is the lie of OSAS.

Salvation is irrevocable, which means that no one can take it away but it does NOT mean that we can’t lose it by throwing it away ourselves.

If someone believes that their sins are automatically forgiven, which is the very foundation of OSAS, then when they sin (which we all do and cannot stop doing) they will believe these new sins are already forgiven. That is what OSAS tells us; however, the truth is that the sins we commit are being listed against us until such time as we ask forgiveness. And we must ask forgiveness for every sin we commit, which (as you may recall from earlier) starts with our T’shuvah.  And without T’shuvah, which is the first step in receiving forgiveness, there can be no forgiveness.

When someone believes that their sins are automatically forgiven, they will continue to act as they always have with no regrets, with no worries and thereby without repentance. We just go along on our merry way, doing whatever we do confident in knowing that when we screw up we are automatically forgiven. 

And that, Ladies and Gentlemen, is the danger of the OSAS lie- it removes our accountability for having sinned, and thereby our responsibility to obey God.

Salvation must be worked through- it is a gift from God, it is his Grace to us, but just like any gift that is given we can lose it. If you believe that because Yeshua died for your sins you are automatically forgiven, you are in BIG trouble and need to get on your knees right this second and ask God for forgiveness. 

God understands that you have been taught by those you trust something that is wrong, but he has told all of us what he considers to be right, and just like when you tell a cop that you didn’t know what the speed limit was, when you tell God you didn’t know OSAS was a lie, you will get the same answer: ignorance is no excuse for breaking the law.

God Crashed My Pity Party

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About a month ago, when I began the Kickstarter campaign to sell my newest (third) book I was feeling rather low. I have had this online ministry for about 6 years, and only have about 70 followers. I am a member of half a dozen discussion groups (Christian and Messianic) but still haven’t made book sales or even gained subscribers. My other two books are very dear to me and writing them was a cleansing for me, similar (I suspect) to how Jeremiah felt when he gave God’s word.

Of course, we know Jeremiah wasn’t the happiest of prophets, and I felt the same way he did. I couldn’t figure out why so few people were interested in what I have to say and began to think that I wasn’t treating God’s Word, or God, with the honor he deserves. Maybe I thought I was preaching truth but I wasn’t…could that be why God hasn’t blessed this blog/ministry with more followers? 

So I sent out a post (maybe some of you remember it?) asking for confirmation. This wasn’t an Ego Trip…not at all! I wasn’t asking or fishing for compliments- I wanted to know, really, if I was doing anything that edified or helped anyone. If what I do is useless to people, why should I continue to go through the time and financial expense of doing it? Right?

I did receive some confirmation from people, and again, felt bad that I only had one or two people answer. None of my own friends and most of my family did not reply, either (then again, we all know a prophet has no honor in his home town), so even though I was somewhat uplifted by the couple of confirmations I received, I didn’t feel useful.

The Pity Party was well underway and I was praying to God (as I rode my bike to the gym) asking why he wasn’t helping me. And he answered me: I felt him telling me to look at the “popular” sites to see why they are so popular. So I did, and I also recalled many of the postings from people with many followers. And you know what I realized? 

I wasn’t a “happy” site. I don’t constantly post messages about the love of God and the forgiveness of Messiah. I don’t constantly post quotations from the Bible that relate how God saved me, how God has helped me, how God has been my shield and my salvation. I have never implied or stated that salvation is a “Come as you are” party (although, in a way, it is.) These are the types of things the “popular” sites post, and when I thought about it, it was also the type of messages you hear from the mega-churches. 

I don’t do that. Oh, well, every once in a while I do post about forgiveness, but it is mostly how God requires us to forgive others, not how he has forgiven us. I do post about God’s love, but it isn’t about how he loves us but how we should work to love others as he tells us we should. In fact, I rarely post about what God does for us and almost always post about what we are supposed to do for God.  

And that is what God was telling me: I am not popular because the messages I post aren’t about how God does things for people; I post about what people are supposed to do for God. 

In other words, I am preaching about what God wants from us instead of what God does for us. 

Yes-salvation is a “Come as you are” party, but it is NOT a “Stay as you were” party.  The popular messages are all about how Yeshua did away with the law, all food is good to eat, and you are forgiven now and always, known as “Once saved, always saved.”  The messages that are popular are the ones that tell you all about how God loves you and you don’t have to do anything different, just call on his name and be saved.  Don’t worry about changing your lifestyle or your desires, and when you make a mistake God will forgive you because Jesus loves you and died for your sins, so you are cleared for life. 

You will not hear any of that dribble from me. What I preach is what people need to know to continue in their salvation: the Torah is valid, God’s commandments are still necessary to obey, and salvation is given for free but costs a lot to keep. You must change, you must truly do T’shuvah (repent), and you must be an example to others of how God has changed you through your actions and your words. You are commanded to forgive or you will not be forgiven: how you judge will be the way you are judged: if you really want to follow Yeshua, you must pick up your execution stake and walk as he walked, which means in accordance with the Torah.

“Hey- this isn’t fun! Are you really telling me I can’t be forgiven unless I change? You’re saying that if I ask for forgiveness but I don’t change I won’t be ‘saved’ anymore? I can lose my salvation? You say I have to obey the Torah? Well, if that’s what you preach, forget you, Pal! I am going to listen to the other people who tell me how wonderful I am, how I am saved forever and no one can take it away from me. I want to hear how much God loves me just as I am; I want to be told I don’t have to do that ‘Jewish’ stuff because Jesus nailed it to the cross. I want to be assured that I will be in heaven for eternity no matter what I do because I called on Jesus’s name once.” 

Yes, that is what I am telling you. And I will take my lead from Hosea 4:6: “My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge.” 

That is how God crashed my Pity Party, and am I ever glad he did. I realize now that I may never be “popular” because I speak the hard truth that most people don’t want to hear. When I trained people (in the corporate world and as a mentor to volunteers) I did not hold back from telling the truth, even when it wasn’t pleasant for them to hear. I didn’t do that to hurt them but to help them become better. If everyone that takes a class passes, then the class work was too easy, and the students probably didn’t learn what they really needed to know. Just like when preachers tell all about the goodness of God and what he does for you- yes, God does much for you but he expects you to do much for him. And that is what people, who are naturally self-absorbed and selfish, do not want to hear. 

So I will remain unpopular. I will continue to speak the truth that God has, through his Ruach HaKodesh, inspired me to teach. I will not sugarcoat salvation or preach all about God’s love and forgiveness as a one-way street, only traveling from God to you.

Salvation is free to have but hard to keep. God says we are to be holy as he is holy, which means we are not to do as the world does. We are to separate ourselves from the world, spiritually and actively, so that when people see us they see what God wants us to be. Not what we want to be, but what God wants us to be. That is a message that will be popular only to the truly spiritual mature person, to the one who is humble before God, to the one who is here to serve and not to be served. 

My Pity Party was all about the fact that I wasn’t “popular” and because I didn’t have so many followers on my website and FaceBook that they were coming out of my ears. God crashed that party by showing me I would never be popular preaching the hard truths of salvation and T’shuvah.  He showed me that, like Jeremiah, like Elijah, like Elisha, and like most every single prophet we read about in the Bible, I was not going to be asked to the A-List parties.  

I was looking for human confirmation but God stepped in and took over, showing me that I was in good company by being unpopular. 
And you know what? I felt G-R-E-A-T when he did that! 

Kol Nidre Message 2018

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This night, September 18, 2018, is Kol Nidre, the eve of Yom Kippur. As such I would like to share the traditional message I used to give when I was “acting” Rabbi (for about 1-1/2 years) at the Northeast Philadelphia Messianic Synagogue I had attended for 17 years.

Before we go into the message, I have a beautiful rendering of the Kol Nidre prayer which you can watch by clicking on this link: Kol Nidre.

For centuries, the Kol Nidre prayer has been used as a polemic against the Jewish people, accusing us of being untrustworthy and stating that our word is useless.  At one point there was even a movement within Judaism to remove this prayer. That movement came to a stop once it was discovered that the prayer dates back to 17th Century Spain, where persecution of the Jews was taking place under the Inquisition. Many thousands of Jews were forced to forgo their beliefs and swear allegiance to Christianity or suffer torture and death.  That is why even though the Torah requires us to strictly adhere to any oaths we take, this prayer seems to be an anomaly; however, we are not asking to be released from valid oaths and contracts we make but only from those oaths we were coerced into making.

On this day, when we ask God to forgive us our sins, we must realize that we have an obligation to forgive those that have sinned against us.  And not just to forgive others, but to forgive ourselves, as well.

It is strange that we are willing sometimes to forgive others their sins against us but we will not forgive ourselves for sins we have committed against others. After all, if we love others enough to forgive them their sins, shouldn’t we love ourselves enough to forgive our sins? Doesn’t it say in Leviticus 19:18, “Love thy neighbor as thyself?” If we love our neighbor enough to forgive them, then shouldn’t we do the same for ourselves?

If I ask God for forgiveness but refuse to forgive myself, then I am placing myself above God!  So many times I have heard someone say, “How can God possibly forgive me for this?” That person doesn’t understand Grace and doesn’t understand that God is able to do so much more than we can.  In Romans 5:20 we are told that where sin is increased, so too is Grace.  There is no sin too great or too horrible for God to forgive. 

And God is not just willing to forgive: he desires to forgive! He is so compassionate that he assumes our sins are accidental.  Numbers 15:25-26 states that we will be forgiven from our sins we did “in error”; in other words, God assumes that we did not intend to sin but that we did it by accident!  What a wonderful demonstration of the compassionate understanding and forgiving nature of God! 

But let us not forget that disobedience of the Torah is still rebellion and a sin. And the wages of sin is still death (Romans 6:23.) However, because of God’s forgiving nature, he is willing to see our sins as his children making a foolish mistake.  However, that is no reason for you to get comfortable with your sin- sin MUST be removed from our lives if we want to be with God eternally. He may look upon us with compassion and love but he is still God, and there can be no sin in his presence.

Too many people have been taught that “Once saved, always saved” is how things work under the blood of Yeshua. That is a lie. We are not to take advantage of God’s willingness to forgive us and just assume he will, which can only lead to an attitude of unrepentance. If we think it is OK to sin now and then, that is like trampling the blood of Messiah into the dirt. Even though God understands it is our nature to do so, it is NEVER acceptable to sin.

Because we cannot overcome our nature, Yeshua came to earth and sacrificed himself for us so that through his goodness we have the opportunity to overcome our sinfulness.

Today we pray for forgiveness and ask God for the atonement of our sins. This is a process:

  1. First, we must recognize our sin and take responsibility for it so we recite the Al Chet prayer, also called the Ashamnoo (we are guilty);
  2. We must choose to do Teshuvah (repent) and remove sin from our lives;
  3. Once we have done these two things, only then can we ask God to forgive us. Because we cannot sacrifice at the Temple in Jerusalem, we ask forgiveness through the blood of the Messiah, who gave his life as a ransom for us over 2,000 years ago and through his innocent shedding of blood we can receive forgiveness (Messianic Jews/Hebrews 9:22.) 

Some of you may be asking why bother to go through fasting and prayer to ask forgiveness when we already have it through Yeshua ha Mashiach?  The answer is simple: because it is a commandment! Besides that, don’t we still sin? Don’t we still need to ask forgiveness? “Once saved, always saved” is hogwash and a lie from the pit of Sheol which is designed to keep us out of God’s Grace. We need to ask forgiveness of our sin(s) every single day! Maybe even more than once per day. So, nu? If we are to ask forgiveness any time we sin, why should we not ask on this day, the one day that God specifically said we should?  

Another reason is to show solidarity with our unsaved Jewish brothers and sisters. Look at the prayers we recite on this day (the Al Chet and the Amidah) – they ask forgiveness for the sins WE have committed. Not the sins I have, but the sins we have committed. These prayers are community prayers because in Judaism God sees the entire nation of Israel as a single entity. We are not just responsible for our own sins, but for the sins of all Jews; those who came before us and those who are with us. 

One last word: what we do on this day is not to be left in the Synagogue or Church- we are to take this attitude of Teshuvah and forgiveness for others out into the world. Going to Shul on the High Holy Days isn’t enough. We meet together to reinforce each other and to strengthen each other so that we are able to go back out there- back into the darkness to be a light. What we do today is what we should be doing every day.

So whether you are attending Shul all day or staying home and worshiping with God alone, take what you do out into the world with you tomorrow and every day thereafter.

Can God Save Someone Who Doesn’t Want to be Saved?

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We are all familiar with the passage that says anyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved. But what about those we pray for who are not saved, and who really don’t even care about it?

Maybe they don’t believe in God, maybe they don’t care, or maybe they think they are already saved because people have taught them the popular lie that many Christians have been taught, which is the “Once saved, always saved” theology.

How often have you prayed for someone who is sinning and likes it? Have you prayed that famous prayer, “Forgive them, Father, for they know not what they do?”   Will that work? Personally, I doubt it.  I have read the Bible many times and have experienced God’s blessings and also know what it is like to live outside of his Kippah (covering), which was for the first 40 years or so of my life. 

In my opinion, God can do whatever he wants to do, but he doesn’t want to make us love him or to defy the free will he has given each one of us.  That means if we pray for someone who doesn’t want to be saved, even when we invoke the name of Yeshua ha Maschiach, God will not force someone to be saved if they don’t want to be saved. 

Another way to look at it is to ask, “Will God forgive an unrepentant sinner?” I think we can all agree that although God, in his mercy and compassion may give blessings to one who rejects him (Matthew 5:45 says, “He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous.”), when it comes to forgiveness we must first do T’Shuvah (repent) in our hearts, then ask for forgiveness. When we do that, God will forgive. But if we do not repent, then he will not forgive.

I pray for my children and even for their mother (we divorced many years ago) because my children have been brought up by her to be ungodly (they’re not evil and horrid creatures, just like the rest of the world- ungodly) and I don’t know anyone who needs the love of the Lord more than that woman.  So I pray, in Yeshua’s name, over and over, nearly every day, and I trust that God is doing something. But I also know that it is, ultimately, up to them to turn to God.

He may strike them down, humble them, and give them some real Tsouris to make them realize they are not really in control and force them to look up to him. But he will not change their minds or use his awesome power to force them to worship him. He will influence their lives, but not to the point where they are made to love or worship him. Not even to the point where they have to admit he really exists.

I am not saying God will never make a miraculous appearance; he has done things like this in the past- Abraham, Jonah, Gideon, the parents of Samson, and Shaul on the road to Damascus, just to name a few. But overall, I trust that God will do exactly what needs to be done to convince someone to trust in him, but only to the point where anything more would be effectively taking away their right to choose. 

Where that fine line is drawn no one can tell, except God, and I trust him totally to do everything up to that point. If my children never turn to God or reconcile with me (my two constant prayers) then it isn’t God who I will blame, but them. They are old enough (more than old enough) to make up their own minds and even though their mother has been a constant bad influence on them, it is their own fault for rejecting God. And when I write this, believe that it hurts me to write it, and I believe it hurts God even more because he loves my children (who are also his) more than I ever could.

Does this mean we should stop praying for those that reject God? Heavens no!! We should continue to pray for those that need to be shown the path to salvation. If we do not pray for them then who will? God will intervene in their life to help them come to know and accept him, and we also should do so by showing them a good example of what it means to worship God and demonstrate to them God’s blessings in our life for obeying him.

Through our prayers and our example people can be convinced to choose God, which is to choose life. God won’t force them to choose him, but he can be very, VERY convincing. 

So, continue to pray for those that reject God and be an example of a godly person. Pray especially for those that think they are godly people because they have been taught that the Torah is only for Jews and they don’t need to obey any laws or commandments. They have been taught that they don’t need to obey anything in the Torah because are under the blood of Christ and saved by Grace. That is not true: by being told they don’t need to obey God or ask forgiveness because they are already saved, they are being taught to be unrepentant.

Be an example of an obedient, godly person, one who obeys from love and trust but not as a means of trying to earn salvation, and continue to pray for those that reject God. 

Our prayers are powerful and useful to everyone, godly or ungodly

What Religions and Lying Have in Common

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This is a simple post today, no video- just plain, old common sense backed up by the Bible.

Before we start, though, if you haven’t subscribed please do so today because any day now I will be posting my new book deals and you don’t want to miss out on that.

So, religion and lying: what they have in common is that both are designed to control others. 

Most people think that telling a lie is the way we avoid the truth. But it is a little deeper than that-  it is really a means of control designed to convince someone that there is a different truth than what they believe. As an example, I didn’t get a project I was supposed to complete done on time. You believe I am responsible, which is the truth but I tell you a lie: I say that a member of the team was late with their part and that prevented me from getting it done on time. If you believe me then I have, in effect, controlled you by changing what you believe to be the truth. I have made you believe a different “truth” than the real truth. 

Religions do the same thing. The truth is what God gave us, which is found in the Tanakh (the Old Covenant.) The Gospels confirm the laws of the Torah because that is what Yeshua taught his Disciples, and what they later taught the Gentiles who accepted Yeshua as their Messiah and were (thereby) converting to Judaism. 

Remember: Yeshua was and is Jewish, lived a Jewish lifestyle and those who followed him, by definition had to live a Jewish lifestyle, too. 

Where religion has tried to control people and give them a new belief system is in how leaders of different religions twist the truth of the Tanakh and the New Covenant (in Hebrew, B’rit Chasdasha) to make people believe what the leaders want them to believe.

For instance, in Judaism there are many additional rituals that are Rabbinic, i.e. found in the Talmud, which are not directly from God. Although I do not universally condemn these traditions, they do exercise a level of control over the Jewish people who are told they must conform to these activities to be “correct.”  God never required these, so to say we must follow them is to tell a lie and exercise a form of control. 

Christianity has, for the most part, totally ignored the Torah and misinterpreted much in the B’rit Chadasha to change the form of worship from what God commanded. For instance, they kept a “7th day Sabbath” but changed it from the way it had been celebrated; it should be from Friday eve to Saturday eve but they changed it to Sunday during the day only.

Another example of controlling lies within Christianity is how it has used Kefa’s (Peter) vision of the sheet in Acts 10 to do away with the Kosher laws by saying the vision meant all food is OK to eat. The truth is that his vision had nothing to do with food and was about allowing Kefa to bring salvation to the Gentiles, but I suppose the Christian leadership desired to eat pork rinds. 

One major aspect of lying that religion has in common is this: when you tell a lie, you have to keep expanding that lie. This is because there are always “loose ends” within a lie; you need to expand the lie as more people hear it and start to question the truth of it. As the old saying goes, “What a tangled web we weave when first we practice to deceive.” 

To me, this means if a religion is lying it will eventually need to “expand” itself, which will result in having to separate into different sects.

Within Judaism, there are 6 different sects: Chasidic, Orthodox, Conservative, Reform, Reconstructionist, and Messianic (although the other sects won’t recognize Messianic Jews as being Jewish- another lie  that religion has created to control people.) And within the Chasidim, we can probably list the Lubavitcher, also called Chabad, as a sub-sect. 

As for all the different sects and forms of Christianity, there isn’t enough server space for me to list them all. 

If we accept that a lie grows and grows, then all these religions that are supposed to stem from what God told Moses must be some form of a lie, right?  Now if you say what God told Moses is only for Jews, then you refute what Yeshua (Jesus) taught because the Apostle John called Yeshua the Living Torah- the Word that became flesh. If Yeshua is the Living Torah, then how could he teach anything that was against himself? 

So now that I have debunked, insulted and berated all of the Judeo-Christian religions, what is left for us? Simple- what is left is what God told us to do, what Yeshua told us to do, what Micah told us to do, what The Rambam (Maimonides) told us to do, what Shaul (Paul) told us to do, which is….to love God and to love each other.

God gave the Torah to the Jewish people to bring to the world:
(Exodus 19:6- “And unto Me you shall be a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.’ These are the words that you are to speak to the Israelites.”

The commandments found in the Torah are what Yeshua confirmed in all his teachings. Accept that the Old and New Covenants are one Bible, one story, one narrative of the plan of salvation God has for his creation and accept that the “New” did not override or do away with the “Old”- it added to it. The covenants that God has made with us are not exclusive, they are cumulative.

The world was meant to obey the Torah, which I can prove by pointing out that God said not to add to or take away from the Torah:
(Deuteronomy 4:2-“You shall not add to the word which I am commanding you, nor take away from it, that you may keep the commandments of the Lord your God which I command you.”

The Messiah was sent to the world to bring us all back to God, back to repentant obedience and to lead us into salvation. We are not to change anything God said, and anything that does change it is not from God but from Man. God gave us his rules for how to worship him and how to treat each other; men created religion in order to control people. 

What God gave us is the truth and what religion gives us is a lie. The challenge for each of us is to determine which is which.  

That which is from God is “Truth”, and that which is from Man is “Religion.”

Yeshua and the Adulteress: A Prospective.

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Chapter 8 (verses 1-11) of the Gospel of John tells the story of the Pharisees and Torah teachers bringing a woman accused of having been caught in an adulteress affair to Yeshua. They were trying to trap Yeshua in a way that they could bring charges against him. Yeshua wrote in the sand, asked the one without sin to throw the first stone, wrote in the sand some more and all the accusers left. The woman was then able to leave.

I have heard some people use this story as a means to show that Yeshua is more about love than about obeying the Torah, and repeat that old, worn-out analogy of the hateful and violent God of the Old Covenant vs. the loving and forgiving Messiah of the New Covenant. 

Well, that’s not what we are going to discuss today. Today I want to talk about the unanswered question…what did Yeshua write in the sand? 

I think I know! 

Let’s start with some assumptions that are pretty safe to say:

  1. Yeshua probably knew they were trying to trap him;
  2. There was something fishy from the start because there was no man brought with the woman. If she was “caught in the act” there had to be someone else there, right?  

So here we are: all the people Yeshua was teaching are standing around and the woman is in the center of the crowd.  The Pharisees ask Yeshua what is to be done with her, and he starts to write in the sand, then says that the one without sin should throw the first stone. So, what might he have written?

I think he wrote from Exodus 20:19, the Ninth Commandment: 

“Do not give false evidence against your neighbor.”

After this, he stated whoever is without sin throw the first stone. I think he knew that throwing the stone would absolutely convict the thrower of a sin because these were Torah experts, and the Torah demands that a trial must be held first. Anyone who threw a stone would be violating the Torah. 

After this, he wrote again in the sand, and this time everyone started to leave until no one was left but the woman and Yeshua. This second time I think he wrote from Deuteronomy 19:16-20, which says:

“If a false witness rises against any man to testify against him of wrongdoing, then both men in the controversy shall stand before God, before the priests and the judges who serve in those days.  And the judges shall make careful inquiry, and indeed, if the witness is a false witness, who has testified falsely against his brother, then you shall do to him as he thought to have done to his brother; so you shall put away the evil from among you.”

If the reminder from the Torah about not giving false evidence, i.e. bearing false witness didn’t scare them off, then this one certainly would have made them think twice. And because it says “brother” that law would obviously hold true for “sister”, as well. 

I believe the woman was falsely accused from the start, and Yeshua was aware of this. I don’t have anything to go on but speculation, based on the fact that there was no man brought with her, and that we know from reading the Gospels that the Pharisees were not above using false witnesses to achieve their goals. And, even if she was an adulteress, this was not the proper setting for a trial and Yeshua was not in a position of authority with the right to judge her according to the Torah. 

One last thing that is important to remember: Yeshua never forgave her of the sin she was accused of. He simply obeyed the Torah, which says that there must be two or three witnesses when there is a capital crime committed (Deuteronomy 19:15.) Yeshua asked her where her accusers were, and she said there was no one; in accordance with the Torah, Yeshua said he would not accuse her, either. 

And when he told her to go, he said, “…and sin no more.” Maybe this was because Yeshua knew she was a sinner (aren’t we all?), maybe there never really was an affair, maybe there was an affair but she was seduced into the crime to setup Yeshua this way, in which case it makes sense they would catch and hold her and let the man go. Who knows? That could make an interesting Drash some other day, but today all I am talking about is what he wrote in the sand to make everyone go away. 

If Yeshua wrote the things in the sand that I have postulated here, then the entire story makes sense.

What do you think he wrote? 

Another Catholic Church Scandal

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No video today, and some of you may even have noticed this isn’t my usual day for posting. I had to write this because of what I read this morning in the paper. 

In the Florida Today paper there is a Catholic Priest who has been relieved of his flock pending investigation of sexual abuse when he was in a Pennsylvania diocese. 

It isn’t the sexual abuse I find disturbing, which it is, but the story about the way the visiting Priest addressed the congregation about it. 

Copying from what the paper reported, here is part of the Priest’s message:

“Our Mother (Mary) teaches us to pray in moments of desperation…in moments of need. “

He also said:

“Our Lady is a lady of hope…(God) will never abandon us, he’s never going to abandon this church…Mary help us, we are so lost…”

I read this and sighed because they are so lost.  Will God abandon those who have abandoned him? The Bible teaches us that when we reject God he will allow us to be on our own.  Did this priest pray to God for help? No, he didn’t. Did he pray to Jesus for help? No, he didn’t. Did he pray to someone that has no divinity, no authority, and who (in fact) Yeshua disowned before he died? 

YES- he did!! 

“Oh, wait a minute, Steve! When did Yeshua ever disown his own mother?” 

John tells us this happened in his Gospel, Chapter 19 verses 25-27:

“Near the cross of Jesus stood his mother, his mother’s sister, Mary the wife of Clopas, and Mary Magdalene.  When Jesus saw his mother there, and the disciple whom he loved standing nearby, he said to her, “Woman, here is your son,”  and to the disciple, “Here is your mother.” From that time on, this disciple took her into his home.”  (NIV)

Essentially, Yeshua separated himself from the last “human family” he had before becoming the sacrificial lamb for all humanity. 

So when this priest said they are lost, he was more correct than he knows. There is absolutely no place at all in the Bible where Mary teaches anyone, anything. He says “Our Lady is a lady of hope..”; what happened to Jesus? And where is God all this time? Is there more hope for us in Mary than in Yeshua or God? In fact, when he called out to Mary to help them, he showed anyone who knows the Bible just how lost they really are- the epitome of the blind leading the blind. He was blindly calling for spiritual help to someone who can’t help them, ignoring the only One who can help them! Then, in the same breath, he says that One (God) will never abandon them, even though they clearly have abandoned him by praying to a human being.

And the congregation was (typically) blindly following. The paper says the message was well received by many, giving them hope. Hope in what? Where do they place their hope? In Mary? 

What about Psalm 33:20-22? We are told:

We put our hope in the Lord.
    He is our help and our shield.
 In him our hearts rejoice,
    for we trust in his holy name.
 Let your unfailing love surround us, Lord,
    for our hope is in you alone.

Don’t they read the Psalms in the Catholic church? Aren’t the priests trained in the entire Bible? 

Let’s go to the New Covenant…doesn’t Yeshua tell us the ONLY way to the Father is through the son?

How can the Catholic church leadership have missed all of this?

I am not saying this just to pick on the Catholic Church, although I have to say they do make it very easy to do so. No! I am trying to get them to open their eyes. They say they want to know why they have had such T’souris in the past 10 or more years? Well, I think it started much earlier than the past few years or decades. I started when they rejected God and Yeshua (except through lip service during the Mass) and began praying to their Saints, who are nothing more than people. It began when they filled their sanctuaries with graven images, knelt before them, and prayed to them. This is idolatry and unacceptable to God. They abandoned the path that Yeshua told them to walk, which is the same path along on which the Disciples led the Gentiles who accepted Messiah in the First Century. 

Instead, the modern church is following the ways of Constantine and subtle forms of pagan worship he introduced into the Canon he established at the Council of Nicene in the Third Century, which is the foundation for the modern Catholic church, as well as most of Christianity. 

As we come closer to the End Days, we see many Christians beginning to recognize the veil that has been pulled over their eyes, and they are beginning to know Yeshua for who he really is. And in doing so they want to learn and follow Torah, which is what he taught. They are rejecting the Constantinian doctrines and coming back to the style of worship that God commanded of us all.

I pray this continues so that as the Christians come to know their Messiah for who he really is, then the Jews will see that Christianity is becoming more like what it was when it started, i.e. Torah honoring people who have faithfully accepted Yeshua as the Messiah God promised to the world; to the Jew first, then to the nations. Perhaps when my Jewish brothers and sisters can see Gentiles who are praying to and worshiping God (alone) and honoring Torah, they will (finally) become jealous for their own Messiah. 

Pray for the Catholic church; but more importantly, pray for those 1.2 Billion or so Catholics throughout the world who are being led down the path to Sheol. Pray that their eyes open and their ears unclog so their hearts can become wise, and they can be saved before it is too late. 

Man oh man, do they ever need it! 

Why I Post the Things I Post

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No video today, but keep watching for my new book to be available soon.  If you haven’t already subscribed, please do so now to be notified of the release of my and to get in on the best deals. 

When I write these messages, which I prefer to the term “posts I try to take the biblical requirements for how we are to worship God and act towards each other and put them in a modern-day light. 

I also try to identify and debunk the wrong teachings that proliferate throughout the Christian world, as well as within Judaism, too. 

The reason for this is because the Bible is about how we should worship God and how we should treat each other. Too often I see people talking about things in the Bible that they take out of context and interpret in a way that works with the lifestyle they want to live. Of course, this has been happening since the first time God told us what he wants of us.

Jews still hold a “legalistic” view of the Torah and have been taught that Jesus started a new religion; Christians (pretty much) have been taught to completely ignore the requirements in the Torah because those are only for Jews. And within both Judaism and Christianity there have, over the centuries, been different sects and religions formed, each of which has their own rules of “this not that, and these not those.” All of these different religions and sects within a religion have the same goal- to act in the way the person who started that sect/religion wants to act. 

GOD HAS NO RELIGION!! He has his rules, laws, and commandments which tell us how to worship him and treat each other which are not just for Jews- they are for everyone. 

God gave the Torah to the Jewish people to bring to the world, which is why he told Moses that they will be a nation of priests for him (Exodus 19:6.)

All these different religions are man-made. As we have been told, “Seek and ye shall find”: when it comes to the Bible, everything we ever need or want is in there, somewhere, and if we look hard enough we can take enough things out of context and put them together to justify the Bible says to do just about anything.

My goal is to let people know what God really wants of them and try to give practical ways to live as God wants us to in our everyday lives. I believe that the Torah is still valid; Yeshua never did away with it. What he did was to teach the deeper, more spiritual meaning behind the laws that are there.  The Torah is the ultimate Catch 22: we can become righteous (saved) by perfect obedience to the Torah, but no one can be perfectly obedient to the Torah. 

So, Nu? Now what? 

Now what we do is to try to do our best, trust in God’s faithfulness to keep his promises (which he has shown throughout the Bible he will do) and ask for the Ruach HaKodesh (Holy Spirit) to guide us. We must read the Bible every day to learn about God, and to confirm for ourselves that every time our fathers failed to do as God said they should when they were repentant and called upon God for forgiveness, he forgave them.

God will let us fall to learn how to get up, and he is always there to give us a helping hand when we humbly and repentantly ask for it. 

One last thing: you will note that I do not do what the “popular” sites do, which is to preach only about God’s love and forgiveness. Salvation is not really a “come-as-you-are” party and the idea that “Once saved, always saved” is nothing more than Satanic propaganda. People who “want their cake and to eat it, too” are the ones that fall for this. Since most of the world is composed of people who are self-absorbed and hedonistic, these religious organizations and leaders preach to our flesh saying that you are fine as you are; just ask for forgiveness and you are forgiven and set for eternity. They appeal to our basic nature- lazy and selfish.  That is why they are so popular. Just listen to the rhetoric of the “Mega-churches” and you will hear all about the rosy-colored world of God’s love and forgiveness. 
But will they preach about tithing? Will they talk about Yeshua telling us we must lift up our execution stake and carry it if we wish to follow him? Do they tell us that salvation is easily attained but really hard to keep, or even that if we fail to be repentant or obedient we can throw our salvation away? 

Of course not- that would cause them to lose many of their followers. But it would be the truth. What they say about God’s love and forgiveness is true, but it is not the whole truth about God or salvation through Messiah. 

I try to tell it as it is, and I may be wrong. I am only human. But I try to justify whatever I say with showing where it is in the Bible and also ask for confirmation or correction from those reading what I write. I tell you all that you should not take my word for it, but check out everything I say for yourself. After all, I may be wrong! How will you know if you don’t check it out? And if I am, you are obligated to correct me. Proverbs 12:1 and 12:15 both say that a wise man loves correction, and I would certainly want to be wise. 

Just make sure you are nice about it. 

Thank you for visiting my site, reading my work, and especially for subscribing. If you aren’t already a subscriber, please do so if you like what you read. All that happens is that you get a notification of my posts.  And I’ll also ask, again, that if you like what you read here please share me out. 

Blessing to you and yours. 

Baruch HaShem!!