Author: Steven R. Bruck

Obedience or Legalism?

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I suppose before we begin this discussion you should know what I mean by “legalism.”

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For the purpose of this discussion, legalism is obeying the instructions God gave in the Torah, but not because we want to do what pleases God. On the contrary, legalistic obedience is when we obey because we want to earn God’s acceptance; in other words, faithfully and respectfully doing what God says because we recognize his authority and only want to do what pleases him is NOT the motivation behind legalistic obedience. Legalistic obedience is doing what we are told to do in order to earn salvation, and to be a “good little Believer.”

Obedience is also something that we need to identify. I wrote about obedience recently, and if you haven’t already read it, I suggest you take a moment or three and read it now before we go on. Here is a quick link to it: obedience message.

Now that we have these definitions out of the way, the question I want to discuss is this: Can our faithful desire to be obedient mutate into legalism?  I believe it can, and it does once we become more interested in the details of how to observe than the reason why we observe.

As an example: I have seen many people who are absolutely infatuated and obsessed with the lunar calendar. They are asking which lunar cycle to observe, and when a festival or Shabbat really begins. This is, in my opinion, a form of legalism because the moon phases aren’t what God wants us to observe- he wants us to observe the festival that the moon phases initiate.

In the ancient days, they didn’t have ABC news and weather to tell them the exact moment the new moon begins. They didn’t have the Internet or even a set of walkie-talkies so that the northern tribes could know when the moon was seen over Jerusalem.

What they had was a system of lighting fires on the tops of selected mountains as a signal to the other parts of Israel. Once the new moon (Rosh Chadosh) was officially spotted over Jerusalem, the word went out to the other parts of the country by means of these alert fires. And if the night sky was cloudy or they had bad weather, the new moon might have been already a day or two in that phase before the word went out that the festival started. Yet, we don’t read about God denying the people rains and making them infertile because they were a day late when celebrating Sukkot, do we? No, we don’t.

God, himself, tells us that legalistic obedience means nothing to him. The best place we see this is in Isaiah 1: 11-17 (CJB):

“Why are all those sacrifices offered to me?” asks Adonai. “I’m fed up with burnt offerings of rams and the fat of fattened animals! I get no pleasure from the blood of bulls, lambs and goats! Yes, you come to appear in my presence; but who asked you to do this, to trample through my courtyards? Stop bringing worthless grain offerings! They are like disgusting incense to me! Rosh-Hodesh, Shabbat, calling convocations — I can’t stand evil together with your assemblies! Everything in me hates your Rosh-Hodesh and your festivals; they are a burden to me — I’m tired of putting up with them! “When you spread out your hands, I will hide my eyes from you; no matter how much you pray, I won’t be listening; because your hands are covered with blood. “Wash yourselves clean! Get your evil deeds out of my sight! Stop doing evil, learn to do good! Seek justice, relieve the oppressed, defend orphans, plead for the widow.”

God is not looking for the type of obedience that is performance-oriented. He wants us to do what is right! He wants us to treat each other with love and compassion, and understanding…just as he does when we try to do what he wants from us. That is why if your observance is a day late, or based on the Gregorian calendar instead of a lunar calendar perfectly oriented to Jerusalem, God doesn’t care. What he cares about is that you do observe the festival.

Remember that a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years like a day to God (Psalm 90:4); do you really think he is so nick-picky that a couple of hours or starting your celebration half-a-day or so off from Jerusalem will make it unacceptable to him?
I don’t think so.

Other legalistic activities that I have seen deal with God’s holy name, which is the four letters we call the Tetragrammaton. Too many people want to use his name as often as they would use anyone else’s name. They justify it with the improper interpretation of the biblical terms that are similar to “call on his name” or “proclaim his name”; the proper meaning of those types of terms, given the cultural usage at that time, was meant to proclaim who and what God is, with regards to his renown, his authority and his reputation. To call on the name of the Lord doesn’t mean to pronounce the Tetragrammaton; no, it means to look to God for salvation, help, and guidance. To call upon his name is to pray to God. It doesn’t mean you have to know how to pronounce his name, and it certainly doesn’t mean to use his name whenever and as often as you want to. In my opinion, those who we would label as “Holy Namers” are being legalistic and missing what calling on the name of the Lord really means.

There are other versions of legalism, and there is probably at least one version of legalistic observance for every commandment God gave. The difference is not in what you do, but why you do it.

If you are really into details and want to be as perfectly observant as you can be, there is nothing wrong with that SO LONG AS your heart is set on pleasing God and doing what he says because he says to do it. That is faithful obedience. Even when you miss the mark, forget a festival, eat a Hostess pie during Hag haMatzot (by accident, of course) or go out to buy something you need on Shabbat, God understands. I am not saying that to sin is OK, but being perfectly obedient to earn God’s acceptance will not be accepted.

God knows the heart, and he knows who you are praying to when you seek him. Don’t get so involved in the details of what you are doing that you lose sight of why you are doing it. Be obedient because you love God and your obedience is the result of your trust in his judgment, your desire to please him, and your faithful belief that whatever God says to do, it is for your own good. Don’t try to understand why, don’t make excuses why you don’t have to, just be honest with God and with yourself and do what you can because God said you should.

Anything more than obedience from love, thankfulness, respect, submission to his authority, or desire to please him will lead you to legalism, and then no matter what you do or how well you do it, it will be a waste of time.

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Until next time, L’hitraot and Baruch HaShem!

Parashah Chayei Sarah 2019 (Life of Sarah) Genesis 23 – 25:18

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Sarah dies and Abraham buys a field that also has a sepulcher so that he can bury her.  He then has his most trusted servant, Eliezer, go back to the land from which Abraham came, to his own people in order to get a wife for Isaac. Under no conditions, though, is Eliezer ever to bring Isaac back to Ur.

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Eliezer stops at a well, which would be the place all the women would eventually come to and asks God for a specific sign that would identify the woman God wants to be Isaac’s wife. Rebekah, the granddaughter of Abraham’s brother Nachor, does exactly what Eliezer asked God to have the woman he chose to do, and immediately gives her gifts. When she returns to her tent, her brother, Laban sees the gifts and goes back to the well to bring Eliezer into their tent.

Time out.

Laban is motivated to be hospitable only because of the gifts Rebekah received. We can here see, for the first time, Laban’s true nature. Later in this book, we will see more of his greed and treachery in the way he treats Jacob.

Time in.

Eliezer is invited to eat but refuses to do so until he is able to secure their permission to bring Rebekah back to Isaac to be his wife. Rebekah agrees to go, and Laban, who seems to be speaking in the place of the father as leader of the family, also agrees to let her go (of course he would, given how rich Abraham is) and they leave the next day to return to Abraham. Isaac sees Rebekah on their way back, takes her into his mother’s tent and their marriage is consummated.

The parashah ends with the death of Abraham.

I could go on forever about this section of the Torah, the story of the first Patriarch of Judaism. There are many lessons for us here, but what struck me as I was reading was the prayer of Eliezer to have God give him a sign. It made me think about when Yeshua told Satan, quoting from the Tanakh (of course), that we are not to test the Lord, our God. I thought to myself, “Is it proper to ask God to provide a sign? Isn’t that the same thing as testing him?”

I believe there is a difference between asking for a sign and testing the Lord, but what is it?

In Judges 6:36-40, Gideon “threw the fleece before the Lord” in order to make sure that it was God speaking to him. This was, in truth, a test. After the fleece was found wet and the ground around it dry, Gideon then asked God to do it again, but this time have the fleece dry and the surrounding ground wet. And when he asked for God to give a sign twice, he apologized to God. To me, this indicates Gideon knew that what he was asking from God was wrong.

God tells us the only manner in which we are allowed to test him is in relation to tithing, which we find in Malachi 3:10, and that test is to first give the proper tithe, after which God will shower you with more blessings than you can imagine. This test is one where we don’t ask God to do something, but we do something that God promises to reward. It is a test of the Lord, but not a test of who or how powerful he is, rather that he is trustworthy to keep his promises.

I think the difference between asking for a sign and testing the Lord has to do with the reason we ask. If I am in need of confirmation that I am doing something right in God’s eyes, and I ask him to show me what he wants, that is not a test. It is a genuine request for help. However, if I tell God that unless he gives me a sign I will not believe in him…to me that sounds more like a test than asking for a sign.

Faith – true faith – is not asking God to prove anything. True faith is choosing to believe, without any proof. I don’t need a sign, or a miraculous event, or even a confirmation from someone else for me to believe that God exists and that he hears my prayers. Of course, when he does answer my prayers I am grateful, and it does confirm my faith; but because my faith is by choice and not based on any specific event, when I don’t get an answer it doesn’t reduce my faith.

I don’t need “proof” because I have faith; anyone who needs proof doesn’t have faith, and frankly, even if they believe because they got proof”, their faith will always be weak.

I believe, in fact I know, that anyone who believes in God because of some miraculous event will be the first to apostatize because we know (from reading Revelation) that the Enemy and the minions of the Enemy will perform many miracles, which will turn many away from the true faith. If your faith is based on a miracle, your future is questionable because if one miracle convinces you that God is real, then another miracle will turn you from God to Satan.

Now that we have discussed this, I think it is safe to say that when you pray to God and ask for signs or confirmation that will help you stay in his will and show you what he wants from you, that is acceptable and even a good thing to do. On the other hand, if you find yourself asking God to prove something, that is testing him.

Satan wants us to test God because he can perform miracles that will fool us into thinking he is God, and by the time we realize we were fooled, it will be too late. Eve found out too late that she had been fooled- don’t let that happen to you.

Thank you for being here; I hope this has been edifying and if so, please subscribe and share me out. I also welcome comments.

Shabbat shalom, and until next time L’hitraot and Baruch HaShem!

Grace isn’t Forgiveness

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Too often I hear people talking about grace as if it is synonymous with forgiveness, and forgiveness as if it is synonymous with mercy.  It isn’t, and they aren’t.

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Grace is the way God shows his love for us. The best form of grace we have is that God sent Yeshua the Messiah to make a way for us to be able to avoid the punishment we all deserve.

Grace isn’t mercy, either. Mercy is nothing more than a reduction in the severity of some action, such as being punished. For example, we may be eligible for 10 years of hard labor, but a merciful punishment will take into account extenuating circumstances and maybe reduce the time to 5 years. Mercy doesn’t absolve us from punishment, it simply makes the punishment less severe.

Forgiveness is not grace or mercy- it is the removal of guilt. When we do something wrong, we are guilty and forgiveness removes that guilt. On a spiritual level, it allows us to come back into communion with God. On a physical level, it can allow a relationship to be restored, either fully or partially.

Forgiveness does not automatically absolve us from the consequences of what we did wrong. In the physical world, we almost always will have to face the consequence of our sin, whether forgiven or not; however, in the spiritual realm, when God forgives our sin it means our guilt against God is removed, meaning there will be no eternal consequences.

Grace is what God feels because he loves us so much, and because of his grace he will have mercy on us when we do wrong, and when we accept Yeshua as our Messiah, through him God will forgive our sins and remove our guilt.

So, in a nutshell, here is how it works: God’s mercy results in people being punished less than they deserve for their sins, and his forgiveness is available to remove our guilt when we accept the ultimate form of his grace, which is Yeshua the Messiah.

Any questions?

Thank you for being here. Please subscribe and share this out if you like what you have read. I welcome your comments and look forward to the next time we are together.

Until then, L’hitraot and Baruch HaShem!

 

 

Parashah Vayyera (And he appeared) Genesis 18 – 22

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We begin with Abraham sitting under the terebinths just chilling out when three men (who are really angels) appear to him. He performs the usual act of kindness that was culturally expected of him, asking them to stay, wash their feet and giving them food and drink. After partaking of his hospitality, one of the three tells him that next year Sarah will have given birth to a boy. Sarah laughs (hence the name Yitzchak, which means “to laugh”) and as they leave one of them tells Abraham what is to happen to Sodom and Gomorrah.

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Abraham, thinking of Lot, pleads with the angel not to destroy the cities if there are but 50 righteous men found there, and the angel agrees. Abraham manages to negotiate down to saving the city for the sake of just 10 righteous men, but there weren’t even that many.

The angels find Lot and are invited to his house overnight, but the men of the city come to force the strangers to participate in homosexual sex  (hence the term “sodomize”), and to prevent that Lot offers his two virgin daughters instead. Before anything can happen, the men of the city are struck blind by the angels, who tell Lot to get out of Dodge now. Lot delays until the early morning and is forcibly taken out, with his daughters and his wife. The wife lags behind and looks back, which results in her being turned into a pillar of salt, while Lot escapes the destruction with his two daughters,

They live in a cave and the daughters get him drunk so that without his knowledge they sleep with him, one daughter one night and the other daughter a second night. They are each impregnated and their children give rise to two of the ancient enemies of Israel, the Ammonites and the Moabites.

Meanwhile, Abraham is moving on, as well, and settles near the kingdom of Abimelech.  As he had done in Egypt, he asks Sarah to pretend to be his sister and when Abimelech sees her, he takes her for himself as a wife. He never approaches her and God comes to him in a dream, warning him against doing anything to Sarah because she belongs to Abraham. God tells the king to have Abraham pray for him, and eventually, Abraham and Abimelech swear an oath of friendship and Abraham secures his rights to a well he dug, the Well of Seven (Beer-Sheva.)

The final chapter of this parashah is called the Akedah, the Binding of Isaac. This is one of the earliest and best known Messianic references since Abraham is asked to sacrifice his only son, indicating the future sacrifice of the Messiah by God. We all know the story: Abraham takes Isaac to a place God tells him about, which is Mount Moriah. Isaac is bound and placed on a pyre, and just as Abraham is about to kill him, an angel calls from heaven to stop. God tells Abraham that because of this act of faithful obedience, the promises he has made will be fulfilled. Abraham sees a ram stuck by its horns in a bush, and sacrifices that to God (which is why the ram’s horn is the preferred horn to be used for the Shofar.)

I am interested in the situation with Lot’s two daughters who escaped with him. We read in Genesis 19:14 that Lot went to his sons-in-law to ask them to join him in leaving the city, so it seems that Lot also had two married daughters. Sadly, they and their husbands did not take Lot seriously when he told them the city would be destroyed. Those daughters had become subjects of their environment, choosing to reject salvation in order to remain in the sinful city, despite the fact that their father told them of the coming destruction.

The two daughters who escaped with Lot performed a heinous act by seducing their own father in order to make sure that his bloodline continued. They were true “daughters of Sodom” and by their actions demonstrated not only were they comfortable with the sexual perversity of the place where they grew up but that they also had no faith in God.

Abraham was truly unique, growing up in a paganistic environment, yet knowing and believing in the one, true God. His environment didn’t affect his righteousness or his morals. However, even though Lot was raised by Abraham, a righteous man, Lot did not learn anything from Abraham. Abraham was humble and generous, but Lot was self-centered and selfish. We can see this when Abraham asked Lot to choose where he will settle, and Lot chose the best possible land, despite its proximity to the sinful city of Sodom.  Lot married into this culture and allowed his daughters to also marry into the culture of Sodom, whereas Abraham made Eliezer promise to get a wife for Isaac from his own people, even though it was a fair distance away (Genesis 25:20.)

Are we allowing our children to be influenced by their environment to the point where they might accept sin over our advice? Are we careful to watch what they see on TV and in the movies? To control which video games they play? To know who their friends are and what their parents are like?

I was not able to raise my children, who lived with their mother two states away. Although I tried to see them every weekend, I was unable to influence them because the few hours I spent with them couldn’t overcome the “24/7/365” their mother had with them. Eventually, because I tried to show them the right way to act and get them to know God, which was against what their mother had been doing, my efforts resulted in them cutting me out of their lives. Thanks be to God, I have reconciled with my son, but his older sister still has nothing to do with me, despite my earnest pleas in a letter to her every year on her birthday. And it kills me that I have not been able to save their eternal souls by teaching them how to overcome their environment.

I see young people today that are totally blinded by technology and trust what they are exposed to by the Internet and the media, which are tools of Satan. Satan is the prince of the power of the air (Ephesians 2:2) and that is how what our children see and hear every day is delivered to them. Too many parents today are more concerned about being a friend to their child than being a parent, and the Bible is clear that without proper discipline, a child will not be saved (Proverbs 23:14.)

You may say that in today’s world it is impossible to prevent a child from being exposed to the sins and perversity of the world, and you would be correct. So how do we keep them from being absorbed into this culture of corruption?

By example. Parents, uncles, aunt, grandparent, friend…whatever relationship you have with a child, you must be an example of righteousness. Even if you are fearful of losing that child’s love or companionship, you must present yourself as an example of proper moral and spiritual living. The Bible tells us that if we bring up a child in the way they should go, they will remain in it (Proverbs 22:6); personally, I find this not to be true in every case. I am sure Abraham was an excellent example to Lot, and we know how that turned out. However, that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try.

You never really know in which way you are influencing a child until they grow up. I know many of the things I found uncomfortable and annoying about my parents ended up being good for me. And I didn’t realize this until I was fully grown, and appreciated it, even more, when I had children of my own.

Lot wasn’t a good example to his daughters, and what resulted from that was his children became sworn enemies of his uncle’s children. Eventually, the descendants of Lot (children raised to accept sinfulness) were destroyed by the descendants of Abraham (those raised to obey God.)

It’s never too late to start being righteous or to teach your children to obey God. I believe that the world is overpowering the youth of today, influencing them in a way that makes it very difficult for parents to fight against. When I was a child, we didn’t have anything that was as powerful an influence as the Internet, TV, movies and the media are today. The parents of today have an especially hard job when it comes to keeping their children “clean” because there is really no way, other than physical isolation, to prevent our kids from being exposed to the sinfulness of the world.

The only chance our children have is for us to be the kind of example that will shine so brightly and make such a lasting impression on them that even if they should stumble and fall victim to the world, they will always have in their memory the image of righteousness that might, one day, bring them out of the dark and back into the light.

Be the best example of righteousness you can be, keep vigilant, keep watching what they do, and keep praying to God for the spiritual and physical protection of your children. Just as Yeshua prepared and warned his Talmudim before sending them out into the world, we must do the same for our children.

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I wish you Shabbat shalom, and until next time, L’hitraot and Baruch HaShem!

Faith is Only the Beginning

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We are saved by faith…how many times have you heard that said? When you hear it, do you ever think “Am I really faithful?”

I do. Every day I try to be more faithful, but what does that mean, really?

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Is being faithful believing in God? Is it enough to believe he exists and that the Bible accurately describes him and all he has done? That is not enough- every demon from hell has seen him on his throne and was there when he created everything. And they’re not saved.

Does it mean believing that Yeshua is the Messiah? Yes, that is necessary, but that’s not enough (again) because every demon from hell doesn’t just believe Yeshua is the Messiah, they know it…absolutely! They have seen him and they know he is God’s son. But they’re not saved.

So, nu?  If believing in God and Yeshua as the Messiah isn’t enough, what do I have to do to be “faithful” enough to be saved?

The answer was given to us two millennia ago when Yacov (James) wrote in his letter to the Messianic Jews in the Diaspora that faith without works is dead.

James notes that Abraham’s faith was credited to him as righteousness not only because he believed what God told him, but because he acted on it! Abraham took his belief to the next, and necessary step to be faithful, by doing what God told him to do. His belief wasn’t just passive, it was active and demonstrated by his actions.

You may say, “But God knows the heart, and if I really want to be good and if I fail, God will know and forgive me.”

I have heard this from people more than a few times, and I worry for them because they are, without realizing it, telling God what he will do. I recall how God felt about the friends of Job when they assumed to know what God does and why.

God is forgiving, and he will forgive, but not automatically- you have to ask for it. And, you have to really be repentant in order to receive it.

When it comes to being faithful, we have to have a LOT more than just believing that God is God and Yeshua is the Messiah: we have to become better. And when I hear people say they will try to be better, my answer to them is the same as Jedi Master Yoda gave to Luke Skywalker, “Do or do not: there is no try.”

“But I am weak, I am a sinner from birth, no one is without sin!” Yes, that is all true, but that doesn’t mean you can’t be better than you are. If you want to be with God forever, you need to do more than just believe: you must have faith that is strong enough to spur you to action.

“But what must I do? How do I know what God expects of me?” The answer is in the Bible, specifically the first 5 books, which we call the Torah. No one can perform every law, regulation, commandment, and requirement that is in the Torah, but we can certainly do more than we are doing now.  When your faith causes you to become more of what God wants you to be by acting more in the way God wants you to act, then your faith is strong enough to ensure your salvation.

So long as you maintain it. Faith is something that comes to us with difficulty because it means giving up what we are used to, and for that very same reason, it is something that is too easily lost.

Shaul’s letters were written to Gentiles just learning about God and his instructions. Their faith was tested daily because their entire environment was against them, and they had to make a total U-turn in their behavior to show their faithfulness. You can see this in every letter Shaul wrote to the Gentile Believer congregations he started because he addressed the problems that their weak faith caused, which was human selfishness and other sinful activities. His admonishments regarding the Torah were not meant to teach people to ignore it but slowly learn how to live it. He was teaching people raised in a hedonistic and sexually perverted lifestyle how to live in a completely righteous way. Not an easy task, and so he didn’t try to force the entire Torah down their throats all at once, but instead to have them drink milk until they could have pureed Torah, and eventually they would be able to handle the “meat” of God’s word.

But a discussion of Shaul’s influence on the early Gentile Believers is beyond the scope of this message.

Your faith is measurable by your actions. There is a scale that God will use to judge each and every one of us, so we need to make sure that the side of the scale we want to be heavy on is our obedience to God’s instructions.  That is what James tells us is the true measure of our faith.

I will leave you with this last question: if you saw a hand writing a message on the wall, are you absolutely positive that the things you have said and done will demonstrate that your faith is enough to measure up?

Thank you for being here and please subscribe. Share me out, and if you like what I do then please consider buying my books (available through my website) and I always welcome your comments.

Until next time, L’hitraot and Baruch HaShem!