Author: Steven R. Bruck
Jesus is Not a Horse.
With a title like this, I can only imagine what you must be thinking. Is this picture going through your mind right now?
And the next thing you must be thinking is: “Why would Steven even think such a thing?”
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Well, the answer is because I have seen, more than once, someone posting that when we pray to “Jesus” we are really praying to a horse because in Hebrew “Jesus” means “horse.”
Today, I am going to put to rest this ridiculous and absurd statement, which shows nothing more than a total lack of knowledge of the Hebrew language.
First of all, let’s review the type of words known as Homophones. A homophone is a word that sounds like another word but doesn’t have the same meaning. Some examples are:
blue and blew; you and ewe; brake and break; flour and flower,
and there are many, many more examples. As you can see, just because two words sound the same doesn’t mean that they mean the same thing.
The name “Jesus” is not a real name; in fact, it has a very strange etymology.
I know there will be different opinions on the etymology of the name “Jesus”, so I would ask that you who disagree with the one I am about to propose please do not comment and argue the validity of my usage here because it is not relevant to the topic.
The Hebrew name given to the Messiah born of Joseph and Mary is Yeshua, which in Hebrew means (essentially) “the salvation of God.” When the Apostles wrote down their eye-witness accounts of the ministry and life of the Messiah, as well as the Epistles, written to the Messianic congregations throughout the Middle East and Asia, the language used was Greek. However, the Greek language had no male name that meant “the salvation of God”; in fact, not only was there no name that “Yeshua” could be translated into, but the Greek religion and culture had nothing in it that even came close to meaning “salvation of God.” Their gods didn’t do things like that. So, what they did was to create a transliteration, which is a word spelled so that it sounds like the word being translated; in effect, they created a homophone to sound like Yeshua.
That Greek homophone for “Yeshua” was”Jesu”, which is pronounced “hey-soo”. When the Greek was translated into Latin, Jesu became Jesus (Hey-soo to hey-soos.)
With me so far?
Next, we need to look at the Hebrew word for horse, which is סןס, pronounced “suse” In Hebrew, “the” is the letter Het (ה) placed in front of the word it identifies and is pronounced “hah”; therefore, in Hebrew “the horse” is pronounced “Hah-suse.”
Sounds like hey-soos, but isn’t hey-soos.
So there you have it! Those people who say praying to Jesus is really praying to a horse believe a homophone is a synonym, demonstrating such a total lack of knowledge of Hebrew that they, themselves, are a horse.
Or, more correctly, one specific part of a horse, and in case you don’t know which part, I will give you a hint: it’s the part that goes through the stable door last.
Normally I post things more spiritual in nature, and I suppose the spiritual aspect to today’s lesson in homophones and their misuse, is that we are all easily led astray to believe what seems easy to accept. In truth, sometimes that which sounds very “deep” and mystical is also something people desire to know. To “understand” a hidden message is to feel superior, which is how most humans like to feel. To think that we can say the name “Jesus “really means “a horse” might seem appealing, especially those who (I admit, like me) have always been uncomfortable with the name “Jesus”, but in truth, it is an insult to the Messiah and to God.
So be careful what you accept as truth from people: always check out what you hear, whether it sounds absolutely true or absolutely ridiculous because you never know what something really means until you find it out for yourself.
And what you believe, whether you have been fooled into believing it or not, is what God will hold you accountable for.
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I welcome comments and even arguments, so long as you are nice.
Until next time, L’hitraot and Baruch HaShem!
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This Speech is Worth Listening to
I received this through an email from the Israel Video Network and although it is almost 14 minutes long, I ask that you listen to it.
This woman is telling the United Nations the truth about Israel and Muslim tactics, which is not to destroy just Israel but to destroy Democracy and freedom throughout the Earth.
Brigitte Gabriel defends Jews in one of the best speeches the UN has ever heard
Am I Preaching to the Choir?
I write these messages three times a week. They are automatically posted to the Messianic Moment page associated with my “public” Facebook page, and I share them on a number of discussion groups of which I am a member.
Recently, as I was going through my Facebook notifications, writing my opinion and answering comments, it struck me that although I am sharing, learning and teaching in these groups, as are the other members, I realized that I was preaching to the choir.
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After all, aren’t the members of these groups already Believers? Yes, they are (or at least they profess to be), and aren’t the statements and interpretations we share staying in this group and (maybe) not being taken into the darkness, where they are most desperately needed?
We who are members of discussion groups and go to congregational meetings, whether that be a Bible study in someone’s home, a synagogue or a church, are there with “birds of a feather”, so to speak, and even though we can edify, educate and support each other, that is not the only place where we are supposed to be talking about God, Messiah and the future of people. The place we are really supposed to be spreading this word is out there in the world- to the uninitiated, the incorrectly taught, the atheist, the unbeliever and the lost.
I have this blog designed to automatically post to my Messianic Moment page, but will now start to make sure it is also posted on my regular, public Facebook page so that all my friends, my family, and acquaintances can see it.
If you find yourself absorbed in discussion groups but not posting or sharing posts from those groups to your public Facebook friends (the ones that are worth sharing- be selective), I would ask you to start doing so. And talk about God, using discernment and discretion, at work, at play, and everywhere you go, to both those you know and to strangers.
I will often take something from the Bible that fits into the conversation and add it as something I have read or heard someone say once. I wait for a response while observing their body language, and if they seem interested I will tell them it comes from the Bible. Then I again wait to see if they ask where or who said it, and if so then I can segue into talking about God and Messiah, gently and in a way to maintain their interest through asking them questions. I will also ask if I can give them my card, which has my logo and my website URL.
Sharing with like-minded people is always comforting, and it is a way we can recharge our spiritual batteries and strengthen us to go back into the darkness and shed light there. Our community meetings are for worship (of course), but also for recharging our spirits, learning new discussion and teaching techniques, and getting answers to objections we have faced but couldn’t respond to. Being strengthened to take the Word to the world is a very important part of what the Believing community is for. Our main goal and our main calling is not to be with each other, but to be out there, in the world, in the darkness and amid the unsaved and unsavory, in order to be their light and show them the pathway to salvation.
I will finish with this: if you haven’t really been sharing what you learn in discussion with other Believers with the non-Believers, get off your tuchas and spread the word. Nothing can grow until it has been planted.
Thank you for being here, and please, if you like what I am saying here, subscribe and share my messages. I also welcome your comments and only ask that you be nice.
Until next time, L’hitraot and Baruch HaShem!
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Parashah Behar 2019 (On the mount) Leviticus 25 – 26:2
In this reading from the Torah, we are given the instructions for celebrating the Sabbatical Year and the Year of Jubilee.
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The Sabbatical year (called the Shemita) is the Shabbat rest for the land. Just as every seventh day the people rested, every seventh year the land would also get a rest. God promised that the sixth year produce would be great enough to be able to feed the land-owner not just for the sixth year, but for the next two years, as well, until the planting that started in the year after the Sabbatical year was harvestable.
Sounds just like the promise (that God kept, of course) regarding the collection of Manna on the sixth day lasting for two days over the Shabbat instead of morning to morning, as it did on the other six days of the week.
The Shemita also gave us rest from the burden of debt, in that all debts were to be released in the Shemita year. This was only for debts within the Israelite community and did not affect debts to or from non-Israelites.
The Jubilee year (called the Yovel) occurs the year after every 7th Shemita year or every fiftieth year. It is a year of rest, as well. Not just a rest for the land, but a rest from slavery or debt-bondage. In the Jubilee year, all property was to be returned to the hereditary owner and all slaves (again, only fellow Israelites) were to be set free. In fact, the Jubilee Year was the basis for buying and selling of land and people in debt-bondage, in as much as the cost of land or freedom from bondage was to be prorated (you could say amortized) based how much production from the land or person could be expected by the next Jubilee Year.
Why all this resting? Didn’t God know about Type A personalities? What are they supposed to do with themselves when there is no work to be performed?
Maybe God instructed these different times of rest (Shabbat, Shemita, and the Yovel) so that we could have a moment in which to stop worrying about our life and start thinking about our eternity? Maybe God was thinking that if he made sure we had nothing that required us to concentrate on ourselves or what we were doing we could then concentrate on what is really important- where we will be going?
People are inherently self-centered. That doesn’t necessarily mean we are selfish or egotistic, it just means that when we receive input from the world, we identify and relate it to personal experience and understanding. Essentially, we are each of us the center of our universe, and as such we relate everything to ourselves. When we have nothing to worry about, nothing to occupy our time doing, we then can settle down and expand our vision, so to speak, to see things from someone else’s eyes.
In the Bible, God gives us his view of the world and the people in it. We are given the opportunity to see and understand things from a different viewpoint. And, when there is nothing else to do but study the Bible, we can mature both spiritually and emotionally because we learn to see things the way others see it.
Notice that I say we have the opportunity to see and understand other’s viewpoint- as with everything in life, there are those who will open their minds and hearts to others, and there are those that refuse to acknowledge anyone else’s feelings or opinions.
Every covenant and promise God has given to us, he has given as an open-ended agreement. He always keeps his end of the bargain, but we have the choice to accept or reject his covenants and promises. The way we demonstrate acceptance or rejection is through obedience. When we obey God’s instructions that he gave in the Torah (which Yeshua confirmed and discussed in spiritual terms), we will receive those things that God promised. When we disobey, be it by volition, ignorance, or instruction from others (meaning a religion’s doctrine), we reject God and will not receive all the blessings he has for us.
God isn’t just willing to bless us, he desires to bless us tremendously, and how much we receive is directly proportional to how well we follow his instructions. He wants us to obey as a love response and result of trusting him, but he doesn’t care why we disobey.
I am going to finish this message with what I believe is a really interesting thought- you don’t have to wait for one of God’s Shabbat rests before you rest. You can take a Shabbat any time you want to. Since I have retired, I am still active (as my ministry work online shows) but I am now in what I like to call a perpetual Shabbat. I don’t hafta do nothin’ if I don’t want to, and I am much more relaxed than I ever was when I was a member of the Rat Race. Don’t get me wrong- I liked my job, but I like not having to do it even better!
Enjoy the Shabbat that God has instructed you to enjoy. Take a break from your own life and learn about others. Expand yourself, emotionally and spiritually, by concentrating on something and someone other than yourself. You’ll find it very restful.
Thank you for being here, and please don’t forget to subscribe to the website and my YouTube channel: click on the Messianic Moment icons in the corners of the video and on the subscribe button in the right-hand margin on the website.
I welcome comments and whether you agree or vehemently disagree, all I ask is that your comments be made in a nice way.
Tonight begins God’s weekly Shabbat, so I wish you all Shabbat Shalom!
Until next time….L’hitraot and Baruch HaShem!
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Is the Whole New Covenant Really Necessary?
Many Christians have been taught almost exclusively about God and the Messiah from the New Covenant writings. This is like reading the sequel to a book without reading the first book.
By the way, there won’t be a video today because I am not home.
The New Covenant, in Hebrew called the B’rit Chadashah, starts with the 4 Gospels: Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, and then has letters written by Shaul (Paul), James, Luke, and John. The letters written by Shaul make up nearly 2/3 of the entire B’rit Chadashah.
The letters written by the Apostles (known as the Epistles) were written to new Messianic congregations throughout the Middle East and parts of Asia. They were addressed to specific congregations to help them overcome specific problems they were having. As such, unlike the Gospels and Revelation, these letters are about God, Messiah and the Torah but are not from God or from Messiah. They are from the leaders of the Messianic Movement (mostly from Shaul), reminding and leading these troubled congregations back into proper worship and social behavior.
This is important to know: their inclusion as scripture and God inspired writings was a decision made by Gentiles who had been taught that Christianity (which is what the Messianic movement of the First Century had become) was separate and unique from Judaism.
The Gospels are absolutely necessary for us to have because they complete the story God began with creation, and the promise to Abraham that his seed would be a blessing to the entire world. After all, what better blessing could there be than the Messiah who provides forgiveness of sin and the opportunity to be with God for all eternity?
The Old Covenant, known in Hebrew as the Tanakh, is also absolutely necessary for everyone to know because it is God’s story of creation, and in the Torah (the first 5 books) God gives us his instructions regarding how we are to worship him, and how we are to treat each other. It is the ultimate User’s Manual for salvation.
In the Tanakh we have the story of creation, how God chose a righteous man and made a nation of priests from him, whose purpose was to bring to the entire world God’s instructions, which he gave in the Torah. The Tanakh also tells us of how God saved his people from slavery and attack, over and over, so that they would survive to fulfill their purpose. Even when they sinned and abandoned their God, causing him to punish them with dispersion throughout the globe, he always maintained a remnant. That remnant eventually was returned to their homeland, Israel, waiting for the Messiah God promised throughout the Tanakh.
This is now where the New Covenant, the B’rit Chadashah comes in. The Gospels are each an eyewitness account of the beginning of the ministry of the Messiah, Yeshua (Jesus), of his teachings, and his eventual death by crucifixion. That death was a sacrifice he allowed in order to replace the need to bring an animal to the Temple that was in Jerusalem.
Here is a good example of why it is so important to know the Tanakh if you want to really understand the Gospels. In the Tanakh we learn the sacrificial system is a 5-Step process:
- You have to sin (not that I encourage it, but there can be no forgiveness of sin without a sin, right?);
- You have to recognize that you have sinned and “own” it;
- You have to repent of having committed that sin;
- You then bring an animal specified in the Torah to the location where God has placed his name, which from the time of King David was in Jerusalem; and
- You then ask forgiveness of that sin by means of the blood of the sacrifice.
Because you know the Tanakh, you can now see that when Yeshua sacrificed himself, he did NOT replace the entire sacrificial process, but only the need to bring an animal to the Temple where God had placed his name. And that was essential because within a single lifetime after Yeshua’s work was done, the Temple in Jerusalem was destroyed, and remains that way today. No Temple, no chance for forgiveness under the Torah, but through Yeshua, that forgiveness is made possible.
Back to the main message: Revelation is also needed so that we can understand what will happen in the End Days, called the Acharit HaYamim. As for the rest of the New Covenant, I really don’t think it is necessary to know in order to understand God’s plan of salvation.
I know that many are thinking I just blasphemed, but I don’t think I have. There has been so much misquoting, misunderstanding, and wrongful teaching from the Epistles that have led people to sin when they think they are being righteous, that I really think all we need from the New Covenant is the Gospels (I would even consider leaving John out, altogether) and Revelation.
All we need to know is that God is in charge and created us to worship him, but gave us free will to chose whether or not we will. He provided the instructions we need (in the Torah) to live as he wants us to live and a Messiah so that when we screwed up (as he knew we would), we could still make it right.
The letters that Shaul and the other Apostles wrote help us to understand some of the issues that the new Believers faced as they converted from their paganistic lifestyle to one that was righteous, but are not direct commandments from God. They are men telling other men how they should act based on what they know of God, which was (by the way) solely from the Tanakh. There was no New Covenant when the New Covenant stories were happening.
So, to finish this, we all need to know the Tanakh to be able to understand the New Covenant. We cannot know what Yeshua meant when he taught from the Tanakh unless we know the Tanakh.
For the record, and to be “fair”, there are parts of the Tanakh I would question whether or not we really need them, but that’s for another message.
Look…I am not saying to throw away the entire middle of your New Covenant Bibles. I am saying that what you need to do is make sure you read the entire Bible, from Genesis to Revelation. But in the New Covenant you should concentrate on the Gospels and Revelation.
Once you know the Tanakh, when you read Shaul’s letters you will correctly understand the issues that Shaul wrote about to his fledging congregations, and how they did not change any of the instructions or requirements that God gave us but only helped these newly converting Believers to slowly work their way into proper worship.
After all, if you want to talk about a paradigm shift, think of what is was like for someone following the decadent, sexually uninhibited and gluttonous Roman lifestyle to become a righteous person! Really, who could make that change cold turkey?
Thank you for being here and please, if you like what you read, subscribe and share this ministry with others. I also welcome your comments… just be nice.
Until next time, L’hitraot and Baruch HaShem!
Every Family Has One.
Every family has one, and that “one” I am talking about is the “Black Sheep”; the one member of the family that has wandered off, done wrong and as a result has ostracized himself (or herself) from their family.
Today’s message is based on an event that recently happened to a family I have known for a long time.
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From this large family, one brother had lied, cheated and even stole from his siblings, and abandoned the children he produced from different wives. After years of this type of behavior, he ultimately lost the trust and friendship of every one of his siblings, exes, and children. Essentially, he had used up his ability to mooch off his family. When that happened, he re-connected with a woman who had stalked him for many years (she also had her own issues) so that he was able to find the ultimate Meal Ticket. For nearly a decade no one in the family had heard from him.
This past week one of the family members was contacted by the police in the area where he was living to advise them that he had been found in his apartment, deceased.
Not one of the family wanted to claim the body, yet all were saddened by his passing. He died alone, he never married his partner who had died years before (he never let anyone know this), and they know almost nothing about his life for the past 10 years.
I want to quote just the first 4 verses from David’s Psalm 36 (CJB):
For the leader. By David, the servant of ADONAI: Crime speaks to the wicked. I perceive this in my heart; before his eyes there is no fear of God. For, the way he sees it, crime makes his life easy that is, until his wrongs are discovered; then, he is hated. His words are wrong and deceitful; he has stopped being wise and doing good. He devises trouble as he lies in bed; so set is he on his own bad way that he doesn’t hate evil.
This morning when I read this psalm, I thought of this man. A man who had been a friendly, sweet and gregarious person as a youth, but who somewhere had turned from that path. He became solitary, self-centered, irresponsible, and so lazy that he believed everyone else in the world was responsible to make sure he got whatever it was he wanted. And if that meant to cheat, lie or even steal from them, that was OK. His moral compass wasn’t pointing in the right direction; in truth, he had no morals at all. He had given in to evil and subsequently ostracized himself from his entire family, all of whom loved him.
They wondered how he could have done this to himself, as well as how he could have done this to them. He was such a fine brother at first, but he changed.
Do you remember what Adonai (God) warned Cain about in Genesis 4:7? He said:
If you are doing what is good, shouldn’t you hold your head high? And if you don’t do what is good, sin is crouching at the door – it wants you, but you can rule over it.”
The reason I am sharing this story with you today is that this could be about any one of us! Sin is always there, like a stalking lion, and it takes very little to turn from the path of righteousness. The world is an evil and cursed place, where sinfulness is not just accepted, but expected! It is so easy to do evil, and so hard to do what is right, and once we choose to do evil it becomes easier to do more evil.
Yes, Virginia- there is a Dark Side.
But we can overcome the darkness with the light of the Lord, the Ruach HaKodesh (Holy Spirit) which we can receive simply by asking for it, with an open and humble heart that wants to do good and be obedient to the Lord. Accepting Yeshua (Jesus) as the true Messiah God promised to send, we can then find forgiveness for sin and be led by God’s own spirit.
But there is a catch. Before we can receive forgiveness through Messiah Yeshua, and before we can receive the Holy Spirit, we first have to do something: we have to repent. And not just for what we have done, but for all time- we have to do T’shuvah (turn from evil ) and only desire to do only what is right.
To be saved from yourself, you must choose to want to do good: not good as the world sees good, but good according to God.
What does God see as good? It’s simple- love God and love each other. When we truly love someone more than we love ourself, we will do for that person what we would like them to do for us. The “Golden Rule” is a great start, but we need more than that. There also has to be obedience to God’s word, the instructions he gave us in the Torah which define what he sees as “good.” Yeshua said no one is good but God (Luke 18:19), and God tells us many times throughout the Tanakh (Old Covenant) that we should be holy as he is holy; for me, this means that even though God is the only one that is truly “good”, he wants us to emulate him as best as we can.
There will be more for this family of the “black sheep” brother to suffer through. They need to decide how to dispose of the remains, to find out if he even has an estate, and if so what to do if that estate is worth trying to salvage from being escheated to the State he lived in. Someone will have to go through his possessions, and it will be very hard because of all the remorse they feel. There is remorse over the fact that that he did not change his ways and return, as with the Prodigal Son; remorse that he died all alone; and, I am sure some (if not all) feel remorse that they didn’t do more to intercede in order to put him on the right path. I am sure they feel they shouldn’t have lost contact, that despite what he did and what he was they should have at least kept in touch, somehow.
I can tell you that if it were up to me, I would tell them they did all they could. I know that each sibling was lied to and cheated, and some were outrightly robbed. He chose to be that way, and there was nothing more they could have done- it wasn’t anyone’s fault but his own that he ended up that way. Despite our best efforts, we can’t change people. The best we can do is try not to be hurt by them, and let them know that we are always there for them when they want to repent.
I know for a fact from my personal contact with this family that each sibling wanted him back in the family, and I believe their brother knew that.
I pray that by sharing this sad story we can all remember and be aware of how easy it is for anyone to fall from grace. And once we have fallen, it is very, VERY hard to get back on the path of righteousness. Even with friends and family that love you, when you constantly misuse that love you will end up cutting yourself off from what could be the best chance you have to be saved from eternal damnation.
Perhaps, in the last minutes of his life, this poor soul was able to repent and ask forgiveness. We can only hope that he did so- no one knows what the last moments of life are like, and perhaps God, who is so understanding and desiring to forgive, gives us all one last chance. That is a wonderful thought.
Personally, I don’t think that’s how it is so I will do everything I can to stay on the right path! If you know someone who is a “Black Sheep”, try to keep in touch with him or her. Don’t allow them to separate themselves from your life; you never know- they may choose to repent. And for someone trying to get up out of the pit, it really helps to know there is someone’s hand reaching out to grab hold of yours and help pull you up.
Thank you for being here, please do not hesitate to comment (just be nice) and share this story out to others, and please subscribe to this website and to my YouTube channel, as well.
Until next time, L’hitraot and Baruch HaShem!
PS: Please pray for this family to forgive this man so they can have peace in their heart.