Author: Steven R. Bruck

Psalm 83- Then and Now.

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The Psalms are a wonderful collection of the poetry David created, as well as from other authors. Moses is credited to have written Psalm 90, and 12 Psalms (Psalm 50 and Psalms 73-83) are credited to Asaph.  Asaph was one of the Temple leaders in charge of the musicians during the time of King David.

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It struck me that many of these psalms Asaph wrote don’t seem to be at the time of King David. They talk often of how God has abandoned his people and ask for his intervention to save them from their adversaries.

Here are some examples (all my quotes are from the CJB):

Psalm 74:

(1) Why have you rejected us forever, God? ;

(9-11) We see no signs, there is no prophet anymore; none of us knows how long it will last. How much longer, God, will the foe jeer at us? Will the enemy insult our name forever?

Psalm 79:

(1) God, the pagans have entered your heritage. They have defiled your holy temple and turned Yerushalayim into rubble.

(5) How long, Adonai? Will you be angry forever?

Psalm 80:

(15-17) God of armies, please come back! Look from heaven, see, and tend this vine! (referring to Yehuda) Protect what your right hand planted, the son you made strong for yourself.

 

It is clear to me that the references in these psalms could not have been at the time of David, or even Solomon since the kingdom did not have these issues of abandonment. However, when we consider that the Bible often refers to descendants using the name of their ancestor, even when it is generations later, these psalms could have been written by the descendants of Asaph, who would have been fulfilling the same role in the Second Temple during the time of Nehemiah as the original Asaph did under King David. If this is the case, then the references to God having judged, punished and abandoned the people, with their enemies having taken over, would make sense.

Now we come to Psalm 83. As I read this psalm, I was not transported back to the days of the Second Temple; on the contrary, I was thinking about today.

Verses 5-9 say this:

They say, “Come, let’s wipe them out as a nation; let the name of Israel be remembered no more!” With one mind they plot their schemes; the covenant they have made is against you- the tents of Edom and the Yishma’elim, Mo’av and the Hagrim, G’val, ‘Amon and ‘Amalek, P’leshet with those living in Tzor; Ashur too is allied with them, to reinforce the descendants of Lot. 

Who are these countries today? They are Jordan, Iraq, and the surrounding countries. The plans they made to wipe out God’s people way back in the time of Nehemiah (about 450 BCE) are still being made this very day. Modern-day attacks are no different than what these ancient civilizations tried to do. Today, they fire rockets to kill innocent civilians, they build tunnels to invade the country, and there are even political attacks from European countries (such as the Brexit movement) and the United Nations. There are even attacks from within our own Congress! These recent activities were, and are, intended to do just what the Assyrians, Babylonians, Greeks, and Romans tried to do, which is to destroy God’s people.

Yet, Israel remains. And it is not just surviving, but thriving! And where are the Babylonians? The Philistines? The Romans? The Assyrians?

Let’s not stop there: what about the Crusades? The Spanish Inquisition? And, of course, the Nazi’s- where are they all today?  Gone, and what is left of their country is no longer a world power. In fact, some of these countries are barely surviving.

Psalm 83 ends with a request to God to shatter and destroy the enemies of Israel, to let them be ashamed forever, and to let them know that “you alone, whose name is Adonai, is the Most High over all the Earth.” 

I see the End Days approaching, prophecy coming true as the whole world seems to be reviving Anti-Semitism and coming against Israel. This is what the Prophets told us would happen, what Messiah said would happen, and what was revealed to John when he had his vision on the island of Patmos. God is done judging Israel- now he is turning his wrath upon the nations of the world, the Goyim, for their part in all they have done to try to destroy the apple of God’s eye.

We should be calling out to God for his help, but not to stop the terror. Yes, pray for Israel, but not that it finds a peace which men make, but that it finds the eternal peace God will provide for it. That means it must go through the fire, so pray for the trip to be swift.

We are going to be hurt. Israel and the Jewish people, as well as those that support them,  will not be judged, but as the nations are judged the Jewish people will feel the brunt of the hatred that the nations will have for God’s punishment.  It is inevitable, it is no longer coming but has already arrived, and it will get worse! It’s fine to pray and cry for relief, but I recommend you also steel yourself for the coming tsuris. Pray for strength, pray to maintain your faith, and pray that God’s work is finished swiftly.

I do not look forward to the destruction, strife, and evil that will be perpetrated in the near future. No one wants this to happen, but it is God’s plan and I will not turn my face away from God. I do not want to hear someone tell me, “Get thee behind me, Satan!” There has never been a lasting peace between men, so why waste time asking for it? And why even expect that it could happen?

Do the right thing and ask God to send the Messiah so we can have eternal peace, the kind that only God can create.

Thank you for being here, and please subscribe (if you haven’t already); don’t neglect to check out the books I have written. If you like what you are hearing on my ministry website, you will also enjoy my books.  And I always welcome comments and conversation- all I ask is that you be nice.

Until next time, L’hitraot and Baruch HaShem!

Parashah Bechukosai 2019 (In my statutes) Leviticus 26:3 – 28

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This parashah is the final reading from the Book of Leviticus.

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Up to this point, God has given us his instructions for how to worship him, the responsibilities of the Cohen, and how to treat each other within the society. He also has included the punishments for failure to do as he instructs. Now, in this final section, God does what the Prophets have done throughout the Tanakh, which is to tell us what will happen when we obey, and what will happen when we disobey.

It is very similar to one of my favorite chapters throughout the Torah, which is Deuteronomy 28 and is called the Blessings and the Curses.

Whenever a covenant is made there is a standard formula:

(1) The one proposing the covenant states the conditions of the covenant;

(2) He states what the one(s) agreeing to the covenant must do;

(3) What will result from compliance, and (finally);

(4) What will happen as a result of noncompliance

Today, what I would like to talk about is what God says will happen if we do not follow his instructions in this book.

In Chapter 26, God says he will punish us for our sin of disobedience 7 times over (and another 7 times over if that doesn’t work, and another 7 times if we still refuse to obey, and even ANOTHER 7 times if we have still refused to do T’shuvah), but his purpose is not to be punitive, it is to be corrective.

In Ezekiel 18 God tells us that he gets no pleasure from the death of a sinner, but that he would rather the sinner turn from his sins, and live. Meaning live eternally with God. This is not possible if we choose to live a sinful life and never to T’shuvah (repent.).

You may ask, “If God wants us to stop sinning, why would he curse us with tsuris?” (Yiddish for troubles)

The answer is that the mother of all sins is pridefulness. Refusing to follow God’s instructions is evidence that we think we know better so we don’t have to trust or listen to God. It is rebellion and means we trust only in our own power. So, since we think we are so great we don’t need to listen to God, he shows us just how incompetent, weak, and powerless we really are. The way he does that is to withhold the rain so our crops fail; he will make us infertile so we can’t have successors to carry on the family heritage or maintain our property; he will allow us to get sick and lose our health; he will send our enemies to decimate our family and fields; essentially, his punishment is to remove his protection, which leaves us exposed to all the evil that exists in the world.

You see- God doesn’t really do anything bad to us, per se’, but when he removes his protection and blessings, all the bad things he says he will do to us the world will do for him.

Often we hear people say the God of the Old Covenant is cruel but the God of the New Covenant is all about love. I don’t know how anyone who actually has read or learned about the Bible can say something so ridiculous: God is the same today as he was in the beginning, and he will be the same throughout eternity. The only difference is that in the Old Covenant God was training his people to become a nation of Priests to the world and in the New Covenant he sent the Messiah to fine-tune that training. Same God, same teachings, same rules, same instructions, only with a deeper, more spiritual understanding being given.

Today’s message is very simple and short (I know- surprising that I would ever give a short message!), and this is it:

Punishment from God is not punitive, it is corrective. 

The next time you feel you are being punished, review your life. Have you been disobedient? Have you been trying to live under your own power and not trusting in God’s power? Are you doing God’s work in the world (sometimes our tsuris is from the Enemy to stop us doing what God wants us to do)? Answer these questions carefully; look deeply into the mirror and decide if you have walked away from God’s Kippah (covering)? if you think that is the case, then return to him and follow the instructions he gave us all.

If you believe you are being attacked by the Enemy, then call out to God for more protection and help to get through it.

Terrible things can happen to godly people; in fact, we are told that they will happen. Do you remember you were told you have to pick up your execution stake in order to be able to walk with Yeshua? So steel yourself for the tsuris to come, and be comforted by the knowledge that there will be blessings, as well. Look for them and know that what seems to be a curse today might evolve into a blessing tomorrow.

Having reached the end of a book in the Torah, before we start the next book we say:

                                           Chazak, chazak, v’nit’chazek! 

                        (Be strong, be strong, and let us be strengthened!)

Thank you for being here, and please don’t forget to subscribe to my YouTube channel and also to this website. Share me out to everyone you know, whether a believer or not, and buy my books. I also appreciate your comments… just be nice, or at least respectful.

Tonight begins the Shabbat, so I wish you all Shabat Shalom and Baruch HaShem!!

Jesus is Not a Horse.

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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.

Thank you for being here, and please subscribe to the website and to my YouTube channel.

If you enjoy these messages, you will also enjoy my books, so please check them out and buy them.

I welcome comments and even arguments, so long as you are nice.

Until next time, L’hitraot and Baruch HaShem!

This Speech is Worth Listening to

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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?

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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!

Parashah Behar 2019 (On the mount) Leviticus 25 – 26:2

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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!