Abraham is visited by God and the angels that save Lot when Sodom is destroyed. Sarah gives birth to Isaac, Hagar and Ishmael get the boot, and later Abraham takes Isaac to Mt. Moriah to sacrifice him
SPOILER ALERT– he doesn’t.
But what we are going to talk about are the angels of the Lord: are they just angels, or does God show up in the middle of the message they bring?
The search for knowledge can sometimes become an obsession that takes us away from trusting the Holy Spirit to give us wisdom. We want to know God better, and that’s fine, but what does God want us to know about Him?
Tomorrow night is Halloween, and all good Believers know this is a pagan and demonic celebration. But what about the little children, too young to know anything more than this is a time to dress up and get free candy? How do we witness to them? And can we even be an effective witness to a child, whose parents are putting out Jack-O-Lanterns, decorating the house with black cats and witches and dressing up in costumes?
Click on the link below for my feelings about it:
PS: in this clip I refer to the days of the week being named after Greek and Germanic Gods, but the names are of Roman and Germanic Gods.
Abraham leaves Ur; Pharaoh takes Sarah as wife; Lot goes to Sodom; the birth of Ishmael; the covenant between Abraham and God regarding Issac; God promises to give the land to Abraham’s descendants.
Hear more about this Parashah, as well as what message we learn from it here:
This message is my first video blog, and you can find it on You Tube under this title, or just click on this link:
Do you have one of “those” friends? You know…the type that are really nice and fun to be with, but have no recognition of their terrible breath, or smelly clothing, or that their house stinks from dog pee? Or some other socially unacceptable aspect of their person that they are so used to that they never notice it, but everyone else does? And, because we like them and don’t want to hurt their feelings, we have learned to ignore it, ourselves?
Are we really doing them a favor? Are we being polite at the expense of being a good friend and telling them, lovingly and softly, that they have this “problem” they really need to attend to? I would say, “No!”- if we really like someone who does something (or doesn’t do something) that is affecting their ability to be more acceptable in society (in general), we owe it to them to point it out. Even if it means they may be distressed or embarrassed. In the case of socially unacceptable dress or hygiene, ignorance is NOT bliss. In certain cases, we may be hurting their feelings a little but we may also be saving their life: bad breath can be an indication of gum disease which can cause all sorts of health problems, and failing to shower may cause skin lesions that can lead to infections, and…well, you get the point. We may be doing them more of a favor by being honest with them about their personal hygiene than we are by being afraid to tell them.
As important as personal hygiene is, what about one’s spiritual hygiene? We know people, all of us do, that are socially clean but spiritually filthy. Don’t we owe it to them to help them “clean up” their act, too? Of course we do, but you will find (I am willing to bet) that your spiritually dirty friends would rather you told them they stink and need a shower than that they are sinning and setting themselves up for eternal damnation. They would rather be told they have bad breath and ring around the collar than be told about Yeshua’s sacrifice and how it can save their soul.
So, nu? What do we do? I say we try to help them, no matter what, but we do it intelligently. We need to, first and foremost, not say anything until we provide an example of what we are talking about. People do not accept “Do as I say, not as I do” under normal conditions, so with something as difficult as spiritual issues, they absolutely need to see you practicing what you preach before you can address their lack of repentance. As Yeshua tells us in Matthew 7:5, we must first remove the log from our own eye before we tell our brother about the splinter in his eye.
This doesn’t mean we can’t or shouldn’t say anything until we are perfect- that just isn’t going to happen. What we do is live our own life as best as we can to remain obedient to God’s commandments (i.e., Torah- you won’t find anything new or different from Torah anywhere in the New Covenant writings, since that is all that Yeshua and His Disciples taught), and when we screw up make sure that we admit it, ask forgiveness and do better. This is the example I believe is best to show a non-Believer: we are still human, we still make mistakes, and we aren’t expected to stop having fun, making jokes (they just have to be more acceptable in mixed company, that’s all) or living our lives as we want to. The only real difference being that now we want to live our lives in obedience to God instead of obedience to sin, which means we care about how we live our life, we care about others, we care about doing what is right (even when everyone else seems to be doing wrong) and we are repentant when we mess up. It is a life-long commitment to being better tomorrow than we are today. Both spiritually and socially.
Being “holy” means to be separated from the rest. The Supreme Court said that being separate cannot be equal (Brown v. the Board of Education of Topeka-1954), and they were right, but separate doesn’t mean better. We need to separate ourselves just from those things that are not godly. We can still be with the same friends, but we don’t have to partake in things they do which we shouldn’t now; we can still be with family, but we don’t have to partake in events that aren’t spiritually correct (like going to the horse races, for instance); we can still go out on a date, but we won’t stay the night, even if asked. This is what I think is important when telling friends and family about God and their salvation: they are afraid of what they will lose, and we need to tell and show that they don’t really lose anything except what they didn’t need, in the first place.
Don’t worry so much about hurting someone’s feelings when you know they are ignorant of the bad impression they are leaving on others. And don’t be afraid to tell them, as well as show them, the advantages of accepting Yeshua and committing to being holy.
Being holy is harder than being with the rest of the world, but it really does feel better.
A White Supremacist, Richard Spencer, was at the University of Florida campus the other day for a speaking engagement. There were hundreds of protesters, extra police brought in, some violence (by the protesters) and the Governor declared a state of emergency before Spencer even showed up.
This ministry, Messianic Moment, is not a venue for political activity or opinions, but I couldn’t let this one event go unmentioned.
I am not going to talk about racism; I want to talk about the right to free speech, and when that right should be ignored.
Here are some examples from the past when free speech was legally blocked:
The Alien and Sedition Acts were four bills passed by the Federalist-dominated 5th United States Congress and signed into law by President John Adams in 1798. … The Federalists argued that the bills strengthened national security during an undeclared naval war with France;
The Sedition Act of 1918, enacted during World War I, made it a crime to “willfully utter, print, write, or publish any disloyal, profane, scurrilous, or abusive language about the form of the Government of the United States” or to “willfully urge, incite, or advocate any curtailment of the production” of the things “necessary or essential to the prosecution of the war.”
Currently there are legal exceptions to free speech: one cannot publicly use obscenity, child pornography, use fighting words and offensive speech, make false statements of fact, incite illegal activities, and under certain conditions regarding the government cannot talk about work, national security, etc. Of course, these things do happen, proving that what is illegal is not always policed.
The best known example of an exception to free speech is that you can’t scream “FIRE!!” when sitting in a crowded room if there isn’t any fire.
Getting back to the U of F event, the freedom of speech given to Mr. Spencer caused violence, cost the state (probably) tens of thousands of dollars in extra security, property damage and police salaries, and the protesters also spent their own money making signs that, truthfully, were saying things which everyone else already knew.
I would have just told Mr. Spencer that he isn’t welcomed here. His right to free speech and public assembly would infringe on the rights of the general public to their safety by creating a potentially violent confrontation. Even if his words are not inciteful, the message he presents is, and as such does not qualify as “protected” speech under the Constitution.
I believe this country is so obsessed with protecting the rights of the “little guy” that they are abrogating the rights of everyone else. There are examples everywhere (too many to list) of someone (usually a member of some minority group) claiming their rights have been violated, and consequently trying to get the courts to force the other party to give up their rights in order to appease the plaintiff.
It is the case of the squeaky wheel getting all the grease.
If it was up to me, I would have told Mr. Spencer, “Thanks, but no thanks. Take it somewhere else.” And if he didn’t like that, tough! And as for the people that went to protest, I think the best way to protest someone saying things you don’t agree with is simply don’t go to hear them. Doesn’t that make more sense than showing up, causing a violent scene and costing the state money? Besides that, the violent actions by the protesters gave credibility to his message of supremacy! He was just talking, they were being violent- who’s the hateful one now?
If protesters just didn’t go, then the only people that showed up would be the ones that agreed with him, and his whole engagement would have been nothing more than “preaching to the choir”- a total waste of his time. And to top it off, the university could have charged him to be there, so instead of the state wasting any number of thousands of dollars, the racist would have paid to have no one show up. Again- doesn’t that make more sense?
The bible tells us we shouldn’t stand by and allow evil, but does that mean we have to go out of our way to protest a speech that is by someone who advocates hatred? Yeshua said we shouldn’t throw pearls before swine (Matthew 7:6), and told Shaul (regarding his persecution of the new Believers) that one shouldn’t kick against the goads (Acts 26:14.) The message is that we shouldn’t waste our time and wisdom fighting against something when we can’t win. There will always be bigotry, hatred and racism so long as there are people in the world. If we were all one skin color and one religion, we would then separate ourselves by eye color, or shape of the nose, or size. It doesn’t really matter what the object of hatred is, there will always be hatred. There will always be love, too, and these two opposites will fight against each other forever.
Love is stronger, but because hatred is easier it will often win out. Sad, but that’s the way it is, and it will be that way until Yeshua rules.
From a spiritual standpoint, I would say we should ignore these events. Don’t go to protest something you disagree with because that will only make it more visible. And if you are in a position to refuse an audience to someone who is preaching what you believe to be sinful, evil or just plain wrong, don’t allow their right to speech overrule your right to speech- speak up and say, “NO: you are not welcome here. Go somewhere else.” If you hear someone speaking hatefulness and biblically incorrect rhetoric, ignore them. The best way to win an argument is to not start one. Personally, I think the biggest insult any one person can give to another is to pretend they just don’t exist.
We are to be a light to the darkness, and in order to do that we must be in the darkness. But there are times we must realize that some darkness will never allow the light to shine. The racist and hateful darkness in the world is often times like a Black Hole, which is so dense light cannot escape it.
Don’t fall into a Black Hole; choose your battles, and don’t waste your time fighting against stupidity and hatred. Instead, ignore it and give it nothing to work with.
Let your speech and godly actions be like water on those fires of hatred, and you will be the light that you need to be.
Pruning is when a secondary vine that is producing a lot of fruit is removed from the main vine and transplanted. Once transplanted, it becomes the main vine and (hopefully) produces more vines, all producing good fruit.
Sometimes when a vine doesn’t produce any fruit, or the fruit is substandard, it is pruned to allow the other vines to receive more nutrients from the main vine. The pruned vine may be transplanted to another main vine to see if it does better there, and if it doesn’t produce any fruit anymore it will be thrown into the fire and burned (read the parable found at Luke 13:6-8 about the fruit tree in the garden.)
In our lives we will be pruned, one way or the other, and possibly more than once. Sometimes we are cut off from our vine, and sometimes vines are cut off of us. Overall, pruning is not fun: it cause stress, anxiety and sadness. Our “comfort zone” is being reorganized, and no one likes it when that happens.
My congregation at the Hebraic Roots church I have been attending for 3 1/2 years (of which I am also a Council member and Officer) is undergoing pruning as I write this. I just changed the home page of our web site to reflect that there will no longer be any Shabbat services. The Senior Pastor (and only one able to fill that position) is stepping down to pursue a theological Master’s Degree that his current employer is paying for, and he knows that working a full time job while pursuing an advanced degree will not leave the time he needs to perform his duties as a full time Pastor. This is a hard decision for him, as he has been with this church for many years, but it is the right decision for him. The church attendance has also been steadily decreasing, tithes are not meeting expenses, and we haven’t met the requirements for being a sovereign church for (at least) 2 years. The Assembly of God Presbyter has been very kind in allowing us to continue as a Hebraic Roots church with Friday night services, but now we need to dissolve this church and return all the assets to the A of G for them to take charge. They have been very patient and helpful, and will “re-boot” the church sometime in the immediate future, which will be a “standard” Assembly of God church with Sunday services.
We know we are being pruned, but who knows what, or who, is being pruned? Is the Senior Pastor being pruned to be more fruitful elsewhere? Is the incoming Pastor being pruned to be more fruitful here? Is this congregation being pruned because we haven’t been producing any fruit?
I really don’t know. I would like to think that we have been doing well and we are all, individually, being transplanted somewhere else to continue to do God’s calling in our lives. I think this place has done all it was supposed to do in God’s plan, and as such now is being cut off. This is a hard thing to accept, but it is the most reasonable one given how the congregation has decreased, no new people are coming in, and our mission of training the Christian churches to know the Torah and their true calling in God’s plan of salvation just hasn’t been happening. However, over the 30 or so years this church has been here it has produced many new ministries that are still doing well, including a large Messianic Synagogue. We are a main vine that has been very fruitful over the years, and now I think we are just all used up.
The only vine that never dies and always produces good fruit is Yeshua.
I believe our Pastor will be more fruitful in his new pursuits, that I will be able to concentrate more on this on-line ministry (and with God’s help become more fruitful myself), and that the incoming Pastor will be given a new opportunity to fulfill his mission and calling for God.
When you are pruned, do not take it as a bad sign. You should, however, take a good look in the mirror and ask why this pruning is taking place. Be fair, be honest with yourself, and be hopeful because I believe as long as we have a heart for God and want to do His will, the pruning we go through, no matter how uncomfortable or even painful, will lead to more good fruit being produced. And, if the pruning is because we have failed to produce fruit, then so be it- we deserve to be pruned. It is then we need to repent, redirect ourselves to producing fruit, and if we do that God will transplant us. Maybe He is cutting us off from a comfort zone we don’t realize is not feeding us, and wants us to be grafted onto a more nutritious vine? You never know, so always try to be fruitful.
Pruning is not fun, it is not enjoyable, and it is most often not desired, but it is a necessary part of meeting God’s calling in our life.
I was riding my bike last week and came to a large intersection. I walked the bike half-way across, and was standing in the yellow safety zone, waiting for the light to change to red so I could safely cross the three lane highway. A car was coming down the left turn only lane, and stopped about 10 feet before me, which was about 30 feet before the light. He had a green light, and there was no oncoming traffic. He was, I suppose, trying to be nice and allow me to cross the street ahead of him.
Maybe he thought he was being nice, but he was really leading me to my death. The idiot seemed to forget that there were still three lanes of high speed traffic right on the other side of his car, all with a green light and the drivers would be totally blind to me crossing in front of his car. What he thought was being nice was really attempted murder!
I thought about this in spiritual terms, and realized this is what the enemy will do to us if we are careless and just do as we are told. I mean, really now- do you think he will walk up to you and say,”Hey, there! I’m the Devil, I want you to give up your salvation and suffer in eternal torment with me. Whaddaya say?” Nah- not likely. What the enemy will do is to approach you carefully, with a great big smile and his hand out to shake yours. He will be nice, he will offer you something that you really want, and it may seem spiritually pleasing to have it. He will try to convince you that he is on your side, he is also a Believer and he knows what is God’s desire for you. He will entice you with worldly rewards and tell you they are blessings from God that you receive for proper obedience.
He will let you cross the street in front of him, knowing there are cars speeding by on the other side, and smiling at you while you walk blindly into traffic.
Yeshua told His Talmudim (Disciples) when He sent them into the world to preach that they need to be wise as serpents, and harmless as doves (Matthew 10:16) so that they can show the love and compassion of Messiah, but not be so stupid as to cross the road blindly and get run over.
I believe God gave me this simple warning to share with you: the enemy will come as a friend, as a helper, and as a Believer who loves the Lord and wants to help you know Him better. He will entice you with spiritual awareness and sound like he really has an insight to God, but he is a false prophet. How will you know the difference? By looking past the nice things and seeing what is behind them. By being on the alert, always, and being suspicious of everything and anything that seems to be too easy to have. Let’s not forget that Yeshua tells us following Him is not easy:
Luke 9:62 Anyone who puts his hand to the plow and looks back is not worthy of the kingdom of God;
Matthew 10:35 For I have come to turn “‘a man against his father, a daughter against her mother, a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law-…;
Matthew 8:20 Jesus replied, “Foxes have dens and birds have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay his head.”
It is better to suspect now and find out later that you are wrong, then to accept blindly and find out later that you are doomed.
This is my formula for knowing if something is from God or from somewhere else: if it is easy to do, gives me worldly rewards and everyone else is doing it, then I probably shouldn’t be doing it.
That, and look twice before crossing the street.
Chag Simchat Torah!! This is the holiday where we turn back the Torah, from the end of Deuteronomy to the beginning of everything: Genesis. Simchat Torah means “Joy of Torah”, and we certainly do receive joy from reading the Word of God!
This parashah takes us from creation of the universe and everything in it to just before the story of Noah. God created the universe, Earth, sky, ground, set boundaries for the oceans, created life in the seas, on the land and finally created us. That’s when things started going downhill.
All through the early stages of creation we read how “God saw that it was good”, and it was. I mean, REALLY good! And when Adam and Eve got here, things were still OK, Then the enemy got involved. He lured Eve into sin, and she lured Adam into sin, and ….well, you know the rest of the story.
But was it all the fault of the enemy? Did Satan do anything that forced Eve to eat the apple? Did Eve ram it down Adam’s throat? Did she threaten him with, “Eat this apple or you will be sleeping on the couch (that is, if we had a couch)”?
No, Satan didn’t force Eve, Eve didn’t force Adam, and even to this day no one forces us to sin. We’ve always had a choice, and we still do. The problem isn’t that we don’t have a choice, the problem is that it is just so much easier to sin. It is what the world teaches us to do, it is what we instinctively desire, and it generally yields immediate satisfaction. Whereas righteousness is hard to do- we have to overcome our sinful desires (iniquity), we have to deal with other people harassing us (because they don’t want to see righteousness in their presence- it convicts them), and we have to delay the rewards of righteousness until a future time. Righteousness usually doesn’t have immediate gratification, other than we know, in our hearts, that we are doing the right thing.
Let’s tackle what is probably the biggest issue that comes from Genesis- creationism vs. evolution.
Way back when, sometime around July of 1925, a substitute teacher in Tennessee named John Scopes taught human evolution. This was a violation of the Tennessee Butler Act, which made it unlawful to teach human evolution in a state-funded school. Scopes was found guilty, fined $100, but that was later overturned on a technicality. The funny thing about this is that today, according to Wikipedia:
In the United States, the Supreme Court has ruled the teaching of creationism as science in public schools to be unconstitutional, irrespective of how it may be purveyed in theological or religious instruction. In the United States, intelligent design (ID) has been represented as an alternative explanation to evolution in recent decades, but its “demonstrably religious, cultural, and legal missions” have been ruled unconstitutional by a lower court.
So what was illegal to teach in 1925 is now the only legal thing to teach! Oy!
Even within Judaism, some of the greatest Jewish scholars and Torah teachers knew that the Genesis story was not to be taken literally. Rashi, known to be one of the greatest (if not THE greatest) Jewish commentator of all times, taught that the purpose of Scripture was not to give a strict chronology of Creation. Also, Maimonides (the RamBam) declared, ” The account given in Scripture of the Creation is not, as is generally believed, intended to be in all its parts literal.” The remarkable truth is that Judaism does not contest the evolution of species. Where the disagreement lies is with what drives evolution. The atheistic scientific community states that evolution is caused by random mutations, where those mutations which proved more adaptable to the environment succeeded and the less adaptable mutations died out. Charles Darwin put forth this idea as the survival of the fittest. Judaism (along with most Judeo-Christian and Muslim religions) does not accept that the advancement of species from lower order to higher order came from chance, but from Divine control. We call this Intelligent Design. The truth is, the answer to whether we were created or we evolved is, as it always has been: Does God exist?
If God exists, then we have intelligent design, and if there is no God, then it all happened by chance.
I can understand the depression and uselessness that people who reject God feel in their daily lives; after all, if everything you wanted to be or wanted to achieve was totally out of your control (because without God there is no control), then what hope do you have? Only the hope that some random collision of quarks in a sub-atomic environment will result, somehow, in circumstances and events which will benefit you. Not very promising, is it? Especially when compared to having a supreme being, who is loving, compassionate, all-powerful, knowing everything that there is and everything that will ever be, on your side helping you to attain those things you want.
I mean, really- there’s no comparison. But yet, millions (if not billions) of people who have heard about God will still reject Him and choose to live their lives with no hope, no control, and no future (because without God, there is no future beyond this life. Again, a very depressing and hopeless existence.)
I wrote about how there is no control without God in this blog: Without God There Cannot be Free Will.
Genesis tells us how everything in the universe started, and whether you accept God created it or believe it randomly occurred, life has always been what we make of it. We always have a choice to do, say, and act the way we want to. And what we choose to believe will define who and what we are.
For me, I choose to believe in God; I choose to believe that He created the entire universe for me and provided everything I need to survive; I choose to believe that God also provided a spiritual means for me to live eternally despite my own fatal flaw of iniquity ( yes, I am talking about Yeshua/Jesus); and I choose to believe that because God exists and because I accepted Yeshua as my Messiah, I have a future beyond this mortal existence.
Those without God have no future: they only have this life, and will have to spend it in this world without control, without hope, and without the complete joy that comes from God’s Holy Spirit indwelling in us.
And that is just so sad.
