Author: Steven R. Bruck
Pesach Ha’yom Ha’shemini Reading 2022 (Passover Eighth Day Reading) Deuteronomy 15:19 – 16:17
As we come to the end of Pesach (Passover) we are reading from the Torah the section where God has Moses remind the people that all the firstborn of the flock and herd belong to God. He states that the sacrifice must be eaten at the place where God puts his name, and that we are not to eat the blood but, instead, pour it out on the ground.
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He further reminds us about the Passover rules and the 7 days of unleavened bread. Passover is, actually, just that first evening; the next 7 days are the Feast of Unleavened bread.
God gives us his instructions for the counting of the Omer, starting on the first Shabbat after the beginning of Pesach, and that when it is over we celebrate Shavuot.
This parashah reading ends with God telling us that three times during the year we are to appear at the place where he chooses to put his name: Passover, Shavuot, and Sukkot.
The Haftorah reading for this special day is Isaiah 10:32-12:6, which is when he prophesized the coming of the Messiah and the regathering of God’s chosen people throughout the world. He also states that the Goyim (literally, the nations, but generally referring to non-Jews, i.e. Gentiles) will also seek out the Messiah. On that day, Isaiah tells us, everyone will give thanks to God for turning away his righteous anger and providing our salvation.
This Shabbat’s message is pretty clear- celebrate the Passover as God said to, and one day the Messiah will come to save us; when that day comes, even the Gentiles will seek him out.
Well, for those of us who recognize that Yeshua (Jesus) was, and still is, the Messiah, we are already saved from the eternal consequences of our sins. Of course, that isn’t automatic: we still need to repent of every sin we commit and ask God’s forgiveness, by means of the sacrifice that Yeshua made.
As I have mentioned before, God tells us, more than once, to make sure we don’t sacrifice to him just anywhere- that is what the pagans do. We are to sacrifice only where God chooses to put his name.
During the 40 years in the desert, that place was the Tent of Meeting (also called the Sanctuary or Tabernacle), and when the people entered the land the tent was set up in different places. Initially it was at their main camp in Gilgal and later at Shiloh, where it stayed for some 369 years until King David moved it and the Ark to Jerusalem (after a short stop-over in the house of Oved-Edom).
After Solomon built the temple and put the Ark of the Covenant inside, God chose that place (demonstrated by his Shekinah Glory filling the house) to be the only place where sacrifices to God could be offered.
Jews came from all over the Middle East to Jerusalem to make the Passover sacrifice; I would guess, although I don’t think the Bible tells us, that if someone lived a long distance away it just made sense to hang around the City of David instead of taking weeks to travel back, only to turn around and go to Jerusalem, again, for the mandatory appearance at Shavuot.
So, we have this Shabbat reading telling us of the requirement to go to the temple, and Isaiah telling us that when Messiah comes all the people will rejoice and give thanks to God for his salvation, one might wonder what these two have in common, since the rabbis have decided they should be read together.
The common factor, as far as I see it, is the requirement to sacrifice where God places his name and the Messiah’s role in salvation.
You see, when the temple was destroyed in 73 AD, there was no way for Jews to be forgiven of their sins, let alone perform the cleansing or peace offerings that are so much a part of our spiritual lives. That was the place God had put his name, the only place God allowed us to sacrifice, and now it was gone!
But through the sacrifice of the Messiah, Yeshua, we could receive forgiveness of sins without the temple. Yeshua’s once-and-for-all sacrifice meant that we no longer had to bring an animal to the place God put his name because Yeshua replaced that part of the sacrificial system.
For the record: when I say his sacrifice was a “once-and-for-all” sacrifice, I do NOT mean once it was done, for all time after that no one had to ask for forgiveness, as the “Once Saved: Always Saved” group would lead you to believe.
No! – What I mean is that his sacrifice was once, and for all PEOPLE!
By the end of the First Century, the Gentiles were already seeking out the Jewish messiah, which was good!
But, unfortunately, over the centuries these early Believers and their followers have so misinterpreted and misconstrued what people have written about Yeshua and what people taught the Gentile followers of Yeshua- who they call Jesus- should do or not do, that the Christian Savior is NOT the Messiah God sent to save them.
We can only pray that when the End Days do arrive, those Christians who have been misled by their leaders will come to know the lies they have been told, and seek out the real Messiah, the one God had Isaiah tell us about.
There is some good news, though: many Christians today are seeking out the real Messiah, and getting back to serving God as he said to.
In light of this, I am going to plug my latest book, “The Good News About the Messiah for Jews“, which is also for Christians. In this book, I debunk the traditional lies from both Christians and Jews have been taught about Messiah Yeshua. It’s available on Amazon Books in both paperback and Kindle formats, or use the link on my website.
Thank you for being here and please share these messages. Subscribe to my website and YouTube channel, and I always welcome your comments. You can make them on my website or on my YouTube channel or on my Facebook group called “Just God’s Word”.
That’s it for this week so l’hitraot and Shabbat Shalom!
Video for Pesach Ha’yom Ha’shemini Reading 2022
Have You Seen These Types of Posts?
I have been seeing more and more posts on Facebook, mostly shared by friends, that say something to the effect of ” There are riches waiting for you, so pray to receive them and you will”.
This sort of post has the appearance of being Godly and edifying, but it is really nothing more than some form of Christian fortune cookie.
When you pray to God, your prayers should be from your heart and you should ask God for whatever you want, but not what others tell you is waiting for you.
I can’t believe that God will send you worldly riches if you pray for them because someone posted on Facebook that they are waiting for you.
I have blocked the people that send these to me; not my friends, but the original poster. Why? Because I am certain that they are not of God but from the Enemy, and are designed to weaken our faith.
How can a Facebook post weaken my faith?
I’ll tell you how: anyone who really believes that God has told someone to post on social media that God is waiting for you to pray to him so he can give you money or blessings is gullible enough to be disappointed when those prayers aren’t answered.
And, because this will happen every time they fall for this lie, eventually they will become untrusting and their faith will weaken. Maybe even to the point of apostatizing!
Am I reading too much into this? Am I making a mountain out of a molehill?
Maybe…but we are told that it takes only a little chametz to spread through an entire batch of dough (Galatians 5:9), so maybe I’m not overreacting, after all.
You can do whatever you want to do, and if you like these pseudo “prayerful” postings, then go ahead and do what they tell you to do, but please understand that it isn’t God who is behind those posts.
It’s the people who write fortune cookies.
Thank you for being here and please share these messages to help this ministry grow. Subscribe to my website and my Youtube channel, as well, and when on the website please buy the books I have written. There’s one about prayer, which will help you to recognize proper prayer from the phony-baloney drek I am talking about today.
That’s it for now, so l’hitraot and Baruch HaShem!
We’re Told Sincere Lies
How can anyone lie and be sincere about it? After all, the definition of sincere is to be “honest, not deceitful” (Webster), and lying is, by definition, dishonest because you are hiding the truth.
So you can’t be sincere if you are dishonestly trying to fool someone… can you?
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I believe the answer is “Yes”, you can be sincere when lying to someone; that is, when the lie you are telling is something you believe to be true.
For instance, a traditional Christian teaching, which has been taught by Seminary to the students for centuries, students who will be priests and pastors and teaching these lessons to their congregations, is that Jesus did away with the law and that the Old Covenant is just a Jewish Bible which Christians don’t need to know.
They teach that when you accept Jesus as your savior (they don’t even use the term “Messiah” because it is too “Jewish”) you don’t have to obey the kosher laws, not to observe the Saturday Shabbat, and not to celebrate any of the Holy Days God commanded to be celebrated because all that stuff is just for Jews.
And in the Yeshiva (Rabbinical school) they teach that Jesus created Christianity and that he was only a man who was considered a Rabbi; sometimes they teach he never really existed!
I am here to tell you that these are all lies- Jesus did NOT ever do away with or even suggest doing away with any of the laws his father commanded us to follow (Matthew 5:17). In fact, he followed them and said that if we loved him, we would obey him- the only way to obey him is to do as he did, which was to obey his father’s commandments. And God never said anything in the New Covenant- God tells us what he wants us to do in the Torah.
Most of the things that Christians believe are valid forms of worship are not from God or from Yeshua (let’s use his real name) but misinterpretations of instructions from Shaul (Paul) to his newly believing congregations of Gentiles. What he wrote in his Epistles aren’t commands from God but instructions from a man.
The purpose of Shaul’s letters was to help get these neophyte Believers back on the proper track as their faith and behavior was waning due to problems they were encountering with Believing Jews, their pagan communities, and their interpersonal relationships.
The people lying to us don’t know they are lying, which is why their lies are sincere- they think they are helping us when in reality they are directing us to damnation.
So, how do we tell the lies from the truth? It’s actually very easy- read the Torah. That is the only place in the entire Bible (Genesis through Revelation) where God tells us, directly, what he wants us to do so we can earn blessings.
You can never earn salvation- that is why God sent Yeshua to be our Messiah. But, you can earn blessings (read Deuteronomy 28).
The only way to recognize a lie is to first know the truth, and the truth is that God tells us in the Torah how we should worship him, how we should treat each other, what we should eat, the way we should conduct business, our system of penal laws, and which Holy Days he wants us to celebrate.
When you know what God says you should do, then when someone tells you differently you will know it is a lie, even when they are sincere.
People who you trust and who love you don’t mean to misdirect you; but, in the end, many times what they tell you is proper obedience to God is a sincere lie. When anyone tells you to ignore any of God’s commandments, even when they really think they are helping you to find salvation, unfortunately they are not helping you, at all: what they are doing is condemning you to Sheol.
For my Jewish brothers and sisters, the lies you have always heard about Jesus are not only untrue, but Jesus isn’t the Messiah that God sent- he is the creation of Constantinian Christianity. Yeshua is the Messiah, and he never told anyone to do anything other than obey Adonai, as he did (perfectly) throughout his lifetime.
I am not saying to reject everything anyone has ever told you to do, because there are many correct things being taught in every religion. What I am saying is that there are many lies, sincerely and ignorantly presented, but lies all the same, and they come from people who think they are helping you. It isn’t their desire or aim to lie to you- they are just repeating the lies they were taught.
The only way to protect yourself from sincere lies is to know what God says, and that can only be found in the Torah.
Look- you have a choice to just go on doing whatever your religious leaders, family and friends have told to do, or you can protect your salvation by knowing what God said you should do. That’s really the only way you will be able to tell the difference between the truth and the sincere lies.
PLEASE!!! Don’t be lazy about this because what you do, or don’t do, determines where you spend eternity.
Thank you for being here and please share these message with everyone you know. Subscribe to my YouTube channel and website, and while you are on the website please buy my books. If you like what you get here, you will like my books- guaranteed!
And remember that I always welcome your comments, which you can make here or on my Facebook group called “Just God’s Word.”
That’s it for today so l’hitraot and Baruch HaShem!
Video for We’re Told Sincere Lies
Passover 2022 Message
(No video today; sorry, but you’ll have to read this one)
As I write this it is the beginning of the 14th day of Nisan 5782, which is the same as the evening of April 14, 2022.
In the morning Jews all over the world will be engaged in preparing for the Seder, and Christians will be preparing for their Good Friday activities. In my house, Donna and I will also be preparing for our Seder, which will be blessed with the addition of a friend of mine from my high school days who lives close by. She is a Gentile and was happy to be invited to join us.
Donna and I have been inviting friends to join our Passover Seder for almost as many years as we have been having one, which is close to some 26 years now- maybe more- and every one who has joined us has been impressed and happy they came.
We use a Messianic Hagaddah, so our Gentile friends, many of whom aren’t “Born Again” get to see how Jesus and Passover go together.
Speaking of which, some will be celebrating Good Friday by having their own version of the Last Supper, but they will not be performing it as Yeshua did. And come Sunday, they will be celebrating his resurrection from the dead, most likely eating the ever-popular Easter Ham, which Yeshua would consider to be an abomination on his table.
Yeshua is often referred to as the Passover Lamb of God, but in truth, he wasn’t the Passover lamb, per se’, because his sacrificial death was a sin sacrifice, and the Passover lamb was not a sin sacrifice- it was a Peace, or Thanksgiving offering.
Read the first 7 chapters of Leviticus, where God gives us the rules for the different sacrifices. The only sacrifice where the person bringing the sacrifice shares in eating of it is the Thanksgiving sacrifice. A portion of the lamb that is sacrificed for Passover is taken home and eaten at the Seder, so this is not a sin or guilt or cleansing sacrifice- it is a Thanksgiving sacrifice.
And that makes sense: after all, having the Angel of Death pass over your house is certainly something to be thankful for, isn’t it?
Yeshua’s sacrifice is more akin to the Yom Kippur sacrifice.
Actually, Yeshua’s sacrifice acts as both the Thanksgiving and sin sacrifice. By means of his substitutionary sacrifice, we no longer need to bring an animal to sacrifice at the Temple, which the Torah required, in order to be forgiven of sin. And, by means of the cleansing blood of the sacrifice, we can be forgiven of our sin and, thereby, draw near to God to commune with him. That is what the Thanksgiving sacrifice was all about, and that is why we shared the meat of that sacrifice, and only that sacrifice; and, not only that, but it was to be eaten in the presence of the holy place.
When archeologists discovered shards of plates and cups all around a high place at a dig in Shiloh many years ago, when they told a Rabbi about it he danced with joy. When they asked why he was so happy, he said that they found the place where the Tent of Meeting had been. He knew that because the broken pieces of plates and cups all around the area, but not on the high ground, meant that sacrifices were eaten there, which meant that had to be the Tent of Meeting (I heard this story from the Israeli guide we had when I was in the Holy Land.)
The Torah, as I mentioned, required the people to sacrifice only where God placed his name, which he commanded in Deuteronomy 12:13-14:
“Take heed to thyself that thou offer not thy burnt-offerings in every place that thou seest; but in the place which the LORD shall choose in one of thy tribes, there thou shalt offer thy burnt-offerings, and there thou shalt do all that I command thee.”
That is why it was so devastating to Jews when the temple in Jerusalem was destroyed- that was where God placed his name, and as such was the only place where the sacrifice to remove our sin could take place. With no temple, there was no means of having our sins removed.
That is why Yeshua is now our only means of removing sin: his sacrifice replaced the need to bring an animal to the temple.
Passover always falls on a different day because Jews use the lunar calendar, and Good Friday and Easter are also based on the moon, but in a different way. To determine when Passover begins, the new moon for the month of Nisan (it used to be called Aviv, which means “spring”) is when we start to count. The evening of the 14th day (which begins after sunset of the 13th day) is when we have the Seder, and that is also when we begin Hag HaMatzot, or Festival of Unleavened Bread, which lasts for 7 days.
For Christians, Easter is celebrated on the first Sunday after the Paschal full moon, which is the first full moon on or after 21 March (a fixed approximation of the March equinox). Often Passover and Easter come very close to each other, but rarely ever fall on the same day.
The one significant difference between the Jewish Holy Day (meaning God-commanded) of Pesach and the man-made holiday of Easter is just that- Passover is a Holy Day that God created and Easter is something men created.
God tells us we must celebrate the Passover; in fact, it is one of the three pilgrimage festivals when the people had to go to the temple in Jerusalem. The other two are Shavuot (which Christians celebrate as Pentecost) and Sukkot. That is why, when you read in the Book of Acts, Chapter 2 about the giving of the Spirit to the Apostles, there were thousands of people in Jerusalem.
They weren’t Christians, they were Jews who were there for the commanded appearance for Shavuot. Often when they came for Pesach they just stayed there another 50 days to wait for Shavuot.
There are many people who have been Born Again, especially Gentiles, who have rejected Easter and all the traditional Christian holidays, and celebrate the ones God tells us to celebrate- you can find them in Leviticus 23.
There are many more Christians, Born Again or not, who say that whatever is in the Old Covenant is just for Jews. They seem to ignore the fact that Jesus was, is, and always will be a Torah-observant Jew.
It’s sad that so many people wearing that WWJD bracelet (What Would Jesus Do) have been taught by their religion to do anything BUT what Jesus would do.
I think what pleases God (which would also please Yeshua) more than anything is to do as he said we should do, so I leave it up to you to celebrate what God says to celebrate, or to reject God’s commandments and instead do what men tell you to do.
הג פסח סמח
Hag Pesach sameach! (Happy Passover)
What Happened to the First Commandment?
The 10 Commandments were given by God to Moses on Mount Sinai, also called Mount Horeb. These commandments, which are often referred to as “The 10 Words” are the keystone for every religion that falls under the general title of Jewish or Christian.
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So, if God gave these 10 commandments to everyone who worships him, why is it that within Christianity, when they list the 10 Commandments, the first commandment that God gave is missing?
“What do you mean, Steve? The first commandment is there, and it says that you shall have no other gods before me.”
You’re right, that is what it says, but that isn’t the first commandment!
I did an Internet search for “What are the 10 Commandments” and this is what I got on the first “hit”, which are the first 2 commandments:
I am the Lord your God. You shall not have strange gods before me. You shall not make to thyself any graven thing; nor the likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or in the earth beneath, nor of those things that are in the waters under the earth. You shall not adore them nor serve them.
You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain.
In fact, I went through the first 10 or so results and not even one of them- NOT ONE! – had the first commandment listed.
So, what is this missing, mysterious first commandment? Am I telling you that it isn’t “Thou shall have no other gods before me?”
Yes- that is EXACTLY what I am saying!
Here is the listing of the first commandment, directly from the Torah, which is what God told Moses to write down (Exodus 20):
After searching far and wide on the Internet, I finally found this when asking for the Hebrew commandment from the Torah.
The first commandment that God gave to Moses is NOT about having any other gods before him- that is in the second commandment. The first commandment, the very first thing that God, himself, thought to be the most important thing to learn is that he is the LORD, our God, who brought us out of slavery!
So why is it that Christianity, which is supposed to be worshipping the same God Jews worship, have not just rejected, but totally erased from God’s commandments the first one he gave, and replaced it by splitting the second commandment into two different ones?
The probable answer, if you ask me, is that by the end of the First Century the original Messianic Jews who accepted Yeshua as their Messiah had died off, and the number of Gentiles accepting Yeshua (at that time being called Jesus) overwhelmed the Jews within this movement, which was being transformed into a totally new religion.
You see, because of the political issues the Jewish population was having with Rome, these new Gentile Believers did not want to be associated with the Jews. As Roman citizens (supposedly) worshipping the Roman gods, they were safe; however, worshipping as the Jews did meant they would probably be considered by Rome as Jews, and that put them in a tenuous position.
So, the Gentile leaders of what was now called Christianity started to change their form of worship, beginning with celebrating the Shabbat on Sunday (which was a Roman day of celebration) and rejecting most of the Jewish lifestyle, such as kosher laws and the Holy Days. Later on, by the time Constantine got involved, Christianity became a totally different religion.
Knowing the history, we can understand why these Christians wanted to seem separate from the Jewish population, and the best way to do that was to remove any reference to being God’s chosen people. By removing the first commandment and replacing it with the first part of the second commandment, they completely disassociated themselves from the God of the Jews.
Later, when they decided that Jesus, God, and the Holy Spirit were really all the same entity, they could justify worshiping Jesus as God without violating their first commandment.
The result is that today, Christians have no relationship at all to the God of the Jews and within most of the different Christian religions, they have replaced Adonai completely with Jesus.
I don’t know about you, but from what I have read in the Gospels about Yeshua (Jesus’ real name) and his devotion to his father, I would guess that what modern Christianity has done probably doesn’t go over very well with Yeshua, and especially not with God.
I can’t speak for either of them, but I am pretty sure that God doesn’t like the idea that men changed his commandments, and I’ll also bet the farm that Yeshua is teed-off that men have replaced worship of his father with worship of him.
I have often seen or heard Christians saying that when a Gentile accepts Jesus as their Messiah, they are now a spiritual son or daughter of Abraham, yet in the very same breath they reject the God of Abraham by rejecting his Torah worshiping Jesus.
Worse than that, if you can get any worse, they profess to follow the 10 Commandments but have deleted the first commandment, which is the one that tells us who is our God!
How can anyone say they worship God by deleting the commandment that tells us who he is?
That’s a question I really can’t answer.
Oh, yes, we know that they didn’t want to be associated with Jews, but that doesn’t excuse removing one of his 10 commandments.
In Matthew 7:21-23, Yeshua says that many who call him “Lord” will not enter the kingdom of Heaven. More than that, Yeshua will say he never knew them! How can that be?
Well, maybe it’s because they erased a commandment God gave, replaced God’s Holy Days with man-made holidays, and worship him instead of his father?
Maybe Yeshua will reject those who are totally obedient to whichever sect of Christianity they follow because by doing so they reject nearly everything God said to do?
Maybe God will reject Jews obedient to the Torah but who have rejected Yeshua as their Messiah?
It’s not my call who God will accept or reject; but, based on what God tells us in the Torah, on what Yeshua taught, on how mainstream Judaism has taught us to reject Yeshua, and how Christianity has rejected God’s commandment and (within many Christian religions) even replaced him with his son, well…I believe it safe to say that those things ain’t gonna please either God or Yeshua.
And when the Acharit HaYamim (the End Days) are upon us and we find ourselves in front of God on his Throne of Judgment, when we say “But, Lord, that is what they told me I should do!”, I believe he will say something to the effect of:
“I understand that is what they told you to do, but it is what I say that counts!”
When we come before God for judgment, and Yeshua is standing to the right of God, he will either say “This one is mine, Father” or “I never knew you.”
So, you can choose to follow the religion of men, or you can choose to obey God, and that decision will determine which one of those statements you will hear.
Thank you for being here and please share these messages with everyone you know. If you haven’t done so already, please subscribe to my website, my YouTube channel, and on Facebook “Like’ my page and join my discussion group called “Just God’s Word” (please read and agree to the rules).
And while you are on the website, explore the website- there are some nice pictures and teaching series that I am sure you will find interesting. And buy the books I have written- if you like what you get here, you will like my books, as well.
That’s it for today, so l’hitraot and Baruch HaShem!
Video for What Happened to the First Commandment?
The Difference Between Legalism and Obedience
If someone was to ask me which New Covenant epistle talks about ignoring the Torah, I would have to say the letter to the Galatians.
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The reason I say this is because in that letter, more than any other letter, the main topic is obedience for the sake of obeying, specifically dealing with circumcision. The Believing Jews were trying to get the Believing Gentiles to undergo b’rit milah (ritual circumcision) in order to be considered “righteous” in God’s eyes.
Shaul (Paul) is adamant that undergoing b’rit milah is useless to anyone, and makes it even harder to be righteous, because if you try to do just one thing the Torah requires, you are then expected to do everything the Torah requires, and no one can do everything.
Now, if that doesn’t sound like Shaul saying it is better to ignore the Torah than try to obey it, I don’t know what else it could possibly mean.
BUT…that is not what he meant.
Shaul, in his usual roundabout fashion, was telling the Gentiles that doing what is in the Torah only in order to earn righteousness was impossible.
He said that if anyone gets circumcised just to be obedient to the Torah, by wanting to obey one mitzvot (law) they are required to obey every mitzvot. James confirms this in his letter: James 2:10 says that a person who obeys every law in the Torah, but at some point breaks just one law, becomes guilty of breaking them all.
They are both saying the same thing, but coming at it from different sides. What they are sayin is that the Torah is an All or Nothing thing.
So, what Shaul is saying is that when someone tries to obey every law in the Torah TO EARN SALVATION, they will fail, so it is best for them to not even try.
Does that mean we can ignore the Torah? No way! What it means is that we must be obedient but not in order to earn salvation.
Obedience to the Torah because we faithfully believe God gave us the Torah to help us is different from just going through the motions so we aren’t in trouble.
Legalism is a works-based salvation, and that will never work. Why? Because no one can be totally obedient to the Torah.
But…obeying the Torah as a child obeys- trustingly doing what will please God just as a child wants to please its parents- is the kind of obedience that God wants.
God gave the world the Torah so that his children could save themselves from self-destruction, and even when we continually fail to do what God wants, if we repent from our failure and try again, I believe God is pleased.
God tells us in Ezekiel 18:23 that he wants everyone to be saved, and gets no pleasure from seeing the sinful punished.
Legalism is a perversion of the Torah, teaching that we must perform the actions the Torah requires in order to gain God’s acceptance.
Obedience to the Torah comes from wanting to please God and faithfully trusting that when we do as God says, we will be blessed as he promised (Deuteronomy 28).
The Torah is the ultimate User Manual for salvation. It is what God wants from us with regards to worshiping him and treating each other. Yes, “love thy neighbor as thyself” is the foundation which the Torah is built on, but it doesn’t replace “love the Lord, thy God with all thy strength, heart, and soul.” Yeshua said these two commandments are the most important.
Doing what the Torah requires in order to gain acceptance is legalism; doing what the Torah requires to please God is faithful obedience.
God is clear throughout the Tanakh that going through the motions is not what he wants, and even though he made the rules that say not doing what the Torah says is a sin, he provided us the ultimate “Get Out of Jail” card, which is the Messiah, Yeshua.
Not that we can ignore the Torah because we have Yeshua- that is not why God sent him.
The bottom line is God expects everyone who worships him to obey the Torah- he gave it to the Jews to learn, then as God’s nation of priests (Exodus 19:6) to teach it to the Goyim (nations), so they could learn it.
God knows that as hard as we may try, no one will ever be totally obedient to the Torah, which is why he created the sacrificial system (which he explains in the first 7 chapters of Leviticus) so we could avoid the eternal consequences of our sins.
When Solomon completed building the Temple in Jerusalem, that was the only place we could bring our sacrifices. After the destruction of the Temple, Yeshua became the only means for receiving forgiveness of sin.
That is why he says the only way to the father is through him (John 14:6).
Do you now understand the difference between legalism and obedience?
Legalism is just going through the motions, whereas obedience is the result of faithfully trusting that God gave us these laws for our benefit, and we try to do them as best as we can in order to please God.
God, Yeshua, James, and every original Apostle never ever said that we can disobey the Torah, and even though Shaul seems to say that, he never meant it that way.
I believe if Shaul was alive today, and could see how people have so misinterpreted and misused his letters, he would be furious.
Here’s today’s message in a nutshell: if you know the difference between doing something just to stay out of trouble, and doing something as a labor of love, then you know the difference between legalism and obedience.
Thank you for being here and please share these messages with everyone you know. Subscribe to my ministry website, my YouTube channel, and join my Facebook group called “Just God’s Word” (please read and agree to the rules).
I welcome your comments, and when you are on the website, please check out and buy the books I have written- if you like what you get in these messages, you will like what is written in my books.
That’s it for today, so l’hitraot and Baruch HaShem!