Author: Steven R. Bruck

Parashah Noach 2021 (Noah) Genesis 6:9 – 11:32

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We read today the story of Noah.

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Noah was the only righteous man in a world of violence and God, seeing that the world needed a reboot, had Noah, his wife, sons, and daughter-in-law all survive the flood God was to send to destroy all life on earth (except the fish, of course) by building an ark and taking a representative of each of the animals. Of the clean animals, there were 7 pairs (male and female) and of the unclean only one pair.

We all know about the 40 days of rain until the earth was completely covered, the 150 days of floating around, then finally the waters begin to recede and eventually, after more than a year, Noah and his family came to ground on Mount Ararat and left the ark, setting free the animals. Noah sacrifices to God and God makes a covenant never again to destroy the earth by flood, placing a rainbow in the sky as a reminder of the covenant.

This covenant is known as the Noahide Covenant and is the first one that God made with mankind. It encompasses the restrictions of cruelty to animals, eating of blood, laws regarding torts, and sets the foundation for the succeeding covenants to come.

Remember this important fact about the covenants God made with us: they have always been complementary, not exclusionary, meaning that each succeeding covenant -the Abrahamic, the Mosaic, the Davidic, and lastly the New Covenant- all have included and built upon the previous covenants. No covenant God has made has ever overruled or removed any aspect or requirement of the previous covenant.

This parashah tells us of the sin of Ham, who saw his drunken and naked father and made fun of it, resulting in Noah cursing him and his descendants. Speaking of descendants, we are told the generations of Noah and his children, and the story of the Tower of Babel is given.

This parashah ends taking us through the generations after Noah until we come to Abram settling in the Chaldees.

As I was going through my Chumash, there was a commentary when I came to the part where Noah gets drunk and Ham sees him lying passed out on the floor, showing the family jewels to everyone. The commentary states that most children’s versions of the Bible leave this out, assuming it is too “adult” for the children to have to hear, but that it should not be excluded because of the valuable lesson it teaches.

That lesson is children must respect their parents, and that means even when their parents do something foolish or make mistakes, the children should be respectful and not make fun of them. The example in my Chumash was regarding parents who cannot speak the language as well as their children (I think it used that example because this Chumash dates from the early 20th Century when many immigrants were still coming into the country and having language issues), but in modern times we could use the example of seniors having trouble with computer skills.

The youth of today (I am talking Millennials and younger) demonstrate a sense of entitlement and are very accusatory of their elders. They blame the previous generations for all their problems and have recently even tried to not just ignore history, but do away with it by tearing down statues. This disrespect not just for history but for their parents and their grandparents, who made that history, whether for good or bad, is a sin.

God makes it clear that children must honor their parents when he spells it out in the Ten Commandments, and we see the root of the need for this right here in this parashah, which took place nearly 450 years earlier.

So where does this disrespect stem from? If you ask me, it stems from the parents, many of whom in the last 2 or 3 generations have been more concerned with being their children’s friend than being their parent. We have become a society of overly sensitive babies, crying “Ouch” at every word or intonation that is aimed at us.

I grew up with the adage, “Sticks and stones can break my bones, but words will never hurt me.” Today it is more like, “Sticks and stones can break my bones, but words can be a felony.”

Words can hurt, no doubt about it, but the significant difference between when I grew up and today is that I was toughened up to ignore the words that are hurtful. The kids today can’t handle being told they did a bad job!

I had been a mentor for people learning how to be Docents (guides) at a popular zoo and when I told some of them that they needed to get better at answering questions, some of them actually cried! And guess who got in trouble for that? Yes, I did! For pointing out what they did wrong, in order to make them better at what they wanted to do, I was wrong. Imagine that.

And no, I didn’t yell, I didn’t say nasty things or insult them, I simply asked them why they didn’t listen to what I told them to do and that they needed to better learn the facts about the animals.

This was a number of years ago, but from what I see in the world, it hasn’t gotten any better. We are a society of wimps, and that is why America is spiraling down, no longer able to brag about our “can-do” attitude because what it is today is more of a “you have to do it for me” attitude.

And if you ask me, it all begins with a lack of respect for our parents, which was fostered by parents being afraid to punish and control their children. As a parent, your first and most important responsibility is to provide the basic needs for your children- food, water, shelter, and (of course) love. Next, you should make sure that they are self-sufficient, and this is where many parents have failed. Children can’t be alone- I see parents picking up their children from school in nice neighborhoods when they live less than a quarter of a mile away. Let the kid walk it, and if you are afraid of predators, teach the kids to walk in groups and how to avoid the predators.

The disrespect Ham showed to his father was unjustified and the cause was in Ham, but in my opinion, today the cause of this disrespect is from the way parents coddle and dote on their kids. The example a parent who dotes and coddles their child makes is one of weakness and fear of rejection. Kids pick up on this, and it will never earn the respect their children should have for them and will result in adults who will not be able to teach their kids to be strong, self-sufficient members of society.

Leadership has to be strong and constant, and if the parents aren’t able to handle stress or being treated meanly by other people, how can they teach their children to do so?

We are a society of emotionally and spiritually weak people, and unless we teach our children to respect their parents by being parents who earn that respect, we are doomed.

Thank you for being there and please share these messages, subscribe to my website, YouTube channel, and like my Facebook page. You might also want to join my Facebook discussion group, Just God’s Word.

I have completed my 4th book, “The Good News About the Messiah for Jews, Debunking the Traditional Lies About the Jewish Messiah”. It is available in paperback and Kindle format, and you can get it from Amazon books or use the link on my website.

That’s it for this week, so l’hitraot and Shabbat Shalom!

My Beef With Christianity

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Lately, I have had a few Christian Facebook friends chide me, so to speak (and nicely, too, which I appreciate) about my somewhat bigoted attitude towards Christianity and Christians.

Let me set the record straight- I am not against Christians, I am against Christianity.

It is sort of like the adage “Hate the sin but love the sinner.”

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The one thing that has kept both Jews and Gentiles from knowing God and his Messiah, and has led millions wishing to worship God correctly down the path of destruction, has been Christianity.

The Jewish people have always tried to follow the Torah, which is the ONLY place throughout the entire Bible (that means Genesis through Revelation) where God, himself, tells us exactly what he wants us to do.

The Pharisees in the First Century taught the literal meaning, called the P’shat, and never went beyond that, using their influence and political power to rule over the Jews and creating many man-made rituals and rules (known today as Halacha) which have added much to the Torah’s requirements. In truth, this was a sinful thing to do because God told us, no less than twice, not to add or take away from anything in the Torah (Deut. 4:2 and 12:32).

Yeshua taught us the same things that the Pharisees did, but he deepened our knowledge of the laws by teaching the spiritual meaning, the Remes, through the use of Drashim (parables, or stories that have a moral lesson).

But that wasn’t the worse thing the Pharisees did: what was really terrible was the way they used their influence to steer people away from accepting Yeshua as the Messiah; they did this because as the Messiah, Yeshua would have replaced them as the social authority.

The letters Shaul (Paul) wrote only added to the confusion, and what happened was that by the end of the First Century, Yeshua was rebranded as a Gentile Savior, with many rules and rituals that had been created by men, such as changing the Sabbath day and rejecting much of what the Torah said.

By the time Constantine added his two shekels, what Yeshua taught was totally lost and a new religion, Christianity, was established.

But that isn’t the reason that Jews still reject him, today. Jews have, throughout the past two millennia, rejected Jesus as the Messiah because we have been taught that he created Christianity, and Christianity rejects the Torah and most everything that is Jewish.

And that has not just kept God’s chosen people, the ones the Messiah came for, from being able to know their Messiah but also millions upon millions of Gentiles who have been taught all the wrong things about the Jewish Messiah, now having been transformed (or should I say mutated) into a blonde-haired, blue-eyed Aryian godhead who forces people to convert to worshiping him (not God) and even proclaims itself as the only “true” religion.

There are even some sects of Christianity that proclaim the Jews have been rejected by God and that they, the Born Again Christians, are now the chosen people of God (this is called Replacement Theology).

Modern Christianity is not what Yeshua taught, and it is the major reason that Jews cannot be expected to accept their own Messiah, and Gentiles are rejecting God’s instructions.

This is my beef with Christianity.

I have nothing against Christians, and I know that all Christians are not the same, just as all Jews are not the same. I am Jewish, always have been and never will be anything else, but unlike most Jews, I know that Yeshua is the Messiah and I still live a Jewish life and worship as a Jew, in accordance with the way God said to in the Torah. I am the exception within Judaism.

I know many Christians who are the exception within Christianity; they know their Jewish Messiah and do not reject the Torah. Many live a Jewish lifestyle, many still observe the Christian holidays, and many demonstrate a sort of blending of the two.

My beef is with Christianity and the false teachings that it has promulgated over the centuries, which really has very little, if anything, to do with what Messiah Yeshua taught, and which, consequently, has prevented both Jews and Gentiles from knowing the real Messiah.

And if you profess to believe in God and that Yeshua (Jesus) is his Messiah, frankly speaking, you should have the same beef!

Thank you for being here and please share these messages with everyone you know, subscribe to my website and my YouTube channel, and please remember that I always welcome your comments.

And check out my newest book, The Good News About the Messiah for Jews, Debunking the Traditional Lies About the Jewish Messiah. It is available on Amazon in paperback and Kindle format, and you can get it easily by using the link on my website.

I’m done for today, so l’hitraot and Baruch HaShem!

Are You Only Preaching to the Choir?

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Before we start, I wanted to let you know I have published my 4th book, “The Good News About the Messiah for Jews”, Debunking the Traditional Lies About the Jewish Messiah. It is not just for Jews, of course, but for both Jews and Christians who have been told many wrong things about Yeshua (Jesus) over the millennia, and this book will speak to who he really is and what he really taught. I like all the books I have written, of course, but I think this one is my best work. It is available in paperback and Kindle format, and you can order it through Amazon or use the link on my website.

OK, let’s get to today’s message…

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Over the years I have had this ministry, which is going on 8 years now, I have very often heard feedback from people that when I talk about being called “Christ killer” they say they have been raised Christian and never heard anyone say that. I have also had Born Again Christians tell me things that I knew were subtly anti-Semitic, but they believed they were telling me just what Jesus had preached.

My wife was raised Catholic (I won’t even start on the historic treatment of Jews by Catholicism) and when I asked her if she knew anyone who called her Jewish friends “Christ killer”, she said she never heard them do that. My next question was whether or not, having spent 12 years going to Catholic school, she even knew any Jews growing up, and she said she didn’t. So, naturally, she never knew Gentiles used that derogatory accusation.

She, along with many other Gentiles I have known over my lifetime, has always been cocooned within her own religion. She hung around with Catholics and when she started working, she was with mostly Gentiles. I was one of the very first Jews she actually got to know well, so I tell her she has always had a heart for the Jewish people because the first Jew she really got to know, she married.

If you have not been exposed to the bigotry of the Christian world against Jews, or for that matter, the bigotry of Judaism against Christianity, consider yourself blessed, but at the same time somewhat naive or cocooned. Many Christians I know who do accept that the Torah is still valid and want to be closer to their Jewish roots are oblivious to the way Christianity has treated Jews, not just with physical atrocities such as the Crusades and the Inquisition but through misinterpretations of the Gospels and (especially) the letters Shaul (Paul) wrote.

I have been accused, nicely, of having the “wrong spirit” and thinking that all Christians follow the pagan influences still found within many Christian religions. And who do I get this from? The ones who have been taught the correct worship of God and have been raised in (for lack of a better term) a pro-Torah environment.

These God-fearing Gentiles who worship God more in line with the way he said to instead of what traditional Christianity has taught, accuse me of bigotry against Christians, which isn’t far from the truth.

I confess that I do not like Christianity, but that doesn’t mean I hate Christians. I hate sin but love the sinner, so in the same way, I understand most- actually the vast majority- of Christians have no idea at all about what is in the Bible or what Yeshua taught. All they know is what they were told.

And I feel the same way about Judaism: the Reform Jews reject much of what the Torah says, the Conservative Jews have Kosher homes but eat out at Bob Evans Restaurants, and the Orthodox treat the Talmud as scripture!

The main thing that Judaism and Christianity have in common, besides a belief in God, is that they both lie about who Jesus is and what he taught.

If you think what I have been saying is a bunch of fertilizer, then you must be one of those cocooned types, who has never really been exposed to the true darkness in the world and seen the animosity between Christians and Jews. Please believe me- it IS there!

And so what do we do about it? Well, for me, this ministry is what I am doing about it. I am trying to get the truth about who Yeshua was and what he taught. Most of all, I would love to be able to get Jews to know that modern Christianity has almost nothing to do with what Yeshua taught or what Shaul (Paul) meant when he wrote his letters. This ministry is devoted to giving all people the data they need to be able to make an informed decision about where they will spend eternity: the way we live now will decide where we go then.

That is why I almost never quote from an extra-biblical source, always using the Bible as my justification. And I do not take things out of context but do my best to be hermeneutically correct and biblically sound in my opinions. I trust the Ruach haKodesh (Holy Spirit) that I felt going into my body all those years ago to guide me.

And I am still wrong sometimes, so when I ask people for feedback I really mean it. I will always keep an open mind, but never change my faithful understanding or reject my desire to do as God said we should do, and the only place he did that was in the Torah.

God has no religion, just his instructions to all of us on how to worship him and treat each other. The Jewish people received these instructions first, but not exclusively: God told Moses to teach the people the Torah and that the Israelites will be his (God’s) nation of priests to the world (Exodus 19:6). Obviously, that means God intended the Jews to teach everyone else the Torah so that we could all do as God says.

Religion has rejected God’s ways and created its own ways- and I include Judaism- which is why there are so many different ways to worship God, so many different rituals and rites, and so many different rules about diet, holidays, and lifestyle.

It’s up to you to find out what the real world is like, how Judaism and Christianity have treated each other over the millennia, and take off the rose-colored glasses. The real world is an ignorant and evil place, and there are so many lies that have been floating around for millennia that we, those who know God, Yeshua, and recognize the validity of God’s instructions in the Torah, must be able to deal with this and teach these poor ignorant souls the truth so they have a chance for redemption.

Remember this: God told his prophets that if they did not tell the people what God says, then the people’s blood is on the prophet’s head. However, if he tells them what God says and they still reject him, then their blood is on their own head and the prophet is guiltless. I don’t know about you, but given the choice of being popular and guilty, or unpopular and guiltless, I choose unpopular.

One last thing: telling people the truth does NOT mean insulting them! When you tell the truth, you do not have the right to accuse anyone of being spiritually weak, evil, paganistic, or any other sort of attack against them as a person- that is wrong and a sin! You can attack their beliefs, you can attack their misunderstanding, but you can never attack them.

Thank you for being here and please share these messages with everyone you know to help this ministry grow. Subscribe here and on my YouTube channel, as well, and please let me know if you like or dislike what I say. Hey, if you feel I am wrong don’t hesitate to tell me why. It’s always nice to know someone takes the time to respond.

That’s it for today so l’hitraot and Baruch HaShem!

Parashah Bereshith 2021 (In the beginning) Genesis 1 – 6:8

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Welcome back to the beginning of the word of God. With Shemini Atzeret past us, we are now starting the annual cycle of readings from the Torah, all over again, and that puts us here, at the beginning where the Torah tells us all about the beginning.

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I don’t really need to go through what happens in this parashah, do I? Even the atheists know that God created the earth, separated the sea and the land, created the stars and the sun and the moon, the fish, the plants, the animals, and finally people. Later, when the earth was populated with sinful people, God decided that he needed to start this over again, and that the only one worth saving was Noah.

Hmm…looks like I went over it even though I said I didn’t need to go over it.

This parashah will undoubtedly bring up the age-old argument of Creationism vs. Evolution. But wait a minute! That argument isn’t really age-old, is it? Judaism has been around for nearly 6 Millennia, and this discussion has been around for barely 160 years, so it isn’t really age-old! In truth, it is very recent. So, why is it so new? Maybe, because before science became so important to people, they were very satisfied accepting that God was in charge and that what happens in the world is all his doing.

I love science and believe it is necessary for our existence, and to understand how things work is a good thing. But, science has the unfortunate side-effect with many people of displacing God.

Recently, though, many scientists are coming to the conclusion that because of the complexity and balance within the Universe that it couldn’t have been accidental- there is definitely an intelligence behind it.

Personally, I do not argue Creationism vs. Evolution, but make the argument for Intelligent Design. That seems, to me, to be the best compromise because it accepts that God created everything, but did so in a step-by-step process, allowing inferior species to become extinct while creating a more adaptable species to replace it.

The creation of the universe has been scientifically proven to be the result of a gigantic explosion. This was proven by the sensing of radio waves coming to earth from outer space, radio waves that would be the remains of a tremendous release of radiation from a super-explosion that occurred billions of years ago. The Bible tells us God created the universe with a thought or sometimes we read with a word. The thing that matters is that God made it happen, and so why not with a gigantic explosion? Why couldn’t God have reversed a Black Hole, releasing all the matter that had been condensed within its unmeasurable gravity?

As for the earth, the logical sequence in which things appeared couldn’t have been by accident. After all, evolution says the fish came on the land, but if the creation of life was accidental, why didn’t land creatures evolve before the fish? Or why couldn’t they have evolved together? Or why couldn’t have we have been formed from the start as we are now?

The invertebrate to fish to reptile to marsupial to mammal sequence clearly shows a continual improvement in adaptability. But if this was accidental, how come some species within the same genus died and others didn’t? And if this is how evolution works, then there will be a next level; will that result in homo sapiens who might still be around being enslaved by a superior form of humans? Will they still be human anymore, at least what we know a human is?

And if that is to happen, then it is still feasible to consider that God is behind it. In fact, from a strictly logical viewpoint, it makes more sense that there is some intelligence, far superior to ours, designing and improving the workmanship of life than to suppose these things are happening by accident, or more accurately, by some beneficial genetic mutation.

There have been many different mutations over the centuries, and how many of these have ever been recorded as beneficial to the species? Have any birth defects, which are a mutation of the genes, ever made those with them more adaptable to the environment?

Not from what I have ever seen or heard.

No. Even if I was an atheist, I would find it hard to justify accidental mutation as the reason there are so many viable living entities in the world. The odds of a bunch of rocks forming a planet just the exact right distance from the sun, with just the right atmosphere, just the right temperature, etc., to form life and sustain itself so well are astronomical. Our environment is so fragile in one respect and so adaptable in another that it has, for billions of years, not just survived but thrived.

The only threat to the world is mankind, and if mankind does become extinct, it won’t be by God’s doing- it will be our own fault.

Genesis says the universe and all life on earth was created in 6 days. Science says that happened over billions of years; because I believe in Intelligent Design, and also that God is beyond our understanding (which includes science) that when God told Moses to write 6 days, as far as God is concerned, those billions of years could easily have seemed like 6 days to him.

Frankly, none of this matters to me at all because my salvation is not based on creation or evolution but faith that God is God and Yeshua is the Messiah. If someone wants to believe all this happened by accident, I don’t argue with them.

However, I do feel a sense of pity for them because if everything happens by accident, what hope can they have? None.

I believe God created everything in the universe and that the evolution of the earth’s species over the millennia has been by his design. I also believe that he is going to stop at our current state of development.

Why now? Because he has told us that when he sends the Messiah for the last time (which is the next time since Yeshua has already been here once), that he will create a new earth for those who are to be saved and we will live in God’s presence for all eternity.

I don’t know about you, but that sounds pretty final to me.

Thank you for being here and please share these messages; subscribe to the website and my YouTube channel and like my Facebook page. My books are available for sale (my 4th one will be out soon, which is going to debunk many traditional lies about Yeshua) and I always welcome your comments.

That’s it for this week, so l’hitraot and Shabbat Shalom!

Will God Supersede Free Will?

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I have always thought that God gave us free will and would never do anything to abrogate our right to make our own decisions. But, reading through the Tanakh- especially the books of the prophets- I wonder if I am wrong about that.

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For instance, in Joel 3 God says that in the End Days he will pour out his Spirit on all people, even their slaves.

In Numbers 11, when Moses appoints the 70 Elders to help him in judging for the people, God pours his Spirit on the Elders.

When God chose Shaul as king, he poured his Spirit on him; not just once, but twice during his kingship (hence the old saying, “Is Shaul a prophet, too?”)

In Ezekiel 36, God says he will replace our hearts of stone with hearts of flesh.

I am sure there are other passages we could review, but these are enough to make me wonder if God will supersede the right to make our own decisions, which he gave us in the first place?

We are told that God is the same today, yesterday, and tomorrow, and that because he is the holiest of holies he will never go against his word or change his mind about what is right or wrong. So, if that is true, can we trust him to stay the course with regards to free will after he tells us that there will be times he will overrule our own choices?

You know, I don’t really have an answer for that. I am not so sure now. I mean, I trust God to always know and do what is best for me, so if he does force me to think or act a certain way, which pouring out his Spirit or changing my heart will do, is that OK?

I can’t answer for anyone else, but my feeling is that whatever God wants to do for me or to me is OK with me. I trust that whatever he does it is always for my good because he tells me that he wants me to live (Ezekiel 18:23), so even if he seems to abrogate my right to make my own choices, it is for my own good.

This is weird for me. I have always said free will is for us to have and God will not change it, and that is my strongest argument against Predestination. And now, well…I still do not believe that everyone is predestined to heaven or hell, but if God says he is going to give us a new heart, that’s hard to believe without also accepting this is predetermined.

So, how can this be reconciled? How can we have free will and still be given a new heart, with God’s Spirit being forced upon us?

Give me a sec, here….hmmm….maybe, yes, you sure? Hmm…yes, I think that’s good. OK, here we go!

The one thing I was missing in this argument was that what God gives to us, we can refuse to keep. It’s called Apostasy. God can replace our heart of stone with a heart of flesh, but we can always plaster over it. God can pour his Spirit on us, but we can always refuse to listen to it.

Free will still exists within us; even though God can cause his Spirit to indwell and change our heart, we can still refuse to work with what he gives us.

Look at Adam and Eve- there was no sin in them, but when given the chance, they took to sin like a duck to water. If they could do that, so can we. We are all born with iniquity (the desire to sin) in our very DNA. God said he would give us a new spirit and a new heart, but the DNA is not changing. Iniquity was found even in the most perfect of angels, Beelzebub, and if he could turn to sin, so can we.

And in 1 Samuel, after Shmuel anointed Shaul we are told that God gave him a new heart then and there! Yet, later we see how Shaul rejected God’s instructions and ended up sinning against God. So Shaul’s new heart and spirit didn’t last. How can that be? It must be that Shaul was still able to make his own decisions!

God will do whatever he thinks is best for you; even his punishments are delivered with mercy, designed not to be punitive but to bring you back onto the path of righteousness. It is up to you, up to me, up to each and every one of us to decide if we will do what is right.

When we do wrong, God will try to gently lead us with his staff; and if that doesn’t work, he will take the rod to our heads. And if that still doesn’t work, we will be on our own. The decision to remain faithful or to sin has, is, and always will be our own choice!

In Joel 3-4, God’s pouring of his Spirit will happen before the great Day of Adonai. So, he will do this to all humanity and THEN judge, telling us that all who call on the name of the Lord will be saved, so it must be that God will do these things without taking away our right to choose.

God will make himself known through this pouring out of his Spirit and changing of our hearts, but it will not supersede free will. It will be his last-ditch effort to help us save ourselves. Because God says that after he pours out his Spirit all who call on his name will be saved, we can imply there is the opportunity to not call on his name. If we didn’t have a choice, no one would have to call on his name, right? But, since we are given the chance to call on his name, we still have a choice.

Well, I am glad that I figured this one out because, I have to tell you, I was a little worried there when I started this message.

In case I lost you, sooner or later God will pour out his Spirit on everyone and give us a heart of flesh to replace the stony one that is there, but even after that, we will still have the chance to choose to call on his name or not.

We all have the right to decide whether to reject or accept God, and because he wants everyone to choose life, he will go as far as to give a new heart and pour out his Spirit on each and every one of us, but that will NOT supersede our free-will ability to refuse him.

No one knows when the Day of Adonai will come and the Bible tells us we can expect to see a worldwide spiritual awakening before it comes, but why wait? I think the best thing to do if you haven’t done it yet, is to accept God and his Messiah, Yeshua, and do it now!

Thank you for being here and please share these messages with everyone you know, subscribe on my website and my Youtube channel, buy my books, and let me know what you think of these messages. I really appreciate feedback, even if you disagree. Hey! You might be right, and if you can help me better understand God we will both be blessed.

That’s it for now, so l’hitraot and Baruch HaShem!