When Yeshua sent his Talmudim (Disciples) out into the world to preach the Good News, he told them to be as wise as serpents and gentle as doves (Matthew 10:16). He also told them that if people in any town rejected their message, to shake the dust off their sandals as a warning to them (Luke 9:5).

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It seems to me that Yeshua was telling them they have the best and most important thing in the world to say to people, but still, they shouldn’t ram it down their throats (gentle as doves), and if they are rejected they should make sure the people know that their fate is now on their own heads (shake the dust).

But what about the part where he says be wise as serpents?

Aren’t serpents sneaky? I mean, they slide along on their belly in the deep grass hidden from view as they stalk their prey, or they camouflage themselves and stay perfectly still, for days or even weeks, until some innocent animal comes along and then they STRIKE!!!

That doesn’t sound very “holy”, if you ask me. It doesn’t even sound fair. But that isn’t what Yeshua was talking about.

Did you know that some venomous snakes can deliver a dry bite? That’s a bite where they do not inject their venom. Venom takes time to replace and energy to make, and reptiles do not have an abundance of energy, so to waste venom on a bite to a creature that isn’t food is not a wise thing for a snake to do.

When we are talking to someone about God, Yeshua, and salvation, we are injecting them; not with poisonous venom, but with a vaccine against death and destruction of their soul. We are giving them life eternal in our words, and they have the option to accept what we say or reject it.

Now, this is where we need to be wise as serpents, in that when we are in a discussion about the Bible, God, or Yeshua, and a confrontation begins to rear its ugly head, we need to step back and decide if we will continue to talk or shake the dust from our sandals. In other words, did we just deliver a dry bite?

We need to pick our fights: are we really just wasting our time or is the person still open to hearing the truth? If we find ourselves getting frustrated with someone, that is the signal we are no longer gentle or wise because frustration is the result of pridefulness.

Yes, when you are so fed up with this idiot who has no idea what he or she is talking about, spewing out traditional rhetoric that is just SO wrong that you want to wring their neck, well, this is the time to step back. You’ve delivered a dry bite, you have been rejected, and now it is time to shake off the dust.

You do NOT, and should NOT, tell that person anything else. Don’t tell them they aren’t really saved; don’t tell them they do not know God or Yeshua; do not tell them they are going to burn forever in hellfire. Even if all that is true, it is not for you or me or anyone to say.

Yeshua never told his Talmudim that they should verbally chop those who reject them into little pieces and insult their beliefs or tell them what will happen to them. He said to be gentle as doves, and only to shake the dust off their sandals. Truth be told, if someone won’t listen to the Good News of Messiah, then shaking off the dust won’t make them feel any different, but it isn’t really for their sakes as much as it demonstrates those bringing salvation, who have been rejected, have done their jobs.

You’re like the Lone Ranger saying, “Well, Tonto, we’ve done what we came here to do and it’s time to move on.”

I want to make one more point, and this is the one that I believe is most important: when you are in a discussion with other Believers, you need to be twice as diligent. How important this topic is to non-Believers is generally much less than it is to those who have accepted Yeshua because we are, in general, more certain (actually, I should say passionate) about our beliefs. So when we are discussing something with another Believer, we need to remember that they can reject us just as anyone else can, and we might be rejecting them, as well. No one knows everything, and another part of being wise is to be open to the fact that YOU might be the one with the wrong understanding.

Here’s a real-life example: I was adamant that I would never take one of the COVID vaccines that use mRNA. I was proud to announce that no one is going to screw around with my genome. I thought I was right, and I had many friends who agreed with me until one friend told me geneticists she knew debunked this rumor, and after doing the research I should have done from the start, I had to recognize and admit that I was wrong. In fact, mRNA vaccines have been used and researched for decades and after the mRNA teaches cells how to recognize and fight the COVID virus, it is destroyed; our DNA is protected inside the nucleus which the mRNA never enters.

Getting back to today’s message, we want to help those who don’t understand the truth about Yeshua’s teachings, who have been misled by the traditional misinterpretation of the letters Shaul (Paul) wrote, and especially those who think that the Torah is no longer valid because Yeshua did away with the need to follow God’s laws. We also want to lead the Jewish people to understand that Yeshua is NOT the Jesus Christ they have been told about, that he did not create a new religion, and that he never taught anything but to obey the Torah not just by doing as it says, but by spiritually letting it be written on one’s heart, which is the true New Covenant (Jeremiah 31:31.)

So practice your delivery in order to be wise as serpents, and when you are feeling frustrated and rejected, pick your fight. If you have to ram it down their throats, stop! Now is the time to be as gentle as doves and shake the dust. Do NOT get into an argument, because once the discussion become an argument you have lost, and when you lose, they lose, too.

Salvation is available to everyone, but everyone won’t take it. In truth, most will reject it but what is even worse, if you ask me, is that many will accept Yeshua but because of wrong teachings, at the end they will find they never really had it right.

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

I just finished reading Leviticus. When I was in Chapter 19, though, something caught my interest, and this is it (from the Complete Jewish Bible):

Leviticus 19:5-8…When you offer a sacrifice of peace offerings to ADONAI, offer it in a way that will make you accepted.  It is to be eaten the same day you offer it and the following day; but if any of it remains until the third day, it is to be burned up completely.  If any of it is eaten on the third day, it will have become a disgusting thing and will not be accepted; moreover, everyone who eats it will bear the consequences of profaning something holy meant for ADONAI -that person will be cut off from his people.

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The Peace Offering, also called the Thanksgiving Offering, is the only sacrifice where the one bringing the sacrifice also shares in eating of it. They are to eat it there, at the Sanctuary where it was offered.

The sin and guilt sacrifices are followed by the peace offering, which is the last offering made and brings us back into communion with God. The ultimate role of the Messiah is to bring us back into communion with God, and Yeshua’s sacrifice is both a sin sacrifice and a peace offering because it removes our sins and brings us back into communion with God.

So, when I was reading this I thought that it was interesting that if the peace offering, which has been offered correctly and accepted, is misused later (by not burning up whatever remains on the third day), then that offering is rejected! And not only that, but the one who offered it and was accepted, but now has violated the regulation, is not just having that acceptance removed but is being cut off from the people!

There can be a number of meanings to being cut off from your people, called karet, but the one that I believe makes the most sense is that it means to be deprived of the afterlife. Someone who has their name written in the Book of Life will have it scratched out if they commit a sin that has karet as its punishment.

This is a direct and absolutely conclusive denial of the ridiculous traditional Christian teaching of “Once Saved, Always Saved.” Despite what some religious leader once taught, which has been retaught over and over, here is God, the ruler and king of everything and everyone, saying that even if you do what is right and are accepted, if afterward, you do wrong and do not repent you will be rejected!

Maybe this is one of the reasons why Christianity has often taught that Yeshua did away with the law: not only does that wrongful teaching open the door to eating pork rinds while watching the game, but it allows one to sin after accepting Yeshua as your Messiah and not have to repent of it.

OSAS is nothing more than a pathway to eternal destruction, and this passage in Leviticus proves that!

We may do what is right in God’s eyes, but later we can still screw it up by sinning without concern for our spiritual health. It is more than believing that we will always be forgiven without even asking: it is the idea that because we have been saved that we can never lose that salvation.

Too often I hear people say that no one can take away what God has given, which, by itself, is a truism. However, we can throw away that which we received, and the fastest way to throw off our salvation is to continue sinning without regard or regret or even asking for forgiveness.

It doesn’t matter what some religious leader says to you, or what your friends or family tell you, the Torah is very clear that, as far as God is concerned, no matter how righteous you may have been at one time, if you turn from that righteousness and sin, your last actions are what you will be judged on.

To put it in accounting terms, our salvation is not FIFO, but LIFO.

FIFO means First In, First Out and LIFO means Last In, First Out. These are terms used to value inventory when calculating the Cost of Goods Sold. FIFO uses the cost of the inventory based on the oldest items and LIFO from the cost of producing the newest items; depending on how much it cost to produce the item, at that time, your profit margin will change.

The fact that what we did last is what we will be judged on is confirmed in Ezekiel 18, where God tells us that the sinner is the one who will suffer, not the children; but, more than that, it also says that one who was righteous but sins will die for their sins, but the sinner who turns from his sins will live.

So, if your peace offering (your acceptance of Yeshua as your Messiah) has been accepted and even if you received the Ruach HaKodesh (Holy Spirit), but you continue to sin you WILL be cut off from your people. To be saved doesn’t mean that you can’t be punished, and your salvation will be removed if you sin without repentance or asking for forgiveness; not that God will take it away, but that by your actions you will have thrown it away.

So remember that Yeshua did not change or do away with the Torah, but confirmed it by teaching us the Remes, the spiritual meaning of the commandments (this is clearly seen when you read Matthew 5), and by the way in which he lived his life.

None of us can be sinless, but we can always sin less, and that is my personal goal: not to be perfect, but to be better than I was. And the way to do that is to follow the instructions in the manual, which we call the Torah.

Salvation is a rope that God has lowered from the heavens for us to grab hold of and climb up. It is a difficult climb, and each sin we commit is like placing grease on the rope, making it harder to hold on. And each time we ask for forgiveness, it cleans off the grease.

So hold on tight, keep climbing and try not to grease the rope too much.

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