Author: Steven R. Bruck

Parashah Mishaptim 2021 (Ordinances) Exodus 21 – 24

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These ordinances are regarding slavery, accidental death caused by someone else, other torts, and reimbursement for different types of personal injury and loss.

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There are ordinances against witchcraft, sodomy, polytheism, and unfair treatment of people with financially less than yourself. We are also told about the treatment of people, in general, such as fairness in the courts, avoiding mob mentality (lynching), and respect for the property of others, even if they are your enemy.

The final ordinances are regarding the Shabbat and the pilgrimage festivals, and at the end of this parashah, we are told that Moses ascended Mount Sinai to receive the tablets of the law from God, and was there for 40 days and nights.

There are three different types of “laws” within the Torah: Mitzvot, Mishpatim, and Chukim.

The mitzvot are the laws that are plain to understand why we are given them, such as the law against murder.

The mishpatim, which we read in today’s parashah, can be understood to a point, but not all can be totally understood and some are considered to be Edot. For the most part, as we see today, they deal with laws that are more like misdemeanors and civil actions, such as torts, slavery, and social contracts.

The Chukim are those laws for which we have no idea why they exist. These include the rules about the showbread in the Sanctuary, the prohibition against wearing two types of cloth, and the Laws of Kashrut (Kosher.)

Over the past two-plus decades that I have known the Lord, accepted his Messiah, and studied his word, I have seen so many people try to explain why God gave us these rules. They say it is for health reasons, because the Hammurabi Laws already established them, because as a nation we now needed a constitution and penal code, and so on. These all may make sense and be valid, or they may just be someone’s imaginings, but here is what I say:

It doesn’t matter why God gave us these rules.

We have been given laws, ordinances, commandments, and rules regarding how we are to worship God and how we are to treat each other. There could be any number of reasons why God told us to do these specific things, but all we need to know is that he is God and he always wants what is best for us. We must trust that what he says we should do is the best way for us to act, and the best way for us to be able to be with God for all time in the hereafter.

I once read that any God who can be understood by the mind of man is not worthy of the worship of man. That being said, to try to understand why God gives us these laws is almost an insult to him, implying that we mere mortals, less than worms compared to God, could ever be on the same mental and spiritual plane that God is on.

Here is today’s simple, easy-to-understand message:

Stop trying to figure out why God does what he does
or says what he says!

You never will, and all you will end up doing is confusing yourself and possibly others. The only important thing to know about the rules we are told to obey that come from God is that they come from God, and if you can’t trust him enough to simply accept that and work within it, then you have issues of faith that you really need to work on.

Humans always want to understand the “why” of something, and I confess I am no different- my favorite TV shows are on the History and Discovery channels, especially “How It Works” and “How It’s Made”- I LOVE those shows!

The problem with us humans is that once we understand how something works, we think we are better than the one who first invented it! Oh, sure, I can take a car engine apart and put it back together, explaining how all the parts work, but I didn’t create it! I didn’t have that idea, that origination of thought that saw the internal combustion engine and was able to fathom how it works, designing the intricate parts and combining them in a way that made it function.

And when we try to understand why God says what he says, we are doing that same thing, which leads into the sin of thinking we are as good as God!

And you wanna know something? We aren’t!

So, if you are one of those who just have to know why God gave a specific instruction or regulation, please stop asking why and just accept that it is given for your benefit, to help you become more holy and to secure your salvation.

And, frankly, if that isn’t good enough for you, then you will just have to live with disappointment because you will never understand God, unless God, himself, tells you why.

And one last thing: if he does tell you why, keep it to yourself because I don’t want to understand why: I would rather obey from trust than from understanding.

Thank you for being here and please subscribe, share these messages with everyone you know, and I always welcome your comments.

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

Just be Nice to Each Other

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Isn’t it sad how so many of those who profess to be Believers in Messiah and to worship the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob treat each other like non-Believers do?

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We all see it, all the time: if someone disagrees with someone else, they first try to change the person’s mind, then they devolve into accusations, insults, and eventually berate the person, judging them as faithless or sinful or state that they aren’t really saved.

If you ask me, that is one of the greatest sins we commit against God- that’s right, against G-O-D! When we sin, any sin, it is not only against each other but, as David knew and said in Psalm 51, every single sin is first and foremost a sin against God!

And so often, actually almost all the time, the person sinning against another is doing so over a topic that isn’t even a salvation issue.

When I use the term “salvation issue”, I mean a topic that is a foundation stone of our forgiveness and salvation through Messiah Yeshua. For example, accepting that Yeshua (Jesus) IS the Messiah God promised to send is a salvation issue, but how to pronounce his name is not. Another example: faith that God does exist and that he is the one and only true God is a salvation issue, but whether or not we should celebrate traditional holidays that honor him or just the ones he told us to do (in Leviticus 23) is not a “make or break” salvation decision.

Praying to God using a name for him that you have always known to mean the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob is not wrong. But, when you tell someone else when praying to the “Lord” is calling on the pagan god Ba’al, that IS wrong! God knows who we mean- he sees and knows the heart! And to tell someone praying to God that they are really calling on a pagan god is, well, I believe it is a sin against God. Why? Because you are telling someone else what God thinks. And, if you think you are right in doing that, I suggest you read the Book of Job; at the end of the book you will find out what God says about people who speak for him.

Spoiler Alert: God wasn’t very happy about it!

We need to treat everyone, Believer or not, in the way God says we should. That is one of the two main reasons he gave us his commandments: one is to know how he wants us to worship him, and the other is to know how he wants us to treat each other. Yeshua said the whole of the Torah is based on two commandments: to love God and to love each other, so when we have discussions, and yes – even heated discussions- we must NOT be like the pagans are and accuse each other of stupidity, lack of faith, or ignorance.

Even if someone is ignorant, it is not for us to tell them that.

For myself, if this helps at all, I try to always listen to what the other person says and verify their source. I learned as a Salesman (and I was successful at it because of this) that people will always tell you how to close them if you ask the right questions and listen to what they are saying. The same goes for discussions about God, the Messiah, or interpreting the Bible. When there are different opinions, you should listen and analyze what the other is saying, then approach each part of their argument, agreeing where there may be agreement, and when disagreeing, not telling them that they are wrong, but simply saying why you believe differently.

I can guarantee that you will rarely (if ever) win an argument by telling the other person they are wrong. The way to change someone’s mind is to first make them doubt what they believe, and that is done not by attacking them but by asking them why they believe what they do. Then, for each reason they give you, if it is based on incorrect information or is just plain wrong, don’t tell them that. Instead, tell them why you believe what you do, and make an excellent argument with proof of why you believe this way.

Then leave it up to them.

After having explained to them what you “know” to be right, it is better for all if you leave them believing something that is wrong and allow God to work on their heart. God gave everyone the right to make up their own mind, we call it Free Will, and when we try to take away that right we are acting against what God has done.

As the expression goes, don’t burn your bridges behind you, and when we have many different people in discussion groups discussing and debating about many different spiritual and theological issues, you don’t want to burn bridges for anyone else, either. I have seen too many people leave a group or ignore any further discussion about a topic because of the way someone has treated them.

We can’t afford to treat each other in a way that weakens the bond of brethren within the body of Messiah. It is enough to have the outside world attack and persecute us- do we really need to add to that by destroying each other? Didn’t Yeshua tell us that a house divided against itself cannot stand?

So, please, going forward be aware of how you deal with others in these inevitable debates about the Bible, God, and religious rites. We will always have people who disagree, but we can’t let that cause strife and division within the body of Believers.

Let me finish with this: when one person in a discussion begins to attack the other person on a personal basis, then all is lost. It is no longer a discussion, it is now a battle of pride. DO NOT return fire; shake the dust off your sandals and move on.

If you do this, you will be avoiding sin and that is always pleasing to God.

Thank you for being here and please share these messages to help this ministry grow, subscribe to my website and YouTube channel, as well, and I always welcome your comments.

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

The First and the Last- What Else Could it Mean?

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The Alpha and the Omega, the Alef and the Tav, the First and the Last- all of these descriptions are made by God, the Father, about himself from Isaiah all the way through to Revelation.

But Yeshua, the son of God and the Messiah, also says that he is the First and the Last, so is he saying he is God, too? Or could he mean something else?

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When God refers to himself in this way, he is announcing his ultimate authority and eternal nature. He is the first, meaning that he created everything, and he is the last, meaning that when he is done judging the earth, there will be nothing afterward.

God is the only one, true God and there is no other besides him, which is how he declares himself when he states he is the first and the last. Unique, eternal, creator and finisher of everything there has been, is now, and ever will be.

But what does Yeshua mean when he says he is the first and the last?

Well, let’s look at these statements using the proper context.

In Isaiah 44 God is telling Israel, through Isaiah, that there are no other gods and their sins, which are from idol worship, will be forgiven them and they should look forward to that. But, in the meantime, God is declaring that he has been around forever, he knows all that will happen, and who else can do that?
In essence, he is declaring (as I have already said) that he is unique in all of creation- there is one, and only one, God, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

Now, Yeshua also declared that he is the beginning and the end, and he does so only in Revelation 22:12-13. Here is the only place where the context of the paragraph shows it is Yeshua saying he is the A and the Z, and he says so not in accordance with creation but with the forgiving of sins. He states he is the root of David, the Morning Star, and he will come soon with his rewards to give to each person according to what he has done. His description of himself is that of the Messiah, not of God.

Yeshua is not identifying himself as God but as the Messiah- the son of David, the Morning Star, and the one who will allow those who have accepted him to drink from the water of life.

Now, I don’t want this message to devolve into an argument about Trinity vs. Unity, PLEASE! That is not the point here. The traditional Christian thought is that where God, the Father is clearly talking about how he is the A and the Z, those statements are accredited to Jesus by those who believe he and God are the same entity. Fine, I don’t agree but whether or not this is true, it isn’t my point here.

My point is that when God, the Father, says he is the A and the Z he is saying he is the only God. When Yeshua refers to himself as the A and the Z, he is saying that he is the only Messiah. Both statements are absolutes, and each refers to a different issue: God is the A and Z of Creation and Yeshua is the A and Z of Forgiveness.

After the Temple was destroyed, there was no way for Jews to sacrifice and, therefore, no way to be cleansed of their sin, but with Yeshua, we were able to be cleansed because he replaced the need to bring an animal to the Temple, as Torah demanded. That is why he says he is the beginning (of forgiveness after the temple was destroyed), and because with him there is no need to sacrifice anymore, he is also the end (of forgiveness.)

There is only one God, and there is only one Messiah, and each one is unique: God as the eternal authority and power, and Yeshua as the only means of salvation.

Remember, also, that Yeshua warned us of false Messiahs, which is why he says he is the A and the Z: he is confirming that he is the one and only Messiah.

When either God or Yeshua makes the statement “I am the Alpha and the Omega”, it is a metaphor to mean there is no other like me! It identifies the eternal nature of God and the uniqueness of the Messiah, Yeshua. Only one God, only one Messiah: no other God and no other Messiah before, now, or ever again.

Next time you read the statement “I am the Alpha and the Omega”, when God says it he means he is the only true God who was, who is, and will ever be; and, when Yeshua says it, he means he is the first Messiah who ever was, is, and will ever be.

God is God and the Messiah is the Messiah, and each was, is, and always be the only one of their kind: the Alpha and the Omega.

Thank you for being here and please subscribe, share these messages with others, and I always welcome your comments.

That’s it for now; L’hitraot, and Baruch HaShem!

Legalism Resurrected

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Today I want to talk about how Legalism is being resurrected within the current body of Gentile Believers.

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For the purpose of this discussion, let us define legalism as the proposition that for a Gentile to be fully incorporated into salvation through Messiah Yeshua, he or she must follow every Torah commandment (as if anyone could, right?) just as any natural-born Jewish person would be required to do, which includes (only for the men, of course), circumcision.

In the Book of Galatians, we read how Shaul (Paul) warned the Gentile Believers that trying to obey the Torah in order to achieve salvation was wrong and that it was their faith that mattered more than their strict observance of every, single Mosaic commandment. He never said the Torah was invalid for Gentile Believers, just that to obey (and this is VERY important to understand) as the means to gain salvation was not correct. To obey as the means to gain salvation is what I call performance-based salvation, which is not how we are saved (because no one can perfectly obey the Torah- the Bible is clear on that point); we are saved through faith-based salvation, and that faith is demonstrated by our desire and actions with regard to obeying the Torah.

In other words, if we faithfully accept that God exists, is who he says he is, that Yeshua is the Messiah God promised to send, and we accept that without facts or proof, that faith (as James says in his letter) will motivate us to want to obey what God says in the Torah.

I believe that legalistic, i.e., performance-based salvation, in the long run, is counter-productive.

Why? Because no one can be sinless, no one can be completely obedient to the Torah all the time, and when humans constantly fail to do something, eventually they tend to give up trying. And when you are raised as a Gentile, being taught that Yeshua did away with the Torah and you don’t have to do any of that “Jewish” stuff, when you try to do it and fail you go back to the incorrect teachings of Constantinian Christianity, which is “just be a good person and believe in Jesus (whatever that means) and you go to heaven.”

Gentiles are raised to pray to graven images of saints, ignore God’s commanded Holy Days, and instead follow man-made traditions which include holidays and religious ceremonies and rites, all the time telling Jews that Jesus said following man-made traditions is wrong! They ignore the Torah and act superior to Jews because Jews rejected Jesus and they didn’t, so they are really God’s chosen people now (this is called Replacement Theology), completely forgetting that Shaul warned his Gentile Believers not to brag or think they are better than the Jews.

So, now that we have gotten that straightened out, with me going just a wee bit off-topic, the legalism I see being proliferated today is no different than what the new Believers had to deal with in the First Century, except for one major difference: it is now the Gentiles who are demanding performance in order to be truly saved!

I have seen postings about how it is essential to use God’s name, and that there is only one correct name, yet there are many different ideas on what that name is. I see people posting about how there is only one correct calendar to use, or how only the Bible-defined Holy Days are to be celebrated, any other celebration is sinful.

In fact, they say that using any name for God other than the one they think is correct is praying to idols and pagan gods. Celebrating man-made holidays, even the Jewish ones, is a sin. Celebrating any Sabbath, even if the person is celebrating it in a way that God said to, i.e. resting and not doing their normal labor, is a sin if it isn’t Friday night to Saturday night.

None of these things have anything to do with faith. They are, clearly, legalistic because they demand performance in order to be able to have salvation.

If I do not celebrate a Holy Day as commanded in the Book of Leviticus, then I am disobeying God, and that is a sin. No question about it. But if I celebrate Christmas as the means for me to give thanks for the birth of the Messiah, that is not a sin. There is nothing at all anywhere in the Torah that says man-made traditions or celebrations are wrong just because God didn’t say we have to. If the celebration is a heartfelt desire to worship and glorify God, how can that be wrong?

But these legalistic ideas of needing to be exactly on the right day, using the exact name for God when praying, not doing anything that isn’t specifically commanded in the Torah, are all performance-based salvation teachings, and as such, are wrong!

Abraham was not considered righteous because he knew how to pronounce God’s name, or because he celebrated the proper holy days (they weren’t even invented yet), or because he was circumcised (he wasn’t at that time), or for any other performance-related activity.

Yes, he performed as God asked him to when he went from his father’s house into a strange land, but he didn’t do that because he was told he had to in order to be saved; he did it because he believed God when God said he would take him to a land which God will give him where his descendants could live, forever.

It was Abraham’s faith that motivated him to act; legalism doesn’t need faith or even care about it, and that is how you tell the difference between doing faithfully, and doing legalistically.

If you try to do what the Torah says to do because you want to obey God that is fine. If you try to do what the Torah says to do because you want to earn blessings that is fine, too; in truth, God tells us that when we do as he says he will bless us.

But…if you try to do anything that is considered obedient to the Torah because you want to ensure your salvation by not doing anything wrong, then you are being legalistic. You will ALWAYS do something wrong, that is why from the very beginning God knew he would have to send us a Messiah to provide the means to overcome our own inability to be holy.

If you got circumcised because you felt it was important to you to obey that commandment, that is OK; but, if you got circumcised because you knew it was a commandment and you wanted to be obedient so that you get points with God, then your circumcision is useless to you.

Doing something in order to be worthy of salvation or to be “right” is legalism: doing something because your faith in God motivates you to please him means you are on the right track, even if what you do is not specified in the Torah or you don’t do something exactly as it is specified in the Torah.

The key difference between performance-based and faith-based obedience is your motivation. If you do something to be “right” you are being legalistic, and if you do something to please God, you are demonstrating your faith.

Faith-based actions are things we do because we want to please the Lord, and legalistic actions are what we do to be “right.”

I know this is a difficult thing to comprehend, and I hope I have explained what I believe in a way that you can understand; ultimately, obedience in order just to be obedient is not faith.

Thank you for being here and please subscribe, share these messages with everyone, buy my books, and check out my website. And I always welcome your comments, especially today- if you understand what I am saying and agree, and think you can express it in a better way, please do so.

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

Parashah Beshallach 2021 (It came to pass) Exodus 13:17 – 17

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The Israelites are free, and instead of taking the quickest route to Canaan, God has Moses lead them away from that route and places them between the Red Sea and the desert.

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Pharaoh, after having had time to reconsider, sends his entire army after the slaves. The people become afraid and cry to God while accusing Moses of bringing them into the desert to die. Moses calls out to God, who tells him to stop being afraid. God opens the Red Sea so that the Israelites can walk through the sea on dry ground, while the Egyptian army is held back by a pillar of fire.

After Israel was mostly through, the fire disappeared, allowing the chariots to go after the people. God caused the wheels to get stuck in the muddy ocean bed, and when Israel was through and the army in the midst of the sea, God closed the waters on them and the entire army of the Pharaoh was drowned.

The people came to a place called Marah (bitter) where the water was not potable, but God had Moses throw a certain tree into the water, and then it was safe. Next, after two months or so, the people complained about the lack of bread and meat and said they should never have left Egypt (this becomes the standard kvetch for them throughout their journey). God tells Moses that the people will have meat and that he will provide them bread, as well, and he sends manna and has millions of quails land, literally, at their feet.

Immediately, the people rebel against God’s commands, taking more manna than they needed (which turned to worms the next morning) and gathering on the Shabbat.

The people travel on, coming to a place where there was no water, and again they complain. God tells Moses to take the Elders and his rod, with which he will strike a rock and water will flow from that rock. Moses, in his anger, asks the Elders, “Do you expect me to bring water from this rock?” He then strikes the rock twice, after which water comes out.

But God is angry with Moses for not giving God the credit for the water, and this one sin is enough to prevent Moses, despite all he does for the 40 years he leads the people, from entering the Land.

This parashah ends with the battle against Amalek, who came out and attacked the weak and defenseless Israelites who were at the rear of the marchers. In this battle, Hur and Aaron held up Moses’ arms, for when his arms were upheld, the Israelites prevailed, but when his arms got tired and he dropped them, the Amalekites prevailed. After they are defeated by Israel, God states that he will blot out the remembrance of Amalek.

Before I talk about this parashah, I would like to share some interesting information about Amalek and the Torah. God says he will blot out the remembrance of Amalek, which happens in Deuteronomy 25:19, and to honor that mitzvah, when the Sofer (the scribe who writes the Torah) is testing the ink or the quill pen, he writes “Amalek” down on a piece of parchment and then crosses it out several times to perform the very thing God said would happen, namely that the name of Amalek will be blotted out.

What I find interesting every time I read this part of the Torah is that when the army of the Egyptians comes out to the Israelites, they immediately assume it is to kill them. Why would they think that?

The Pharaoh didn’t want to let them go because they were serving as slaves- if there were no Israelites, then the Egyptians would have to do all that work. And, if he killed them all, then the Egyptians would have to do all that work. The Israelites were essential to the Egyptian economy, especially now that Egypt’s economy has suffered destruction. So, if anything, Pharaoh wanted to recapture the people, not kill them, but the people all cried to Moses that it would have been better for them to die in Egypt.

This makes no sense until we consider the one most important condition of these people- they were faithless. Hundreds of years of slavery created a slave mindset in all of them, and as such, they were unsure of themselves and had no faith in God. Even after the plagues, their faith was so weak that with each new challenge, they immediately felt lost and doomed.

The sad thing is that nothing has changed in the 3500 years or so since then. And not just with Jews, but with all people.

I’ll bet that when you read Facebook posts, or Tweets, or whatever, you see so many people who only see the worst possible solution. And not just with non-Believers, but within the body of Messiah, as well. Too often people only see the dark, the doom, the worst-case scenario, and those people are the ones who are, not surprisingly, also the most depressed, fearful, and sad.

I believe there is so much anger, fear, and depression in society today because we have kicked God out of his rightful position as king and savior. We reject his authority as creator, we remove prayer from school, we kiss-up to the godless who want to destroy Israel so that we don’t offend them, and we not only condone, but support sinfulness within the society, from gender-related issues to the murder of children as they are ready to leave the womb.

Instead of a society that honors God and his Messiah, we are a society that sacrifices to Molech (abortion) and emulates Sodom and Gomorrah.

Our government, schools, and (consequently) our society has rejected God and he will, as he has done throughout history, eventually reject us. In truth, I believe God has already rejected the United States, and we can’t expect any more blessings from him.

Now, don’t accuse me of being faithless, because I am not seeing a worst-case scenario: I am making a judgment based on how we have treated God and what has happened throughout history, which we read in the Bible. When God is rejected he waits, patiently, for those rejecting him to repent, but at some point, only God knows when (no pun intended), he decides the waiting period is over and it is time for judgment. I believe that given the state of things in America right now, we are entering into the judgment we deserve.

We have gone out of our way to be politically correct by not offending people who are, by their actions, themselves an offense to God, so when we side with those who offend God, well…what do you expect to happen?

The narrative of the Israelites traveling through the desert is a perfect lesson for any society, and that lesson is when you are faithless, you will never be happy. The books of the Prophets, Chronicles, and Kings demonstrate that when we are faithful and show that faith through repentance and obedience (James says faith without works is dead), then we are blessed and the people are secure. But, when we are faithless and show that faithlessness through disobedience, we become mired down with problems that we cannot solve, become subject to others, and live in fear.

There is little that we can do to change an entire society, although one person can make a difference- what about Hitler, Stalin, Mao, and Castro, to name a few. If you ask me, the reason they were so influential was that they used the fear and faithlessness of the people to create a new god for them, one that did what they wanted it to do instead of the One who tells us what we should do for him.

This is one of the biggest lies that modern religion tells its followers: “God will do so much for you because he loves you, just as you are.”

God WILL do so much for you, and God DOES love you, just as you are, but there are two sides to the covenants he made with us, and the other side is that God will do these things AFTER we demonstrate our faith in him through obedience.

Salvation is free for the asking, but blessings have to be earned, and (for the record) the gift of salvation won’t be taken away from you, but you can throw it away.

Work on having faith, even in the darkest places, and temper faith with a bit of reality. God is faithful, one thousand percent, but that faithfulness means not only can we count on him for salvation, but we can also count on him for judgment and punishment for our sins. Remember this lesson from the Bible: we will be forgiven on a spiritual plane, but sin always has consequences in the physical world.

Faith in God doesn’t prevent tsouris in life, it helps us to persevere through that tsouris fearlessly, without losing our joy.

Thank you for being here and please subscribe, share these message (to help this ministry grow), and remember that I always welcome your comments.

That’s it for now: L’hitraot and Shabbat Shalom!