Author: Steven R. Bruck

The Sin Yeshua Refused to Forgive

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Do you recall the story about the adulteress brought before Yeshua? You can find it in John 8:3-11 (CJB):

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The Torah-teachers and the P’rushim brought in a woman who had been caught committing adultery and made her stand in the center of the group.  Then they said to him, “Rabbi, this woman was caught in the very act of committing adultery.  Now in our Torah, Moshe commanded that such a woman be stoned to death. What do you say about it?”  They said this to trap him, so that they might have ground for bringing charges against him; but Yeshua bent down and began writing in the dust with his finger.  When they kept questioning him, he straightened up and said to them, “The one of you who is without sin, let him be the first to throw a stone at her.”  Then he bent down and wrote in the dust again.  On hearing this, they began to leave, one by one, the older ones first, until he was left alone, with the woman still there.  Standing up, Yeshua said to her, “Where are they? Has no one condemned you?”  She said, “No one, sir.” Yeshua said, “Neither do I condemn you. Now go, and don’t sin any more.”

When I last read this it occurred to me that there was no forgiveness given for the sin the woman was supposed to have committed. No one should be surprised that this situation was a set-up to disgrace and trap Yeshua; in fact, the Bible story tells us that is exactly what was being done. And the fact that the woman was caught in the act of adultery but the other party to that sin was not there is a clear indication that the whole thing was somewhat shady.

Of course, Yeshua didn’t fall for this trap. We know from what we read in the Gospel accounts that by reason of the Ruach HaKodesh (Holy Spirit) Yeshua knew what people were thinking, and although we will never know what he wrote in the sand, his actions were designed to show the accusers that he knew exactly what was going on.

I believe the woman was actually committing the sin of adultery, if for no other reason than the fact that it was the Pharisees who brought her before Yeshua. You see, to accuse someone of a crime that was not committed is a violation of the 9th Commandment about not bearing false witness. So, even though their intention was to trap Yeshua, I don’t think that a Pharisee would have violated one of the Big Ten just to trap Yeshua.

For the moment, let’s look past the actions of Yeshua and the men who brought her, and look to the woman. When Yeshua asked her who was there to condemn her, she said no one, but nothing else. She did not confess her sin, she did not ask for forgiveness, neither did she say one word about being falsely accused. If I was brought before someone and falsely accused, the first thing I would have said was that this was a frame-up. But this woman said nothing, and I believe her silence spoke volumes.

When Yeshua said he would not condemn her, he was obeying the Torah. In Deuteronomy 19:15 it says this (JPS Tanakh):

A single witness may not validate against a person any guilt for any offense that may be committed; a case can be valid only on the testimony of two witnesses or more.

Once everyone left, and Yeshua was alone with the woman, no accusation could legally be made against her, so Yeshua obeyed the law and told her to go.

But – and here’s the important part- he never said she was forgiven. In fact, he told her not to sin anymore. That statement (to me) clearly shows that she did sin, he knew she sinned, but since she never confessed her sin or asked for forgiveness, he didn’t give it. In my opinion, I think the woman had no intention of stopping her adulteress ways, which is why Yeshua warned her not to sin anymore.

In other words, she got off on a legal technicality and the judge told her she might not be so lucky the next time.

You might be thinking, “OK, so this is interesting, but what does it have to do with me?”

Everything! The lesson we learn from this story is that even though forgiveness is available to us, we must confess our sin and ask for that forgiveness. And if the confession is not a truly repentant one, God will not be fooled because he knows your heart and what is in your mind.

If you have been taught that because Yeshua died for your sins they are automatically forgiven, you have been taught a lie. No sin is automatically forgiven. Ever. We must first and foremost feel repentance: if you really aren’t sorry for the sin you committed, there is no chance of being forgiven. Next, your repentant attitude should cause you to confess your sin before God, which will then put you in a position to ask for forgiveness, which now, since the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem, can only be given by means of the sacrifice which Yeshua made on our part.

Even though Yeshua did forgive some people’s sins when he was performing his ministry, he is the Messiah, the Intercessor for all of us, and after his sacrifice, it is now only God who can forgive sin. Yeshua provided the means for forgiveness, but he is not the one who forgives anymore. Only after we accept Yeshua as our Messiah, repent, confess and ask God for forgiveness in Yeshua’s name, will we be able to receive forgiveness of sin.

And we need to repent, confess and ask forgiveness for each and every time we sin.

The “Once saved, always saved” policy is something some person created, and it is not a policy that God recognizes.

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Until next time, L’hitraot, Baruch HaShem…and don’t forget to wash your hands!

Parashah Ki Tissa 2020 (When you take) Exodus 30:2 – 34

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In today’s Torah reading we are told about the 1/2 shekel that every male of fighting age had to pay in order to ransom their souls. God then gives instructions regarding the laver (Mikvah), preparing the incense, and assigning Bezalel and Oholiab over the manufacturing of all the articles needed for the Tabernacle. He also instructs Moses about the Shabbat and gives some of the Kashrut (Kosher) laws.

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The Sin of the Golden Calf happens in this parashah, as well as God describing his very nature to Moses, which in Judaism we call the 13 Attributes of God.

The parashah ends with God forgiving the sin of the people (thanks to Moses’ intervention) and Moses receiving the second set of tablets.

When I started to read this parashah, I knew immediately that what I should talk about today was not the really big topics, meaning the Golden Calf sin or God’s nature, but the very first thing I read about- the ransom.

Many people are confused over the fact that God says we should not kill, yet he orders us to entirely destroy men, women, and children, whole societies. How can a God that hates killing order genocide?

The Torah is more than just a list of commandments. One of the things it does is to establish a penal code, and there is one penalty for murder and another one for accidental homicide. For a murder, meaning a premeditated and purposeful act of killing someone, the penalty is death. However, if someone commits an accidental homicide, they are allowed to pay a ransom for their life.

As an example, if I wait in hiding for you and when you come, I attack you and kill you, I am a murderer and the penalty is death.  However, if I lend you a bull that is known to gore people and it kills you, then I have committed the sin of causing someone to die and my penalty is death. However, because this death was unintentional I am able to pay a ransom for my soul and stay alive.

Of course, I may have to deal with the blood avenger at some point, but that’s not relevant to today’s message.

As I mentioned, the very first lines of this parashah say that everyone who is older than 20 years of age must pay a half-shekel ransom for their souls.  The reason for this payment is because God IS against people killing other people, which always is a sin. However, when a soldier kills while in battle, God does not consider that the same as intentionally murdering someone. As such, a ransom is able to save their soul from the penalty of sinning.

We read in other places how the soldiers, upon returning from a battle, would dedicate some or all of the spoils to the Sanctuary. This was their ransom payment, which they gave in order to avoid the penalty for having taken a life.

God hates anyone dying, and we read in Ezekiel 18 that he doesn’t want anyone to die, and wants only that those who sin would turn from their sin so they may live.  The ransom for one’s soul is how God allows for killing while still maintaining his overall commandment about not killing. The sin of killing is still a sin, but when done under orders by God or unintentionally, there is a means to avoid the immediate penalty (death), and that will also allow for forgiveness of the sin on a spiritual plane.

Ultimately, when we sin on earth we must suffer the consequences of that sin, even if we repent and are forgiven because forgiveness of sin is a spiritual event and secures our place in eternity. It does not let us avoid the consequences of that sin while we are still alive. The ransom for one’s soul when the killing is unintentional or a result of being in a war, is a “legal device” which will countermand the penalty.

There is a story in the Babylonian Talmud about how the angels, upon seeing the Egyptians drowning in the Red Sea, sang praises of joy for the salvation of the Israelites, but God rebuked them, saying, ‘The works of My hands are drowning in the sea, and you would utter song in My presence!”

The point is that God hates it when someone kills another person, but as a fair and perfect judge, he will take into consideration the cause and motivations behind the action. When killing is done by God’s command, we are not really going out on our own volition and killing someone, we are acting as God’s executioners. The slaughter of the people we read about in the Bible was not genocide, as much as it was punishment for the sins they had committed. Considering the thousands of innocent people, of all ages and gender, who were sacrificed to the pagan Gods, these people were all guilty of murder and when God sent the Israelites to destroy those cities, he was not murdering innocent people but was actually using the Israelites as his means of executing criminals. But even though they were killing under orders, so to speak, the people doing what God commanded still had to pay the penalty for taking a life.

God hates murder and hates the act of taking a life, but he is also a fair and righteous judge who knows and accounts for the motivation behind our actions.  That is good news for those who try to do right but fail and repent, and bad news for those who think they can go through the motions of being worshipful, righteous and repenting, but whose hearts and minds are really ruled by sin.

You can’t fool God.

Amen!

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Until next time, L’hitraot and Shabbat Shalom!

PS: And wash your hands!  🙂

Changed My Mind

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I just spent about an hour writing a message about fear and how it can be used to control us.

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When I couldn’t think of how to conclude the message I realized that I couldn’t stop writing because all I was doing was rambling on and on and on.

So here I am starting over, and trying to stay on topic, which is about the fear currently controlling the world, a fear which I haven’t seen this bad since McCarthyism, the A-Bomb Scare, or Legionnaire’s Disease.

(OK, I wasn’t old enough to go through the McCarthy era, but I certainly remember the others.)

I’m not going to discuss my feelings about the coronavirus phobia, which is what happened in my first draft and why I had to delete it, but will simply state that fear will abide and grow where there is no faith in God.

What I think is really terrible (maybe you agree?) is that now even houses of worship are closing their doors to their own congregants!

When there is a worldwide panic, as we are seeing today, the one place you would expect people to go is to their house of worship, where they can collectively pray for God’s help and protection. Yet, what are these houses of God doing?

They are shutting the people out!

Now, you tell me…is this something that serves God or helps the Devil?

Ah, now you see where I am going with this message: worldwide fear is a tool of the enemy of God, and the more we allow it to propagate, the more people will be controlled by Satan.

That may sound a bit far-fetched, but I do not believe so. Satan will not walk up to you and say, “Yo! Satan’s the name, and eternal damnation is my game. Ya wanna play?”

No, that won’t be the way he does it. What Satan will do is generate distrust and fear among the people, then present himself as a savior, overcoming the problem that caused the fear.

As an example, let’s use the current phobia over coronavirus: maybe someone will come up with a cure and in order to receive it free, you have to qualify, and when you do you will receive a chip in your hand you can use at a clinic to receive the shot.

Or maybe it will be a financial crisis, or maybe it will be some other world-shattering event. No one can know for sure what it will be, but I am certain that this is the process he will use.

So stop being afraid of the virus; after all, the medical fact is that it isn’t very deadly, and almost 99% of the people infected recover within a few days, I’ll bet many have already had it and thought it was just the flu. But do be aware of the effect that this event is having on the world’s population, which has already reached the point where countries are shutting themselves off from the world.

Do you remember what Yeshua said when he was accused of working for Satan? He said a house divided against itself cannot stand, and what do we see in the world today? Countries separating themselves from the world, events banning people from attending, schools closing and churches and synagogues refusing to open their doors.

We are being torn apart from the inside, and if you don’t think that is something that Satan can use to gain power, then you are blind.

Wash your hands and cover your mouth when you cough or sneeze. Really- we should all do that anyway. Didn’t your Mommy teach you that when you were a child? And shake hands with people, hug them and go through life as you always have, just be more aware of touching your face or wiping your nose. Keep one of those hand sanitizing spray bottles in your pocket- that’s fine. Being concerned and careful is not wrong, but being frightened to the point where you shut yourself off from others is wrong.

One last point…remember that Yeshua said whenever two or three are gathered in his name, there he will be; that can’t happen if no one is getting together with anyone else.

Thank you for being here, and please subscribe. Whether you agree or disagree with what I write, I welcome your comments.

Until next time, don’t be afraid, L’hitraot and Baruch HaShem!

 

Do Miracles Still Exist?

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Do you know how a car engine works?

Can you explain how television works?

What about being able to teach someone about how water on the earth becomes rain from the sky?

I’ll bet almost everyone reading this message, right now, can do all of these things.

But, although you can explain how it works, can you make it work?

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I looked up the definition of a miracle, and (as expected) there are a few different versions, but the main idea is that it is something inexplicable, whose cause cannot be explained by scientific or other means of proof, and thereby considered to be an act of God.

That is a fine definition, don’t you think? My problem with it is that by crediting only the unexplained to God it implies that what we can explain is not by God. Therefore, humans believe that simply because they can explain how something happens that disqualifies it as being a miracle.

I can explain digestion: I eat something, it is transferred to my stomach by my esophagus, then the digestive juices in my stomach dissolve the food into its components, which are then absorbed through my intestines and transferred to the various organs in my body by means of the blood pumped by my heart.

Simple, easy to understand, all scientifically explainable.  Therefore, it isn’t really a miracle, right?

WRONG!!

The entire process is miraculous, and just because I understand how it happens, that doesn’t make it any less a miracle.

Can you create a digestive system?

The Red Sea split open to allow the Israelites to pass through. Now we all recognize that as a miracle, specifically an act of God. The Nile turning to blood, the frogs, lice, boils, etc… every plague God sent upon Egypt were all miracles.

But what about the first couple of miracles? Doesn’t the Bible tell us the magicians of Egypt were able to turn their staffs into snakes? And they also turned the water to blood, so those events couldn’t have been miracles.

Here is a cute drash I read a long time ago:

Many of the best-known scientists in the world gathered to congratulate themselves on being able to read and manipulate the entire human genome. Upon discussion, they came to the conclusion that knowing the genes that cause diseases and other health problems, soon they will no longer need God because they can control disease, and even heal genetic mutations. God asks them, “Can you make a human being out of a lump of clay?” The scientists discuss it and agree that they can. God says, “So, nu -show me.”  They go outside and collect some clay, and as they are heading back to the laboratory God says, “Hold it right there! That’s my clay…you have to use your own clay.”

The things the magicians did to match what God did are miracles because they were the result of a miracle: who created the tree from which they got their staff? Who created snakes, which is what they turned their staff into?

Whose clay is it?

Do you see my point?

People think the Age of Miracles is over because they do not recognize that everything in the world is a miracle. Everything they see, touch, smell and hear is a miracle. No matter what mankind creates, the materials that he uses are already here. The earth, the wood, the water, the elements…everything we have ever created has been made possible because God first miraculously created all the materials.

Every machine humans have created,  every species hybrid we have created, every medicine we have formulated, every everything…all miracles because God miraculously provided the materials we needed to make these things.

So the next time you see a flower bloom, or you hear a child laugh, or you see a building being built, recognize that it is the result of a miracle.

There are miracles happening everywhere, every day and the problem is that we take them for granted; just because we can explain how they happen doesn’t make them any less of a miracle.

And since all miracles come from God, that means God is in everything, everywhere, and we need to remember and appreciate that.

Thank you for being here and please subscribe and share these messages out with everyone you know. I am not in this ministry to make money but to prevent what Hosea said about my people being destroyed for lack of knowledge. This ministry is devoted to helping people get the knowledge they need to make an informed decision about God and how they should live their lives.

So, until next time L’hitraot and Baruch HaShem!

Parashah Tetzaveh 2020 (Command) Exodus 27:20 – 30:10)

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God continues to give Moses detailed instructions for the building of the Tabernacle and all that is involved with it. In this reading, we are told how to manufacture the priestly robes, including the breastplate of judgment, the procedure for anointing the priests, and the construction of the altar.

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I don’t know why there is so much detail in these last chapters of Exodus, but today’s reading mentions something that has been a mystery to every biblical scholar of modern times, and that mystery is: what the heck are the Urim and Tummim?

The Hebrew words mean Lights and Perfections, and there has been an on-going argument over whether they are a separate part of the breastplate or incorporated into it. There is no question that they are an essential part of receiving the divine will when matters of great importance are discussed but what are they? Are they some kind of dice? And, whatever they were, how were they utilized?

I believe that the throwing of lots had to be a binomial action, meaning when asking God to indicate his will, the questions had to be presented as a “Yes” or “No” option. There are many references in movies to seers throwing pieces of bone with letters on them and diving an answer, but I don’t think that is how the Urim and Tummim worked; however, I really can’t say anything for sure since I don’t have any idea of what they were.

Another interesting fact about the Urim and Tummim is that they seem to have been used only up to the time of David, and the only mention of them after 1 Samuel 28:6 is in Ezra, where they were used to determine the genealogy of those who couldn’t identify their families when making aliyah from Babylon to Jerusalem.

I have my own idea about the loss of these devices and will share it with you. Again, this is my thought and is not to be taken as a definitive answer to what happened to them.

I believe the use of the Urim and Tummim was rejected because the kingship decided that it was able to make its own decision. There was the king, who had advisors, the prophets and the assigned Cohen. These people seem to be the ones who decided what to do, and even though we often read of David consulting Adonai with regards to what actions he should take, we don’t really read that much after Solomon’s rule. Actually, mention of any of the later kings of either Judea or Israel even consulting God is rare. Of course, the kings of Israel wouldn’t have consulted Adonai because they worshiped the pagan gods, but I would have expected that the kings of Judea, at least those who did right in God’s eyes, would have consulted him often, but I really don’t recall a lot of references to that.

We know that under Solomon, Israel had peace and Solomon had the supernatural wisdom that God gave him, so maybe a need for the Urim and Tummim didn’t exist? After many years of not being used, their existence could have been more or less forgotten, or maybe how to use them was lost?

To me, from the time of Shaul as king, and more so down the line of kings, it seems that the prophet took precedence over the priest with regard to knowing God’s word, and since the high priest was the only one with access to the Urim and Tummim, perhaps that is what led to the loss of their use?

No one knows, and probably will never know, what the Urim and Tummim were or how they were used, or why they weren’t used (except for one mention) after David’s kingship.

The Urim and the Tummim are a mystery, and people love to solve a mystery, and when I run across a mystery within the Bible I always check to see how it stacks up to my Acid Test question, which is: “How does this affect my salvation?”

And, as far as knowing all about the Urim and Tummim, the answer is: it doesn’t. It is an interesting mystery, and since I can’t answer it, and (frankly) no one ever has, I will leave you with this reminder from Moses (Deuteronomy 29:29):

Things which are hidden belong to ADONAI our God. But the things that have been revealed belong to us and our children forever, so that we can observe all the words of this Torah.

In other words, don’t sweat the small stuff and stay focused on what matters, which is to follow the instructions God gave us.

Thank you for being here and please subscribe if you like what you read. I also welcome comments and would ask you to check out my entire website, especially my books. If you like my messages, you will like my books, as well.

Until next time, L’hitraot and Shabbat Shalom!