Category: A Drash to Start the Day

Is Yeshua Really Our Savior?

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Well, that’s an interesting question, isn’t it?

The obvious answer is: YES! Of course, he is- that’s what the Messiah is all about!

Didn’t you hear that he died for our sins?

Didn’t you read in Isaiah that he was wounded for our transgressions?

Didn’t he, himself, say that the only way to the Father is through him?

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Yes, I know all that, but let’s step back for a moment and let me ask you…who sent him? Is Yeshua really our savior or the tool of our true savior, God?

The Messiah is the one who brings us back into communion with God, who removes our sins so that we can come into the presence of the Lord, and he is the one God promised to send us throughout the Tanakh, in order to provide a means for us to have our sins forgiven.

At first, God provided for the removal of sin through the sacrificial system, where an innocent animal is killed as a substitute for the death we deserve for having committed the sin. Innocent blood shed in placement of our blood, which should be shed.

When the animal is sacrificed, it has died for our sins; it was wounded for our transgressions, and by it’s stripes we are healed.

Sound familiar?

So, is that sheep our Savior? Do we call upon the name of the bull we killed when we ask for forgiveness?

Of course not- they are just sacrificial animals. So why, then, if they died for our sins do we not call them our savior? The truth is, they were- if not for that animals’ death, we would have to die.

So, nu? What makes Yeshua’s actions any different from these animals?

The difference is that the animal didn’t choose to die for us, and Yeshua did.

He had the opportunity to reject his role as the Messiah, just as Jonah (initially) rejected his calling to save Nineveh. Yeshua could have decided that he didn’t want to be the Messiah and simply live out his life as a normal, although highly spiritual, man. And I believe, if that had happened, God would simply have created another Messiah, in the same way that he would have saved the Jews in Shushan, as Mordecai told Esther in the Megillah of Hadassah 4:14:

For if you fail to speak up now, relief and deliverance will come to the Jews from a different direction;

However, as we all know, Yeshua did not reject his calling to be the Messiah, the tool through which God provided the chance for everyone in the world to be saved from the eternal consequences of their sin.

So, the answer to my original question, “Is Yeshua really our savior?” is “Yes”… and “No.”

Yes- what he did allows us to be forgiven of our sins. He did this voluntarily and of his own free will, and since the destruction of the temple in Jerusalem he has become our only means of salvation, which (by definition) makes him our savior.

But the original provider of this means of salvation is God, who divinely created, sent and empowered Yeshua to be the Messiah, so the answer to the question is also “No”, because if not for God there would be no way to be forgiven of our sins, at all. In fact, God is really the only one who can forgive sin. Yes, Yeshua had that authority when he was performing his ministry on earth, but now that his role is to be our Intercessor, he doesn’t forgive us but asks his father to forgive us because we are his sheep, and because he shed his blood for us.

Yeshua doesn’t forgive our sins- only God does. And if you’re not sure about that, then find the biblical passage that says the Messiah sits on the Throne of Judgment in heaven.

Now, there, there…don’t get all confused, and don’t worry that you have to change your beliefs about Yeshua being the savior of the world, because he is. But God is the ultimate power and authority, to whom Yeshua humbly submits (which he made clear throughout the Gospels), therefore God is our Savior because he sent Yeshua, who gave his human life so we could have eternal life.

Yeshua saved us when he gave his life as a substitution for ours, providing the pathway to salvation, but this was only possible because God sent him, which means our real savior is God.

God is the ultimate Savior of the world, and when we individually accept Yeshua as our Messiah, he becomes our personal savior.

Thank you for being here and please LIKE, share, and subscribe. Thanks to you I have now reached over 100 subscribers to my YouTube channel, so thank you, again, and please continue to help this ministry grow.

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

The Bible Confirms that the Torah Is Still Valid for Christians

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I know, I know…so many of you are saying, “He’s wrong! Paul said that Jesus did away with the law, and the Elders in Jerusalem said Christians only had to do 4 things in their letter in Acts 15, and besides that, I have always been told that the Torah is just for Jews.”

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Well, that is what you have been told, but you have also been told there is an Easter Bunny, Santa Claus knows what you do better than Big Brother does and that someone from the government is here to help you.

First of all, Paul was a really important and influential man, but he wasn’t and still isn’t, God. Much of what is included in the New Covenant is not from God through Paul, but from Paul to the people in the congregations he started who were having interpersonal and spiritual problems. His letters are not so much divinely inspired instructions as they are his way of teaching ex-pagans how to live in accordance with God’s instructions in the Torah, which is how Paul lived his entire life. Paul sent them little bits and pieces of what they will eventually need to know.

And as for the letter from the Elders to the newly converting (to Judaism) Gentiles, in Acts 15:19-21, James suggested not to put too much of a burden on the Gentiles converting to Judaism and finishes his recommendation to send those 4 requirements with the statement that Moses has been read every Shabbat in the synagogues. That statement clearly means that these newly converting pagans are expected to be worshiping now with the Jews in the synagogues every Shabbat, and there they will learn the rest of the Torah. The 4 requirements were not the total of what Gentiles need to do, it was just the first steps.

OK, so let’s get to what the Bible says to prove that the Torah is still valid, which means be obeyed to the best of one’s abilities, for Christians as well as Jews. In fact, these instructions are for anyone who professes to believe in the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob and who has accepted Yeshua (Jesus) as their Messiah. And before anyone argues that no one can do everything in the Torah, let’s all agree that this is true. And even more, there are some requirements in the Torah only appropriate for a select class, such as women or farmers, or priests. When I say “obey the Torah”, I mean whatever instructions are appropriate for you.

What I am going to do is to take things that God said, as well as what some of the Disciples said, and put them together to form this proof. Before anyone accuses me of taking things out of context in order to create my own interpretation, these sentences will be pulled out of their paragraph, but their intent and meaning are not going to be any different than the original context.

We start with Genesis 22:18, where God told Abraham- “And through your offspring all nations of the earth will be blessed, because you have obeyed my voice.”

Later, In Exodus 19:5-7 God tells Moses this about the Israelites, the descendants of Abraham- “Now if you will pay careful attention to what I say and keep my covenant, then you will be my own treasure from among all the peoples, for all the earth is mine; and you will be a kingdom of cohanim (Ed.-priests) for me, a nation set apart.’

Before we go on, let’s clarify something. When God said that the Jews (that’s easier to type than Israelites) were to be a nation of priests, what is it that the priest does? This is essential to understand because the priest, rabbi, minister, whatever does more than just run the weekly service or visit the sick. The priest is the intercessor between us and God, in that he or she serves God by learning what it is that God wants from us and teaching their flock how to live their lives, through example (hopefully), in the way that God wants them to live. The priest is God’s representative on earth to the people and is required to lead us to the proper worship and lifestyle God demands.

Okay, so where were we? Oh, yeah- so far God has told Abraham that his descendants, or even better, let’s say children (here’s the spoiler alert- that includes adopted children) will be a blessing to the world, and he told Moses that the Jews would be God’s nation of priests.

Next, in Deuteronomy 28, the entire chapter is devoted to detailing all the blessings the people who obey God’s instructions, i.e. what is in the Torah, will receive for obedience. It also defines what happens to those who don’t obey, and I’ll tell you this- it ain’t good.

What we have up to now is that God told Abraham his children will be a blessing to the world and told Moses that these children are to be a nation of priests (to the world) and that when they obey God they will receive blessings. This means as priests they will learn to live as God says (in the Torah) and when, as priests, they teach others to do so they all receive blessings.

God says in Exodus 12:49– “The same law applies both to the native-born and to the foreigner residing among you.” which indicates that those who choose to be part of the Nation of Israel, either spiritually or geographically, will be treated just as a native-born, which means protected by the law and, conversely, required to obey that same law.

And now we tie this all together with what Shaul says in Galatians 3:29– “If you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise.”

Let’s put this all together:

  1. The children of Abraham will be a blessing to the world;
  2. The children of Abraham will be God’s nation of priests to the world;
  3. Those who obey the Torah will be blessed;
  4. Anyone who lives with the Jews is expected to obey the Torah (same law for all);
  5. Anyone who belongs to Messiah Yeshua is an adopted child of Abraham.

There you have it! Anyone who professes to believe that Yeshua is the Messiah is grafted into the nation of Israel and an adopted son or daughter of Abraham. As such, God has stated that that person is to be required to obey the law the same as a native-born Jew, and is also a priest to the world, who is expected by God to live and teach others to live in accordance with the instructions God gave to us through Moses, which are in the Torah.

And when that person, now an adopted child of Abraham and a priest to the world, obeys God and teaches others to do so, they will all receive blessings and be a blessing to the world.

However, as the later part of Deuteronomy 28 states, if that person rejects God’s instructions they will be cut off from their people and cursed.

If you profess to accept Yeshua as your Messiah, then you are, as stated in the Bible, an adopted child of Abraham and a priest to the world, required by God to live in accordance with his instructions in the Torah and to teach others to do so.

If you reject the Torah then you have rejected God, and by doing so you will be cut off from your people, which translates to having thrown away the gift of salvation you received when you said you accepted Yeshua.

I am not making this stuff up-it is all here in the Bible! So please!- reconsider whatever lies you may have been told that absolve you from obeying the Torah. They are from people who most likely didn’t know they were leading you down the path of destruction; these traditional Christian teachings are the blind leading the blind and have been passed down, generation to generation, for millennia.

Now you have good sound biblical reasons to question them.

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

Something Else Jews and Christians Have In Common

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I have written about Jews and Christians many times, almost always, but only now and then specifying things that we have in common. I usually spend most of my time pointing out all the things we do NOT have in common, and why it shouldn’t be that way.

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But today I want to point out something we have in common, something other than the obvious things, such as we both believe in God, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

We both, for the most part, believe in the existence of Yeshua (Jesus), although where Christianity has accepted him as the Messiah God promised to send, mainstream Judaism has rejected him as such.

Now, here is the one thing that both Jews and Christians have in common, which is not a good thing:

Both Jews and Christians say that if you want to believe that Jesus is the Messiah, you can’t be Jewish anymore.

Now isn’t that amazing? And totally disappointing.

You see, most Christians have been taught that following the instructions in the Torah, which are often referred to as the Mosaic law, is something that Jews are required to do because they are still subject to the Torah, and that is because they have rejected Jesus. But Christians, because they accept Jesus, are under Grace and not under the law, which is what Paul said in his letter to the Romans .

What Paul was talking about was the teaching of the Pharisees, which was a performance-based salvation; in other words, the Jews were being taught that they had to perform righteously in order to be “saved.” Paul constantly reminded them that it isn’t performance, but faith which allows us to be seen as righteous, preaching a faith-based salvation.

But here’s the kicker: faith doesn’t mean disobedience. Paul often states this, saying that Grace trumps sin, but it isn’t a license to sin. And James also states that faith without works is dead, meaning faith encourages and motivates us to obey.

So, nu? Obey what? There are no commandments issued by God anywhere in the New Covenant writings. All of God’s instructions are in the Torah.

Yeshua said if we love him we will obey his commandments, so what are they? In truth, Yeshua gave no commandments, other than to love one another, because that is how people will know we are his talmudim (John 13:34); but, in reality, that wasn’t new: Yeshua was rephrasing Leviticus 19:18, which says love your neighbor as yourself.

So what Christianity has taught is lawlessness. Shaul (Paul) teaches in his letter to the Romans that the Torah created sin by identifying what is right and what is wrong. So, if you don’t have to obey the Torah, then you are by definition, sinning. And when we add to this another Christian teaching called “Once Saved, Always Saved”, not only are you sinning but you don’t even have to repent!

What about the Jewish side of this? Do they agree that when a Jew accepts Jesus they are free from obedience to the Torah? Not really: what Jews will tell you is that any Jew who accepts Yeshua as their Messiah is now a Christian! According to mainstream Judaism, no Jew who believes Yeshua is the Messiah is Jewish anymore. It doesn’t matter if they obey the Torah, go to shul on Shabbat, observe the Moedim of God, or do any other “Jewish” thing: as far as Jews are concerned, if you believe in Jesus you aren’t a Jew anymore.

You can be born Jewish and convert to any other non-Christian religion, and you will still be considered a Jew, just a Jew who is a Buddhist or a Muslim or a Hindu, but if you accept Jesus you aren’t a Jew.

How meshuggah is that?

The sad part of this, which is not just sad but destroys people’s chances of truly being saved, is that both sides are absolutely, 1000% WRONG!

Anyone who believes that Yeshua (Jesus) is the Messiah God promised to send is, by definition, grafted into the Chosen people of God (Romans 11), who are, have been, and always will be…the Jews. No Christian who says he or she believes in Jesus is absolved of obedience to God, for God, himself, has said over and over throughout the Bible that anyone who joins with the Jewish people is to receive the same treatment under the law as the native-born. That means to be protected by it, as well as obligated to obey it.

As for the Jews who accept Yeshua, they are just as obligated to obey God now as they ever were, because accepting Yeshua as their Messiah completes them as a Jewish person: not only do they have God, and his Torah, but the Messiah, as well.

Yeshua said in Matthew 5:17 that he did not come to change the law and that nothing in the Torah will change until all things have come to pass. That means A-L-L things: Yeshua’s return, the Tribulation, the new heaven and earth, the temple lowered from heaven, the dead in Messiah risen, Satan and his demons in the lake of fire, etc., etc., etc.

I don’t know about you, but I don’t see any of these things here now.

Both sides agree believing in Yeshua as the Messiah means you can’t be a Jew anymore, and, according to what God, Yeshua, and even that little Jewish Pharisee tent-maker from Tarsus all say, both sides couldn’t be more wrong.

In fact, the most Jewish thing any Jew can do is to accept Yeshua as their Messiah, and Christians shouldn’t do as the “Church” teaches, but as Yeshua actually did, which was to live a Torah-observant life, motivated to obey Torah by his faith in, and love for, the Lord God.

It is clear from the Bible that to obey God’s instructions (which are in the Torah) is to accept him, and to refuse to do as God says is to reject him- there is no middle ground here. In the Gospels, Yeshua said he does and says only what God tells him to do and say, so Yeshua obeyed God by living in perfect accordance with the Torah; otherwise, he would not have been an acceptable sacrifice, So, nu! To live as Yeshua lived, to follow in his footsteps, to live up to the WWJD on those bracelets people wear, is to obey God’s instructions in the Torah.

And we don’t obey Torah because we want to attain salvation by works, but because of our faithful loving obedience to our father in heaven, who only wants what is best for us. Obedience to the Torah is not how we are saved, but faith in God and Yeshua is meaningful and real only if you do as they say.

Not as Paul says, or as your Priest says, or as your Minister says, or as your Rabbi quoting from the Talmud says, but as God says.

Jews and Christians have to realize that accepting Yeshua as your Messiah doesn’t mean you are free from Torah, or that you are not Jewish, but that you are grafted onto the Tree of Life that God provided, and that tree’s roots are the Torah.

Thank you for being here and please LIKE, share and subscribe here and on my YouTube channel, as well. And remember that I always welcome your comments.

If you aren’t aware of it, I also have a Facebook discussion group called “Just God’s Word” (the avatar is a picture of the Torah), so please check that out and join in.

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

Let’s Talk About Covenants.

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What is a covenant? According to Dictionary.com, it is:

An agreement, usually formal, between two or more persons to do or not do something specified.

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There are actually two distinct types of covenants that God made with humans; one is called a Conditional Covenant and the other is called an Unconditional Covenant. As the name implies, conditional covenants come with requirements by both parties, whereas the unconditional covenant is made by one party to another, with no requirement upon the second party to ensure the actions of the first party. In legalese, these are either a Unilateral or Bilateral Contractual agreement.

The covenant God made with Noah is an unconditional covenant. God promised that he was never going to destroy life with a flood ever again (notice how that still leaves many other options available) and there is no requirement at all on Noah or anyone else in order for God to be expected to keep his agreement. Often a covenant, at least the biblical kind, did require some sign, or in legal terms, consideration, in order to be finalized. The shedding of blood was a usual sign, such as when Abraham cut the animals in pieces or the bloodshed during a b’rit milah (circumcision), or the bloodshed by the Messiah when he was crucified.

In the case of the Noahide Covenant, God’s sign was the rainbow, which had never been seen before. In fact, rain had never been seen before, either: we are told at the beginning of Genesis that the earth was watered by the morning dew.

When we read what is in the Bible, God tells Noah and his children to be fruitful and multiply, that whereas before they ate only vegetables, now every moving thing is food for them (although there was already an understanding of clean and unclean, since in the prior chapters God had Noah take 7 pairs of clean animals and only 1 pair of unclean), and that they are not to eat the blood. God also says that every human who takes another human’s life is to be held accountable and that for every human who sheds another human’s blood, his own blood shall be shed. God also said that he wouldn’t curse the ground anymore, which he did with the expulsion of Adam and Eve.

God finished by stating this covenant is with Noah and every living thing that is on the earth.

But in Judaism, there are 7 Noahide Laws that are considered to be part of the Noahide Covenant. The Babylonian Talmud tells us these are the 7 laws that are in the Noahide Covenant:

  1. Not to worship idols.
  2. Not to curse God.
  3. Not to commit murder.
  4. Not to commit adultery, bestiality, or sexual immorality.
  5. Not to steal.
  6. Not to eat flesh torn from a living animal.
  7. To establish courts of justice.

So where did the Rabbis get all this other stuff? From what I have read, and from my very small experience studying the Talmud, they pretty much extrapolated from what else is written in the Bible to come up with these unstated, but (supposedly) implied mitzvot.

There is only one other covenant that is unconditional, which is the Davidic Covenant and is found in 2 Samuel 7:12-16. Here God promises David that one of his descendants will sit on an eternal throne, which everyone concludes is the Messiah. In this covenant, God tells David that he is pleased David wants to build a house for the Lord, but God will take it up a notch. There is no requirement for David to do anything because God is doing this as his reward to David for all David has done and what he wants to do in his heart.

You may be thinking that the New Covenant, Jeremiah 31:31 is also an unconditional covenant, but it isn’t. You need to read the entire chapter to realize that in the midst of the promises God is making to Jeremiah about the regathering of Israel and the restoring of their wealth and joy, in Jeremiah 31:17-20, Jeremiah is told that Ephraim (meaning Israel) has repented and confessed its sin and acknowledged its wrongdoing.

So, we could say that the New Covenant is predicated upon Israel, now dispersed throughout the world, coming to recognize its sinfulness and repenting. After which, God will regather them, restore their joy and wealth, and finally write the Torah on their hearts so that everyone will know Adonai. This is the real “new” covenant and is accomplished through the Messiah.

The Babylonian Talmud’s extrapolated Noahide Laws are man-made, but even so, they are also valid because when we go through the Torah, everything listed as a Noahide Law will eventually be specified in the Torah God gives to Moses.

This is the one absolutely most important fact about the covenants God made with us: they are inclusive, not exclusive! That means each succeeding covenant includes and builds upon the preceding one. The covenant God made with Abraham is included with the one he made with Noah, but he then added on to it. The Mosaic Covenant includes everything in the Abrahamic and Noahide Covenants, then builds upon it. The covenant God makes with David is in addition to the previous covenants and establishes their permanence through the coming Messiah. And the New Covenant God makes through Jeremiah will first and foremost be with Israel, eventually allowing Gentiles to be included as they will be grafted into the chosen people of God through their acceptance of Yeshua, the Messiah.

And, being grafted into the chosen people of God, they also come under all the covenants God made with his people; in other words, you can’t be grafted onto a tree but get your nourishment from a vine. If you are one of God’s chosen, whether native-born or grafted in Gentile, you are required to obey his commandments.

No covenant ever does away with another, despite what you may have been told as a result of Paul’s writing in 2 Corinthians 5:17 or what he said in Hebrews 8:13; Paul was talking about what will happen in the Acharit haYamim (Days to Come) and the Olam Haba (World to Come). He isn’t talking about now, and this is confirmed by the Messiah, himself, in Matthew 5:18 when he says nothing shall change until all things come to pass. That means ALL things have come to pass, so unless you can show me the new earth, the temple lowered from heaven, the Enemy and his followers in the Lake of Fire, and Yeshua sitting on the throne ruling over all the earth, then all things have not come to pass and the covenants that were made are all still 100% valid,

This means, like it or not, whether you are a Jew or a Gentile grafted into the body of Messiah, no matter what someone may have told you, we are all still being held accountable by God to obey the Torah as best as we can.

Thank you for being here and please LIKE, share and subscribe so that this ministry can grow. I appreciate your comments, always, and look forward to the next time we are together.

Until then, l’hitraot and Baruch HaShem!

What Does 2 Chronicles 7:14 Mean?

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In this chapter of 2 Chronicles, Solomon and all the people had celebrated for a week at the dedication of the temple. Solomon prays to God to accept this house, and that no matter where his people are, when they are in distress and pray towards this house, that he, God, will hear them and act. After the celebration, God appeared to Solomon at night and said that he would do as Solomon asked and that he would also choose this temple as his house of sacrifice (2 Chron. 7:12).

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When God answered Solomon’s prayer, he included this (2 Chronicles 7:14):

…then, if my people, who bear my name, will humble themselves, pray, seek my face and turn from their evil ways, I will hear from heaven, forgive their sin and heal their land.

The term I want to talk about is “seek my face”. Obviously, no one can see the face of God and live- God, himself, tells that to Moses in Exodus 33:20. So, if we cannot see God’s face and live, why would God tell us to seek that which will kill us?

Huh? I mean, what’s up with that, right?

The true meaning of terms used in the Bible, terms such as “seek my face”, “know my name” or “call on the name of the Lord” is something that has been misunderstood by many Gentiles for many years. Now, I don’t mean to sound snobby, but Jews know what God means when he uses these terms. They are not to be taken literally, but figuratively. We can’t see God’s face, and since no one really knows the absolute correct pronunciation of the Tetragrammaton (the 4-letter name of God he told to Moses, יהוה), we can’t call out the name of God; at least, not do so and be sure we are pronouncing it correctly.

There are many who believe that these terms are meant to be taken literally, and we even have a group of Believers who are called (not always in a nice way) “Holy Namers”, who absolutely believe that if you do not use the name of God exactly pronounced the way they believe it is to be pronounced, then you are praying to a pagan god and the real God will not listen to you. It is so sad that their zeal for the Lord is so misplaced.

God is above and beyond human understanding, and he is also above and beyond human compassion, love, and patience. One more thing: only God can see the meaning in our hearts. He is not fooled by words or promises or even actions if they are not heartfelt and honest. He tells us, over and over through the Prophets, that he doesn’t care for the blood of bulls or goats, but that he wants obedience. God is telling us that he knows what we feel: he knows whether we are doing something to please him out of love, respect, and faithful desire to obey or just to get “points” towards salvation.

This is what true faith is, this is what real love for the Lord is- to do what we do because we want to please him.

And the way to please God is to obey the instructions he gave us, in the Torah, because he gave them to us so that we could live eternally in his presence.

To seek his face means to want to know him better. To call upon his name means to pray to him for help when we are in distress. To know his name means to understand who he is.

His “name” isn’t a bunch of letters in a particular order with a particular pronunciation- it is God, himself! His renown, his reputation, his majesty, his holiness, his trustworthiness. The “Name of the Lord” has nothing, whatsoever, to do with pronunciation, but it has everything to do with who God is, what he can do, and why we should worship and obey him.

So, nu! You want to know his name? You feel like seeking his face? Then do so by reading the Tanakh, the “Jewish” Bible. God tells us who he is, what he desires from us, and what blessings we will receive from him in the Old Covenant. Think about it: nowhere at all in the New Covenant will you find written this statement: “And God said unto (whomever), ‘Tell the people this is what the Lord, God says…'”. However, when you read Exodus, Leviticus, and Numbers, you will see that expression used many, many times where God gives Moses dictation to deliver to the Israelites. And he also dictates to the Prophets exactly what they are to say to the people. The Tanakh is the ONLY place in the entire Bible where we are told directly from God exactly how he wants us to worship him and treat each other, and that’s what we should do to know his name and seek his face.

After all, what have you got to lose? If you try to obey the instructions God gave in the Torah and do so from love for God, then how can you be wrong?

I have never, and probably never will understand how someone can tell you that you must use an exact name for God or the Messiah when praying in order to be saved, but if you do as God said to do, you aren’t saved.

Thank you for being here. Please “Like” this message, share it with everyone you know, and subscribe to this ministry to help it to grow. I never ask for money, just to show you what the Bible says so you can make an informed decision about where you will spend eternity.

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

Forgiveness of Sin Requires More Than Just a Sacrifice

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The Sacrificial System was designed by God. In Leviticus, Chapters 1 through 7, he tells us the different types of sacrifices and how each is to be performed. Throughout the Torah, God tells us other aspects of the sacrifices, and unless someone reads the first 7 chapters of Leviticus, as well as the places in Numbers where God reviews how sacrifices are to be made, you cannot fully understand how forgiveness of sin is accomplished.

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To understand why a sacrifice isn’t enough, we first need to understand the different sacrifices.

There are 4 main types of sacrifice: a sacrifice for sin, one for guilt, one that is a wholly burned sacrifice, and the Fellowship, or Thanksgiving sacrifice. I am not going to do a treatise on these today, but suffice it to say that these are the main types, and the only one of these where the person bringing the sacrifice gets to eat of it is the Thanksgiving sacrifice.

In fact, that is how the archaeologists knew they had found the place in Shiloh where the Tent of Meeting Moses constructed had been kept. I was told this by the guide who took us to Shiloh when I was there in 2016: they found a high spot that was devoid of any relics, but all around it there were hundreds of broken shards of plates. That indicated this is where the Sanctuary was because when you brought the Thanksgiving sacrifice you were required to eat of it there, in front of the altar and because the food was holy, the plates used became holy. As such, they were not allowed to be used with the common foods again, so the people broke them after eating the holy food.

The sin and guilt sacrifices required more than just a single animal sacrifice. There are a few places in the Torah where we are told that forgiveness comes from the sin offering, but there is also the requirement for a burnt offering and a Thanksgiving offering, which is the final act and represents communion with God, sort of like inviting him to dinner. That is why it is eaten by the Cohen and the one offering it, at the front of the Sanctuary to represent it is done in God’s presence.

The forgiveness of sin is a 5 step process:

  1. You must commit a sin. After all, what’s to be forgiven if you’ve done nothing wrong?
  2. You must acknowledge you have sinned. I have known of too many people who are sinning and refuse to admit it. You can never be forgiven of a sin if you don’t ask, and if you tell yourself you haven’t sinned, well, obviously you won’t feel any need to ask for forgiveness.
  3. You must repent of that sin and do T’shuvah, which means to turn away from the desire to sin. I have known too many people who sin, know that they are sinning, but make excuses. It is as I have often said: I used to be a sinner who rationalized my sins, but now I am a sinner who regrets my sins. God will not forgive a sinner who doesn’t repent of their sins.
  4. You bring a sacrifice to the place where God put his name, which was the temple in Jerusalem, place your hands upon the sacrifice and confess your sins, which by doing so transfers them onto the animal, which is then ritually slaughtered and by the shedding of that innocent blood you are then cleansed of your sin.
  5. You ask for forgiveness. That’s right- you still need to ask to be forgiven, by reason of the innocent blood that was shed on your behalf.

When Yeshua sacrificed himself, he didn’t do away with this process, but he did change it somewhat: Yeshua’s sacrifice replaced the 4th step, which is the need to bring an animal to be sacrificed on the altar at the temple. And good thing that he did, too, because the temple was destroyed in 73 AD and from that point on, without Yeshua we would have no means to be forgiven of our sins.

So you see, to be forgiven of sin requires more than just a sacrifice. We must first and foremost acknowledge and repent of the sin, we must also do T’shuvah, which was represented by the burnt offering, and then we must ask forgiveness, now not by means of a animal sacrifice but through the shed blood of the Messiah, Yeshua.

We can’t perform the burnt or Thanksgiving sacrifices, but that is not a sin because it isn’t our fault: there is no temple to bring the sacrifice to. But, then again, Yeshua’s sacrifice is not just for sin but is also a thanksgiving sacrifice because when we accept him as our Messiah we can come back into communion with God.

To be forgiven of sin is more than just believing in Yeshua or asking to be forgiven: you must also repent in your heart, do T’shuvah in your heart and actions, and rededicate yourself to obeying God with each and every sin you ask forgiveness from.

The animal sacrifice is just one part of the process of being forgiven for the sins we commit. The sacrifice Yeshua made is of no use to anyone if it isn’t accompanied with confession of one’s sins, repentance, and a heartfelt and honest rededication to obeying God’s instructions for how we are to worship him and treat each other.

And those instructions aren’t in the New Covenant, they are in the Torah.

Thank you for being here and please subscribe here and on my YouTube channel, as well (use the link above.) Share these messages to help this ministry grow, and check out my books: if you like what is on my blog, you will like my books, as well.

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

Taking the Day Off

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Sometimes it is a good idea to take a Shabbat rest, even if it isn’t Shabbat.

Many times I get my inspiration for these messages by either reading the Bible or when I am working out with a bicycle ride, which is usually for 20-22 miles. I do this, on average, three times a week. Since the rides take an hour or more, I have plenty of time for prayer, and more often than not, in the middle of praying my thoughts and conversation with God go off on a tangent, which is how many of my messages come to me.

But I haven’t been riding lately due to weather so don’t really have anything today, other than this:

Take a break from the ordinary every now and then just to do something different.

After all, what could it hoit?

I will be getting on my bike later today, so let’s hope I get something for Thursday.

L’hitraot and Baruch HaShem!

What God Can’t Do

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Before I even start to talk about what God can’t do, I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking, “Steve is wrong- there is nothing that God cannot do!”

But there is something God cannot do- he cannot sin. And to refuse to act as he said he would regarding someone rejecting his commandments would be a sin.

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I am reading in Numbers and have just this morning read Chapter 18, which is where God tells Aaron that he and his sons are responsible to make sure that the Levites do their job, and all the Levites are to make sure no one who is not authorized to come to the Sanctuary approaches it. God says this is to ensure that no one dies.

After the death of Aaron’s sons, God told Moses that the Levites are not to drink intoxicating liquids before serving him, so that they don’t die.

God told Moses to place barriers around the base of the mountain (Mt. Horeb) when he went up to receive the commandments from God to make sure no one approaches the mountain so that they don’t die.

After the man was stoned to death for collecting wood on the Shabbat, God said to make and wear tzitzit on their clothing to remind them of God’s laws, so that they don’t die.

Can you see what God is doing? He knows that despite the outcome of disobeying his commandments, we will do just that. And because he doesn’t really want to punish us but MUST punish us if we violate his rules, because he cannot sin, he goes out of his way to help protect us from ourselves!

In Ezekiel 18 God tells us he is not happy with anyone’s death and prefers that we all live, but the only way that can happen is to obey him. He will stick like glue to his covenants, so much so that even after we break the covenant, which we have done too many times to count, he will still keep his side of it.

But we won’t go unpunished. We have to be punished- God MUST punish the unrepentant sinner, and that is because God cannot sin. He cannot go against his own rules.

Of course, he could if he really wanted to. I mean, who can hold God accountable? You? Me? No one can make God do what he doesn’t want to do, or not do anything he wants to. No one, that is, except God, and he DOES hold himself accountable.

When we read the parts of the Bible where God is telling Moses how the people are to act and what they should do, it is always with the idea that when they are punished for violation of God’s rules, it is not God doing it to them so much as them doing it to themselves.

You see, God sets the rules: he tells us how we are to worship him and how we are to treat each other. He also tells us the blessings we receive for obedience and the curses we suffer for disobedience. God sends the blessings, but we call the curses on ourselves! God doesn’t really do anything bad to us: the truth is, the bad is already here, and when we reject God’s good all that is left for us is the world’s bad.

Because God cannot sin, he cannot allow any unrepentant sinner to go unpunished; God must punish the unrepentant sinner who rejects him and his Messiah because he said that is what will happen and not doing as he said he would do is a sin.

If we cannot trust God to punish the sinful, we cannot trust him to reward the righteous.

Before we end this today, I am going to change one thing I said earlier: I said we cannot hold God accountable, i.e. we cannot tell God what he must do, but I am now going to say there is one thing we can force God to do… we can force him to punish us. All we need to do is violate any of his laws, and because he must do as he said he would do, we can force God to do what we want.

Although for the life of me, I can’t think of a good reason anyone would want to do that.

Thank you for being here and please subscribe, check out my books (available in both paperback and digital), and share these messages with everyone you know.

Until next time, l’hitraot and Baruch HaShem!

Pick Your Fights

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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!

A Story of Undying Hatred

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To overcome hatred we need to understand where it comes from.

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Many years ago, when I was working as IT Support for the Jewish Federation of Greater Philadelphia, through a Jewish Community Center that was my account I was connected with (what we used to call) an Old Folks Home whose Chaplain was looking for someone to lead Friday Shabbat services. All the Rabbis she talked to were unavailable on Friday because they had their own congregations to tend to that night.

I met with the Chaplain and told her I was Messianic but never proselytize anyone and am happy to lead a totally “Jewish” service. I had put together a small Siddur (Jewish prayer book) and told her my plans for a simple, 30 minute or less service, and after she reviewed it she was OK with me leading the services. We had about 12-15 people show up each week, most of whom were Jewish but there were a few Gentiles, as well. The Chaplain made sure there was a loaf of Challah bread and grape juice for the Kiddush, which we did at the end.

This went on for about a year or so; she even asked me to put together a special High Holy Day service for those who couldn’t make it into the room where we did the Friday service, so I went to different parts of the building to do those services.

Everyone loved the service.

Then, one day, I was told to talk with the Chaplain and she said there was a woman who complained that I shouldn’t lead any Jewish service because I believed in Jesus and Jesus has nothing to do with anything Jewish. I thought she must be an Orthodox Jew, but lo and behold! She was raised Orthodox but many years earlier had converted to Quakerism! After talking with her and finding out she never even attended a service, we invited her to attend, which she did, and even after that, she insisted I be stopped.

I don’t know what power she held over everyone else, but, unfortunately, the Chaplain told me that management wanted to stop for a while until things settled down.

Nothing ever settled down and because of this one, hateful woman, as well as (I believe) the cowardice of management and the Chaplain (who I liked and respected), the services stopped. And what is even worse, or just harder to believe, is that someone who completely rejected Judaism and converted to a Christian religion, decades later is still harboring the hatred Jews have for Jesus.

And where does that hatred come from? Well, maybe from the Crusades, where in the name of Jesus thousands upon thousands of Jews were slaughtered if they didn’t convert? Or maybe later, from the Inquisition, where thousands were tortured and killed if they didn’t convert, as well as every Jew in Spain being expelled from the country?

Or maybe from the Holocaust? You may be thinking that the Nazi’s had nothing to do with Christianity, which is true, but consider these two things: to a Jew, anyone not Jewish is a Gentile, ie., same as a Christian, and the belt buckle of the Nazi uniform had engraved on it these words: Gott mit uns (God is with us.)

Not only this, but the general attitude Christianity has had for Jews since the 2nd Century is that we killed God, we rejected the Messiah (their Messiah is more like how it feels to a Jew), and there has been an ongoing attitude by Christians towards Jews of ” We accepted Jesus and you rejected him, so we’re better than you.”

This attitude which Gentiles have had towards Jews for millennia has been caused, I believe, mostly by the misinterpretations of the letters from Paul, who warned Gentiles against feeling this way (Romans 11.)

So, nu? This all makes sense now, why Jews have such an animosity against Christians that a woman raised Jewish, who rejected Judaism and converted to Quakerism so must, herself, accept Jesus as the Messiah, STILL hates the idea that anything having anything to do with Jesus is anathema to anything Jewish.

Now that I have gone through this, let me say, unequivocally, that this hatred is wrong because even with all that has happened, the past should not restrict us but be the motivation to help us move forward.

The past of that woman was fueling her current hatred, which was tangible, and instead of helping others find spiritual growth, restricted their connection to God. I really think she had to have been demonically influenced, since what she did, in her own mind being totally justified and believing she was doing right, was in fact destroying the communion between God’s people with him.

There is animosity on both sides. Jews have been taught Christians want only to convert them to deny “our” God and worship a different God named Jesus Christ, and Christians have been taught that the Jews have “missed the boat” and were wrong to reject Jesus, so now God has rejected them; worse than that, many believe that now only the “Born Again” Christians are the true Chosen people (which is called Replacement Theology.) As such, Christianity has “looked down” on Judaism as a second-class religion, and Jews see Christianity as a “holier than thou” religion.

There are two things Jews and Christians have in common: one is their hatred for each other, and the other is that both say if you believe in Jesus you can’t be Jewish anymore.

This is what we have to overcome. It ain’t gonna be easy, and I believe it won’t happen until the Messiah returns, shows absolutely who he really is, and establishes his kingdom on Earth. That is when both Christians and Jews will know, absolutely, what God wants from us.

And if you ask me, it won’t be from the Talmud or from the Epistles, but from the Torah.

So the message today is simply this: forget what you have been told about Jews and Christians, read the Bible (the WHOLE Bible) and make your own decision.

The only thing that will ever defeat ignorance is knowledge, and if you let the past rule your future, you won’t have one.

Thank you for being here and please subscribe here on the website in the right-hand margin, and on my YouTube channel, as well (use the link above.) Please share these messages with everyone you know, and remember that I always welcome your comments.

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