I have often written about how Christianity has idolized Jesus.

In many of the different sects within Christianity, he is considered not just the son of God, but God, himself, and as such, he is prayed to; he is asked for healing, and he is considered to be the one and only Savior.

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However, Yeshua never even implied any of this. In fact, throughout the Gospels, for every healing and miraculous act he performed, he gave the credit to either the faith of the person or to God the Father. Yeshua never took credit for any of the miraculous acts he did, and always gave all glory to God.

So, if Yeshua himself never took credit for what he did, and always gave glory to God, this is why I am wondering whether or not Yeshua actually hears our prayers.

If he is God, then he (obviously) hears them and answers them.

TIME OUT: Please do not respond arguing whether or not Yeshua and God
are one and the same because that is NOT the issue in this message.

If he is only the Messiah, sitting at the right hand of God (which is where Stephen said he saw him), and he takes our prayers to God, does he hear them before God does?

Is it possible Yeshua hears our prayers but God doesn’t? Wouldn’t that mean God only hears the prayers of those who do not accept Yeshua as the Messiah?

How about this? If we are to pray in Yeshua’s name, doesn’t that imply someone else is hearing the prayer? Isn’t that why we have to invoke the name of Yeshua, because the prayer is not going to Yeshua but someone else?

And who else could that be? Obviously, it is God, the Father.

Unless, of course, you are a member of one of the Christian religions that prays to saints. Now, instead of praying to the one who can answer our prayer, we are going to a retailer (saint), to bring it to the wholesaler (Yeshua), to bring it to the manufacturer (God).

This is why Jews could never be good Christians- we will never do retail when we have a direct line to the manufacturer.

In each of the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, and John, Yeshua tells his disciples, in one way or another, that when they pray in his name, whatever they ask for they will receive. This seems to imply that Yeshua does hear prayers; after all, how can he assure their prayers will be answered if he doesn’t even hear them, right?

But he also says that the prayers will be answered so that the son can glorify the father, which means even if he does hear them, he doesn’t answer them; instead, he intercedes for us so that God will answer them.

Maybe we need to understand what Yeshua meant when he said to pray in his name?

In my quarter-century (plus) experience as a Believer and student of the Bible, I have found that the use of the word “name” throughout the Bible has been misunderstood by so many people. There are many, many times that God talks about his “name”, and the only time I can recall where he actually used the word “name” to mean his actual name, which for us would be what we are called by our friends and family, is when he talked to Moses at the burning bush. In Exodus 6:3, God told Moses that he appeared to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob as El Shaddai, but not as יהוה (the Tetragrammaton.)

Almost every other time the “name of the Lord” is used is not to reference the Tetragrammaton but in the cultural meaning of the term “my name”, which was not the word we use to identify a specific person but a reference to that person’s reputation and renown.

When God talks about his “name” or about others knowing his “name”, he doesn’t mean how to pronounce the Tetragrammaton, but who God is in relation to humanity: knowing his “name” is to know he is the God of Israel, he is all-powerful, and he is supreme. Knowing his “name” means knowing the wonders he performed and giving him the respect he deserves.

Now, when Yeshua says to pray in his name, is it possible he means the same thing that God meant? Is it possible that Yeshua never really meant for us to physically speak the words “In the name of Yeshua”, but rather because we are a believer in Yeshua that we are praying under his authority as the Messiah? Maybe we don’t have to actually pronounce his name? Maybe because we are one of his sheep, we are automatically praying “in his name”, i.e. under his renown and authority as the Messiah?

I don’t know. The more I try to understand this, the more complicated it becomes.

What I do believe, and (as always) this is what I believe from my understanding of the Bible and I am not telling you you have to agree, is that Yeshua is not the one we pray to or the one who hears our prayers: Yeshua is the Intercessor for our prayers, not the Interceptor of them.

And even though he is our Intercessor, that doesn’t mean he is in the loop- it means that as his, when we pray, we are praying in his name, i.e., under his authority as the Messiah.

Yeshua doesn’t have to handle our prayers as they go from our hearts to God.

I believe God is the only one who hears our prayers and the only one who answers them; when we pray in Yeshua’s name, it is telling God that we are one of Yeshua’s sheep, and as such God will give us, oh- how do I say this? – extra credit? Maybe our prayers get to go to the front of the line?

For whatever reason, when we pray in Yeshua’s name, God will do as we ask (so long as it is within his will) because it is what his son promised would happen. And by honoring his son’s promise, God glorifies himself, just the same way Yeshua glorified him every time he answered Yeshua’s prayers.

Praying in Yeshua’s name doesn’t mean he hears our prayers, and I also believe that whether or not we pronounce his name, God knows who we are and he knows what is in our heart, and he also knows we are Yeshua’s sheep.

Of course, it doesn’t hurt anything to say “In Yeshua’s name, I pray” because that is literally what he told us to do.

But if you ask me, I don’t think it is necessary to get God’s attention.

Thank you for being here and please share these messages with everyone you know to help this ministry continue to grow. I would also ask that you subscribe to this ministry on my website and my YouTube channel, and while you are on the website please consider buying my books.

If you like what you get in these messages, you will like my books, as well.

Das ist alles for today, so l’hitraot and Baruch HaShem!

I once talked about how the Bible is just a book when I was giving a message at the place I used to worship, and not only did I get some pretty passionate disagreements, but one person actually walked out on me.

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Many people argued that the Bible is THE word of God, but it isn’t, really- it contains the words God told to Moses and the Prophets, and it contains what many people wrote. It contains the writings (Ketuvim), such as Esther, Judges, Psalms, and the Proverbs.

It contains the teachings of Yeshua, and the letters that were written to the (mostly) Gentile congregations of new Believers to help them stay on track, spiritually, with what they were learning about Yeshua and God and how God wants us all to live.

But when it comes down to it, the Bible can’t be the exact words from God simply because the words in the Bible have been interpreted from the original Hebrew and Greek so many times, in so many different versions of the Bible, that there is no way each interpreter interpreted the words exactly the same.

In fact, did you know that under Copyright law, each version of the Bible must have (literally) hundreds of words different from any other version, otherwise it is a copyright infringement?

I asked the most trustworthy source of information that exists today- Wikipedia- how many different versions of the Bible exist, and this is what I got:

“As of September 2020 the full Bible has been translated into 704
languages, the New Testament has been translated into an additional 1,551
languages and Bible portions or stories into 1,160 other languages. Thus at
least some portions of the Bible have been translated into 3,415 languages.”

And when I specifically asked how many English versions there are, I was told there are more than 100 complete translations in English.

So, nu? How can anyone think that the Bible they are reading is an exact and verifiable rendering of what God told Moses, or what Shaul wrote to his congregations, or what Yeshua said when he gave his Sermon on the Mount?

The closest thing anyone will come to the exact words God used when he talked to us, which he only did in the Torah, is to read the Hebrew Torah. And, to tell the truth (which is all I ever try to do), even though the Torah written today will have exactly the same words as the Torah written a hundred years ago (because of the strict standards used when copying the Torah), the way we interpret that Hebrew will be different from one person to another.

And here’s the real kicker! Even when we read the same version, different people may be given, through the Ruach HaKodesh (Holy Spirit), a different understanding of those very same words!

And both understandings may be valid.

If you don’t believe me, or maybe you don’t want to believe me, then let me give you the gospel truth, from the Gospel of Luke, itself (Luke 1:1-4):

Dear Theophilos:
Concerning the matters that have taken place among us, many people have undertaken to draw up accounts based on what was handed down to us by those who from the start were eyewitnesses and proclaimers of the message.  Therefore, Your Excellency, since I have carefully investigated all these things from the beginning, it seemed good to me that I too should write you an accurate and ordered narrative, so that you might know how well-founded are the things about which you have been taught.

Here we have the writer of the gospel usually thought to be the most accurate and trustworthy account, and he is saying that he has composed this based on what he heard from others who witnessed the events.

Have you ever told a joke in a group of people and then heard that same joke come back to you, later on? I’ll bet it wasn’t even close to the way you told it, was it? It may have had a similar lead-in and the punch line may have gotten the same point across, but it wasn’t the same, exact joke, right?

Or have you ever had to witness something that other people saw? The same event, seen by 5 people, will have 5 different versions. They may be similar, generally, but many of the specific details (height of the person, hair color, clothes worn, etc.) will be different.

This is why no two people understand the same thing the same way: we all filter the stimulus we receive through our senses in accordance with our own experience and knowledge. Therefore, it is impossible for any two people to understand and interpret what is heard, seen, or written the same exact way, and even more so when trying to interpret it from one language to another.

That is why I say the Bible is just a book.

“Okay, okay, so the Bible is a book. What’s your point, Steve?”

My point to all this is simple: when we read the Bible, we need to know that what we are reading is somewhat accurate, but not exact. It is someone’s understanding of the language that the narrative was written in, whether in the original Hebrew or Greek, and which will always be affected by that individual’s personal understanding and experience.

Now, given that my Bible, no matter which version or which language I have, is not an accurate accounting of what God or anyone else said, why should I believe any of it?

Because it is close enough to the truth to be trusted when we ask God to show us HIS truth! (read that again)

Every time you read your Bible, pray to God to lead you through his Holy Spirit to understand his truth. That way you can read any version you want to and trust that you will glean from it what God wants you to know.

And that works because we can ALWAYS trust God to teach us what he wants us to know about him.

Thank you for being here and please share these messages with everyone you know; subscribe to my website and Youtube channel, buy my books and after reading them share them with others, and remember this: I always welcome your comments.

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

Back from a week off, driving up to visit Donna’s family in Philadelphia. The drive was full of problems with traffic, taking us nearly 40% longer than it should have, but the trip, overall, was good and we enjoyed being with family.

Now back to work.

As far as the question, “Does Yeshua forgive sins?” goes, the answer seems obvious, doesn’t it?

In Matthew 9, Yeshua tells the Pharisees and Torah teachers that he has the authority to forgive sins on earth.

(Keep this in mind: he specifically said he was able to forgive sins on earth. )

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John writes in his first letter (1 John 2:2) that when we sin, Yeshua “pleads our case with the Father”, and that he (Yeshua) is the Kappurah (covering) for our sins.

How do these two opposite statements, Yeshua says he can forgive sins but John says he pleads our case with God, be reconciled? How does Yeshua go from forgiver to intercessor? C’mon, you guys- does Yeshua forgive our sins or not?

I believe the answer is that he was able to forgive sins when he was walking the earth and spreading the Good News to prove he was (and still is, of course) the Messiah.

We need to remember that in those days, a physical impairment such as deafness or blindness, paralysis, etc. was considered often to be the result of one’s sinfulness. So, healing that infirmity demonstrated not just God-given power to perform miracles, but also the authority to forgive sins.

The healing that the Messiah did was proof of his authority ON THE EARTH to forgive sins.

Let’s look at another side of this: In John 20:23, Yeshua breathes the Ruach HaKodesh (Holy Spirit) on his disciples and tells them that whomever they forgive the sins of, those sins will be forgiven, and whomever they do not forgive, will not be forgiven.

This is not just giving his disciples the authority to forgive sins, but the authority to prevent forgiveness!

Now, wait a minute here! Is it really what it seems to be? Did Yeshua tell mere mortals that not only can they forgive the sins of people, but they can override God by preventing those sins from being forgiven?

Is God unable to forgive a sinner because some human being didn’t?

I really don’t have an explanation for this, but it doesn’t make sense when comparing this one statement to the entirety of the Bible (this is an exegesis system called Hermeneutics) because no one outranks God. Period! So, even though Yeshua told his disciples they could forgive sins, I believe this had to be a one-time event and to be understood as Yeshua granting them this authority specifically in order to continue the spreading of the Good News, in his place.

Even if by some chance Yeshua did grant that authority to them, it was to them- not to their descendants or people who took over their job, but just to them.

In fact, in John 20:21, just before he breathed the Ruach HaKodesh on them, he told them that just as God sent him, he is now sending them. This seems to justify my interpretation, in that it was meant for those specific people in order to continue proving that they, just as Yeshua, had God-granted authority through the Holy Spirit, and to prove the validity of the ministry.

Catholicism has stated that from the Pope down to the “greenest” Priest fresh out of Seminary school, these anointed leaders of the faith are allowed to forgive sins. I suppose their justification for that is based on the statement Yeshua makes here, in the Gospel of John. Too bad it doesn’t hold water, because it is clear from the rest of the Bible that no mere mortal is allowed to override God when it comes to forgiveness.

We have a similar issue with Yeshua’s statement that Kefa (Peter) holds the keys to the kingdom and whatever he does, the same will be done in heaven (Matthew 16:19). Again, it just doesn’t hold true to the rest of the Bible that a mere mortal can tell God what he will or will not do.

My interpretation is that the things Yeshua told Kefa he would do were not binding on God, but on people and that whatever he decided was a proper form of worship would be honored in heaven.

In other words, Yeshua told Kefa that he would be establishing the Halakah (Way to Walk) for the Believers, which we see happening later. It happened when Kefa went to the house of Cornelius and opened up the Kingdom of God to the Gentiles, as well as through his authority (with the other Elders in Jerusalem) he authorized the letter to the new Gentile Believers in Acts 15.

That delegation was specifically to Kefa and was not transferable to anyone else.

My answer to the original question of whether or not Yeshua forgives sins is that he did have that authority when he was on the earth, which was specifically given to prove he was the Messiah.

But now? No!

At that time Yeshua forgave sins but now he is the means by which our sins are forgiven. His sacrificial death replaced the need to bring an animal to the temple in Jerusalem (which no longer existed after 73 AD) and his position as Messiah is to plead our case before God, who is now the only one who can forgive sins.

As I have said many, many times: Yeshua is the Intercessor of prayer, not the Interceptor of it.

The same goes for the forgiveness of sins: Yeshua’s death is the means by which we are able to be forgiven, but he is not the one to pray to for forgiveness: that comes only from God, the Father.

Thank you for being here and please share these messages with everyone you know. Also, please subscribe to my website, my YouTube channel, and join my Facebook discussion group called “Just God’s Word”.

I have written 4 books which I believe you will also find edifying and educational, as well as even a little bit entertaining. Check them out on my website.

And lastly, remember that I always welcome your comments.

Das ist alles, so l’hitraot and Baruch HaShem!

Listen to the popular missionaries and attend one of the “mega-church” masses and what do you hear?

All the wonderful things that God wants to do for you.

So, nu? What’s wrong with that? I’ll tell you what’s wrong with that- it is backward.

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Backward? What’s backward about the Lord doing wonderful things for us? Doesn’t he protect us? Didn’t he send the Messiah to save us? Doesn’t he heal? Doesn’t he work wonders? Doesn’t he do everything for us that we need?

Yes, he does, but despite what religion wants you to believe, when it comes down to who does what first, the Lord expects us to do our part before he does his part.

God made an unconditional covenant with Abraham, and when God told Isaac, that he is making the same promise that he made to his father, God said that it was because Abraham also did everything that God told him to do (Genesis 26:5).

In other words, even though the covenant was unconditional, Abraham was still obedient to God.

The covenant God made with the children of Israel through Moses is conditional: the laws and rules we are given in the Torah are required of us, and only after we do them will God do as he promises.

The truth is that although God will often do wonderful things just because he loves us, we are his children and must be obedient. God didn’t give us the Torah so that he could prove he was more important than we are, or because he likes to tell people what to do- he gave us the Torah so that we could know how to attain eternal life.

The lifestyle that God defines is the one that brings us into communion with him. The fact that no human being can live it perfectly is why he sent the Messiah, but salvation through the Messiah is NOT a “Get Out of Jail For Free” card.

In order to be blessed, we must do as God says, and he tells us so in Deuteronomy 28.

God never created a religion: he outlined a lifestyle. Religion is a man-made thing that has only one purpose, and that purpose is to give people power over other people. That is why there are so many different religions, all supposedly worshiping the same God! Once someone establishes his or her own rules for a religion, someone who wants that power for themself has to create a new set of rules, so if I am Catholic but decide I want to do things differently, I start my own sect and create a new religion.

And if I want this religion to be popular, I make it easier to follow and provide better promises of what God will do for those who do what I say he wants you to do.

It is amazing how people reject what God says so quickly, and just as quickly accept what some person tells them to do. And why is this?

If you ask me, it’s because God requires us to do something that is difficult but religion doesn’t really require anything difficult: instead, religion tells us all that God will do for us if we simply “believe”.

Be a good person, love everyone, and you will be saved forever. Your sins are forgiven if you believe in Jesus (whatever that is supposed to mean) and then you will never have to worry about damnation. Once you are saved no one can take it away and you will be forgiven automatically.

Sounds nice, doesn’t it? It isn’t that hard to be a good person, especially if you get to be the one who defines what “good” means.

Yeshua said that no one is good except his father in heaven (Mark 10:18), but religion doesn’t want you to listen to him.

Yeshua observed the way to worship and live that we are instructed to do in the Torah, but religion says that after he died as the sacrifice required by the Torah, the Torah was no longer valid!

So religion says that doing what the Torah requires means you don’t have to do what the Torah requires.

Huh?

How can anyone who has a functional brain resolve that? I mean, if Yeshua did everything that is required in the Torah, and we are supposed to do as Yeshua did, then how can anyone accept rejecting what Yeshua did is doing what Yeshua did?

How many times does your religious leader, whether Christian or Jewish, preach about how you must tithe?

How many times does your religious leader, whether Christian or Jewish, tell you that God requires your obedience in order for you to be blessed?

And, how many times does your religious leader, whether Christian or Jewish, tell you all the wonderful things God will do for you without ever mentioning obedience other than being a good person and loving others?

Yes, God is love, but that’s not all he is. He is also our creator, our supreme ruler, our judge, and our executioner. His holiness demands that he punish the guilty and not disobey his own rules.

Like it or not, God may love you, may want to forgive you, and may bless you even when you sin, but when it comes down to it, if we do not do as God wants us to do, which he tells us in the Torah, then we will be punished.

God HAS to punish those who are unrepentant, and if you think simply saying “I believe in Jesus” is repentance, you will be sorely disappointed.

Following God and Yeshua is not easy- we are warned by Yeshua that to be his disciple we have to give up everything and carry our own cross (Matthew 16:24), which means salvation may be a free gift, but it isn’t easy to keep.

Religion says once saved, always saved, but the Bible doesn’t agree. What God gives us no one can take away, but we can let it go.

I have read often that religion will tell you if someone who has been “saved” becomes apostate, then they were never really saved, to begin with. That’s a load of fertilizer: religion wants you to remain loyal to the religion, not to God or the Messiah, so they tell you what you love to hear- you are OK, you are loved, God will bless you, salvation is forever, once saved always saved, yadda…yadda…yadda.

Of course, you still have to do what the religion tells you to do, which is more often than not to ignore God’s laws and do as the religion’s leadership tells you to do.

God tells you what he wants from you in the Torah, and he also tells you what he will do for you when you obey him.

Religion tells you what it says God wants you to do, and they feed you wonderful tidbits of how God will always do everything for you when you do as the religion says.

The problem is that religion says to ignore God, even within Judaism! Did you know there are sects within Judaism that regard the Talmud as scripture and obey the Rabbi before they will obey the Torah?

Being “saved” isn’t easy, it isn’t a lifetime guarantee that you will never apostatize, or that you will always be blessed no matter what you do. Salvation is free to get, hard to keep, and easy to throw away because we are sinners by nature, and being obedient to God is not what our nature wants.

If you accept what I just said, then I think you will be OK as time goes on because you understand that righteousness is not easy. I feel sorry for those who reject the idea that salvation is really very hard to keep because they will be suckered into losing it by believing they can’t.

We have the manual on how to be righteous, it’s called the Torah, and we have Yeshua and the help of the Ruach HaKodesh (Holy Spirit) to lead us and save us from ourselves.

It is hard work to be righteous, and you will never make it unless you try to be obedient to God- not men, but God. If you can do that, you are on the right track.

Thank you for being here and please subscribe, share these messages, and check out my books.

I will be taking a week off for a break; everyone needs a rest, and I will see you all again next week.

Until then, l’hitraot and Baruch HaShem!

Before we discuss these two passages, let’s make sure we all know what I am talking about.

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First, in Exodus God is talking to Moses just before giving him the 10 Commandments, and he states that if the Israelites will obey all God’s laws they will his treasure from among all the peoples, and more than that (Exodus 19:6 CJB):

“…and you will be a kingdom of cohanim for me, a nation set apart.’ These
are the words you are to speak to the people of Isra’el.”

What we have here is God telling Moses that even though the Levites are the only tribe to be cohanim to the Israelites, all of Israel is to be God’s priests to the rest of the world.

This is why the Jews are God’s Chosen people- they are chosen to be his priests to the world.

How do I know they are to be priests to the world? Simple: what does a priest do? The priest leads the people in the proper worship of God and teaches them about God, which (of course) includes God’s instructions for worshiping him and treating each other. The priest serves as an example to the congregation of how God wants us to live.

Because the Levites are priests to the Jews, and all the Jews are God’s priests, the only ones the Jews can be priests to are the Goyim, the Nations…in other words, the rest of the world.

Now we come to Acts 10, which is the narrative about how Kefa (Peter) has a vision on the roof; in that vision, God has unclean animals dropped from the sky and tells Kefa to eat. Kefa refuses to eat, and God says to not call unclean that which he makes clean. This happens 3 times. After the third time, Kefa awakes and the Bible tells us he was wondering what that dream was all about.

Just at that moment, three visitors come to the door and ask to see Kefa. The men are Romans who work for Cornelius, a commander of the Roman army who is also (and most likely, secretly) a convert to Judaism. Cornelius also had a dream, a vision where he is told to seek out Kefa, and the three visitors tell Kefa about that vision. Kefa realizes that his vision is associated with the vision Cornelius had and thereby agrees to go with them.

Let’s stop for a moment to make sure we all understand one very important issue: a Roman was an unclean person, and their houses were not to be entered because they also were unclean, being furnished with many idols of the Roman gods. For Kefa to enter one of these homes was to become unclean, himself.

Where were we? Oh, yeah- Kefa is going to see Cornelius.

So, Kefa enters the home and tells them about Yeshua. The entire household believes, and they are all baptized then and there, and as they are baptized they receive the Ruach HaKodesh, the Holy Spirit.

Kefa is amazed! He is seeing unclean people receive God’s spirit in the name of Yeshua, thereby making them clean in God’s eyes. Now Kefa understands what his vision was about: it had nothing to do with animals or the laws of Kashrut (Kosher), which is the traditional Christian teaching, i.e. that this vision means the kosher laws are no longer valid.

Absolutely not! It all has to do with God’s promise to Abraham way back in Genesis 22:18.

God promised Abraham that his descendants will be a blessing to the world, and through the descendants of Abraham, we received the Messiah, Yeshua, whose sacrifice became the only way for Jews to be forgiven of their sins, especially after the temple in Jerusalem was destroyed.

God’s spirit had always been given exclusively to Jews, but now Kefa sees that the unclean Romans can also be forgiven through acceptance of Yeshua as their Messiah, cleansing them of their sins and allowing them to also receive the Holy Spirit!

What is happening here is the fulfillment of God’s plan of salvation for the entire world! As Shaul (Paul) said in Romans 1:16, salvation is to the Jews first, then to the Gentiles.

God promised Abraham his descendants would be a blessing to the world, and after God made those descendants priests to the world, through their High Priest, the Cohen HaGadol of the Jews, Yeshua, the greatest blessing anyone could ever receive was made possible: the blessing of being forgiven of sin and to live in God’s presence for all eternity.

And that’s the 1-2-3 of Salvation:

1. Abraham’s descendants (the Jewish people) will be a blessing to the world;
2. The Jewish people will be God’s Chosen people, chosen to be his nation of priests to the world, bringing the Torah to them; and
3. The High Priest of the Jewish people, Yeshua ha Maschiach, is the means for the Goyim to receive the ultimate blessing that had previously only been available to the Jews, which is forgiveness, receipt of the Holy Spirit, and to be in God’s presence throughout eternity!

That’s how it all fits together.

So, if you are Jewish but haven’t accepted that Yeshua is the Messiah God promised, then unless the third Temple is built before you die you are in trouble.

If you are Christian and believe Yeshua (or as you probably know him, Jesus) is the Messiah, but you go along with the traditional Christian teaching that Jesus did away with the laws God gave in the Torah, then you are rejecting what Yeshua taught, and I believe you will be in as much hot water as the Jewish person who rejects Yeshua.

The plan is simple, it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to see the way it all fits together, so unless you accept Yeshua as the Messiah God promised to send AND obey God’s instructions in the Torah (as Yeshua taught us to do), you may think you are on the path to salvation, but I think you will be sorely disappointed when you come to the end of that road.

Thank you for being here and please subscribe to my website and YouTube channel, as well as “Like” my Facebook page and join my discussion group, Just God’s Word. I would greatly appreciate it if you would also share these messages with everyone you know, and please buy my books. If you like what you get here, you will love my books.

One last thing which I need to start mentioning more often: make sure that what I am telling you is biblically verified. If you just read what people write, or listen to what you are told without making the effort to check it out for yourself in the Bible, you are being very foolish.

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

Let me start off by saying that when Gentiles who have been raised with traditional Christian teachings which turned them away from the Torah, later in life come to realize the truth of what Yeshua taught and turn their hearts to God’s commandments, there is nothing that can be wrong about that.

Well, almost nothing.

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Over the years I have met and talked with many Gentiles who have rejected the traditional, anti-Torah teachings they were raised with and have come to know that the instructions God gave to everyone, in the Torah, are still valid for those who profess to worship the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

However, there are those who go from “the Torah is just for Jews” to “the Torah is the absolute, total and definitive way to worship God, and if it ain’t in there, then I ain’t doin’ it!!”

Life teaches us that the far end of the pendulum swing is the wrong place to be.

The Torah is missing many vital things, and just because God doesn’t say “Do this, this way” does NOT mean that you can’t do something another way.

One example is that the Torah tells us which animals are acceptable as a sacrifice, and we are also told to treat animals humanely, but there is nothing anywhere in the Torah that tells us how to kill the sacrificial animal in a humane way.

Another example is the showbread, the 12 loaves that are baked and placed on the table in front of the altar and left there for a week. Even the Ramban didn’t have an explanation for that, other than he thought God decreed it just so that David and his men would have something to eat when they were running from Shaul in Samuel 21:6 (I am pretty sure it was the Ramban who came up with this- if anyone can correct or confirm this, I would appreciate it.)

The Torah was written by Moses and completed, most likely, by Joshua after Moses’ death. So, how could it include everything that God had planned for his people?

The Torah doesn’t include Purim, it doesn’t include Hanukkah, the Fast of the 9th Day of Av, Simchat Torah, Lag b’Omer, TuB’Shevat, Yom HaShoah, Yom HaZikaron, and there are still other holidays we celebrate, all as either a memorial or to honor what God has done for his people. These are man-made holidays, but they all are designed to honor God.

There are so many holidays that are not in the Torah, but who can honestly say that celebrating them is wrong just because God didn’t tell us we have to?

Is God so self-centered and neurotic that he will punish us for celebrating him if he didn’t specifically tell us we must? Is God’s idea of worship more like a game of Simon Says?

“God says celebrate Shavuot”;
“God says celebrate Passover”;
“Celebrate Hanukkah…AHA!!! God didn’t say so: you’re out of the game and you have to go to hell.”

I don’t think so.

Let’s leave the Jewish holidays for a moment and open a new can of worms: you guessed it- we’re gonna talk about Christmas and Easter, the most famous, or should I say infamous, holidays. These are the ones that some Gentiles say are bad not only because they are not in the Torah, but because they were once pagan holidays. There are people who not only refuse to celebrate these holidays but call them pagan and sinful, despite the fact that they have been rebranded, so to speak, so that now they are a celebration of Yeshua (Jesus) instead of pagan gods.

I won’t say it is right or wrong to celebrate these two major Christian holidays. I can say there is no way they could have been in the Torah because the one they celebrate now (Yeshua) didn’t arrive for some 1500 years after Moses was given the Torah.

But I will say this: as far as I am concerned (and you can disagree), any celebration that gives glory to God can’t be wrong.

If it is one of the Torah commanded Holy Days, which we find in Leviticus 23, those we celebrate in order to be faithfully obedient. If it is a man-made celebration of God, such as the salvation of the Jewish people during the time of Mordecai and Esther, or the salvation of the Jewish people during the time of the Maccabee’s, or the salvation of not just the Jewish people, but the whole world that was made possible by God sending his Messiah, Yeshua, well…how can that be frowned upon by God?

Do you really think that God is upset by us deciding to honor him in a way that we created?

When it comes down to it, I would humbly suggest that if you are unsure of what is right and wrong in God’s eyes, run it by these three rules:

1. If the Torah says do it, then do it;
2. If the Torah says don’t do it, then don’t do it;
3. If it isn’t in the Torah but it was created in order to honor God or Messiah Yeshua, and you celebrate it that way, then go for it!

One of the defining characteristics of God is his willingness to forgive the past and give us a clean slate when we do T’shuvah (repent and turn from sin) and worship him as he says to do. So, despite a holiday being man-made or having pagan origins if it NOW is celebrated in order to honor God and give glory to him and/or his Messiah, then I would say it is acceptable to God.

In Ezekiel 18, God says that the sinful man who turns from sin will be saved, and even a righteous man who turns to sin will be guilty; in either case, their past will not be held against them. So, doesn’t it make sense that God might see holidays the same way? Sure, what we call Christmas and Easter used to be pagan holidays, but just as the sinner did T’shuvah and became acceptable to God, so, too, these holidays are being celebrated now as a way to honor God and Messiah must also be acceptable.

Look- if God can forgive you for the sins you have committed, then he certainly can accept when you celebrate a man-made holiday, no matter what its origins if you celebrate it to honor him.

Give God a break- he isn’t stupid and although I cannot speak for God, based on my understanding of him from what he tells us about himself, I believe that he isn’t so stuck-up that he will reject anyone who is celebrating his wonders, his works, and his salvation just because he didn’t specifically say we should in the Torah.

And certainly not because a holiday is man-made or created to replace a pagan holiday that was on the same day.

Thank you for being here and please share these messages with everyone you know to help this ministry grow. “Like” my Facebook page, subscribe to my website and my YouTube channel, buy my books and share them with people who want to know the difference between what God says and what religions teach, and join my Facebook discussion group, Just God’s Word.

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

Right off the bat, let me wish everyone living in the United States a Happy Thanksgiving Day. Of course, given today is a national holiday to give thanks, you might expect a message about that.

Well, it ain’t gonna happen because everyone is already giving thanks, and I would be preaching to the choir, so we are going to have a really interesting discussion, instead.

If you prefer to watch a video, click on this link: Watch the video.

You might be wondering what the heck the title of today’s message is all about? Let’s do a quick review: Acts 15:20-28 is the recommendation that James gives to the Council of Elders in Jerusalem that the Gentile Believers be required, at that time, to only follow four commands. Those requirements are: (1) not to eat anything sacrificed to idols, (2) not to eat things strangled; (3) not to eat the blood; and (4) to abstain from fornication.

James follows this up by stating that the laws of Moses (meaning the Torah commandments from God) would be heard by these neophyte Believers every Shabbat, implying that they would learn to obey the other Torah commandments as they matured in their knowledge and their spirit.

Later, James wrote his letter to the Believing Jews in the Diaspora.

If you are thinking, “No, it was to the Christian churches” you are wrong-
there were no Christian churches then, just Gentiles and Jews who accepted
Yeshua as the Messiah. If anything, these congregations would have
identified themselves not as a church, but as Kehillot (communities).

In that letter, written much later than the letter in Acts, James explains that when people say they have faith they must demonstrate it through their actions. James 2:17 plainly states that faith, without works, is dead.

Now, if you are wondering why am I thinking that the letter to these Believing Jews and Gentiles is damage control for what James suggested in Acts, I will explain.

The letter in Acts, which was written to new Gentile Believers, has traditionally been used to justify ignoring the Torah and that Christians need only follow JUST THOSE 4 REQUIREMENTS in order to be saved. This is absolutely NOT what the letter was meant to do: that letter was intended to help the formerly pagan people adjust slowly to this new religion.

In the book of Galatians, we learned that many Jewish Believers were forcing the Gentiles accepting Yeshua to convert to Judaism overnight. This was a paradigm shift in lifestyle, going from a hedonistic, sexually perverse polytheistic religion and way of life to one of righteousness, purity, and self-control.

Not to mention the requirement to be circumcised. Ouch!

I mean, really? Going from perversion to purity “cold turkey” (no, that is not a Thanksgiving Day reference) is just too much for most people, and if this was required of all newly Believing Gentiles, the Elders realized that they would lose too many, too quickly.

Remember the parable Yeshua told of the seed thrown on the ground, and how the weeds (worldly desires) choked much of the new growth?

So, to prevent too many Gentiles who were, for the most part, converting to a Jewish lifestyle and form of worship, the Elders said, “Take it one step at a time.”

But that letter, which was to become a stepping stone to righteousness, became a stumbling block, instead, when it was used to justify ignoring God’s commandments.

I believe (and you can agree or not- it is simply my belief) that many years after that letter, when James saw what was happening to the movement, he decided to get these people back on track by writing his letter to remind them that they must still obey the entire Torah. He decided to show them that they were being taught incorrectly when they were told that faith is all you need, and performance (ie., doing good works) is not necessary.

Faith demands good works, and when we say we have faith we need to show it by how we act. If we are faithful, truly faithful, then we will want to do as God said to do and not listen to men telling us we don’t need to.

Men do not have more authority than God, and God never said to stop obeying him. James knew this, and (again, it is my opinion) realized that what he wrote then to help people was now hurting people.

It was the right idea at that time, but it had been perverted from a slow learning process of how to obey God into a justification for totally rejecting God’s instructions.

So, that’s my thought. Do you think that James realized what he did had been turned against him? Or are you of the school that Christians do not have to do anything in the Torah, which are the direct commands from God, but instead can do what men who have run the “church” say you should do?

James suggested the letter in Acts 15, and many believe it was the same James who wrote that letter to the Believers in the Diaspora, so if it was (and even if it wasn’t), I really believe that James 2:17 was written as “damage control” to get those people back on track who had been misled by the Gentile church leaders who perverted the Acts 15 letter.

What do you think?

That’s it for now, so please share these messages with everyone you know, subscribe to my website, YouTube channel, Facebook group (Just God’s Word), and check out my books. If you like what you get here, you will also like my books.

Enjoy your turkey and do give thanks, every day.

Baruch HaShem!

How many times have you heard people ask why, if God is forgiving, loving, and compassionate, does he punish us?

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How many times have you heard people say that the God of the Old Covenant is harsh and cruel, but the God of the New Covenant is loving and forgiving?

Of course, that raises the question of which God is the real God?

The answer is, of course, there is only one God, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the father of the Messiah, Yeshua. He is the same God in the Old Covenant as he is in the New Covenant, and if someone needs proof, just read Acts 5:1-11 and see how “forgiving” the God of the New Covenant really is.

God punishes the guilty, but not right away, well, usually not right away. He holds his punishment in order to give us time to repent and save our lives. God doesn’t want anyone to die and says so in Ezekiel 18:23.

In fact, God is not only willing to forgive, he strongly desires to forgive, but because he is also holy and trustworthy, he MUST punish the unrepentant for their sins.

God ALWAYS follows the rules he sets.

The punishment God metes out is designed to do two things:

1. Punish the wicked for the sins they have committed, as he promised he would do; and
2. Bring people into communion with God by having them turn to him so they can be saved.

That’s right! God will slam you down hard not because he is trying to hurt you, but because he is trying to save your life!

Humans punish and hurt each other in order to make themselves feel better. I know you are denying that is what YOU do, but the truth is we punish almost always, from anger. And that anger comes from being ignored, which comes from our pride and that is what causes us to lash out at others, even those we love.

When your children disobey you, do you allow them to continue their bad behavior, and only after a while punish them? If so, then you are the rare exception because almost everyone I have ever known with kids, myself included, punishes in one way or another the moment the kids misbehave.

If someone at work is performing under their required standard and you are their boss, do you allow it to continue? Do you wait for a while, hoping that they will come around and get better? Do you give them a bad review without ever having told them where they needed to improve?

I hope not. Having been in charge of people most of my career I have learned that when people don’t do a good job it is often because they haven’t been trained or supervised well. However, there are those who just refuse to do what they are supposed to do, and they receive punishment after they have been told how to do it correctly, but refuse to do so.

These examples are based on being in a finite world where the punishment can’t last longer than your life. God, on the other hand, is not finite and his punishment is designed to set us straight while we are still alive because the ultimate result of disobeying God is eternal suffering.

I might lose my job if I continually ignore my boss, but I will be forever in torment if I continually ignore God.

God punishes us because he has to: he said he will and that is all there is to it. He waits for us to repent, and when he has waited long enough (which is entirely up to his timetable, not yours) the punishment for your crimes against God will first be to slam you down so hard that you have to look up to look down.

And that brings us to the second purpose for his punishment, to leave you no option other than to look up… up to God!

God’s punishment is designed to force you to realize that your way will not work, is not going to be acceptable anymore, and if you want to have joy and peace you had better get your head out of your southern-most orifice and get with the game.

God tells us exactly how he wants us to worship him and how to treat each other- that is found in the Torah, the first 5 books of the Bible. In fact, that is the ONLY place where God, himself, dictates to Moses the way he wants us all to act. There is no place, anywhere else, throughout the entire Bible, Old and New, where God gives direct instructions on what we are to do.

As you read in the letter to the Romans, God has always been to the Jew first, then to the Gentile. The Torah was given to the Jewish people to learn, and then as God’s nation of priests (Exodus 19:6) to bring it to the world.

Humans punish almost exclusively as a result of their anger at being ignored, or at seeing someone doing wrong to others. God is the same way, in that he becomes angry with those who disobey him, but God’s anger is not a fit of selfish, prideful anger like a human being feels.

This is my belief: God’s anger is not based so much on people ignoring him, but on people spiritually killing themselves after he has done so much to provide eternal joy for us. Whereas we become angry for selfish reasons, God becomes angry for selfless reasons- he hates to see us hurt ourselves.

That is why I believe his punishment is not just to keep his word, but to bring us back into communion with him by making us realize that we cannot be successful by looking only to our own power. We need to realize the best path to success in this life, and eternal joy in the next life is through the power of God.

God makes us eat crow to teach us humility; when we accept his sovereignty, humble ourselves, and obey him, he then provides a feast of wonderful delicacies which we can enjoy for all time.

Thank you for being here and please share these messages with everyone you know. Subscribe to both my YouTube channel and website, “Like” my Facebook page, and join my Facebook discussion group, Just God’s Word.

While on my website, check it out and you can order any of my 4 books from the links you will find there.

And I always welcome your comments.

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

We all have been taught that we are saved by faith, not works, but that isn’t the whole story.

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Faith is not something that we are born with, and it is not something we can earn or purchase: faith is a choice. Faith is a decision to believe, without any proof to justify that belief.

The letter to the Messianic Jews, supposedly written by Shaul (Paul), says it best in Hebrews 11:1:

Now faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see.

In other words, any absolute proof of God or that Yeshua is the Messiah is the antithesis of faith because Abraham, the “Poster Child” for faith, never had any proof of God’s existence or trustworthiness, yet when he heard from God, he believed. That is why in Christianity they say only by faith are we saved, not by works, because (this is their favorite verse) in Romans 4 we are told that Abraham believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness (which Shaul quoted from Genesis 15:6).

But to say that faith is all we need is wrong, as stated by James in James 2:14, where he says that faith without works is dead.

So, nu? Who’s right? Shaul says through faith we are saved, and James says without works we are dead: someone has to be wrong, right?

The answer is they are both correct: the missing part that brings these two seemingly opposite statements into concordance is understanding what God said is the real reason Abraham was considered righteous.

Let’s back up for a minute: people have, for centuries, been taught that faith brings salvation, but it doesn’t: salvation only comes from forgiveness of sin. A sinful person cannot be in the presence of God, no matter how strongly they believe in him.

The general understanding of “works” is strict obedience to the commandments God gave in the Torah. Before Yeshua’s ministry, the Pharisees taught only the literal value or written word (called the P’shat) of the Torah commandments, and that only through obedience can we be forgiven, accompanied by the appropriate sacrifice. This is what I call “performance-based salvation”: they placed works over faith.

Yeshua taught us that we needed more than just a literal understanding, we need to know the deeper, spiritual meaning of God’s commandments (called the Remes). This was a totally new way to see the commandments, yet Yeshua never taught to ignore the commandments; obedience was still necessary, with the proper sacrifice brought to the temple in Jerusalem, in order to be forgiven of sin. The only thing that changed was after Yeshua’s sacrifice and resurrection, there was no longer a need to bring an animal to the temple, which was destroyed leaving Yeshua as the only means to attain forgiveness of sin.

By the end of the First Century, when the number of Gentiles joining the “Way” began to vastly outnumber the Jews, they began to separate themselves from the Jewish population (which was in big trouble with Rome) and started to change things around, such as a different day for the Sabbath, rejecting some of the basic Torah commandments, and totally ignoring the rabbinic (later to be Talmudic) additional requirements that the Pharisees demanded. By the end of the Third Century, Christianity had become a totally different religion, and the teaching that faith is all we need not only took precedence over obedience but was used to justify ignoring God’s Torah!

The Pharisees taught performance-based salvation over faith, and Christianity taught faith-based salvation over obedience.

Both are wrong.

Now we can get back to what God tells us is his reason for crediting Abraham as righteous, which had seemingly been lost to everyone, except to James.

In my 67+ years of experience with Christians, I have never heard any of them quote Genesis 26:5; that is where God confirms the promise he made with Abraham to Isaac and says the reason is:

…because that Abraham hearkened to My voice, and kept My charge, My commandments, My statutes, and My laws. (JPS Hebrew-English Tanakh)

When God said that Abraham hearkened to his voice, he meant that Abraham believed him, but that wasn’t all. God said Abraham did more than just believe him, he did everything that God told him to do!

What God is saying is that faith isn’t enough for him! Abraham was righteous because he believed AND DID what God told him to do!

That is what James was saying- faith without obedience to what God tells us to do will not save us. We must do as God said Abraham did: we must be more than faithful, we must be obedient.

The early Christians wanted to separate themselves from the Jewish people because of the political strife between the Judeans and Rome, and they succeeded so well they also separated themselves from God by teaching those who had faith in Yeshua did not have to obey the Torah.

And the only place (how many times do I have to say this before people realize it?) that God tells us what he wants us to do is in the Torah! Nowhere else, people- only in those first five books will you find God saying, “Tell the children of Israel this is what the Lord, God says to do…”.

Read Genesis 26:5 for yourself- make sure that what I am telling you is true. Abraham was considered righteous, which is why he received the promises from God, because he did more than just faithfully believe: he also did everything God told him to do.

It has never been either faith or works, it has always been both. If your faith doesn’t motivate you to be obedient to God’s instructions, then you do not have the kind of faith that results in forgiveness of sin, which is the only way we are saved.

Thank you for being here and please subscribe, share these messages with everyone, “Like” my Facebook page, join my discussion group (Just God’s Word), buy my books, and remember that I always welcome your comments.

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