Category: Messianic 101

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.

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That’s it for now, 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!

What does “Believe in Jesus” Mean?

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Growing up Jewish, I was taught that any Jew who “believes in Jesus” is no longer a Jew, but now is Christian and a traitor to Judaism.

Listening to Christian missionaries, I am told we must “believe in Jesus” to be saved, and when we do we are no longer Jewish or have to obey the Jewish laws.

It seems the only thing Jews and Christians have in common is that believing in Jesus means you are no longer Jewish.

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But we know, based on James 2:19, that because the demons know God exists and is one, they must then also know Jesus who sits at the right hand of God, right? So, since the demons “believe in Jesus”, are they now saved?

I don’t think so!

It seems the term “believe in Jesus” has some meaning, but what is it, really?

NOTE: I will be using the name “Jesus” instead of Yeshua because it is more relevant to the topic, and so please don’t comment on or open a discussion about what the “real” name of the Messiah is because it is irrelevant to this lesson.

Frankly, if you ask me (and since this is my ministry, I will ask if you don’t) believing in Jesus doesn’t mean anything because we aren’t told just what we are believing in.

“Believe in Jesus” can mean anything from believing he existed to believe he is the Messiah, the son of God, and many Christians believe that Jesus is God, himself.

Many Jews believe in Jesus, but only to the point where they accept that he existed and was just a Rabbi; they believe this because his existence has been mentioned in the works of Josephus, a trusted and respected chronicler of history.

Muslims generally believe in Jesus in that they believe he existed and was a prophet, but not a Messiah or related to God other than being his prophet.

Then there are the atheists who don’t believe in God, at all, but might accept that Jesus existed, but only as a man with some historical significance.

And since the name “Jesus” has no etymology within Judaism, even the name is questionable to many as a valid identifier of the Messiah.

So, that brings me to the conclusion that to “believe in Jesus” essentially means nothing in particular because it can mean so many things.

Some Christians today are eager to learn about their Jewish roots and are beginning to recognize the importance of obedience to the commandments in the Torah, whereas most Christians want to believe only what they have been taught, which is that Jesus did away with all that “Jewish” stuff and all they need to do is believe in Jesus (there’s that term again), be a good person and love their neighbor and they will go to heaven when they die.

Yeah, well, that’s not really how it works, but it sounds good so just about everyone likes to accept that and won’t read the Bible for themselves.

If it was up to me, I would never use the term “Believe in Jesus” because it really means nothing- there is no substance to it and it doesn’t really tell anyone what encompasses that belief. Instead, I would say we need to accept that Jesus (but I would use his real, Hebrew name of Yeshua) is the Messiah God promised to send, and because of his sacrifice, we don’t need to bring an animal to the temple in Jerusalem (which no longer exists) to be forgiven of our sins; that’s why he is now the ONLY means by which we can be forgiven of sin.

I think that is much more direct, making it clear why when we accept that Jesus is the Messiah we can receive salvation, other than just saying “believe in Jesus”.

Don’t you agree?

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

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

What Is the New Wine Yeshua Talks About?

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In the Gospel of Mark (2:21-22), Yeshua teaches the following:

No one sews a piece of unshrunk cloth on an old coat; if he does, the new patch tears away from the old cloth and leaves a worse hole. And no one puts new wine in old wineskins; if he does, the wine will burst the skins, and both the wine and the skins will be ruined. Rather, new wine is for freshly prepared wineskins.

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The traditional Christian interpretation of this lesson is that Yeshua meant the old laws were no longer valid for those who follow him. In other words, they use this to justify sinning against God by ignoring what he said in the Torah.

Christianity has maintained that what Yeshua taught was the new wine, and those who accept Yeshua as the Messiah and follow his teachings, are the new wineskins. As such, what is in the Torah is the old wine and only valid for the old wineskins, i.e., the Jews.

Does this make sense? I mean, Yeshua is the Son of God, the Messiah, and throughout all the Gospels, especially in John, he constantly tells us he does and says only what his father in heaven tells him to do and say. He even prayed at the rock in the garden just before his crucifixion, confirming with God that HIS will be done, not Yeshua’s.

So, given that his entire time on earth was spent doing what God told him, does it seem likely that what he would have taught was to rebel against God? Did the Son of God tell those who accepted him as the Messiah that he did not come to reunite them with God (which is what the Messiah is to do), but instead to separate them from God by rejecting his commandments and follow a new set of laws, laws that Yeshua created?

I don’t know about you, but that doesn’t seem right to me, at all!

What Yeshua taught was what is in the Torah, but instead of teaching just the plain language of the law (called the P’shat), he taught us the deeper, more spiritual understanding (called the Remes.) Haven’t you ever wondered why there are so many references in the Gospels about how people said no one has ever taught like Yeshua did? That’s because no one ever had- the Pharisees and Sadducees only taught the basic meaning of the law: do not murder, do not commit adultery, etc. But Yeshua taught us the spiritual understanding of the law: do not even hate in your heart, do not so much as lust with your eyes.

Using the biblical exegesis system called Circles of Context, let’s look at what was happening just before Yeshua talked about new wine and new wineskins.

This chapter in Mark begins with the Pharisees asking why Yeshua was saying he could forgive sins. Next, they asked why he ate with sinners and tax collectors. They then asked why his disciples didn’t fast as the Pharisee’s disciples did.

What do all these questions have in common? They are referencing rabbinical traditions that are not specified in, or have anything to do with the Torah.

I believe these traditions are what Yeshua was talking about when he talked of “old wine.” And the new wine is not different mitzvot from the Torah, but the spiritual understanding of the existing mitzvot!

The new wineskins are people that have not been so indoctrinated into the old wine that they can no longer accept the new understanding Yeshua was teaching.

Now, here is a sad and ironic reality: Christians who believe that Yeshua’s “new wine” is that all you need is to love each other and be a good person are now the old wine in old wineskins, refusing to accept that Yeshua did NOT do away with the Torah, but confirmed it!

More and more Christians who are seeking the real Messiah, the one who taught God’s word and never rebelled against the Torah, are the new wineskins who want to accept the new wine Yeshua taught, way back then.

During Yeshua’s ministry on the earth, the new wine was the spiritual understanding of the Torah, and NEVER anything against obedience to God’s commandments in the Torah. The new wineskins are his Disciples and all those Jews and Gentiles who followed him, still obedient to Torah.

Today, the new wine Yeshua taught is still new because early Christian leadership denounced the Torah- they rejected the new wine and watered it down with their own traditions, ruining the purity of Yeshua’s wine by blending it with old pagan traditions, holidays, and watering down (if not totally rejecting) anything dealing with the Torah, other than the 10 Commandments.

And they have even rejected and ignored some of those!

So, here is my understanding of the passage in Mark 2:21-22: the old wine is the rabbinic traditions that over-ruled God’s word or added to it, and the old wineskins, already stretched to their maximum, are those who rigidly maintain those traditions, unwilling to change or even listen to new ideas. The new wine is the Remes of the mitzvot, the spiritual understanding of the Torah, and those who overcame their desire to adhere to those man-made traditions and accepted the new wine Yeshua taught became new wineskins.

Today there are two old wines: the Christian old wine that Yeshua did away with the law, and the Jewish old wine that Yeshua is not the Messiah.

I used to be an old Jewish wineskin, but became a new wineskin about 25 years ago when I accepted Yeshua as my Messiah; I never converted from Judaism and, in truth, am now more “Jewish” than I ever was before.

So, nu? Which wine do you drink?

Thank you for being here and please subscribe here and on my YouTube channel, and share these messages with everyone. I also would love it if you would check out my books (on my website) and remember- I always welcome your comments.

That’s it for now, and probably for the week because my wife, Donna, is getting a shoulder replacement today (your prayers for a successful operation and speedy recovery are humbly requested) and I will be really busy from Thursday on preparing for the Pesach Seder, since she will not be able to help with the cooking or the preparation of the house.

That’s it for now…l’hitraot and (an early) Pesach Chag Sameach!

Parashah V’yikrah 2021 (And he called) Leviticus 1 – 5

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We now enter into the Book of Leviticus.

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In this book are many of the laws, commandments, regulations, and ordinances that God gave to us through Moses, which define how we are to worship God and treat each other.

These laws have been split into two categories: ceremonial and moral. As far as I am concerned, it doesn’t matter how we wish to categorize them but only that they are what God said we should do. That’s enough for me.

Instead of going through the different types of sacrifices and regulations for each, which are contained in this parashah, I would like to talk, in general, about these instructions from God.

Christianity has spent two millennia trying to separate itself from the Jewish roots from which it sprouted, and has been very successful at doing that. It has managed to grow into any number of different religions and sects, none of which seem to have anything in common with the others other than they profess to worship God and that Yeshua (Jesus) is the Messiah.

Oh, wait a minute….they also have this in common: they teach that the Son of God said whoever accepts him as their Savior doesn’t have to obey the commandments that God gave in the Torah.

Actually, they can’t reject all of them, of course: the “moral” commandments still are valid, such as don’t murder, don’t commit adultery, and don’t worship or bow down and pray to any graven image (the Roman Catholics still have a problem with this one.)

But what did Yeshua say, really?

In Matthew 5:17 (a favorite Christian verse to proclaim the Torah is null and void), Yeshua says he has come to fulfill the law, which (as I mentioned) Christianity loves to quote as their justification that having fulfilled it, he did away with it. But they ignore the first part of that sentence, where Yeshua says he did NOT come to change the law.

Now, at that time in history, the usage of the word “fulfill” with regard to the Torah did not mean to perform but to interpret. Matthew 5:17 should really say that Yeshua came not to change the law but to interpret it correctly. This is confirmed with the Sermon on the Mount, where Yeshua “fulfilled the law” by teaching the deeper, spiritual meaning of it (called the Remes). He starts with “You have heard it said…” then tells the people the literal meaning of the law (called the P’shat), which was all the Pharisees had ever taught. And then he goes further, saying “But I tell you…” teaching them the deeper, spiritual meaning.

For instance, he said that we have been told not to murder, but if we hate in our heart, we have already committed murder. He taught that we have been told not to commit adultery, but if we lust in our heart, we already have. Can you see? He fulfilled the law because he taught us the spiritual meaning of it, which is why so often in the Gospels we read how people said that he taught as no one ever had before.

Christianity has also misinterpreted the statement made by a man, they call Paul, who told the Messianic congregation he started in Colussus that our sins were nailed to the cross with Yeshua. Within Christian teachings, they say that this means the law (Torah) was nailed to the cross, but that is just plain wrong. Read Colossians 2:13-14: Paul never said the law was nailed to the cross, only the sins we had committed.

The ongoing and (I believe) never-ending argument about are Christians subject to the laws in the Torah will never be settled until Messiah rules the world, at which time everyone will be forced to acknowledge that whatever Yeshua says we should do, we had better do.

But I would like to ask those who have been taught the Torah is only for Jews to consider the following:

  1. If Yeshua is the Son of God; and
  2. If disobedience to the laws in the Torah were, at the time Yeshua lived, a sin; and
  3. If Yeshua taught people to disobey his father and obey only him …

Then wouldn’t that make Yeshua a traitorous son and a disobedient, sinful Messiah?

Where else in the Bible does a son, a prince, try to overthrow his father’s kingdom and replace him as king? (I really shouldn’t have to tell you, should I?)

If Yeshua taught anything that was against the laws God had given to the people, then he would be in sin and a traitor to his own father. He would not have ever been an acceptable sacrifice, but since we know he WAS an acceptable sacrifice, then he (obviously) never did anything against his father or break the law, nor did he ever teach anyone else to break the law.

The only justification that Christianity has used to show where multiple times someone has taught that the Torah is not valid or necessary for Christians is from the letters of Paul to his congregations throughout the Middle East and Asia.

Paul was not a prophet, he was never contacted by God telling him, as God did with Moses or the Prophets of the Tanakh, to tell anyone anything. He was a missionary who said and did whatever he needed to in order to get people to listen to the Good News of the Messiah. He never converted to Christianity, he never changed his name from Shaul to Paul, and he never went exclusively to the Gentiles. In fact, he always went to teach in the synagogues first, then he went to the Gentiles.

And he never said that we could ignore the Torah, only that within the Gentile congregations who were having issues with their faith, that they should learn the Torah and obey it a little at a time and not have to become converts to Judaism all at once.

Just the same way that Isaiah told the people in the Northern tribes of Israel, who were constantly at odds with their faith, that they are so spiritually weak they need to learn God’s ways little by little and line by line (Isaiah 28:10.)

I don’t want to get into an argument about whether or not Shaul’s letters should be included in the Bible, or whether or not you have to obey the Torah- these are decisions that you have to make for yourself because no matter why you decide how you worship, when you meet God you will be held accountable for what you do or don’t do.

My advice to everyone is that you best make sure whichever way you chose to live your life and worship God be an informed decision based on your own research because, as I said, you WILL be held accountable for that choice.

If a cop wants to give you a speeding ticket and you say you didn’t know what the speed limit was, he will tell you that ignorance of the law is no excuse. I believe God will have the same attitude.

Thank you for being here and please don’t forget to subscribe here and on my YouTube channel, as well. I hope you will share these messages with everyone you know and remember that I always welcome your comments.

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

Faith Has To Be A Little Stubborn

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Hebrews 11:1 says the following:

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

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I was having a discussion with someone yesterday about faith. He asked questions about what is in the Bible and I would answer that this is what God told us. He kept pushing his point, “How do you know that?” My answer was that this is what we are told in the Bible, to which he replied, “The Bible was written by people, wasn’t it?”

This was not an argument, mind you, but a respectful exchange of Q & A, with him offering up the “Q” and me supplying the “A”. I know I didn’t change his mind, at all, which is fine since it isn’t my place to tell anyone what they should choose to believe in.

And that is the operative word: choose. Faith is not something that we can prove because, as we are told, it is something we choose to accept as truth. Faith is not just a feeling, it is a choice; and, because it is unproven, we need to be able to hold onto our faith in the face of arguments and persecution.

That is why faith has to be stubborn. Stubbornness is not changing your mind easily, or (in most cases) not ever changing it, and to maintain our faith we need to have that stubborn attitude that says, “I don’t care what you say, I believe what I believe.”

The problem is what about when we see someone whose faith is misguided? Like the many Jews and Gentiles who are being led into damnation by their leaders, who are repeating what they were told, from all the way back to the end of the First Century when Christianity separated itself from Judaism and the “mainstream” Jews refused to accept Yeshua as their Messiah.

How many “faithful” Roman Catholics do you know who bow down to statues (the Bible calls them graven images) and pray to them? How can someone maintain their choice to do this when the Bible clearly says not to? Even Yeshua, himself, said he was the only way to God (John 14:6) so why pray to saints to intercede with Yeshua?

I mean, from a strictly Jewish viewpoint, why buy retail when you can get it wholesale? In other words, why ask some saint to ask Yeshua to ask God, when you can go straight to God by simply dropping Yeshua’s name?

I am not necessarily picking on the RC’s, although they do make it really easy to do so, but on Christianity, in general. And I’m not “picking on them” as much as trying to show the incorrect interpretation and sinful (meaning anti-Biblical) teachings that have misdirected faithful people into performing lawlessness.

Not that my Jewish brothers and sisters who still reject Yeshua are any better off. They are the ones who should be the saddest because the Torah says we have no forgiveness unless we sacrifice where God has placed his name, which was the temple in Jerusalem, which doesn’t exist anymore!

Faith is what we choose to have. Even though we can’t prove what we believe in, we do have a foundation for our faith, which is (or, at least, should be) the Bible. First, we choose to believe there is a God, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob; next, we choose to believe what we read in the Bible is accurate and true. Finally, we choose to believe that Yeshua is the Messiah he promised to send.

We choose to believe that what we read in the Bible is factual. We can’t ever prove it because “proof” is the antithesis of faith, and it is only through faith that we can be saved.

In other words, we have to believe in God because we choose to, and not for any other reason. Not because we are told we have to (which is what both Judaism and Christianity force their kids to do) and not because we are promised riches or blessings if we do, but because we choose to.

And it doesn’t matter why we chose to, so long as once we make our choice, we stick by it through hell and high water.

(No, I am not going to tell the joke about the town being flooded and the Rabbi with the rowboat, the truck, and the helicopter.)

The idea that faith is nothing more than a choice is very hard for worldly people to understand. The world says, “Prove it!” and God says, “Believe it.” These are in complete opposition to each other, and I have found that those who ask for proof are generally unsure of everything.

It is sad, but in my experience, faithless people are afraid of everything, and can only see the worst case scenarios. They trust no one, especially themselves, and have a very sad future since they figure this life is all there is.

When you have nothing to look forward to except this life, then you try to fill this life with as much “fun” as you can, which usually translates into sinfulness. It is a sad paradox that the ones who do not believe in an afterlife are guaranteeing theirs to be terrible.

I have a very stubborn faith, but I still am open to hearing other people tell me about what they believe the Bible says. And when I hear someone tell me what I know to be worldly teaching, it only strengthens my faith in what I believe- no, in what I KNOW– to be the way God says it should be.

I rarely read extra-biblical books, although I do now and then (for instance, the ones I have written I can highly recommend to you) because the Bible is all I really need to know. I won’t read the Quran or the Apocrypha’s or the Books of Jasper, Judas, etc. because they are not scripture. I also don’t read or study the Talmud or the Septuagint, although I will check out things that are in there as subject matter for my messages.

Why won’t I read those? Simply because they do not have anything I need- all I need is the Bible. And I stubbornly, or should I say faithfully, reject anything else.

Look, faith is stubborn and needs to be stubborn in order to be maintained. I suggest you don’t keep an “open mind”, but that you ensure your faithfulness has a strong foundation from the Bible. And not from what people tell you is in the Bible or what your religious leaders tell you the Bible says, but what you read in there yourself.

In Matthew 15:14, Yeshua said when the blind lead the blind, they both fall into a hole, so don’t be led by the blind: chose your own path and stick to it no matter what. The world has nothing of value for you and the spiritual people you meet may only tend to confuse you, so choose what you will believe and hold onto it as if your very soul depends on it… because it does!

Thank you for being here. Please subscribe here and on my YouTube channel, as well, and share these messages with everyone you know. And remember: I always welcome your comments.

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

How’d We Get to This?

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In the beginning, there was God. Then he created the Earth and placed mankind in charge of it, and mankind screwed everything up to the point where God had to send the Flood. After the Flood, God chose a man, Abraham, to become the progenitor of a people God would make his own special people.

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

Later on, God grew Abraham’s descendants from a family to a nation. Then, in order to train his chosen people how to become a nation of priests to the world (Ex. 19:6), he gave them instructions to teach them how to worship him and how to treat each other. This was the Torah, which if someone could live their lives in total and perfect accordance with all the 613 different “laws” that God gave, they would be righteous in God’s eyes.

But, as Shakespeare would say, “There’s the rub”: no one can live their life in perfect accordance with the Torah. For us sinful humans, it just ain’t gonna happen.

So, in order to ensure that God’s plan for his creation to be with him throughout eternity succeeds, he provided for us that which we could not provide for ourselves: a Savior, the Messiah, Yeshua (Jesus) who became the substitutionary sin sacrifice by voluntarily giving his physical life so that we could attain spiritual salvation.

Our part in this is to accept him as our Messiah and try to live as God said we should.

Yeshua was, and still is, the Messiah God promised to send, which he promised as far back as when he was talking to Abraham. When Yeshua sacrificed his life, he didn’t do away with the sacrificial system, he just substituted himself for the need to bring an animal to the temple in Jerusalem. We still need to accept that we sin, repent in our hearts and ask forgiveness from God for each and every sin we commit; it is thanks to Yeshua that we don’t have to bring a sacrifice to the temple because as the Messiah, God’s savior to mankind, is it possible through Yeshua’s one-time sacrifice that everyone’s sins can be forgiven each time they ask for forgiveness.

Let’s review… God gave the Torah so that we could know what he wants from us, and because we always failed to meet all those requirements, God sent the Messiah to provide us the chance to be saved from ourselves.

Guess what happened next? After all that God did for us, someone threw a monkey wrench into the engine, and that was the Enemy; HaSatan, that old snake. When he realized that he lost the battle for people’s souls, he confused people about Yeshua’s message. The way he did that was as more and more Gentiles came to know God’s Grace through the Messiah, he created confusion and misinterpretation within the newly formed congregations of Gentiles who didn’t understand the Torah.

He sent agents of distraction into these neophytes to Judaism to confuse them so much that they ended up rejecting the very principles of salvation that Yeshua taught, which were from the Torah. The end product of this demonic counter-attack is what we see today: so many different Christian religions and sects that reject almost all of God’s commandments.

Yeshua talked against the man-made traditions of the Pharisees that were given precedence over God’s commandments, and yet Christianity is composed of nothing BUT man-made traditions, holidays, rites, rituals, and laws. They have rejected God’s commandments regarding food (Leviticus 11); they reject all 7 festivals that God said we must observe (Leviticus 23), which does include the Sabbath because they changed the date; they bury their dead under the very altar of God; they fill their houses of worship with statues and pictures of human beings before whom they prostrate themselves and pray to; they have rebranded the Torah observant Jewish Messiah into some Blue-eyed, blonde-haired Aryian who created his own religion which rejects the Torah and hates Jews, and they teach and do many other things that the Torah tells us are an abomination to the Lord, God, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the father of the Messiah!

Another example is that today there are many Christian churches that not only condone homosexuality, but support it: some are even anointing as pastors and ministers people who are openly gay.

Now, this is not a homophobic thing with me, so any gay person reading this, please pull in your reins: all I am stating is that the Torah clearly says homosexuality is a sin and as such, no church or synagogue that professes to worship and obey God should be accepting of homosexuality. That’s all. Just like they shouldn’t accept as leaders adulterers, murderers, or anyone else who openly rejects God’s commands and rules.

Let’s get back on topic: don’t think I am excluding the Jews because I am Jewish- far be it for me to do that! When we place more emphasis and importance on Talmudic regulations than on God’s commandments, that is just as bad as rejecting God’s commands. For instance, the regulations within Judaism against eating meat and dairy together; did you know that the Ashkenazi Jews have different regulations than the Sephardic Jews about this? And why? Because one group likes milk with their after-dinner drink and another doesn’t, so they have different times for how long you have to wait after eating meat before you can have dairy. The entirety of Halacha is based on the idea of “putting fences around the law” to prevent us from accidentally trespassing the law, which in and of itself isn’t such a bad idea, but it has become so cumbersome that now the fences are more important than what they surround!

God chose a people to bring his instructions to the world, and he blessed the world through those people, the greatest blessing of all was to have his Messiah come from those people to bring the salvation that God had for them to everyone.

The Enemy of God stepped in and messed things up, and for the most part, people have gone along with the “easy salvation” that the Enemy created and those poor, misguided and delusional souls will be sorely surprised when they come before God.

I suggest you make sure you know what God wants from you, based on what he says, because despite what anyone tells you, it is what he says that counts.

Thank you for being here and please share these messages, subscribe to this ministry (I never ask for money, but if you want to buy my books that is fine with me), and I always welcome your comments.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Legalism Resurrected

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Does the World Really Hate Jews?

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You might think this a silly question, what with the Crusades, the Inquisition, the Holocaust, the Palestinians, the KKK, and any number of United Nations countries which have been vilifying Israel while vindicating those who are really the trouble-makers in the Mideast.

I mean, c’mon! Really? It’s so obvious that the world hates Jews.

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

But, still and all, I don’t think the world really hates Jews, I believe that they do hate the fact that the Jews have been so wonderfully blessed.

And what blessings do we have, you might ask?

Of all the Nobel prizes ever given out, Jews have been awarded nearly 28% of them, while representing less than .002% of the world’s population.

Israel leads the world in technology, from medical to technical to agricultural. In fact, according to the Bloomberg Tech Innovation Ranking (Brussels, Belgium), Israel is placed 5th worldwide, putting it ahead of both the United Kingdom and the United States. It would take too much time to list all the technological blessings that Israel has given to the world, but if you are interested, here is a link to the Wikipedia site that lists a number of them, in a number of different categories:
Israel Technological Achievements

The saddest thing about Antisemitism is that God said he would bless the world through the Jewish people (Genesis 22:18), so those who act against the Jewish people are actually, pardon the expression, killing the goose that lays the golden eggs.

Even here in America, Jewish people have been strengthening and helping this country since the colonial days. Did you know that it was Jewish financial aid to the colonial army that helped to keep them going? And what about Albert Einstein? Eddie Cantor and Bob Dylan? Ruth Ginsburg and Sammy Davis, Jr.? Alan Greenspan? There have been Jews in nearly every field that have contributed to America over the centuries.

Did you know that Spain used to be a world power because the Jewish bankers and businessmen were the foundation of their economy? After Queen Isabella deported all the Jews at the beginning of the Inquisition, Spain lost its standing in the world and has never recovered.

Did you know that even today, an Israeli company (Sonovia) has developed a face mask that is guaranteed to kill the coronavirus? It is reusable and good for an entire year.

It isn’t really the world hating the Jews, as much as it is the Enemy of God leading the world into doing hateful things to the Jews. Let me explain…

The plagues God sent on Egypt were not mainly to destroy Egypt (which they did) but to show his superiority over the Egyptian gods (I have been discussing this lately on my Friday messages- check out the Parashot Teachings tab on the website.) In the same way that God showed he was more powerful than the Egyptian gods, Satan wants to do that by destroying the Jewish people because they are God’s chosen, and he promised to protect them. If Satan can destroy the Jews, then he can prove he is more worthy of worship than God, which has been his agenda since Day One.

Literally, Day One!

So, since we know that Satan was thrown to the earth (Revelation 12:7) and is the ruler of the air (Ephesians 2:2), he is the ruler of the earth, at least to the extent that God allows it, and Satan easily gets people to do as he wants.

And it isn’t just the non-Believers- many Christians also are easily duped by satanic propaganda, given out by the leaders of many Christian churches and sects.

“How can that be?” you may ask? It is through changing the Sabbath day, it is through teaching that the Torah is done away with, it is through ignoring God’s Holy Days, it is through teaching Replacement Theology, it is through…well, you get the idea.

As stated earlier, God told Abraham that his descendants would be a blessing to the world, and he later told Moses (Exodus 19:6) that the Jews will be his nation of priests, and since priests teach the people how to worship God, anything done against the Jews is against God. If Satan can make people reject the Jews, then they are rejecting God and thereby worshiping Satan because either you are with God or you are against God.

Like it or not, that’s the truth.

There are always people who really do hate others, Jewish or whatever, because they are ignorant and covetous sheep, easily led astray. Sometimes they are even following what they believe, in many cases, to be godly ways but in the long run, they are worshiping Satan.

Whether people know it or not, when they come against God’s chosen people they may not be doing it because they hate the Jews, they just don’t know that they are being led to love Satan.

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

L’hitraot and Baruch HaShem!