And not for a single day, either in the Temple court or in private homes, did they stop teaching and proclaiming the Good News that Yeshua is the Messiah.

Acts 5:42 (CJB)

It is clear for all to see that the church building has been elevated to the very essence of Christianity in many cases, and it may have been like this for a very long time. How often have we heard, “if we can just get them to come to church, then their lives will change”? Is this really what a relationship with God is all about?

Several years ago, I counted nearly 20 churches in a 30-mile radius of my home. That is twenty heating bills, twenty pastors’ salaries, twenty buildings to repair, parking lots to plow, lawns to mow, etc. Many of these churches had parsonages or rectories. Let’s be conservative and say each one of these churches costs $50,000 a year to operate. That is half a million dollars a year, and we know it is probably double that. How many real-life changing conversions do we see for $1M? Imagine if that money were put into feeding, clothing, and housing people in need. What about the widows and orphans?

Where is the unity of all of the congregants? These are folks who worship on the same day, supposedly to the same God, Messiah, and Holy Spirit. Yet somehow they are all divided on points of doctrine, ways to worship, and other lines in the sand that have accumulated over hundreds of years.

In my example, we could build one church to service all twenty of these congregations, and there would be enough money left over to do some serious outreach. It doesn’t work this way, however, because, if we are truthful, many of these people will never speak to each other, never mind meet in church together.

The church building becomes a necessity to band together a small group of isolated people with similar beliefs. This is why there is so much hand-wringing if there are things such as road conditions that might cause people to stay home. People will pride themselves on never missing a Sunday service like it is a badge of honor, thinking that they are somehow more “saved” than the person who was too sick to come or afraid to drive in a snowstorm. If someone misses a Sunday service, they may not come back the following Sunday; then, after the third missed Sunday, they will be backslidden so much that they will turn their back on God, lost forever. This is the attitude often found in the various sects of Christianity across North America in my experiences.

Then there is this idea that if the church were closed on some snowy Sunday morning, that could be the time when some poor lost soul happens to show up only to find the church locked. As if God set him up so his only chance of salvation was dashed by a locked church door on a snowy Sunday morning.

This is not a sign of a healthy “body of Christ.” We are all supposed to be knit together by one Spirit of truth, studying the scriptures daily. The writer of the letter to the Hebrews was lamenting that the believers could not understand the more complex aspects of God. What would be said to the average churchgoer today?

Hebrews 5:11-6:3: ¹¹ Concerning this we have much to say and it is difficult to explain, since you have become sluggish in hearing. ¹² For indeed, although you ought to be teachers by this time, you have need of someone to teach you again the beginning elements of the oracles of God, and you have need of milk, not solid food. ¹³ For everyone who partakes of milk is unacquainted with the message of righteousness, because he is an infant. ¹⁴ But solid food is for the mature, who because of practice have trained their faculties for the distinguishing of both good and evil. 6Therefore, leaving behind the elementary message about Christ, let us move on to maturity, not laying again a foundation of repentance from dead works and faith in God, ² teaching about baptisms and laying on of hands, and resurrection of the dead and eternal judgment. ³ And this we will do, if God permits.

The milk is the “beginning oracles of God.” This is the instruction God gave us to practice a righteous life. These are the commandments and examples found all throughout scripture. The Torah, the examples of Israel turning its back on God and getting destroyed in the prophets’ writings, building one’s house on sand and all the parables, the Messiah saying, “Get out of here, I never knew you who practiced lawlessness,” watching others recline with Abraham and Isaac, but you being locked outside, etc.. Over and over the scriptures tell us how to live and how to receive the Spirit of truth. This is the Holy Spirit. At some point, we should all reach the level of maturity where we “ought to be teachers.” Instead, we do not understand or accept the milk!

1 John 2:24–27 (LEB): ²⁴ As for you, what you have heard from the beginning must remain in you. If what you have heard from the beginning remains in you, you also will remain in the Son and in the Father. ²⁵ And this is the promise which he himself promised us: eternal life. ²⁶ These things I have written to you concerning the ones who are trying to deceive you.

²⁷ And as for you, the anointing which you received from him remains in you, and you do not have need that anyone teach you. But as his anointing teaches you about all things, and is true and is not a lie, and just as it has taught you, you reside in him.

Similarly to the writer of Hebrews, John writes, “And as for you, the anointing which you received from him remains in you, and you do not have need that anyone teach you.” He is not telling us to separate ourselves from other believers, but that we can know the truth so well individually that we should not have to be taught. This is not a subjective truth that follows “our conscience” where we get to determine sin and lifestyle choices by “how it feels to me”. This is having the Spirit of truth sent by the Messiah so that we can understand his teachings and apply them in our life. He promises it to us and John expects his readers to have it.

John 14:15–17 (LEB): ¹⁵ “If you love me, you will keep my commandments. ¹⁶ And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Advocate, in order that he may be with you forever—¹⁷ the Spirit of truth, whom the world is not able to receive, because it does not see him or know him. You know him, because he resides with you and will be in you.

This is like an if-then-else statement in programming:

If (love Messiah) on then

If (keep commandments) on then

(Spirit of truth) on Else

(Spirit of truth) off.

End If

People will truly gain the Spirit of Truth when they strip all of the man-made doctrine away, all of the “isms,” and realize that one should keep the commandments given to us as milk in the Bible. At this point, it creates a group of people who essentially believe similarly and will want to spend time together sharing life, deepening their understanding of God, and fellowshipping together. This is the “church,” which is the word used for ekklesia in Greek and qahal in Hebrew.

ἐκκλησία
ekklēsia, n.c., assembly; assembly of the citizens regularly summoned. 97× +NT +AF

Hebrew Alignment
קָהָל—contingent, assembly; convocation, congregation (64): Dt 9:10; 18:16; 23:1, 3, 8; 31:30; Josh 9:8; Jdg 20:2; 21:5, 8; 1 Kgdms 17:47; 3 Kgdms 8:14, 22, 55, 65; 1 Ch 13:2, 4; 28:8; 29:1, 10, 20; 2 Ch 1:3, 5; 6:3, 12, 13; 7:8; 20:5, 14; 23:3; 28:14; 29:23, 28, 31, 32; 30:2, 4, 13, 17, 23, 24, 25; Esd B 2:64; 10:1, 8, 12; 15:13; 17:66; 18:2, 17; 23:1; Job 30:28; Ps 21:23, 26; 25:5; 34:18; 39:10; 88:6; 106:32; 149:1; Pr 5:14; Lam 1:10; Joe 2:16; Mic 2:5
מַקְהֵל—assembly, congregation (2): Ps 25:12; 67:27

The Lexham Analytical Lexicon of the Septuagint (Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press, 2012).

People are realizing this and coming away from standard congregations to meet in homes and rented buildings. Sometimes a mainline church will rent their building to a Sabbath-observing group on a Saturday. People are finding each other with the help of online fellowship finders and social media groups.

How do we reverse hundreds of years of lackadaisical churchianity, man-made traditions, and all the “isms”? When I say “isms,” I am referring to sects like Calvinism, Arminianism, Catholicism, Protestantism, Antinomianism, Fundamentalism, Evangelicalism, Dispensationalism, Cessationism, Christian nationalism, Zionism, and the list goes on. I believe that we should follow the model of the early church that met in homes. There came a time that they were no longer welcome in the synagogues. As the home is outgrown, then some people move to another home. Building lasting relationships in each home fellowship instead of rushing out the door Sunday after the last hymn is sung. This is where we would learn to depend on each other and learn from each other. Everyone would be responsible to “study to show themselves approved.”

There could be elders and servers just as in the early church and very low overhead. Money could be raised to help people in the community rather than pay a large heating bill for a handful of people to gather a couple of times a week. We will probably arrive here through necessity in the coming years as these congregations can no longer afford to keep the lights on. Perhaps we should be ahead of the curve!

Photo by Debby Hudson on Unsplash

But an hour is coming—and now is here—when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for indeed the Father seeks such people to be his worshipers. God is spirit, and the ones who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.”

John 4:23–24 (LEB)

Yeshua makes a clear distinction of people groups at the start of his ministry. It is very obvious in the beginning that he is only interested in reaching “the lost sheep of the house of Israel.” Who is he talking about here? Why does he seem to move on from this mission as time goes by? It’s all very interesting. For example, is the lost sheep of the house of Israel the northern kingdom that was scattered into the nations after the Assyrians conquered it around 722 BCE? They were divorced and cut off from the kingdom and became part of the nations, so then they were not even part of Israel at that point. There were three tribes left somewhat intact during Yeshua’s ministry: Benjamin, Levi, and Judah. Were these the first target audience?

We have a clue in the next interaction talking about the “lost sheep of the house of Israel.” There is a Canaanite woman approaching Yeshua, and he specifically tells her that she is not part of his current program. Yet in the end, he grants her request due to her “great faith.”

Matthew 15:21–28 (LEB): ²¹ And departing from there, Jesus went away to the region of Tyre and Sidon. ²² And behold, a Canaanite woman from that district came and cried out, saying, “Have mercy on me, Lord, Son of David! My daughter is severely possessed by a demon!” ²³ But he did not answer her a word. And his disciples came up and asked him, saying, “Send her away, because she is crying out after us!” ²⁴ But he answered and said, “I was not sent except to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.” ²⁵ But she came and knelt down before him, saying, “Lord, help me!” ²⁶ And he answered and said, “It is not right to take the children’s bread and throw it to the dogs!” ²⁷ So she said, “Yes, Lord, for even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their master’s table.” ²⁸ Then Jesus answered and said to her, “O woman, your faith is great! Let it be done for you as you want.” And her daughter was healed from that hour.

A Canaanite woman from Tyre was not someone connected to the twelve tribes. Israel and Judah are both compared to lost sheep by the prophet Jeremiah. Jeremiah was discussing both houses being lost sheep, even though it was 130 years after the northern kingdom of Israel fell. Like countless other passages, these speak of Israel and Judah reuniting.

Jeremiah 50:3–6 (LEB): ³ For a nation will come up against her from the north. It will make her land as a horror, and an inhabitant will not be in her. From humans to animals they all will wander off. They will go away. ⁴ In those days and in that time,’ ” declares Yahweh, “the people of Israel will come, they and the people of Judah together. Weeping as they go, they will go, and Yahweh their God they will seek. ⁵ They will ask the way to Zion, turning their faces there. They will come and join themselves to Yahweh by an everlasting covenant that will not be forgotten. ⁶ My people have become lost sheep, their shepherds have caused them to go astray. They led them away to the mountains. From mountain to hill they have gone, they have forgotten their resting place.

On one hand, Jerimiah’s reference to both houses along with the parable of the prodigal son make me believe Yeshua’s lost sheep are a combination of both houses, with the house of Israel being used in that context to refer to all of Israel, or Jacob’s sons. In the parable of the prodigal son, Yeshua presents an a metaphor of the two houses: Ephraim (representing the northern kingdom) and Judah. Ephraim is the younger brother who left the farm and squandered his inheritance living like those in the nations, while Judah was the older brother who stayed.

Luke 15:27–32 (LEB): ²⁷ And he said to him, ‘Your brother has come, and your father has killed the fattened calf because he has gotten him back healthy.’ ²⁸ But he became angry and did not want to go in. So his father came out and began to implore him. ²⁹ But he answered and said to his father, ‘Behold, so many years I have served you, and have never disobeyed your command! And you never gave me a young goat so that I could celebrate with my friends! ³⁰ But when this son of yours returned—who has consumed your assets with prostitutes—you killed the fattened calf for him!’ ³¹ But he said to him, ‘Child, you are always with me, and everything I have belongs to you. ³² But it was necessary to celebrate and to rejoice, because this brother of yours was dead, and is alive, and was lost, and is found!’ ”

This is the good news that the younger brother could return after being cut off, and Judah was not receptive to the message. This was both prophetic and applied directly to the time it was spoken. As far as I know, neither Christianity or Judaism uphold this idea about Ephraim returning through the work of Yeshua. Any rabbi I have heard refers to “Jews” as anyone that was at Mount Horeb when they sealed the covenant with God, completely ignoring the plight of the northern kingdom. Christians mostly think this parable is literally talking about their lost son in 2026, giving them hope that he will turn to God in the end.

In one way, this prophecy has been fulfilled because Yeshua did bring together the two houses into the kingdom. Part of me wants to ignore anything else. The kingdom of God is here now for those who receive it, and inside the kingdom there is not any animosity between Judah and Ephraim. We are all saved through Yeshua, and Ephraim was able to seed the entire world, in effect making the nations a melting pot of the house of Israel. Another part of me thinks this will only be achieved at the resurrection in the Millennium kingdom. Currently, neither those practicing Christianity nor Judaism acknowledge the overwhelming amount of scripture dedicated to Israel being divided and scattered and that the Messiah will be the one to bring them back into the family.

Isaiah 11:11–13 (LEB): ¹¹ And this shall happen on that day: The Lord will again extend his hand a second time to acquire the remnant of his people that is left, from Assyria, Egypt, Pathros, Cush, Elam, Shinar, Hamath, and the coastlands of the sea, ¹² and he will raise a signal for the nations. And he will gather the outcasts of Israel, and he will gather the scattered ones of Judah together from the four corners of the earth. ¹³ And the jealousy of Ephraim shall depart, and the enemies of Judah shall be cut off. Ephraim shall not be jealous of Judah, and Judah shall not be an enemy of Ephraim.

Matthew 24:30–31 (LEB): ³⁰ And then the sign of the Son of Man will appear in heaven, and then all the tribes of the earth will mourn, and they will see the Son of Man arriving on the clouds of heaven with power and great glory. ³¹ And he will send out his angels with a loud trumpet call, and they will gather his elect together from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other end of it.

Yeshua went to the lost sheep of the house of Israel only to be met with complete resistance. He continually saw his message rejected by the people he was seeking.

Matthew 10:5–8 (LEB): ⁵ Jesus sent out these twelve, instructing them saying, “Do not go on the road to the Gentiles, and do not enter into a city of the Samaritans, ⁶ but go instead to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. ⁷ And as you are going, preach, saying, ‘The kingdom of heaven has come near!’ ⁸ Heal those who are sick, raise the dead, cleanse lepers, expel demons. Freely you have received; freely give.

Here Yeshua specifically says to avoid the cities of the Samaritans. It is hard to disconnect the Samaritans from the northern kingdom. They are those of the ten tribes that did not leave the north and intermingled with the people that resettled the north. They kept a lot of the traditions of Israel.

The context shows Samar(e)itēs to be a geographical, and thus indirectly an ethnological term, but at the same time to be a religious group designation (cf. Ioudaios, Jew). The ethnological identity of the Samaritans is a point of dispute between the Jews and the Samaritans. The anti-Samaritan polemic of Judaism assumes a total deportation of the population of the northern kingdom; hence the equation of the Samaritans with the Cutheans. But the religious community centred on Shechem, or Mount Gerizim, until today sees itself as a confessional denomination within Israel, standing ethnologically in unbroken continuity particularly with the northern tribes of Ephraim and Manasseh. It draws a distinction between the admittedly mixed populace of the territory of Samaria and the worshippers of the Yahweh-cult of Shechem, and accepted the designation “Samaritan” only with hesitation as a term originally used only by outsiders.

K. Haacker, “Samaritan, Samaria,” in New International Dictionary of New Testament Theology, ed. Lothar Coenen, Erich Beyreuther, and Hans Bietenhard (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Publishing House, 1986), 450.

At this point, I lean towards Yeshua referring to the lost sheep of the house of Israel as the people practicing Judaism, trying to stay true to their Creator God and the Torah, even though they had been led astray by worthless shepherds. These were the first group of people Yeshua and the apostles targeted in the early days of his ministry. Once these people continually rejected the message, the rest of the plan unfolded.

Matthew 10:14–15 (LEB): ¹⁴ And whoever does not welcome you or listen to your words, shake off the dust from your feet as you are going out of that house or that town. ¹⁵ Truly I say to you, it will be more bearable for the region of Sodom and Gomorrah on the day of judgment than for that town!

Matthew 11:20–24 (LEB): ²⁰ Then he began to reproach the towns in which the majority of his miracles had been done, because they did not repent: ²¹ “Woe to you, Chorazin! Woe to you, Bethsaida! For if the miracles done in you had been done in Tyre and Sidon, they would have repented long ago in sackcloth and ashes. ²² Nevertheless I tell you, it will be more bearable for Tyre and for Sidon on the day of judgment than for you! ²³ And you, Capernaum, will you be exalted to heaven? No, you will be brought down to Hades! For if the miracles done in you had been done in Sodom, it would have remained until today. ²⁴ Nevertheless I tell you that it will be more bearable for the region of Sodom on the day of judgment than for you!”

Yeshua followed the script. He went to the supposed family of his Father of his time with a reset from their religious mistakes. Yeshua preached justice and mercy rather than sacrifice. He was rejected by his people and then went to part B of the plan that was prophesied beforehand.

Isaiah 49:6 (LEB): ⁶ And he says, “It is trivial for you to be a servant for me, to raise up the tribes of Jacob and to bring back the preserved of Israel. I will give you as a light to the nations, to be my salvation to the end of the earth.”

I want to make it clear that I am in no way promoting replacement theology. This is the belief system where “the Church” replaced Israel and received the promises. We would have a hard time defining “the Church” today with the plethora of sects and denominations, all with different belief systems. The Church will always be Israel and the foreigners who sojourn with Israel. Paul told us that the message would go first to the Jews and then to the Gentiles.

Romans 1:16–17 (LEB): ¹⁶ For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. ¹⁷ For the righteousness of God is revealed in it from faith to faith, just as it is written, “But the one who is righteous by faith will live.”

Yeshua started preaching about a shift in the kingdom through the parables. He talked about the vineyard owner giving away the vineyard to someone else and the wedding where no one invited would come. The message is clear now and was clear to many to whom he was speaking.

Matthew 23:37–38 (LEB): ³⁷ “Jerusalem, Jerusalem, who kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to her! How many times I wanted to gather your children together the way a hen gathers her young together under her wings, and you were not willing! ³⁸ Behold, your house has been left to you desolate!

Matthew 21:33–46 (LEB): ³³ “Listen to another parable: There was a man—a master of a house—who planted a vineyard, and put a fence around it, and dug a winepress in it, and built a watchtower, and leased it to tenant farmers, and went on a journey. ³⁴ And when the season of fruit drew near, he sent his slaves to the tenant farmers to collect his fruit. ³⁵ And the tenant farmers seized his slaves, one of whom they beat, and one of whom they killed, and one of whom they stoned. ³⁶ Again, he sent other slaves, more than the first ones, and they did the same thing to them. ³⁷ So finally he sent his son to them, saying, ‘They will respect my son.’ ³⁸ But when the tenant farmers saw the son, they said among themselves, ‘This is the heir. Come, let us kill him and have his inheritance!’ ³⁹ And they seized him and threw him out of the vineyard and killed him. ⁴⁰ Now when the master of the vineyard arrives, what will he do to those tenant farmers?” ⁴¹ They said to him, “He will destroy those evil men completely and lease the vineyard to other tenant farmers who will give him the fruits in their season.” ⁴² Jesus said to them, “Have you never read in the scriptures,‘The stone which the builders rejected, this has become the cornerstone. This came about from the Lord, and it is marvelous in our eyes’? ⁴³ For this reason, I tell you that the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and will be given to a people who produce its fruits. ⁴⁴ And the one who falls on this stone will be broken to pieces, and the one on whom it falls—it will crush him!” ⁴⁵ And when the chief priests and the Pharisees heard his parables, they knew that he was speaking about them, ⁴⁶ and although they wanted to arrest him, they were afraid of the crowds, because they looked upon him as a prophet.

Yeshua spells it out here. “43 For this reason, I tell you that the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and will be given to a people who produce its fruits”. What else can we conclude? The one who falls on the cornerstone will be crushed by it and not be in the kingdom. In other words, without Yeshua, their religion and heritage meant nothing at that point concerning the kingdom of God.

Matthew 22:2–14 (LEB): ² “The kingdom of heaven may be compared to a man—a king—who gave a wedding celebration for his son. ³ And he sent his slaves to summon those who had been invited to the wedding celebration, and they did not want to come. ⁴ Again he sent other slaves, saying, ‘Tell those who have been invited, “Behold, I have prepared my dinner; my oxen and fattened cattle have been slaughtered, and everything is ready. Come to the wedding celebration!” ’ ⁵ But they paid no attention and went away—this one to his own field, that one to his business. ⁶ And the others, seizing his slaves, mistreated them and killed them. ⁷ And the king was angry and sent his troops and destroyed those murderers and burned their city. ⁸ Then he said to his slaves, ‘The wedding celebration is ready, but those who had been invited were not worthy. ⁹ Therefore, go out to the places where the roads exit the city and invite to the wedding celebration as many people as you find.’ ¹⁰ And those slaves went out into the roads and gathered everyone whom they found, both evil and good, and the wedding celebration was filled with dinner guests. ¹¹ But when the king came in to see the dinner guests, he saw a man there not dressed in wedding clothes. ¹² And he said to him, ‘Friend, how did you come in here, not having wedding clothes?’ But he could say nothing. ¹³ Then the king said to the servants, ‘Tie him up hand and foot and throw him into the outer darkness. In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth!’ ¹⁴ For many are called but few are chosen.”

Yeshua’s message is clear once again. The original guests ignored the Master’s invitation and eventually ended up killing the messengers. The master destroyed their city and the ones who killed the messengers. He then invited regular people to the feast. Even then, the one without a wedding garment was kicked out. This rules out universalism theology where every one is included in the kingdom. God is looking for those worshipping in “spirit and truth” which can only happen through His instructions. How privileged are those from the nations to receive an invitation to the wedding!

The apostle Paul understood. The elect received the message and the rest were hardened. It is the same today. The whole of scripture is about how the people chosen by God would not submit, there was always a remnant that did, and because of their sin against God it would cause the whole world to have the ability to join the family of God, otherwise known as the Israel of God.

Romans 11:7–11 (LEB): ⁷ What then? What Israel was searching for, this it did not obtain. But the elect obtained it, and the rest were hardened, ⁸ just as it is written, “God gave them a spirit of stupor, eyes that do not see and ears that do not hear, until this very day.” ⁹ And David says, “Let their table become a snare and a trap, and a cause for stumbling and a retribution to them; ¹⁰ let their eyes be darkened so that they do not see, and cause their backs to bend continually.” ¹¹ I say then, they did not stumble so that they fell, did they? May it never be! But by their trespass, salvation has come to the Gentiles, in order to provoke them to jealousy.

All the way back to Moses, around 1400 BCE, we see the plan laid out and prophesied. The people reject the rock or cornerstone, do all manner of evil, and God provokes them with “a people that are not a people.” It is quite a story to be part of as the “people that are not a people.” It is a great blessing.

Deuteronomy 32:18–21 (LEB): ¹⁸ The rock who bore you, you neglected, and you forgot God, the one giving you birth. ¹⁹ Then Yahweh saw, and he spurned them, because of the provocation of his sons and his daughters. ²⁰ So he said, ‘I will hide my face from them; I will see what will be their end, for they are a generation of perversity, children in whom there is no faithfulness. ²¹ They annoyed me with what is not a god; they provoked me with their idols. So I will make them jealous with those not a people, with a foolish nation I will provoke them.

What does this mean in 2026? The temple was destroyed in 70 CE and the rest of the tribes were scattered throughout the world. Does this mean we are simply waiting for the regathering, the resurrection and the Millennium? Yeshua reworked his kingdom to include all of those who will follow him through faith. He renewed the covenant and it became one not of genetics or Torah keeping by the letter of the law, but of those who want to be part of the kingdom by circumcising their heart. The kingdom of God is now in this broken world and later with a glorious future.

John 4:23–24 (LEB): ²³ But an hour is coming—and now is here—when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for indeed the Father seeks such people to be his worshipers. ²⁴ God is spirit, and the ones who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.”

Yeshua said that the Father is looking for true worshippers. It’s not about taking back land by earthly might or destroying anyone that may not agree with one’s religion. It is about worshipping God in spirit and truth. This is how to build greater Israel. The people that are doing this are the kingdom of God, both Jew and Gentile, Judah and Ephraim. The ones that are not worshipping in spirit and truth are not part of the kingdom. John spells this out for us.

1 John 2:22–23 (CJB): ²² Who is a liar at all, if not the person who denies that Yeshua is the Messiah? Such a person is an anti-Messiah—he is denying the Father and the Son. ²³ Everyone who denies the Son is also without the Father, but the person who acknowledges the Son has the Father as well.

So what can we say? Put away land worship and denying Yeshua and worship the Father in spirit and truth keeping the commands of God and the faith of Yeshua!

Photo by Ariana Prestes on Unsplash

Who has gone up to heaven and come down?
Who has cupped the wind in the palms of his hands?
Who has wrapped up the waters in his cloak?
Who established all the ends of the earth?
What is his name, and what is his son’s name?
Surely you know!

Proverbs 30:4 (CJB)

There are many gods in the world, and people use the title “God” to describe their deity. Often, people from different religions, sects, or cults do not distinguish one god from another, so everyone can be in harmony pretending they are talking about the same god. The United States dollar bill is a good example of this. (I promise I will not talk about the Illuminati.)

The Latin phrases on the top and bottom of the pyramid say, “He favors our undertakings” and “a new world order.” Maybe that’s why people are talking so much today about a “new world order,” meaning it’s replacing the old “new world order.” Regardless, the god on the dollar bill does not appear to have anything to do with the Creator God in the Hebrew Bible or Christian Bible.

The only place we find the word “God” describing a god in the Hebrew scriptures is the Hebrew word spelled Gimmel Dalet, or GD. The vowel is an “ah” sound. Gimmel Dalet is also used for the tribe of Gad, which should not be confused with it.

Isaiah 65:11 (CJB): ¹¹  “But as for you who abandon Adonai, who forget my holy mountain, who prepare a table for Gad, a god of luck, and fill bowls of mixed wine for Meni, a god of destiny—

Gad, or GD, is the god of fortune and luck. Perhaps this is the god of the dollar bill. The Elohim of Abraham and Creator of the universe defines Himself to His prophets who wrote it all down so we could understand the nature of the Creator God. As soon as a “god” deviates from any attribute of the Creator God (Elohim), then it is a different god. Elohim achrim, means “god of others”.

Deuteronomy 13:1–4 (LEB): “If a prophet stands up in your midst or a dreamer of dreams and he gives to you a sign or wonder, ² and the sign or the wonder comes about that he spoke to you, saying, ‘Let us go after other gods (those whom you have not known), and let us serve them,’ ³ you must not listen to the words of that prophet or to that dreamer, for Yahweh your God is testing you to know whether you love Yahweh your God with all of your heart and with all of your inner self. ⁴ You shall go after Yahweh your God, and him you shall revere, and his commandment you shall keep, and to his voice you shall listen, and him you shall serve, and to him you shall hold fast.

The Hebrew word for the Creator is “Elohim.” His name is YHWH, meaning, “he exists.” This is different from the title “God” that Christians use. Are they talking about the same god? Not really. Elohim is very adamant about the importance of His people keeping the Sabbath, but Christians do not keep the Sabbath and, in many cases, are vehemently opposed to the Sabbath. This is one example.

Christians will say Jesus did away with the Sabbath, even though we have no scripture either from the prophets of old or in the New Testament that the Sabbath is irrelevant after the cross. It is quite the opposite. This makes us ask, is Jesus God? Can Jesus eliminate one of Elohim’s commands from creation like the Sabbath command?

The short answer is no, Jesus, his name being Yeshua in Hebrew, the Son of God and Messiah, would never do such a thing. Yeshua said he and the Father were one, in agreement, alignment, and the same. Many take this to mean Yeshua was the Father, but there are many scriptures that make that very unlikely.

John 4:24–26 (LEB): ²⁴ God is spirit, and the ones who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.” ²⁵ The woman said to him, “I know that Messiah is coming” (the one called Christ); “whenever that one comes, he will proclaim all things to us.” ²⁶ Jesus said to her, “I, the one speaking to you, am he.

Yeshua tells the woman God is spirit and he is the Messiah. We know that the Father is a spirit and has no form. He specifically told us not to worship any form of a man or woman or fish or animal.

Deuteronomy 4:12–18 (LEB): ¹² And Yahweh spoke to you from the midst of the fire; you heard a sound of words, but you did not see a form—only a voice. ¹³ And he declared to you his covenant, the Ten Commandments, which he charged you to observe, and he wrote them on the two tablets of stone. ¹⁴ And Yahweh charged me at that time to teach you rules and regulations for your observation of them in the land that you are about to cross into to take possession of it. ¹⁵ “So you must be very careful for yourselves, because you did not see any form on the day Yahweh spoke to you at Horeb from the midst of the fire, ¹⁶ so that you do not ruin yourselves and make for yourselves a divine image in a form of any image, a replica of male or female, ¹⁷ a replica of any animal that is upon the earth, a replica of any winged bird that flies in the air, ¹⁸ a replica of any creeping thing on the ground, a replica of any fish that is in the water below the earth.

Yeshua said he was “one with the Father”. From these few verses, Christians have derived the eternal security doctrine and trinity doctrine, but they rely on English words when it was written in Greek using Hebrew thought.

John 10:27–30 (LEB): ²⁷ My sheep listen to my voice, and I know them, and they follow me. ²⁸ And I give them eternal life, and they will never perish forever, and no one will seize them out of my hand. ²⁹ My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all, and no one can seize them from the Father’s hand. ³⁰ The Father and I are one.”

The word “one” here is describing unity and agreement. We can see this in other places where Yeshua talks about only doing what he sees his Father doing and only saying what he hears his Father saying. The point is that Yeshua is not going to do something different, such as deleting the Sabbath, whether one believes Yeshua is the Messiah or some how the Father and the Messiah at the same time in some trinity configuration. Yeshua, speaking of his Father, said, “He is greater than all” in the above passage of scripture. Does “all” include Yeshua?

The Complete Jewish Bible renders Yeshua’s two greatest commandments in such a way to understand the word “one” in a Hebrew sense (echad). Yeshua us quoting Deuteronomy chapter 6 and Leviticus chapter 19.

Mark 12:29–31 (CJB)

²⁹ Yeshua answered, “The most important is,

‘Sh’ma Yisra’el, Adonai Eloheinu, Adonai echad [Hear, O Isra’el, the Lord our God, the Lord is one], ³⁰ and you are to love Adonai your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your understanding and with all your strength.’

³¹ The second is this:

‘You are to love your neighbor as yourself.’

There is no other mitzvah greater than these.”

It is important to understand who God and Yeshua are and the nuances between them. Being “one” does not have to mean they are the exact same entity. Yeshua was sent by Elohim for a specific purpose. That is to take on the sins of His people as a final high priest figure. The Levitical priest system was fashioned after what Elohim showed Moses. There is an ark of the covenant in heaven that will be revealed at the end. The earthly copy may be destroyed or missing, but the original still exists.

Revelation 11:19 (LEB): ¹⁹ And the temple of God in heaven was opened, and the ark of his covenant appeared in his temple, and there were lightnings and sounds and thunders and an earthquake and large hail.

Do you think the Ark of the Covenant described here is empty, or are the Ten Commandments inside, meaning they are still relevant at the second coming of Yeshua? This is why it is important to know Elohim, who He is and who His Son is.

The dragon was infuriated over the woman and went off to fight the rest of her children, those who obey God’s commands and bear witness to Yeshua.

Revelation 12:17 (CJB)

After Joshua led the ancient Israelites into the land promised to Abraham and all of the promises were fulfilled as stated in Joshua 23:14 (LEB): “… not one thing failed from all the good things that Yahweh your God promised concerning you; everything has been fulfilled; not one thing failed,” just as warned, the Israelites started to turn away from God. Moses had warned them; they experienced rejection firsthand for their rebellion in the desert, and Joshua also warned them.

Deuteronomy 32:23–26 (LEB): ²³ I will heap disasters upon them; my arrows I will spend on them. ²⁴ They will become weakened by famine, and consumed by plague and bitter pestilence; and the teeth of wild animals I will send against them, with the poison of the creeping things in the dust; ²⁵ From outside her boundaries the sword will make her childless, and from inside, terror; both for the young man and also the young woman, the infant along with the gray-headed man. ²⁶ I thought, “I will wipe them out; I will make people forget they ever existed.”

Joshua 23:16 (LEB): ¹⁶ If you transgress the covenant of Yahweh your God, which he commanded to you, and you go and serve other gods and bow down to them, Yahweh’s anger will be kindled against you, and you will perish quickly from the good land that he has given to you.”

After Joshua died, it did not take long for the ancient Israelites to descend into debauchery. This was the seesaw of Israel sinning against God and God patiently redeeming them for about 1,200 years. First, the kingdom would be divided; then the northern kingdom of Israel would be conquered, and the people scattered among the nations. Finally, the southern kingdom of Judah was conquered by Babylon.

The prophet Ezekiel describes the rebellion happening around the temple.

Ezekiel 8:9–18 (LEB): ⁹ And he said to me, “Come and see the detestable things, the evil that they are doing here. ¹⁰ And I came, and I saw, and look, all kinds of creatures and detestable beasts; and all of the idols of the house of Israel were carved on the wall all around. ¹¹ And seventy men from the elders of the house of Israel, and Jaazaniah, the son of Shaphan, was standing in the midst of them, and they were standing before them. Each one had his censer in his hand, and the fragrance of the cloud of the incense was going up. ¹² And he said to me, “Have you seen, son of man, what the elders of the house of Israel are doing in the dark, each in the inner rooms of his idol, for they are saying, ‘Yahweh is not seeing us; Yahweh has abandoned the land.’ ” ¹³ And he said to me, “Still you will see again greater detestable things that they are doing.” ¹⁴ And he brought me to the doorway of the gate of the house of Yahweh that is toward the north, and look! There were the women sitting weeping for Tammuz. ¹⁵ And he said to me, “Have you seen, son of man? Still you will see again greater detestable things than these.” ¹⁶ And he brought me to the inner courtyard of the house of Yahweh, and look, at the doorway of the temple of Yahweh, between the portico and the altar, there were about twenty-five men with their backs to the temple of Yahweh and their faces toward the east, and they were bowing down toward the east before the sun. ¹⁷ And he said to me, “Have you seen, son of man? Was it too small a thing for the house of Judah to do the detestable things that they did here? For they filled up the land with violence, and they provoked me to anger again, and look! They are putting the branch to their nose. ¹⁸ And so I will act in rage, and my eye will not take pity, and I will not have compassion, and they will cry in my ear with a loud voice, and I will not hear them.”

Interesting Jerusalem Post article. (click here)

God gave the southern kingdom another chance, and they eventually returned to rebuild the temple. Fast forward a few hundred years, and Jesus foretells the destruction of the temple once again.

Mark 13:1–2 (LEB): 13 And as he was going out of the temple courts, one of his disciples said to him, “Teacher, look! What great stones and what wonderful buildings!” ² And Jesus said to him, “Do you see these great buildings? Not one stone will be left here on another stone that will not be thrown down!”

The temple was destroyed in 70 CE as predicted by Jesus. The people were scattered and now the promise of Abraham can be realized. Through Jesus, Abraham’s seed, the whole world would be blessed.

Galatians 3:16 (KJV 1900): ¹⁶ Now to Abraham and his seed were the promises made. He saith not, And to seeds, as of many; but as of one, And to thy seed, which is Christ.

The story of Gideon provides an excellent example of how God protects His people. We see the ancient Israelites being harassed by their neighbors because they had turned their backs on the God who delivered them from Egypt.

Judges 6:1–5 (LEB): 6 The Israelites did evil in the eyes of Yahweh, and Yahweh gave them into the hand of the Midianites for seven years. ² The hand of the Midianites prevailed over Israel; because of the presence of the Midianites, the Israelites made for themselves hiding places that were in the mountains, caves, and strongholds. ³ And whenever Israel sowed seed, the Midianites, Amalekites, and the people of the east would come up against them. ⁴ They would camp against them and destroy the produce of the land as far as Gaza; they left no produce in Israel, or sheep, ox, or donkey. ⁵ For they, their livestock, and their tents would come up like a great number of locusts; they and their camels could not be counted; they came into the land and devoured it.

God did not use a crushing army to defeat the enemies or the help of a world superpower threatening to destroy all the civilians. He picked Gideon. When the angel of Yahweh came to Gideon, Gideon did not boast about how great a warrior he was; he was very humble and meek. Judges 6:15 (LEB) 15 He said to him, “Excuse me, my lord. How will I deliver Israel? Look, my clan is the weakest in Manasseh, and I am the youngest in my father’s house.” The first thing Gideon was told to do was remove the idol of the Asherah pole and Baal altar in the village.

Judges 6:25–26 (LEB): ²⁵ Now on that same night Yahweh said to him, “Take the bull of the cattle that belongs to your father, and a second bull seven years old, and pull down the altar of Baal that belongs to your father, and cut down the Asherah that is beside it; ²⁶ and build an altar to Yahweh your God on the top of this stronghold in the proper arrangement, and take a second bull and offer it as a burnt offering with the wood of the Asherah that you will cut down.

Gideon started with 22,000 troops, but God said that was too many. Through various methods, God had Gideon reduce his army to 300 men so they would know it was not by their might that they would defeat their enemies. In the end, they did not even have to fight; God confused the attacking armies, causing them to turn against one another.

Judges 7:20–23 (LEB): ²⁰ When three companies blew on the trumpets and broke the jars, they held in their left hand the torches and in their right hand the trumpets for blowing, and they cried, “A sword for Yahweh and for Gideon!” ²¹ And each stood in his place all around the camp, and all the camp ran, and they cried out as they fled. ²² When they blew the three hundred trumpets, Yahweh set the sword of each one against his neighbor throughout the whole camp, and the camp fled as far as Beth Shittah toward Zererah, up to Abel Meholah, the border by Tabbath. ²³ And the men of Israel were called from Naphtali, from Asher, and from all of Manasseh, and they pursued after Midian.

We can contrast this to how things are done today and come to our own conclusions. For example, the recent bombing of civilians in Beirut. (article here)

The temple was destroyed in 70 CE and the promise given to Abraham was realized through Messiah Yeshua (Jesus). Coming up next in God’s timeline is the second coming of Yeshua, the resurrection and the gathering of God’s people.

Isaiah 66:14–24 (LEB): ¹⁴ And you shall see and your heart shall rejoice, and your bones shall flourish like the grass, and the hand of Yahweh shall make itself known to his servants, and he shall curse his enemies. ¹⁵ For look! Yahweh will come in fire, and his chariots like the storm wind, to give back his anger in wrath, and his rebuke in flames of fire. ¹⁶ For Yahweh enters into judgment on all flesh with fire and his sword, and those slain by Yahweh shall be many. ¹⁷ Those who sanctify themselves and those who cleanse themselves to go into the gardens after the one in the middle, eating the flesh of swine and detestable things and rodents together shall come to an end!” declares Yahweh. ¹⁸ “And I—their works and thoughts!—am about to come to gather all nations and tongues, and they shall come and see my glory. ¹⁹ And I will set a sign among them, and I will send survivors from them to the nations: Tarshish, Pul, and Lud, who draw the bow; Tubal and Javan, the faraway coastlands that have not heard of my fame, and have not seen my glory. And they shall declare my glory among the nations, ²⁰ and bring all your countrymen from all the nations as an offering to Yahweh on horses and chariots and in litters and on mules and camels, to my holy mountain, Jerusalem,” says Yahweh, “just as the sons of Israel bring an offering in a clean vessel to the house of Yahweh. ²¹ And indeed, I will take some of them as priests and the Levites,” says Yahweh. ²² “For just as the new heavens and earth that I am about to make shall stand before me,” declares Yahweh, “so shall your descendants and your name stand. ²³ And this shall happen: From new moon to new moon and from Sabbath to Sabbath all flesh shall come to bow in worship before me,” says Yahweh. ²⁴ “And they shall go out and look at the corpses of the people who have rebelled against me, for their worm shall not die, and their fire shall not be quenched, and they shall be an abhorrence to all flesh.”

The patient endurance of the saints is to keep the commandments of God and the faith of Yeshua. This is what we should be striving to do!

Photo by Qamma Farm on Unsplash

I, Yahweh, have spoken; I will surely do this to all this evil community who has banded together against me. In this desert they will come to an end, and there they will die.”

Numbers 14:35 (LEB)

After ancient Israel met God and heard His thunderous voice on Mount Horeb, outside of the land, they agreed to a covenant and became a people bound together by the Torah. They were frightened and told Moses they could not bare to hear God’s voice amidst the thunder and lightning. He consented and promised to send one of their brothers in the future to be like Moses, instructing that everyone must listen to what he says.

Deuteronomy 18:15–19 (LEB): ¹⁵ “Yahweh your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from your midst, from your countrymen, and to him you shall listen. ¹⁶ This is according to all that you asked from Yahweh your God at Horeb, on the day of the assembly, saying, ‘I do not want again to hear the voice of Yahweh my God, and I do not want to see again this great fire, so that I may not die!’ ¹⁷ And Yahweh said to me, ‘They are right in what they have said. ¹⁸ I will raise up a prophet for them from among their countrymen like you, and I will place my words into his mouth, and he shall speak to them everything that I command him. ¹⁹ And then the man that will not listen to my words that he shall speak in my name, I will hold accountable.

When they finally reached the land that God had promised to give them they saw that it was full of mighty people and great walled cities. The Israelites became angry and started to rebel saying that God had brought them to the desert to die. All the while God had promised that those in this land would leave and the Israelites would inherit all of it. The rebellion and lack of trust made God very angry.

Numbers 14:11–12 (LEB): ¹¹ And Yahweh said to Moses, “How long until this people will despise me, and how long until they will not believe in me, and in all the signs that I have done in their midst? ¹² I will strike them with disease, and I will dispossess them; I will make you into a greater and stronger nation than them.”

Moses interceded for them and God decided that the punishment for the people was to be that they could not enter the land and would die in the desert. Only their children would be able to enter the land. Of course, the Israelites were very remorseful about this. They decided they they would still go into the land even though God told them they were no longer allowed to possess the land.

Numbers 14:39–45 (LEB): ³⁹ And Moses spoke words to all the Israelites, and the people mourned greatly. ⁴⁰ They rose early in the morning and went to the top of the mount, saying, “Here we are. We will go up to the place that Yahweh said, because we have sinned.” ⁴¹ But Moses said, “Why are you going against the command of Yahweh? It will not succeed. ⁴² You should not go up because Yahweh is not in your midst; do not let yourselves be defeated in the presence of your enemies, ⁴³ because the Amalekites and the Canaanites are there before you, and you will fall by the sword; because you have turned back from Yahweh, and Yahweh will not be with you.” ⁴⁴ But they dared to go to the top of the mountain, and the ark of the covenant of Yahweh and Moses did not depart from the midst of the camp. ⁴⁵ So the Amalekites and the Canaanites who were living on the mountain descended, and they beat them down, up to Hormah.

Eventually that generation died off and one of their children, Joshua, lead the people into the promised land. Therefore, God fulfilled the land promise to Israel.

Joshua 21:43–45 (LEB): ⁴³ And Yahweh gave to Israel all the land that he swore to give to their ancestors, and they took possession of it and settled in it. ⁴⁴ Yahweh gave them rest on every side, according to all that he had sworn to their ancestors, and nobody from all their enemies withstood them, for Yahweh had given all their enemies into their hand. ⁴⁵ And nothing failed from all the good things that Yahweh promised to the house of Israel; everything came to pass.

Joshua told the Israelites, who had received the land promised to Abraham, that they must obey God and not turn to idolatry. It took hundreds of years, but the Israelites rebelled against God so badly that some of the tribes were cut off and others were left in an unstable state of existence. God kept his promise and covenant with Israel, but they abandoned their end of the covenant.

Joshua 24:19–25 (LEB): ¹⁹ But Joshua said to the people, “You cannot serve Yahweh, for he is a holy and jealous God; he will not forgive your transgressions or your sins. ²⁰ If you forsake Yahweh and serve foreign gods, he will turn and bring disaster to you; he will destroy you after he has done good to you.” ²¹ And the people said to Joshua, “No, we will serve Yahweh.” ²² And Joshua said to the people, “You are witnesses against yourselves that you have chosen for yourselves to serve Yahweh.” And they said, “We are witnesses.” ²³ He said, “Remove the foreign gods that are in your midst, and incline your hearts to Yahweh the God of Israel.” ²⁴ And the people said to Joshua, “We will serve Yahweh our God, and we will listen to his voice.” ²⁵ So Joshua made a covenant with the people on that day, and he established for them a statute and a judgment at Shechem.

Fast forward approximately 1200 hundred years. Israel had been all but destroyed and scattered among the nations, and in the case of the northern kingdom, had lost their identity. There was still a functioning temple in Jerusalem with a remnant of people from the tribes of Judah and Benjamin. Even though the once great kingdom had been all but destroyed, God kept His promise to Judah. These verses in Genesis point to the Messiah, Jesus, or Yeshua in Hebrew.

Genesis 49:10 (LEB): ¹⁰ The scepter shall not depart from Judah, nor the ruler’s staff between his feet, until Shiloh comes. And to him shall be the obedience of nations.

Yeshua is the Messiah, or “prophet like Moses” promised in Deuteronomy 18. He became a prominent teacher of the Torah and often butted heads with the Pharisees. These are the ones descended from the southern kingdom and remnant of God’s people. Paul states the advantage of being a Jew was that God had given them His oracles to pass down.

Romans 3:1–2 (LEB):3 Therefore, what is the advantage of the Jew, or what is the use of circumcision? ² Much in every way. For first, that they were entrusted with the oracles of God.

And also, what it means to be a Jew:

Romans 2:28–29 (LEB): ²⁸ For the Jew is not one outwardly, nor is circumcision outwardly, in the flesh. ²⁹ But the Jew is one inwardly, and circumcision is of the heart, by the Spirit, not by the letter, whose praise is not from people but from God.

Yeshua had come to renew the covenant. Talmudic Judaism had strayed from God. In one of the encounters with Yeshua he told the Pharisees some hard things.

Matthew 23:29–36 (LEB): ²⁹ “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees—hypocrites!—because you build the tombs of the prophets and decorate the graves of the righteous, ³⁰ and you say, ‘If we had lived in the days of our fathers, we would not have been partners with them in the blood of the prophets!’ ³¹ Thus you testify against yourselves that you are descendants of those who murdered the prophets! ³² And you—fill up the measure of your fathers! ³³ Serpents! Offspring of vipers! How will you escape from the condemnation to hell? ³⁴ For this reason, behold, I am sending to you prophets and wise men and scribes. Some of them you will kill and crucify, and some of them you will flog in your synagogues and will pursue from town to town, ³⁵ so that upon you will come all the righteous blood shed on the earth from the blood of righteous Abel up to the blood of Zechariah son of Barachiah, whom you murdered between the temple and the altar. ³⁶ Truly I say to you, all these things will come upon this generation!

Yeshua also told them a parable that they were not happy about.

Luke 20:9–17 (LEB): ⁹ And he began to tell the people this parable: “A man planted a vineyard, and leased it to tenant farmers, and went on a journey for a long time. ¹⁰ And at the proper time he sent a slave to the tenant farmers, so that they would give him some of the fruit of the vineyard. But the tenant farmers sent him away empty-handed after beating him. ¹¹ And he proceeded to send another slave, but they beat and dishonored that one also, and sent him away empty-handed. ¹² And he proceeded to send a third, but they wounded and threw out this one also. ¹³ So the owner of the vineyard said, ‘What should I do? I will send my beloved son; perhaps they will respect him.’ ¹⁴ But when the tenant farmers saw him, they began to reason with one another, saying, ‘This is the heir. Let us kill him so that the inheritance will become ours!’ ¹⁵ And they threw him out of the vineyard and killed him. What then will the owner of the vineyard do to them? ¹⁶ He will come and destroy those tenant farmers and give the vineyard to others.” And when they heard this, they said, “May this never happen!” ¹⁷ But he looked intently at them and said, “What then is this that is written:

‘The stone which the builders rejected, this has become the cornerstone.’

What are we to make of this? Is this where replacement theology gets its ideas from? They believe the “church” (whatever that is) has replaced Israel. Yet the covenant Yeshua renewed or “made new” is specifically with the house of Israel and the house of Judah. The apostle Paul goes to great lengths to explain this. I have covered this topic in many blog posts. It is no longer about a piece of land in Western Asia. This is why at Passover Jews in Jerusalem say, “next year in Jerusalem”. It is not about the physical land that exists today or some country that calls itself Israel. It is about the return of the Messiah and the resurrection of his people that follow him and what he said to do. There are faithful people that, because of Israel’s rebellion, are able to come to God from the nations through Messiah Yeshua.

Romans 9:22–33 (LEB): ²² And what if God, wanting to demonstrate his wrath and to make known his power, endured with much patience vessels of wrath prepared for destruction? ²³ And he did so in order that he could make known the riches of his glory upon vessels of mercy that he prepared beforehand for glory, ²⁴ us whom he also called, not only from the Jews but also from the Gentiles? ²⁵ As he also says in Hosea, “I will call those who were not my people, ‘My people,’ and those who were not loved, ‘Loved.’ ²⁶ And it will be in the place where it was said to them, ‘You are not my people,’ there they will be called ‘sons of the living God.’ ” ²⁷ And Isaiah cries out concerning Israel, “Even if the number of the sons of Israel is like the sand of the sea, the remnant will be saved, ²⁸ for the Lord will execute his sentence thoroughly and decisively upon the earth.” ²⁹ And just as Isaiah foretold, If the Lord of hosts had not left us descendants, we would have become like Sodom and would have resembled Gomorrah.” ³⁰ What then shall we say? That the Gentiles, who did not pursue righteousness, attained righteousness—even the righteousness that is by faith. ³¹ But Israel, pursuing the law of righteousness, did not attain to the law. ³² Why that? Because they did not pursue it by faith, but as if by works. They stumbled over the stone that causes people to stumble, ³³ just as it is written, “Behold, I am laying in Zion a stone that causes people to stumble, and a rock that causes them to fall, and the one who believes in him will not be put to shame.”

Peter spoke of this to the people witnessing the events on Pentecost, or the feast of weeks, Shavuot.

Acts 3:22–23 (LEB): ²² Moses said, ‘The Lord God will raise up for you a prophet like me from your brothers. You will listen to him in everything that he says to you. ²³ And it will be that every soul who does not listen to that prophet will be destroyed utterly from the people.’

It is all about Messiah Yeshua and following him. There is no more land to think about. Whatever is to come next comes through Yeshua. The resurrection of His people and the New Jerusalem perhaps? “Next year in Jerusalem!”. What about those who reject the Messiah and do not do what he says, breaking all of the commandments of God such as stealing and murdering? ^” And it will be that every soul who does not listen to that prophet will be destroyed utterly from the people.“

1 John 2:18–26 (CJB): ¹⁸ Children, this is the Last Hour. You have heard that an Anti-Messiah is coming; and in fact, many anti-Messiahs have arisen now—which is how we know that this is the Last Hour. ¹⁹ They went out from us, but they weren’t part of us; for had they been part of us, they would have remained with us.

²⁰ But you have received the Messiah’s anointing from HaKadosh, and you know all this. ²¹ It is not because you don’t know the truth that I have written to you, but because you do know it, and because no lie has its origin in the truth. ²² Who is a liar at all, if not the person who denies that Yeshua is the Messiah? Such a person is an anti-Messiah—he is denying the Father and the Son. ²³ Everyone who denies the Son is also without the Father, but the person who acknowledges the Son has the Father as well. ²⁴ Let what you heard from the beginning remain in you. If what you heard from the beginning remains in you, you will also remain in union with both the Son and the Father. ²⁵ And this is what he has promised us: eternal life. ²⁶ I have written you these things about the people who are trying to deceive you.

Repent from idol worship and follow Yeshua the Messiah who saves all people.

Photo by Jonny Gios on Unsplash

“We give thanks to you, Lord God All-Powerful,
the one who is and the one who was,
because you have taken your great power
and have begun to reign.
And the nations were angry,
and your wrath has come,
and the time for the dead to be judged,
and to give their reward to your slaves the prophets
and to the saints and to the ones who fear your name,
the small and the great,
and to destroy those who destroy the earth.”

Revelation 11:17-18 (LEB)

In the first few months of 2026 we have experienced events on the world stage that I have not seen in my life time. There is a war of aggression where one side warns if you do “this” we’ll do “that”, seemingly the goal being to destroy everything in Western Asia and to cripple the world economy. There is a country bombing civilians claiming to be “eliminating terrorists”, the sitting president of the United States is writing genocidal rantings laced with profanity on social media while simultaneously in a war of words with the pope. Meanwhile, the pope is striving to unite Christianity and Islam, while the Vice President of the United States lectures the pope, an Augustinian priest, on Augustinian theology.

One cannot untangle politics from religion now because religion is central to many conflicts in the world. Three major religions dominate the political landscape: Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. The issue arises from the fact that much of the extremism attributed to these faiths is not representative of the religions themselves. For instance, the country of Israel does not embody Judaism, and the actions of the U.S. do not reflect Christianity. What about Islam? Can we believe what we are told? We witnessed the head chopper versions of ISIS and al Qaeda, but the west does not seem to have trouble embracing the new leader of Syria, who is formerly linked to al Qaeda. There is growing evidence that these “terrorist” groups were actually empowered by the CIA and Moussed to take advantage of the differences between Sunni and Shia Muslims. Most westerners are ignorant of these differences.

I do have sympathy with people who believe that religion is the cause of much of the problems in the world. No one can argue about this because we are living it today. Christianity has been weaponized in the United States with leaders having prayers at the pentagon invoking God to destroy their enemies as if their cause is similar to the righteous King David. Using lines from a movie as a prayer to the living God is a mockery.

President Trump has been elevated to a messiah type figure. I recently saw a quote from his “spiritual” advisor, Paula White, saying that going against President Trump was akin to going against God.

The good news is we can read the Bible for ourselves and realize that all of the religious theater is “fake news”. One cannot justify genocide by simply labeling people groups as “bad” because they have a different belief system, form of government etc. The real problem is not all of these so-called “bad” people groups, but powerful individuals, even principalities, as the apostle Paul referred to them, attempting to control the entire world through religion, along with many willing “religious” people ready to be accomplices.

1 John 3:4–10 (LEB): ⁴ Everyone who practices sin also practices lawlessness, and sin is lawlessness. ⁵ And you know that that one was revealed in order that he might take away sins, and in him there is no sin. ⁶ Everyone who resides in him does not sin. Everyone who sins has neither seen him nor known him. ⁷ Little children, let no one deceive you: the one who practices righteousness is righteous, just as that one is righteous. ⁸ The one who practices sin is of the devil, because the devil has been sinning from the beginning. For this reason the Son of God was revealed: in order to destroy the works of the devil. ⁹ Everyone who is fathered by God does not practice sin, because his seed resides in him, and he is not able to sin, because he has been fathered by God. ¹⁰ By this the children of God and the children of the devil are evident: everyone who does not practice righteousness is not of God, namely, the one who does not love his brother.

Someone who wants to erase civilizations and those who cheer this on do not love their brother, nor are they practicing righteousness. Those who enjoy bombing innocent people have a serious problem, especially when they do it while invoking the Creator of the universe. Those who hate people due to their religion are monsters. The pope is right to reach out to Muslims in peace because we all have to share this world together. It is not a game of who can kill whom first. That template is from the evil ones. We are currently living amongst psychopaths.

Luke 6:35–36 (LEB): ³⁵ But love your enemies, and do good, and lend expecting back nothing, and your reward will be great, and you will be sons of the Most High, because he is kind to the ungrateful and wicked. ³⁶ Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful!

The Bible is clear what happens to the people doing all the killing and destruction. First from the Prophet Isaiah:

Isaiah 2:17–22 (LEB): ¹⁷ And the haughtiness of the people shall be humbled, and the pride of everyone shall be brought low, and Yahweh alone will be exalted on that day. ¹⁸ And the idols shall pass away entirely, ¹⁹ and they will enter into the caves of the rocks and into the holes of the ground from the presence of the terror of Yahweh and from the glory of his majesty when he rises to terrify the earth. ²⁰ On that day humanity will throw away its idols of silver and its idols of gold, which they made for it to worship, to the rodents and to the bats— ²¹ to enter into the crevices of the rocks and into the clefts of the crags from the presence of the terror of Yahweh and from the glory of his majesty, when he rises to terrify the earth. ²² Turn away from humanity, who has breath in its nostrils, for by what is it esteemed?

This has not happened yet and the prophecy is repeated in Revelation:

Revelation 6:12–17 (LEB): ¹² And I watched when he opened the sixth seal, and a great earthquake took place, and the sun became black like sackcloth made of hair, and the whole moon became like blood, ¹³ and the stars of heaven fell to the earth like a fig tree throws down its unripe figs when shaken by a great wind. ¹⁴ And the sky was split apart like a scroll that is rolled up, and every mountain and island were moved from their place. ¹⁵ And the kings of the earth, and the most important people, and the military leaders, and the rich, and the powerful, and every slave and free person hid themselves in the caves and among the rocks of the mountains, ¹⁶ And they said to the mountains and to the rocks, “Fall on us and hide us from the face of the one who is seated on the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb, ¹⁷ because the great day of their wrath has come, and who is able to stand?”

What will happen to all of these people destroying the earth and killing its innocent inhabitants? It is not looking good for them. This is why Jesus said that the meek will inherit the earth. “Blessed are the peace makers”. So even if one does not like the pope’s theology, he is doing the right thing. In the end, we see what will become of the warmongers and liars.

Revelation 21:5–8 (LEB): ⁵ And the one seated on the throne said, “Behold, I am making all things new!” And he said, “Write, because these words are faithful and true.” ⁶ And he said to me, “It is done! I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end. To the one who is thirsty I will give water from the spring of the water of life freely. ⁷ The one who conquers will inherit these things, and I will be his God and he will be my son. ⁸ But as for the cowards and unbelievers and detestable persons and murderers and sexually immoral people and sorcerers and idolaters and all liars, their share is in the lake that burns with fire and sulphur, which is the second death.

There is an evangelical Christian group, along with many government officials in the United States and Israel that promote this idea that the wars against Lebanon, Iran and the Palestinians are some how as righteous as wars that King David was involved in. This is worth a separate post, but briefly, they are living in a space void of the Messiah Yeshua. Moses told us that he would come and we must listen to him. Peter quoted Moses from Deuteronomy 18 in the book of Acts.

Acts 3:22–23 (LEB): ²² Moses said, ‘The Lord God will raise up for you a prophet like me from your brothers. You will listen to him in everything that he says to you. ²³ And it will be that every soul who does not listen to that prophet will be destroyed utterly from the people.’

God will punish the shedding of innocent blood. The innocent blood of all people groups will call out to the Father.

Genesis 4:10–11 (LEB): ¹⁰ And he said, “What have you done? The voice of your brother’s blood is crying out to me from the ground. ¹¹ So now you are cursed from the ground, which has opened its mouth to receive the blood of your brother from your hand.

In conclusion, one should indeed be cautious of religious fanatics within governments that advocate for the elimination of individuals from different religions and cultures. This should not cause us to turn our backs on the Creator and the Messiah, Yeshua. We must be focused to ensure that we are following the teachings of Yeshua. Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful!

Moses said, ‘The Lord God will raise up for you a prophet like me from your brothers. You will listen to him in everything that he says to you. And it will be that every soul who does not listen to that prophet will be destroyed utterly from the people.’

Acts 3:22–23 (LEB)

Jesus, or Yeshua in Hebrew, came in several roles. The one I am going to discuss in this post is his role as the “prophet like Moses.” I have never heard about this in the forty-five plus years in evangelical Christianity, yet it is very important to understand the role that Yeshua played as a “prophet like Moses.”

Peter labeled Yeshua as the one called “a prophet like Moses” in his sermon early in the book of Acts.

Acts 3:17–26 (LEB): ¹⁷ And now, brothers, I know that you acted in ignorance, just as your rulers did also. ¹⁸ But the things which God foretold through the mouth of all the prophets, that his Christ would suffer, he has fulfilled in this way. ¹⁹ Therefore repent and turn back, so that your sins may be blotted out, ²⁰ so that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord, and he may send the Christ appointed for you—Jesus, ²¹ whom heaven must receive until the times of the restoration of all things, about which God spoke through the mouth of his holy prophets from earliest times. ²² Moses said, ‘The Lord God will raise up for you a prophet like me from your brothers. You will listen to him in everything that he says to you. ²³ And it will be that every soul who does not listen to that prophet will be destroyed utterly from the people.’ ²⁴ And indeed, all the prophets from Samuel and all those who followed him have spoken about and proclaimed these days. ²⁵ You are the sons of the prophets and of the covenant that God ordained with your fathers, saying to Abraham, ‘And in your offspring all the nations of the earth will be blessed.’ ²⁶ God, after he had raised up his servant, sent him to you first, to bless you by turning each of you back from your wickedness!”

Many people today think that Yeshua spoke against the laws of God because he often corrected the Pharisees and told them they were doing it all wrong. His purpose was not to teach new ways of doing things that were contrary to the original instructions given to the Israelites at Mount Horeb, but to correct the wayward religious leaders of the day. They had turned from the instructions of God, and Yeshua, much like Moses, was trying to teach them the proper way to please the Father and clarify the Torah.

Deuteronomy 18:15–19 (LEB): ¹⁵ “Yahweh your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from your midst, from your countrymen, and to him you shall listen. ¹⁶ This is according to all that you asked from Yahweh your God at Horeb, on the day of the assembly, saying, ‘I do not want again to hear the voice of Yahweh my God, and I do not want to see again this great fire, so that I may not die!’ ¹⁷ And Yahweh said to me, ‘They are right in what they have said. ¹⁸ I will raise up a prophet for them from among their countrymen like you, and I will place my words into his mouth, and he shall speak to them everything that I command him. ¹⁹ And then the man that will not listen to my words that he shall speak in my name, I will hold accountable.

The Creator God spoke to the Israelites in an audible voice with thunder, smoke and lighting at the mountain. It was so terrifying even the Creator agreed it was too much for the people. So, He said, “They are right in what they have said. ¹⁸ I will raise up a prophet for them from among their countrymen like you, and I will place my words into his mouth, and he shall speak to them everything that I command him”.

We should be able to see that it would be impossible for Yeshua to teach differently than the Father based on this type of role. For example, the Father would not stress the importance of His Sabbaths all through the Torah, Prophets and Writings, then send Yeshua with a completely different message. The religious leaders had created thousands of rules and traditions that made following God a complete burden. This is what Yeshua came to correct.

Matthew 15:2–3 (LEB): ² “Why do your disciples break the tradition of the elders? For they do not wash their hands when they eat a meal.” ³ So he answered and said to them, “Why do you also break the commandment of God because of your tradition?

The sermon on the mount, which is what chapter five of Matthew is commonly called, is a perfect example of Yeshua teaching the Torah as it was meant to be taught. Following God was not meant to be burdensome and a key component was to show mercy. Here is an example:

Matthew 5:5–7 (LEB): ⁵ Blessed are the meek, because they will inherit the earth. ⁶ Blessed are the ones who hunger and thirst for righteousness, because they will be satisfied. ⁷ Blessed are the merciful, because they will be shown mercy.

This would be a good time to read the entire chapter five of the gospel of Matthew.

One verse that is often quoted by dispensational-type believers is Matthew 5:17. Antinomians use this verse to “prove the law has been fulfilled by Jesus” and therefore, we no longer need to be concerned with anything in the law of God. They will go as far as to say that Jesus was not speaking to us because we are in a different dispensation now. The verse in question:

Matthew 5:17 (LEB): ¹⁷ “Do not think that I have come to destroy the law or the prophets. I have not come to destroy them but to fulfill them.

“Fulfill” does not mean the laws of God no longer apply. It means he was going to do them the proper way as an example. “Fulfill” has to be the opposite of “destroy”, yet it is common teaching today that they have indeed been “destroyed” because Jesus said he “fulfilled” them. A better translation of the Greek word translated to “fulfill” comes from the CJB version of the Bible.

Matthew 5:17 (CJB): ¹⁷ “Don’t think that I have come to abolish the Torah or the Prophets. I have come not to abolish but to complete.

Yeshua tells us of the reference in Deuteronomy of him and that He was teaching like Moses.

John 5:46–47 (LEB): ⁴⁶ For if you had believed Moses, you would believe me, for that one wrote about me. ⁴⁷ But if you do not believe that one’s writings, how will you believe my words?”

In the parable of the rich man and Lazarus we see something similar. Yeshua knew that rising from the dead would not impress anyone with a heart hardened to the Torah and prophets of God.

Luke 16:30–31 (LEB): ³⁰ And he said, ‘No, father Abraham, but if someone from the dead goes to them, they will repent!’ ³¹ But he said to him, ‘If they do not listen to Moses and the prophets, neither will they be convinced if someone rises from the dead.’ ”

Yeshua also told us that those who teach that the law has been abolished will be called “least in the kingdom”. What modern day pastor does this not apply to saying “the law has been nailed to the cross” and falsely calling someone like me a Judaizer.

Matthew 5:18–19 (LEB): ¹⁸ For truly I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not one tiny letter or one stroke of a letter will pass away from the law until all takes place. ¹⁹ Therefore whoever abolishes one of the least of these commandments and teaches people to do so will be called least in the kingdom of heaven, but whoever keeps them and teaches them, this person will be called great in the kingdom of heaven.

What does it mean to be “least in the kingdom”? I really do not want to find out. Here we see “all flesh” coming on the Sabbath to worship the Father. The ones who rebelled—i.e., taught against the law of God—will be an abhorrence to all flesh. What if these are the ones who are least in the kingdom? Sounds like they are in the kingdom, but an “abhorrence to all flesh”. I think it is risky business to teach and practice in contrary to the law of God. Especially since the Father said we must listen to the words of Yeshua or be in big trouble.

Isaiah 66:23–24 (LEB): ²³ And this shall happen: From new moon to new moon and from Sabbath to Sabbath all flesh shall come to bow in worship before me,” says Yahweh. ²⁴ “And they shall go out and look at the corpses of the people who have rebelled against me, for their worm shall not die, and their fire shall not be quenched, and they shall be an abhorrence to all flesh.”

Yeshua came and taught us how to properly please the Father by keeping His instructions. The Father told His people to listen to “the prophet like Moses” when he comes because he represents the scary voice from the mountain in human form—”from your brothers.” Both Yeshua and Peter identified this “prophet like Moses” as Yeshua. If we want to be part of the family of God, we must listen to and do what the Messiah Yeshua told us to do, as well as what he showed us to do by His actions. Imitating Yeshua is worshiping in spirit and truth.

Photo by Ishan @seefromthesky on Unsplash

 They sacrificed to the demons, not God,
to gods whom they had not known,
new gods who came from recent times;
their ancestors had not known them.

Deuteronomy 32:17 (LEB)

The Greeks set up Asherah poles and sacrificed a pig to Zeus in the temple of the God of Abraham on this day in 165 BCE. The Greek gods enjoy their ham and despise the commandments of the God of Abraham. Unfortunately, this history has been removed from most of our Bibles. However, it is in the 1611 KJVA version of the Bible.

1 Maccabees 1:41–50 (KJV Apoc): ⁴¹ Moreover king Antiochus wrote to his whole kingdom, that all should be one people, ⁴² And every one should leave his laws: so all the heathen agreed according to the commandment of the king. ⁴³ Yea, many also of the Israelites consented to his religion, and sacrificed unto idols, and profaned the sabbath. ⁴⁴ For the king had sent letters by messengers unto Jerusalem and the cities of Juda that they should follow the strange laws of the land, ⁴⁵ And forbid burnt offerings, and sacrifice, and drink offerings, in the temple; and that they should profane the sabbaths and festival days: ⁴⁶ And pollute the sanctuary and holy people: ⁴⁷ Set up altars, and groves, and chapels of idols, and sacrifice swine’s flesh, and unclean beasts: ⁴⁸ That they should also leave their children uncircumcised, and make their souls abominable with all manner of uncleanness and profanation: ⁴⁹ To the end they might forget the law, and change all the ordinances. ⁵⁰ And whosoever would not do according to the commandment of the king, he said, he should die.

ASHERAH—and pl. Asherim in Revised Version, instead of “grove” and “groves” of the Authorized Version. This was the name of a sensual Canaanitish goddess Astarte, the feminine of the Assyrian Ishtar. Its symbol was the stem of a tree deprived of its boughs, and rudely shaped into an image, and planted in the ground. Such religious symbols (“groves”) are frequently alluded to in Scripture (Ex. 34:13; Judg. 6:25; 2 Kings 23:6; 1 Kings 16:33, etc.). These images were also sometimes made of silver or of carved stone (2 Kings 21:7; “the graven image of Asherah,” R.V.). (See GROVE [1].).

M. G. Easton, Illustrated Bible Dictionary and Treasury of Biblical History, Biography, Geography, Doctrine, and Literature (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1893), 59–60.

God’s people were being forced to forsake the commandments of God and follow a different religion with different gods. These were the same demons that the kingdom of Israel sacrificed to and were destroyed and scattered due to their idolatry. If the remnant of the kingdom of Judah had been destroyed and scattered, then that would end the promise of the one to come through the seed of Abraham. The promised seed of Abraham is Jesus, or Yeshua in his native tongue.

1 Maccabees 1:54–64 (KJV Apoc): ⁵⁴ Now the fifteenth day of the month Casleu, in the hundred forty and fifth year, they set up the abomination of desolation upon the altar, and builded idol altars throughout the cities of Juda on every side; ⁵⁵ And burnt incense at the doors of their houses, and in the streets. ⁵⁶ And when they had rent in pieces the books of the law which they found, they burnt them with fire. ⁵⁷ And whosoever was found with any the book of the testament, or if any committed to the law, the king’s commandment was, that they should put him to death. ⁵⁸ Thus did they by their authority unto the Israelites every month, to as many as were found in the cities. ⁵⁹ Now the five and twentieth day of the month they did sacrifice upon the idol altar, which was upon the altar of God. ⁶⁰ At which time according to the commandment they put to death certain women, that had caused their children to be circumcised. ⁶¹ And they hanged the infants about their necks, and rifled their houses, and slew them that had circumcised them. ⁶² Howbeit many in Israel were fully resolved and confirmed in themselves not to eat any unclean thing. ⁶³ Wherefore they chose rather to die, that they might not be defiled with meats, and that they might not profane the holy covenant: so then they died. ⁶⁴ And there was very great wrath upon Israel.

The Maccabees were able to take back the temple and rededicate it at the same time in December three years later. This is what we commemorate at Hannukah. It has everything to do with the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, and most importantly, Messiah Yeshua. If the Greeks had been successful, there would not have been a people of God left to bring the good news of the Savior. Instead of celebrating Hanukkah, we would be setting up Asherah poles and eating ham to honor a Greek deity.