“Being then God’s offspring, we ought not to think that the divine being is like gold or silver or stone, an image formed by the art and imagination of man. The times of ignorance God overlooked, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent, because he has fixed a day on which he will judge the world in righteousness by a man whom he has appointed; and of this he has given assurance to all by raising him from the dead.” Acts 17:29-31

Paul stood on “Mars Hill” outside of Athens and addressed the Greeks speaking about their idols, trying to relate to them the true God, Yahweh יהוה. Mars was the Roman god of war, and more accurate translations will call this place Areopagus because the Greek god of war was Ares. Studying mythology of the Greeks, Romans, Persians, Chaldeans and Sumerian’s is very helpful in understanding the gods of the nations and their symbols that are spoken about all through scripture. Most of the ancient gods have similar biographies even though they come from different regions and cultures. Mythology is full of gods that left their heavenly estate, came to Earth and had children with mortals. These are the same sort of events described in Genesis six of the Hebrew Bible. However, their legends, symbols and gods became objects of worship to the nations. Yahweh is clear as to what He thinks of these gods.

Deu 7:4 For their sons and daughters will cause your son to turn away from following me, and so they will serve other gods, and the anger of Yahweh would be kindled against you, and he would quickly destroy you.
Deu 7:5 But this is what you must do to them: you shall break down their altars, and their stone pillars you shall smash, and their Asherah poles you shall hew down, and you shall burn their idols with fire.
Deu 7:6 For you are a holy people for Yahweh your God; Yahweh your God has chosen you to be for him a people, a treasured possession from among all the peoples that are on the face of the earth.

Deu 7:25 You shall burn the images of their gods with fire; you shall not covet the silver or gold that is on them, and so you take it for yourself, so that you are not ensnared by it, for it is a detestable thing to Yahweh your God.
Deu 7:26 And you must not bring a detestable thing into your house, or you will become a thing devoted to destruction like it; you must utterly detest it, and you must utterly abhor it, for it is an object devoted to destruction.

Paul uses the gods of the people of Athens to explain to them that there is one true God, creator of the universe, and he wants to release them from the spell of their imaginations, and the dark forces that are behind these gods, demigods and their symbols.

Act 17:22 So Paul, standing in the midst of the Areopagus, said: “Men of Athens, I perceive that in every way you are very religious.
Act 17:23 For as I passed along and observed the objects of your worship, I found also an altar with this inscription: ‘To the unknown god.’ What therefore you worship as unknown, this I proclaim to you.
Act 17:24 The God who made the world and everything in it, being Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in temples made by man,
Act 17:25 nor is he served by human hands, as though he needed anything, since he himself gives to all mankind life and breath and everything.
Act 17:26 And he made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined allotted periods and the boundaries of their dwelling place,
Act 17:27 that they should seek God, and perhaps feel their way toward him and find him. Yet he is actually not far from each one of us,
Act 17:28 for “‘In him we live and move and have our being’; as even some of your own poets have said, “‘For we are indeed his offspring.’
Act 17:29 Being then God’s offspring, we ought not to think that the divine being is like gold or silver or stone, an image formed by the art and imagination of man.
Act 17:30 The times of ignorance God overlooked, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent,
Act 17:31 because he has fixed a day on which he will judge the world in righteousness by a man whom he has appointed; and of this he has given assurance to all by raising him from the dead.”

The Greeks in Athens even had an unknown god. Paul explained that their unknown god was Yahweh. He relates to them the story of Jesus, whose name means the salvation of Yahweh, and that they have to repent of their vain, sinful ways because of the impending judgement. Earlier in history, we see the people of Yahweh entrapped by similar gods and judged in the book of Ezekiel. This also is speaking to the people of Yahweh today who have turned back to these same entities.

Eze 8:1 And then in the sixth year, in the sixth month, on the fifth day of the month, I was sitting in my house, and the elders of Judah were sitting before me. And the hand of the Lord Yahweh fell on me there,
Eze 8:2 and I saw, and look! A figure like the appearance of a man; from the appearance of his waist and below was fire, and from his waist and upward was like the appearance of brightness, like the outward appearance of amber.
Eze 8:3 And he sent out the form of a hand, and he took me by a lock of hair of my head, and the Spirit lifted me between earth and heaven, and it brought me to Jerusalem in visions of God to the doorway of the inner gate that faced north, at which there was the seat of the image of jealousy, which was making jealous.
Eze 8:4 And look! There was the glory of the God of Israel like the vision that I saw in the valley.
Eze 8:5 And he said to me, “Son of man, lift up now your eyes toward the north.” And I lifted up my eyes toward the north, and, look, there was to the north of the gate of the altar this image of jealousy at the entrance.
Eze 8:6 And he said to me, “Son of man, “Do you see what they are doing—great detestable things that the house of Israel is committing here so as to drive me from my sanctuary, and yet you will see again greater detestable things.”
Eze 8:7 And he brought me to the doorway of the courtyard, and I saw, and look! A hole in the wall.
Eze 8:8 And he said to me, “Son of man, dig now through the wall.” And I dug through the wall, and look! There was a doorway.
Eze 8:9 And he said to me, “Come and see the detestable things, the evil that they are doing here.
Eze 8:10 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.
Eze 8:11 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.
Eze 8:12 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.'”
Eze 8:13 And he said to me, “Still you will see again greater detestable things that they are doing.”
Eze 8:14 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.
Eze 8:15 And he said to me, “Have you seen, son of man? Still you will see again greater detestable things than these.”
Eze 8:16 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.
Eze 8:17 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.

Tammuz was the resurrecting god of spring of the Sumerians. The image of jealousy was likely a phallic symbol of a stone pillar or Ashera tree, and we also see men facing the sun worshipping it. The Greek sun god was Appollo and the Roman sun god was Sol or Mithras from Persia. Once a person gets familiar with these symbols from other religions and their gods, it is easy to see them all around us today. These symbols attract demons and the gods themselves are actually demons, because that is where they originated.

Deu 32:17 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.
Deu 32:18 The rock who bore you, you neglected, and you forgot God, the one giving you birth.
Deu 32:19 Then Yahweh saw, and he spurned them, because of the provocation of his sons and his daughters.

Paul speaks of this same thing in his time.

1Co 10:19 What do I imply then? That food offered to idols is anything, or that an idol is anything?
1Co 10:20 No, I imply that what pagans sacrifice they offer to demons and not to God. I do not want you to be participants with demons.
1Co 10:21 You cannot drink the cup of the Lord and the cup of demons. You cannot partake of the table of the Lord and the table of demons.
1Co 10:22 Shall we provoke the Lord to jealousy? Are we stronger than he?

Paul also warns Timothy that this problem of imaginary characters, mythology and all the lure of their trappings will persist.

2Ti 4:3 For the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions,
2Ti 4:4 and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander off into myths.
2Ti 4:5 As for you, always be sober-minded, endure suffering, do the work of an evangelist, fulfill your ministry.

There is prophecy of the people of Yahweh waking up and turning from their vain imaginations and myths that they inherited. This speaking of the future, so why not do it now?

Jer 16:19 O Yahweh, my strength, and my stronghold, and my refuge in the day of distress, to you the nations will come from the ends of the earth, and they will say, “Our ancestors have inherited only lies, vanity, and there is no profit in them.
Jer 16:20 Can a human make for himself gods? Yet they are not gods!”
Jer 16:21 “Therefore look, I am about to let them know, this time I am going to let them know my power and my might, and they will know that my name is Yahweh.”

Once a person learns the truth of the word of Yahweh, there is no desire to follow myths, and no one’s itching ear will be satisfied by the truth of scripture. Take heed and study God’s Word for yourself, not to be led astray. Look at what Jeremiah is saying about the priests, prophets and pastors in the latter days-which is now!

Jer 23:16 Thus says Yahweh of hosts, “You must not listen to the words of the prophets who prophesy to you. They are deluding you with visions of their mind, They do not speak from the mouth of Yahweh.
Jer 23:17 They are continually saying to those who disregard the word of Yahweh, ‘Peace it will be to you,’ and to each one who walks in the stubbornness of his heart they say, ‘Calamity will not come upon you.’
Jer 23:18 For who has stood in the council of Yahweh, that he has seen and heard his word? Who has listened attentively to his word and heard it?
Jer 23:19 Look, the storm of Yahweh has gone forth in wrath, even a whirling tempest. It will whirl upon the head of the wicked.
Jer 23:20 The anger of Yahweh will not turn back until his doing and until his keeping the plans of his mind. In latter days you will look closely at it with understanding.
Jer 23:21 I have not sent the prophets, yet they ran. I have not spoken to them, yet they prophesied.
Jer 23:22 But if they had stood in my council, then they would have proclaimed my words to my people, and they would have caused them to turn from their evil way, and from the evil of their deeds.

These visions of the mind, idolatry and mythology are not just a thing of the past. It is dealt with in the future at the coming of the Messiah.

Rev 9:17 And this is how I saw the horses in my vision and those who rode them: they wore breastplates the color of fire and of sapphire and of sulfur, and the heads of the horses were like lions’ heads, and fire and smoke and sulfur came out of their mouths.
Rev 9:18 By these three plagues a third of mankind was killed, by the fire and smoke and sulfur coming out of their mouths.
Rev 9:19 For the power of the horses is in their mouths and in their tails, for their tails are like serpents with heads, and by means of them they wound.
Rev 9:20 The rest of mankind, who were not killed by these plagues, did not repent of the works of their hands nor give up worshiping demons and idols of gold and silver and bronze and stone and wood, which cannot see or hear or walk,
Rev 9:21 nor did they repent of their murders or their sorceries or their sexual immorality or their thefts.

There are also those teaching doctrines of demons right from Paul’s time. Another warning from Paul’s letters to Timothy:

1Ti 4:1 Now the Spirit expressly says that in later times some will depart from the faith by devoting themselves to deceitful spirits and teachings of demons,
1Ti 4:2 through the insincerity of liars whose consciences are seared,
1Ti 4:3 who forbid marriage and require abstinence from foods that God created to be received with thanksgiving by those who believe and know the truth.
1Ti 4:4 For everything created by God is good, and nothing is to be rejected if it is received with thanksgiving,
1Ti 4:5 for it is made holy by the word of God and prayer.

Today, some will say this refers to the Torah’s explanation of which animals are to be consumed for food. The words of Yahweh being called “teachings of demons” should not need addressing to anyone who knows the Bible. The only meats that are made holy by the word of God are listed in Leviticus. However, today we have many examples of doctrines forbidding marriage of certain people and forbidding eating food that Yahweh does set apart as good. These people with seared consciences reject the instructions of the creator. Are you one who is under a delusion and deceived?

2Th 2:8 And then the lawless one will be revealed, whom the Lord Jesus will kill with the breath of his mouth and bring to nothing by the appearance of his coming.
2Th 2:9 The coming of the lawless one is by the activity of Satan with all power and false signs and wonders,
2Th 2:10 and with all wicked deception for those who are perishing, because they refused to love the truth and so be saved.
2Th 2:11 Therefore God sends them a strong delusion, so that they may believe what is false,
2Th 2:12 in order that all may be condemned who did not believe the truth but had pleasure in unrighteousness.

Jesus gives a warning to the church at Pergamum.

Rev 2:12 “And to the angel of the church in Pergamum write: ‘The words of him who has the sharp two-edged sword.
Rev 2:13 “‘I know where you dwell, where Satan’s throne is. Yet you hold fast my name, and you did not deny my faith even in the days of Antipas my faithful witness, who was killed among you, where Satan dwells.
Rev 2:14 But I have a few things against you: you have some there who hold the teaching of Balaam, who taught Balak to put a stumbling block before the sons of Israel, so that they might eat food sacrificed to idols and practice sexual immorality.
Rev 2:15 So also you have some who hold the teaching of the Nicolaitans.
Rev 2:16 Therefore repent. If not, I will come to you soon and war against them with the sword of my mouth.

What are the teachings of Balaam? What is the teaching of the Nicolaitans? We need to know to fully understand these warnings because Jesus will war against anyone who does not repent of these things. Jesus does not tolerate anything that was not tolerated by Yahweh. The judgement may happen at the end, instead of immediately, but the outcome is the same.

Num 25:1 When Israel dwelled in Shittim, the people began to prostitute themselves with the daughters of Moab.
Num 25:2 And they invited the people to the sacrifices of their gods, and the people ate and worshiped their gods.
Num 25:3 So Israel was joined together to Baal Peor, and Yahweh became angry with Israel.
Num 25:4 Yahweh said to Moses, “Take all the leaders of the people and kill them before the sun, so the fierce anger of Yahweh will turn from Israel.”
Num 25:5 So Moses said to the judges of Israel, “Each of you kill his men who are joined together with Baal Peor.”
Num 25:6 And behold, a man from the Israelites came and brought to his brothers a Midianite woman before the eyes of Moses and before the eyes of all of the community of the Israelites, and they were weeping at the doorway of the tent of assembly.
Num 25:7 When Phinehas son of Eleazar son of Aaron the priest saw, he got up from the midst of the community and took a spear in his hand.
Num 25:8 He went after the man of Israel into the woman’s section of the tent, and he drove the two of them, the man of Israel and the woman, into her belly. And the plague among the Israelites stopped.
Num 25:9 The ones who died in the plague were twenty-four thousand.

Augustine wrote the City of God, which is a book I recommend that everyone should read. There are two worlds that Augustine explores, that of Yahweh and that of Babylon. We can see a similar comparison in the book of Daniel with the dream King Nebuchadnezzar had of a statue.

Dan 2:31 “You, O king, were looking and, look, there was one great statue. This statue was huge and its brilliance extraordinary, standing there before you, and its appearance was frightening.
Dan 2:32 The head of this statue was of fine gold, its chest and its arms of silver, its belly and its thighs of bronze,
Dan 2:33 its legs of iron, its feet, part of them of iron and part of them of clay.
Dan 2:34 You were looking on until a stone was chiseled out—that not by hands—and it struck the statue on its feet of iron and clay, and it broke them in pieces.
Dan 2:35 Then the iron, the clay, the bronze, the silver and the gold all at once broke into pieces and they became like chaff from the summer threshing floor, and the wind carried them away and any trace of them could not be found. But the stone that struck the statue became a great mountain and it filled the whole earth.
Dan 2:36 “This was the dream, and now we will tell its interpretation to the king.
Dan 2:37 You, O king, the king of kings, to whom the God of heaven has given the kingdom, the power and the might and the glory,
Dan 2:38 and also human beings wherever they dwell, the animals of the field and the birds of heaven—he has given into your hand and made you ruler over all of them—you are the head of gold.
Dan 2:39 And after you another kingdom inferior to yours will arise, and another third kingdom of bronze that will rule over the whole earth.
Dan 2:40 And a fourth kingdom will be strong as iron, and just as iron crushes and smashes everything, and as iron shatters all of these other metals, so it will crush and it will shatter these nations.
Dan 2:41 And just as you saw the feet and the toes, partly potter’s clay and partly iron, it will be a divided kingdom; and some hardness of the iron will be in it, just as you have seen the iron mixed with the wet clay.
Dan 2:42 And as the toes of the feet were partly iron and partly clay, so part of the kingdom will be strong and partly brittle.
Dan 2:43 And in that you saw the iron was mixed with wet clay, so they will mix in marriage and they will not cling to one another, just as iron does not mix with clay.
Dan 2:44 And in the day of those kings, the God of heaven will set up a kingdom that will never be destroyed, and the kingdom will not be left for another nation, and it will bring an end to all these kingdoms, but it will stand forever.
Dan 2:45 Inasmuch as you saw that a stone from the mountain was chiseled out but not by hands, and that it crushed the iron, the bronze, the clay, the silver and the gold, thereby the great God made known to the king what will be in the future, and the dream is certain and its explanation trustworthy.”

We have seen these kingdoms of the dream in ancient history; Babylon, Persia, Greece, Rome, and all of their traditions, gods and symbols remain. Remnants of these kingdoms still exist today, and we see evidence of them in the holidays that the world celebrates, the geopolitical structure of the world, and all the symbols of their gods woven into our culture. Even popular Christian culture, holy days and traditions come from these worldly kingdoms’ gods and traditions. The God of heaven, Yahweh, set up His kingdom and will eventually crush all the other kingdoms. Therefore, the question that remains is this: do you want to stay in the kingdoms of the world, or join the kingdom of the Yahweh? If you answer “join the Kingdom of Yahweh”, then why would you continue celebrating the things of the soon to be destroyed Kingdom from the imaginations of men? Yahweh gives us the elements of His kingdom, His special days and His instructions. For example, Yahweh’s special days are explained in Leviticus 23:

Lev 23:1 Then Yahweh spoke to Moses, saying,
Lev 23:2 “Speak to the Israelites, and say to them, ‘The festivals of Yahweh that you shall proclaim are holy assemblies; these are my appointed times.
Lev 23:3 “‘For six days work is to be done, and on the seventh day shall be a Sabbath of complete rest, a holy assembly; you shall not do any work; it shall be a Sabbath for Yahweh in all your dwellings.
Lev 23:4 “‘These are Yahweh’s appointed times, holy assemblies, which you shall proclaim at their appointed time.
Lev 23:5 In the first month, on the fourteenth of the month at the evening is Yahweh’s Passover.
Lev 23:6 And on the fifteenth day of this month is Yahweh’s Feast of Unleavened Bread; for seven days you shall eat unleavened bread.
Lev 23:7 On the first day there shall be a holy assembly for you; you shall not do any regular work.
Lev 23:8 And you shall present an offering for Yahweh made by fire for seven days; on the seventh day there shall be a holy assembly; you shall not do any regular work.'”
Lev 23:9 Then Yahweh spoke to Moses, saying,
Lev 23:10 “Speak to the Israelites, and say to them, ‘When you come to the land that I am about to give to you and you reap its harvest, then you shall bring a sheaf of the firstfruit of your harvest to the priest.
Lev 23:11 And he shall wave the sheaf before Yahweh for your acceptance; the priest shall wave it on the day after the Sabbath.
Lev 23:12 And on the day of your waving the sheaf you shall offer a yearling male lamb without defect as a burnt offering to Yahweh.
Lev 23:13 And its grain offering shall be two-tenths of an ephah of finely milled flour mixed with oil, an offering made by fire for Yahweh, an appeasing fragrance; and its libation shall be a fourth of a hin of wine.
Lev 23:14 And you shall not eat bread or roasted grain or ripe grain until this very same day, until you present your God’s offering. This must be a lasting statute for your generations in all your dwellings.

These are examples of some of Yahweh’s special days, and they have nothing to do with the worldly festivals of the kingdoms in Nebuchadnezzar’s dream in which Daniel was given the interpretation from Yahweh as to its meaning. Yahweh gives us instructions about mixing ourselves with the practices of these other kingdoms:

Jer 51:42 The sea has risen over Babylon, she has been covered by the roar of its waves.
Jer 51:43 Her cities have become as an object of horror, a dry land and a wilderness, a land in which no person lives, nor does a son of humankind pass through it.
Jer 51:44 And I will punish Bel in Babylon, and I will wrench out from his mouth what he has swallowed. And the nations will not stream towards him any longer what’s worse, the wall of Babylon has fallen.
Jer 51:45 Come out from her midst, my people, and save each one his life from the burning anger of Yahweh.
Jer 51:46 Now so that you are not fainthearted, and you are afraid at the rumors that are heard in the land—and in the year the rumor comes, and in the year after it the rumor, and violence is in the land, with ruler against ruler—
Jer 51:47 therefore look, days are coming, and I will punish the images of Babylon, and all her land will be put to shame, and all her slain ones will fall in the midst of her.

Once again in the Apostle John’s revelation, we are told to come out of Babylon.

Rev 18:4 Then I heard another voice from heaven saying, “Come out of her, my people, lest you take part in her sins, lest you share in her plagues;
Rev 18:5 for her sins are heaped high as heaven, and God has remembered her iniquities.
Rev 18:6 Pay her back as she herself has paid back others, and repay her double for her deeds; mix a double portion for her in the cup she mixed.
Rev 18:7 As she glorified herself and lived in luxury, so give her a like measure of torment and mourning, since in her heart she says, ‘I sit as a queen, I am no widow, and mourning I shall never see.’
Rev 18:8 For this reason her plagues will come in a single day, death and mourning and famine, and she will be burned up with fire; for mighty is the Lord God who has judged her.”

It is time to forsake the imaginations of men and come out of Babylon. Learn the ways of Yahweh exemplified in the life of Jesus the Messiah, and written for us in the scriptures.

Featured picture taken by Emma Vail.

“Our fathers worshiped on this mountain, but you say that in Jerusalem is the place where people ought to worship.” Jesus said to her, “Woman, believe me, the hour is coming when neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem will you worship the Father. You worship what you do not know; we worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews. But the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father is seeking such people to worship him. God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.” John 4:20-24

I was taught as a child to believe that Santa Claus brought me presents on the same day that the Christ child was born. I even received the occasional gift from Jesus, because I know my parents struggled with the blending of all of the traditions. Hopefully, everyone that is reading this blog won’t be crushed to learn there is no Santa Claus, but what if Jesus was born at a different time of year?

I took learning about Santa Claus being a fairy tale very well when I eventually realized his writing was very similar to my Mom’s. I thought it was a well intentioned deception and I carried on the tradition with my children. I was more disturbed to discover that Jesus was not born on December 25th, likely not even December at all, and just like Santa, most church leaders knew that too. So why all the lying around a supposed sacred day when the Saviour of the whole world is said to be born? The purpose of this blog post is to defend the faith and not make excuses for all the lying. December is full of lies and scripture tells us the identity of the father of lies. This entity is also the god of light.

Joh 8:42 Jesus said to them, “If God were your Father, you would love me, for I came from God and I am here. I came not of my own accord, but he sent me.
Joh 8:43 Why do you not understand what I say? It is because you cannot bear to hear my word.
Joh 8:44 You are of your father the devil, and your will is to do your father’s desires. He was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks out of his own character, for he is a liar and the father of lies.
Joh 8:45 But because I tell the truth, you do not believe me.

Has anyone ever wondered why no one in the New Testament celebrated the birth of Jesus, and why we are not even given a date or month? It is not that hard to understand. Early followers of Jesus were Jewish and it was only heathen nations that celebrated birthdays of important people. God’s people were commanded by Yahweh not to act the way of the nations. The Mishnah Torah, which was passed down oral instruction from the Sages detailing how to properly keep the written Torah, says the following:

“And these are the festivals of the gentiles: the Calends,* the Saturnalia,^ the commemoration of empire,”* the anniversaries* of kings, and the day of [their] birth and the day of [their] death.” Mishnah ABODAH ZARAH

I am not suggesting we are to follow the commands in the Mishnah; however, it sheds light on what is really going on in December. Calends was the eight days after the winter solstice, and the Saturnalia was the eight days before the winter solstice. The winter solstice was very important because it was the “birthday” of the sun god. We use the Gregorian Calendar in 2020, but in the first century, they were still using the Julian calendar. Depending on the calendar and the sun god myth one is using, the sun is “reborn” about three days after the winter solstice. This is when the length of day gets noticeably longer.

The birthday of Jesus was placed on the same day as the sun god’s birthday as a result of many people from the nations becoming “Christians” by the second and third centuries, and they were accustomed to celebrating their former god’s birth. It is also not hard to see all the sun worship imagery that is still part of the major Christian denominations.

We can get an approximate time for the birth of Jesus by looking at scripture. John the Baptist was born before Jesus, and there is much information on the events surrounding John’s birth.

Luk 1:5 In the days of Herod, king of Judea, there was a priest named Zechariah, of the division of Abijah. And he had a wife from the daughters of Aaron, and her name was Elizabeth.
Luk 1:6 And they were both righteous before God, walking blamelessly in all the commandments and statutes of the Lord.
Luk 1:7 But they had no child, because Elizabeth was barren, and both were advanced in years.
Luk 1:8 Now while he was serving as priest before God when his division was on duty,
Luk 1:9 according to the custom of the priesthood, he was chosen by lot to enter the temple of the Lord and burn incense.
Luk 1:10 And the whole multitude of the people were praying outside at the hour of incense.
Luk 1:11 And there appeared to him an angel of the Lord standing on the right side of the altar of incense.
Luk 1:12 And Zechariah was troubled when he saw him, and fear fell upon him.
Luk 1:13 But the angel said to him, “Do not be afraid, Zechariah, for your prayer has been heard, and your wife Elizabeth will bear you a son, and you shall call his name John.
Luk 1:14 And you will have joy and gladness, and many will rejoice at his birth,
Luk 1:15 for he will be great before the Lord. And he must not drink wine or strong drink, and he will be filled with the Holy Spirit, even from his mother’s womb.
Luk 1:16 And he will turn many of the children of Israel to the Lord their God,
Luk 1:17 and he will go before him in the spirit and power of Elijah, to turn the hearts of the fathers to the children, and the disobedient to the wisdom of the just, to make ready for the Lord a people prepared.”

Zechariah was a priest in the division of Abijah, and it is recorded that he and his wife “were both righteous before God, walking blamelessly in all the commandments and statutes of the Lord.” This is a side note, but it is worth mentioning a couple people in the New Testament were blameless before God, keeping the commandments and statues of Yahweh. We find the priestly order of Abijah spoken of in the book of Chronicles when David organized the Levite’s service in the temple.

1Ch 24:1 And as for the sons of Aaron, these were their divisions. The sons of Aaron were Nadab and Abihu, Eleazar and Ithamar.
1Ch 24:2 And Nadab and Abihu died before their father, and they had no sons, so Eleazar and Ithamar served as priests.
1Ch 24:3 And David, with Zadok of the sons of Eleazar and Ahimelech of the sons of Ithamar, divided them according to their appointments for their service.
1Ch 24:4 And more sons of Eleazar were found as heads of the men than the sons of Ithamar, so they divided them to the sons of Eleazar to be sixteen heads over the house of the fathers, and to the sons of Ithamar over the house of the fathers were eight heads.
1Ch 24:5 They divided them by lot all alike, for they were commanders of the sanctuary and commanders of God from among the sons of Eleazar and the sons of Ithamar.
1Ch 24:6 And Shemaiah the son of Nethanel, the scribe, from the Levites, recorded them before the king, the princes, Zadok the priest, Ahimelech the son of Abiathar, and the heads of the families of the priests and Levites, one father’s house drawn by Lot for Eleazar and one drawn by lot for Ithamar.
1Ch 24:7 And the first lot went out to Jehoiarib, the second to Jedaiah,
1Ch 24:8 the third to Harim, the fourth to Seorim,
1Ch 24:9 the fifth to Malkijah, the sixth to Mijamin,
1Ch 24:10 the seventh to Hakkoz, the eighth to Abijah,
1Ch 24:11 the ninth to Jeshua, the tenth to Shekaniah,
1Ch 24:12 the eleventh to Eliashib, the twelfth to Jakim,
1Ch 24:13 the thirteenth to Huppah, the fourteenth to Jeshebeab,
1Ch 24:14 the fifteenth to Bilgah, the sixteenth to Immer,
1Ch 24:15 the seventeenth to Hezir, the eighteenth to Ha-Pizzez,
1Ch 24:16 the nineteenth to Pethahiah, the twentieth to Ezekiel,
1Ch 24:17 the twenty-first to Jakin, the twenty-second to Gamul,
1Ch 24:18 the twenty-third to Delaiah, the twenty-fourth to Maaziah.
1Ch 24:19 These were their appointments for their service to come into the house of Yahweh according to their custom by the hand of Aaron their father, as Yahweh the God of Israel had commanded him.

Abijah served the eighth cycle of service in the temple. All the priests served during the feast days so those times would not be counted. The first cycle would start at the first of the year on the Hebrew calendar starting in our late March or April. If this was Zechariah’s first cycle in the temple that would put the timing in late May or June when Elizabeth would have conceived.

Luk 1:34 And Mary said to the angel, “How will this be, since I am a virgin?”
Luk 1:35 And the angel answered her, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore the child to be born will be called holy—the Son of God.
Luk 1:36 And behold, your relative Elizabeth in her old age has also conceived a son, and this is the sixth month with her who was called barren.
Luk 1:37 For nothing will be impossible with God.”
Luk 1:38 And Mary said, “Behold, I am the servant of the Lord; let it be to me according to your word.” And the angel departed from her.
Luk 1:39 In those days Mary arose and went with haste into the hill country, to a town in Judah,
Luk 1:40 and she entered the house of Zechariah and greeted Elizabeth.
Luk 1:41 And when Elizabeth heard the greeting of Mary, the baby leaped in her womb. And Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit,
Luk 1:42 and she exclaimed with a loud cry, “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb!
Luk 1:43 And why is this granted to me that the mother of my Lord should come to me?
Luk 1:44 For behold, when the sound of your greeting came to my ears, the baby in my womb leaped for joy.
Luk 1:45 And blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfillment of what was spoken to her from the Lord.”

Jesus was conceived six months after John, around January by our calendar. That puts the birth of Jesus sometime in September. If Zechariah was on his second cycle of service in the temple, then that would push everything up approximately six months which would bring the birth of Jesus in the spring. Either way, we can determine it is not December, and if the date were important it would have been recorded in scripture. My personal opinion is that His birth fits nicely with the fall feast of tabernacles.

Joh 1:14 And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.

The words “dwelt among us“, come from Strong’s G4637, which refers to living in a tabernacle or temporary structure.

G4637
σκηνόω
skēnoō
Thayer Definition:
1) to fix one’s tabernacle, have one’s tabernacle, abide (or live) in a tabernacle (or tent), tabernacle
2) to dwell

This language resembles the fall feast of tabernacles, all speculation of course.

Lev 23:33 Then Yahweh spoke to Moses, saying,
Lev 23:34 “Speak to the Israelites, saying, ‘On the fifteenth day of the seventh month, this shall be the Feast of Booths for seven days for Yahweh.
Lev 23:35 On the first day there shall be a holy assembly; you must not do any regular work.
Lev 23:36 For seven days you must present an offering made by fire to Yahweh. On the eighth day it shall be a holy assembly for you, and you shall present an offering made by fire to Yahweh; it is a celebration; you must not do any regular work.
Lev 23:37 “‘These are Yahweh’s festivals, which you must proclaim, holy assemblies to present an offering made by fire to Yahweh—burnt offering and grain offering, sacrifice and libations, each on its proper day—
Lev 23:38 besides Yahweh’s Sabbaths and besides your gifts and besides your vows and besides all your freewill offerings that you give to Yahweh.
Lev 23:39 “‘Surely on the fifteenth day of the seventh month, at your gathering the land’s produce, you shall hold Yahweh’s festival for seven days; on the first day there shall be a rest period and on the eighth day a rest period.
Lev 23:40 And on the first day you shall take for yourselves the first fruit of majestic trees, branches of palm trees and branches of a leafy tree and of a brook’s poplar trees, and you shall rejoice before Yahweh your God for seven days.
Lev 23:41 And you must hold it as a festival for Yahweh for seven days in the year; it shall be a lasting statute throughout your generations; in the seventh month you must hold it.
Lev 23:42 You must live in the booths for seven days; all the natives in Israel must live in the booths,
Lev 23:43 so that your generations shall know that I made the Israelites live in booths when I brought them from the land of Egypt; I am Yahweh your God.'”
Lev 23:44 Thus Moses announced to the Israelites Yahweh’s appointed times.

Many churches employ an advent wreath with candles and pine cones this time of year. The symbolism is supposed to have a relationship with the birth of Jesus. Here is the explanation of the symbolism of this Roman Catholic tradition from catholiceducation.org:

“The Advent wreath is part of our long-standing Catholic tradition. However, the actual origins are uncertain. There is evidence of pre-Christian Germanic peoples using wreathes with lit candles during the cold and dark December days as a sign of hope in the future warm and extended-sunlight days of Spring. In Scandinavia during Winter, lighted candles were placed around a wheel, and prayers were offered to the god of light to turn “the wheel of the earth” back toward the sun to lengthen the days and restore warmth.”

The pine cones in the fertility wreath are important symbols in sun god worship (the god of light) as well as the candles. This is the reason the people of Yahweh were not allowed to sell them to the people of the nations to use as symbols to worship their gods. This is also found in the Mishnah Torah which sheds light on what was going on during these heathen festivals. From Mishnah ABODAH ZARAH:

5. These things it is forbidden to sell to the gentiles:’ fir-cones, white figs vfith their stalks, frankincense, or a white cock. R. Judah says: One may sell a gentile a white cock among other cocks, or, if it is by itself, cut off its spur and sell it to him, because they do not sacrifice to an idol what is defective. All other things, if [any idolatrous use is] not specified, are permitted to be sold; but if [any idolatrous use is] specified, they are for­ bidden.

The red berries in the pictured advent wreath are also a fertility symbol used in sun god worship. The wreath has always represented the entrance to the womb, just like the cut off tree is a phallus symbol related to the Nimrod myth. Nimrod was the original sun god as well as his son Tammuz. Tammuz worship is spoken of throughout scripture. Tammuz’s mother was impregnated by the rays of the sun, after her husband Nimrod was killed, as the myth goes. People who do not know Yahweh and the truth will say that the virgin birth of Jesus is just a retelling of this myth. Why wouldn’t they? Christianity has blended the two religions so well they are actually celebrating this myth rather than anything about the living son of God. If any of it was about Jesus, the world would not be partaking, and it would not employ symbols of other gods.

The wreath and the tree go together in sun god worship. A person can say “that is not what it means to me”, but what it means to you personally is irrelevant. What does it mean to Yahweh, the creator of the world, and His son? This is the important question, and fortunately the answer is told to us everywhere in scripture: do not have anything to do with these things. “Learn not the way of the heathen”.

So what does this all mean? Can Yahweh and His son Jesus, or Yeshua in Hebrew, be pleased with all of this fuss about sun gods and birthdays, pine cones, wreaths and the lot? What does Yahweh think about blending His things with those of the adversary, the god of light? Thankfully Yahweh left no room for doubt concerning these things:

Deu 12:29 “When Yahweh your God has cut off the nations whom you are about to go to, to dispossess them before you, and you have dispossessed them, and you live in their land,
Deu 12:30 take care so that you are not ensnared into imitating them after their being destroyed from before you, and so that you not enquire concerning their gods, saying, ‘How did these nations serve their gods, and thus I myself want to do also.’
Deu 12:31 You must not do so toward Yahweh your God, because of every detestable thing they have done for their gods Yahweh hates, for even their sons and their daughters they would burn in the fire to their gods.
Deu 12:32 All of the things that I am commanding you, you must diligently observe; you shall not add to it, and you shall not take away from it.”

In the opening scripture, Jesus was speaking to a woman from the northern kingdom. The northern kingdom of Israel was divorced by Yahweh for adultery, which was going after foreign gods and idolatry. They worshipped the same gods that are worshipped at the winter solstice, with the same sort of symbols many try to worship Yahweh with today during the Yule celebrations.

It shouldn’t be any surprise that greenery, trees, wreaths and pine cones are being displayed joyfully in every shop and home. They have been for thousands of years during the winter solstice, by the nations, and Yahweh warned His people to not use these symbols. Hopefully the reader will worship Yahweh in “Spirit and Truth” and not be ensnared by all of the sun god worship that happens this time of year. There certainly are many lies and deception that are encountered in the “most wonderful time of the year”.

So if you are offering your gift at the altar and there remember that your brother has something against you, leave your gift there before the altar and go. First be reconciled to your brother, and then come and offer your gift. Matthew 5:23-24

Having been brought up in the Christian church, I had never been schooled on the sacrificial system of the Old Testament. We were taught simply that before Jesus made atonement for our sins, animals had to be sacrificed for our sins. Jesus took away the sacrificial system. Although this is true, it is extremely over simplified. In order to understand the gravity of the cross, we need to understand how the sacrificial system worked. I am not qualified to provide an in-depth analysis of the sacrificial system, so the purpose here is to open the reader’s eyes to some aspects of sacrifice that I had never learned in forty plus years of attending Protestant denominations.

In the book of Leviticus, Yahweh explains to Moses how the people should bring offerings for their sins. Yahweh is speaking of unintentional sins. These were not the ideas of Moses because Yahweh is recorded as the one who instructed Moses to do these various offerings.

Lev 4:1 Then Yahweh spoke to Moses, saying,
Lev 4:2 “Speak to the Israelites, saying, ‘If a person sins by an unintentional wrong from any of Yahweh’s commands that should not be violated, and he violates any of them—
Lev 4:3 if the anointed priest sins, bringing guilt on the people, then, concerning the sin that he has committed, he shall bring a young bull without defect for Yahweh as a sin offering.

Lev 4:13 “‘If Israel’s whole assembly did wrong unintentionally and the matter was concealed from the assembly’s eyes, and they acted against any of Yahweh’s commands that should not be violated, so that they incur guilt,
Lev 4:14 when the sin that they have committed against that command becomes known, the assembly shall present a young bull as a sin offering, and they shall bring it before the tent of assembly.

Lev 4:27 “‘If anyone of the people of the land sins by an unintentional wrong by violating one of Yahweh’s commands that should not be violated, so that he incurs guilt,
Lev 4:28 or his sin he has committed is made known to him, he shall bring as his offering a female goat without defect as his offering for his sin that he committed.
Lev 4:29 He shall place his hand on the sin offering’s head and slaughter the sin offering in the place of the burnt offering.

Lev 5:14 Then Yahweh spoke to Moses, saying,
Lev 5:15 “When a person displays infidelity and he sins in an unintentional wrong in any of Yahweh’s holy things, then he shall bring his guilt offering to Yahweh: a ram without defect from the flock as a guilt offering by your valuation in silver shekels according to the sanctuary shekel.
Lev 5:16 And he shall make restitution for what he sinned because of a holy thing and shall add one-fifth of its value onto it and shall give it to the priest. The priest shall make atonement for him with the ram of the guilt offering, and he will be forgiven.

Lev 5:17 “If a person when he sins violates one from all of Yahweh’s commands that should not be violated, but he did not know, then he is guilty and he shall bear his guilt.
Lev 5:18 He shall bring to the priest a ram without defect from the flock as a guilt offering by your valuation, and the priest shall make atonement for him because of his unintentional wrong (although he himself did not know), and he will be forgiven.
Lev 5:19 It is a guilt offering; he certainly was guilty before Yahweh.”

Next, we see an example of intentional sin. This involves retribution by returning stolen items, or repaying damages incurred by the victims.

Lev 6:1 Then Yahweh spoke to Moses, saying,
Lev 6:2 “When a person displays infidelity against Yahweh and he deceives his fellow citizen regarding something entrusted or a pledge or stealing or he exploits his fellow citizen,
Lev 6:3 or he finds lost property and lies about it and swears falsely in regard to any one of these things by which a person might commit sin,
Lev 6:4 and when he sins and is guilty, then he shall bring back the things he had stolen or what he had extorted or something with which he had been entrusted or the lost property that he had found,
Lev 6:5 or regarding anything about which he has sworn falsely, then he shall repay it according to its value and shall add one-fifth of its value to it—he must give it to whom it belongs on the day of his guilt offering.
Lev 6:6 And he must bring as his guilt offering to Yahweh a ram without defect from the flock by your valuation as a guilt offering to the priest,
Lev 6:7 and the priest shall make atonement for him before Yahweh, and he shall be forgiven anything from all that he might do by which he might incur guilt.”

Jesus had some words about bringing offerings for sins to the temple:

Mat 5:23 So if you are offering your gift at the altar and there remember that your brother has something against you,
Mat 5:24 leave your gift there before the altar and go. First be reconciled to your brother, and then come and offer your gift.

Jesus gives us a picture of repentance before giving the offering at the altar. We must remember the temple was in full function in Jesus’ day, and He would have taken part in this system. Just as He was circumcised on the eighth day, He would have had to meet all the requirements of the temple. For example, the feast of First Fruits:

Lev 23:9 Then Yahweh spoke to Moses, saying,
Lev 23:10 “Speak to the Israelites, and say to them, ‘When you come to the land that I am about to give to you and you reap its harvest, then you shall bring a sheaf of the firstfruit of your harvest to the priest.
Lev 23:11 And he shall wave the sheaf before Yahweh for your acceptance; the priest shall wave it on the day after the Sabbath.
Lev 23:12 And on the day of your waving the sheaf you shall offer a yearling male lamb without defect as a burnt offering to Yahweh.
Lev 23:13 And its grain offering shall be two-tenths of an ephah of finely milled flour mixed with oil, an offering made by fire for Yahweh, an appeasing fragrance; and its libation shall be a fourth of a hin of wine.
Lev 23:14 And you shall not eat bread or roasted grain or ripe grain until this very same day, until you present your God’s offering. This must be a lasting statute for your generations in all your dwellings.

Mar 14:48 And Jesus answered and said to them, “Have you come out with swords and clubs, as against a robber, to arrest me?
Mar 14:49 Every day I was with you in the temple courts teaching, and you did not arrest me! But this has happened in order that the scriptures would be fulfilled.

The day of Atonement was the day that they brought the yearly sacrifice before Yahweh for the collective sins of the congregation of Israel. This is the day they sent the Azazel goat into the wilderness representing all of the sins of the people.

Lev 16:5 And he must take from the Israelites’ community two he-goats as a sin offering and one ram as a burnt offering.
Lev 16:6 “And Aaron shall present the sin offering’s bull, which is for himself, and so he shall make atonement for himself and for his family.
Lev 16:7 And he shall take the two goats, and he shall present them before Yahweh at the tent of assembly’s entrance.
Lev 16:8 Then Aaron shall cast lots for the two goats: one lot for Yahweh and one for Azazel.
Lev 16:9 And Aaron shall present the goat on which the lot for Yahweh fell, and he shall sacrifice it as a sin offering.
Lev 16:10 But he must present alive before Yahweh the goat on which the lot for Azazel fell to make atonement for himself, to send it away into the desert to Azazel.

In the sixty-six book Bible we are not given the background of Azazel, but in the book of Enoch we get a further explanation of Azazel, the scapegoat. Some do not accept the book of Enoch as having any value; however, it was well known in New Testament times and quoted by Jude. This book explains where devils and demons come from as well as the identity of Azazel, the scapegoat. Enoch 10:1-8:

1 And then the Most High, the Great and Holy One, spoke and sent Arsyalalyur to the son of Lamech, and said to him:

2 “Say to him in my name; hide yourself! And reveal to him the end, which is coming, because the whole earth will be destroyed. A deluge is about to come on all the earth; and all that is in it will be destroyed.
(Genesis 6:8), (Ben Sira 44:17-18), (Genesis 6:17), (Genesis 7:6-24), (2 Peter 3:6), (Luke 17:27), (Hebrews 11:7), (Ben Sira 40:9-10)

3 And now teach him so that he may escape and his offspring may survive for the whole Earth.”
(Ben Sira 44:17-18), (Proverbs 10:16), (Proverbs 11:19), (Proverbs 14:27), (Genesis 7:1, 6-7, 13), (Genesis 9:1), (Genesis 9:7), (Genesis 9:18-19), (Genesis 10:1, 32), (Wisdom 14:6)

4 And further the Lord said to Raphael: “Bind Azazel by his hands and his feet and throw him into the darkness. And split open the desert, which is in Dudael, and throw him there.

5 And throw on him jagged and sharp stones and cover him with darkness. And let him stay there forever. And cover his face so that he may not see the light.

6 And so that, on the Great Day of Judgment, he may be hurled into the fire.
(Isaiah 24:21-22), (2 Peter 2:4), (Jude 1:6), (Revelation 20:1-3)

7 And restore the Earth which the Angels have ruined. And announce the restoration of the Earth. For I shall restore the Earth so that not all the sons of men shall be destroyed because of the knowledge which the Watchers made known and taught to their sons.
(Joel 2:22)

8 And the whole Earth has been ruined by the teaching of the works of Azazel; and against him write: ALL SIN.”

With this background, the question to answer is “what is the significance of Jesus’ death on the cross?”. It appeared everything was working fine in the sacrificial system. So why did Jesus have to die if the blood of goats, rams, doves and pigeons would take care of the sins of the people? Paul tells us the wages of sin is death.

Rom 6:19 I am speaking in human terms, because of your natural limitations. For just as you once presented your members as slaves to impurity and to lawlessness leading to more lawlessness, so now present your members as slaves to righteousness leading to sanctification.
Rom 6:20 For when you were slaves of sin, you were free in regard to righteousness.
Rom 6:21 But what fruit were you getting at that time from the things of which you are now ashamed? For the end of those things is death.
Rom 6:22 But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves of God, the fruit you get leads to sanctification and its end, eternal life.
Rom 6:23 For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.

We were slaves to impurity and unrighteousness, which would lead to death. Now, being slaves to righteousness we have the gift of eternal life. What is this righteousness we are slaves to if not obeying God’s commandments? So Jesus’ work on the cross satisfied at least two problems: He conquered the death problem that everyone would face due to the sin of Adam, and His death provided a way for forgiveness of sins that no animal sacrifice could do. This is the part I missed in my whole Christian existence. There were no sacrifices available for people who committed intentional, rebellious sin. Their lot was death when convicted. This is a very important point. Let’s look at some sins that brought immediate death with no chance of repentance or forgiveness before the time of Jesus.

Lev 20:9 “‘If there is anyone who curses his father or his mother, he shall surely be put to death; he has cursed his father and his mother—his blood is upon him.
Lev 20:10 “‘As for a man who commits adultery with a man’s wife, who commits adultery with his neighbor’s wife, both the man who commits adultery and the woman who commits adultery shall surely be put to death.

Lev 24:17 “Whoever takes a human life shall surely be put to death.

Under the law of Yahweh, before Jesus, there was no repentance or offering of goats that would fix cursing your parents or an adulterous relationship. Immediate death was your sentence, and dead was dead. There was no chance of eternal life until Jesus conquered death. Those are three examples of sin leading to death. There are many more throughout scripture. Paul tells us we are no longer under the law, which states sin equals death, but we have grace through the Messiah. Now we are to be used for righteousness because we are to have no part of sin.

Rom 6:9 We know that Christ, being raised from the dead, will never die again; death no longer has dominion over him.
Rom 6:10 For the death he died he died to sin, once for all, but the life he lives he lives to God.
Rom 6:11 So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus.
Rom 6:12 Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, to make you obey its passions.
Rom 6:13 Do not present your members to sin as instruments for unrighteousness, but present yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life, and your members to God as instruments for righteousness.
Rom 6:14 For sin will have no dominion over you, since you are not under law but under grace.

John speaks of sin not leading to death, and sin leading to death in one of his epistles. Once we know the truth, we should not keep sinning, which is deliberately breaking Yahweh’s commandments.

1Jn 5:16 If anyone sees his brother committing a sin not leading to death, he shall ask, and God will give him life—to those who commit sins that do not lead to death. There is sin that leads to death; I do not say that one should pray for that.
1Jn 5:17 All wrongdoing is sin, but there is sin that does not lead to death.
1Jn 5:18 We know that everyone who has been born of God does not keep on sinning, but he who was born of God protects him, and the evil one does not touch him.
1Jn 5:19 We know that we are from God, and the whole world lies in the power of the evil one.

The writer of Hebrews gives a stark warning to those who continue in rebellion once brought into the truth of the Saviour:

Heb 6:1 Therefore let us leave the elementary doctrine of Christ and go on to maturity, not laying again a foundation of repentance from dead works and of faith toward God,
Heb 6:2 and of instruction about washings, the laying on of hands, the resurrection of the dead, and eternal judgment.
Heb 6:3 And this we will do if God permits.
Heb 6:4 For it is impossible, in the case of those who have once been enlightened, who have tasted the heavenly gift, and have shared in the Holy Spirit,
Heb 6:5 and have tasted the goodness of the word of God and the powers of the age to come,
Heb 6:6 and then have fallen away, to restore them again to repentance, since they are crucifying once again the Son of God to their own harm and holding him up to contempt.
Heb 6:7 For land that has drunk the rain that often falls on it, and produces a crop useful to those for whose sake it is cultivated, receives a blessing from God.
Heb 6:8 But if it bears thorns and thistles, it is worthless and near to being cursed, and its end is to be burned.

We shouldn’t dismiss the book of Leviticus as an outdated source of rules and regulations for the tribes of Israel. It is a building block for our faith, and it shows us the way someone who is a child of Yahweh should live. If we look ahead to the future, Ezekiel shows us where this priestly system will return.

Eze 43:1 And he brought me to the gate which was facing east.
Eze 43:2 And, look! The glory of the God of Israel, it came from the way of the east, and its sound was like the sound of many waters and the land radiated due to his glory!
Eze 43:3 And the appearance of the vision which I saw was as the vision which I saw at his coming to destroy the city, and these visions were also as the vision which I saw by the Kebar River, and I fell on my face.
Eze 43:4 And then the glory of Yahweh came to the temple by the way of the gate facing east.
Eze 43:5 And the Spirit lifted me and it brought me to the inner courtyard and, look! The glory of Yahweh filled the temple!
Eze 43:6 And I heard someone speaking to me from the house, and a man was standing beside me.
Eze 43:7 And he said to me, “Son of man, this is the place of my throne and the place for the soles of my feet where I will dwell in the midst of the Israelites to eternity, and they, the house of Israel, they and their kings, will not again defile my holy name with their fornication and with their offerings for the dead of their kings on their high places.
Eze 43:8 When they placed their threshold with my threshold, their doorframe beside my doorframe and the wall was between me and between them, then they defiled my holy name, with their detestable things that they did, and so I consumed them in my anger.
Eze 43:9 Now let them send their fornication far away and the offerings for the dead of their kings away from me, and I will dwell in the midst of them forever.
Eze 43:10 You, son of man, describe to the house of Israel the temple and let them be ashamed of their iniquities and let them measure the pattern.
Eze 43:11 And if they are ashamed of all that they did, then the plan of the temple and its arrangement and its exits and its entrances and all of its plans and all of its statutes. And all of its plans and all of its laws make known to them and write them before their eyes, so that they may remember all of its plans and all of its statutes, so that they do them!
Eze 43:12 This is the law of the temple: On the top of the mountain, all of its territory, all the way around it, will be most holy. Look, this is the law of the temple.

We also see the survivors after the great battle required to come worship during the fall feast of booths in the millennium, or rain will be held back.

Zec 14:16 And then every survivor from all those nations coming against Jerusalem will go up year after year to worship the king, Yahweh of hosts, and celebrate the Feast of Booths.
Zec 14:17 And then whoever of the clans of the earth does not go up to Jerusalem to worship the king, Yahweh of hosts, it will not rain on them.
Zec 14:18 And if the clan of Egypt will not go up and come in, on them will be that plague Yahweh inflicts on the nations that do not go up to celebrate the Feast of Booths.
Zec 14:19 This will be the punishment of Egypt and the punishment of all the nations that do not go up to celebrate the Feast of Booths.

Could these survivors be the ones Jesus called the least in His kingdom because they did not regard the commandments of Yahweh?

Mat 5:18 For truly, I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not an iota, not a dot, will pass from the Law until all is accomplished.
Mat 5:19 Therefore whoever relaxes one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do the same will be called least in the kingdom of heaven, but whoever does them and teaches them will be called great in the kingdom of heaven.

Hopefully these scriptures have shed some light on the sacrificial system laid out in Leviticus, giving the reader a reason to research these scriptures with a fresh approach. As Jesus exclaimed in Matthew 5:19, do and teach every last commandment of Yahweh!

You are of your father the devil, and your will is to do your father’s desires. He was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks out of his own character, for he is a liar and the father of lies. John 8:44

The adversary wants you to believe a lie. Unfortunately, many subscribe to all of the lies. Lies abound and truth easily escapes us. What is truth anyway? Absolute truth can only be defined by the living word of Yahweh.

Psa 119:142 Your righteousness is an everlasting righteousness, and your law is truth.

Psa 119:151 You are near, O Yahweh, and all your commands are truth.

The first recorded lie was told to Eve. Scripture records the serpent deceived her. Genesis 3:13 : Then Yahweh God said to the woman, “What is this you have done?” And the woman said, “The serpent deceived me, and I ate.”

What was the deception? The deception was telling Eve to disobey Yahweh’s command. There was only one commandment at that point which was to not eat from a certain tree.

Gen 3:1 Now the serpent was more crafty than any other wild animal which Yahweh God had made. He said to the woman, “Did God indeed say, ‘You shall not eat from any tree in the garden’?”

The deception was a simple question: “did God indeed say?”. This instance of deception was simply questioning God’s commandment, and it brought death into the world having consequences we are still dealing with today.

Fast forward to the times Jesus walked the Earth. Jesus called out the Pharisees for their deception and lies.

Joh 8:39 They answered him, “Abraham is our father.” Jesus said to them, “If you were Abraham’s children, you would be doing the works Abraham did,
Joh 8:40 but now you seek to kill me, a man who has told you the truth that I heard from God. This is not what Abraham did.
Joh 8:41 You are doing the works your father did.” They said to him, “We were not born of sexual immorality. We have one Father—even God.”
Joh 8:42 Jesus said to them, “If God were your Father, you would love me, for I came from God and I am here. I came not of my own accord, but he sent me.
Joh 8:43 Why do you not understand what I say? It is because you cannot bear to hear my word.
Joh 8:44 You are of your father the devil, and your will is to do your father’s desires. He was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks out of his own character, for he is a liar and the father of lies.
Joh 8:45 But because I tell the truth, you do not believe me.
Joh 8:46 Which one of you convicts me of sin? If I tell the truth, why do you not believe me?
Joh 8:47 Whoever is of God hears the words of God. The reason why you do not hear them is that you are not of God.”

Let’s look at deception, lies and the opposite of the Truth of Yahweh that has come through Philosophy. Here are some lines from Plato’s, The Republic, chapter 3:

“Then if any one at all is to have the privilege of lying, the rulers of the State should be the persons; and they, in their dealings either with enemies or with their own citizens, may be allowed to lie for the public good. But nobody else should meddle with anything of the kind; and although the rulers have this privilege, for a private man to lie to them in return is to be deemed a more heinous fault than for the patient or the pupil of a gymnasium not to speak the truth about his own bodily illnesses to the physician or to the trainer, or for a sailor not to tell the captain what is happening about the ship and the rest of the crew, and how things are going with himself or his fellow sailors.”

This philosophy, where the state is permitted to lie to its people, is all too familiar to us in the modern age. This philosophy has brought us to the delapitated, immoral society we now endure.

Col 2:1 For I want you to know how great a struggle I have on behalf of you, and those in Laodicea, and all those who have not seen my face in person,
Col 2:2 so that their hearts may be encouraged, united in love and into all the wealth of the full assurance of insight into the knowledge of the mystery of God, Christ,
Col 2:3 in whom all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge are hidden.
Col 2:4 I say this in order that no one will deceive you with persuasive speech,
Col 2:5 for even if I am absent in the flesh, yet I am with you in spirit, rejoicing and seeing your good order and the steadfastness of your faith in Christ.
Alive in Christ
Col 2:6 Therefore as you have received Christ Jesus the Lord, live in him,
Col 2:7 firmly rooted and built up in him and established in the faith, just as you were taught, abounding with thankfulness.
Col 2:8 Beware lest anyone take you captive through philosophy and empty deceit, according to human tradition, according to the elemental spirits of the world and not according to Christ,
Col 2:9 because in him all the fullness of deity dwells bodily,
Col 2:10 and you are filled in him, who is the head over every ruler and authority,
Col 2:11 in whom also you were circumcised with a circumcision not made by hands, by the removal of the body of the flesh, by the circumcision of Christ,
Col 2:12 having been buried with him in baptism, in which also you were raised together with him through faith in the working of God, who raised him from the dead.

Psalms 119:151 states: You are near, O Yahweh, and all your commands are truth. If Yahweh’s commands are defined as truth, then would it not make sense that anything contrary to His commands are lies? What is a lie except to tell someone to do something contrary to a commandment of Yahweh? Who would do such a thing as that? The government, social norms, the church, and the list goes on.

This is what Andy Stanley has to say about the Ten Commandments in an article in Christianity Today October 19, 2018:

“So, while I believe there is much we can learn from studying and preaching on the Old Testament, we must now take our cue from the promises fulfilled in Jesus—the new. The way we treat others is not based on 10 Commandments, but on one command given by Jesus—‘Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another.’ (John 13:34; 15:12).”

“Did God indeed say” is the question the adversary is still asking today. Andy Stanley implies that we are not to use the Ten Commandments to base how we treat others. How does he intend to define love then? What is sin if not defined by “thou shalt not steal”, or “thou shall have no other gods before me”? It is a wishy washy, user defined, mess much like we are seeing play out in the apostate, contemporary churches. Satan, which is the Hebrew word for adversary, has been telling the same lie since Eve was deceived. It’s taken thousands of years to bring the deception to the place where a famous preacher can say we no longer need to consider the Ten Commandments, and many think that it’s great or don’t even know they are being deceived. This should not be a surprise because Rome abolished and made it a crime to follow one of the commandments some 1600 years ago.

Below is Canon XXIX from the Synod of Laodicea 343 AD:

“Canon XXIX.Christians must not judaize by resting on the Sabbath, but must work on that day, rather honouring the Lord’s Day; and, if they can, resting then as Christians. But if any shall be found to be judaizers, let them be anathema from Christ. Notes. Ancient Epitome of Canon XXIX.A Christian shall not stop work on the Sabbath, but on the Lord’s Day. Balsamon.Here the Fathers order that no one of the faithful shall stop work on the Sabbath as do the Jews, but that they should honour the Lord’s Day, on account of the Lord’s resurrection, and that on that day they should abstain from manual labour and go to church. But thus abstaining from work on Sunday they do not lay down as a necessity, but they add, ‘if they can.’ For if through need or any other necessity any one worked on the Lord’s day this was not reckoned against him.“

In 343 AD, the Roman church threw out one of the Ten Commandments , then in 2018 Andy Stanley kicked the rest to the curb? What is this, if not complete deception?

Eze 22:25 The conspiracy of its prophets in the midst of her is like a roaring lion that is tearing prey. They devour people, and they take wealth and treasure; they make its widows numerous in the midst of her.
Eze 22:26 Its priests treat my law violently, and they profane my holy objects; they do not distinguish between a holy object and what is unholy, or between the clean and the unclean. They do not teach the difference, and they hide their eyes from my Sabbaths, and so I am profaned in the midst of them.
Eze 22:27 Its officials are like wolves tearing prey in its midst, to pour out blood, to destroy people, to make dishonest gain.
Eze 22:28 And for them its prophets plaster whitewash; they are seeing falseness and are practicing divination for them by lying, saying, ‘Thus says the Lord Yahweh,’ and Yahweh has not spoken.
Eze 22:29 They severely oppress the people of the land, and they committed robbery, and they mistreated the needy and the poor, and they oppressed the alien without justice.
Eze 22:30 And so I sought for them somebody, one repairing the wall and standing in the breach before me on behalf of the land not to destroy it, but I did not find anyone,
Eze 22:31 and so I poured out my indignation on them. With the fire of my wrath I destroyed them; I returned their way upon their head,” declares the Lord Yahweh.

Some will say I am mixed up, these verses don’t apply to today. I say they apply more today than ever. We profane His Sabbaths, mistreat the needy and prophesy falsely. When will He pour out His indignation?

Rev 3:14 “And to the angel of the church in Laodicea write: ‘The words of the Amen, the faithful and true witness, the beginning of God’s creation.
Rev 3:15 “‘I know your works: you are neither cold nor hot. Would that you were either cold or hot!
Rev 3:16 So, because you are lukewarm, and neither hot nor cold, I will spit you out of my mouth.
Rev 3:17 For you say, I am rich, I have prospered, and I need nothing, not realizing that you are wretched, pitiable, poor, blind, and naked.
Rev 3:18 I counsel you to buy from me gold refined by fire, so that you may be rich, and white garments so that you may clothe yourself and the shame of your nakedness may not be seen, and salve to anoint your eyes, so that you may see.
Rev 3:19 Those whom I love, I reprove and discipline, so be zealous and repent.

These passages in Revelation are telling the people to buy gold refined by fire, white garments and salve to anoint the eyes. This is done by keeping His commandments, not a loosely defined love for everybody. Notice He says those whom He loves, He disciplines.

Rev 3:1 “And to the angel of the church in Sardis write: ‘The words of him who has the seven spirits of God and the seven stars. “‘I know your works. You have the reputation of being alive, but you are dead.
Rev 3:2 Wake up, and strengthen what remains and is about to die, for I have not found your works complete in the sight of my God.
Rev 3:3 Remember, then, what you received and heard. Keep it, and repent. If you will not wake up, I will come like a thief, and you will not know at what hour I will come against you.
Rev 3:4 Yet you have still a few names in Sardis, people who have not soiled their garments, and they will walk with me in white, for they are worthy.
Rev 3:5 The one who conquers will be clothed thus in white garments, and I will never blot his name out of the book of life. I will confess his name before my Father and before his angels.
Rev 3:6 He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches.’

What did the people receive and hear? It is something they can keep, and need to repent for not keeping it. Jesus tells them if they don’t wake up He is coming against them. Wake up from what? Deception.

Let’s look at the Greek word for “keep”. It is Strong’s G5083.

G5083
τηρέω
tēreō
Thayer Definition:
1) to attend to carefully, take care of
1a) to guard
1b) metaphorically to keep, one in the state in which he is
1c) to observe
1d) to reserve: to undergo something

Keep, guard and observe are all words that are being applied to what the people heard in verse three.

Deu 5:1 And then Moses summoned all of Israel and said to them, “Hear, Israel, the rules and the regulations that I am speaking in your ears today, and you shall learn them, and you must observe them diligently.
Deu 5:2 Yahweh our God made a covenant with us at Horeb.
Deu 5:3 It was not with our ancestors that Yahweh made this covenant, but with these of us who are here alive today.
Deu 5:4 Face to face Yahweh spoke with you at the mountain from the midst of the fire.

What a deception it is that we have fallen prey. We think we are following Jesus and doing many works in His name, yet at the same time doing the exact opposite of what He told us through his word.

Lately I have been reading parts of the Mishnah along with the Babylonian and Jerusalem Talmud. I refer to these books as the doctrines of men that Jesus complained about often to the Pharisees in some of my blog posts. However, I found I was admittedly ignorant of the differences between the Mishnah and Talmud. There is valuable information in these books concerning the way the people in Jesus’ day applied the Torah, which can help a person understand some of the controversies that were happening in the New Testament scriptures. Since we are on the topic of deception, I found this written in the section on idolatry (ABODAH ZARAH) in the Mishnah:

“For three days before the festivals of the gentiles it is forbidden to have business with them—to lend to them or to borrow from them, to lend them money or to borrow money from them, to repay them or to be repaid by them.”

“And these are the festivals of the gentiles: the Calends,* the Saturnalia, the commemoration of empire,”* the anniversaries* of kings, and the day of [their] birth and the day of [their] death.”

“If there was an idolatrous festival in a city and some shops therein were adorned and others not adorned-such a case happened in Beth Shean, and the Sages said: Those that are adorned are forbidden and those that are not adorned are not forbidden.”

“These things it is forbidden to sell to the gentiles:’ fir-cones, white figs with their stalks, frankincense, or a white cock. R. Judah says: One may sell a gentile a white cock among other cocks, or, if it is by itself, cut off its spur and sell it to him, because they do not sacrifice to an idol what is defective.”

In the footnotes it indicates that Calends is eight days after the winter solstice and the Saturnalia starts eight days before the winter solstice. This is what we celebrate as Christmas and New Years. It amazes me that this is the time the Romans assigned to Jesus’ birth and it is celebrated as such, when Jesus would have learned as a young child not to participate in birthdays of kings, Calends, the Saturnalia, pine cones and Ashera trees. There is a section on the trees which are very important in idolatry. It is sometimes said that New Year’s Day would have been the day that Jesus was circumcised because it was eight days after His birth. It is such a miserable, tangled web of deception. We seem to have the right days, customs and symbols, just the wrong god. Here are some more passages from the Mishnah:

“Three kinds of Asherah are to be distinguished: if a tree was planted from the first for idolatry, it is forbidden; if it was chopped and trimmed for idolatry and it sprouted afresh, one only need take away what has sprouted afresh; but if a gentile did but set up an idol beneath it and then desecrate it, the tree is permitted. What is an Asherah ? Any tree under which is an idol. R. Simeon says: Any tree which is worshipped.”

Study the Holy scripture yourself and do not fall into the trap of deception that has been set. In the end, no one will be able to blame their pastors and teachers For being deceived. Everyone is responsible to learn these things for themselves.

Then Jesus said to the crowds and to his disciples, “The scribes and the Pharisees sit on Moses’ seat so do and observe whatever they tell you, but not the works they do. For they preach, but do not practice. Matthew 23:1-3

What are the 613 commandments, also referred a to as Miztvaot? Most people involved in Christianity are not familiar with these even though they are all throughout the Christian Bible. Others would say that it is a “Jewish thing”, but I have also heard sermons and read articles where Christians actually mock these 613 Mitzvaot. Is this what we should be doing? I realize it comes mostly from ignorance, and I had to spend many hours trying to understand this topic over several years; however, mocking these commandments is equivalent to mocking the holy scripture. This is where these commandments are found. At some point in history, someone in the Jewish faith itemized all the commands we find written in the Old Testament of the Bible, which the Jewish people handed down to us. In this blog post I will cover a few of the 613 commandments and let the reader decide if we should be ridiculing anyone for wanting to study and keep these commandments.

First, I make the claim that Christianity obtained the knowledge of the Creator through the Jewish people from the words of Paul written to the Romans.

Rom 3:1 Then what advantage has the Jew? Or what is the value of circumcision?
Rom 3:2 Much in every way. To begin with, the Jews were entrusted with the oracles of God.

Paul tells us that it was the Jewish people who were entrusted with the oracles of God. A neglected verse of scripture in the Christian churches, Matthew 23:3, is where Jesus tells His followers to do what the the scribes and Pharisees tell them to do, just not what they do. So, their works did not reflect the instruction they were teaching.

Mat 23:1 Then Jesus said to the crowds and to his disciples,
Mat 23:2 “The scribes and the Pharisees sit on Moses’ seat,
Mat 23:3 so do and observe whatever they tell you, but not the works they do. For they preach, but do not practice.

If you want a complete list of the approximate 613 commandments found in scripture, do a search for them online, and they are easily found with scripture references. If you are a person who says “I believe everything between the covers of this book” referring to the Bible, then you may want to read about what it is you say you believe.

• To know that God exists (Exodus 20:2; Deuteronomy 5:6)
• Not to entertain the idea that there is any god but the Eternal (Exodus 20:3)
• Not to blaspheme Exodus 22:28), the penalty for which is death (Leviticus 24:16) •To hallow God’s name (Leviticus 22:32)
• Not to profane God’s name (Leviticus 22:32)
• To know that God is One, a complete Unity (Deuteronomy 6:4)
• To love God (Deuteronomy 6:5)
• To fear Him reverently (Deuteronomy 6:13; 10:20)
• Not to put the word of God to the test (Deuteronomy 6:16)
• To imitate His good and upright ways (Deuteronomy 28:9)

The first two Mitzvaot come from the Ten Commandments. I am not looking at these commandments in any particular order.

Exo 20:2 “I am Yahweh, your God, who brought you out from the land of Egypt, from the house of slaves.
Exo 20:3 “There shall be for you no other gods before me.

Another commandment in the list of 613 tells us to love God:

Deu 6:5 And you shall love Yahweh your God with all of your heart and with all of your soul and with all of your might.

Jesus also quoted this verse stating it was the greatest commandment.

Mat 22:36 “Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?”
Mat 22:37 And he said to him, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.
Mat 22:38 This is the great and first commandment.

Jesus continues to quote another one of the 613 commandments as the second greatest commandment. Jesus didn’t fabricate these words on the spot to impress the Pharisees. He was quoting Leviticus.

Mat 22:39 And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself.

Lev 19:18 You shall not seek vengeance, and you shall not harbor a grudge against your fellow citizens; and you shall love your neighbor like yourself; I am Yahweh.

Another commandment we find in the list tells us to imitate His good and upright ways.

Deu 28:9 Yahweh will establish you for himself as a holy people as he has sworn to you, if you keep the commandments of Yahweh your God and you walk in his ways.
Deu 28:10 And all of the peoples of the earth shall see that by the name of Yahweh you are called, and they shall fear you.
Deu 28:11 And Yahweh will make you successful and prosperous, in the fruit of your womb and on the land that Yahweh swore to your ancestors to give to you.

Here are a few more Mitzvaot with the scripture references:

• To love all human beings who are of the covenant (Leviticus 19:18)
• Not to stand by idly when a human life is in danger (Leviticus 19:16)
• Not to wrong any one in speech (Leviticus 25:17)
• Not to carry tales (Leviticus 19:16)
• Not to cherish hatred in one’s heart (Leviticus 19:17)
• Not to take revenge (Leviticus 19:18)
• Not to bear a grudge (Leviticus 19:18)
• Not to put any person to shame (Leviticus 19:17)
• Not to curse any other Israelite (Leviticus 19:14)
• Not to give occasion to the simple-minded to stumble on the road (Leviticus 19:14)
• To rebuke the sinner (Leviticus 19:17)
• To relieve a neighbor of his burden and help to unload his beast (Exodus 23:5)
• To assist in replacing the load upon a neighbor’s beast (Deuteronomy 22:4)
• Not to leave a beast, that has fallen down beneath its burden, unaided (Deuteronomy 22:4)

This appears to be starting to sound similar to the teachings of Jesus. Could there be a correlation between the Word of God in the flesh, Jesus, and the Word of God recorded in scripture? Paul also speaks of these commandments in his letter to the Corinthians:

2Co 12:19 Have you been thinking all along that we have been defending ourselves to you? It is in the sight of God that we have been speaking in Christ, and all for your upbuilding, beloved.
2Co 12:20 For I fear that perhaps when I come I may find you not as I wish, and that you may find me not as you wish—that perhaps there may be quarreling, jealousy, anger, hostility, slander, gossip, conceit, and disorder.
2Co 12:21 I fear that when I come again my God may humble me before you, and I may have to mourn over many of those who sinned earlier and have not repented of the impurity, sexual immorality, and sensuality that they have practiced.

Many of the 613 Miztvaot require the temple and priests and have to be carried out in the land. It’s not that these are obsolete, because Jesus stated that nothing in the Torah would change until heaven and Earth pass away. However, it is impossible to uphold commandments of the temple when the temple was destroyed in 70 AD.

Mat 5:18 For truly, I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not an iota, not a dot, will pass from the Law until all is accomplished.

Next, there are some commandments regarding relationships. One must ask themselves if there is anything here to mock and ridicule.

• Not to indulge in familiarities with relatives, such as kissing, embracing, winking which may lead to incest (Leviticus 18:6)
• Not to commit incest with one’s mother (Leviticus 18:7)
• Not to commit sodomy with one’s father (Leviticus 18:7)
• Not to commit incest with one’s father’s wife (Leviticus 18:8)
• Not to commit incest with one’s sister (Leviticus 18:9)
• Not to commit incest with one’s father’s wife’s daughter (Leviticus 18:9)
• Not to commit incest with one’s son’s daughter (Leviticus 18:10)
• Not to commit incest with one’s daughter’s daughter (Leviticus 18:10)
• Not to commit incest with one’s daughter (Leviticus 18:11)
• Not to commit incest with one’s fathers sister (Leviticus 18:12)
• Not to commit incest with one’s mother’s sister (Leviticus 18:13)
• Not to commit incest with one’s father’s brothers wife (Leviticus 18:14)
• Not to commit sodomy with one’s father’s brother (Leviticus 18:14)
• Not to commit incest with he’s son’s wife (Leviticus 18:15)
• Not to commit incest with one’s brother’s wife (Leviticus 18:16)
• Not to commit incest with one’s wife’s daughter (Leviticus 18:17)
• Not to commit incest with the daughter of one’s wife’s son (Leviticus 18:17)
• Not to commit incest with the daughter of one’s wife’s daughter (Leviticus 18:17)
• Not to commit incest with one’s wife’s sister (Leviticus 18:18)
• Not to have intercourse with a woman, in her menstrual period (Leviticus 18:19)
• Not to have intercourse with another man’s wife (Leviticus 18:20)
• Not to commit sodomy with a male (Leviticus 18:22)
• Not to have intercourse with a beast (Leviticus 18:23)
• That a woman shall not have intercourse with a beast (Leviticus 18:23)
• Not to castrate the male of any species; neither a man, nor a domestic or wild beast, nor a fowl (Leviticus 22:24)

Continuing with the list, let’s look at some of these commands regarding business practices.

• Not to do wrong in buying or selling (Leviticus 25:14)
• Not to make a loan to an Israelite on interest (Leviticus 25:37)
• Not to borrow on interest (Deuteronomy 23:20) (because this would cause the lender to sin)
• Not to take part in any usurious transaction between borrower and lender, neither as a surety, nor as a witness, nor as a writer of the bond for them (Exodus 22:24)
• To lend to a poor person (Exodus 22:24)
• Not to demand from a poor man repayment of his debt, when the creditor knows that he cannot pay, nor press him (Exodus 22:24)
• Not to take in pledge utensils used in preparing food (Deuteronomy 24:6)
• Not to exact a pledge from a debtor by force (Deuteronomy 24:10)
• Not to keep the pledge from its owner at the time when he needs it (Deuteronomy24:12)
• To return a pledge to its owner (Deuteronomy 24:13)
• Not to take a pledge from a widow (Deuteronomy 24:17)

• Not to commit fraud in measuring (Leviticus 19:35)
• To ensure that scales and weights are correct (Leviticus 19:36)
• Not to possess inaccurate measures and weights (Deuteronomy 25:13-14)

Do these commands seem to apply to only the “Jews”, or is it fair to say that they describe how a follower of Jesus should also conduct themselves? Jesus had a way of incorporating these commandments into His parables. The principles of conduct Jesus was stressing to His followers were all found in the Old Testament.

Mat 18:23 “Therefore the kingdom of heaven may be compared to a king who wished to settle accounts with his servants.
Mat 18:24 When he began to settle, one was brought to him who owed him ten thousand talents.
Mat 18:25 And since he could not pay, his master ordered him to be sold, with his wife and children and all that he had, and payment to be made.
Mat 18:26 So the servant fell on his knees, imploring him, ‘Have patience with me, and I will pay you everything.’
Mat 18:27 And out of pity for him, the master of that servant released him and forgave him the debt.
Mat 18:28 But when that same servant went out, he found one of his fellow servants who owed him a hundred denarii, and seizing him, he began to choke him, saying, ‘Pay what you owe.’
Mat 18:29 So his fellow servant fell down and pleaded with him, ‘Have patience with me, and I will pay you.’
Mat 18:30 He refused and went and put him in prison until he should pay the debt.
Mat 18:31 When his fellow servants saw what had taken place, they were greatly distressed, and they went and reported to their master all that had taken place.
Mat 18:32 Then his master summoned him and said to him, ‘You wicked servant! I forgave you all that debt because you pleaded with me.
Mat 18:33 And should not you have had mercy on your fellow servant, as I had mercy on you?’
Mat 18:34 And in anger his master delivered him to the jailers, until he should pay all his debt.
Mat 18:35 So also my heavenly Father will do to every one of you, if you do not forgive your brother from your heart.”

Is it clear how Jesus was taking the principles of the laws of Yahweh and showing them in practice by His parable? The laws in the Old Testament that required death when broken are what Jesus’ death on the cross was the substitution, if a person repents and believes. How can a person be said to have repented and believed, yet not want to do what Yahweh commands from that point forward? Here are a few more from the list of the 613 commandments:

• Not to slay an innocent person (Exodus 20:13)
• Not to kidnap any person of Israel (Exodus 20:13)
• Not to rob by violence (Leviticus 19:13)
• Not to defraud (Leviticus 19:13)
• Not to covet what belongs to another (Exodus 20:14)
• Not to crave something that belongs to another (Deuteronomy 5:18)
• Not to indulge in evil thoughts and sights (Numbers 15:39)

The last command in this section sounds familiar as well. “Not to indulge in evil thoughts and sights” (Numbers 15:39)

Num 15:39 You will have a tassel for you to look at and remember all the commands of Yahweh and do them, and not follow after the unfaithfulness of your own heart and eyes,
Num 15:40 so that you will remember and do all my commandments, and you will be holy for your God.

What did Jesus say about our thoughts and secret desires?

Mat 5:21 “You have heard that it was said to those of old, ‘You shall not murder; and whoever murders will be liable to judgment.’
Mat 5:22 But I say to you that everyone who is angry with his brother will be liable to judgment; whoever insults his brother will be liable to the council; and whoever says, ‘You fool!’ will be liable to the hell of fire.

Mat 5:27 “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall not commit adultery.’
Mat 5:28 But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lustful intent has already committed adultery with her in his heart.
Mat 5:29 If your right eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away. For it is better that you lose one of your members than that your whole body be thrown into hell.
Mat 5:30 And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away. For it is better that you lose one of your members than that your whole body go into hell.

Jesus is giving us examples of evil thoughts and sights. Does anyone still see justification for diminishing this list of Yahweh’s commandments from the Torah that Jesus and the Apostles seem to teach as well? I realize that there are many of these 613 commands that do not apply to someone living outside of the land, or that without temple or Levite priest system many of these commands cannot be followed. Do we scoff at the whole list because some are no longer possible to carry out? Jesus did not. These above verses from Matthew, chapter five show that Jesus was not making up something new at all. Jesus repeats what His Father does and explains its meaning. John 5:19: So Jesus said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, the Son can do nothing of his own accord, but only what he sees the Father doing. For whatever the Father does, that the Son does likewise.” Let’s continue with commands regarding the poor.

• Not to afflict an orphan or a widow (Exodus 22:21)
• Not to reap the entire field (Leviticus 19:9; Leviticus 23:22)
• To leave the unreaped corner of the field or orchard for the poor (Leviticus 19:9)
• Not to gather gleanings (the ears that have fallen to the ground while reaping) (Leviticus 19:9)
• To leave the gleanings for the poor (Leviticus 19:9)
• Not to gather ol’loth (the imperfect clusters) of the vineyard (Leviticus 19:10)
• To leave ol’loth (the imperfect clusters) of the vineyard for the poor (Leviticus 19:10; Deuteronomy 24:21)
• Not to gather the peret (grapes) that have fallen to the ground (Leviticus 19:10)
• To leave peret (the single grapes) of the vineyard for the poor (Leviticus 19:10)
• Not to return to take a forgotten sheaf (Deuteronomy 24:19) This applies to all fruit trees (Deuteronomy 24:20) • To leave the forgotten sheaves for the poor (Deuteronomy 24:19-20)
• Not to refrain from maintaining a poor man and giving him what he needs (Deuteronomy 15:7)
• To give charity according to one’s means (Deuteronomy 15:11)

“Not to afflict an orphan or a widow” (Exodus 22:21) sounds like a New Testament principle.

Exo 22:21 “You shall not wrong a sojourner or oppress him, for you were sojourners in the land of Egypt.
Exo 22:22 You shall not mistreat any widow or fatherless child.
Exo 22:23 If you do mistreat them, and they cry out to me, I will surely hear their cry,
Exo 22:24 and my wrath will burn, and I will kill you with the sword, and your wives shall become widows and your children fatherless.

Paul writes these words to Timothy:

1Ti 5:1 Do not rebuke an older man but encourage him as you would a father, younger men as brothers,
1Ti 5:2 older women as mothers, younger women as sisters, in all purity.
1Ti 5:3 Honor widows who are truly widows.
1Ti 5:4 But if a widow has children or grandchildren, let them first learn to show godliness to their own household and to make some return to their parents, for this is pleasing in the sight of God.

Finally, we will look at some commands that discuss speaking with the dead, witchcraft and idolatry.

• Not to adopt the institutions of idolaters nor their customs (Leviticus 18:3; Leviticus 20:23)
• Not to pass a child through the fire to Molech (Leviticus 18:21)
• Not to suffer any one practicing witchcraft to live (Exodus 22:17)
• Not to practice observing times or seasons as favorable or unfavorable, (using astrology) (Leviticus 19:26)
• Not to practice nachesh [doing things based on signs and portents; using charms and incantations] (Leviticus
19:26)
• Not to consult ovoth (ghosts) (Leviticus 19:31)
• Not to consult yid’onim (wizards) (Leviticus 19:31)
• Not to practice kisuf (magic using herbs, stones and objects that people use) (Deuteronomy 18:10)
• Not to practice kessem (a general term for magical practices) (Deuteronomy 18:10)
• Not to practice the art of a chover chaver (casting spells over snakes and scorpions) (Deuteronomy 18:11)
• Not to enquire of an ob (a ghost) (Deuteronomy 18:11)
• Not to seek the maytim (dead) (Deuteronomy 18:11)
• Not to enquire of a yid’oni (wizard) (Deuteronomy 18:11)

A point worth mentioning is that these commands were also civil law at the time of Moses. Capital punishment was prescribed for breaking many of these laws. This is not to say we are to go on witch hunts as they did in Salem, Massachusetts. However, it does show the seriousness of these things in the sight of Yahweh. We must remember the curse of the law is death, and the way we can avoid this death is by repenting and putting our faith in Jesus. Salvation is a free gift for those who repent and have faith in Jesus. These commandments show us how to keep from falling back into the ways that are displeasing to Yahweh once we chose to serve Him. We can see the New Testament version of these commands on sorcery and witchcraft in Paul’s letter to the Galatians.

Gal 5:16 But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh.
Gal 5:17 For the desires of the flesh are against the Spirit, and the desires of the Spirit are against the flesh, for these are opposed to each other, to keep you from doing the things you want to do.
Gal 5:18 But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law.
Gal 5:19 Now the works of the flesh are evident: sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality,
Gal 5:20 idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions,
Gal 5:21 envy, drunkenness, orgies, and things like these. I warn you, as I warned you before, that those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God.
Gal 5:22 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness,
Gal 5:23 gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law.
Gal 5:24 And those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.

Galatians 5:18 “But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law.” This passage is often twisted to imply we are not required to behave the way the law commands us to act. It can be taken a couple ways. First, if we are led by the Spirit, we will not desire to do anything below the standard of the law, thus the law does not affect us. It is much like observing the speed limit while driving. We are not affected by the law stating the speed limit until we go faster than the stated speed. The second way we could look at this is that we are no longer under the curse of the law, which is death. Paul wrote, “that those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God” when writing to the churches of Galatia.

There is no license to break all these commandments of Yahweh, even if a Jewish Rabbi compiled them all in a list. Antisemitism has been woven into the fabric of Christianity for 1700 plus years. It is also the job of the adversary to hide the truth in scripture. Is there a better way to deceive many people than to convince them that they are following Jesus, and at the same time convince them they don’t have to do anything Jesus said to do? Unfortunately, many churches have been used as a tool to do this very thing. We could look at Jesus as our Rabbi who showed us how to properly live out the commands of Yahweh. Jesus was referred to “Rabbi” many times.

Mar 9:5 And Peter said to Jesus, “Rabbi, it is good that we are here. Let us make three tents, one for you and one for Moses and one for Elijah.” English Standard Version

Rabbi is Strong’s G4461 and comes from the Hebrew word Rab, 𐤓𐤁, in the ancient Hebrew pictographic, which means head of the house.

G4461
ῥαββί
rhabbi
Thayer Definition:
1) my great one, my honourable sir
2) Rabbi, a title used by the Jews to address their teachers (and also honour them when not addressing them)
Part of Speech: noun masculine
A Related Word by Thayer’s/Strong’s Number: of Hebrew origin H7227 with pronominal suffix

Here are a few final words from Jesus regarding the commandments:

Rev 22:12 “Behold, I am coming soon, bringing my recompense with me, to repay each one for what he has done.
Rev 22:13 I am the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end.”
Rev 22:14 Blessed are those who wash their robes, so that they may have the right to the tree of life and that they may enter the city by the gates.
Rev 22:15 Outside are the dogs and sorcerers and the sexually immoral and murderers and idolaters, and everyone who loves and practices falsehood.
Rev 22:16 “I, Jesus, have sent my angel to testify to you about these things for the churches. I am the root and the descendant of David, the bright morning star.”

I don’t recommend mocking the commandments of Yahweh. These commandments were given to the people of Yahweh, by Yahweh, so they could lead a righteous, successful life, pleasing to the Almighty God. Jesus and the Apostles reinforced them in the writings of the New Testament for the people of Yahweh in light of the new covenant. Don’t be left outside with the dogs and sorcerers!

Feature image taken by Emma Vail in Welsford, New Brunswick.

“So in the present case I tell you, keep away from these men and let them alone, for if this plan or this undertaking is of man, it will fail; but if it is of God, you will not be able to overthrow them. You might even be found opposing God!” So they took his advice, and when they had called in the apostles, they beat them and charged them not to speak in the name of Jesus, and let them go.“ Acts 5:38-40

There appears to be an awakening in the church. People are turning away from the traditions of men that have been set in place for hundreds of years. Make no mistake, many in the contemporary church are also turning further away from the ways of Yahweh into total apostasy. Both situations are found in bible prophecy, so we should expect these things to happen. What is likely not to happen is that the situation will remain static. Church leadership has to decide if it will turn itself over to a reprobate mind, or repent and realign itself with the ways of Yahweh, exemplified by the Messiah, Jesus.

If we go back to the very beginning of Yahweh’s people, we see a prophecy speaking of a cycle of disregarding God’s ways and returning by the people of God. There were apostate leaders who set up idols and killed prophets, and those who cut down the Asherah poles, knocked down the stone pillars and stopped the heathen practices being applied towards Yahweh. However, Moses prophesies that in the latter days, after God’s people are scattered throughout the world for their disobedience, they would wake up where they are and return to following His commandments.

Deu 4:26 I call to witness against you today the heaven and the earth, that you will perish soon and completely from the land that you are crossing the Jordan into it to take possession of it; you will not live long on it, but you will be completely destroyed.
Deu 4:27 And Yahweh will scatter you among the peoples, and you will be left few in number among the nations to where Yahweh will lead you.
Deu 4:28 And you will there serve gods made by human hands, of wood and stone, gods that cannot see and cannot hear and cannot eat and cannot smell.
Deu 4:29 But from there you shall seek Yahweh your God and will find him, if you seek him with all your heart and with all your soul.
Deu 4:30 In your distress when all these things have found you in the latter days, then you will return to Yahweh your God, and you will listen to his voice.
Deu 4:31 For Yahweh your God is a compassionate God; he will not abandon you, and he will not destroy you, and he will not forget the covenant of your ancestors that he swore to them.

In another place in Deuteronomy, the same message appears:

Deu 30:1 “And then when all of these things come upon you, the blessing and the curse that I have set before you and you call them to mind among the nations there where Yahweh your God has scattered you,
Deu 30:2 and you return to Yahweh and you listen to his voice according to all that I am commanding you today, both you and your children, with all your heart and with all your inner self,
Deu 30:3 and Yahweh your God will restore your fortunes, and he will have compassion upon you, and he will again gather you together from all the peoples where Yahweh your God scattered you there.
Deu 30:4 “Even if you are outcasts at the end of the heavens, even from there Yahweh your God shall gather you, and from there he shall bring you back.
Deu 30:5 And Yahweh your God will bring you to the land that your ancestors had taken possession of, and he will make you successful, and he will make you more numerous than your ancestors.
Deu 30:6 “And Yahweh your God will circumcise your heart and the heart of your offspring to love Yahweh your God with all your heart and with all your inner self so that you may live.
Deu 30:7 And Yahweh your God will put all these curses on your enemies and on those who hate you, on those who harassed you.
Deu 30:8 And you will again listen to the voice of Yahweh, and you will do all his commandments that I am commanding you today.

If these are the latter days, which many claim they are, we should not be surprised to see many people around the world turning back to the instructions of Yahweh as prophesied by Moses. There are many books written on the rapture, beast and the tribulation, but what about this latter day prophecy? It seems today people are turning back to the instructions in the Torah in the light of the teachings of Jesus, where for many years these practices were looked upon in scorn by the church. I am talking about things such as Sabbath observing, feast days and forsaking the idolatry of the nations’ gods. The fourth century church made these commands of Yahweh illegal. To quote Constantine, emperor of Rome, regarding the keeping of Passover:

“We ought not, therefore, to have anything in common with the Jews, for the Saviour has shown us another way; our worship follows a more legitimate and more convenient course (the order of the days of the week); and consequently, in unanimously adopting this mode, we desire, dearest brethren, to separate ourselves from the detestable company of the Jews, for it is truly shameful for us to hear them boast that without their direction we could not keep this feast.”

This was not the beginning, but well into the changes made by men. Are there two gods, one of the Jews and one of the church, rendering two peoples of God? Paul makes it very clear; No!:

Gal 3:28 There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.

Ezekiel is shown by Yahweh that His people will forsake their idols and return to the ways of Yahweh.

Eze 14:1 And men from the elders of Israel came to me, and they sat before me.
Eze 14:2 And the word of Yahweh came to me, saying,
Eze 14:3 “Son of man, these men took up their idols into their heart and they placed before themselves a stumbling block of their guilt. Should I really let myself be consulted by them?
Eze 14:4 Therefore speak with them, and you must say to them, ‘Thus says the Lord Yahweh: “Every person from the house of Israel who brings up his idols into his heart and places before himself a stumbling block of his guilt and yet he comes to the prophet, I Yahweh, I will respond to him through this act with respect to the multitude of his idols,
Eze 14:5 so that I may take hold of the house of Israel by their heart, those who are estranged from me, all of them, through their idols.’
Eze 14:6 Therefore say to the house of Israel, ‘Thus says the Lord Yahweh: “Return, and turn away from your idols and from all of your detestable things! Turn away your faces!”‘
Eze 14:7 For each person from the house of Israel, and from the alien who dwells as an alien in Israel, who separates himself from following me and brings up his idols into his heart and places before himself a stumbling block of his guilt, and yet he comes to the prophet to consult him concerning me, I Yahweh will answer him myself.
Eze 14:8 And I will set my face against that person, and I will make him to be a sign and make him into the subject of proverbs; and I will cut him off from the midst of my people, and you will know I am Yahweh.
Eze 14:9 And the prophet, if he is deceived and he speaks a word, I Yahweh, I have deceived that prophet, and I will stretch out my hand against him, and I will destroy him from the midst of my people Israel.
Eze 14:10 And they will bear their guilt, like the guilt of the inquirer so the guilt of the prophet will be,
Eze 14:11 so that the house of Israel will not go astray again from me, and they will not make themselves unclean again with all of their transgressions, and they will be for me a people, and I will be for them as God,” declares the Lord Yahweh.

If we are truly seeing people of God turning from their superstitions and commandments of men, and following the ways of Yahweh, then this is a fulfillment of these prophesies. All over the world people are keeping the feasts of Yahweh, keeping His Sabbaths and eating what He said to eat, despite being ridiculed by the mainstream church. Is what we are seeing a religious fad or a movement of God? I believe it is prophesy being fulfilled, and the church at large either has to embrace it or be left behind. As Gamaliel said in Acts 5:39, “but if it is of God, you will not be able to overthrow them. You might even be found opposing God!”

Act 5:34 But a Pharisee in the council named Gamaliel, a teacher of the law held in honor by all the people, stood up and gave orders to put the men outside for a little while.
Act 5:35 And he said to them, “Men of Israel, take care what you are about to do with these men.
Act 5:36 For before these days Theudas rose up, claiming to be somebody, and a number of men, about four hundred, joined him. He was killed, and all who followed him were dispersed and came to nothing.
Act 5:37 After him Judas the Galilean rose up in the days of the census and drew away some of the people after him. He too perished, and all who followed him were scattered.
Act 5:38 So in the present case I tell you, keep away from these men and let them alone, for if this plan or this undertaking is of man, it will fail;
Act 5:39 but if it is of God, you will not be able to overthrow them. You might even be found opposing God!”

If this is prophesy being fulfilled, what will happen to those who mock and ridicule the movement? I am speaking of those in the church who refer to people keeping the instructions of Yahweh as Judiazers, just as their counterparts in the old Roman Empire did. Do we continue to follow the canons of Rome, or do we listen to the commands of Yahweh? Joshua puts it like this:

Jos 24:14 “So now, revere Yahweh and serve him in sincerity and faithfulness; remove the gods that your ancestors served beyond the river and in Egypt, and serve Yahweh.
Jos 24:15 But if it is bad in your eyes to serve Yahweh, choose for yourselves today whom you want to serve, whether it is the gods that your ancestors served beyond the river, or the gods of the Amorites in whose land you are living; but as for me and my household, we will serve Yahweh.”

If this movement is of Yahweh, then what will happen to those in the church that scoff at Yahweh’s commands, precepts and statutes? Romans 1:28, “And since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them up to a debased mind to do what ought not to be done.

Rom 1:18 For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth.
Rom 1:19 For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them.
Rom 1:20 For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse.
Rom 1:21 For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened.
Rom 1:22 Claiming to be wise, they became fools,
Rom 1:23 and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things.
Rom 1:24 Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves,
Rom 1:25 because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever! Amen.
Rom 1:26 For this reason God gave them up to dishonorable passions. For their women exchanged natural relations for those that are contrary to nature;
Rom 1:27 and the men likewise gave up natural relations with women and were consumed with passion for one another, men committing shameless acts with men and receiving in themselves the due penalty for their error.
Rom 1:28 And since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them up to a debased mind to do what ought not to be done.
Rom 1:29 They were filled with all manner of unrighteousness, evil, covetousness, malice. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, maliciousness. They are gossips,
Rom 1:30 slanderers, haters of God, insolent, haughty, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents,
Rom 1:31 foolish, faithless, heartless, ruthless.
Rom 1:32 Though they know God’s righteous decree that those who practice such things deserve to die, they not only do them but give approval to those who practice them.

Prior to this Paul quotes Habakkuk:

Rom 1:16 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.
Rom 1:17 For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith for faith, as it is written, “The righteous shall live by faith.”

Anytime a writer in the New Testament says, “it is written”, we should be compelled to find where “it is written”, and the correct context. Paul is not just reciting random scripture because it fits nicely with what he is saying out of context. Here is the verse in context:

Hab 2:1 I will stand at my post, and station myself on the rampart. And I will keep watch to see what he will say to me, and what he will answer concerning my complaint.
Hab 2:2 Then Yahweh answered me and said, “Write the vision and make it plain on the tablet so that it might be read quickly.
Hab 2:3 For there is yet a vision for the appointed time; it will give witness to the end, and it will not lie. If it tarries, wait for it, for it will surely come and not delay.
Hab 2:4 Look! His spirit within him is puffed up; it is not upright. But the righteous shall live by his faithfulness.
Hab 2:5 How much less the defiant; the arrogant, treacherous man? He who broadens his throat like Sheol, and who, like death, is not satisfied, and who gathers to himself all the nations, and harvested for himself all the peoples, will not succeed.

Here Habakkuk is waiting for an answer from Yahweh to the question from 1:13, “Why are you silent when the wicked swallows up someone more righteous than him?” He answers with, “The righteous will live by His faithfulness” or “by faith” in some translations. Who are the righteous that are being referred to here? Righteous is from Strong’s H6662.

H6662
צדּיק
tsaddı̂yq
BDB Definition:
1) just, lawful, righteous
1a) just, righteous (in government)
1b) just, right (in one’s cause)
1c) just, righteous (in conduct and character)
1d) righteous (as justified and vindicated by God)
1e) right, correct, lawful

The message that is being put forth is ultimately the righteous, just and lawful will come ahead of the defiant and the slanderers. Paul is using Habakkuk to back up his message because the message is the same. It is not by the righteousness of men, but through faith. The end result is still righteousness, just not by anything man can do on their own, but it is the Spirit that works inside of the man. Without the Spirit of Truth, there can be no righteousness. What is left is this:

Rom 1:28 And since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them up to a debased mind to do what ought not to be done.
Rom 1:29 They were filled with all manner of unrighteousness, evil, covetousness, malice. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, maliciousness. They are gossips,
Rom 1:30 slanderers, haters of God, insolent, haughty, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents,
Rom 1:31 foolish, faithless, heartless, ruthless.
Rom 1:32 Though they know God’s righteous decree that those who practice such things deserve to die, they not only do them but give approval to those who practice them.

For example, we are told liars cannot inherit the kingdom of God.

Rev 21:6 And he said to me, “It is done! I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end. To the thirsty I will give from the spring of the water of life without payment.
Rev 21:7 The one who conquers will have this heritage, and I will be his God and he will be my son.
Rev 21:8 But as for the cowardly, the faithless, the detestable, as for murderers, the sexually immoral, sorcerers, idolaters, and all liars, their portion will be in the lake that burns with fire and sulfur, which is the second death.”

Who is considered a liar? Fortunately the Bible interprets itself, and we have a definition of a liar given to us.

1Jn 2:1 My little children, I am writing these things to you so that you may not sin. But if anyone does sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous.
1Jn 2:2 He is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the sins of the whole world.
1Jn 2:3 And by this we know that we have come to know him, if we keep his commandments.
1Jn 2:4 Whoever says “I know him” but does not keep his commandments is a liar, and the truth is not in him,
1Jn 2:5 but whoever keeps his word, in him truly the love of God is perfected. By this we may know that we are in him:
1Jn 2:6 whoever says he abides in him ought to walk in the same way in which he walked.

The contemporary church is at a crossroads; join those who are turning back to the way and the truth of scripture, following the instructions of Yahweh, or be turned over to a reprobate mind. The distinction will be clear in the future to those who have eyes to see and ears to hear.

I often bring up the name of God in many of my blogs, and it is not necessarily to emphasize the spelling of the name in any particular language. “Name” means more than a string of letters that are associated with that which a person or deity is called by the phonetic pronunciation of those letters. The word “Name” in a biblical sense is referring to the reputation, DNA, essence, greatness or not so greatness, and all items associated with that person or deity.

For example, Yahweh gives us many things to associate us with Himself. One of these is His Sabbath day.

Exo 31:12 And Yahweh spoke to Moses and said,
Exo 31:13 “And you, speak to the Israelites, saying, ‘Surely you must keep my Sabbaths, because it is a sign between me and you throughout your generations, in order to know that I am Yahweh, who consecrates you.
Exo 31:14 And you must keep the Sabbath, because it is holy for you; defilers of it will surely be put to death, because anyone who does work on it—that person will be cut off from among his people.
Exo 31:15 On six days work can be done, and on the seventh is a Sabbath of complete rest, a holy day for Yahweh; anyone doing work on the Sabbath day will surely be put to death.
Exo 31:16 The Israelites will pay attention to the Sabbath in order to fulfill the Sabbath throughout their generations as a lasting covenant.
Exo 31:17 It is a sign between me and the Israelites forever, because in six days Yahweh made the heavens and the earth, and on the seventh he ceased and recovered.”

Another aspect that Yahweh gives of Himself are His special days. He tells us what they are, and to align ourselves with Him, through observing these days with Him.

Lev 23:1 Then Yahweh spoke to Moses, saying,
Lev 23:2 “Speak to the Israelites, and say to them, ‘The festivals of Yahweh that you shall proclaim are holy assemblies; these are my appointed times.

“Appointed times” or Yahweh’s feast days are His special days. One translation of the word is “ornaments”. The Hebrew word for appointed times is Strong’s H4150. In the ancient pictograph Hebrew, the root word consisted of an eye and a door, meaning “see the door” or “know the door”. This is 𐤏𐤃, or עד. It is not an accident that Jesus or Yahusha, the Messiah, calls Himself the door.

H4150
מועדה / מעד / מועד
mô‛êd / mô‛êd / mô‛âdâh
BDB Definition:
1) appointed place, appointed time, meeting
1a) appointed time
1a1) appointed time (general)
1a2) sacred season, set feast, appointed season
1b) appointed meeting
1c) appointed place
1d) appointed sign or signal
1e) tent of meeting

Joh 10:1 “Truly, truly, I say to you, he who does not enter the sheepfold by the door but climbs in by another way, that man is a thief and a robber.
Joh 10:2 But he who enters by the door is the shepherd of the sheep.
Joh 10:3 To him the gatekeeper opens. The sheep hear his voice, and he calls his own sheep by name and leads them out.
Joh 10:4 When he has brought out all his own, he goes before them, and the sheep follow him, for they know his voice.
Joh 10:5 A stranger they will not follow, but they will flee from him, for they do not know the voice of strangers.”
Joh 10:6 This figure of speech Jesus used with them, but they did not understand what he was saying to them.
Joh 10:7 So Jesus again said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, I am the door of the sheep.
Joh 10:8 All who came before me are thieves and robbers, but the sheep did not listen to them.
Joh 10:9 I am the door. If anyone enters by me, he will be saved and will go in and out and find pasture.

Before I go any further, it is important for me to explain that I do not follow the belief system of dispensationalism, where the God of the Old Testament is a different God than the God of the New Testament. The new covenant is not with some new entity called “the church”, it is with the entire house of Israel. We as believers can be grafted into the vine or root of the cultivated olive tree, which is Jesus. Here are some scriptures to consider:

Heb 8:8 For he finds fault with them when he says: “Behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will establish a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah,
Heb 8:9 not like the covenant that I made with their fathers on the day when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt. For they did not continue in my covenant, and so I showed no concern for them, declares the Lord.
Heb 8:10 For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the Lord: I will put my laws into their minds, and write them on their hearts, and I will be their God, and they shall be my people.

Mat 15:24 He answered, “I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.”

Eph 2:11 Therefore remember that at one time you Gentiles in the flesh, called “the uncircumcision” by what is called the circumcision, which is made in the flesh by hands—
Eph 2:12 remember that you were at that time separated from Christ, alienated from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world.
Eph 2:13 But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ.

There are more attributes that identify us with Yahweh. They are the instructions of His covenant. We know we are His when we live our life in a way the reflects how Jesus lived His life when He walked the Earth.

1Jn 5:1 Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ has been born of God, and everyone who loves the Father loves whoever has been born of him.
1Jn 5:2 By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God and obey his commandments.
1Jn 5:3 For this is the love of God, that we keep his commandments. And his commandments are not burdensome.

John equates loving His God as doing the commandments of His God. So with that in mind, how do we know which God we love and serve? Another valid question is: “How do we know we are not serving another god, ultimately the false light?” Yahweh gives us ways to determine if what we are following is the true way leading us to through the door of the Messiah. Consider the following scriptures:

Deu 13:1 “If a prophet stands up in your midst or a dreamer of dreams and he gives to you a sign or wonder,
Deu 13:2 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,’
Deu 13:3 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.
Deu 13:4 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.

Yahweh is telling us that He will test us with prophets that tell us to do something different than what He commands us to do. He gave some warnings to His people entering the land and what to do with any foreign gods or symbols of foreign gods:

Exo 23:24 “‘You will not bow to their gods, and you will not serve them, and you will not act according to their actions, because you will utterly demolish them, and you will utterly break their stone pillars.

The Bible is full of examples of Yahweh’s likes and dislikes, and what He wants us to do and not to do. If someone comes presenting ideas, traditions or symbols that are not those of Yahweh, we are not to have anything to do with them because they are not part of His name, which is fame, reputation and identity. The things we associate with our God are the things that tell us who our God is or is not. For example, if a stone pillar is involved in the symbolism, architecture or our praying and worship practices, that is an indicator that the god we are pointing to is the wrong one. Jesus makes it very clear that He is coming in the name of His Father, who is Yahweh of the Old Testament.

Joh 5:36 But the testimony that I have is greater than that of John. For the works that the Father has given me to accomplish, the very works that I am doing, bear witness about me that the Father has sent me.
Joh 5:37 And the Father who sent me has himself borne witness about me. His voice you have never heard, his form you have never seen,
Joh 5:38 and you do not have his word abiding in you, for you do not believe the one whom he has sent.
Joh 5:39 You search the Scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life; and it is they that bear witness about me,
Joh 5:40 yet you refuse to come to me that you may have life.
Joh 5:41 I do not receive glory from people.
Joh 5:42 But I know that you do not have the love of God within you.
Joh 5:43 I have come in my Father’s name, and you do not receive me. If another comes in his own name, you will receive him.
Joh 5:44 How can you believe, when you receive glory from one another and do not seek the glory that comes from the only God?
Joh 5:45 Do not think that I will accuse you to the Father. There is one who accuses you: Moses, on whom you have set your hope.
Joh 5:46 For if you believed Moses, you would believe me; for he wrote of me.
Joh 5:47 But if you do not believe his writings, how will you believe my words?”

Here we see Jesus explaining Himself after He healed someone on the Sabbath and that person picked up his bed supposedly breaking the Sabbath. John 5:18 “This was why the Jews were seeking all the more to kill him, because not only was he breaking the Sabbath, but he was even calling God his own Father, making himself equal with God.” Jesus or Yahusha, tells them that even though He comes in his Father’s name they do not receive Him, but they will receive another that comes in their own name. This is where we must look at the full definition of “Name”. In other words, Jesus came with the Father’s “stuff” and they rejected it, but someone else came with Babylonian ideology, such as the Talmud, and they accepted it. A very important statement by Jesus is, John 5:46-47: “For if you believed Moses, you would believe me; for he wrote of me. But if you do not believe his writings, how will you believe my words?”

Jesus implies someone cannot understand Him if they do not believe the writings of Moses. Also, this whole business about Jesus breaking the Sabbath cannot be true if He is the Messiah. If the Messiah breaks the commands of Himself, being the Word incarnate, He is a different god than Yahweh. Jesus says He is Lord of the Sabbath.

Mat 12:8 For the Son of Man is lord of the Sabbath.”

In this context, lord comes from the word Kurios, which is not only used for Yahweh’s name YHWH in the Greek Septuagint, but it is where we get words like curator. The Messiah created the Sabbath through being the Word that was there in the beginning with Yahweh, creating all things, having all things made through Him. A curator is a guardian. Jesus showed us how to honour the Sabbath the proper way because it had been corrupted by belief systems of other gods. It is important to note that Jesus did not say to disregard the Sabbath, or start keeping it on the venerable day of the sun, ‘Dies Solis”, because if Jesus had done that, He would fail the Deuteronomy 13 test, and be a false prophet.

If a religious organization has a very tall stone pillar at the center of their headquarters, and they specifically change the day Yahweh tells us to observe the Sabbath, they are signaling to the world that the god that they worship is not Yahweh of the Old Testament, therefore, the messiah they worship is not the true Messiah, but an imposter. He is Sol or Mithras, Dagon or Helel, the light bearer. It is fitting where these deities’ birthdays are a few days after the winter Solstice.

Mat 24:4 And Jesus answered them, “See that no one leads you astray.
Mat 24:5 For many will come in my name, saying, ‘I am the Christ,’ and they will lead many astray.

The use of the word “name” here is once again meaning more than just the pronunciation of letters that consist in the name. Name is Strong’s G3686

G3686
ὄνομα
onoma
Thayer Definition:
1) name: univ. of proper names
2) the name is used for everything which the name covers, everything the thought or feeling of which is aroused in the mind by mentioning, hearing, remembering, the name, i.e. for one’s rank, authority, interests, pleasure, command, excellences, deeds etc.
3) persons reckoned up by name
4) the cause or reason named: on this account, because he suffers as a Christian, for this reason

This is the reason we are told to ponder the name of Yahweh.

Mal 3:16 Then those who revered Yahweh spoke with one another. And Yahweh listened attentively and heard, and a scroll of remembrance was written before him of those who revere Yahweh and ponder his name.
Mal 3:17 “They will be mine,” says Yahweh of hosts, “on the day that I am acting, my treasured possession. I will have compassion on them as a man has compassion on his son who serves him.

This is not talking about sitting around pondering the letters that comprise the name, although doing that is part of the process. It is more like sitting and pondering about what the Bible verses in this blog mean. Trying to understand which God you are serving, Yahweh or someone else, that is presenting a phony, iniquitous filled messiah. Many modern Jews reject Jesus because of how the church presents Him. They look at the church at large, the messiah they are presenting, and immediately know that it cannot be the Messiah they are waiting for. One who disregards the feasts, sabbaths and commandments of Yahweh cannot be the Messiah. In that light they are correct, because unfortunately, often the contemporary church, comprised of all 40-50,000 denominations, is presenting a false messiah. Moses spoke of the real Messiah:

Deu 18:9 “When you come to the land that Yahweh your God is giving to you, you must not learn to do like the detestable practices of those nations.
Deu 18:10 There shall not be found among you one who makes his son or his daughter go through the fire, or one who practices divination, or an interpreter of signs, or an augur, or sorcerer,
Deu 18:11 or one who casts magic spells, or one who consults a spirit of the dead, or spiritist, or one who inquires of the dead.
Deu 18:12 For everyone doing these things is detestable to Yahweh, and because of these detestable things Yahweh your God is driving them out from before you.
Deu 18:13 You must be blameless before Yahweh your God.
Deu 18:14 For these nations that you are about to dispossess listen to interpreters of signs and to diviners, but Yahweh your God has not allowed you to do the same.
Deu 18:15 “Yahweh your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from your midst, from your countrymen, and to him you shall listen.
Deu 18:16 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!’
Deu 18:17 And Yahweh said to me, ‘They are right in what they have said.
Deu 18:18 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.
Deu 18:19 And then the man that will not listen to my words that he shall speak in my name, I will hold accountable.

In order for Jesus to fulfill the Messiah role, He cannot speak something different than Yahweh. It is impossible. They are one in the same. Remember, Jesus said if a person doesn’t believe Moses they will not believe Him.

Joh 5:46 For if you believed Moses, you would believe me; for he wrote of me.
Joh 5:47 But if you do not believe his writings, how will you believe my words?”

This indicates if we are getting a different message from Jesus or the Apostles than that which Yahweh gave in scripture, than we have two options: 1) Jesus of the New Testament writings, and His apostles are not who they say they are, or 2) the people who are imposing their theology on the scripture, telling us the Sabbath is no longer applicable, it’s on a different day, that things that were defined as sin by Yahweh are no longer sin, or the feasts and Sabbaths that are adornments of Yahweh no longer are His gift to us, are pointing us to a different god. If someone or something is trying to get us to celebrate the days that belong to other deities, using symbols of the heathen gods, they are being used as a test for us to see if we will serve Yahweh, or chase after the symbols, names and practices of other gods with their false messiahs, stone pillars, Asherah poles, sorceries and inquiries of the dead, just as Deuteronomy 13:3 states.

Deu 12:29 “When Yahweh your God has cut off the nations whom you are about to go to, to dispossess them before you, and you have dispossessed them, and you live in their land,
Deu 12:30 take care so that you are not ensnared into imitating them after their being destroyed from before you, and so that you not enquire concerning their gods, saying, ‘How did these nations serve their gods, and thus I myself want to do also.’
Deu 12:31 You must not do so toward Yahweh your God, because of every detestable thing they have done for their gods Yahweh hates, for even their sons and their daughters they would burn in the fire to their gods.
Deu 12:32 All of the things that I am commanding you, you must diligently observe; you shall not add to it, and you shall not take away from it.”
Deu 13:1 “If a prophet stands up in your midst or a dreamer of dreams and he gives to you a sign or wonder,
Deu 13:2 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,’
Deu 13:3 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.

Paul is no different when it comes to applying the Deuteronomy 13 test. Does Paul tell us to do things contrary to what Yahweh commanded, or do people just say he does trying to lead us to a false messiah? Peter warns us about what people will do with the words of Paul.

2Pe 3:15 And count the patience of our Lord as salvation, just as our beloved brother Paul also wrote to you according to the wisdom given him,
2Pe 3:16 as he does in all his letters when he speaks in them of these matters. There are some things in them that are hard to understand, which the ignorant and unstable twist to their own destruction, as they do the other Scriptures.
2Pe 3:17 You therefore, beloved, knowing this beforehand, take care that you are not carried away with the error of lawless people and lose your own stability.
2Pe 3:18 But grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. To him be the glory both now and to the day of eternity. Amen.

If a person does not read, regard or understand Moses, they will not understand Paul; just as Peter warns and Jesus said about himself. John 5:46-47 “For if you believed Moses, you would believe me; for he wrote of me. But if you do not believe his writings, how will you believe my words?” I have given many examples of where Paul is misinterpreted to embrace lawless (Torahless) behaviour in previous blog posts. Here is my favourite place In scripture which I have pointed out several times in the past.

Gal 4:1 I mean that the heir, as long as he is a child, is no different from a slave, though he is the owner of everything,
Gal 4:2 but he is under guardians and managers until the date set by his father.
Gal 4:3 In the same way we also, when we were children, were enslaved to the elementary principles of the world.
Gal 4:4 But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law,
Gal 4:5 to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons.
Gal 4:6 And because you are sons, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, “Abba! Father!”
Gal 4:7 So you are no longer a slave, but a son, and if a son, then an heir through God.
Gal 4:8 Formerly, when you did not know God, you were enslaved to those that by nature are not gods.
Gal 4:9 But now that you have come to know God, or rather to be known by God, how can you turn back again to the weak and worthless elementary principles of the world, whose slaves you want to be once more?
Gal 4:10 You observe days and months and seasons and years!
Gal 4:11 I am afraid I may have labored over you in vain.
Gal 4:12 Brothers, I entreat you, become as I am, for I also have become as you are. You did me no wrong.
Gal 4:13 You know it was because of a bodily ailment that I preached the gospel to you at first,
Gal 4:14 and though my condition was a trial to you, you did not scorn or despise me, but received me as an angel of God, as Christ Jesus.
Gal 4:15 What then has become of your blessedness? For I testify to you that, if possible, you would have gouged out your eyes and given them to me.
Gal 4:16 Have I then become your enemy by telling you the truth?
Gal 4:17 They make much of you, but for no good purpose. They want to shut you out, that you may make much of them.
Gal 4:18 It is always good to be made much of for a good purpose, and not only when I am present with you,
Gal 4:19 my little children, for whom I am again in the anguish of childbirth until Christ is formed in you!
Gal 4:20 I wish I could be present with you now and change my tone, for I am perplexed about you.

The law Paul is referring to here is not the life giving instructions of Yahweh. It cannot be simply because he is attributing it to other gods. Humanity at large was given over to the spiritual overlords of the Earth through death by the law of sin and death, and will still remain there unless they are grafted in to the cultivated olive tree of Yahweh by the door of the Messiah. Can Paul be considered sane if in one letter he calls Yahweh’s Torah the weak and beggarly elements of the world, then in another letter calls this same Torah righteous and holy? Just as Peter states Paul is hard to understand. If we know and study the same books Paul studied, the Old Testament, we will have a better chance at understanding the words he writes. In the letter to the Romans he explains the difference between the law of sin and death and the law of Yahweh.

Rom 7:7 What then shall we say? That the law is sin? By no means! Yet if it had not been for the law, I would not have known sin. For I would not have known what it is to covet if the law had not said, “You shall not covet.”
Rom 7:8 But sin, seizing an opportunity through the commandment, produced in me all kinds of covetousness. For apart from the law, sin lies dead.
Rom 7:9 I was once alive apart from the law, but when the commandment came, sin came alive and I died.
Rom 7:10 The very commandment that promised life proved to be death to me.
Rom 7:11 For sin, seizing an opportunity through the commandment, deceived me and through it killed me.
Rom 7:12 So the law is holy, and the commandment is holy and righteous and good.
Rom 7:13 Did that which is good, then, bring death to me? By no means! It was sin, producing death in me through what is good, in order that sin might be shown to be sin, and through the commandment might become sinful beyond measure.
Rom 7:14 For we know that the law is spiritual, but I am of the flesh, sold under sin.
Rom 7:15 For I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate.
Rom 7:16 Now if I do what I do not want, I agree with the law, that it is good.
Rom 7:17 So now it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me.
Rom 7:18 For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh. For I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out.
Rom 7:19 For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing.
Rom 7:20 Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me.
Rom 7:21 So I find it to be a law that when I want to do right, evil lies close at hand.
Rom 7:22 For I delight in the law of God, in my inner being,
Rom 7:23 but I see in my members another law waging war against the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members.
Rom 7:24 Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death?
Rom 7:25 Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, I myself serve the law of God with my mind, but with my flesh I serve the law of sin.

If a person reads Paul, following the wrong god and messiah, then the conclusion will be that we no longer need to regard the instructions of Yahweh. If a person knows Yahweh, His fame, righteousness, ways and truth, then that person will understand what “delighting in the law of God” is and what is waging war in the persons mind.

Just to conclude this tangent we discussed about the enslavement to the elementary principles of the world, let’s look at who these devils are and what will happen to them.

Deu 32:7 Remember the days of old; consider the years of many generations; ask your father, and he will show you, your elders, and they will tell you.
Deu 32:8 When the Most High gave to the nations their inheritance, when he divided mankind, he fixed the borders of the peoples according to the number of the sons of God.
Deu 32:9 But the LORD’s portion is his people, Jacob his allotted heritage.
Deu 32:10 “He found him in a desert land, and in the howling waste of the wilderness; he encircled him, he cared for him, he kept him as the apple of his eye.

These sons of God are the principalities and rulers Paul refers to in other places. We will be redeemed above their status, and they don’t like it, wanting to keep us enslaved. The sooner people realize what these dark forces are all about, the sooner those people can see through the deception of the false gods and messiahs. Just because someone calls their messiah by the name of Jesus does not mean the Messiah of Yahweh is being spoken of. Yet, look what happens in the end:

1Co 6:1 When one of you has a grievance against another, does he dare go to law before the unrighteous instead of the saints?
1Co 6:2 Or do you not know that the saints will judge the world? And if the world is to be judged by you, are you incompetent to try trivial cases?
1Co 6:3 Do you not know that we are to judge angels? How much more, then, matters pertaining to this life!

These angels or entities that once enslaved us will be removed so that we can have the inheritance to the kingdom as joint heirs with Jesus! Why would we allow them to control us now by following after their special things, opposing the things of Yahweh?

Which god are you serving? The creator of the universe, Yahweh, 𐤉𐤄𐤅𐤄, who sent His son to be the door to access Him, or some other lesser deity that is tricking you to worship him and his false messiah through pretty ornaments, light, false love, spirituality and condoning iniquitous behaviours, instead of the Spirit of Truth and Wisdom? The only way to understand His Word is through obedience to obtain the Spirit of Truth.

Joh 14:15 “If you love me, you will keep my commandments.
Joh 14:16 And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Helper, to be with you forever,
Joh 14:17 even the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him. You know him, for he dwells with you and will be in you.
Joh 14:18 “I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you.
Joh 14:19 Yet a little while and the world will see me no more, but you will see me. Because I live, you also will live.
Joh 14:20 In that day you will know that I am in my Father, and you in me, and I in you.
Joh 14:21 Whoever has my commandments and keeps them, he it is who loves me. And he who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I will love him and manifest myself to him.”

Ponder His name and follow His ways to obtain the Spirit of Truth and show true love to the Creator, Yahuah.

Featured image taken by Emma Vail.

Did you ever wonder where the tradition of the jack-o-lantern came from? We can find them referred to indirectly in the Bible. When Jacob packed up his family to flee from his father-in-law, his wife Rachael took her father’s idols so he would not be able to consult them as to their whereabouts.

Gen 31:26 Then Laban said to Jacob, “What have you done that you tricked me and have carried off my daughters like captives of the sword?
Gen 31:27 Why did you hide your intention to flee and trick me, and did not tell me so that I would have sent you away with joy and song and tambourine and lyre?
Gen 31:28 And why did you not give me opportunity to kiss my grandsons and my daughters goodbye? Now you have behaved foolishly by doing this.
Gen 31:29 It is in my power to do harm to you, but the God of your father spoke to me last night saying, ‘Take care from speaking with Jacob, whether good or evil.’
Gen 31:30 Now, you have surely gone because you desperately longed for the house of your father, but why did you steal my gods?”
Gen 31:31 Then Jacob answered and said to Laban, “Because I was afraid, for I thought, ‘Lest you take your daughters from me by force.’
Gen 31:32 But with whomever you find your gods, he shall not live. In the presence of your kinsmen now identify what is with me that is yours and take it.” Now Jacob did not know that Rachel had stolen them.
Gen 31:33 Then Laban went into Jacob’s tent and Leah’s tent and the tent of the two female servants and did not find his gods. And he came out of Leah’s tent and went into Rachel’s tent.
Gen 31:34 Now Rachel had taken the idols and put them in the saddle bag of the camel and sat on them. And Jacob searched the whole tent thoroughly but did not find them.
Gen 31:35 And she said to her father, “Let there not be anger in the eyes of my lord, for I am not able to rise before you, for the way of women is with me. And he searched carefully and did not find the idols.
Gen 31:36 Then Jacob became angry and quarreled with Laban. Jacob answered and said to Laban, “What is my offense? What is my sin that you pursued after me?

We get a definition of these idols from the book of Jasher. These heads of the Chaldean enemies would be made as idols. People like Rachael’s father would have these idols of shrunken heads with candles, and consult them through demonic entities and familiar spirits. They are called teraphim.

“And Rachel stole her father’s images, and she took them and she concealed them upon the camel upon which she sat, and she went on. And this is the manner of the images; in taking a man who is the first born and slaying him and taking the hair off his head, and taking salt and salting the head and anointing it in oil, then taking a small tablet of copper or a tablet of gold and writing the name upon it, and placing the tablet under his tongue, and taking the head with the tablet under the tongue and putting it in the house, and lighting up lights before it and bowing down to it. And at the time when they bow down to it, it speaketh to them in all matters that they ask of it, through the power of the name which is written in it. And some make them in the figures of men, of gold and silver, and go to them in times known to them, and the figures receive the influence of the stars, and tell them future things, and in this manner were the images which Rachel stole from her father. And Rachel stole these images which were her father’s, in order that Laban might not know through them where Jacob had gone.” Jasher 31:40-44

Human heads were eventually replaced by vegetables like turnips and pumpkins, but what about the demons that spoke through these idols? Do they care if they are working through a human shrunken skull or a vegetable?

Consider these verses:

1Pe 1:13 Therefore, preparing your minds for action, and being sober-minded, set your hope fully on the grace that will be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ.
1Pe 1:14 As obedient children, do not be conformed to the passions of your former ignorance,
1Pe 1:15 but as he who called you is holy, you also be holy in all your conduct,
1Pe 1:16 since it is written, “You shall be holy, for I am holy.”

Deu 12:29 “When Yahweh your God has cut off the nations whom you are about to go to, to dispossess them before you, and you have dispossessed them, and you live in their land,
Deu 12:30 take care so that you are not ensnared into imitating them after their being destroyed from before you, and so that you not enquire concerning their gods, saying, ‘How did these nations serve their gods, and thus I myself want to do also.’
Deu 12:31 You must not do so toward Yahweh your God, because of every detestable thing they have done for their gods Yahweh hates, for even their sons and their daughters they would burn in the fire to their gods.
Deu 12:32 All of the things that I am commanding you, you must diligently observe; you shall not add to it, and you shall not take away from it.”

1Co 10:19 What do I imply then? That food offered to idols is anything, or that an idol is anything?
1Co 10:20 No, I imply that what pagans sacrifice they offer to demons and not to God. I do not want you to be participants with demons.
1Co 10:21 You cannot drink the cup of the Lord and the cup of demons. You cannot partake of the table of the Lord and the table of demons.
1Co 10:22 Shall we provoke the Lord to jealousy? Are we stronger than he?

When you celebrate this high sabbat with trunk or treats in church parking lots, you are paying homage to the wrong god, and entertaining these dark entities.

God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth. John 4:24

There are many, many subjects that I have not heard addressed in the 45 years I have been in the contemporary Christian church, and I have heard many of the same sermons preached over and over again by a hundred different Pastors and Preachers. I am not complaining nor disparaging anyone, it just seems to be a matter of circumstance. Here are some common sermon topics: the prodigal son, the good samaritan, the widow and the two mites, robbing god, Elisha burning his farm equipment, the story of the birth of Jesus at Christmas, Jesus’ resurrection on Easter, thankfulness at Thanksgiving, slaying your giants like David, and the list goes on and on. At Hear the Matter, we try to explore the areas of scripture that are rarely discussed. In some cases, it would be discouraged to bring up some of these topics. If a topic is not open for discussion, it is a clue there are issues at hand.

In this blog, I have made a list of some questions, some of which I believe there is a commonly known answer in some circles, some of which I have theories, and some I am still searching for the answer.

To start, a common sermon I have heard dozens of time in my life is about the prodigal son. In my experience, it has always been referred to as a person who left the faith and came back, or literally a child that was brought up in church, went astray, then returned. Those are not bad examples, but was Jesus just referring to some random person’s son who went astray? Here is the parable:

Luk 15:11 And he said, “There was a man who had two sons.
Luk 15:12 And the younger of them said to his father, ‘Father, give me the share of property that is coming to me.’ And he divided his property between them.
Luk 15:13 Not many days later, the younger son gathered all he had and took a journey into a far country, and there he squandered his property in reckless living.
Luk 15:14 And when he had spent everything, a severe famine arose in that country, and he began to be in need.
Luk 15:15 So he went and hired himself out to one of the citizens of that country, who sent him into his fields to feed pigs.
Luk 15:16 And he was longing to be fed with the pods that the pigs ate, and no one gave him anything.
Luk 15:17 “But when he came to himself, he said, ‘How many of my father’s hired servants have more than enough bread, but I perish here with hunger!
Luk 15:18 I will arise and go to my father, and I will say to him, “Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you.
Luk 15:19 I am no longer worthy to be called your son. Treat me as one of your hired servants.”’
Luk 15:20 And he arose and came to his father. But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and felt compassion, and ran and embraced him and kissed him.
Luk 15:21 And the son said to him, ‘Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son.’
Luk 15:22 But the father said to his servants, ‘Bring quickly the best robe, and put it on him, and put a ring on his hand, and shoes on his feet.
Luk 15:23 And bring the fattened calf and kill it, and let us eat and celebrate.
Luk 15:24 For this my son was dead, and is alive again; he was lost, and is found.’ And they began to celebrate.
Luk 15:25 “Now his older son was in the field, and as he came and drew near to the house, he heard music and dancing.
Luk 15:26 And he called one of the servants and asked what these things meant.
Luk 15:27 And he said to him, ‘Your brother has come, and your father has killed the fattened calf, because he has received him back safe and sound.’
Luk 15:28 But he was angry and refused to go in. His father came out and entreated him,
Luk 15:29 but he answered his father, ‘Look, these many years I have served you, and I never disobeyed your command, yet you never gave me a young goat, that I might celebrate with my friends.
Luk 15:30 But when this son of yours came, who has devoured your property with prostitutes, you killed the fattened calf for him!’
Luk 15:31 And he said to him, ‘Son, you are always with me, and all that is mine is yours.
Luk 15:32 It was fitting to celebrate and be glad, for this your brother was dead, and is alive; he was lost, and is found.’”

Jesus is talking about some very specific things here. The father is Yahuah, (Yahweh YHWH 𐤉𐤄𐤅𐤄). The son that left was Ephraim, also referred to as the house of Israel, and the older son that was jealous was Judah or “the Jews”. Feeding the pigs and longing to eat food as good as theirs represents Ephraim rejecting the commandments. The older son’s complaint about the prostitutes is referring to the many gods the house of Israel, Ephraim, or the younger brother, whored with against Yahuah. This whole parable is about the two houses coming back through the new or renewed covenant by what Jesus would do. With that sort of interpretation in mind, here are some questions I have, some of which, I am searching the Word for answers. Some of these questions I have discussed in my previous blogs.

What is the significance of adding the “Hey” sound to Abraham and Sarah’s name?

Gen 17:5 Your name shall no longer be called Abram, but your name shall be Abraham, for I will make you the father of a multitude of nations.

Gen 17:15 And God said to Abraham, “as for Sarai your wife, you shall not call her name Sarai, for Sarah shall be her name.

What does Jesus mean when He says He is the Alpha and Omega?

Rev 22:12 “Behold, I am coming soon, bringing my recompense with me, to repay each one for what he has done.
Rev 22:13 I am the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end.”

What does Daniel do to seal the book? What book?

Dan 12:1 “At that time shall arise Michael, the great prince who has charge of your people. And there shall be a time of trouble, such as never has been since there was a nation till that time. But at that time your people shall be delivered, everyone whose name shall be found written in the book.
Dan 12:2 And many of those who sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt.
Dan 12:3 And those who are wise shall shine like the brightness of the sky above; and those who turn many to righteousness, like the stars forever and ever.
Dan 12:4 But you, Daniel, shut up the words and seal the book, until the time of the end. Many shall run to and fro, and knowledge shall increase.”
Dan 12:5 Then I, Daniel, looked, and behold, two others stood, one on this bank of the stream and one on that bank of the stream.
Dan 12:6 And someone said to the man clothed in linen, who was above the waters of the stream, “How long shall it be till the end of these wonders?”
Dan 12:7 And I heard the man clothed in linen, who was above the waters of the stream; he raised his right hand and his left hand toward heaven and swore by him who lives forever that it would be for a time, times, and half a time, and that when the shattering of the power of the holy people comes to an end all these things would be finished.
Dan 12:8 I heard, but I did not understand. Then I said, “O my lord, what shall be the outcome of these things?”
Dan 12:9 He said, “Go your way, Daniel, for the words are shut up and sealed until the time of the end.

Where is the church in the new covenant? It is made with the house of Israel.

Heb 8:10 For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the Lord: I will put my laws into their minds, and write them on their hearts, and I will be their God, and they shall be my people.
Heb 8:11 And they shall not teach, each one his neighbor and each one his brother, saying, ‘Know the Lord,’ for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest.
Heb 8:12 For I will be merciful toward their iniquities, and I will remember their sins no more.”

What is the mystery in Romans 16:25-27?

Rom 16:25 Now to him who is able to strengthen you according to my gospel and the preaching of Jesus Christ, according to the revelation of the mystery that was kept secret for long ages
Rom 16:26 but has now been disclosed and through the prophetic writings has been made known to all nations, according to the command of the eternal God, to bring about the obedience of faith—
Rom 16:27 to the only wise God be glory forevermore through Jesus Christ! Amen.

What is Paul referring to concerning Jannes and Jambres? Who are they?

2Ti 3:8 Just as Jannes and Jambres opposed Moses, so these men also oppose the truth, men corrupted in mind and disqualified regarding the faith.

What is the mystery of Christ and the church becoming one flesh?

Eph 5:31 “Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.”
Eph 5:32 This mystery is profound, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church.
Eph 5:33 However, let each one of you love his wife as himself, and let the wife see that she respects her husband.

How could the thief be in paradise with Jesus the day he died when Jesus spent three days and three nights in the grave and had not ascended to the Father? Hint: there are no commas in the Greek language, they are inferred by the translators.

Luk 23:39 One of the criminals who were hanged railed at him, saying, “Are you not the Christ? Save yourself and us!”
Luk 23:40 But the other rebuked him, saying, “Do you not fear God, since you are under the same sentence of condemnation?
Luk 23:41 And we indeed justly, for we are receiving the due reward of our deeds; but this man has done nothing wrong.”
Luk 23:42 And he said, “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.”
Luk 23:43 And he said to him, “Truly, I say to you, today you will be with me in paradise.”

Joh 20:16 Jesus said to her, “Mary.” She turned and said to him in Aramaic, “Rabboni!” (which means Teacher).
Joh 20:17 Jesus said to her, “Do not cling to me, for I have not yet ascended to the Father; but go to my brothers and say to them, ‘I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.’”

There is a difference between us knowing Jesus and Jesus knowing us. What is it?

Mat 7:21 “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven.
Mat 7:22 On that day many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name?’
Mat 7:23 And then will I declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.’

Who is Jesus referring to in John 5:43?

Joh 5:43 I have come in my Father’s name, and you do not receive me. If another comes in his own name, you will receive him.

Why did Jude and Peter reference events in Enoch, yet we do not regard the book?

Jud 1:14 It was also about these that Enoch, the seventh from Adam, prophesied, saying, “Behold, the Lord comes with ten thousands of his holy ones,
Jud 1:15 to execute judgment on all and to convict all the ungodly of all their deeds of ungodliness that they have committed in such an ungodly way, and of all the harsh things that ungodly sinners have spoken against him.”

2Pe 3:10 But the day of the Lord will come like a thief, and then the heavens will pass away with a roar, and the heavenly bodies will be burned up and dissolved, and the earth and the works that are done on it will be exposed.
2Pe 3:11 Since all these things are thus to be dissolved, what sort of people ought you to be in lives of holiness and godliness,
2Pe 3:12 waiting for and hastening the coming of the day of God, because of which the heavens will be set on fire and dissolved, and the heavenly bodies will melt as they burn!

Why did Saul’s name change to Paul, and what does it mean?

Act 13:9 But Saul, who was also called Paul, filled with the Holy Spirit, looked intently at him

Why are the two most important days celebrated in Christianity (Easter and Christmas), not mentioned in scripture, and not celebrated in the first century church? Why is there no mention of Hallow’s Eve, All Saint’s day, Lent and Good Friday being celebrated?

By what authority did the Council of Laodicea forbid celebrating the Sabbath in 346 AD, which is one of the Ten Commandments? This is in direct rebellion to the Word of Yahweh, spoken directly, face to face, to the congregation of the twelve tribes at Mount Horeb. Should we follow Rome or Yahuah, יהוה, the creator of all things?

Canon XXIX.
Christians must not judaize by resting on the Sabbath, but must work on that day, rather honouring the Lord’s Day; and, if they can, resting then as Christians. But if any shall be found to be judaizers, let them be anathema from Christ.
Notes.
Ancient Epitome of Canon XXIX.
A Christian shall not stop work on the Sabbath, but on the Lord’s Day.
Balsamon.
Here the Fathers order that no one of the faithful shall stop work on the Sabbath as do the Jews, but that they should honour the Lord’s Day, on account of the Lord’s resurrection, and that on that day they should abstain from manual labour and go to church. But thus abstaining from work on Sunday they do not lay down as a necessity, but they add, “if they can.” For if through need or any other necessity any one worked on the Lord’s day this was not reckoned against him

By what authority did the Westminster confessions reduce the accepted books in the canon to 66 books in 1647?

What is the significance of the 5 loaves for the 5000, the 7 loaves for the 4000 and 12 and 7 baskets left over that were gathered? I am sure these are not random numbers.

Mat 16:5 When the disciples reached the other side, they had forgotten to bring any bread.
Mat 16:6 Jesus said to them, “Watch and beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and Sadducees.”
Mat 16:7 And they began discussing it among themselves, saying, “We brought no bread.”
Mat 16:8 But Jesus, aware of this, said, “O you of little faith, why are you discussing among yourselves the fact that you have no bread?
Mat 16:9 Do you not yet perceive? Do you not remember the five loaves for the five thousand, and how many baskets you gathered?
Mat 16:10 Or the seven loaves for the four thousand, and how many baskets you gathered?
Mat 16:11 How is it that you fail to understand that I did not speak about bread? Beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and Sadducees.”
Mat 16:12 Then they understood that he did not tell them to beware of the leaven of bread, but of the teaching of the Pharisees and Sadducees.

Why were there more copies of the book of Jubilees found than Genesis in the caves of Qumran?

Why is Cainan listed in the genealogy in Luke as a son of Arphaxad, but not in Genesis?

Luk 3:36 the son of Cainan, the son of Arphaxad, the son of Shem, the son of Noah, the son of Lamech,

Gen 10:24 Arpachshad fathered Shelah; and Shelah fathered Eber.

Why was it not acceptable to Yahweh for Aaron and Jeroboam to make up their own special days, complete with symbols from other deities, in honour of Yahweh, but it is supposedly acceptable to Yahweh for the “church” to create special days with symbols and practices borrowed from other deities?

Why do translators translate breath to Spirit from the Hebrew, and Ghost from the Greek?

Psa 51:11 Cast H7993  me not H408  away from thy presence; H4480 H6440  and take H3947  not H408  thy holy H6944  spirit H7307 from H4480  me.

H7307 (Strong)
רוּחַ
rûach
roo’-akh
From H7306; wind; by resemblance breath, that is, a sensible (or even violent) exhalation; figuratively life, anger, unsubstantiality; by extension a region of the sky; by resemblance spirit, but only of a rational being (including its expression and functions): – air, anger, blast, breath, X cool, courage, mind, X quarter, X side, spirit ([-ual]), tempest, X vain, ([whirl-]) wind (-y).

Mar 1:8 I G1473  indeed G3303  have baptized G907  you G5209  with G1722  water: G5204  but G1161  he G846  shall baptize G907  you G5209  with G1722  the Holy G40  Ghost. G4151

G4151 (Strong)
πνεῦμα
pneuma
pnyoo’-mah
From G4154; a current of air, that is, breath (blast) or a breeze; by analogy or figuratively a spirit, that is, (human) the rational soul, (by implication) vital principle, mental disposition, etc., or (superhuman) an angel, daemon, or (divine) God, Christ’s spirit, the Holy spirit: – ghost, life, spirit (-ual, -ually), mind. Compare G5590.

Why was Yahweh very angry with Moses, and his wife had to save the day?

Exo 4:23 And I said to you, “Release my son and let him serve me,” but you refused to release him. Look, I am about to kill your son, your firstborn.'”
Exo 4:24 And on the way, at the place of overnight lodging, Yahweh encountered him and sought to kill him.
Exo 4:25 But Zipporah took a flint knife, and she cut off the foreskin of her son, and she touched his feet, and she said, “Yes, you are a bridegroom of blood to me.”
Exo 4:26 And he left him alone. At that time she said, “A bridegroom of blood,” because of the circumcision.

Which scriptures are Jesus referring to regarding marriage and angels?

Mat 22:29 But Jesus answered them, “You are wrong, because you know neither the Scriptures nor the power of God.
Mat 22:30 For in the resurrection they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are like angels in heaven.

If Jesus supposedly declared unclean animals listed in Leviticus acceptable to eat in the gospel of Mark, why did Peter react negatively to the idea in the vision in Acts chapter 10 years later? Did he not get the memo?

Mar 7:18 And he said to them, “Then are you also without understanding? Do you not see that whatever goes into a person from outside cannot defile him,
Mar 7:19 since it enters not his heart but his stomach, and is expelled?” (Thus he declared all foods clean.)

Act 10:12 In it were all kinds of animals and reptiles and birds of the air.
Act 10:13 And there came a voice to him: “Rise, Peter; kill and eat.”
Act 10:14 But Peter said, “By no means, Lord; for I have never eaten anything that is common or unclean.”

Who is being spoken to in Jeremiah 23? I don’t see Judah and Israel dwelling in safety yet.

Jer 23:1 “Woe to the shepherds who destroy and scatter the flock of my pasture,” declares Yahweh.
Jer 23:2 Therefore thus says Yahweh, the God of Israel concerning the shepherds who shepherd my people, “You yourselves have scattered my flock, and you have driven them away, and you do not attend to them. Look, I will punish you for the evil of your deeds,” declares Yahweh.

Why do we hide the name of the creator with words like Lord and God? Who forgot His name and called him Baal (Lord)? Is this scripture in Jeremiah referring to 2020?

Jer 23:26 How long will this be in the hearts of the prophets who prophesy lies, even the prophets of the deceitfulness of their hearts,
Jer 23:27 who plan to make my people forget my name by their dreams that they tell each one to his neighbor, just as their ancestors forgot my name through Baal?

H1168
בּעל
ba‛al
BDB Definition:
Baal = “lord”
1) supreme male divinity of the Phoenicians or Canaanites (noun proper masculine)
2) a Reubenite (noun proper masculine)
3) the son of Jehiel and grandfather of Saul (noun proper masculine)
4) a town of Simeon, probably identical to Baalath-beer (noun proper locative)

Exo 3:15 And God said again to Moses, “So you must say to the Israelites, ‘Yahweh, the God of your ancestors, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, has sent me to you. This is my name forever, and this is my remembrance from generation to generation.’

Why do we call Jacob, half brother to Jesus, James? Why do we call Jesus, Jesus? They were Jacob and Joshua and became James and Jesus.

Why does the church say that the birthday of Jesus was December 25th, the same as every sun god deity, when it was not?

Why does the church say Jesus died on Friday and rose on Sunday, when a person with a little knowledge of scripture and Yahweh’s feast days, Passover, unleavened bread and first fruits, can clearly see it is not the case?

Why do we celebrate the day of the dead, Samhain, a high sabbath on the occult calendar, with similar symbols and traditions, such as “trunk or treat” in the church?

When did Jesus or Yahweh command us to celebrate the day he resurrected?

Why is it said Jesus “rose again” when He only resurrected once?

The questions can literally have no end, and the answers are available if a person is willing to take the time to seek Yahweh for the answers. Where is the inquisitiveness? Why are scriptures allegorically analyzed, when they are literally the living Word of God? Why do we hear many of the same topics over emphasized and some of these other topics are never mentioned or glossed over? We should be as the Bereans and search the scriptures daily.

Act 17:10 The brothers immediately sent Paul and Silas away by night to Berea, and when they arrived they went into the Jewish synagogue.
Act 17:11 Now these Jews were more noble than those in Thessalonica; they received the word with all eagerness, examining the Scriptures daily to see if these things were so.
Act 17:12 Many of them therefore believed, with not a few Greek women of high standing as well as men.

Not answering some of these questions can cause people to leave the faith or not even consider the faith. Remember to worship in spirit and truth!

Joh 4:24 God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.

Featured image taken by Emma Vail.

“In your distress when all these things have found you in the latter days, then you will return to Yahweh your God, and you will listen to his voice.” Deuteronomy 4:30.

I have maintained the book of John’s Revelation needs to be examined in small portions and compared to other scripture to find its meaning. The goal of this blog post is not to provide any concrete answers or interpretations of scripture, but to open the readers mind to scripture that they may not have been previously exposed to. This is to challenge the reader to dig deep in scripture for themselves, and to not be satisfied with the many narratives, false doctrines and imaginations of men that have been floating around for many hundreds of years. In the first part of chapter 12, we see a sign in the heavens and a woman giving birth to a male child.

Rev 12:1 And a great sign appeared in heaven: a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet, and on her head a crown of twelve stars.
Rev 12:2 She was pregnant and was crying out in birth pains and the agony of giving birth.
Rev 12:3 And another sign appeared in heaven: behold, a great red dragon, with seven heads and ten horns, and on his heads seven diadems.
Rev 12:4 His tail swept down a third of the stars of heaven and cast them to the earth. And the dragon stood before the woman who was about to give birth, so that when she bore her child he might devour it.
Rev 12:5 She gave birth to a male child, one who is to rule all the nations with a rod of iron, but her child was caught up to God and to his throne,
Rev 12:6 and the woman fled into the wilderness, where she has a place prepared by God, in which she is to be nourished for 1,260 days.

Jesus is the only one who is to rule with a rod of iron.

Rev 19:15 From his mouth comes a sharp sword with which to strike down the nations, and he will rule them with a rod of iron. He will tread the winepress of the fury of the wrath of God the Almighty.

This was prophesied long ago by Jacob to his son Judah. Jesus fulfilled this prophecy:

Gen 49:8 Judah, as for you, your brothers shall praise you. Your hand shall be on the neck of your enemies. The sons of your father shall bow down to you.
Gen 49:9 Judah is a lion’s cub. From the prey, my son, you have gone up. He bowed down; he crouched like a lion and as a lioness. Who shall rouse him?
Gen 49:10 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.
Gen 49:11 Binding his donkey to the vine and his donkey’s colt to the choice vine, he washes his clothing in the wine and his garment in the blood of grapes.
Gen 49:12 The eyes are darker than wine, and the teeth whiter than milk.

The second half of chapter 12 gives us a war in heaven, and the dragon and his angels being thrown down to Earth.

Rev 12:7 Now war arose in heaven, Michael and his angels fighting against the dragon. And the dragon and his angels fought back,
Rev 12:8 but he was defeated, and there was no longer any place for them in heaven.
Rev 12:9 And the great dragon was thrown down, that ancient serpent, who is called the devil and Satan, the deceiver of the whole world—he was thrown down to the earth, and his angels were thrown down with him.
Rev 12:10 And I heard a loud voice in heaven, saying, “Now the salvation and the power and the kingdom of our God and the authority of his Christ have come, for the accuser of our brothers has been thrown down, who accuses them day and night before our God.
Rev 12:11 And they have conquered him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony, for they loved not their lives even unto death.
Rev 12:12 Therefore, rejoice, O heavens and you who dwell in them! But woe to you, O earth and sea, for the devil has come down to you in great wrath, because he knows that his time is short!”
Rev 12:13 And when the dragon saw that he had been thrown down to the earth, he pursued the woman who had given birth to the male child.
Rev 12:14 But the woman was given the two wings of the great eagle so that she might fly from the serpent into the wilderness, to the place where she is to be nourished for a time, and times, and half a time.
Rev 12:15 The serpent poured water like a river out of his mouth after the woman, to sweep her away with a flood.
Rev 12:16 But the earth came to the help of the woman, and the earth opened its mouth and swallowed the river that the dragon had poured from his mouth.
Rev 12:17 Then the dragon became furious with the woman and went off to make war on the rest of her offspring, on those who keep the commandments of God and hold to the testimony of Jesus. And he stood on the sand of the sea.

The dragon is called a serpent, the devil and Satan. None of these titles give this entities’ name. Satan is just a Hebrew word meaning adversary (שטן). Does this devil have a name? The book of Enoch names him Gadriel, and he is the one who deceived Eve, or Chuah, which means life giver.

The name of the third is Gadr’el: he discovered every stroke of death to the children of men. He seduced Chuah; and discovered to the children of men the instruments of death, the coat of mail, the shield, and the sword for slaughter; every instrument of death to the children of men. From his hand were derived to them who dwell upon earth, from that period forever. CHANOK (ENOCH) 69:6-8 את CEPHER

Enoch is a book that Jesus and the Apostles were familiar with. Both Peter and Jude quote from Enoch, and Enoch explains the origin of the devils and evil spirits talked about all through the New Testament. There are things in the sixty-six book Bible that are alluded to from Enoch that are never explained, in my opinion, because the writers assumed their audience had read the book of Enoch. Some people don’t like the book, or are afraid to read it, but it contains information one should know. Going back to chapter 12 of Revelation, the great sign that appears in the heavens described in verse one is similar to that of a dream Joseph had.

Gen 37:9 Then he dreamed yet another dream and told it to his brothers. And he said, “Behold, I dreamed a dream again, and behold, the sun and the moon and eleven stars were bowing down to me.”
Gen 37:10 And he told it to his father and to his brothers. And his father rebuked him and said to him, “What is this dream that you have dreamed? Will I and your mother and your brothers indeed come to bow down to the ground to you?”
Gen 37:11 And his brothers were jealous of him, but his father kept the matter in mind.

Some people believe this sign in the heavens happened on September 23, 2017, just after Yom Toruah. It was the one time the constellation of Virgo had Jupiter in such a place as to give birth with twelve stars around her head and the moon at her feet. At some point after this the dragon is thrown down to Earth and makes war with those who keep the commandments of Yahweh and have faith in Jesus. The mother of the child, Israel, is forced into the wilderness, “where she is to be nourished for a time, and times, and half a time”. This is all speculation, but some think this time that Israel is nourished in the wilderness is referring to the regathering of the remnant spoken of over and over by the prophets. In many of my blogs I make reference to the dispersion of Israel, also spoken of by the prophets, and apostles. Israel sinned by committing adultery with foreign gods, going after false feast days, sabbaths and holidays, angering Yahweh to the point of where He divorced them and scattered them. Next, we are going to look at this regathering that will take place, possibly in the context of chapter twelve in Revelation, and possibly soon. This is sometimes referred to as the second exodus. First, the prophecy of the dispersion for disobedience:

Deu 4:26 I call to witness against you today the heaven and the earth, that you will perish soon and completely from the land that you are crossing the Jordan into it to take possession of it; you will not live long on it, but you will be completely destroyed.
Deu 4:27 And Yahweh will scatter you among the peoples, and you will be left few in number among the nations to where Yahweh will lead you.
Deu 4:28 And you will there serve gods made by human hands, of wood and stone, gods that cannot see and cannot hear and cannot eat and cannot smell.
Deu 4:29 But from there you shall seek Yahweh your God and will find him, if you seek him with all your heart and with all your soul.
Deu 4:30 In your distress when all these things have found you in the latter days, then you will return to Yahweh your God, and you will listen to his voice.
Deu 4:31 For Yahweh your God is a compassionate God; he will not abandon you, and he will not destroy you, and he will not forget the covenant of your ancestors that he swore to them.

Yahweh called the two witnesses of Heaven and Earth, and Jesus similarly uses these two witnesses describing the time the Law of Yahweh will exist.

Mat 5:18 For truly, I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not an iota, not a dot, will pass from the Law until all is accomplished.
Mat 5:19 Therefore whoever relaxes one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do the same will be called least in the kingdom of heaven, but whoever does them and teaches them will be called great in the kingdom of heaven.

All throughout the prophets we see of a regathering taking place of Yahweh’s people who were dispersed to the nations and mixed with the Gentiles.

Jer 16:14 Therefore look, days are coming,’ declares Yahweh, ‘and it will no longer be said, “As Yahweh lives, who led up the Israelites from the land of Egypt,”
Jer 16:15 but only “As Yahweh lives, who led up the Israelites from the land of the north, and from all the lands where he had driven them,” for I will bring them back to their ground that I gave to their ancestors.

This will be a bigger event than Israel being delivered from Egypt. This does not appear to have happened yet, although some say this was fulfilled on the day of Pentecost in the book of Acts, or when many people returned to the nation state of Israel. I believe there is merit in those theories, but they do not explain everything, unless scripture is viewed completely allegorically. This following verse in Isaiah gives us more of this picture:

Isa 11:10 And this shall happen on that day: the nations shall inquire of the root of Jesse, which shall be standing as a signal to the peoples, and his resting place shall be glorious.
Isa 11:11 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,
Isa 11:12 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.
Isa 11:13 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.
Isa 11:14 But they shall swoop upon the Philistine shoulder, westward. Together they shall plunder the sons of the east. Edom and Moab will be under their command, and the sons of Ammon will be their subjugated people.
Isa 11:15 And Yahweh will divide the tongue of the sea of Egypt, and he will wave his hand over the river with his scorching wind; and he will strike it into seven streams, and he will make it passable by foot.
Isa 11:16 So there shall be a highway from Assyria for the remnant of his people that remains, as there was for Israel when it went up from the land of Egypt.

Yahweh is going to make it possible to come by foot as the people crossed the Red Sea leaving Egypt. It looks like a physical movement of mortals because they will be blind, lame and pregnant.

Jer 31:6 For there will be a day when watchmen will call in the hill country of Ephraim, ‘Stand up, and let us go up to Zion, to Yahweh our God.'”
Jer 31:7 For thus says Yahweh, “Sing for joy for Jacob with gladness, and shout out for the head of the nations. Proclaim, praise, and say, ‘Save, O Yahweh, your people, the remnant of Israel.’
Jer 31:8 Look, I am going to bring them from the land of the north, and I will gather them from the remotest part of the earth. Among them the blind, and the lame, those who are pregnant, and those who give birth, together, a great assembly, they will return here.
Jer 31:9 With weeping they will come, and with pleas for mercy I will bring them; I will let them walk by streams of water in a straight path. They will not stumble in it, for I have become to Israel a father, and Ephraim, he is my firstborn.”
Jer 31:10 Hear the word of Yahweh, O nations, and declare in the coastlands from afar, and say, “The scatterer of Israel will gather him, and he will keep him as a shepherd his flock.
Jer 31:11 For Yahweh has ransomed Jacob, and he has redeemed him from the hand of the person stronger than he.

These images of Yahweh regathering His people are too numerous to list. I am only providing some examples. Once it is understood there is only one people of Yahweh, “who keep the commandments of God and hold to the testimony of Jesus”, these scriptures appear to point to this remnant of people who exist now, or sometime in the future. These events seem to happen before the resurrection where believers receive their spiritual bodies.

Hos 2:14 Therefore, Look! I am going to allure her and bring her into the desert, and I will speak tenderly to her.
Hos 2:15 From there I will give her her vineyards, and the Valley of Achor as a doorway of hope. And there she will respond, as in the days of her youth, just as in the day of her coming out of the land of Egypt.
Hos 2:16 And on that day—a declaration of Yahweh—you will call me, “My husband;” you will no longer call me, “My Baal.”
Hos 2:17 I will remove the names of the Baals from her mouth, and they will no longer be mentioned by their name.
Hos 2:18 I will make a covenant for them on that day, with the animals of the field, with the birds of the heaven, and with the creeping things of the ground; the bow, the sword, and the war I will abolish from the land, and I will let them lie down in safety.
Hos 2:19 And I will take you as my wife forever; I will take you as a wife for myself in righteousness and in justice, in steadfast love and in mercy.
Hos 2:20 I will take you as my wife in faithfulness, and you will know Yahweh.
Hos 2:21 On that day I will answer, declares Yahweh, I will answer the heavens, and they will answer the earth.

In Hosea 2:16, Yahweh says we will no longer call Him “My Baal”. In the English translations it is confusing with Yahweh’s name being substituted with “LORD” because in this verse “My Baal” actually means “My Lord”. Here it is is the King James translation:

Hos 2:16 And it shall be at that day, saith the LORD, that thou shalt call me Ishi; and shalt call me no more Baali.

It gets confusing, so the translators do some linguistic gymnastics. If it were all translated to English, it would read, “And it shall be at that day, saith the LORD, that thou shalt call me My Husband; and shalt call me no more My Lord.” This proposes a problem for translations that substitute “LORD” for Yahweh or YHWH יהוה.

Eze 20:33 “As I live,” declares the Lord Yahweh, “surely with a strong hand and with an outstretched arm and with rage pouring forth I will reign as king over you!
Eze 20:34 And I will bring you from the peoples, and I will gather you from the countries to which you were scattered with a strong hand and with an outstretched arm and with rage poured out.
Eze 20:35 Then I will bring you to the desert of the peoples, and I will execute justice on you there face to face.
Eze 20:36 Just as I executed justice on your ancestors in the desert of the land of Egypt, likewise I will execute justice on you!” declares the Lord Yahweh.
Eze 20:37 “And I will make you pass under the rod, and I will bring you into the bond of the covenant.
Eze 20:38 And I will purge the rebels from among you and the ones transgressing against me; I will bring them out from the land where they are living as aliens, but into the land of Israel they will not come, and then you will know that I am Yahweh.
Eze 20:39 And you, house of Israel, thus says the Lord Yahweh: “Let each one go serve his idols now and after, if you are not listening to me, but my holy name you will not profane any longer with your gifts and with your idols.

Who are the rebels who are not going to continue into the land? This whole process sounds like a retake of the forty years in the desert. Could this be a time in the wilderness or desert where Yahweh gets serious with His people before the resurrection? Is this what is being referenced in Revelation 12:14? “But the woman was given the two wings of the great eagle so that she might fly from the serpent into the wilderness, to the place where she is to be nourished for a time, and times, and half a time.”

Mat 24:15 “So when you see the abomination of desolation spoken of by the prophet Daniel, standing in the holy place (let the reader understand),
Mat 24:16 then let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains.
Mat 24:17 Let the one who is on the housetop not go down to take what is in his house,
Mat 24:18 and let the one who is in the field not turn back to take his cloak.
Mat 24:19 And alas for women who are pregnant and for those who are nursing infants in those days!
Mat 24:20 Pray that your flight may not be in winter or on a Sabbath.
Mat 24:21 For then there will be great tribulation, such as has not been from the beginning of the world until now, no, and never will be.
Mat 24:22 And if those days had not been cut short, no human being would be saved. But for the sake of the elect those days will be cut short.

Jesus also says the elect will be gathered from the four winds at His coming.

Mat 24:29 “Immediately after the tribulation of those days the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light, and the stars will fall from heaven, and the powers of the heavens will be shaken.
Mat 24:30 Then will appear in heaven the sign of the Son of Man, and then all the tribes of the earth will mourn, and they will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of heaven with power and great glory.
Mat 24:31 And he will send out his angels with a loud trumpet call, and they will gather his elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other.

It is not exactly clear as to what all this means; however, we are moving past the 20th century pre-tribulation, dispensationalist view of future events as knowledge increases, and Yahweh removes the scales from our eyes. Once a person realizes there is only one people of Yahweh, and there is not two peoples, the church and Israel, prophesies start to make sense. This is not to say the church replaces Israel, but that Israel was always the church, and we can be grafted in as Paul explains in Romans chapter 11. Maybe the angels gathering the remnant of His people on the Earth is a gathering of the physical people left on Earth. There is no time line given for how long it will take for the angels to gather the elect, or what state they will be in, mortal or immortal.

I have talked about the word church in the past quite often. It is sometimes used to obfuscate the identity of the people of Yahweh. An example of this is found in the book of Acts. Where Stephen talks about the church at Mount Sinai.

Act 7:38 This is the one who was in the congregation in the wilderness with the angel who spoke to him at Mount Sinai, and with our fathers. He received living oracles to give to us. ESV

Act 7:38 This is he, that was in the church in the wilderness with the angel which spake to him in the mount Sina, and with our fathers: who received the lively oracles to give unto us: KJV

King James set forth rules to the translators of the King James Bible. From the Cyclopedia of Biblical, Theological and Ecclesiastical Literature, Volume 3, Authorized Version of the Holy Scriptures:

“The old ecclesiastical words to be kept, as the word church not to be translated congregation.”

The Greek word Ekklesia, is translated to congregation for Stephen’s speech in many English versions, but Church elsewhere. In modern Christianity, too much theology gets rendered unclear if the twelve tribes at Mount Sinai are called “the church”. The King James translators were not making a theological statement in Acts 7:38, just following a set of rules that said, “Ekklesia is always to be translated to the word church”. The truth is the congregation at Mount Sinai was the start of the Ekklesia, which simply means congregation. It is all a play on words. There is no such thing as something called “the Church” as thought of in the modern dispensational theological system. From the Smith Bible dictionary, the word church comes from gathering in the form of a circle, the Latin word circus.

Church

1. The derivation of the word is generally said to be from the Greek kuriakon, “belonging to the Lord”. But the derivation has been too hastily assumed. It is probably connected with kirk, the Latin circus, circulus, the Greek kuklos, (kuklos), because the congregations were gathered in circles.

Once a person realizes there is only one people of Yahweh, who He spoke face to face with at Mount Sinai, sent His son Jesus to recover all the lost who had been scattered throughout the world, and breathed His Spirit into them at Pentecost to empower them to recover the remaining lost, we can understand the book of Revelation is not a stand alone book discussing the future of Israel and “the Church”. Much of Revelation can be interpreted from the prophets in the Old Testament.

Is the gathering spoken of by the prophets the same gathering as Jesus spoke about in Matthew 24? The gathering spoken of by the prophets sounds like it is more physical, having waters parted, lame and pregnant women taking part. The gathering Jesus spoke of sounds more like the first resurrection at His coming, where He appears in the sky and there is a trumpet blast.

In the book of second Esdras, found in the King James Authorized Version of the Bible, we see a different view of some of the same events. Second Esdras was a book removed by the 1647 Westminster Confession of Faith for various reasons, some of a political nature. A sixty-six book Bible was also more attractive to the printing press, where they could get the same money for a smaller book. Second Esdras was originally included in the Vulgate, Wyclif, Luther and Tyndale Bibles as well. If it is a later work than the second temple period as some claim, it still gives us insight as to the beliefs of the early church. Let the words speak for themselves:

2Es 13:25 This is the meaning of the vision: Whereas thou sawest a man coming up from the midst of the sea:
2Es 13:26 The same is he whom God the Highest hath kept a great season, which by his own self shall deliver his creature: and he shall order them that are left behind.
2Es 13:27 And whereas thou sawest, that out of his mouth there came as a blast of wind, and fire, and storm;
2Es 13:28 And that he held neither sword, nor any instrument of war, but that the rushing in of him destroyed the whole multitude that came to subdue him; this is the interpretation:
2Es 13:29 Behold, the days come, when the most High will begin to deliver them that are upon the earth.
2Es 13:30 And he shall come to the astonishment of them that dwell on the earth.
2Es 13:31 And one shall undertake to fight against another, one city against another, one place against another, one people against another, and one realm against another.
2Es 13:32 And the time shall be when these things shall come to pass, and the signs shall happen which I shewed thee before, and then shall my Son be declared, whom thou sawest as a man ascending.
2Es 13:33 And when all the people hear his voice, every man shall in their own land leave the battle they have one against another.
2Es 13:34 And an innumerable multitude shall be gathered together, as thou sawest them, willing to come, and to overcome him by fighting.
2Es 13:35 But he shall stand upon the top of the mount Sion.
2Es 13:36 And Sion shall come, and shall be shewed to all men, being prepared and builded, like as thou sawest the hill graven without hands.
2Es 13:37 And this my Son shall rebuke the wicked inventions of those nations, which for their wicked life are fallen into the tempest;
2Es 13:38 And shall lay before them their evil thoughts, and the torments wherewith they shall begin to be tormented, which are like unto a flame: and he shall destroy them without labour by the law which is like unto me.
2Es 13:39 And whereas thou sawest that he gathered another peaceable multitude unto him;
2Es 13:40 Those are the ten tribes, which were carried away prisoners out of their own land in the time of Osea the king, whom Salmanasar the king of Assyria led away captive, and he carried them over the waters, and so came they into another land.
2Es 13:41 But they took this counsel among themselves, that they would leave the multitude of the heathen, and go forth into a further country, where never mankind dwelt,
2Es 13:42 That they might there keep their statutes, which they never kept in their own land.
2Es 13:43 And they entered into Euphrates by the narrow places of the river.
2Es 13:44 For the most High then shewed signs for them, and held still the flood, till they were passed over.
2Es 13:45 For through that country there was a great way to go, namely, of a year and a half: and the same region is called Arsareth.
2Es 13:46 Then dwelt they there until the latter time; and now when they shall begin to come,
2Es 13:47 The Highest shall stay the springs of the stream again, that they may go through: therefore sawest thou the multitude with peace.
2Es 13:48 But those that be left behind of thy people are they that are found within my borders.
2Es 13:49 Now when he destroyeth the multitude of the nations that are gathered together, he shall defend his people that remain.
2Es 13:50 And then shall he shew them great wonders.
2Es 13:51 Then said I, O Lord that bearest rule, shew me this: Wherefore have I seen the man coming up from the midst of the sea?
2Es 13:52 And he said unto me, Like as thou canst neither seek out nor know the things that are in the deep of the sea: even so can no man upon earth see my Son, or those that be with him, but in the day time.
2Es 13:53 This is the interpretation of the dream which thou sawest, and whereby thou only art here lightened.
2Es 13:54 For thou hast forsaken thine own way, and applied thy diligence unto my law, and sought it.
2Es 13:55 Thy life hast thou ordered in wisdom, and hast called understanding thy mother.
2Es 13:56 And therefore have I shewed thee the treasures of the Highest: after other three days I will speak other things unto thee, and declare unto thee mighty and wondrous things.
2Es 13:57 Then went I forth into the field, giving praise and thanks greatly unto the most High because of his wonders which he did in time;
2Es 13:58 And because he governeth the same, and such things as fall in their seasons: and there I sat three days.

According to Second Esdras 13:47, “The Highest shall stay the springs of the stream again”. This was the peaceful multitude that Esdras (Ezra) saw. This could be the group that is gathered and protected in the wilderness spoken of Revelation 12:14. Another verse that could allude to this is found in Isaiah. Many were tossing this scripture around in March of this year due to the lock downs and such.

Isa 26:19 Your dead shall live; their corpses shall rise. Wake up and sing for joy, dwellers of the dust, for your dew is celestial dew, and the earth will give birth to dead spirits.
Isa 26:20 Go, my people, enter into your chambers and shut your doors behind you; hide for a very little while, until the wrath has passed over.
Isa 26:21 For look! Yahweh is about to come out from his place to punish the iniquity of the inhabitants of the earth against him, and the earth will disclose her blood and will no longer cover her slain.

If we factor in these verses with the others we have looked at, it appears to be speaking of a resurrection after we hide ourselves from the wrath Yahweh pours out on the Earth, with a time line of a gathering, protection or hiding, wrath, resurrection, and then peace.

I find all these prophesies fascinating and wish I could have seen them earlier in my life. Unfortunately, being brought up in churches with a dispensational mindset, the focus was always placed on “the rapture of the church”. Pre, mid or post tribulation rapture discussion always causes so much anger and division. Israel is presented as a separate entity that endures a different destiny than “the church”. Worship of the nation state of Israel causes bizarre alliances with “the church”, and creates a politicization of prophecy and scripture that appears to be greatly twisted. However, once that is all tossed aside, (approximately 130 years of dispensationalism), a new clarity comes to the scriptures, taking out the page that divides the New Testament and Old Testament. With this clarity, new questions arise and once obscure scripture comes alive. Commands and Feasts of Yahweh that were presented as irrelevant are discovered as relevant prophesied by Moses in Deutoronomy!

Deuteronomy 4:30 -In your distress when all these things have found you in the latter days, then you will return to Yahweh your God, and you will listen to his voice.

This is the reason I am choosing to leave the imaginations of men behind, and use the commandments of Yahuah, from scripture, to determine what actions to take moving forward.