It has a great and high wall that has twelve gates, and at the gates twelve angels, and names written on the gates which are of the twelve tribes of the sons of Israel—on the east, three gates, and on the north, three gates, and on the south, three gates, and on the west, three gates. And the wall of the city has twelve foundations, and on them are twelve names of the twelve apostles of the Lamb.

Revelation 21:12-14 (LEB)

Prophets and dreamers have been leading people astray since the beginning, and we see this happening today, probably more than ever before, thanks to social media, television and the many platforms where anyone can voice their opinions. I realize many will say I am conducting the same sort of business by writing on these subjects. How can one sift through the millions of voices and find the truth? My suggestion is to follow the commandments of God as written in Scripture and let the Spirit of truth be the guide of all truth.

John 16:12–13 (LEB): ¹² I still have many things to say to you, but you are not able to bear them now. ¹³ But when he—the Spirit of truth—comes, he will guide you into all the truth. For he will not speak from himself, but whatever he hears he will speak, and he will proclaim to you the things to come.

A similar message is given to us later by John:

1 John 2:27 (LEB): ²⁷ And as for you, the anointing which you received from him remains in you, and you do not have need that anyone teach you. But as his anointing teaches you about all things, and is true and is not a lie, and just as it has taught you, you reside in him.

Christianity has all but collapsed in the twenty-first century due to the thousands of sects and false teachings. Is this the great apostasy, or “falling away” that Paul spoke about? I think that this event happened hundreds of year ago, but there is always a remnant of people staying true to the Creator God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.

One of the biggest dreams from false prophets is the theology of dispensationalism. This is where people believe that we are in the “age of grace” where the commandments of God are irrelevant, and the only teaching we should follow is that of the letters of apostle Paul that he wrote to assemblies of believers in the first century. This false teaching tells us that the rest of the bible is written for the “Jews” and all we have to do is say we believe in Jesus with our lips. It really follows the Santa Claus model, “just believe” and you will get your presents.

There really should be more evidence than Paul’s letters if there are really two separate peoples of God, Israel and the Church, where the church is raptured and taken to a galaxy far away while Israel is “left behind”. People also like to use this verse in Revelation to prove the rapture theory:

Revelation 4:1–2 (LEB): 4 After these things I looked, and behold, an open door in heaven, and the former voice that I had heard like a trumpet speaking with me was saying, “Come up here and I will show you the things which must take place after these things.” ² Immediately I was in the Spirit, and behold, a throne was set in heaven, and one was seated on the throne.

John is given a vision of heaven on the things to come in the first century, and in 2023 this supposedly translates to a rapture of the church. These are dreamers that are fabricating these theologies, and thousands, if not millions, believe it without ever studying for themselves, or asking for the Spirit of truth.

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

“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“. This means these false teachings are built into the system by God, so that anyone who hates the instructions of God, does not want to learn the truth or take time to seek God, is able to parrot the dreamers and feel good about themselves while driving down the road of destruction.

A question arises if Paul is the only person we are to listen to as the modern day church. Why do the foundations of the new Jerusalem only have twelve foundations of the apostles and not thirteen?

Revelation 21:9–14 (LEB): ⁹ And one of the seven angels who had the seven bowls full of the seven last plagues came and spoke with me, saying, “Come, I will show you the bride, the wife of the Lamb.” ¹⁰ And he carried me away in the Spirit to a great and lofty mountain, and showed me the holy city, Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, ¹¹ that has the glory of God. Its radiance is like a precious stone, something like a jasper stone, shining like crystal. ¹² It has a great and high wall that has twelve gates, and at the gates twelve angels, and names written on the gates which are of the twelve tribes of the sons of Israel—¹³ on the east, three gates, and on the north, three gates, and on the south, three gates, and on the west, three gates. ¹⁴ And the wall of the city has twelve foundations, and on them are twelve names of the twelve apostles of the Lamb.

I would think that there would be a “Paul” foundation stone if the “Church” was a separate group of people who are to forsake God’s commandments and follow only the teachings of Paul. There should also be a “Church gate”. Of course, I don’t believe Paul was teaching anything false or that he would agree with the theology of dispensationalism created from his letters by “unstable, ignorant” people. Even Peter tells us this will happen.

2 Peter 3:14–17 (LEB): ¹⁴ Therefore, dear friends, because you are waiting for these things, make every effort to be found at peace, spotless and unblemished in him. ¹⁵ And regard the patience of our Lord as salvation, just as also our dear brother Paul wrote to you, according to the wisdom that was given to him, ¹⁶ as he does also in all his letters, speaking in them about these things, in which there are some things hard to understand, which the ignorant and unstable distort to their own destruction, as they also do the rest of the scriptures. ¹⁷ Therefore, dear friends, because you know this beforehand, guard yourselves so that you do not lose your own safe position because you have been led away by the error of lawless persons.

Lawless people are not the ones breaking the speed limit in this case. “Lawless” in this context means no regard for God’s instructions. The Greek word, ἄθεσμος, translated to lawless in English, is defined as follows:

ἄθεσμος, lawless, ignoring the (divine) ordinances.

Alexander Souter, A Pocket Lexicon to the Greek New Testament (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1917), 7.

I have shared this diagram before showing the diagram of the theology of dispensationalism:

“Rightly dividing the word of truth” is the cornerstone phrase for this theology, and dispensationlists will say “rightly divide” anytime someone mentions the words of Jesus, John, or anyone else in the Bible that tells us to keep the commandments of God or casts doubts on the viability of dispensationalism. The problem with using this one statement from a letter written by Paul to Timothy as the cornerstone to bat down any nay-sayers is that it is translated differently than “rightly divide” in many Bible translations.

2 Timothy 2:15 (LEB): ¹⁵ Make every effort to present yourself approved to God, a worker having no need to be ashamed, guiding the word of truth along a straight path.

I wrote a recent blog post on this subject called, Dividing God’s Word is Risky Business. Paul also told Timothy many other things that dispensationlists must not consider, or “divide” out of their theology.

2 Timothy 3:14–17 (LEB): ¹⁴ But you continue in the things which you have learned and are convinced of, because you know from whom you learned them, ¹⁵ and that from childhood you have known the holy writings that are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. ¹⁶ All scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness, ¹⁷ in order that the person of God may be competent, equipped for every good work.

Earlier in this letter to Timothy, Paul actually tells Timothy to follow the commandments of God. Unfortunately, people hate the commandments of God so much that they are not inquisitive about these verses at all.

2 Timothy 3:1–9 (LEB): 3 But know this, that in the last days difficult times will come, ² for people will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boasters, arrogant, slanderers, disobedient to parents, ungrateful, unholy, ³ hardhearted, irreconcilable, slanderous, without self-control, savage, with no interest for what is good, ⁴ traitors, reckless, conceited, loving pleasure rather than loving God, ⁵ maintaining a form of godliness, but denying its power. Avoid these people. ⁶ For from these are those who slip into houses and captivate foolish women loaded down with sins, led by various kinds of desires, ⁷ always learning and never able to come to a knowledge of the truth. ⁸ And just as Jannes and Jambres opposed Moses, so also these oppose the truth, people corrupted in mind, disqualified concerning the faith. ⁹ But they will not progress to a greater extent, for their folly will be quite evident to everyone, as also the folly of those two was.

Paul starts out with a summary of the ten commandments that people will disregard in the future and then compares them to Jannes and Jambres, who also opposed Moses. These two were the sons of Balaam. All of this is essentially a hidden code today, but would have been plain instruction to Timothy. He is comparing Moses to the truth. The law of God is the truth. Yeshua, called Jesus in Greek, is the truth manifested in human form because he is the Word of God. He never negated the written word, he embodied it.

So why is this block of letters written by Paul to some churches in the old world used so often to distort the truth? Why didn’t God have Paul write clearly so a child today could not distort or be ignorant about what he is saying? It is to give you, the reader a comfortable way out of regarding God’s instructions. It is how God works. If one really loves God they will seek Him and want to do what he says to do. There are cold (unbelievers), hot (believers) and lukewarm (those in a delusion that believe they can do whatever they want to in the name of grace).

Revelation 3:14–19 (LEB): ¹⁴ “And to the angel of the church in Laodicea write: “This is what the Amen, the faithful and true witness, the originator of God’s creation, says: ¹⁵ ‘I know your works, that you are neither cold nor hot. Would that you were cold or hot! ¹⁶ Thus, because you are lukewarm and neither hot nor cold, I am about to vomit you out of my mouth! ¹⁷ Because you are saying, “I am rich, and have become rich, and I have need of nothing,” and you do not know that you are wretched and pitiable and poor and blind and naked, ¹⁸ I advise you to buy from me gold refined by fire, in order that you may become rich, and white clothing, in order that you may be clothed and the shame of your nakedness may not be revealed, and eye salve to smear on your eyes, in order that you may see. ¹⁹ As many as I love, I reprove and discipline. Be zealous, therefore, and repent!

Repenting is turning away from sin and sin is defined as breaking God’s commandments. Study these subjects diligently because it is very important. Repent and believe the gospel!

Photo by Thor Alvis on Unsplash

And they have been informed about you that you are teaching all the Jews who are among the Gentiles the abandonment of Moses, telling them not to circumcise their children or to live according to our customs.

Acts 21:21 (LEB)

People have been misrepresenting the Apostle Paul ever since his conversion on the road to Damascus. Early followers of Jesus accused Paul of teaching against Moses, and to this day, hyper-grace, the age of grace, and dispensationalism are all rooted in misunderstanding Paul, or claiming Paul came with a new message.

Colossians 2:16–23 (LEB): ¹⁶ Therefore do not let anyone judge you with reference to eating or drinking or participation in a feast or a new moon or a Sabbath, ¹⁷ which are a shadow of what is to come, but the reality is Christ. ¹⁸ Let no one condemn you, taking pleasure in humility and the worship of angels, going into detail about the things which he has seen, inflated without cause by his fleshly mind, ¹⁹ and not holding fast to the head, from whom the whole body, supported and held together by the ligaments and sinews, grows with the growth of God.

²⁰ If you have died with Christ to the elemental spirits of the world, why do you submit to them as if living in the world? ²¹ “Do not handle, do not taste, do not touch,” ²² which things are all meant for destruction by consuming according to human commandments and teachings, ²³ which things although they have, to be sure, an appearance of wisdom in self-made religion and humility and unsparing treatment of the body, do not have any value against the indulgence of the flesh.

As far back as the fourth century church father Tertullian, these verses from Paul have been used to teach that Christians should no longer concern themselves with the Sabbaths or Feast days of the Creator. These words are also used to “prove” that Christians no longer need to be concerned with the dietary instructions given to us in Leviticus.

Someone who holds to this belief system must view the laws given to Moses from God as “elemental spirits of the world” and “an appearance of self-made religion”. Is Paul really saying these things about the laws of God? I do not believe so. Martin Luther taught that the law of God actually is what Paul was saying and was equal to the “elements of the world”. The following is from the New International Dictionary of New Testament Theology :

Even the law is reckoned as among the elements of the world (cf. the 1st person plur., vv. 3, 5) and hence is declared null and void. Thus “the elements of the world” cover all the things in which man places his trust apart from the living God revealed in Christ; they become his gods, and he becomes their slave (cf. Luther’s exposition of the First Commandment in the Large Catechism).

H. H.-Esser, “Στοιχεῖα,” ed. Lothar Coenen, Erich Beyreuther, and Hans Bietenhard, New International Dictionary of New Testament Theology (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Publishing House, 1986), 453.

Another view of the meaning of Paul’s words to the Colossians is that he was telling them not to let people discourage them from keeping the Sabbaths and to stay away from man-made religious rituals that would have been prominent in Colossae at the time. Paul had too high a regard of the law of God to be found comparing it to the elemental spirits of the world.

Romans 7:11–12 (LEB): ¹¹ For sin, seizing the opportunity through the commandment, deceived me and through it killed me. ¹² So then, the law is holy, and the commandment is holy and righteous and good.

Can something like the law of God be bad and good at the same time? Paul told Timothy in one of his letters that the law had to be used lawfully. In another place in the letter to the Romans, Paul called the law spiritual. Something happens to a person spiritually when they submit themselves to the commandments of God; however, most of Christianity looks at God’s law with contempt. Paul has the same message as Jesus concerning the commandments and instructions of God.

Romans 2:26–29 (LEB): ²⁶ Therefore, if the uncircumcised person follows the requirements of the law, will not his uncircumcision be credited for circumcision? ²⁷ And the uncircumcised person by nature who carries out the law will judge you who, though provided with the precise written code and circumcision are a transgressor of the law. ²⁸ For the Jew is not one outwardly, nor is circumcision outwardly, in the flesh. ²⁹ But the Jew is one inwardly, and circumcision is of the heart, by the Spirit, not by the letter, whose praise is not from people but from God.

Jesus, or Yeshua in his Hebrew name, had a similar message to the Pharisees. He is speaking about all the traditions that were added to the Torah in these verses:

Mark 7:8–13 (LEB): ⁸ Abandoning the commandment of God, you hold fast to the tradition of men.” ⁹ And he said to them, “You splendidly ignore the commandment of God so that you can keep your tradition. ¹⁰ For Moses said, ‘Honor your father and your mother,’ and, ‘The one who speaks evil of father or mother must certainly die.’ ¹¹ But you say, ‘If a man says to his father or to his mother, “Whatever benefit you would have received from me is corban” (that is, a gift to God), ¹² you no longer permit him to do anything for his father or his mother, ¹³ thus making void the word of God by your tradition that you have handed down, and you do many similar things such as this.”

Christianity has made the Creator’s eternal command regarding the Sabbath void by changing it to a different day and requiring people to work on the Sabbath. Christianity has done this many ways with the commandments of God, just as the Jews had done, which Yeshua upbraided in Mark 7. Many times it is Paul that is misquoted to enable people to “make the commandment of God void”.

We could write a book of the discrepancies in the writings of Paul that make it look like he is telling Christians to ignore the law of God on one hand, yet praising it on the other hand. There are many theories that have been brought forth over the centuries as to why Paul appears to contradict himself so much. This phenomenon is as old as the first century, so much so, Peter addressed the issue.

2 Peter 3:14–18 (LEB): ¹⁴ Therefore, dear friends, because you are waiting for these things, make every effort to be found at peace, spotless and unblemished in him. ¹⁵ And regard the patience of our Lord as salvation, just as also our dear brother Paul wrote to you, according to the wisdom that was given to him, ¹⁶ as he does also in all his letters, speaking in them about these things, in which there are some things hard to understand, which the ignorant and unstable distort to their own destruction, as they also do the rest of the scriptures. ¹⁷ Therefore, dear friends, because you know this beforehand, guard yourselves so that you do not lose your own safe position because you have been led away by the error of lawless persons. 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

These words penned by Peter should be the end of the discussion. Paul is confusing to the ignorant and unstable and they will try to lead people to the error of lawlessness. Peter is calling all of the church fathers, pastors, professors, scholars and priests who have used Paul to abandon the law of God over the last two thousand years ignorant and unstable. I do not know how else one could read this. I also know Paul’s point in all his letters is to explain that keeping written code will not save a person outside of having that code written on their heart by the Spirit through faith in the Messiah. There is more than that though.

We can believe anything we want to believe and we can make the scriptures say anything we want them to say, which has been proven by 2000 years of contradicting doctrine and over 40,000 sects of Christianity. Therefore, how does one know who to believe? What are we to do about this? It is not an enemy that has made religion this way nor ignorant, unstable, “brilliant” men of God. It is the Creator God, who called Himself Yod Heh Waw Heh when Moses asked, “Who shall I say sent me?”. The only way to understand “the Way” is to search for the God of Abraham with all your heart and existence. These are the people God is yearning for so much that he sent Yeshua to find them and make a way for the whole world to be saved. If a person finds the things of God (not man) detestable, then perhaps that is not a good place to be.

Deuteronomy 13 (LEB): 13 “If a prophet stands up in your midst or a dreamer of dreams and he gives to you a sign or wonder, ² and the sign or the wonder comes about that he spoke to you, saying, ‘Let us go after other gods (those whom you have not known), and let us serve them,’ ³ you must not listen to the words of that prophet or to that dreamer, for Yahweh your God is testing you to know whether you love Yahweh your God with all of your heart and with all of your inner self. ⁴ You shall go after Yahweh your God, and him you shall revere, and his commandment you shall keep, and to his voice you shall listen, and him you shall serve, and to him you shall hold fast. ⁵ But that prophet or the dreamer of that dream shall be executed, for he spoke falsely about Yahweh your God, the one bringing you out from the land of Egypt and the one redeeming you from the house of slavery, in order to seduce you from the way that Yahweh your God commanded you to go in it; so in this way you shall purge the evil from your midst.

Following false doctrines and lawlessness is worshipping “false gods”. Paul has been transformed into a false god by Christianity. I believe he is confusing because anyone who wants to be lawless has ample materiel to convince themselves it is fine to abandon the commandments of God. Always be searching for the truth, and the truth is found in God’s commandments and statutes, hated by Christianity for hundreds of years.

Photo by Liviu Florescu on Unsplash.

He said to them, “But who do you say that I am?” And Simon Peter answered and said, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God!”

Matthew 16:15–16 (LEB)

There is so much confusion surrounding the person, Jesus Christ, to the point that there are multiple versions of Jesus Christ spread throughout Christianity. One could look at Christianity in 2023 as a polytheist religion because of the way each of the thousands of denominations define their own “Jesus Christ”.

Some regard Christianity as a polytheist religion due to the doctrines of the trinity. Polytheism is where members of a religion believe in multiple gods. These people outside of Christianity believe Christians have three gods, where some sects in Christianity view the Father, Son and Holy Spirit as three separate gods, similar to other ancient trinities. I am not addressing that situation at all. I am looking at all of the fabricated versions of “Jesus Christ” and defining each version as a separate god. All the thousands of denominations fall under the label “Christianity”, even though the individual denominations many times do not view their counterparts as true Christians.

When one thinks of paganism in a historical framework, the religions of the Greek and Roman gods come to mind. These are polytheistic religions where there are many gods that are paid homage by their patrons.

Britannica.com definition of paganism:

paganism, Christian term used to designate those religions that do not worship the God of Abraham, the figure central to both Christianity and to other Abrahamic religions like Judaism and Islam. Christians have used the terms paganism and pagan, which typically carry pejorative connotations, to draw clear distinctions between themselves and those who they believe are worshipping false gods.

Do Christians today worship the God of Abraham? I would argue that they mostly do not. There are stipulations in order to worship a god, especially the Creator God of Abraham, Yahuah, who told us to declare His name by the four Hebrew letters, Yod, Heh, Waw, Heh. The Creator told Isaac, son of Abraham, the world would be blessed through his offspring because Abraham “listened to my voice and kept my charge: my commandments, my statutes, and my laws.”

Genesis 26:4–5 (LEB): And I will multiply your descendants like the stars of heaven, and I will give to your descendants all these lands. And all nations of the earth will be blessed through your offspring, because Abraham listened to my voice and kept my charge: my commandments, my statutes, and my laws.”

The Father told the people at Mount Horeb, in an audible voice, what they must do to worship Him .

Exodus 20:4–6 (LEB): ⁴ “You shall not make for yourself a divine image with any form that is in the heavens above or that is in the earth below or that is in the water below the earth. ⁵ You will not bow down to them, and you will not serve them, because I am Yahweh your God, a jealous God, punishing the guilt of the parents on the children on the third and on the fourth generations of those hating me, ⁶ and showing loyal love to thousands of generations of those loving me and of those keeping my commandments.

If we examine Christianity today, we can conclude that for the most part, no one is keeping the commandments of the God of Abraham, thus by default, putting them into the pagan classification by the definition of paganism. Paganism: “Christian term used to designate those religions that do not worship the God of Abraham“. A Roman pagan from antiquity would feel at home at most Christian assemblies, and wonder who this new “Jesus” god is, especially when we look at all of the borrowed traditions, symbolism and holidays of Christianity from the ancient religions of Babylon and Rome.

Peter declared, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God!” when Jesus asked “Who do you say that I am?”. Due to all the misrepresentations of Jesus, I prefer to use his Hebrew name, Yeshua, to ensure we are talking about the real Messiah. Peter called him the “Christ”.

Matthew 16:15–17 (LEB): ¹⁵ He said to them, “But who do you say that I am?” ¹⁶ And Simon Peter answered and said, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God!” ¹⁷ And Jesus answered and said to him, “Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah, because flesh and blood did not reveal this to you, but my Father who is in heaven.

In these verses it shows that Jesus was pleased that the Father revealed to Peter that he was the Christ and the Son of God. What is a “Christ”? The following is from the New International Dictionary of New Testament Theology :

Χριστός G5986 (Christos), Christ; χρίω G5987 (chriō), spread, (in biblical Gk.) anoint; Μεσσίας G3549 (Messias), Messiah.

Christ is derived via the Lat. Christus from the Gk. Christos, which in the LXX and the NT is the Gk. equivalent of the Aram. mešîḥā’. This in turn corresponds to the Heb. māšîaḥ and denotes someone who has been ceremonially anointed for an office (→ Anoint).

From this definition, we get the term Messiah, and someone that is anointed for an office, given for the definition of “Christ”. From other places in scripture we can gather that Yeshua is the anointed King and Priest similar to the Melchizedek king and priest of Salem.

Hebrews 5:8–10 (LEB): ⁸ Although he was a son, he learned obedience from what he suffered, ⁹ and being perfected, he became the source of eternal salvation to all those who obey him, ¹⁰ being designated by God a high priest according to the order of Melchizedek.

Andrew uses the word Messiah referring to Yeshua in John’s account.

John 1:40–42 (LEB): ⁴⁰ Andrew, the brother of Simon Peter, was one of the two who heard John and followed him. ⁴¹ This one first found his own brother Simon and said to him, “We have found the Messiah!” (which is translated “Christ”). ⁴² He brought him to Jesus. Looking at him, Jesus said, “You are Simon the son of John. You will be called Cephas” (which is interpreted “Peter”).

Messiah is the Hebrew word “mashiach” meaning someone anointed, to anoint someone, to smear, or spread oil over. Therefore, when Peter declared Yeshua to be the “Christ” and Son of the living God, they were not just speaking about any random person that was anointed for some random office. They knew this was the Elect One that had been prophesied to come. Enoch is a book that was found in the dead sea scrolls along side the oldest copy of Genesis that we have. The disciples of Yeshua quoted from this book and were well aware of its contents. The following is from the R.H. Charles translation of the book of Enoch:

XLIX. The Power and Wisdom of the Elect One.
CHAPTER XLIX.

l. For wisdom is poured out like water,
And glory faileth not before him for evermore.

2. For he is mighty in all the secrets of righteousness,
   And unrighteousness shall disappear as a shadow,
   And have no continuance;
   Because the Elect One standeth before the Lord of Spirits,
   And his glory is for ever and ever,
   And his might unto all generations.
3. And in him dwells the spirit of wisdom,
   And the spirit which gives insight,
   And the spirit of understanding and of might,
   And the spirit of those who have fallen asleep in righteousness.
4. And he shall judge the secret things,
   And none shall be able to utter a lying word before him;
   For he is the Elect One before the Lord of Spirits according to His good
   pleasure.

We see similar language in Isaiah.

Isaiah 11:1–5 (LEB): 11 And a shoot will come out from the stump of Jesse, and a branch from its roots will bear fruit. ² And the spirit of Yahweh shall rest on him— a spirit of wisdom and understanding, a spirit of counsel and might, a spirit of knowledge and the fear of Yahweh. ³ And his breath is in the fear of Yahweh. And he shall judge not by his eyesight, and he shall rebuke not by what he hears with his ears. ⁴ But he shall judge the poor with righteousness, and he shall decide for the needy of the earth with rectitude. And he shall strike the earth with the rod of his mouth, and he shall kill the wicked person with the breath of his lips. ⁵ And righteousness shall be the belt around his waist, and faithfulness the belt around his loins.

Messiah Yeshua, the Elect and Anointed One from the Lord of Spirits, who is the creator God and Father, told us he did not come with his own agenda and that he only did what he saw the Father do and only said what he heard the Father say.

John 12:48–50 (LEB): ⁴⁸ The one who rejects me and does not accept my words has one who judges him; the word that I have spoken will judge him on the last day. ⁴⁹ For I have not spoken from myself, but the Father himself who sent me has commanded me what I should say and what I should speak. ⁵⁰ And I know that his commandment is eternal life. So the things that I say, just as the Father said to me, thus I say.”

By telling us this, we can conclude that everything Yeshua says must be in agreement with what the Father has said through His prophets. We can identify the fake Jesus Christ figures by seeing how they align with the words from God. After all, Yeshua is called the Word of God and only delivers this message. He is the way and the truth which is the same as the way and truth of the laws of God. Yeshua is the manifestation of the instructive words of his Father.

John 14:6 (LEB): ⁶ Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.

Psalm 86:11 (LEB): ¹¹ Teach me, O Yahweh, your way, that I may walk in your truth. Unite my heart to fear your name.

Psalm 119:150–152 (LEB): ¹⁵⁰ Those who pursue a wicked purpose draw near; they are far from your law. ¹⁵¹ You are near, O Yahweh, and all your commands are truth. ¹⁵² Concerning your testimonies, I knew long ago that you have established them forever.

Psalm 18:30 (LEB): ³⁰ This God—his way is blameless. The word of Yahweh is flawless. He is a shield for all those who take refuge in him.

Any “Jesus Christ” that does not align with the Father’s ways can therefore be labelled as a different god (“gods of others”, literally). So then, we can now see how each denomination of Christianity has different versions of Jesus Christ. Some say Jesus declared unclean animals fine to eat when the Father said “be holy for I am holy”. Some say Jesus changed the Sabbath to Sunday from the seventh day. Others say every day is the Sabbath because we rest in Jesus now. Those versions of Jesus cannot be Yeshua.

Exodus 31:12–17 (LEB): ¹² And Yahweh spoke to Moses and said, 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. 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. 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. ¹⁶ The Israelites will pay attention to the Sabbath in order to fulfill the Sabbath throughout their generations as a lasting covenant. 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.”

Some will say, “I am not an Israelite, so those verses do not apply to me. I am a gentile Christian!”. However, there is no such thing as a “gentile Christian”. One is either a gentile, alienated from the commonwealth of Israel, or brought near to God and His covenants of promise through the Messiah. As we just read, the Sabbath is part of the lasting covenant.

Ephesians 2:11–13 (LEB): ¹¹ Therefore remember that formerly you, the Gentiles in the flesh, the so-called uncircumcision by the so-called circumcision in the flesh, made by hands, ¹² that you were at that time apart from Christ, alienated from the citizenship of Israel, and strangers to the covenants of promise, not having hope, and without God in the world. ¹³ But now in Christ Jesus you, the ones who once were far away, have become near by the blood of Christ.

We could go on and on about the characteristics of the different versions of Jesus in the Christian religion today. We have some more progressive versions of Jesus that condone same-sex marriage, while others would have Jesus wearing two six shooters like someone from the wild west. We have the King James only Jesus and the social media Jesus that loves everyone, despite their unwillingness to repent.

This is the reason Christianity could be labelled a polytheistic religion. It does not matter if the sect says they follow Jesus Christ if they assign a different identity to him, other than his own. If their version of Jesus Christ disagrees with the ways and truth of the Creator, it is not Messiah Yeshua. Each version of Jesus Christ could have a different name, just as other religions have Buddha, Mohammad, and Hare Krishna.

John 4:19–24 (LEB): ¹⁹ The woman said to him, “Sir, I see that you are a prophet. ²⁰ Our fathers worshiped on this mountain, and you people say that in Jerusalem is the place where it is necessary to worship.” ²¹ Jesus said to her, “Believe me, woman, that an hour is coming when neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem will you worship the Father. ²² You worship what you do not know. We worship what we know, because salvation is from the Jews. ²³ But an hour is coming—and now is here—when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for indeed the Father seeks such people to be his worshipers. ²⁴ God is spirit, and the ones who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.”

Yeshua’s function was to enable people like the adulterous woman from Samaria to return to the Father. The Samaritans were part of the northern kingdom of Israel that had been divorced from the Father due to adultery with gods of others. They were in the same standing as the rest of the people from “the nations”, labelled as gentiles, after He issued them a certificate of divorce.

Jeremiah 3:6–8 (LEB): ⁶ Then Yahweh said to me in the days of Josiah, the king, “Have you seen what apostate Israel has done? She has gone on every high hill and under every leafy tree and she has prostituted herself there. ⁷ And I thought, ‘After her doing all these things to me she will return,’ but she did not return. And her treacherous sister Judah saw it. ⁸ And I saw that _⌊for this very reason, that_⌋ on account of apostate Israel committing adultery I divorced her and gave the letter of divorce to her. Yet her treacherous sister Judah was not afraid and she went and prostituted herself also.

Worship in spirit and truth by searching the scriptures for the real Messiah Yeshua for yourself. Do not be content in one of the thousands of sects of Christianity with their every changing versions of “Jesus Christ”.

Study to shew thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth.

2 Timothy 2:15 (KJV 1900)

Anytime someone disagrees with a doctrine or Biblical interpretation, usually Paul’s famous instruction to Timothy is used to remind the person, supposedly who has strayed, that they “must rightly divide the word of truth”. This verse from the King James translation of the Bible is used to reinforce the theology of dispensationalism. Dispensationalism is a belief system that started in the late 19th century and spread through North America during the 20th century with the help of the Dallas Theological Seminary and C.I. Scofield’s study bible. Most evangelical Christians believe in some version of dispensationalism today as a result. The hard-core dispensationalist, who understands what they believe, holds that the words of Jesus in the Gospels were not spoken to you and I but to only the Jews. They insist that the writings of Paul are the sole source of authority where believers today should receive their instruction.

Should we be “rightly” dividing God’s word? Who determines what is right? If we say most of the Bible is written to someone else, it implies that we should not concern ourselves with anything the Creator, or Yeshua told us in these writings. After all, we are in the “age of grace”, the dispensation where God’s instructions don’t matter, according to this belief system. Dispensationalists will claim, “there is nothing one can do to obtain salvation”, yet even Paul preached repentance and performing deeds worthy of repentance. These “deeds worthy of repentance” are the instructions given to us by the Father, Yeshua (Jesus) and others, all contained in the entirety of scriptures. Paul testifies in these verses in the book of Acts:

Acts 26:19–20 (LEB): ¹⁹ “Therefore, O King Agrippa, I was not disobedient to the heavenly vision, ²⁰ but to those in Damascus first, and in Jerusalem and all the region of Judea and to the Gentiles, I proclaimed that they should repent and turn to God, doing deeds worthy of repentance.

Most Bible versions do not translate second Timothy 2:15 the same way as the King James version does. Without the King James version of the Bible we lose the “rightly dividing” phrase that has lead so many astray. Here are some examples of alternate translations:

2 Timothy 2:15 (LEB): ¹⁵ Make every effort to present yourself approved to God, a worker having no need to be ashamed, guiding the word of truth along a straight path.

2 Timothy 2:15 (ESV): ¹⁵ Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved, a worker who has no need to be ashamed, rightly handling the word of truth.

In these two examples, the verse is translated using the words “guiding” and “handling” instead of “dividing”. When we divide the word of God into dispensations, such as the “age of grace”, where we “unhitch” from scripture, as mega-pastor Andy Stanley proclaims, we start seeing things such as music from Flamey Grant at the top of the Christian music charts. Please read the article from the Christian Post for more on that story. Drag Performer Flamey Grant First to Top Christian Music.

This sort of headline will be applauded by more progressive Christians and leave others scratching their heads asking, “How did we get here?”. I will address the sort of Christians that are having a hard time understanding this phenomenon. However, in order to understand this, one must leave behind the deception of dispensationalism and consider “guiding the word along a straight path” instead of dividing God’s word. There is no such thing as “rightly dividing” because dividing the word of God is a completely subjective undertaking. The frame work of dispensationalism is an example of people supposedly “rightly dividing”, but actually butchering the word of God and eventually progressing to the point of 50,000 denominations of Christianity and Flamey Grant topping the Christian charts.

We are all responsible for our own salvation, so I would rather take the time to understand the “word of truth” then to rely on preachers, pastors, church fathers or teachers and professors to tell me. When we are asked to give an account of our lives in the end, explaining our understanding of the doctrines of the “age of grace” will not suffice.

Paul’s letters are one sided glimpses into the affairs of the churches that he helped start. I say “helped” because he left behind leaders to carry on the work. Many of the new converts in these assemblies did not have any knowledge of the scriptures or the Father’s instructions for life and blessings. There also may not have been the ease of access to the scriptures and information that we have at our fingertips today. Much of Paul’s writings were simply explaining the principles of God’s word (the Old Testament) in a way that people with no previous knowledge of the God of Israel could understand, and the fact that through Yeshua the Messiah, they now had a way to be part of the family of the God of Israel if they left their former gods and ways behind. This is why we see these instructions given to the gentiles in the book of Acts with the understanding they will hear the entire word and instruction where “Moses has those who proclaim him in every city from ancient generations, because he is read aloud in the synagogues on every Sabbath.”

Acts 15:19–21 (LEB): ¹⁹ Therefore I conclude we should not cause difficulty for those from among the Gentiles who turn to God, ²⁰ but we should write a letter to them to abstain from the pollution of idols and from sexual immorality and from what has been strangled and from blood. ²¹ For Moses has those who proclaim him in every city from ancient generations, because he is read aloud in the synagogues on every Sabbath.”

These commands from the Torah to abstain from the “pollution” of idols, sexual immorality, what has been strangled, and from blood are all listed in the instructions of God, first given to Israel, then proclaimed among the gentiles. The Torah is simply the first five books of the Old Testament in modern, English bibles.

Some Christians wrongly teach that these four items are all they need to be concerned about, then invent their own definitions of the pollution of idols and sexually immorality. These instructions were given very specifically to a group of people that were steeped in these four things from their former religion. These people were coming from a religious system that had temple prostitutes, both male and female, and sexual rituals were part of their religion. This is why the holidays, such as Christmas and Easter, handed down to Christianity from these pagan religions, have so much fertility symbolism in their decorations and traditions.

The leaders in the Jerusalem council intended for the people to continue learning how to live a life pleasing to the Father proven by their conclusion that Moses is taught every where in the synagogues. These items in Acts 15 were meant to be a starting point. For example, once my family realized the whole Bible was still relevant, we started resting on the Sabbath and following the dietary instructions found in Leviticus chapter 11. The more we studied, the more we learned. We then made adjustments once we saw the “straight path”.

The deception that we can define sin ourselves, or not be concerned with sin at all in “the age of grace” has a horrible future for the deceived. I would go as far as to say we are witnessing the forerunner to the “great deception”. Christians will already be so misinformed at the time of the end that they will accept whatever delusion is handed to them. Perhaps tricking Christians into believing they do not need to be concerned with sin against the instructions of God, giving them fake holy days to replace the Biblical feast days, and painting the Messiah as a law-breaking, antinomian, is the great deception.

The Creator tells us what will happen if we view His instructions as repulsive, irrelevant or for someone else.

Leviticus 26:14–16 (LEB): ¹⁴ “ ‘But if you do not listen to me and you do not carry out all these commands, ¹⁵ and if you reject my statutes and if your inner self abhors my regulations, to not carry out all my commands by your breaking my covenant, ¹⁶ I in turn will do this to you: then I will summon onto you horror, the wasting disease, and the fever that wastes eyes and that drains away life; and you shall sow your seed in vain, and your enemies shall eat it.

The entire chapter 26 of Leviticus tells us the benefits of keeping God’s instructions and the consequences of not having any regard for them at all. Yeshua also tells us where lawlessness (antinomianism) will lead.

Matthew 7:21–23 (LEB): ²¹ “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter into the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. ²² On that day many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and expel demons in your name, and perform many miracles in your name?’ ²³ And then I will say to them plainly, ‘I never knew you. Depart from me, you who practice lawlessness!’

The only logical way we are able to ignore these words from the Messiah is to say we are in the “age of grace” and that these verses do not apply to us, or we can simply redefine lawlessness. That is extremely risky and I certainly will not take the word of the people teaching and preaching this type of theology any longer. I hope everyone reading this will take the time to study these matters for themselves and realize that the Creator’s instructions given to all twelve tribes of Israel are still valid for anyone that is willing to repent and make the God of Israel their God.

And God said, “Look—I am giving to you every plant that bears seed which is on the face of the whole earth, and every kind of tree that bears fruit. They shall be yours as food.”

Genesis 1:29 (LEB)

We spend much of our efforts speaking about Sabbaths, feast days, justice, mercy and the importance that we should place on the instructions of the Creator. These are all very important subjects. There is a whole aspect of life that interlocks with these truths and helps us be in tune with nature while we do our best to follow the instructions of the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. We must learn to work with the natural world around us and not go to war with nature.

One of the ways we can achieve peace with nature is to follow the ways that Yahweh gave us. Fighting nature is going against the instructions of Yahweh. He told us how the world works, and it is a much better experience when we align ourselves with His ways.

Leviticus 26:2–6 (LEB): ² “ ‘You shall keep my Sabbaths, and you shall revere my sanctuary; I am Yahweh.³ “ ‘If you walk in my statutes and you keep my commands and you do them, ⁴ then I will give you rains in their time, and the land shall give its produce, and the trees of the field shall give their fruit. ⁵ And for you the threshing season shall overtake the grape harvest, and the grape harvest shall overtake the sowing, and you shall eat your food to your fill and you shall live securely in your land. ⁶ And I will give peace in the land, and you shall lie down, and there shall not be anybody who makes you afraid, and I will remove harmful animals from the land, and no sword shall pass through your land.

I used to spend much of my time on Sabbaths mowing the lawn and trimming everything, being what I refer to now as a “grass farmer”. Don’t misunderstand, I still like a neat lawn, but there was an obsessive compulsive component driving me in the past.

I was looking at some of the neglected areas around my house recently, and realized that I now have a sanctuary for bees, my own herbal pharmacy and wild plants to forage. I have been interested in plant medicine for a number of years and have been trying to learn the uses for the plants that have grown in the absence of a manicured lawn and field. It makes me believe that part of working with nature is using the plants it provides naturally, especially after reading the following section in the book of Jubilees.

Jubilees 10:10-14 (pseudepigrapha.com): And one of us He commanded that we should teach Noah all their medicines; for He knew that they would not walk in uprightness, nor strive in righteousness. And we did according to all His words: all the malignant evil ones we bound in the place of condemnation and a tenth part of them we left that they might be subject before Satan on the earth. And we explained to Noah all the medicines of their diseases, together with their seductions, how he might heal them with herbs of the earth. And Noah wrote down all things in a book as we instructed him concerning every kind of medicine. Thus the evil spirits were precluded from (hurting) the sons of Noah. And he gave all that he had written to Shem, his eldest son; for he loved him exceedingly above all his sons.

Jubilees is a book that was found in the caves of Qumran along with some of the oldest copies of scripture we have available to us. The narrative is similar to Genesis, however, it is written from the viewpoint of angels delivering the information to Moses. This may be a foreign concept to many Christians and actually make them cringe due to the strict adherence that is imposed in much of Christianity to the Westminster Confessions. However, we find Steven saying this very thing in the approved sixty-six book Bible.

Acts 7:51–53 (LEB): ⁵¹ “You stiff-necked people and uncircumcised in hearts and in your ears! You constantly resist the Holy Spirit! As your fathers did, so also do you! ⁵² Which of the prophets did your fathers not persecute? And they killed those who announced beforehand about the coming of the Righteous One, whose betrayers and murderers you have now become, ⁵³ you who received the law by directions of angels and have not observed it!”

Some of the variety of plants that have started growing on their own around my house are Mullen, Aster, St. John’s Wort, Yarrow, Golden Rod and of course things such as Dandelion, Hawthorn and Burdock, all of which have unique medicinal uses. Many of these plants and others can also be eaten, and have sustained people for thousands of years before processed food took over society’s diet. It is interesting how the corrupt food chain we have today has caused us to need more pharmaceuticals. Many of the store bought drugs are simply synthetically made compounds of the plants growing around us. One cannot put a patent on a naturally growing weed, so there is a method to market these plants allowing there to be boatloads of money to be made by the different drug companies.

Other plant life that can be used for our health and well-being are lichens found growing on trees, mushrooms and even pine needles. Pine needle tea is a good source of vitamins A , C and Selenium, for example.

Genesis 3:18 (LEB): ¹⁸ And thorns and thistles shall sprout for you, and you shall eat the plants of the field.

Plants have been used for medicine at least as far back as Noah, and he even wrote it down in a book to pass down to his children. This plant medicine was used to combat diseases caused by disobedience to the laws of Yahweh and from the demons that were allowed to stay on the earth to test us. Today we read all the warnings about plant medicine and see how much disdain there is towards its use in the pharmaceutical industry and medical profession. Could we have the answers to many of our medical problems growing in our neglected fields and lawns? What is more beautiful, mowed grass or life saving flowers growing around us?

Of course, there are people who have capitalized on herbal medicine and have created a market for consumers to buy pills for everything from milk thistle to oregano. Too much of a good thing can be harmful and our ancestors consumed these products by making teas and tinctures out of the plants, not buying high concentrated tablets. Everything gets corrupted with corporate greed and the laziness of consumers.

Revelation 18:21–24 (LEB): ²¹ And one powerful angel picked up a stone like a great millstone and threw it into the sea, saying, “In this way Babylon the great city will be thrown down with violence, and will never be found again! ²² And the sound of harpists and musicians and flute players and trumpeters will never be heard in you again! And every craftsman of every trade will never be found in you again! And the sound of a mill will never be heard in you again! ²³ And the light of a lamp will never shine in you again! And the sound of a bridegroom and bride will never be heard in you again! For your merchants were the most important people of the earth, because with your sorcery they deceived all the nations. ²⁴ And in her was found the blood of prophets and saints and all those who had been slaughtered on the earth.

Strong’s G5758 is the word translated to sorcery in this version of the Bible. This is how “Babylon” deceived the whole world.

φαρμακεία
pharmakeia, n.c., use of drugs, sorcery, potions; spells.

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

Without being too conspiratorial, it is not very difficult to see how the world is being deceived by drugs, potions and spells. The food chain has been corrupted in the name of “science” when it is actually greed that is driving things. The pharmaceutical industry is making billions of dollars for treatments created for mysterious illnesses caused by the corrupt food chain and men doing heinous acts. Most people do not regard the dietary instructions given to us by the Father. This is the One who many believe created everything, yet do not have the faith to eat what He said to eat and not eat what He said was not food.

The context of these verses in Isaiah are at the time of the return of the Messiah when he will deliver the wrath of Yahweh. This is in the future, and the dietary instructions are still valid.

Isaiah 66:16–17 (LEB): ¹⁶ For Yahweh enters into judgment on all flesh with fire and his sword, and those slain by Yahweh shall be many. ¹⁷ Those who sanctify themselves and those who cleanse themselves to go into the gardens after the one in the middle, eating the flesh of swine and detestable things and rodents together shall come to an end!” declares Yahweh.

All of these subjects are connected. The best course of action one can take is to study the words of Yahweh and do what the Creator of everything said to do. Do not fight the laws of nature, of which Yahweh’s laws are at the root. Learn how to live off of the land and leave the corruptions of this world behind!

Have you found yourself in a place where you cannot tolerate the manipulation, control and inconsistencies found in organized religion? Do you still yearn for an understanding of a creator or meaningful relationship with God? Please check out my book where I discuss many topics about these issues based on my personal experiences from fifty years of involvement in organized religion.

Which of these three do you suppose became a neighbor of the man who fell among the robbers?” So he said, “The one who showed mercy to him.” And Jesus said to him, “You go and do likewise.”

Luke 10:36–37 (LEB)

In Christianity we often hear about “loving our neighbour”. When Jesus was asked which commandment was the most important, he first stated that loving God was the most important, then loving one’s neighbour was the second most important.

Luke 10:25–27 (LEB): ²⁵ And behold, a certain legal expert stood up to test him, saying, “Teacher, what must I do so that I will inherit eternal life?” ²⁶ And he said to him, “What is written in the law? How do you read it?”* ²⁷ And he answered and said, “You shall love the Lord your God from all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind, and your neighbor as yourself.”

Jesus, or the name he was given at birth, Yeshua, was quoting the Shema. Many Christians are not familiar with these verses in Deuteronomy because it was a law of the church to forbid saying these verses. Christian Emperor, Justinian, even banned the Jews from reading this in the synagogues.

Deuteronomy 6:4–9 (LEB): ⁴ “Hear, Israel, Yahweh our God, Yahweh is unique. 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. ⁶ And these words that I am commanding you today shall be on your heart. ⁷ And you shall recite them to your children, and you shall talk about them at the time of your living in your house and at the time of your going on the road and at the time of your lying down and at the time of your rising up. ⁸ And you shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as an emblem between your eyes. ⁹ And you shall write them on the doorframe of your house and on your gates.

Yeshua fully embraced these words and “every word from the mouth of God”. The command to love our neighbour comes from Leviticus 19.

Leviticus 19:17–18 (LEB): ¹⁷ “ ‘You shall not hate your brother in your heart; you shall surely rebuke your fellow citizen, so that you do not incur sin along with him. 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.

When Yeshua went on to explain how to love one’s neighbour to the “legal expert”, he told him the story we know today as the parable of the good Samaritan. A Samaritan was one who was a descendant of the tribes of Israel that were not dispersed by the Assyrian empire. These would be who Yeshua described as “the lost sheep of the house of Israel”.

Luke 10:30–37 (LEB): ³⁰ And Jesus replied and said, “A certain man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and fell into the hands of robbers, who both stripped him and beat him. After inflicting blows on him, they went away, leaving him half dead. ³¹ Now by coincidence a certain priest was going down on that road, and when he saw him, he passed by on the opposite side. ³² And in the same way also a Levite, when he came down to the place and saw him, passed by on the opposite side. ³³ But a certain Samaritan who was traveling came up to him and, when he saw him, had compassion. ³⁴ And he came up and bandaged his wounds, pouring on olive oil and wine, and he put him on his own animal and brought him to an inn and took care of him. ³⁵ And on the next day, he took out two denarii and gave them to the innkeeper, and said, “Take care of him, and whatever you spend in addition, I will repay to you when I return. ³⁶ Which of these three do you suppose became a neighbor of the man who fell among the robbers?” ³⁷ So he said, “The one who showed mercy to him.” And Jesus said to him, “You go and do likewise.”

This was a hard hitting parable because the two Levite priests who went out of their way not to go near the person laying half-dead on the road did so not because they were being complete jerks, but because if they came in contact with a dead person they would be considered ritually unclean and not be allowed to do service in the temple until they went through a multiple day waiting period. They could have been on the way to work at the temple as they passed by. Yeshua was reinforcing his message of “mercy not sacrifice” to this legal expert.

To make it worse, Yeshua also made the hero of this story a Samaritan. The Samaritans were the prodigal sons that were lost, as far as those in Judaism were concerned. They were descendants of the tribes of the Northern kingdom of Israel that were scattered by the Assyrians in 722 BCE. The Northern kingdom of Israel, called the house of Israel or Ephraim, is not taught in Christianity, yet the house of Israel is discussed frequently in both new and old testaments of the Christian Bible.

Matthew 15:24 (LEB): ²⁴ But he answered and said, “I was not sent except to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.”

Yeshua is showing the “legal expert”, likely a Pharisee, that mercy is more important than sacrifice, and used a people group that he came to save and reunite with Judah. There is a lot of information packed into the story of the good Samaritan. We, as Christians, learn the importance of the Torah teachings of loving Yahweh and one’s neighbour, showing that Yeshua’s intention was not to make the law obsolete, but to uphold and explain its application. The Levite priests were so distracted by their duties as priests, that they overlooked the importance of human life. Human life always takes precedence over other laws. If one of these priests had become ritually unclean in the attempts of helping the half-dead man, there was a protocol they would have to follow. It may have disrupted their daily routine for a few days, but Yeshua was saying “big deal”, and used the hated Samaritan as the hero to emphasize these principles.

Matthew 9:12–13 (LEB): ¹² And when he heard it, he said, “Those who are healthy do not have need of a physician, but those who are sick. ¹³ But go and learn what it means, “I want mercy and not sacrifice.” For I did not come to call the righteous, but sinners.”

Sometimes we have to step out of our daily routine and get involved in messy situations. We need to study the word of God and learn to apply it as Yeshua taught us. Yeshua never made the law of God obsolete and Christianity is in this stupor thinking that God’s eternal laws do not apply to them. If this is the case, one would have to rewrite the Bible. Some have done this very thing by qualifying scripture with 19th century theology to ensure no one thinks we have to actually do what God said to do.

Matthew 5:17–19 (LEB): ¹⁷ “Do not think that I have come to destroy the law or the prophets. I have not come to destroy them but to fulfill them. ¹⁸ For truly I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not one tiny letter or one stroke of a letter will pass away from the law until all takes place. ¹⁹ Therefore whoever abolishes one of the least of these commandments and teaches people to do so will be called least in the kingdom of heaven, but whoever keeps them and teaches them, this person will be called great in the kingdom of heaven.

Photo by Nathan Lemon on Unsplash

And I saw one angel standing in the sun, and he cried out with a loud voice, saying to all the birds that fly directly overhead, “Come! Assemble for the great banquet of God, in order that you may eat the flesh of kings, and the flesh of military tribunes, and the flesh of the powerful, and the flesh of horses and those seated on them,
and the flesh of all people, both free and slave, and small and great!”

Revelation 19:17–18 (LEB)

There are two great feasts spoken about in scripture. One is for those who have faith in Jesus (or Yeshua by his Hebrew name), and show this by following his ways, and one for those who do not. One feast is not good. It is the feast of vultures and every unclean bird that will eat the corpses of those who reject God. This feast is alluded to by Moses, and is not just limited to the famous imagery in Revelation.

Deuteronomy 28:25–26 (LEB): ²⁵ “Yahweh shall cause you to be defeated before your enemies; on one road you shall go against them, but you will flee on seven roads before them, and you shall become a thing of horror to all of the kingdoms of the earth. ²⁶ And your dead bodies shall be as food for all of the birds of the heaven and to the animals of the earth, and there shall not be anyone to frighten them away.

I realize these verses seem to be speaking about ancient Israel, and that the whole Bible is about Israel. Once we realize that the twelve tribes were drawn close to God and given the oracles of God, we can have a better understanding of the past, present and future. Israel is not limited to a political nation state on the Mediterranean Sea, and the twelve tribes that were in covenant at Mount Horeb did not all return in 1948. Some did: however, the tribes are still mostly scattered to the four corners of the earth.

Deuteronomy 4:27–31 (LEB): 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. 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. 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. 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. 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, Yahweh tells us more about the birds of prey.

Isaiah 18:1–7 (LEB): 18 Ah! land of the whirring of wings, which is beyond the rivers of Cush, ² that sends messengers by the sea and in vessels of papyrus on the surface of the waters! Go, swift messengers, to a tall and smooth nation, to a people feared near and far, a mighty, mighty and trampling nation, whose land rivers divide. ³ All you inhabitants of the world and dwellers of the earth, when a signal is raised on the mountains, you must look, and when a trumpet is blown, you must listen! ⁴ For Yahweh said this to me: “I will be quiet, and I will look from my dwelling place like clear heat because of light, like a cloud of dew in the heat of harvest.” ⁵ For before the harvest, when the blossom is complete and a blossom becomes ripening fruit, and one cuts off the shoots with pruning hooks, and one removes, tears away the tendrils. ⁶ They shall all be left for birds of prey of the mountains and for the animals of the earth. And the birds of prey will pass the summer on it, and every animal of the earth will winter on it. ⁷ At that time, a gift will be brought to Yahweh of hosts from a tall and smooth people, and from a people feared near and far, a mighty, mighty and trampling nation, whose land the rivers divide, to the place of the name of Yahweh of hosts, the mountain of Zion.

It’s clear that Yeshua was referring to scriptures in the Old Testament when he talked about the vultures gathering where the corpses are located.

Matthew 24:27–28 (LEB): ²⁷ For just as the lightning comes from the east and flashes to the west, so the coming of the Son of Man will be. ²⁸ Wherever the corpse is, there the vultures will gather.

Finally, we see this feast of vultures spoken about at the end of times.

Revelation 19:17–18 (LEB): ¹⁷ And I saw one angel standing in the sun, and he cried out with a loud voice, saying to all the birds that fly directly overhead, “Come! Assemble for the great banquet of God, ¹⁸ in order that you may eat the flesh of kings, and the flesh of military tribunes, and the flesh of the powerful, and the flesh of horses and those seated on them, and the flesh of all people, both free and slave, and small and great!”

I certainly do not want to become bird food, and I would rather everyone else avoid this great feast. There is a much better feast planned for people than this one where the birds dine on the corpses of the people at war with God. We see this mentioned in places in scripture, and it is where I want to be. The feast I want to be part of is another feast spoken about by Isaiah. Aged wines and fat filled with marrow, and no more death are something we have to look forward to.

Isaiah 25:6–8 (LEB): ⁶ And on this mountain Yahweh of hosts will make for all peoples a rich feast, a feast of aged wines, fat filled with marrow, filtered aged wine. ⁷ And on this mountain he will destroy the face of the shroud, the shroud over all peoples, and the woven covering over all nations. ⁸ He will destroy death forever, and the Lord Yahweh will wipe off the tears from all faces, and he will remove the disgrace of his people from all the earth, for Yahweh has spoken.

When we read “Yahweh has spoken”, this tells us whatever has been spoken will happen. Unfortunately, many teachers disconnect the Old Testament from the New Testament these days and will not even discuss the events in the book of Revelation. This is simply because it disrupts their doctrine to do so, or they believe these verses do not apply to them. We know all scripture is true and must be taken into account looking at future events.

Amos 9:13–14 (LEB): ¹³ “Look, days are coming,” declares Yahweh, “when the one who plows will overtake the one who reaps, the one who treads grapes will catch up with the one who sows the seed. And the mountains will drip sweet wine and all of the hills will flow with it. ¹⁴ And I will restore the fortunes of my people Israel, and they will rebuild the desolated cities and will inhabit them. And they will plant vineyards and will drink their wine, and they will make gardens and will eat their fruit.

I am looking forward to having vineyards and olive groves. We often hear about the “marriage supper of the lamb”, as if it is only spoken about in the book of Revelation.

Revelation 19:6–10 (LEB): ⁶ And I heard something like the sound of a great crowd and something like the sound of many waters and something like the sound of powerful thunder, saying, “Hallelujah! For the Lord God, the All-Powerful, reigns! ⁷ Let us rejoice and be glad and give him the glory, because the wedding celebration of the Lamb has come, and his bride has prepared herself. ⁸ And it has been granted to her that she be dressed in bright, clean fine linen (for the fine linen is the righteous deeds of the saints). ⁹ And he said to me, “Write: Blessed are those who are invited to the banquet of the wedding celebration of the Lamb!” And he said to me, “These are the true words of God.”

Plan on being part of the celebration feast with Yeshua. Do not become caught in the wrath of God and become food for the vultures!

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“If you do not diligently observe all the words of this law written in this scroll by revering this glorious and awesome name, Yahweh your God, then Yahweh shall overwhelm you with your plagues and the plagues of your offspring, severe plagues and lasting illnesses, grievous and enduring.

Deuteronomy 28:58–59 (LEB)

God is referenced throughout our culture in North America likely because the people that settled here from Europe were in many cases fleeing religious persecution. At a minimum, they wanted freedom to worship in their own way. I have in mind such groups as the Puritans. I doubt they foresaw the way religion would evolve into mega-churches with prosperity preaching, or how songs such as Jelly Roll’s, “Need a Favor” would be broadcast across the airways and heard throughout the land.

The full catch phrase of Jelly Roll’s “Need a Favor” is “I only talk to God when I need a Favor”. This song is brutally honest and probably true for many people. It is sad to hear someone refer to the one who created the universe and everything in it with such a way of disregard, and to see the apathy towards the things of God in our society.

Another instance of taking God along to our events happens every Sunday at NASCAR races. Someone prays to God before the race for the safety of the drivers and for the general enjoyment of the fans. Some of the people that pray even try to work the message of salvation into their prayer. Very clever indeed.

Amos 5:21–24 (LEB): ²¹ “I hate, I despise your festivals, and I take no delight in your assemblies. ²² Yes, even if you offer me your burnt offerings and grain offerings, I will not accept them, and I will not look at the fellowship offerings of your fattened animals. ²³ Remove from me the noise of your songs, and I do not want to hear the melody of your harps! ²⁴ But let justice roll on like the water, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream.

There are countless other instances where God is dragged into our every day lives. Is He listening though? Does God think it is a good idea to pray for safety then send 40 cars on a mile long track travelling inches from each other at speeds of 180 miles an hour? Does God want to be talked about in country songs? One recent song I heard had a line “we still go to church on Sunday and drink beer on Saturday night”. I don’t have anything against drinking beer, but the song is just using the phrase “drinking beer” contrasted with “church on Sunday” to make a point that they casually go to church and live anyway they want the rest of the week. God is woven in our culture, but rarely do we find anyone who cares what God thinks, who God is, or what they should be doing to please God. If these questions are not asked then everyone is basically talking about an imaginary sky-friend that happily is brought along as a good luck charm.

Proverbs 28:9 (LEB): ⁹ He who turns his ear from listening to instruction, even his prayer is an abomination.

Turning our ear from instruction loses its meaning in English. This is not just some random set of instructions defined by a pastor, priest or religious denomination. The word being translated to “instruction” is the Hebrew word “Torah”, which are laws and instructions of the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.

There is no where in the instructions of God that I am aware of, where we are told to briefly leave our life of disobedience to ask for a favor from God, so we can carry on with our lives. The only “favor” we receive is the grace of conviction compelling us to return to His ways spelled out to us in scripture. This was only possible through His Son, Yeshua. Yeshua told us what to do and renewed the covenant with the Father. This means that we actually can covenant with God if we walk the path laid out by Yeshua.

Luke 22:14–20 (LEB): ¹⁴ And when the hour came, he reclined at the table, and the apostles with him. ¹⁵ And he said to them, “I have earnestly desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer. ¹⁶ For I tell you that I will not eat it until it is fulfilled in the kingdom of God.” ¹⁷ And he took in hand a cup, and after giving thanks he said, “Take this and share it among yourselves. ¹⁸ For I tell you, from now on I will not drink of the product of the vine until the kingdom of God comes.”

¹⁹ And he took bread, and after giving thanks, he broke it and gave it to them, saying, “This is my body which is given for you. Do this in remembrance of me.” ²⁰ And in the same way the cup after they had eaten, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood which is poured out for you.

Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and Jacob’s descendants were the only people that had a covenant with the Creator God Yahweh. Even they went out of covenant with no way to return due to disobedience. God sent His Son to gather the “lost sheep of the house of Israel” and through doing so, now the whole world can be saved.

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And you shall count for yourselves from the day after the Sabbath, from the day of your bringing the wave offering’s sheaf—there shall be seven full weeks. Until the day after the seventh Sabbath you shall count fifty days; then you shall present a new grain offering for Yahweh.

Leviticus 23:15–16 (LEB)

Shavuot is traditionally the feast day that celebrates the marriage covenant between Yahweh and His people at Mount Horeb. It is also the feast that believers gathering on that day in the first century, received the breath of God (ruach), with tongues of fire, most commonly referred to as the Holy Spirit. Pentecost means fifty in the Greek language and this is where the “Pentecostal” churches derive their name.

Leviticus 23:15–16 (LEB): ¹⁵ “ ‘And you shall count for yourselves from the day after the Sabbath, from the day of your bringing the wave offering’s sheaf—there shall be seven full weeks. ¹⁶ Until the day after the seventh Sabbath you shall count fifty days; then you shall present a new grain offering for Yahweh.

There are some differences of opinion on the placement of Shavuot in the calendar. Some take the counting from the Sabbath of Unleavened Bread (the day after Passover), and others count from the weekly Sabbath. The first method will cause Shavuot to land on random days of the week, and the other method will cause Shavuot to always be on a Sunday. This is why this year some were celebrating on Thursday and some will celebrate on Sunday.

One reason I believe the Sunday model of Shavuot makes sense is that it aligns with the death, burial and resurrection of the Messiah, Yeshua. If he was crucified in a year when Passover fell on a Wednesday, then in order to fulfill His prophecy of three days and three nights in the grave, he would have risen at the end of the regular Sabbath and in time for the appointed time of First Fruits where the sheaf is waved on the day after the Sabbath.

1 Corinthians 15:22–24 (LEB): ²² For just as in Adam all die, so also in Christ all will be made alive. ²³ But each in his own group: Christ the first fruits, then those who are Christ’s at his coming, ²⁴ then the end, when he hands over the kingdom to the God and Father, when he has abolished all rule and all authority and power.

There are clues in the New Testament that appear to show the counting starting on the first weekly Sabbath. We can see these days referred to as the first sabbath and second sabbath in scripture, but we have to use the translations that use the Textus Receptus manuscripts, such as the King James Version.

Luke 6:1 (KJV 1900): And it came to pass on the second sabbath after the first, that he went through the corn fields; and his disciples plucked the ears of corn, and did eat, rubbing them in their hands.

The word for the “second sabbath after the first” is Strong’s G1207, meaning the second sabbath after Passover. Most Bible translations have dismissed this word and just translated it as “another sabbath”. Some Lexicons call this word a “ghost word” that crept in due to error. I believe it is a legitimate word describing the counting until the fiftieth day.

G1207
δευτερόπρωτος
deuteroprōtos
Thayer Definition:
1) second-first
2) the second of the first Sabbaths after the feast of the Passover

Pentecost is not an invention of the Church, and has nothing to do with Easter, but is a feast tightly woven into the fabric of the Creator. It was the time of the Feast of Weeks that Yahweh made His marriage contract with His people, the twelve tribes of Israel at Mount Horeb.

Exodus 19:1–8 (LEB): 19 In the third month after the Israelites went out from the land of Egypt, on this day they came to the Sinai desert. ² They set out from Rephidim, and they came to the desert of Sinai, and they camped in the desert, and Israel camped there in front of the mountain. ³ And Moses went up to God, and Yahweh called to him from the mountain, saying, “Thus you will say to the house of Jacob and you will tell the Israelites, ⁴ ‘You yourselves have seen what I did to Egypt and how I bore you on eagles’ wings and I brought you to me. ⁵ And now if you will carefully listen to my voice and keep my covenant, you will be a treasured possession for me out of all the peoples, for all the earth is mine, ⁶ but you, you will belong to me as a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.’ These are the words that you will speak to the Israelites.” ⁷ And Moses came and called the elders of the people, and he placed before them all these words that Yahweh had commanded him. ⁸ And all the people together answered and said, “All that Yahweh has spoken we will do.” And Moses brought back the words of the people to Yahweh.

This was not the first time that a covenant was made during Shavuot. The book of Jubilees, found in the caves of Qumran with our oldest transcript of Genesis, gives us a great history of the Feast of Weeks.

The Book of Jubilees translated by R. H. Charles 6:15-19:

15 And He gave to Noah and his sons a sign that there should not again
be a flood on the earth.
16. He set His bow in the cloud for a sign of the eternal covenant that
there should not again be a flood on the earth to destroy it all the days of
the earth.
17. For this reason it is ordained and written on the heavenly tables, that
they should celebrate the feast of weeks in this month once a year, to
renew the covenant every year.
18. And this whole festival was celebrated in heaven from the day of
creation till the days of Noah-twenty-six jubilees (1309-1659 A.M.) and
five weeks of years: and Noah and his sons observed it for seven jubilees
and one week of years, till the day of Noah’s death, and from the day
of Noah’s death his sons did away with (it) until the days of Abraham,
and they ate blood.
19. But Abraham observed it, and Isaac and Jacob and his children
observed it up to thy days, and in thy days the children of Israel forgot it
until ye celebrated it anew on this mountain.

The book of Jubilees is written as from angels narrating the law and history to Moses when he was on the mountain. Stephen makes reference to this in the book of Acts before he was stoned. I recommend reading the book of Jubilees because it gives a little more detail than Genesis.

Acts 7:53 (LEB): ⁵³ you who received the law by directions of angels and have not observed it!”

The instructions of the Creator were not first given at Mount Horeb to the “Jews”, as is falsely claimed today. God’s people were always given His instructions until they forgot them, or stopped doing them, and all twelve tribes were at Mount Horeb, not just the tribe of Judah.

Genesis 26:4–5 (LEB): ⁴ And I will multiply your descendants like the stars of heaven, and I will give to your descendants all these lands. And all nations of the earth will be blessed through your offspring, ⁵ because Abraham listened to my voice and kept my charge: my commandments, my statutes, and my laws.”

The Creator, or Heavenly Father in New Testament terms, gave us His Spirit on this feast as it is recorded in the book of Acts.

Acts 2:1–4 (LEB): 2 And when the day of Pentecost had come, they were all together in the same place. ² And suddenly a sound like a violent rushing wind came from heaven and filled the whole house where they were sitting. ³ And divided tongues like fire appeared to them and rested on each one of them. ⁴ And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other languages as the Spirit gave them ability to speak out.

This rushing wind is called Ruach in Hebrew. It is translated “spirit” from the Greek word Pnoe, which also means wind or breath. We get words such as “pneumatic” and “pneumonia” from the Greek word. Before this event, the disciples of Yeshua were in hiding and not very bold. Afterwards, they went out proclaiming the gospel.

John 16:7–15 (LEB): ⁷ But I tell you the truth, it is better for you that I go away. For if I do not go away, the Advocate will not come to you; but if I go, I will send him to you. ⁸ And when he comes, he will convict the world concerning sin and concerning righteousness and concerning judgment: ⁹ concerning sin, because they do not believe in me, ¹⁰ and concerning righteousness, because I am going away to the Father and you will see me no more, ¹¹ and concerning judgment, because the ruler of this world has been condemned. ¹² I still have many things to say to you, but you are not able to bear them now. ¹³ But when he—the Spirit of truth—comes, he will guide you into all the truth. For he will not speak from himself, but whatever he hears he will speak, and he will proclaim to you the things to come. ¹⁴ He will glorify me, because he will take from what is mine and will proclaim it to you. ¹⁵ Everything that the Father has is mine. For this reason I said that he takes from what is mine and will proclaim it to you.

Once again the Father ratifies His covenant with His people on Shavuot. This time it is not with the blood of animals as in the past, but the blood of Messiah and His Spirit. What effect does this have on those present? It emboldened them to start preaching repentance to the commandments of God and the good news that was bestowed on all of mankind, to be able to share in the covenants of promise with the House of Israel and the House of Judah.

Galatians 3:13–14 (LEB): ¹³ Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us, because it is written, “Cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree,” ¹⁴ in order that the blessing of Abraham might come to the Gentiles in Christ Jesus, so that we might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith.

The curse of the law is death for breaking it, not the law itself. There were no sacrifices for breaking the ten commandments, only stoning and death by the presence of two to three witnesses. Yeshua brought a better sacrifice to the heavenly tabernacle that resolved this problem. The earthly sacrifices were insufficient and temporary.

Hebrews 10:1–18 (LEB): 10 For the law, possessing a shadow of the good things that are about to come, not the form of things itself, is never able year by year by means of the same sacrifices which they offer without interruption to make perfect those who draw near. ² For otherwise, would they not have ceased to be offered, because the ones who worship, having been purified once and for all, would no longer have any consciousness of sins? ³ But in them there is a reminder of sins year by year. ⁴ For it is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins. ⁵ Therefore, when he came into the world, he said, “Sacrifice and offering you did not want, but a body you prepared for me; ⁶ you did not delight in whole burnt offerings and offerings for sins. ⁷ Then I said, ‘Behold, I have come— in the roll of the book it is written about me— to do your will, O God.’ ⁸ When he says above, “Sacrifices and offerings and whole burnt offerings and offerings for sin you did not want, nor did you delight in,” which are offered according to the law, ⁹ then he has said, “Behold, I have come to do your will.” He takes away the first in order to establish the second, ¹⁰ by which will we are made holy through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all. ¹¹ And every priest stands every day serving and offering the same sacrifices many times, which are never able to take away sins. ¹² But this one, after he had offered one sacrifice for sins for all time, sat down at the right hand of God, ¹³ from now on waiting until his enemies are made a footstool for his feet. ¹⁴ For by one offering he has perfected for all time those who are made holy. ¹⁵ And the Holy Spirit also testifies to us, for after saying, ¹⁶ “This is the covenant that I will decree for them after those days, says the Lord: I am putting my laws on their hearts, and I will write them on their minds.” ¹⁷ He also says, “Their sins and their lawless deeds I will never remember again.” ¹⁸ Now where there is forgiveness of these, there is no longer an offering for sin.

The book of Hebrews was written around the time the temple was destroyed in 70 AD, and the people needed comforting. Many dispensational Christians claim this book does not apply to Christians or the Church because it was written to the Hebrews. I disagree and believe it does an excellent job explaining the covenants and how the new covenant works. We are either part of the covenant with God or we are not. The covenant is with the house of Israel and the house of Judah, so any one that is a part of this must be grafted into the family of God. There is no “side deal” for the “Church”. Speaking to the gentiles, Paul gives this warning:

Romans 11:17–21 (LEB): ¹⁷ Now if some of the branches were broken off, and you, although you were a wild olive tree, were grafted in among them and became a sharer of the root of the olive tree’s richness, ¹⁸ do not boast against the branches. But if you boast against them, you do not support the root, but the root supports you. ¹⁹ Then you will say, “Branches were broken off in order that I could be grafted in.” ²⁰ Well said! They were broken off because of unbelief, but you stand firm because of faith. Do not think arrogant thoughts, but be afraid. ²¹ For if God did not spare the natural branches, neither will he spare you.

It is my opinion that after the house of Israel, that is the northern kingdom consisting of the ten tribes, was divorced from God and scattered, they seeded the whole world. Therefore, the house of Israel can come back out of the nations and be grafted back into the commonwealth of Israel. In contrast, Judah remained the keeper of the law.

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

On Shavuot, remember that our spiritual ancestors were delivered from slavery in Egypt at this time and instructed in the perfect ways of the Creator. His Spirit was given to write these instructions on our heart and deliver us from evil and death. Repent and believe the gospel, so that your sins can be blotted out, and a refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord!

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