Rock Songs

For parashah 53;  Ha’azinu

MMin Kevin “Oriyan” Phipps

Parashah 53 has some harsh words for the children of Isra’el. These words are in the form of a song, which Moshe wrote to be a witness to Isra’el in the future of why they are experiencing hardship in the land at the hand of God. What is the nature of this song, and what does this song tell us about God, and His relationship with Isra’el? What is God telling the citizens of His Kingdom today? How does this passage in D’varim compare to the Haftarah reading in Sh’mu’el, which also happens to be a song, though from David instead of Moshe?

This song by Moshe relates to future events, so is it a warning, or is it prophesy? The answer is, yes. In other words it is both. In this song, God is giving Isra’el a glimpse of what their future holds, which makes this prophesy. In some ways they had already begun to rebel against God, so their rebellion would only get worse in the midst of pagan nations. However, this prophesy is much like the t.v. show about the guy who gets the newspaper for the next day and knows what will happens tomorrow, today. He then has the ability to make changes in history so that at least one or two of the bad things in the paper don’t happen. In other words, this “prophesy”, is also a warning because Isra’el has the ability to change their ways through the atonement, which is mentioned at the end of the song (v.43). We know that ultimately, the prophesy would stick, at least until the Millennium when Yeshua will restore Isra’el, and their redemption is complete. God has a title in this song, as well as the one by David that I will talk about later. It is, “Rock”.

"Hear, oh heavens, as I speak! Listen, earth, to the words from my mouth! May my teaching fall like rain. May my speech condense like dew, like light rain on blades of grass, or showers on growing plants. "For I will proclaim the name of Adonai. Come, declare the greatness of our God! The Rock! His work is perfect, for all his ways are just. A trustworthy God who does no wrong, he is righteous and straight. "He is not corrupt; the defect is in his children, a crooked and perverted generation.  You foolish people, so lacking in wisdom, is this how you repay Adonai? He is your father, who made you his! It was he who formed and prepared you! "Remember how the old days were; think of the years through all the ages. Ask your father — he will tell you; your leaders too — they will inform you. "When `Elyon gave each nation its heritage, when he divided the human race, he assigned the boundaries of peoples according to Isra'el's population; but Adonai's share was his own people, Ya`akov his allotted heritage.  "He found his people in desert country, in a howling, wasted wilderness. He protected him and cared for him, guarded him like the pupil of his eye, like an eagle that stirs up her nest, hovers over her young, spreads out her wings, takes them and carries them as she flies.  "Adonai alone led his people; no alien god was with him. He made them ride on the heights of the earth. They ate the produce of the fields. He had them suck honey from the rocks and olive oil from the crags, curds from the cows and milk from the sheep, with lamb fat, rams from Bashan and goats, with the finest wheat flour; and you drank sparkling wine from the blood of grapes. "But Yeshurun grew fat and kicked (you grew fat, thick, gross!). He abandoned God his Maker; he scorned the Rock, his salvation. They roused him to jealousy with alien gods, provoked him with abominations. They sacrificed to demons, non-gods, gods that they had never known, new gods that had come up lately, which your ancestors had not feared. You ignored the Rock who fathered you, you forgot God, who gave you birth.  "Adonai saw and was filled with scorn at his sons' and daughters' provocation. He said, 'I will hide my face from them and see what will become of them; for they are a perverse generation, untrustworthy children.  They aroused my jealousy with a non-god and provoked me with their vanities; I will arouse their jealousy with a non-people and provoke them with a vile nation. " 'For my anger has been fired up. It burns to the depths of Sh'ol, devouring the earth and its crops, kindling the very roots of the hills. I will heap disasters on them and use up all my arrows against them.  " 'Fatigued by hunger, they will be consumed by fever and bitter defeat; I will send them the fangs of wild beasts, and the poison of reptiles crawling in the dust. Outside, the sword makes parents childless; inside, there is panic, as young men and girls alike are slain, sucklings and graybeards together. " 'I considered putting an end to them, erasing their memory from the human race; but I feared the insolence of their enemy, feared that their foes would mistakenly think, "We ourselves accomplished this; Adonai had nothing to do with it."  " 'They are a nation without common sense, utterly lacking in discernment. If they were wise they could figure it out and understand their destiny. After all, how can one chase a thousand and two put ten thousand to rout, unless their Rock sells them to their enemies, unless Adonai hands them over? For our enemies have no rock like our Rock - even they can see that! " 'Rather, their vine is from the vine of S'dom, from the fields of `Amora - their grapes are poisonous, their clusters are bitter; their wine is snake poison, the cruel venom of vipers.  " 'Isn't this hidden with me, sealed in my storehouses? Vengeance and payback are mine for the time when their foot slips; for the day of their calamity is coming soon, their doom is rushing upon them.' "Yes, Adonai will judge his people, taking pity on his servants, when he sees that their strength is gone, that no one is left, slave or free. Then he will ask, 'Where are their gods, the rock in whom they trusted? Who ate the fat of their sacrifices and drank the wine of their drink offering? Let him get up and help you, let him protect you! See now that I, yes, I, am he; and there is no god beside me. I put to death, and I make alive; I wound, and I heal; no one saves anyone from my hand!  " 'For I lift up my hand to heaven and swear, "As surely as I am alive forever,  if I sharpen my flashing sword and set my hand to judgment, I will render vengeance to my foes, repay those who hate me.  I will make my arrows drunk with blood, my sword will devour flesh - the blood of the slain and the captives, flesh from the wild-haired heads of the enemy." ' "Sing out, you nations, about his people! For he will avenge the blood of his servants. He will render vengeance to his adversaries and make atonement for the land of his people."  (D’varim/Deuteronomy 32:1-43)

The Hebrew word for “rock” is “suwr”, which refers to a large rock, like a boulder or a mountain. It can refer to a cliff. When I think of a cliff, I think of something dangerous, something that one can easily fall off of to great harm or death. One of the things I like about Washington is the mountains, and last year I was able to go to Mt. Rainier. It was cloudy, so we never actually saw the top of the mountain, as we had hoped, but there was much I learned about that mountain, as well as other mountains. They are beautiful to look at and fun to explore, but they are full of danger. Rock slides

and mud slides are common. Weather is often unpredictable and can change quickly. Where there is snow, there are always avalanches to be careful of as well. An inexperienced mountain explorer can easily find himself in a life or death situation very quickly. Anyone who climbs a mountain or even lives near a mountain does so with great knowledge and respect of the mountain, especially when it is also a volcano, such as Mt. Rainier. There are rules that go along with being on or around a mountain. Breaking the rules can have grave consequences, including death. One way or another, you never

forget or take for granted that you are on a mountain if you are on one.

In the song of Moshe, Isra’el forgets their Rock. They forget they are living in the presence of the God of the Universe. They forget the rules that go along with that honor. There are many blessings that go along with belonging to God. But, to him which much is given, there is much responsibility that goes along with it. Even in the wilderness, Isra’el had begun to fail to maintain their respect and fear of their Rock. As a result, they would later have to deal with that Rock becoming for them a cliff, sending them to near death.

Notice, however, that towards the end of the song, the warning is not just to Isra’el, but all God’s enemies and the enemies of His people, who are still His people despite their rebellion. It is no accident that Jerusalem is built on a series of mountains, and is often referred to as Mt. Tsiyon. The foundation of Isra’el is God, which is their Rock. However, Jerusalem is a place for all nations to come to worship the God of Isra’el. Any who come to the mountain of the Lord must come with fear and respect of Isra’el and their God. To do otherwise, is to become an enemy of God, and fall victim to the dangers of the Rock of Isra’el.

“Adonai is my Rock, my fortress and deliverer, the God who is my Rock, in whom I find shelter, my shield, the power that saves me, my stronghold and my refuge. My savior, you have saved me from violence. I call on Adonai, who is worthy of praise; and I am saved from my enemies.” (Sh’mu’el Bet [2 Samuel] 22:2-4)

Now we see in the song of David, an entirely different side to the same Rock. This is a song written to God, as praise to Him for bringing David victory over his enemies. It just so happens to “suwr”, also refers to a refuge. So, it is a rock, which can refer to a cliff, or to a refuge. These are two opposite concepts relating to the same thing. Fact is that, though a mountain can be dangerous, it can also be the best way to escape and hide from an enemy. The U.S. military have been searching for one man for the last five years, and with all our intelligence and sophisticated technology, they cannot find

him. His hiding place? Caves of mountains.

For those who know the rules of the mountain, and maintain their fear and respect for the mountain, there can be much security, not to mention beauty for the mountain dweller or explorer. When in danger, the mountain is the best place to run. Likewise, in the presence of the God of the Universe, He promises to protect those who love Him and live in fear and devotion to Him as His servants. Jerusalem is a city of peace. Going up to the mountain of the Lord is a time of celebration and prosperity, as the people of God glory in the salvation from sin and protection from the Adversary that only God provides.

This song of David is one of the most powerful portrayals of God found in the Bible, and should be read often to remind the person who dwells in the presence of Adonai the greatness and power of God.

One must never forget the song of Moshe either. God is a truly powerful God who hates sin. It cannot be in His presence, whether it originates from His people or from the heathen. In the case of His people, however, God’s desire is not for total destruction, but of cleansing and restoration. One substance found in mountains is gold, however, in its natural state gold is not of much value or use. There are too many impurities. Gold has to be put over a refiner’s fire and melted. When this happens, the impurities float to the top where they can be removed. What is left is pure gold. That is us.

We who desire to be citizens of God’s Kingdom must be purified. Just as Isra’el was given a glimpse of their future, so are we. We are told in the New Covenant that all have sinned and come short of the glory of God, and that the penalty for sin is death. If God examines us and finds impurities, we are useless to Him and cannot be accepted into His Kingdom. However, through the atonement that His Son, Yeshua provides for us as our refining fire, we can be cleansed of our impurities, also known as sin, and appear as the pure gold God desires for us to be.

Our God is a great and mighty God. He is the Rock of our salvation. However, He can also be the Rock of our destruction. The same fury which protects us, can just as easily destroy us if we fail to follow the rules of the Rock that we find in Torah. We belong to the Rock through faith, but belonging to the Rock and falling off a cliff through failure to follow the rules of the Rock are two different things. God promised to punish Isra’el for their sin, though they would still remain His people. Likewise, we are still God’s children, through faith, if we sin, but that does not mean we won’t be disciplined

as one of God’s children, so that we can be the men and women of God He intends for us to be. The menorah in the Temple was fashioned out of one piece of gold. It not only represents the Messiah, but it also represents God’s people who He forms into something which can be used to shed His light to a dark world. The menorahs of the Temple stood in the same place where the Dome of the Rock stands today. Some day the dome will be gone and a new Temple will stand. It is the Temple of the true Rock, which is Messiah.

“For, brothers, I don’t want you to miss the significance of what happened to our fathers. All of them were guided by the pillar of cloud, and they all passed through the sea, and in connection with the cloud and with the sea they all immersed themselves into Moshe, also they all ate the same food from the Spirit, and they all drank from the same drink from the Spirit – for they drank from a Spirit-sent Rock which followed them, and that Rock was the Messiah.” (1 Corinthians 10:1-4)

May your life be a song from your heart to the Rock of your salvation, a song which is a testimony to you and all who hear the song of your life to the perfect name and greatness of your God.

Tooting God’s Horn and Not Your Own

Drash for Yom Teruah 2009

MMin Kevin “Oriyan” Phipps

"Tell the people of Isra'el, 'In the seventh month, the first of the month is to be for you a day of complete rest for remembering, a holy convocation announced with blasts on the shofar. Do not do any kind of ordinary work, and bring an offering made by fire to Adonai.' " [Vayikra/Leviticus 23:24-25]

" 'In the seventh month, on the first day of the month, you are to have a holy convocation; do not do any kind of ordinary work; it is a day of blowing the shofar for you. Prepare a burnt offering to make a fragrant aroma for Adonai — one young bull, one ram and seven male lambs in their first year and without defect —with their grain offering, consisting of fine flour mixed with olive oil — six quarts for the bull, four quarts for the ram, and two quarts for each of the seven lambs — also one male goat as a sin offering to make atonement for you. This is to be in addition to the burnt offering for Rosh-Hodesh with its grain offering, the regular burnt offering with its grain offering, and their drink offerings, according to the rule for them; this will be a fragrant aroma, an offering made by fire to Adonai. [B’midbar/Numbers 29:1-6]

                Today we are celebrating four holidays. Rosh Hashana, Rosh Chodesh, Yom Teruah, and the weekly Sabbath. Rosh Hashana, though not commanded in the Bible, is considered the New Year for the civil calendar. In Jewish tradition, it is the believed to be the day mankind was created, thus beginning human history. As valuable as traditions can be for teaching God’s ways, reminding what God has done, and joining us to a heritage that goes back the Avraham, we are not saved by tradition, but by our Messiah. Our focus is on following Him and obeying His Word. In the verses above, we see instructions for the day of blowing the shofar, or Yom Teruah. This is the holiday we focus on. Last night we also opened the Shabbat and recognized Rosh Chodesh, as these are also commanded in Scripture.

            There is not a lot described for Yom Teruah, besides blowing the shofar and making sacrifices and offerings at the tabernacle (if there is one). So are we to just spend the day blowing the shofar and that’s all there is to it? I enjoy blowing the shofar, but after about five minutes or so the novelty dissipates. My lips go numb, and if I’m really blowing it hard I get dizzy. What more is there to the holiday than this?

Yom Teruah begins a ten day reflection of our lives which culminates at Yom Kippur. Though we have been redeemed by Yeshua, as none of us is perfect, it is still a valuable time to pray with David, “Search my heart, as see if there by any wicked way within me.” We say in our blessings that we are sanctified by God’s commands. This is true. We are justified by Messiah Yeshua, but we still need to study His Torah and continually learn to understand and apply it to our lives to gradually become the person and the people God has created us to be for His glory.

How does this relate to shofar blowing?

All the people experienced the thunder, the lightning, the sound of the shofar, and the mountain smoking. When the people saw it, they trembled. Standing at a distance, they said to Moshe, "You, speak with us; and we will listen. But don't let God speak with us, or we will die." [Sh’mot/Exodus 20:18-19 (15-16)]

This is a very fearful event described here. The people think they are going to die. This also comes just after the Ten Commandments are given. This even accomplishes two things. It gets everyone’s attention, and invokes fear in everyone’s live to God. At that moment at least, no one is questioning the validity of the commands just given them. Any way in which they may be in violation of these commands is going to lead to repentance. According to Solomon, the fear of God is the beginning of wisdom and discretion.

Why do you think that the Days of Awe start with a day of blowing the shofar? It is partially to get our attention. It is to bring us back to the foot of Mt.Sinai. It is to help us acknowledge God as our King. In medieval times, any time a King came to speak to the people, His arrival was heralded with the blowing of trumpets. Everyone knew when they heard the trumpets that the king was there and had something to say.

This brings me to the other side to the blowing of the shofar. Throughout Scripture, we see a connection between the sound of the shofar and the voice of God. We already saw one example in Sh’mot. Here is another.

Mount Sinai was enveloped in smoke, because Adonai descended onto it in fire — its smoke went up like the smoke from a furnace, and the whole mountain shook violently.

As the sound of the shofar grew louder and louder, Moshe spoke; and God answered him with a voice. [Sh’mot 19:18-19]

Now the prophets:

Shout out loud! Don't hold back! Raise your voice like a shofar! Proclaim to my people what rebels they are, to the house of Ya`akov their sins. [Yesha’yahu/Isaiah 58:1]

And the end of the Bible…

I came to be, in the Spirit, on the Day of the Lord; and I heard behind me a loud voice, like a trumpet, saying, "Write down what you see on a scroll, and send it to the seven Messianic communities — Ephesus, Smyrna, Pergamum, Thyatira, Sardis, Philadelphia and Laodicea!"  I turned around to see who was speaking to me; and when I had turned, I saw seven gold menorahs; and among the menorahs was someone like a Son of Man, wearing a robe down to his feet and a gold band around his chest. [Revelation 1:10-13]

Yochanan/John hears the sound of a shofar behind him and turns around to see Messiah Himself. The sound of the shofar may not be the voice of God, but it ought to tell us that God is present and has something to say. Our job at that point is to listen. This may not be true of any time the shofar is blown, but when it is blown as part of a Torah command, then we need to be listening ot our Shepherd.

I am the good shepherd; I know my own, and my own know me — just as the Father knows me, and I know the Father — and I lay down my life on behalf of the sheep. Also I have other sheep which are not from this pen; I need to bring them, and they will hear my voice; and there will be one flock, one shepherd. [Yochanan/John 10:14-16]

            Not only does the blowing the shofar relate to the voice of God, but the voice of those commissioned by God to watch over people and like the sound of a shofar, warn them of impending danger because of their sin.

"Human being, speak to your people; say to them, 'Suppose I bring the sword on a country, and the people of that country take one of their men and appoint him their watchman. Now if, upon seeing the sword coming against that country, he blows the shofar and warns the people; then, if the sword comes and takes away someone who heard the sound of the shofar but paid no attention to it, the responsibility for that person's death will be his own — he heard the shofar but paid no attention, so the responsibility for his death is his own; whereas if he had paid attention, he would have saved his life.  But if the watchman sees the sword coming and does not blow the shofar, so that the people are not warned; and then the sword comes and takes any one of them, that one is indeed taken away in his guilt, but I will hold the watchman responsible for his death.' "Likewise you, human being — I have appointed you as watchman for the house of Isra'el. Therefore, when you hear the word from my mouth, warn them for me. When I tell the wicked person, 'Wicked person, you will certainly die'; and you fail to speak and warn the wicked person to leave his way; then that wicked person will die guilty; and I will hold you responsible for his death.  On the other hand, if you warn the wicked to turn from his way, and he doesn't turn from his way; then he will still die guilty, but you will have saved your own life. "Therefore, you, human being, say to the house of Isra'el: 'You say, "Our crimes and sins are weighing us down, we're pining away because of them, how can we even stay alive?" Say to them, 'As I live,' swears Adonai Elohim, 'I take no pleasure in having the wicked person die, but in having the wicked person turn from his way and live. So repent! Turn from your evil ways! For why should you die, house of Isra'el?' [Yechez’kel/Ezekiel 33:2-11] [see also Hoshea/Hosea 8:1-4]

God appoints prophets to be His watchmen, his mouthpiece in the world. Unless those who have this gifting and calling live it out, severe consequences will result. Whatever place God has for you in His Kingdom, it is important to do what He has called you to do. Others who live without the love of God and truth of Torah in their lives depend on it. Not everyone will heed the voice of one calling in the wilderness, but they must at least have the opportunity.

As we celebrate Yom Teruah, we need to see exactly what teruah is in Hebrew.                     

ter-oo-aw'

From H7321; clamor, that is, acclamation of joy or a battle cry; especially clangor of trumpets, as an alarum: - alarm, blow (-ing) (of, the) (trumpets), joy, jubile, loud noise, rejoicing, shout (-ing), (high, joyful) sound (-ing).

Here are some verses which use this word in ways other than trumpet or shofar.

He prays to God and is accepted by him, so that he sees [God's] face with joy, and [God] repays the man for his righteousness. He declares before everyone, 'I sinned; I perverted what was right, and it gained me nothing.  [God] redeemed me from going into the pit, and now my life sees light.' [Iyov/Job 33:36]

Then my head will be lifted up above my surrounding foes, and I will offer in his tent sacrifices with shouts of joy; I will sing, sing praises to Adonai.  [Tehellim/Psalms 27:6]

 God goes up to shouts of acclaim, Adonai to a blast on the shofar. [Tehellim 47:5]

How happy are the people who know the joyful shout! They walk in the light of your presence, Adonai. [Tehellim 89:15]

Teruah is all about loudness, which expresses the incredible joy of our heart from the incredible love of our God. At the same time this exclamation at the beginning of the year is to get our attention and the attention of others. We are to acknowledge the awesomeness of our God and the humility of our own humanity. We stand before our King who has saved us from the bonds of sin, but who requires us to be holy as He is holy. He has a divine purpose for each of us as we learn to join Him in the work He is doing in the world.

As we blow the shofar it is our battle cry to wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against the powers and principalities of this dark world.

As we blow the shofar it is our call to worship the God who in six days created the heavens and the earth.

As we blow the shofar it is a time of celebration for we are fearfully and wonderfully made and His ways are a lamp unto our feet and a light unto our path.

As we blow the shofar we are calling upon God to hear us and save us from our sins and teach us His ways as He leads us to His Kingdom.

As we blow the shofar it is a warning to ourselves and all who hear that the King is coming. We are to prepare ourselves, humble ourselves, repent of our sin, and listen to Him.

As we hear the shofar, not blown by human lips, rejoice for the Messiah has returned!

Be the Branch

Drash on Parashah 51&52; Nitzavim & Vayelekh

MMin Kevin “Oriyan” Phipps

                Last week I talked about roots, vines, branches, fruit, seeds, and soil. It was a veritable lesson on spiritual horticulture. We learned that the roots of our faith is not Torah. The Root of our faith is actually Messiah Yeshua. He is also the vine. We are the branches. I was a bit fuzzy about the nature of the fruit last week, but thought it had something to do with Torah. Within the fruit is seed, which is intended to be put into new fertile soil so the Root of Messiah can grow in them too. This lesson will continue with the same imagery and teach us what it is to be a branch. I will also attempt to produce some clarity on the role of Torah in the illustration.

            I want to share with you three passages and I want you to make note of the similar imagery, wording, and other concepts brought out in these passages.

Adonai, God, planted a garden toward the east, in `Eden, and there he put the person whom he had formed. Out of the ground Adonai, God, caused to grow every tree pleasing in appearance and good for food, including the tree of life in the middle of the garden and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Adonai, God, took the person and put him in the garden of `Eden to cultivate and care for it. Adonai, God, gave the person this order: "You may freely eat from every tree in the garden except the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. You are not to eat from it, because on the day that you eat from it, it will become certain that you will die." [B’resheet/Genesis 2:8-9,15-17]

            The garden was a type of Temple. It was where God dwelled, and even walked through it daily. When Adam and Havah were expelled from the garden, they were expelled to the east. In the tabernacle and the temple, the way from the outer courts to the Holy of Holies was westward. This was a way of returning to the garden where God’s presence was. So everything in the garden was of God, except the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Adam and Havah could eat from any other tree, but not that one. They were given the choice of living by that which was of God or dying by that which was not of God.

Adonai your God will bring you back into the land your ancestors possessed, and you will possess it; he will make you prosper there, and you will become even more numerous than your ancestors. Then Adonai your God will circumcise your hearts and the hearts of your children, so that you will love Adonai your God with all your heart and all your being, and thus you will live.  Adonai your God will put all these curses on your enemies, on those who hated and persecuted you; but you will return and pay attention to what Adonai says and obey all his mitzvot which I am giving you today.  Then Adonai your God will give you more than enough in everything you set out to do – the fruit of your body, the fruit of your livestock, and the fruit of your land will all do well; for Adonai will once again rejoice to see you do well, just as he rejoiced in your ancestors. "However, all this will happen only if you pay attention to what Adonai your God says, so that you obey his mitzvot and regulations which are written in this book of the Torah, if you turn to Adonai your God with all your heart and all your being.  For this mitzvah which I am giving you today is not too hard for you, it is not beyond your reach. It isn't in the sky, so that you need to ask, 'Who will go up into the sky for us, bring it to us and make us hear it, so that we can obey it?' Likewise, it isn't beyond the sea, so that you need to ask, 'Who will cross the sea for us, bring it to us and make us hear it, so that we can obey it?' On the contrary, the word is very close to you - in your mouth, even in your heart; therefore, you can do it!  "Look! I am presenting you today with, on the one hand, life and good; and on the other, death and evil -  in that I am ordering you today to love Adonai your God, to follow his ways, and to obey his mitzvot, regulations and rulings ; for if you do, you will live and increase your numbers; and Adonai your God will bless you in the land you are entering in order to take possession of it. But if your heart turns away, if you refuse to listen, if you are drawn away to prostrate yourselves before other gods and serve them; I am announcing to you today that you will certainly perish; you will not live long in the land you are crossing the Yarden to enter and possess.  "I call on heaven and earth to witness against you today that I have presented you with life and death, the blessing and the curse. Therefore, choose life, so that you will live, you and your descendants, loving Adonai your God, paying attention to what he says and clinging to him - for that is the purpose of your life! On this depends the length of time you will live in the land Adonai swore he would give to your ancestors Avraham, Yitz'chak and Ya`akov." [D’varim/Deuteronomy 30:5-20]

"I am the real vine, and my Father is the gardener. Every branch which is part of me but fails to bear fruit, he cuts off; and every branch that does bear fruit, he prunes, so that it may bear more fruit. Right now, because of the word which I have spoken to you, you are pruned. Stay united with me, as I will with you — for just as the branch can't put forth fruit by itself apart from the vine, so you can't bear fruit apart from me. "I am the vine and you are the branches. Those who stay united with me, and I with them, are the ones who bear much fruit; because apart from me you can't do a thing. Unless a person remains united with me, he is thrown away like a branch and dries up. Such branches are gathered and thrown into the fire, where they are burned up. "If you remain united with me, and my words with you, then ask whatever you want, and it will happen for you. This is how my Father is glorified — in your bearing much fruit; this is how you will prove to be my talmidim. "Just as my Father has loved me, I too have loved you; so stay in my love.  If you keep my commands, you will stay in my love — just as I have kept my Father's commands and stay in his love.  I have said this to you so that my joy may be in you, and your joy be complete. "This is my command: that you keep on loving each other just as I have loved you. No one has greater love than a person who lays down his life for his friends. You are my friends, if you do what I command you. I no longer call you slaves, because a slave doesn't know what his master is about; but I have called you friends, because everything I have heard from my Father I have made known to you. You did not choose me, I chose you; and I have commissioned you to go and bear fruit, fruit that will last; so that whatever you ask from the Father in my name he may give you. [Yochanan/John 15:1-16]

            Essentially, the same imagery and message is given in these three passages of Scripture. The Message doesn’t change because God doesn’t change. This basic issues that people deal with don’t change. As King Shlomo/Solomon says, “There is nothing new under the sun.” Technology might change how we do things, but sin itself stays the same.

            Adam and Eve are given the choice to live on that which is of God or eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, which leads to death. Israel is given the choice to follow God, and a man named Y’hoshua (God has saved), which is essentially the same name as Yeshua (God will save), into the Promised Land to live, or follow false gods and die. If Israel follows God and obeys Him He abundantly gives them the fruit they need to live. Yeshua tells us that without Him we can do nothing, but if we are properly connected to Him, He will bear the fruit through us that we are commanded to grow.

            It is interesting to note that we are commanded to bear fruit, but we are not the ones who actually grow it. Grapes are not the fruit of the branch, but the fruit of the vine. We find branches not in branch-yards but vineyards. The fruit we bear is not ours, but the Vine’s. Our focus as branches is to be properly connected to the vine and allow the Vine to grow His fruit through us. It becomes attached to us, but does not come from us.

As branches we make two basic mistakes. The first is attempting to take over the job of the Vine and grow the fruit ourselves. Whatever fruit we manage to grow is worthless and an unacceptable offering to God because it is our fruit not His. The seed it bears will not grow the Root in the soil of other people lives because again it is not the Fruit of the Root, it is the fruit of the branch and you can’t grow branches in soil. When we do this, we attempt to sit in the throne of God. This causes undue stress and work on our lives and the farthest from God’s will that we can get. There is a way that seems right to a man, but in the end it leads to death. The primary teaching of the Satanic Bible is not that Satan is God, but that you are. This cannot happen. We are branches. Branches are important to the vine in growing fruit, but branches are not the vine. We need to allow Messiah to be the Vine as He is and learn to live in the role of the branches that we are if we are to bear the fruit we are commanded and created to bear.

The other mistake we make as branches is to connect ourselves to the fruit and not to the branch. The treat the fruit as the branch and attempt to gain the things we need in life from the fruit that has come from us as the branch. When the fruit becomes the vine, this is idolatry. Idolatry is the biggest sin in the Bible because it violates the first and most important commandment, “You are to have no other gods before me.” Take a look at this passage from Yesha’yahu/Isaiah.  

All idol-makers amount to nothing; their precious productions profit no one; and their witnesses, to their own shame, neither see nor understand. Who would fashion a god or cast an image that profits no one anything? All involved will be ashamed, but more than anyone else, the people who made them. Let them all be assembled, let them stand up; let them fear and be shamed together. A blacksmith makes a tool over burning coals; with his strong arm he shapes it with hammers. But when he gets hungry, his strength fails; if he doesn't drink water, he grows tired. A carpenter takes his measurements, sketches the shape with a stylus, planes the wood, checks it with calipers, and carves it into the shape of a man; and, since it is honored like a man, of course it has to live in a house. He goes to chop down cedars; he takes an evergreen and an oak; he especially tends one tree in the forest, plants a pine for the rain to nourish. In time, when it's ready for use as fuel, he takes some of it to keep himself warm and burns some more to bake bread. Then he makes a god and worships it, carves it into an idol and falls down before it. So half of it he burns in the fire; with that half he roasts meat and eats his fill; he warms himself; says, "It feels so good, getting warm while watching the flames!" With the rest of the log he fashions a god, a carved image, then falls down before it; he worships it and prays to it. "Save me," he says, "for you are my god!" Such people know nothing, understand nothing. Their eyes are sealed shut, so that they can't see; their hearts too, so they can't understand. Not one thinks to himself or has the knowledge or the discernment to say, "I burned half of it in the fire, baked bread on its coals, roasted meat and ate it. Should I now make the rest an abomination? Should I prostrate myself to a tree trunk?" He is relying on ashes! A deceived heart has led him astray; so that now he won't save himself, just won't say, "This thing in my hand is a fraud!" "Keep these matters in mind, Ya`akov, for you, Isra'el, are my servant. I formed you, you are my own servant; Isra'el, don't forget me. Like a thick cloud, I wipe away your offenses; like a cloud, your sins. Come back to me, for I have redeemed you." [Yesha’yahu/Isaiah 44:9-22]

We tend to think that because we don’t go to shrines and bow before statues with names, we don’t have idols in American society today. Take a look at this teaching from Dwight L Moody, who died a little over 100 years ago, yet his words still remain true today.

YOU don't have to go to heathen lands today to find false gods.  America is full of them.  Whatever you make most of is your god.  Whatever you love more than God is your idol.  Many a man's heart is like some Kafirs' huts, so full of idols that there is hardly room to turn around.  Rich and poor, learned and unlearned, all classes of men and women are guilty of this sin.  "The mean man boweth down, and me great man humbleth himself" (Isaiah 2:9).

A man may make a god of himself, of a child, of a mother, of some precious gift that God has bestowed upon him.  He may forget the Giver and let his heart go out in adoration toward the gift.

Many make a god of pleasure; that is what their hearts are set on.  If some old Greek or Roman came to life again and saw man in a drunken debauch, would he believe that the worship of Bacchus had died out?  If he saw the streets of our large cities filled with harlots, would he believe that the worship of Venus had ceased?

Others take fashion as their god.  They give their time and thought to dress.  They fear what others will think of them.  Do not let us flatter ourselves that all idolaters are in heathen countries.

With many it is the god of money.  We haven't got through worshiping the golden calf yet.  If a man will sell his principles for gold, isn't he making it a god?  If he trusts in his wealth to keep him from want and to supply his needs, are not riches his god?  Many a man says, "Give me money, and I will give you heaven.  What care I for all the glories and treasures of heaven?  Give me treasures here!  I don't care for heaven!  I want to be a successful businessman."  How true are the words of Job: "If I have made gold my hope, or have said to the fine gold, Thou art my confidence; if I rejoiced because my wealth was great, and because mine hand had begotten much; if I beheld the sun when it shined, or the moon walking in brightness; and my heart hath been secretly enticed, or my mouth hath kissed my hand: this also were an iniquity to be punished by the judge: for I should have denied the God that is above" (Job 31: 24-28).

But all false gods are not as gross as these.  There is the atheist. He says that he does not believe in God; he denies His existence, but he can't help setting up some other god in His place.  Voltaire said, "If there were no God, it would be necessary to invent one."  So the atheist speaks of the Great Unknown, the First Cause, the Infinite Mind, etc.  Then there is the deist.  He is a man who believes in one God who caused all things; but he doesn't believe in revelation.  He only accepts such truths as can be discovered by reason. He doesn't believe in Jesus Christ, or in the inspiration of the Bible.  Then there is the pantheist, who says: "I believe that the whole universe is God.  He is in the air, the water, the sun, the stars" the liar and the thief included.

SOURCE: Excerpt from The Ten Commandments, by Dwight L.)Moody (1837 – 1899)

          As branches, are commanded to bear fruit. These are the blessings, needs and desires that we all have in our life and which God intends to give us more abundantly than we can imagine. The more fruit we have, the more seeds we have to plant in others as fertile soil. However, when we try to be the vine or we make the fruit the vine, bearing more fruit becomes impossible. We are cut off from the vine and not only does our fruit die, but so do we and we are cast into the fire. Success in this life is determined by the degree to which we learn to be the branch, acknowledge the Messiah as the Vine, connect ourselves to Him, and properly use the fruit He grows through us, always careful not make the fruit the vine. Be the branch, worship the Vine, and be thankful for the fruit you have.

Deep Roots
Drash on Parashah 50; Ki Tavo (well sort of)
MMin Kevin “Oriyan” Phipps

He told them many things in parables: "A farmer went out to sow his seed. As he sowed, some seed fell alongside the path; and the birds came and ate it up. Other seed fell on rocky patches where there was not much soil. It sprouted quickly because the soil was shallow; but when the sun had risen, the young plants were scorched; and since their roots were not deep, they dried up. Other seed fell among thorns, which grew up and choked the plants. But others fell into rich soil and produced grain, a hundred or sixty or thirty times as much as had been sown. Those who have ears, let them hear!"

The seed sown on rocky ground is like a person who hears the message and accepts it with joy at once, but has no root in himself. So he stays on for a while; but as soon as some trouble or persecution arises on account of the message, he immediately falls away. Now the seed sown among thorns stands for someone who hears the message, but it is choked by the worries of the world and the deceitful glamor of wealth, so that it produces nothing. However, what was sown on rich soil is the one who hears the message and understands it; such a person will surely bear fruit, a hundred or sixty or thirty times what was sown." [Mattityahu/Matthew 13:3-9,20-23]

 This is a parable we have heard a million times. Before this week, I thought I understood this parable, but in studying it further, I found I was wrong. I found that a lot of people are wrong, not only about this, but a few other important teachings as well. What I want to focus on is the roots. The rest of the vine is important as well and I will touch on it, but of particular importance to this teaching is the root.
  

So let there not be among you a man, woman, family or tribe whose heart turns away today from Adonai our God to go and serve the gods of those nations. Let there not be among you a root bearing such bitter poison and wormwood. [D’varim/Deuteronomy 29:18(17)]

 This verse is just after this week’s parashah. What we see here is root used negatively as the source for evil amongst God’s people. Throughout Scripture, root is understood as the source of something when used in a figurative sense. Isra’el is an agriculturally based society and thus plants and their life cycle are used throughout the Word of God to describe various aspects of God, His Word, and ourselves.

Don't you know? Don't you hear? Haven't you been told from the start? Don't you understand how the earth is set up? He who sits above the circle of the earth — for whom its inhabitants appear like grasshoppers — stretches out the heavens like a curtain, spreads them out like a tent to live in. He reduces princes to nothing, the rulers of the earth to emptiness. Scarcely are they planted, scarcely sown, scarcely their stem taken root in the ground, when he blows on them, they dry up, and the whirlwind carries them off like straw. "With whom, then, will you compare me? With whom am I equal?" asks the Holy One. [Yesha’yahu/Isaiah 40:21-25]

 Notice that the roots of the wicked are shallow, which make them easy to blow away. Now compare this to the roots of Isra’el.

" 'Meanwhile, the remnant of the house of Y'hudah that has escaped will again take root downward and bear fruit upward; for a remnant will go out from Yerushalayim, those escaping will go out from Mount Tziyon. The zeal of Adonai-Tzva'ot will accomplish this.' [M’lakhim Bet/2 Kings 19:30-31]

 In a world of difficulty and hardship, it is important for God’s people to have roots that are deep. Faith in God allows for deep roots that make the rest of the tree immovable. Even if the tree is damaged, it can survive and even revive if the roots are healthy and deep. In difficulty, the wicked fall, because they have no root or the root they have is shallow and weak.
What is important is what the nature of this root is. As Messianics, we hear all the time about studying and returning to the “Hebrew roots of the faith”. These roots imply Torah. The idea that comes from this is that our faith starts with Torah, which then leads to Yeshua as the Messiah and faith in Him. From there, we have the fruits of the Holy Spirit. Biblically, this is where we have a problem.

On that day the root of Yishai, which stands as a banner for the peoples — the Goyim will seek him out, and the place wherehe rests will be glorious. [Yesha’yahu/Isaiah 11:10]

For before him he grew up like a young plant, like a root out of dry ground. He was not well-formed or especially handsome; we saw him, but his appearance did not attract us. [Yesha’yahu 53:2]

One of the elders said to me, "Don't cry. Look, the Lion of the tribe of Y'hudah, the Root of David, has won the right to open the scroll and its seven seals." [Revelation 5:5]

"I, Yeshua, have sent my angel to give you this testimony for the Messianic communities. I am the Root and Offspring of David, the bright Morning Star. [Revelation 22:16]

 The Hebrew root of our faith is not Torah, but Yeshua. So Believers in Yeshua don’t need to return to the roots of the faith, they are already there. Torah is not the beginning of our faith, Yeshua is. So where does Torah fit in?

Therefore, as fire licks up the stubble, and the chaff is consumed in the flame; so their root will rot, and their flowers scatter like dust; because they have rejected the Torah of Adonai-Tzva'ot, they have despised the word of the Holy One of Isra'el. [Yesha’yahu 5:24]

Here is what Adonai says: "For Isra'el's three crimes, no, four — I will not reverse it — because they sell the upright for silver and the poor for a pair of shoes, grinding the heads of the poor in the dust and pushing the lowly out of the way; father and son sleep with the same girl, profaning my holy name; lying down beside any altar on clothes taken in pledge; drinking wine in the house of their God bought with fines they imposed. "I destroyed the Emori before them; though tall as cedars and strong as oaks, I destroyed their fruit above and their root below. [Amos 2:6-9]

Already the axe is at the root of the trees, ready to strike; every tree that doesn't produce good fruit will be chopped down and thrown in the fire! [Mattityahu/Matthew 3:10]

Torah is about what we do. What do trees do? They produce fruit. If they fail to produce fruit, they are worthless and likely will be cut down by a farmer to grow trees that will produce fruit.

"I am the real vine, and my Father is the gardener. Every branch which is part of me but fails to bear fruit, he cuts off; and every branch that does bear fruit, he prunes, so that it may bear more fruit. Right now, because of the word which I have spoken to you, you are pruned. Stay united with me, as I will with you — for just as the branch can't put forth fruit by itself apart from the vine, so you can't bear fruit apart from me. "I am the vine and you are the branches. Those who stay united with me, and I with them, are the ones who bear much fruit; because apart from me you can't do a thing. Unless a person remains united with me, he is thrown away like a branch and dries up. Such branches are gathered and thrown into the fire, where they are burned up. [Yochanan/John 15:1-6]

Yeshua is both the root and the vine. Really the only difference is the root is below ground and the vine is above. We are the branches which are attached to the vine of Yeshua. If we are properly connected, we are expected to bear fruit. Bearing fruit is a natural result of being connected with the vine. Observing Torah ought to be a natural result of being attached to our vine and our root. Torah is our fruit, which grows through the work of the Holy Spirit. It does not come of our own accord. A tree needs the sun to grow fruit, likewise we need God to produce fruit. The branches have to be working to grow fruit, however. The sun is not going to grow fruit on its own. It needs branches properly connected to the tree or the vine, with good roots which are growing in healthy soil.

Here is where the analogy makes a complete cycle. Fruit produces seeds, which then get planted into soil, which will in turn produce more trees or vines. In the New Covenant in Yirmeyahu/Jeremiah 31:30+, God says that He will put His Torah in the inner most part of our being. The analogy there is that of a husband putting His seed into the innermost part of His wife. The seed is Torah. Seed in Hebrew is zera which means both seed and fruit, as well as human seed and child. It is the beginning and the end because the end produces that which is needed for a new beginning. Torah is the fruit, but also the seed that comes from the fruit and planted to produce a new tree. One of the main words in the Hebrew Scripture for soil is Adamah, the root of which is Adam, which is translated as both soil and man. We are the soil that God plants the seeds of Torah into. These seeds become the root within us, which is the Messiah. Outwardly, Yeshua is our vine, and we are His branches. If we remain faithful and obedient to Him, we will, through the Holy Spirit bear fruit which is Torah, producing seeds that can be planted in the life of someone else, and the cycle continues.

Notice that those who fail to produce fruit are cut down and thrown into the fire. If we do not produce fruit, we are cut off from our root, which is Messiah and our fruit will die. According to Romans 11, those who fail to believe in Messiah are also cut off from the vine, and cast away. Both faith in Yeshua and bearing fruit are necessary to have a healthy tree with deep, strong roots and fruit that all see and enjoy and testify to the greatness of our God.

God's Second Best Options
Drash on Parashah 49; Ki Tetze
MMin Kevin “Oriyan” Phipps
August 2009

 When our country was founded, our forefathers wrote laws which would forever govern the way we conduct our lives as Americans. Certain rights were laid out and dictated in the U.S.Constitution. Today, over 200 years later, these laws or amendments, as we call them, are unbreakable laws that are meant to protect American citizens from unreasonable harm from the government. The amendments were written at a particular time in American history, and written for particular purposes. Today, with circumstances beyond what the writers could have imagined, there are situations in which the strict application of Constitutional rights ends up perverting justice and protects the guilty, while the innocent victims of violent crime suffer.

 As we consider the laws of God, we think of a system of right and wrong, just as rigid as the U.S.Constitution. We see a God who was known to incinerate certain people for seemingly minor offenses to His instructions. Many prefer what they consider to be a gentler, kinder God of the New Testament. Of course, those who do so fail to read the bloodshed in Revelation at the hand of Messiah Yeshua Himself. “Buddy Jesus” is definitely a thing of the past at that point.

 The truth is, there is actually more grace built into Torah than I think most people realize. It is because of such grace, and the laws that result that we have some confusion amongst some, because of laws and allowances that we see in God’s commands. Here is an example of what I am talking about as it is discussed in the New Covenant.

 Some P'rushim came and tried to trap him [Yeshua] by asking, "Is it permitted for a man to divorce his wife on any ground whatever?" He replied, "Haven't you read that at the beginning the Creator made them male and female, and that he said, 'For this reason a man should leave his father and mother and be united with his wife, and the two are to become one flesh'? Thus they are no longer two, but one. So then, no one should split apart what God has joined together." They said to him, "Then why did Moshe give the commandment that a man should hand his wife a get and divorce her?" He answered, "Moshe allowed you to divorce your wives because your hearts are so hardened. But this is not how it was at the beginning. Now what I say to you is that whoever divorces his wife, except on the ground of sexual immorality, and marries another woman commits adultery!" [Mattityahu/Matthew 19:3-9]

 Torah allows for divorce under certain circumstances and there are regulations concerning not only divorce, but remarriage for men and women after divorce. However, as we see from Yeshua’s response, divorce is not God’s ideal. In fact, take a look at this verse from the prophets.

Here is something else you do: you cover Adonai's altar with tears, with weeping and with sighing, because he no longer looks at the offering or receives your gift with favor. Nevertheless, you ask, "Why is this?" Because Adonai is witness between you and the wife of your youth that you have broken faith with her, though she is your companion, your wife by covenant. And hasn't he made [them] one [flesh] in order to have spiritual blood-relatives? For what the one [flesh] seeks is a seed from God. Therefore, take heed to your spirit, and don't break faith with the wife of your youth. "For I hate divorce," says Adonai the God of Isra'el, "and him who covers his clothing with violence," says Adonai-Tzva'ot. Therefore take heed to your spirit, and don't break faith. [Malakhi/Malachi 2:13-16]

 If God hates divorce, then why does He allow it in Torah? Wouldn’t it be easier just to forbid it under any circumstance, rather than allowing it and then regulating it? It think this is God’s grace at work. His Torah is not as rigid as we may think. Built in to it is a great deal of flexibility. Why? God does not want to produce the same kind of problems that our Constitution causes, when certain circumstances make it worse to keep a law than to bend a law a little to bring about a greater good. A perfect law will at time create big problems when it exists within an imperfect society that does not even know God. The result is allowances in Torah by God to bend the rules that God would normally expect of His people, if they lived under different circumstances. These allowances that we find in Scripture are what I call “second best options”.

 Second best options are exception to the rule. Unfortunately, those who do not recognize that these are exceptions make the exception the rule and use these exceptions to justify all kinds of sinful behavior and false doctrine.

 We see above one example of a second best option. Under certain circumstances, such as infidelity, it seems that God allows for divorce. Apparently, those questioning Yeshua had taken the exception and made it the rule, thinking that because divorce was allowed under those circumstances, it was good. Yeshua made it clear what God’s ideal is. It is marriage. He references Adam and Eve, where a man and a woman become one through marriage. This is the ideal for all human beings. He adds that no man should break apart what God has put together. Divorce is not God’s plan. He hates divorce, and never considers it a good thing. He allows it under certain extreme situations as a last resort, when to keep a man and woman married would cause more harm than good. Aside from this, it is the responsibility for all married people to do everything possible to avoid divorce, as it is a covenant not only between themselves, but also of God. For those who have experienced divorce, there is healing and restoration with God, but no matter what the circumstances, in God’s eye it is never a good thing. It is a second best option.

 There are other second best options in Scripture. For example, God regulates slavery in Israel. Even into the New Covenant, masters are told to take care of their slaves and slaves are told to obey their masters. Based on the value God places on all human beings, we cannot assume from this, as some have, that God approves of slavery. No man or woman should be owned by another person as property. Why then does God sanction slavery rather than outlaw it? It suspect it is because slavery was an integral part of the economical system of the day. To outlaw it in Israeli society would put them at a severe disadvantage to other nations. As such, God allowed for it, but under certain regulations to avoid slaves from being mistreated. Remember, Israel was slaves in Egypt themselves.

 Obviously, slavery in Israel was different from that of other nations. It was possible for a slave, after seven years to choose to be a slave for life of his master. If this was the case, the situation must not have been that bad. If someone was poor or owed a debt, he could become a slave to work off his debt or until he could get back on his feet again. There was good that could come of slavery if done according to God’s laws. Should we then assume that if it was good for Israel, it is good for us? No, we live in an entirely different society, of which slavery is not acceptable and unnecessary.

 Another issue that has caused confusion and doctrinal error for some, even in the Messianic community is polygamy. We see God allowing men to take multiple wives in several instances with well known patriarchs of the Bible. Again, some assume that if it was good for Ya’akov, it’s good for me. Not so. This is another second best option that God allowed within a culture in which polygamy was relatively normal. Concepts of love and marriage were different as they are today. In our culture today, polygamy is illegal and goes against the social norms concerning love and marriage that we have. Today, despite some practical benefits, overall it would cause more harm than good in most circumstances. Also, more often than not polygamy is simply an excuse to allow men to get away with living in infidelity.

 On the other end of the marriage spectrum, we see Sha’ul/Paul seeming to promote celibacy for those involved in ministry. Here again, we see a second best option, which may even be considered a gift God gives some people to better perform His will. Apparently Sha’ul was one of these people. Obviously this is not God’s ideal. Again, we have to go back to Adam and Eve. Under normal circumstances, unless God specifically allows it, marriage is His ideal.

 There are other second best options, but the last one I want to talk about is reconciling God’s character with laws concerning capital punishment and war. This is a difficult thing for many people, but here again, we see God not only allowing, but at times commanding bloodshed, and at times causing death personally in order to deal with sin in the community of His people. God is holy and His people are called to be holy. As such, sin must be removed however it needs to be done. God’s people had to learn of His sovereignty and obedience was demanded for their success. God hates bloodshed, whether at war or in the Temple.

"Why are all those sacrifices offered to me?" asks Adonai. "I'm fed up with burnt offerings of rams and the fat of fattened animals! I get no pleasure from the blood of bulls, lambs and goats! [Yesha’yahu/Isaiah 1:11]

 Bloodshed was however, a necessary part of redemption. Life is in the blood and the penalty for sin is death. God does not delight in death, but at times it is necessary to eradicate sin from the midst of His people and from the earth. There were entire civilizations obliterated by Israel as the result of their sin and rebellion against God. I believe no nation was destroyed without sufficient opportunity to know the God of Israel and repent of their sin, as exampled by Yericho.

The two men had not yet lain down when she returned to the roof and said to them, "I know that Adonai has given you the land. Fear of you has fallen on us; everyone in the land is terrified at the thought of you. We've heard how Adonai dried up the water in the Sea of Suf ahead of you, when you left Egypt; and what you did to the two kings of the Emori on the other side of the Yarden, Sichon and `Og, that you completely destroyed them. As soon as we heard it, our hearts failed us. Because of you, everyone is in a state of depression. For Adonai your God — he is God in heaven above and on the earth below. So, please, swear to me by Adonai that, since I have been kind to you, you will also be kind to my father's family. Give me some evidence of your good faith, that you will spare the lives of my father, mother, brothers and sisters and all who are theirs, so that we won't be killed." [Y’hoshua/Joshua 2:8-13]

 God’s ideal is obedience. When that fails, sacrifice or punishment becomes God’s second best option. God allowed His own Son to die on a cross at the hand of sinners to provide a way of redemption for mankind. Even this was a second best option. It was done so that all those who would believe in Him would not perish but have eternal life. Even Yeshua asked that the cup would pass from Him, but nevertheless He did what was the will of the Father. Here is an important thing for us to consider. As important as grace and mercy are to our faith, for without it we would all be lost, it is God’s second best option. His ideal is our obedience. Grace and mercy become necessary to bring about the greater good of our redemption, but the exception should never become the rule. For God to be King of our lives, we need to obey Him and not use grace as a license for debauchery. Even Sha’ul says this about grace.

So then, are we to say, "Let's keep on sinning, so that there can be more grace"?
Heaven forbid! How can we, who have died to sin, still live in it? [Romans 6:1-2]

 This is not situation ethics I am teaching here. These are laws dictated by God to allow for a greater good within a sinful world. At times God has to fight fire with fire, but this is not our prerogative. God alone has the authority to bend the rules, because He is the one who made them. It is not up to us to weigh the benefits of bending a law with the inconvenience of following it and decide to bend the law if the result of this contradicts God’s Word. There may be some instances today where God can bend the rules and make this clear to those who are earnestly serving Him, but we have to be careful to make sure that there is proven evidence that such direction is from God, and not from human imagination.

 One example of this is women in pastoral leadership. There may be specific situations where a woman may be appointed to pastoral leadership with proven direction and blessing from God. We do, however, have to recognize that according to God’s Word, this would be a second best option, and most likely a temporary situation until adequate male leadership can be found and appointed for the position. We cannot assume cultural differences and automatically make something prohibited in Scripture to be allowed in our culture today without clear direction from God.

 God can bend the rules because He is God, but we are not at liberty to do that for Him, simply to do what is convenient or logical to us. We also have to study Scripture to understand what God’s ideal is and understand when God is using a second best option. We ought to always be striving toward the ideal as we strive to serve our King with the best of our devotion and not our second best.

Atonement
Preparation for Yom Kippur
MMin Kevin “Oriyan” Phipps
www.kingdomstar.com
August 2009

    Every Biblical and Jewish holiday has two parts; the preparation and the celebration. Both are equally important. For example, God commands us to work six days and on the seventh day we rest. This ought to be understood that we work six days in such a way that we are able to rest on the seventh. Starting sundown tonight, I should be thinking ahead to next Sabbath and use the next six days in preparation for that day. This is why it is said that any observant Jew is either celebrating a holiday or preparing for the next one.
If this is true, then why do we never hear any messages about a holiday until the day we are celebrating it? Even pagan culture begins sending us messages about Christmas in like October to give Christmasians plenty of time to stress, I mean prepare for that holiday. So, if half of the importance of a holiday like, say Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, the holiest day of the Biblical year is the preparation, shouldn’t we be hearing messages that help us along that path? Well here it is, a full month ahead. See what cool stuff you can do when you break from tradition? Oh did I say that out loud?

    I am excited to give this message. For one, it’s new. Second, after ten years of being Messianic, the role of Torah in conjunction with the sacrifice of Yeshua and His grace finally really makes sense. Third, I get to use the word naked a lot which I know will keep your attention. 

    I am going to attempt to explain to you today the concept of atonement according to the entirety of Scripture. In order to do that, I need to establish a foundation. To do that we need to go back to the beginning, like Adam and Eve beginning. Here’s the story in the Oriyan condensed version.

    God makes Adam. God makes Eve. God tells both not to eat from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. They were naked and without shame. That was chapter 2. A lawyer, I mean serpent shows up and says, “God didn’t really say you couldn’t eat from the tree did he?” Eve ate. Adam ate. Their eyes we opened and they say they were naked and were ashamed. They make clothes out of leaves, the first camouflage by the way, and hid. God asks Adam where he is. Adam says he is hiding. God asks why. Adam says he is naked. God asks the most important question of the story, “Who told you, you were naked? The story goes on with punishments and consequences and God makes for them clothes out of animal skins and they are banished from the garden. 

    If you want more details read it yourself. The clif notes are all you need for this lesson. The first point, and I really don’t know how many there are, is that this story is not about Adam and Eve and their relationship with each other. Rather it is a story about Adam and Eve and their relationship with God. They did not sin against each other, they sinned against God. Their shame because of their nakedness after they sinned was not from each other because they hid together. Rather their shame was because of their fear of God seeing them, which is why they tried to hide from God. The reason they were naked was because they had a perfect relationship with God and therefore had nothing to hide from Him. They did not wear clothing because they had no reason to. Their nakedness was pure, innocent, and the beauty of their bodies was a tribute to the beauty of their Creator. Here is where a lesson in Hebrew becomes important. The Hebrew word for naked at this point of the story is ערום   or arum. The root word is ערם or aram, which means to make or be bare. Arum is just simply the state of being without clothes with no sense of shame or sinful desire attached to it, and this is how these words are used throughout Scripture. 

    In chapter 3 they sin and everything changes. Scripture gives us a strange phrase. “Their eyes were opened, and they realized they were naked.” (Gen.3:7) This is strange only because we are not Hebrew. In Hebrew culture, and even in our own to an extent, the eyes are connected with knowledge and understanding. The phrase above has nothing to do with their vision, but with their understanding. What tree did they eat from? It was the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. When they ate of it what they gained was knowledge of evil which they were never intended to have. Their innocence was lost because of this new knowledge which came from the Adversary rather than God. Now they understood certain things about their nakedness which added shame to it. We see this in the Hebrew.

    When Adam told God that he hid because he was naked, the word here and in God’s response, “Who told you you were naked?” is עירם or erom. Arom and Erom are from the same root, but spelled and pronounced differently. Also, erom means shameful nakedness. Any time it is used in Scripture it is in a negative way, and often as a consequence for sin. 

    There is something else to notice in these two words. I realize I might be getting a little creative with the Hebrew, but I think this fits too well to be an accident. The difference in the two words from the root is a vav in the one and a yod in the other. The surrounding letters of the vav, a resh and a mem make the word rum (room), which means to lift up or exalt. The surrounding letters of the yod in the second word, an ayin and a resh make the word ayir which means burden. 

    Believe it or not, this all relates to atonement. I’m getting to that. First I want to analyze this question God asks Adam. “Who told you you were naked?” This also seems odd to us, unless you look at it from the standpoint of a parent. Your teenage daughter comes home from school and at dinner barely eats her food and says she is finished. Parent asks why she won’t eat. She say it is because she is fat. What question is most parents going to ask? “Who told you you were fat?” It is the same question for the same purpose. Her weight was never an issue before, so why is it now? Who or what gave her knowledge that made her conscious of her weight and gave her the impression it was something to be ashamed of? This is what God is asking. Does he not know? No He does, but He is playing psychologist and trying to get them to think about the situation they are in. The main point God is trying to make is this. Since God is asking the question, the answer obviously is not Him. If it is not Him why were they listening?

    In listening and obeying something created rather than the Creator, they gained knowledge about things they were never intended to know. This is how they fell. This is why they had shame. This is why they had something to hide. This is why they lost their relationship with God and needed a solution to their problem. 

    This is where we come to the coolest word in the Bible, kaphar. It means to cover. From this word we find the word kapparah, which means atonement. At this point I need to tell you a story from my teenage years. 

    When I was 15, I was still living in New Jersey and on a trip to see family in Michigan for Thanksgiving I was introduced to a girl about a year younger than me who went to the same church as my relatives. Despite some embarrassment from a stomach flu I had, somehow we became friends. After I left their church was later going on a winter retreat in Buffalo, New York. There was a church near me going to the same trip, so I went. Admittedly, I went more for hormonal reasons than spiritual. The last day of the retreat was a formal banquet where the guys were encouraged to ask a girl to the occasion. Of course I asked Barb, my friend, and of course she said yes. On the day of the banquet, everyone went sledding. At one point I was the second to last person on a bobsled with a girl kneeling, not sitting, behind me. About halfway down, we wiped out, and she ended up on top of me with my face between her and ice. I ended up with a nickel size scab on the side of my head. Obviously, for a 15 years old young man trying to impress his new girlfriend at a formal banquet that night, this was not a welcome addition to the facial visage. In my vast array of creativity, my solution was make-up. A little foundation and powder, and the scab was all but gone. Even Barb had to get like six inches from my face to see the source of my miraculous healing. It was not the Holy Spirit. It was Maybelline. 

     What is the point to this story? There was nothing I could do to get rid of the scab. Actually there was nothing wrong with the scab itself. The problem was the perceived embarrassment that came from being seen at the banquet with a big ugly scab on the side of my head. The makeup provided a covering for the scab which did not make the scab go away, but enabled me to go to the banquet without the embarrassment from the scab. The knowledge of evil that we have is there and cannot go away. It is that knowledge which brings condemnation and separation from God. Perhaps some time in the next life with resurrected bodies the knowledge will be gone, but for now nothing can take it away. However, a covering can remove the condemnation and allow us to have a relationship with God despite that knowledge. This is where atonement becomes important. 

    Adam and Eve tried to cover themselves to hide from God. First God does not desire us to hide. He wants us to commune with Him. Second, He wanted to communicate to them that their works could not adequately provide the atonement they needed to have communion with Him. This is why He clothed them. His clothing was with animal skins. What did God have to do to an animal to get the skins? Kill it. This was the first sacrifice for sin. God set three precedents in doing this. One, atonement could only be done by God. Second, It was by His grace. Third, only the blood of a substitutionary sacrifice could produce the sacrifice. The life is in the blood, and the penalty for sin is death. So, when there is sin, there is a debt which requires death. If that debt is paid, atonement is made.

    Now we go to the sacrifices of the priests which provided atonement for themselves, individuals, and at times the entire nation of Israel. They repeated the same thing that God did in the garden, and added another precedent. Atonement could only be made by a priest. There was one problem with this system, however. It broke one of the original precedents set up in the garden in that it is people performing the atonement and not God. God set up the system and as long as they did it according to the way He prescribed it was accepted, but it was just a shadow of things to come, not the real deal. The penalty for sin was simple put on hold until a later Messiah, also predicted in the garden, would come to provide the final redemption. Am I making this up?

For the Torah has in it a shadow of the good things to come, but not the actual manifestation of the originals. Therefore, it can never, by means of the same sacrifices repeated endlessly year after year, bring to the goal those who approach the Holy Place to offer them. Otherwise, wouldn't the offering of those sacrifices have ceased? For if the people performing the service had been cleansed once and for all, they would no longer have sins on their conscience. No, it is quite the contrary — in these sacrifices is a reminder of sins, year after year. For it is impossible that the blood of bulls and goats should take away sins.  [Hebrews 10:1-4]

    So all the sacrifices and the priesthood all was a picture of what the Messiah would later do to provide the final atonement and forgiveness of sin. He fulfills all the requirements. He is God, the atonement was provided by His grace, it was provided by the shedding of His own blood as the Passover Lamb, and He is our Great High Priest. Awesome huh!

    There is still something to be said here. How does Yeshua’s redemption fit in with Adam and Eve? The knowledge of evil is still there. Yeshua’s atonement, like my makeup, only removes the condemnation that comes from that knowledge. I can’t get rid of the knowledge, but I can fight against it. The atonement God provided for Adam and Eve did not enable them to live however they want as the story of Cain and Abel shows. Cain killed Abel which was a sin that Cain was punished for. Cain was given a choice. He could act upon the knowledge of good or the knowledge of evil. One path leads to life, the other to death. He chose the wrong path. God gives us Torah so we can fight against the knowledge of evil in our lives. Torah has nothing to do with our atonement, as that can only be accomplished by God, however Torah teaches us to resist the knowledge of evil and choose to live like Adam and Eve in the garden without shame or condemnation, trusting in the work of our Messiah’s atonement.

Hallellujah!
 

Mandatory Fun
lesson on Parashah 47; Re’eh (See)
by MMin Kevin “Oriyan” Phipps

 When I originally gave this message, I was still in the military. This was where I first heard the term “mandatory fun”. This is how that came about. We did very well, made our supervision look good, and so they gave us a day of fun. There were games, activities, food, and good times had by all. However, we had to be there. It was not a day off, rather, the park where the picnic was held was called an alternate duty location. In other words, yesterday the picnic was our job. This is what we call mandatory fun. Lest you think this would only happen in the military, let's read part of this week's parashah again.

"Every year you must take one tenth of everything your seed produces in the field, and eat it in the presence of ADONAI your God. In the place where he chooses to have his name live you will eat the tenth of your grain, new wine and olive oil, and the firstborn of your cattle and sheep, so that you will learn to fear ADONAI your God always. But if the distance is too great for you, so that you are unable to transport it,because the place where ADONAI chooses to put his name is too far away from you; then, when ADONAI your God prospers you, you are to convert it into money, take the money with you, go to the place which ADONAI your God will choose, and exchange the money for anything you want - cattle, sheep, wine, other intoxicating liquor, or anything you please - and you are to eat there in the presence of ADONAI your God,
and enjoy yourselves, you and your household. [D'varim/Deuteronomy 14:22-26]

This is God's mandatory fun. I think many people would be surprised at the idea of God commanding His people to buy intoxicating liquor and drink it in His presence. Actually, I did a little research and found out what is actually going on here. First, there are three different kinds of tithes in Israel. One is the regular tenth which went to the cohenim. They had no inheritance in Israel, so they relied on the tithe of the people for their survival. Actually, this was more a payment for services rendered since the office of the priesthood involved service to both God and Israel. This tithe is called Ma'aser Rishon, the first tithe.

The next tithe is what I just read in the passage above. It is the Ma'aser Sheni, or second tithe. This was an annual tithe of an additional tenth set aside for use by the person setting aside the tithe and his family. The place mentioned in the passage is Jerusalem, the place where the temple would be built and thus the place where God would dwell. This tithe was set aside to be used specifically during the three pilgrimage festivals of Pesach, Shavuot, and Sukkot. Note, they were festivals. They were also moadim, appointed feasts. In other words, mandatory fun. Israel was given a sabbatical year every seventh year, so they had a seven year cycle with the annual tithes. The Ma'aser Sheni was set aside on the 1st, 2nd, 4th, and 5th years of the cycle.

The third tithe was the Ma'aser Ani, or the poor tithe. This was set aside the same way the Ma'aser Sheni was, only it was done on the 3rd and 6th years of the cycle. There was to be no poor in Israel. This tithe as well as other laws in Torah are important lessons to us of God's love and concern for the poor. God's mandatory fun is to be enjoyed by all of Israel, not just those who can afford it. In a seven year period, one tenth of all the produce of Israel would be given to the Levi'im. Approximately 6.6% would be set aside for the festivals. Also approximately 3.3% would be used to help the poor in the land.

When it comes to tithing, I think it is a personal decision between a person and God. There are many things to consider, such as the fact we have no cohenim to support with the tenth. If they are not here to need it, do we need to give it? Can the local congregation legitimately take the place of the levi'im in that tithe? If so, should we give that tithe and the others giving 20%? What about the seven year cycle and the sabbatical year? We live in a very different culture, one which we as the people of God do not control, so it can be nearly impossible to follow some of these laws the way Israel did. Do we ignore them then? No. Jewish
people have always followed Torah in whatever ways they could in the given situations they find
themselves in. If there are things they can't do, they either improvise or they don't worry about it, but at the same time work toward being able to change their situation so they can follow Torah the way God prescribes. This is not a lesson on tithing, however. This is about having joy in our lives because God commands it of us, and what we must do to have it. Take a look at this passage later in the parashah. Referring to observing the festival of Sukkot, God says this to Israel.

Seven days you are to keep the festival for ADONAI your God in the place ADONAI your God will choose, because ADONAI your God will bless you in all your crops and in all your work, so you are to be full of joy! [D'varim/Deuteronomy 16:15]

And what if this was not followed?

"All these curses will come on you, pursuing you and overtaking you until you are destroyed, because you didn't pay attention to what ADONAI your God said, observing his mitzvot and regulations that he gave you. These curses will be on you and your descendants as a sign and a wonder forever. Because you didn't serve ADONAI your God with joy and gladness in your heart when you had such an abundance of everything; ADONAI will send your enemy against you; and you will serve him when you are hungry, thirsty, poorly clothed and lacking everything; he will put a yoke of iron on your neck until he destroys you. [D'varim/Deuteronomy 28:45-48]

Some may think that they need to have prosperity before they can rejoice in it. Keep in mind that these laws are given to Israel in the wilderness. God is providing their needs, but they do not have the kind of prosperity they will later experience after they arrive in the Promised Land. You don't have to be a Donald Trump or Bill Gates to be prosperous. In fact most of us are more prosperous than we may think. Count your blessings and you will find plenty to be joyful about.

There is another aspect to this. The command states that if a person has too much to bring with them on the journey to the place where God designates, thus making the journey too long and difficult, the person could sell his tithe for money, then buy what he needs when he gets to where God wants him to be. What happens in this is the community where the person comes from benefits from the produce being sold, the traveler then has an easier journey and is actually able to get to his destination, then the money from the tithe is able to be used to benefit the person later when he buys what he needs to participate in the festival. Compare that to these scriptures.

My Father's house are many places to live. If there weren't, I would have told you; because I am going there to prepare a place for you. Since I am going and preparing a place for you, I will return to take you with me; so that where I am, you may be also. [Jochanan/John 14:2-3]

"Do not store up for yourselves wealth here on earth, where moths and rust destroy, and burglars break in and steal. Instead, store up for yourselves wealth in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys, and burglars do not break in or steal. For where your wealth is, there your heart will be also. [Mattityahu/Matthew 6:19-21]

Have you ever gone hiking and taken off some gear, then realized how much weight you were carrying? Have you ever thought that your prosperity can make your journey longer just as much as hardship? As God prospers us, if we keep our prosperity for ourselves, we have to bring it with us on our journey to the kingdom, and we are the only ones to enjoy it. If we share our prosperity with others, we not only share God's light with others, and the blessing that goes with it, but we also end up trading our worldly prosperity heavenly treasure. When Yeshua was talking to the rich man and told him to sell everything he had to the poor, he was sad. This is because he thought all that wealth would be gone, never to be seen again. Little did he know that in doing that he would be making his journey on earth lighter, and storing up treasure in heaven which would be waiting for him to enjoy in the Kingdom. This was less charity and more an investment. Yeshua had more to teach us on this concept of prosperity and joy.

He looked at his talmidim and said: "How blessed are you poor! for the Kingdom of God is yours. "How blessed are you who are hungry! for you will be filled. "How blessed are you who are crying now! for you will laugh. "How blessed you are whenever people hate you and ostracize you and insult you and denounce you as a criminal on account of the Son of Man. Be glad when that happens; yes, dance for joy! because in heaven your reward is great. [Luke 6:20-23]

David had something similar to say.

Tears may linger for the night, but with dawn come cries of joy. Once I was prosperous and used to say, that nothing could ever shake me when you showed me favor, ADONAI, I was firm as a mighty mountain. But when you hid your face, I was struck with terror. I called to you, ADONAI; to ADONAI I pleaded for mercy: "What advantage is there in my death, in my going down to the pit? Can the dust praise you? Can it proclaim your truth? Hear me, ADONAI, and show me your favor! ADONAI, be my helper!" You turned my mourning into dancing! You removed my sackcloth and clothed me with joy, so that my well-being can praise you and not be silent; ADONAI my God, I will thank you forever! [Tehellim/Psalms 30:5-12]

If we follow Torah, God has promised to prosper us. Of course prosperity can come in many forms. However, if you enjoy your prosperity only for yourself, then it is used in this life, nobody else benefits from it, and there is nothing set aside to use in the place Yeshua has promised He is preparing for you. It takes a great deal of trust in God to rely on Him for your prosperity. So as you can see, everything is intertwined. Joy is commanded by God, however, it doesn't work to just “don't worry and be happy”. Joy must be prepared for. Our lives must be altered in order to make room for and cultivate joy in our lives. This comes from living obediently to Torah, which itself requires trust. As we do this more and more in our lives,we learn to use our prosperity God gives us to bless others, thus increasing our prosperity, if not in this world, then certainly in the Kingdom to come.

In the Kingdom, there will be much celebration, feasting, and fun. Participating in the fun is mandatory. If you don't know how to dance, you will learn, and you will like it. If messianic praise music is not your forte, you will eventually gain an ear for it. If you don't drink wine, you will. Apparently Yeshua makes the best. If you like being depressed and bored the Kingdom of God is not the place to go, because even without casinos, the fun will never end. However, we must prepare now. Keep in mind that before the feast of Sukkot, we have the cleansing of Yom Kippur. Our joy cannot be complete with sin in our lives. Joy comes from God, and the closer we draw to God, the more of His joy we experience in our lives. Don't wait until the end of your life to get things straight with God. You won't have much treasure stored up in heaven if you do. Besides, not all the celebrating is reserved for the Kingdom. If we delight ourselves in God, He gives us the desires of our heart. That is now, not in the Kingdom. As we live for Him, he gives us His joy now. Then when people ask you why you are so happy all the time, you tell them, “I am a child of God. It's mandatory.”

Kingdom Success
Drash on Parashah 46; Eikev (Because)
By MMin Kevin “Oriyan” Phipps

 Does God want His people to be rich and successful? Your options are yes, no, and depends. Let’s take a look at some passages from Eikev.  

"Because you are listening to these rulings, keeping and obeying them, Adonai your God will keep with you the covenant and mercy that he swore to your ancestors. He will love you, bless you and increase your numbers; he will also bless the fruit of your body and the fruit of your ground - your grain, wine, olive oil and the young of your cattle and sheep - in the land he swore to your ancestors that he would give you. You will be blessed more than all other peoples; there will not be a sterile male or female among you, and the same with your livestock. Adonai will remove all illness from you - he will not afflict you with any of Egypt's dreadful diseases, which you have known; instead, he will lay them on those who hate you.
 [D’varim/Deuteronomy 7:12-15]

So obey the mitzvot of Adonai your God, living as he directs and fearing him. For Adonai your God is bringing you into a good land, a land with streams, springs and water welling up from the depths in valleys and on hillsides. It is a land of wheat and barley, grapevines, fig trees and pomegranates; a land of olive oil and honey; a land where you will eat food in abundance and lack nothing in it; a land where the stones contain iron and the hills can be mined for copper. So you will eat and be satisfied, and you will bless Adonai your God for the good land he has given you. [D’varim 8:6-10]

It is a land Adonai your God cares for. The eyes of Adonai your God are always on it, from the beginning of the year to the end of the year. "So if you listen carefully to my mitzvot which I am giving you today, to love Adonai your God and serve him with all your heart and all your being; then, [says Adonai,] 'I will give your land its rain at the right seasons, including the early fall rains and the late spring rains; so that you can gather in your wheat, new wine and olive oil; and I will give your fields grass for your livestock; with the result that you will eat and be satisfied.' But be careful not to let yourselves be seduced, so that you turn aside, serving other gods and worshipping them. If you do, the anger of Adonai will blaze up against you. He will shut up the sky, so that there will be no rain. The ground will not yield its produce, and you will quickly pass away from the good land Adonai is giving you. [D’varim 11:12-17]

 So, it would appear from these verses that the answer would be yes. I think this is completely true, especially if you send me $100 today…just kidding. I have heard my share of “Prosperity Gospel” preachers over the years and that is not what I am here to teach you today, at least not entirely. To go with the question I asked earlier, I should have you answer another question. Does God want His people to be dirt poor and living in the slums? Your options are the same. Remember, this is for posterity, so please be honest.
 Whenever we are reading Torah, we have to realize that the laws we read were given to a self-governing community of people who lived with God as their King. The promises given above were given to a nation, not individuals. America is the wealthiest and most successful nation in the world, but does that prosperity include every American? We all know this isn’t true. In fact by the end of September 500,000 Americans will lose their unemployment benefits without finding work. By the end of the year, the number will climb to 1,500,000. Many of these people are families which will be facing foreclosures on their homes and living on the streets. If it was not for the grace of God, we would be among them. So God is promising prosperity to Israel, not every person. Does God want Israel to be successful? Yes He does. However, success comes with several warnings like this:

"Be careful not to forget Adonai your God by not obeying his mitzvot, rulings and regulations that I am giving you today. Otherwise, after you have eaten and are satisfied, built fine houses and lived in them, and increased your herds, flocks, silver, gold and everything else you own, you will become proud-hearted. Forgetting Adonai your God - who brought you out of the land of Egypt, where you lived as slaves; [D’varim 8:11-14]

 The end result of this is discipline and destruction. In Scripture, the only time we see God “desiring” poverty for His people is as a form of discipline to bring them back to Himself. God’s ideal is goodness, prosperity, and health. However, there are a few truths that relate to and limit this desire.

 We need to do our part. God wants to bless us, but He is not our servant. We are His servants. God’s promises of prosperity to His people were conditioned by the demand and assumption that they were obeying Him. He was then going to bless their work. They still had to rely on God to provide for them, while doing what work He had given them to do.

So there is nothing better for a man to do than eat, drink and and let himself enjoy the good that results from his work. I also realized that this is from God's hand. [Kohelet/Ecclesiastes 2:24]

 The next principle is that where God desires prosperity for us this is not His top priority. God is primarily concerned about our relationship with Him, and if wealth will get in the way of that, it is of no value. There are cautions, not prohibitions, but cautions concerning wealth seen throughout the Bible. We are told that it is easier for a camel to fit through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the Kingdom of God. We are told that money is the root of all evil. There are some in the world who God has blessed financially, who use their affluence and influence to advance the Kingdom, and they fully thank God for everything they have, but this is rare. Even those people would likely tell you that in many ways life was easier to handle when they did not have as much money.
 Related to this last principle is the fact that God has a plan for each person. At times infirmity and limitation mixed with faith enables God to do greater work in that person’s life than wealth and worldly success. Our focus has to be on God and our relationship with Him and we need to be thankful for whatever blessings He gives us no matter how great or small. We use all we have to bring glory to our King and advancement of His Kingdom. At times we have to prove ourselves to be able to handle little before He blesses us with much.

 This brings me to the next principle. Where God’s desire is to prosper us, our desire is to be God, not prosperity.

Furthermore, those whose goal is to be rich fall into temptation; they get trapped in many foolish and hurtful ambitions which plunge them into ruin and destruction. [1Timothy 6:9]

 It is not so much wealth that destroys a person, but a desire for it that is contrary to and uncontrolled by the boundaries of Torah. This is lust. There are people with nothing, living on the streets that are just as hungry for wealth and success as a corporate executive on Wall Street. Money becomes God and everything revolves around getting as much as possible and thinking that if you only had enough your problems would be solved and life would be good. This is a lie from Ha Satan meant to lead, even Believers away from the riches of the Kingdom.

Listen, my dear brothers, hasn't God chosen the poor of the world to be rich in faith and to receive the Kingdom which he promised to those who love him? [Ya’akov/James 2:5]

 We often lament over the fact that wicked people seem to flourish and the righteous suffer. David answers this dilemma in Tehellim/Psalms 37. For the wicked of the world, the blessings of the world, which his son Shlomo/Solomon called vanity, is all they have. The righteous, as stated by Yeshua, store up treasure in a place He has gone to prepare just for us. This is an eternal Kingdom and eternal riches. Considering the short time we spend here compared to eternity, our focus ought to be on our relationship with God, and not the condition of our lives.
 The prosperity God promised His people was not necessarily lavish. He didn’t promise pearly gates and streets of gold like we see in Revelation for all the saints. He promised them food, fertility, and political success over their enemies. He promised them land from which to build His Kingdom on earth. What He promised them was that if they lived for Him, He would take care of the concerns of their lives. Just as Yeshua has told us not to worry about what we will wear, what we will eat, or where we will live, He told them they same thing and told them to seek first His Kingdom and His righteousness.

 In Mishlei/Proverbs, a man named Agur wrote this prayer: 

I have asked two things of you; don't deny them to me as long as I live —keep falsehood and futility far from me, and give me neither poverty nor wealth. Yes, provide just the food I need today; for if I have too much, I might deny you and say, "Who is Adonai?" And if I am poor, I might steal and thus profane the name of my God. [Mishlei 30:7-9]

 This balance should be our desire, but even still, what is most important is our relationship with God and following His will for our lives. Through trusting in Him, we know that, even in a bad economy, God will take care of us. He may choose to prosper us in this world, or He may not. Regardless of our situation we are obligated to remain thankful for what we do have and use all to His glory as the woman with the widow’s mite did in Yeshua’s day.
 There is one more consideration from God’s Word concerning success. We see it in the Psalm I read for the children’s blessing. Children are a gift from God and blessed is the man whose quiver is full of them. Our relationships with God and our fellow man are one of the few things that carry over into the Kingdom. Children are a unique part of that in that they are the fruit of my loins. In the next life, my house, job, car, and everything else I own will be gone. However, there will be sons and daughters in the Kingdom that are there because of what I did in my life on earth. As a man, this, more than anything else is a measure of Kingdom success.

If God is Real, Why is There Evil?
Drash on Parashah 45; Va’etchanan
MMin Kevin “Oriyan” Phipps

 One of the greatest objections to Biblical faith has been the question, “If God is real, all powerful, loving, and good, then why is there evil an suffering in the world?” If He hates sin, why does He allow it? If He could do something to end war and poverty, which Christian doctrine seems to imply He could, why doesn’t He? Since these things exist in the world, then if God exists at all, He is powerless to do anything about it or simply does not care enough to do anything about it. Many theologians and pastors have attempted to answer this issue for a long time now, and this week it is my turn. (which is good because I can finally put an end to this issue) (just kidding)

 As I spent this past week contemplating this issue, it occurred to me that most of the people who pose this objection not only are not Believers, but aren’t even trying to be. They are not sincerely wanting to live a life of faith in the God of the Bible, and this is a convenient tool of the Adversary given to them to make them feel better about their unbelief. As a tool of Ha Satan, there is much truth to the various parts of this argument. Is God good? Yes. Is God loving? Yes. Is He all powerful? Yes. So what’s the problem? The sky is blue. This is a true statement concerning the sky. However, this statement can be misleading in itself because the sky does not always appear blue. At night it appears black, and on rainy days it appears white or grey. At sunrise or sunset it can appear in any number of colors. So truth can become deception of additional truth is withheld for the purpose of misleading the hearer.

You are not to follow other gods, chosen from the gods of the peoples around you; because Adonai, your God, who is here with you, is a jealous God. If you do, the anger of Adonai your God will flare up against you and he will destroy you from the face of the earth.  Do not put Adonai your God to the test, as you tested him at Massah [testing]. Observe diligently the mitzvot of Adonai your God, and his instructions and laws which he has given you. You are to do what is right and good in the sight of Adonai, so that things will go well with you, and you will enter and possess the good land Adonai swore to your ancestors, expelling all your enemies ahead of you, as Adonai said. [D’varim/Deutoronomy 6:14-19]

Next I saw heaven opened, and there before me was a white horse. Sitting on it was the one called Faithful and True, and it is in righteousness that he passes judgment and goes to battle. His eyes were like a fiery flame, and on his head were many royal crowns. And he had a name written which no one knew but himself. He was wearing a robe that had been soaked in blood, and the name by which he is called is, "THE WORD OF GOD." The armies of heaven, clothed in fine linen, white and pure, were following him on white horses. And out of his mouth comes a sharp sword with which to strike down nations — "He will rule them with a staff of iron." It is he who treads the winepress from which flows the wine of the furious rage of Adonai, God of heaven's armies. And on his robe and on his thigh he has a name written: KING OF KINGS AND LORD OF LORDS. [Revelation 19:11-16]

 So the first thing that we have to get straight is being able to see God truthfully according to the entirety of Scripture. Where it is true that He is a good, loving, all powerful God, He is also a holy, just, and jealous God who punishes people for their sin and even sins of ancestors. He is a God of gentleness and kindness, but He is also a God of vengeance and fury. As a famous preacher, Jonathan Edwards once taught, it is a terrible thing for sinners to fall into the hands of an angry God. The wisest man who ever lived, King Solomon sums up human life as follows.

Here is the final conclusion, now that you have heard everything: fear God, and keep his mitzvot; this is what being human is all about. For God will bring to judgment everything we do, including every secret, whether good or bad. [Kohelet/Ecclesiastes 12:14]
 
 Knowing God’s true, full identity as both a God of goodness but also a God of judgment gives us insight to why He allows, and even causes suffering and hardship in the world. There are laws that God has given to govern all human life and there are both natural and divine consequences for not following them. God punishes even His own people to bring them back to a life of obedience and trust in Him. 

 We have in our culture this concept of God that makes Him into a buddy buddy God that just forgives and accepts everybody. He would never send anyone to hell, and would never condone such things are war, poverty, and capital punishment. Though these things are not His desire, He does allow and even commands such things as punishment for sin. We have to stop trying to make God into a god that we can accept, and accept or reject Him for who and what He truly is based on His Word. The god we make Him out to be only exists to serve mankind and make life good and pleasant. That is not the God of the Bible. We exist to serve Him as our Creator, not the other way around. 

 Some would say that they can’t worship a God who is so “mean”. Think about what you are saying. If He truly is “mean”, then do you want to be for Him or against Him? If He is “mean” as you say, then worshiping Him would be the best policy to avoid Him being “mean” to you. 

 We have explored the God side of this argument, now there is a human side to this as well that deserves attention.

"Adonai your God is going to bring you into the land you will enter in order to take possession of it, and he will expel many nations ahead of you — the Hitti, Girgashi, Emori, Kena`ani, P'rizi, Hivi and Y'vusi, seven nations bigger and stronger than you. When he does this, when Adonai your God hands them over ahead of you, and you defeat them, you are to destroy them completely! Do not make any covenant with them. Show them no mercy. Don't intermarry with them — don't give your daughter to his son, and don't take his daughter for your son. For he will turn your children away from following me in order to serve other gods. If this happens, the anger of Adonai will flare up against you, and he will quickly destroy you. No, treat them this way: break down their altars, smash their standing-stones to pieces, cut down their sacred poles and burn up their carved images completely. For you are a people set apart as holy for Adonai your God. Adonai your God has chosen you out of all the peoples on the face of the earth to be his own unique treasure. Adonai didn't set his heart on you or choose you because you numbered more than any other people - on the contrary, you were the fewest of all peoples. Rather, it was because Adonai loved you, and because he wanted to keep the oath which he had sworn to your ancestors, that Adonai brought you out with a strong hand and redeemed you from a life of slavery under the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt. [D’varim/Deuteronomy 7:1-8]

 I could have used many other passages to illustrate my point, but this is one from the parashah that works well. God could have made the journey from Egypt to the Promised Land quick and easy. Moses could have returned from Midian to find the entire nation of Egypt dead and Israel left with no enemy to chase them. He could have provided them with more than enough food and drink to go right to the Promised Land, completely bypassing the wilderness, and find an already destroyed land of Kena’an with no one to fight and nothing to do but build Jerusalem and divide the land amongst themselves. God could have even taken that work from them and built the Temple and Holy City Himself. Why didn’t He?

So, since we have come to be considered righteous by God because of our trust, let us continue to have shalom with God through our Lord, Yeshua the Messiah.  Also through him and on the ground of our trust, we have gained access to this grace in which we stand; so let us boast about the hope of experiencing God's glory. But not only that, let us also boast in our troubles; because we know that trouble produces endurance, endurance produces character, and character produces hope; and this hope does not let us down, because God's love for us has already been poured out in our hearts through the Ruach HaKodesh who has been given to us. For while we were still helpless, at the right time, the Messiah died on behalf of ungodly people. [Romans 5:1-6]

 God nation of God’s people in the Bible is called Isra’el. This is actually a combination of two words, Sarah, which means “to prevail” and El, which is one of the names of God. So Isra’el literally means, “to prevail with God”. Prevail over what? Well, sinful nations, evil, Ha Satan, their own personal sins, anything which is contrary to the person and will of their God. One cannot prevail unless one is challenged. You cannot win unless you compete. You can go to a store and buy a trophy, but it will mean nothing because you did nothing to earn it. 

 Those who go to the gym to build their strength don’t go and just flap their arm and legs around. (Aerobic exercise may be different, but I’m talking about strength exercise) In order to build muscles and make them stronger, there must be resistance. There cannot be too much resistance, so as to cause injury, but enough to test the muscles and through that testing, the muscles get stronger.
No temptation has seized you beyond what people normally experience, and God can be trusted not to allow you to be tempted beyond what you can bear. On the contrary, along with the temptation he will also provide the way out, so that you will be able to endure. [1Corinthians 10:13]

 God’s job is not to make our life easy and nor should we expect Him to. It is through difficulties, hardships, evil, sin, and such that we have the opportunity to grow stronger in our faith. We have to remember that in order to prevail, we prevail with God, not alone. God did not completely give the Promised Land to Isra’el without effort, but neither did they have victory over the inhabitants of the land on their own strength and wisdom. It is a cooperative effort between God and Man, as the result of a continual relationship between the two.

To the woman he said, "I will greatly increase your pain in childbirth. You will bring forth children in pain. Your desire will be toward your husband, but he will rule over you." To Adam he said, "Because you listened to what your wife said and ate from the tree about which I gave you the order, 'You are not to eat from it,' the ground cursed on your account; you will work hard to eat from it as long as you live. It will produce thorns and thistles for you, and you will eat field plants. You will eat bread by the sweat of your forehead till you return to the ground — for you were taken out of it: you are dust, and you will return to dust." [B’resheet/Genesis 3:16-19]

 We have to accept the fact that we live in a world of sin. Sin not only has its affect on people, but the land and animals as well. Sin is a state of being that separates the world from the source of all life. Rather than questioning how and why a good, loving, powerful God allows evil and suffering in the world, the better question is how there is any goodness, love, and life on a planet as sinful and bent toward hell as this one is. Death and suffering is what is normal in this world. It is to be expected. You don’t look outside and get surprised to find dirt in your yard. If you looked outside to find a clean, shiny, marble floor covering your yard, this would be an oddity. The only answer to why there is any goodness at all in this world and how it is that each of us are still able to suck the air that God has created into our lungs only to turn around and use the life that this provides to dishonor God is purely His grace. 

 God’s Son, Yeshua the Messiah, came to this evil planet as a human to allow Himself to die at the hands of evil men in order to enable all those who would put their faith in Him to have eternal life, experience unconditional love, and have hope in the midst of whatever trials will come to get through them better, stronger, and closer to God than before.

Put on the whole armour of God, that ye may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil. For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places. Wherefore take unto you the whole armour of God, that ye may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand. [Ephesians 6:11-13]

Do it! Do it Now!
Drash on Parashah 44; D’varim (Words)
MMin Kevin “Oriyan” Phipps; July 2009

 People are interesting creatures indeed. We are never satisfied, no matter what the circumstances, resulting in an almost constant barrage of complaints and requests for something better. We always like to think we are in control, but then cast the blame elsewhere when things go wrong.  When it comes to faith, we cry out to God to save us from our sin, then proceed to tell Him what we plan to do for Him. We expect the Creator of the universe to work in our timing do conform His will to our level of comfort and perceived ability to carry it out.

 As we begin D’varim/Deuteronomy, we see some exciting things that God wants to do on behalf of His people, but we see problems concerning the execution of these plans due to a lack of faith on the part of Israel.

"Adonai spoke to us in Horev. He said, 'You have lived long enough by this mountain.  Turn, get moving and go to the hill-country of the Emori and all the places near there in the `Aravah, the hill-country, the Sh'felah, the Negev and by the seashore - the land of the Kena`ani, and the L'vanon, as far as the great river, the Euphrates River. I have set the land before you! Go in, and take possession of the land Adonai swore to give to your ancestors Avraham, Yitz'chak and Ya`akov, and their descendants after them.' [D’varim 1:6-8]

 In the military these would be marching orders. Moshe is recounting for the children of Israel certain events that contributed to then being in the wilderness as long as they were. He tells then of the time when it  was  time for Israel to enter the Promised Land. This should have been an exciting time. We would think a massive celebration would ensue accompanied by packing up and heading out to defeat their enemies and take the land God had promised them.

"But you would not go up. Instead you rebelled against the order of Adonai your God; and in your tents you complained, 'It's because Adonai hated us that he has brought us out of the land of Egypt, only to hand us over to the Emori to destroy us. What sort of place is it that we're heading for? Our brothers made our courage fail when they said, "The people are bigger and taller than we are; the cities are great and fortified up to the sky; and finally, we have seen `Anakim there." ' [D’varim 1:26-28]

 This was after they sent the twelve spies into the land to check things out and agreed that it was indeed good land. This was actually their first mistake. God told them to jump in and they decided to test the waters first. They were impressed by the goodness of the land, but they feared the people who lived in the land and the magnitude of the cities they lived in.  Now let’s rewind the tape a bit.
They traveled on from Eilim, and the whole community of the people of Isra'el arrived at the Seen Desert, between Eilim and Sinai, on the fifteenth day of the second month after leaving the land of Egypt. There in the desert the whole community of the people of Isra'el grumbled against Moshe and Aharon. The people of Isra'el said to them, "We wish Adonai had used his own hand to kill us off in Egypt! There we used to sit around the pots with the meat boiling, and we had as much food as we wanted. But you have taken us out into this desert to let this whole assembly starve to death!" [Shmot/Exodus 16:1-3]
 
 The first thing Israel did after being rescued from the Egyptians and slavery to Pharaoh was complain that God had led them out into the wilderness to starve to death. Granted, the accommodations were no Hilton hotel, but God was taking care of them. He even fed them with manna and provided water for them and their livestock. At times they wanted to return to Egypt and become slaves again rather than live the meager lives they were forced to live in the desert. 

 Now it is time for them to go into the land, and they would rather stay where they are at out of fear. They agree that God’s blessings are good, but the obstacles in the way are too much for them to handle. They had grown used to their hardships to the point that they would rather stay there than put forth the effort and trust in God to move to something better. 

 How much do people do the same thing today. There are many people who live in poverty who as much of a distress it was when they first lost their job or house and had to humble themselves to receive help from friends and government sources, they get used to the meager living and even when opportunity arrives to better themselves, they refuse because it’s too much work. Some people even gain a sense of pride in their suffering and may be reluctant to change their situation because to do so causes them to lose their identity. 

 What Israel failed to claim what the fact that God was giving them the Promised Land. God knew what obstacles we in the way. God had a plan to deal with those problems. All He needed was His people to trust in Him and obey His marching orders. He said go, and they needed to go, without regard for the goodness of the land or the giants and walls they would face on the way. At some point they realized this.

"Then you answered me, 'We have sinned against Adonai. Now we will go up and fight, in accordance with everything Adonai our God ordered us.' And every man among you put on his arms, considering it an easy matter to go up into the hill-country. [D’varim 1:41]

 So after being rebuked by God for their disobedience, they got together and must have had some kind of revival  meeting/pep rally, and mustered up the courage to do what God told them to do and go slay some giants. With swords and spears in hand they began to go to battle to defeat their enemies so Israel could enter the Promised Land. Yay! Go Israel! Right? Well, not quite.

But Adonai said to me, 'Tell them, "Don't go up, and don't fight, because I am not there with you; if you do, your enemies will defeat you." ' [D’varim 1:42]

 There is another verse that goes along with this one.

Seek Adonai while he is available, call on him while he is still nearby. [Yesha’yahu/Isaiah 55:6]

This verse is sometimes linked with salvation and misinterpreted. However, if we understand this verse with the story we’ve been going through, I think we see a clearer understanding of what this verse and the story are teaching us about God. In the military, there is much intelligence (believe it or not) which goes into the planning for an attack on the enemy. Most if not all the information is known to the generals and others making the decisions. When they give a command to aim in a particular direction and fire at a certain time, there is need for immediate response. Hesitation can be the difference between a rocket hitting a truck with enemy soldiers and a bus of school children.

 When God gives us instructions concerning His will, we are to act immediately. If we first reject His will, then later decide on our own to accept it, then it is no longer His will but ours. Israel’s hesitation meant the difference between going with God and going without Him. It was God giving them victory, not their own strength or intelligence. To go without God meant destruction and that is what happened.

 In the movie Amadeus, Mozart is at a party and one of his colleagues plays  a piece on the harpsichord that he had been working on for quite awhile. He’s is proud of what he had accomplished and wants to know what Mozart thinks. Mozart then proceeds to get on the harpsichord and plays perfectly what the man played for him. He then starts adding chord structures and various riffs and other additions to essentially make it his own and something better. This made the other composer quite upset and Mozart succeeded at a great show of his musical talent, but at a greater disrespect for the original composer. 

 The point of this is that if we take God’s will and change or add anything to it, then it is no longer God’s will, it’s ours. Not only that, but we show God disrespect as our King by combining our convenience with His will.

From: Shim`on Kefa, a slave and emissary of Yeshua the Messiah To: Those who, through the righteousness of our God and of our Deliverer Yeshua the Messiah, have been given the same kind of trust as ours: May grace and shalom be yours in full measure, as you come to a full knowledge of God and Yeshua our Lord. God's power has given us everything we need for life and godliness, through our knowing the One who called us to his own glory and goodness. By these he has given us valuable and superlatively great promises, so that through them you might come to share in God's nature and escape the corruption which evil desires have brought into the world. For this very reason, try your hardest to furnish your faith with goodness, goodness with knowledge,  knowledge with self-control, self-control with perseverance, perseverance with godliness, godliness with brotherly affection, and brotherly affection with love. For if you have these qualities in abundance, they keep you from being barren and unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Yeshua the Messiah. Indeed, whoever lacks them is blind, so shortsighted that he forgets that his past sins have been washed away.  Therefore, brothers, try even harder to make your being called and chosen a certainty. For if you keep doing this, you will never stumble. Thus you will be generously supplied with everything you need to enter the eternal Kingdom of our Lord and Deliverer, Yeshua the Messiah. [2Kefa/Peter 1:1-11]

 Judging by the message of the Gospel, we might think that Yeshua’s primary teaching would be salvation. The word salvation only appears twice in the Gospels in the CJB and 6 times in the KJV. The word saved appears 14 times in the CJB and 20 times in the KJV. Conversely, the word kingdom appears 110 times in the CJB and 127 times in the KJV. It is not that Yeshua didn’t teach about salvation, but the Kingdom of God is the primary theme of many of His teachings and virtually all of the parables. Yeshua is the King of the Kingdom and through faith in Him He gives the keys to His Kingdom. He prayed that God’s Kingdom would exist on earth as it is in Heaven and taught us to do the same. 

 The Kingdom is our Promised Land. Land is that which you build you life and well being on. Spiritually, those who have faith already live in the Kingdom. Physically, we live as those striving toward a Kingdom still yet to come. There are many hardships along the way, which God is fully aware of and already has a plan for getting us through it. It is these trial that enable us to allow God to shine His light and show His power in our world through our trust in Him. 

 He has given us His Word which gives us our marching orders. Through prayer and study He reveals to each of us through His Spirit specific instructions beyond His Word to accomplish. When God tells us to go, we go. When He tells us to do something we do it. When He tells us to speak, we say what the Spirit gives us to say. If we wait until things seem to be a better time, it is no longer His will, but ours. He is our King, and if He tells us to follow Him, we drop everything and follow Him. If we wait until tomorrow He will be gone. If He is not gone, we might be. Some people wait until the end of their life to “get religious” or they wait until life is so bad that God is their only hope. Y’hoshua told Israel to choose this day whom they would serve. Not tomorrow, but today! How many people actually plan when they will die? Most who do only accomplish that through suicide, which in itself is sin. Many people die every day in accidents, violent crimes, or sudden unexpected medical traumas, such as with Kevin Wood. If such people choose to wait to answer the call of God in their life, their opportunity will be too late. Every beat of our heart is a gift from God, given to us by His grace. Seek the Kingdom of God and His righteousness today, before it is too late. Do it, do it now!