10.16.26 – Memory Lane

It took almost eighty-two years of living, but it happened on Firstfruits 2015. I was visiting my mom at the Life Care Health Center in Grandview, MO, on Sunday (known by most as Easter). She had a question that no one in the care center could answer—not the visiting preacher, not the staff, no one. She asked, "What does an Easter bunny and Easter eggs have to do with Jesus' death and resurrection?" Not one person was able to answer her question. I heard her ask it to person after person after person, and not one answered. When she asked me if I knew, I began to explain to her the best I could the pagan reality that originated back with Nimrod in Genesis 10–11 (this week's Torah portion) and has infiltrated its way deeply into the lives of believers in the Babylonian system of religion we have today—a system where pagan practices and biblical reality intermingle. When I finished sharing my understanding of history, my mom's mouth dropped open in shock. From that point on she started proclaiming like a "cock crowing" the truth about Easter and eggs. Understand that my mom is not super-spiritually minded, but she was making her way out of this spiritless system of Babylon, and she was moving progressively to the Truth! She recognized that we have profaned the things of God. Where she goes from here, only Yahweh knows, but she is beginning to understand Isaiah 56:6 a little more.

"Also the foreigners who join themselves to YHWH, to minister to Him, and to love the name of YHWH, to be His servants, every one who keeps from profaning the sabbath and holds fast My covenant..."

Does this verse apply to you? Well, are you a foreigner (literally, "sons of the strange," oov'nei hanekar)? Have you joined yourself to Yahweh to minister to Him? Do you love His name? This covers most of us, does it not? The words of Yahweh, spoken by Isaiah, make it pretty clear that Yahweh invites us to join His people. But intention and motivation are not quite enough. Action is also required.

The Hebrew word my mom began to recognize was chalal, the word for "profane." This is primarily used in relation to ritual and ceremony in worship, but it is also used for sexual defilement (Genesis 49:4) and breaking a covenant (Malachi 2:10). In other words, the scope of these acts of defilement extends to each aspect of Yahweh's relationship with Israel—a covenant based in the metaphor of marriage that involves practices and rituals.

With this background, it is difficult to imagine how anyone who meets the first requirements of intention and motivation can ignore or reject the second requirements of action. Keeping Sabbath and holding fast (chazak—to be strong, to be courageous) to the covenant are requirements of those who join themselves to the God of Israel. How is it possible to reconcile Yah's words here with Constantine's creed required of everyone who joined the Christian Church? That creed reads, "I renounce all customs, rites, legalisms, unleavened breads and sacrifices of lambs of the Hebrews, and all the other feasts of the Hebrews, sacrifices, prayers, aspirations, purifications, sanctifications, and propitiations, and fasts and new moons, and Sabbaths, and superstitions, and hymns and chants, and observances and synagogues. Absolutely everything Jewish, every Law, rite and custom..." Constantine rejected the words of the God of Israel. He determined that Christianity was based on a different foundation—his words!

Once we read the history, this presents an enormous problem for most Christians. Will we live in direct disobedience to the words of our God? Will we worship according to Yahweh or Constantine? Now that you know, what will you do? Most Christians have no idea that the day of worship was determined by a Roman emperor, but now that you know, what will you do? Will you continue to worship on Sunday because it is just too difficult to explain to your friends why you are observing the Sabbath? Will you adopt the replacement theology that Yeshua changed it, claiming Yahweh's words in Isaiah do not apply anymore? Or will you face the consequences of attaching yourself to the One you love and serve Him according to His instructions?

I know the direction my mom was leaning, and she was not hesitating to let the truth be known. Thanks, Mom, for teaching me a thing or two about chazak!

The world's winter holidays are coming, and they are all connected to Nimrod.

Happy Preparation Day!

Alan

www.lightintorah.org

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

12 21 25 – At the End

Then it came to pass, at the end   (miketz)   of two full years, that Pharaoh had a dream (Gen. 41:1) I have often said that before you begin a project, you have to finish it. That is exactly how the Lord our God is. Before He begins a project, He already has the blueprint completed, the funding necessary, and everything is prepared before He sets the timetable in motion. We see here at the beginning of the Torah portion,  Miketz  ("at the end"), after thirteen years of stagnation, the Lord brings about an end to Joseph's wait. And we should all have hope in the extremity ( ketz ) of something. We should all have hope that the Lord will finish what His preparation works and proceed with it with a blessing. This is the Hebrew understanding that when God brings an end to something, when He cuts something off, He actually has something in store for us—often a blessing, the paradise of our inheritance. And whatever that time of awaiting has been, it always proceeds with ...
Read more

7.16.25 ~ New Heights and Depths

Good morning! I am back in Michigan and have access to the internet again. Good morning! Though you haven't received studies over the past week, you have been prayed for and I hope your passion for the Lord is daily rising to new heights. The first generation of the wilderness journey were passive; recipients of God's goodness around every bend. Since their passing, the second generation has been called to action! The final temptation before entering into the Land has come and gone. Some passed the test and 24,000 failed. Prior to Phineas heroic gesture, in stopping the plague, the sexual and idolatrous debacle had already been active through the encounter at Baal-Peor, the Moabite women, and Balaam's suggestion initiated, where God commanded Moses to take the heads of the leaders and hang  the heads of all the participants towards the sun so that God's wrath will be turned away (Num. 25:1-5). The average person would think that adverse response to Israel's rebellio...
Read more

4.4.26 ~ Can You Count to Three?

Image
Today, Saturday 4/4/26, many will celebrate the day that Yeshua was visibly seen risen from the grave (John 20:1; Matt. 28:1–10; Luke 24:1–10)! The day after His resurrection, Yeshua would be out ministering to the doubts of His disciples, helping them realize that He is alive and that the purpose of His resurrection would be catalyzed by their lives. For the disciples closest to Yeshua and those who stood at a safe distance away, it was a time of doubt. The enemy was in hot pursuit. They were fearful for their lives, but just at the God-appointed time, their salvation appeared.  Does that sound vaguely familiar? It should. Earlier this week, on the day after Passover—the 15th of the first month—the natural-born Israelites and those who joined them through the blood of the Lamb exited Egypt and headed toward the sea. In just a few days, during the Feast of Unleavened Bread, Pharaoh would not be happy that he let the Israelites go; he felt betrayed, and he was hot (Ex. 14:5–9). Mose...
Read more