Category Archives: Peter’s blogs

Stand Firm in Love (Part 2)

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Let all you do be done with love

“Watch, stand fast in the faith, be brave, be strong. Let all that you do be done with love.” I Corinthians 16:13-14

Last week, I focused on Verse 13 above as I spoke about holding fast to our convictions when we know they are clear instructions from YHVH’s word. In Part 2 this week I will focus on the second part of this passage above, which says that everything we do should be done in love. From I Corinthians 13 Verse 2 we know that even if we are working miracles through Holy Spirit gifts and have greater faith than the Apostles, “so that we could remove mountains, but have not love, we are nothing”.

The same adage goes for mentoring and discipling other believers – if we are not “speaking the truth in love” (Eph 4:15), then we are better off not speaking at all. Whenever the Holy Spirit puts on our heart that we are to speak with someone, our words need to be spoken “with grace, seasoned with salt, that we may know how we ought to answer each one” (Col 4:6).

When we put this together with Verse 13 above, it means that we are to stand firm in our convictions and not be swayed by the world’s compromise with YHVH’s word, but when we do speak out we need to be sensitive to the beliefs and feelings of others. Does this sensitivity to their beliefs mean that we are to be silent and avoid delicate topics like homosexuality? No, most certainly not! If we were silent, then we would no longer be watchman for YHVH’s Word to others in the world.

So how do we keep the delicate balance between offending people (even friends and family) and speaking the truth in love? Actually, we cannot avoid offending people when we speak God’s truth.  Didn’t Yeshua say:”And blessed is the one who is not offended because of Me” (Matt 11:6), and then: “…you will be hated by all for My name’s sake” (Luke 21:17). Many people were offended by Yeshua’s words, and He told His disciples (including us) that we would be hated when we speak His words and His name.

I believe we need to state the Godly convictions we stand on and why we are so passionate about them. This way, the person will not think we are judging them, and we will not so easily repel them with our strong words. We need to come from the perspective that we love God and want to follow His instructions because He first loved us, and because He made the most incredible sacrifice of all time for us. He hung on a tree for us when we were still sinners and didn’t deserve His love or His sacrifice.

It is only God’s amazing love that will draw people to Him. Until people understand the depth of Yehovah’s love and concern for them as individuals, and that He wants to have a personal relationship with them, there is no hope that they will listen to more serious matters. Once they reach this understanding in their heart, then you can gently start speaking to them about obedience and being pleasing to God in the way they live their lives.

Unless we speak to people out of love, we are like clanging symbols: “If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing.” (I Cor 13:1-2) When we share the truth with others, we must season our words with grace so that we allow Abba Father to draw them to Yeshua and the Holy Spirit to convict them in their sinful lifestyle. Then the door is open for us to disciple them and pray with them so that they want change their lifestyle so that they can be pleasing to Yehovah.

We need to look at our heart motives behind our words. When we approach people about their lifestyle or behavior, do we come to them with an air of superiority or self-righteousness, or do we come to them with humility, speaking the truth to them out of love?

Stand Fast to Your Convictions (Part 1)

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stand firm“And they overcame him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony, for they loved not their lives even unto death.” Revelation 12:11

Last week, Nancy and I were deeply convicted by a powerful teaching we heard at a local congregation. The pastor was focused on getting ourselves fit for the fire that is to come in the End Times (spoken of by Yeshua in Matthew 24).  Believers could interpret this fire that is coming in different ways, but in this context I am seeing it as persecution against the Body of Messiah. Sha’ul told us that we as the Body of Messiah are to “stand fast in one spirit, with one mind striving together for the faith of the gospel” (Phil 1:27).  We are also told to stand fast as individuals in our faith (I Cor 16:13).  This means that we are to hold to our convictions that there is one true God, Yehovah, and one clear standard of morality, which is the set of instructions YHVH has given us in His Torah.

The pastor went on to speak about the need to stand up for what we know is YHVH’s standard of morality in His Kingdom.  He said that as the moral fiber of our nation continues to crumble we will have plenty of opportunities to speak out about God’s stand on moral issues.  In our society today, we have an historic opportunity to stand fast in the face of the growing fires of immorality, and to speak out to others (both believers and non-believers) about God’s standard of morality.  The Supreme Court decision to require all states to conduct same-sex marriages has given us a golden opportunity to test the strength of our commitment to uphold YHVH’s standards in the face of cultural persecution. YHVH spoke often about the abomination of Homosexuality, and He judged it as harshly as any other sin (see Judges 19-20 and Gen 19 for examples). He saw this as a violation of the sin of idolatry, that people exchanged the glory YHVH gave them for a lie, and worshiped the creation instead of the Creator (Rom 1:25).

In our home worship time with Abba, the Ruach keeps bringing Nancy and I back to the passages in Ezekiel (3:16-21 and 33:1-9) where YHVH speaks to Ezekiel about being a watchman to warn God’s people about the upcoming judgment for their sins. I think YHVH is speaking to all of us when He says: “When I say to the wicked, ‘You wicked person, you will surely die,’ and you do not speak out to dissuade them from their ways, that wicked person will die for their sin, and I will hold you accountable for their blood” (Eze 33:8). As God’s people, we are not only accountable for our own sins, but we are accountable for speaking YHVH’s truth to others and warning them about God’s righteous standard. As compassionate believers seeking to be like Yeshua, though, we must speak and act out of love and humility, seasoning our words with grace. We must not condemn or judge others out of our own self-righteousness, remembering that all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of YHVH (including ourselves). See Part 2 of this Blog as we dig deeper into how we should we should act and speak graciously when we encounter unGodly attitudes, words or actions.

YHVH is a merciful Elohim who loves us with an unconditional love. However, YHVH is also a just and righteous God who cannot tolerate sin in His presence. Some see this as an irreconcilable contradiction, but in YHVH’s never-ending mercy, He chose to save His people from their sins by sending His Son to die in place of the death we deserve. This is the amazing miracle of the Good News, but we must do our part as well. In order to benefit from God’s plan of reconciliation with us, we must repent, turn from our sinful ways, and start walking on YHVH’s righteous path. We must not think that our own sin is somehow less offensive to God than the sins of others.

Yeshua told us that He would send fire on the earth. He said that He did not come to earth to bring peace, but division, and that even family members would be divided against each other in the same household (Luke 12:49-53). We know from experience that our families are the most difficult settings to speak out God’s truth, and sometimes are the places of greatest persecution. But we also know as believers that we are to “overcome by the blood of the lamb and the word of our testimony” (Rev 12:11). And what does the rest of that passage say, that we are to “love not our lives even unto death”.

In the face of persecution from our families, friends and fellow believers, we need to stand fast to God’s standard, even when we are criticized, ridiculed, shunned by others, or face possibly even more severe consequences in future times. It is good to meditate on YHVH’s truth, knowing that nothing can separate us from His love, and that He will bless us with boundless spiritual fruit when we boldly share His truth with others.

Will the True Messiah Please Stand Up?

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Gemini

Many passages in scripture talk about the dual nature of Messiah Yeshua, that He is both God and man. So how do we know that Yeshua the Messiah is both divine (YHVH Elohim) and human? Scripture makes very clear this dual nature of Yeshua, and we know that we can believe the testimony of Scripture because all Scripture is inspired by God and is true and good for doctrine, teaching, etc. (2 Tim 3:16).

Galatians 4:4 shows the humanity of Yeshua: “…God sent forth His Son, born of a woman, born under the Torah..”. Luke 1:35 provides clear evidence of the divine nature of Yeshua – the angel said to Miriam: “…The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore, also, that Holy One who is to be born will be called the Son of God.”

God did not just manifest Himself in flesh as a human being, but rather “The Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father..” (John 1:14) God the Father took Yeshua who was already His Son from the beginning, and made Him to be born through a human woman by the power of the Holy Spirit. So why did Messiah need to be fully human as well as fully divine? Because we had to have a High Priest [our Messiah Yeshua] who could understand our weaknesses – One who had been tempted in all things just as we are, yet without sin. (from Heb 4:15) Even more specifically, Hebrews 2:17 says: “Therefore, it was necessary for him to be made in every respect like us, his brothers and sisters, so that he could be our merciful and faithful High Priest before God. Then he could offer a sacrifice that would take away the sins of all people. Scripture confirms this in Philippians 2:7-8, where it says that Yeshua took on the “form of a bondservant, and [came] in the likeness of a human being. And being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself and became obedient to the point of death, even the death of the cross.”

We can see clearly from these scriptures that Yeshua could not have taken away our sins unless He was both fully human (so He could identify with us in our human weakness) and fully divine (so that He had the power of the Holy Spirit to defeat the enemy, HaSatan). It is true that we now have the power of the Holy Spirit within us, when we have been baptized into that power. However, Yeshua has a special relationship with the Holy Spirit and Abba Father, in that He is One (Echad) with them as persons of the triune God, Yehovah Elohim.

To put this into a context that might be easier for us mortal beings to understand, YHVH has painted the entire Gospel message into His star-pictures in the sky. We have looked at some of these in depth in previous blogs, but here I just want to give you a brief snapshot of one of them to help clarify Yeshua’s duality as God and man. Most people have heard of Gemini as one of the 12 signs of the Zodiac. However, as with the others, its meaning has been corrupted over the ages through pagan mythology and astrology. The original Hebrew name for this sign was Thaumim, which means united, or twinned, as in Exodus 26:24.

In most of the myths about Gemini, twin brothers are represented; they are sometimes seen as heads of armies or great pirates on the seas (sons of Jupiter), which is why they were looked on as “patron saints” of marine navigation. The ancient star-names paint a very different picture, though, of a single person with a twofold nature–God and Man. They tell the story of His twofold work of suffering and glory, and His twofold coming in humiliation and in triumph. Two of the 85 stars in this sign point this out very clearly; the star Apollo in the head of one means ruler or judge, while the star Hercules in the other’s head means “the One who comes to suffer”. The best translation of the Hebrew name of the sign (Thaumim) is “united into one”, in the same sense that Yeshua is one person of the Godhead, but has two distinct natures united together in His one essence.

There are not two separate persons, but rather two natures joined together in one Person, “God and man in one Messiah.” We can’t have one without the other – if we accept Yeshua as a man, suffering for our redemption, then we must also accept Him as our God (Yehovah), coming to judge all people and reign as King of kings for eternity. When we remember what Yeshua said to His disciples before He left the earth, it helps us understand what it means to be a part of His Kingdom: “If you love me, you will keep My commandments”. (John 14:15) In verse 21, He goes on to say: “If anyone loves Me, they will keep My word; and My Father will love them, and We will come to them and make Our home with them.”

This sounds like the greatest thing that could ever happen to us, that Abba Father and Yeshua His Son would come make their home with us! Do you want this? It means sacrifice and commitment for someone to keep His commandments (His word) day-by-day. As Yeshua promised, Abba sent the Ruach HaKodesh to help us every moment of our lives – do you think the Holy Spirit can also help you to stay faithful to Yehovah’s Word? Is it worth trying?

Will You Inherit YHVH God’s Kingdom?

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I was hungry and you gave me food“Then the King will say to those on His right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by My Father, inherit the Kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world.” Matt 25:34

So wait a minute – what is Yeshua (Jesus) saying to his disciples in this passage? Who are the people He speaks of who are blessed by His Father (and ours)? And what did He mean two verses earlier when King Messiah Yeshua said that He will “…separate the sheep from the goats” (Matt 25:32)? In verses 35-36, Yeshua goes on to say: “For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you clothed me, I was sick and you visited me, I was in prison and you came to me”.

If we go back to the Tanach (Old Testament) we can see prophecies of the warnings and future judgment Yeshua was speaking of in Matthew 25:

  • Ps 37:22 – For those blessed by Him shall inherit the earth, but those cursed by Him shall be cut off.
  • Isa 58:7 – Is it not to share your bread with the hungry, and that you bring to your house the poor who are cast out; when you see the naked, that you cover them, and not hide yourself from your own flesh?
  • Eze 18:7 – …but have given their bread to the hungry and covered the naked with clothing.
  • Eze 34:17 – And as for you, O My flock, thus says the Lord God: “Behold, I shall judge between sheep and sheep, between rams and goats”

These verses seem disjointed and not directly related to Yeshua’s words in His Olivet discourse, until you look at the full context surrounding these verses. You might wonder, for instance, why YHVH would be judging between sheep and sheep. Let’s look at the passage in Ezekiel 34 preceding Verse 17. YHVH had just been speaking (through Isaiah) about how He would judge the false shepherds who were mistreating the flock and leading them into pagan practices (vv. 7-10). Then in Verses 11-16 He speaks of seeking out His sheep and bringing them back from all the nations of the world where they have been scattered, so that He can bring them to a place of comfort and peace: “they shall lie down in a good fold and feed in rich pasture” (Eze 34:15).

Then in Verse 16 He says: “I will seek what was lost and bring back what was driven away, bind up the broken and strengthen what was sick; but I will destroy the fat and the strong, and feed them in judgment.” Abba is promising here to take care of His obedient sheep; those who were led astray by the false shepherds but now desire to follow the true Shepherd. But He will judge those sheep who are continuing to follow the way of the false shepherds and are not willing to trust in YHVH and follow His way.

So how do we recognize someone who is following YHVH’s path and trusting Him with their whole heart? According to Isaiah 58, Matthew 7 and other passages, we will know them by their fruit (see Matt 7:20). It is clear that in Matthew 25:35-36, Yeshua is referring back to the words YHVH was speaking to His people through Yeshayahu (Isaiah) In Isaiah 58:7. In the Isaiah passage, YHVH was instructing His children that it was far more important to Him that they care for the poor and needy, than that they follow their religious rituals.

As we have said many times before, our spiritual journey is all about relationship with YHVH. If you truly want to be pleasing to YHVH and walk in His path, then you need to learn what pleases Him. More to the point, you need to get to know Him personally, not just learn about Him. As you draw closer to Abba Father and His Son Yeshua, you will get to know what is at the core of their heart. When you dig down deep, you will find love, compassion, understanding and empathy for the oppressed and downtrodden among their people. So you might say to this: “how do I help all the poor and hungry, oppressed and abandoned people; how do I visit all the prisoners, take in all the homeless, and clothe the naked; how do I care for all the orphans and widows if the earth? This is much too daunting a task and far too overwhelming for one person.”

If you have a true relationship with YHVH, though, as your closest friend and trusted counselor, then He will show you where He wants you to help His children. Most likely He will start you off with something small, for example, working at a local soup kitchen, visiting shut-ins or elderly people in nursing homes, helping needy widows with small tasks around their homes, or a host of other things. Abba will not only point you to the places He wants you to help, but He will give you all the gifts you need for the task, however great or small. Go to Abba and ask Him what is on His heart; when you seek Him with your whole heart, you will find what is in His heart.

Fountains of Living Waters

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Out of their heart

“for the Lamb who is in the midst of the throne will shepherd them and lead them to fountains of living waters. And God will wipe away every tear from their eyes.” Rev 7:17

In last week’s blog about YHVH’s Feast of Shavuot, I talked about YHVH giving us His written Torah, and then pouring into our hearts the living Torah when He gave us His Holy Spirit (Ruach HaKodesh) at Pentecost (Shavuot). In Scripture, water sometimes represents the Holy Spirit. In several passages, YHVH uses the images of living or flowing water, or pouring out of water (see John 54:10-11;7:38, Joel 2:28, Zech 14:8, Rev 7:17). There is even a related scripture where YHVH speaks judgment over His people who have abandoned Him “…,Because they have forsaken the LORD [YHVH], the fountain of living waters.” (Jer 17:13)

Abba is saying that His Holy Spirit is not only active but constantly in motion, inspiring us and empowering us to flow in the gifts that He blesses us with. The clearest scriptural confirmation of this is in John 7:39, right after Yeshua said “If anyone thirsts, let them come to Me and drink. The one who believes in Me, as the Scripture has said, out of their heart will continuously flow rivers of living water.” In verse 39, John [Yochanan] commented on Yeshua’s offer to pour out His Holy Spirit on His people when he said: “But this He spoke concerning the Spirit, whom those believing in Him would receive; for the Holy Spirit was not yet given, because Yeshua was not yet glorified.” This passage also reminds us of the most beautiful prophecy about the giving of the Holy Spirit in Joel 2:28: “…I will pour out my Spirit on all flesh.”

Yehovah did not want us to miss His prophecies on the giving of the Holy Spirit, so He even wrote this message in the stars. If you grew up in the 60’s, you probably know the worldly (or New Age) significance of the Zodiac sign called Aquarius. Regrettably, the original meaning of this sign has been corrupted by pagan mythology and worldly Greek philosophy. From the original Hebrew name of this sign, “poured forth” or the pourer forth of water”, we can see that YHVH was telling us that He (The Pourer Forth of Water) would in the future be pouring out the Holy Spirit on his children. We now know that this is what happened at Pentecost [Shavuot], which was the fulfillment of Joel 2:28.

As we meditate on the beautiful message in Joel of the One who pours out His Spirit on all flesh, we remember to look to the One who is doing the pouring, and receive from Him what he desires to give us. But receiving this outpouring (or infilling) of Yehovah’s Ruach HaKodesh into our hearts through the baptism of the Holy Spirit is only the first step. How can we be active vessels of His Holy Spirit, allowing the Ruach to flow through us continuously like rivers of living water (John 7:38)? Jeremiah speaks about YHVH’s judgment on His people: “My people have forsaken me, the spring of living water. And they have dug wells, broken wells that can’t hold water.” (Jer 2:13)

Even though we are leaky vessels as imperfect humans, YHVH can use us in powerful ways when we are flowing in the power and gifts of His Ruach [Holy Spirit] within us. An active, functioning well is one that responds when someone primes the pump: the water flows out to those who need it. In the same way, we need to be open to the prompting of the Holy Spirit and ready to pour out His living water into the lives of others. The Ruach pours wisdom, gifts, and power into us – we have opportunities every day to use His gifts and power to help and disciple others.  How will you use the living waters of the Holy Spirit to bear fruit in this needy world?

Where is Your Heart?

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where your heart is“For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.” Matthew 7:21

In the first installment of this series on the “Sermon on the Mount”, I talked about righteousness being the main focus of Yeshua’s Kingdom message. I also showed how He focused on the heart as opposed to head aspects of righteousness. In this message I want to illustrate exactly what Yeshua means by keeping the Torah and walking in righteousness at the heart level.

In order to understand how Yeshua (and therefore Abba Father) wants us to walk in righteousness in Yehovah’s Kingdom of light, we first need to dig down to a deeper level of scripture study. On the surface of these passages, it appears that Yeshua is saying things like: don’t focus on accumulating wealth (Matt 6:24), don’t judge others (Matt 7:1), don’t worry about your life (Matt 6:25), don’t show off when you’re helping out the poor (Matt 6:1), and don’t be a hypocrite about your fasting and praying (Matt 6:5,16).

However, when we dig down to the heart level of Yeshua’s message, we can quickly see that He is really talking about building healthy relationships as we are following the Torah and walking in righteousness. Let me give you a couple of brief object lessons to illustrate what I mean. Imagine for a moment that you are a member of a large congregation, and that every week when you go to worship services, you spend a few minutes before and after service saying hello and shaking hands with people that you either don’t know, or you know only as once-a-week acquaintances. You might even ask these people how they are doing or whether everyone is healthy in their family, but are you just going through the motions or sincerely reaching out to these people?

In the same way, let’s say you work with “Meals on Wheels” and take meals to home-bound people every day, but you never speak to them or show that you care about them in any way (other than just doing your job to help the poor because you know you’re supposed to). Do you think those people are going to think of you in a kind and caring way? Or will they just see that you are doing this out of obligation and you don’t really care about them personally? What is your heart motive in this scenario – are you doing this to feel good or look good, or do you truly look for ways to bring Yeshua’s love to them?

The key point Yeshua was addressing in His message is that you can be the most righteous person on earth from a human perspective (as many of the Pharisees were), doing good works every moment of the day. However, since Yehovah looks on the heart, from His perspective you could be like a whitewashed tomb (Matt 23:27), appearing to be good and righteous on the outside, but inside you are nothing but filthy rags (Isa 64:6). In this case, Yeshua could rightly say to you: ‘…I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness!” (Matt 7:23).

YHVH requires that we “…do justly, love mercy, and walk humbly with our God” (Micah 6:8). He certainly wants us to follow His instructions in the Torah, but He judges us by our heart attitudes and motives more than by our actions. We would do well to examine ourselves from His perspective, following His word in our hearts and not just our heads.

Seek First the Kingdom of God [Elohim]

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But seek first the kingdom of God“And He came down with them and stood on a level place, with a great crowd of His disciples and a great multitude of people from all Judea and Jerusalem and the seacoast of Tyre and Sidon, who came to hear Him and to be healed of their diseases…” Luke 6:17-18

What was happening in Yeshua’s ministry on earth when He spoke the messages in the “Sermon on the Mount”? What we know from Scripture is that the Pharisees were angry with Yeshua because His teachings did not follow theirs and because He was drawing large crowds wherever He went. So what was He teaching that was so radical, and that went against the Pharisees’ teachings? Yeshua was teaching about the Kingdom of God (also called the Kingdom of Heaven) and how they could not only be a part of the Kingdom on earth, but that the Kingdom was now within them!

Yeshua spoke about righteousness as the main theme of the Kingdom in Matthew 6:33: “But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things will be added to you”. Also in Matthew 5:6,10 and 13:43, Yeshua says that “the righteous will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their Father.”  The Pharisees spoke about righteousness, but their form of righteousness was from following the Law (Torah) according to their interpretation of the Law, which included all of their man-made laws. Yeshua wanted to clearly distinguish between the righteousness that God expected in His gracious Kingdom and the righteousness of the Pharisees’ legalistic (man-made) kingdom.

Yeshua followed the Torah instructions in every way, and told us that He still wanted us to follow them. In Matthew 5:18 Yeshua states that not one jot or tittle will pass away from the Torah until heaven and earth pass away.  Yeshua had a very different interpretation of how an obedient follower was to keep the Torah.  For instance, the oral law of Moses said that a man could divorce his wife by simply giving her a certificate of divorce (see Matt 5:31).  However, Yeshua said that “whoever divorces his wife for any reason except sexual immorality causes her to commit adultery” (Matt 5:32). Obviously Yeshua did not follow the oral law or any of the codes of law that were added to the Torah by the Pharisees (since He already said above that nothing in the Torah would or could be changed).

The Pharisees believed in keeping the Law with their heads but not their hearts.  Yeshua said in Matthew 12:34 that the Jewish leaders were speaking and doing good, but at the same time thinking evil in their hearts.  Yeshua, on the other hand, was teaching Abba Father’s interpretation of the Torah: that His children are to keep His Torah in their hearts and not just in their minds.  Here are a few examples of heart obedience that Yeshua gives in Matthew and Luke:

  • Matthew 5:21-26: murder begins in the heart
  • Matthew 5:27-31: adultery begins with lust which comes out of the heart
  • Luke 6:36: “Be merciful, even as your Father is merciful.” (speaking of loving our enemies)

Yeshua’s underlying guidance on how to live our lives is the same as the Father’s – follow Torah with our minds and our hearts. Our gracious God has not only given us instructions for living life to the fullest, but He forgives us when we slip up. He wants us to have a genuine relationship with Him and with each other.  A true relationship involves the heart as well as the mind.

How Old is the Earth?

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For in six days YHVH made the heavens and the earth

“…for in six days the LORD made the heavens and the earth, and on the seventh day He rested and was refreshed.” Ex 30:17

My first posting on the topic of God (Elohim) as Creator discusses why we should believe that YHVH is the Creator of everything in the universe. In my second posting on this topic, I talked about the vast storehouse of evidence that points to a super intelligent Designer for our universe. One of the most controversial and divisive topics in the creation-evolution debate, even within the Christian community, is the actual time-frame for the creation of the world.

The best place to begin our study is Genesis 1. It is significant that the Hebrew word for Genesis is bereshit, which means “beginnings”. Starting with Genesis 1:5, each passage that describes an element of God’s Creation uses the Hebrew word yom (day), plus a number (1,2,3..). The Hebrew word yom is used over 2300 times in the Tanach (Old Testament). Outside of Genesis 1, yom plus a number (used 410 times) always refers to an ordinary day, that is a 24-hour time period. The words “evening” (erev) and “morning” (boker) are used together 38 times in the scriptures, and always denote an ordinary day. Finally, when yom + “evening” or “morning” or yom + “night” (Hebrew lailah) are used in scripture, they also denote a 24-hour day.

Since yom is used in one of these ways every time it is stated in Genesis 1, it is evident that the author meant 24-hour periods. The references to “evening” and “morning” make no sense unless they refer to a literal 24-hour period. This literal translation of yom was the standard interpretation of the Creation passages in Genesis 1:5-2:2 until the mid-1800’s when a paradigm shift occurred within the scientific community (based on the theories of Sir Charles Lyell and others), and the earth’s sedimentary strata layers were reinterpreted to show long ages of time (millions instead of thousands of years). Whereas previously the rock layers were interpreted as evidence of Noah’s flood, the flood model was thrown out by the scientific community and the rock layers were reinterpreted as evidence for an excessively old earth. Some well-meaning but very misguided Christians then sought to reconcile this new anti-flood, anti-biblical interpretation with the Genesis account by reinterpreting yom to mean vast, unspecified periods of time.

Scientific research over the past 50 years reveals that the sedimentary rock layers in the crust of the earth formed very rapidly and under catastrophic conditions. This would be an expected result of a global, catastrophic flood (see Five Evidences for a Flood, Brad Forlow). A strong indication of the wide-spread scale of this catastrophe is the scope of the rock layers which, in some cases, cover an entire territory such as the Rocky Mountain, Midwest, and Ozark states of the US. Another strong piece of evidence for a global flood is the sedimentary rock layers and marine fossils found at the top of the highest mountain ranges in the world.

Dramatic geologic formations around the world, such as the Grand Canyon, also show evidence of catastrophic flooding. Although there are 5,000 feet of layered strata stacked on top of one another in the Canyon, the fact that they are sedimentary and twisted into very dramatic formations within a short space indicates that the rock layers were laid down underwater, with a large volume of water rushing through the area at a high velocity. A modern-day illustration of the power of water is the eruption of Mount St. Helens in 1980. Although this was a local catastrophe, the incredible earth reshaping damage was mostly water-related. When it was heated, the glacier on top rapidly liquefied, and the super-heated torrent of water raced down the mountain as a mighty flood, eroding soil rocks, trees and anything else in its path. When the eruption and ensuing floods were finished, up to 600 feet of sediments had been deposited, forming layers made up of plant and animal remains. The sediments have now hardened, forming a “mini Grand Canyon”.

In addition to rock layers, there are many other evidences for a young Earth and solar system, including (see Thousands…Not Billions, Dr. Don DeYoung): rapidly decaying magnetic field, number of years that the Sun could continue to burn intensely; lack of dust on the moon; lack of sediments and salts in the world’s oceans; soft tissue and DNA found in “ancient” fossils; helium in radioactive rocks; and Carbon-14 found in fossils, coal, and diamonds, to name a few. For many years, scientists have realized that Carbon-14 particles are found in places where they should not exist according to the evolutionary timeline. With a half-life of about 5,700 years, measurable levels of Carbon-14 should not be found within ancient fossils, coal or diamonds, which are supposedly millions of years old.

The evidence cited above for a young earth (thousands and not billions of years old) is amazing, but it is far more amazing when we think of a God who could create all of this in only six days. This amazingly creative God, who is our Father and Lord, loves us and wants to spend time with the humans He created to be in His image. Give it a try – spend time with YHVH – you have nothing to lose and everything to gain!

Ultimate Struggle in God’s Star Pictures

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Scorpio2

Many scriptures describe Yeshua’s conflict with and victory over the great adversary (HaSatan). These “good vs. evil” conflict scriptures lead us into the third major sign in the Zodiac: Scorpio, or Akrab in Hebrew which means “the Redeemer’s conflict”. The word pictures in this sign and its three related constellations clearly depict the Messiah as our Redeemer, who comes to save us from the power of the enemy.

The first and most familiar allusion to Messiah’s great battle with the enemy is in Genesis 3:14-15, where God curses the serpent (the devil) and says to him that He will “…put enmity between you [the serpent] and the woman, and between your seed and her seed; He [Messiah] shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise His heel”. This prophecy from YHVH set in motion the spiritual battle between HaSatan and the children of Eve that continues through the ages. Hebrews 2:14 describes how Yeshua, through His death, destroyed the one who has the power to bring death (the devil). Because of Yeshua’s victory over the enemy, we as YHVH’s children now have His authority to defeat the power of HaSatan in our lives (Luke 10:19, Romans 16:20, Psalm 91:13 and Revelation 12:11).

The Scorpio star-pictures graphically illustrate each of these scripture prophecies. In a couple of previous “Gospel in the Stars” postings, I discussed how Yeshua (Jesus) represents the strong man in Psalm 19:5. In this star sign, there are two images representing the Messiah as the Strong Man: El Gibbor (which means “Mighty God” as in Isaiah 9:6) and Ophiuchus, derived from a Hebrew word meaning “Mighty One”. In Scorpio, these Strong Men characters are actively engaged in warfare with the enemy, and are winning the battle! We see the serpent (Serpens) struggling vainly with Ophiuchus. Although the serpent [HaSatan] stole the crown from Adam in the Garden, he is not able to steal the crown from Messiah Yeshua in the ultimate battle between YHVH and the enemy. At the same time Ophiuchus is treading on the heart of the Scorpion, which is the bright star Antares, meaning “the wounding” (from Arabic) or “the heart of the scorpion” (from its Latin name).

In this star-picture, the Mighty God, El Gibbor (paganized to Hercules by the Greeks) has His foot positioned over the head of Draco the dragon (which also represents the devil in Revelation 20:2-3) ready to crush him with His foot. The finality of Messiah Yeshua’s victory over the evil one is shown in Revelation 20:1-3, 10 (“And He [Yeshua] seized the dragon, that ancient serpent, which is the devil and Satan,…and threw him into the pit…and the devil who had deceived them was thrown into the lake of fire and sulfur…where [he] will be tormented day and night forever and ever”). In the end, HaSatan is thrown into the lake of fire and will never again return to deceive and torment YHVH’s children.

Many people in our modern society seek to know the future by studying the stars from a pagan perspective (astrology) or other means of worldly prophecy. However, we can know the truth of the future from the beautifully accurate stories YHVH painted into the stars from the beginning of His creation. The message in the Scorpio star-pictures has helped confirm for us the scriptures which prophesied Messiah’s victory over the enemy, as well as our authority to tread on the enemy (serpents and scorpions, from Luke 10:19) and to trample the serpent [HaSatan] under our feet (Psalm 91:13).

We pray Abba’s blessings over you to seek and know the truth of Abba’s word (both in writing and painted in the sky). We pray that this new revelation will help you grasp ahold of the authority that YHVH has blessed us with, that in the name of our Lord Yeshua HaMashiach we can defeat the fiery darts of the enemy that come against us in our daily lives.

Fear and Glorify His Name

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great is your mercy toward me

In my previous postings about God’s name, I talked about the many scripture passages relating to speaking, fearing, and trusting in YHVH’s name [Yehovah]. YHVH goes beyond just saying that we are honoring and pleasing Him when we do these things. YHVH also pours out His blessings on us when we fear, glorify, praise, and trust in His name.

The banner verse for this posting from Psalm 86:12-13 states “…I will glorify Your name forevermore. For great is your mercy toward me, and You have delivered my soul from the depths of sheol.” David knew he deserved to be cast off forever and doomed to hell for his sin against Uriah. The prophet Nathan assured David that YHVH had taken away his sin and delivered him from hell. David knew that God’s mercy towards him was awesome and unconditional. In the verse before this (Psalm 86:11), David says “I will walk in Your truth; unite my heart to fear Your name.” And then in verse 12 he says: “I will glorify Your name forevermore.” Clearly David understood the importance of fearing and glorifying YHVH’s name.

In Isaiah 52:6, YHVH says: “Therefore My people shall know My name; therefore they shall know in that day that I am He who speaks: ‘Behold, it is I’” (Isa 52:6). The word translated as “behold, it is I” is hineni in Hebrew, which is what Isaiah answered to YHVH when He first called him to be a prophet (Isa 6:8): “Here I am [hineni], send me.” This is a very powerful promise to people who know His name (Yehovah), that He will be right there for them – it essentially means “Here I am, waiting for you.”

One of the greatest blessings King David ever spoke over his people was in 2 Sam 6:18 – “And when David had finished offering burnt offerings and peace offerings, he blessed the people in the name of the LORD of hosts [Yehovah Tzava’ot].” You are truly blessed when someone blesses you in the name of YHVH. Numbers 6:27 confirms this truth. Immediately following the Aaronic blessing YHVH says: “So they shall put My name [Yehovah] on the children of Israel, and I will bless them.” (Num 6:27)

Although all of YHVH’s promises are powerful to meditate on, the passage in Malachi 3:16 is especially meaningful to me, as Yehovah speaks directly about blessing His people because they are fearing and meditating on His name: “Then those who feared the LORD [Yehovah] spoke to one another, and the LORD listened and heard them; so a book of remembrance was written before Him for those who fear the LORD and who meditate on His name.”

YHVH provides the perfect follow-up to the verse above in the next chapter of Malachi: “But for you who fear my name, the Sun of Righteousness will rise with healing in His wings. And you will go free, leaping with joy like calves let out to pasture.” (Mal 4:2) From the study of Messianic prophecy, we learn that this verse points to the healing miracles Messiah Yeshua would perform when He came to earth the first time. The “wings” spoken of here are Kanaph in Hebrew, which literally means the fringes of the garment which all observant Jews wore. This prophecy was fulfilled in Matt 9:20, when the woman who had the flow of blood for 12 years came up behind Yeshua and touched the fringes of His garment.

This woman had faith in the scripture promise that she would be healed if she “feared His name” (trusted in Yehovah). It was her faith (trust) that healed her more than the physical act of touching the fringes of Yeshua’s garment. What about us? Will we trust in His name the way this woman did, laying our life on the altar and risking everything we have to follow Him? If so, Yehovah is faithful to keep His promises.