180 movie - Wow!

If you have not taken the time to watch "180 Movie" then please do so now.

This is a report of the progress of this movie thus far - OUTSTANDING!

America's Final Days

I just wanted to link to John McTernan's latest post, as he  is good at bringing out current events and presenting them to us. Please take the time to read.

Endure....

Yom Kippur

Just a note to inform (or remind, whichever the case may be) that Yom Kippur (The Day of Atonement) begins this evening at sundown, and goes until tomorrow (Sat.) evening until sundown. A time to fast, pray, and if you are a believer in Yeshua (Jesus) the Messiah, THANK the LORD for the atonement we have through Yeshua!

Some scriptures to read tonight and tomorrow:
Lev. 16
Hebrews (all of it, as one of the main themes revolves around the Yom Kippur service)

Blessings and peace,

.j.

The Torah Teaching on the Mount, Part 2...

In the last post we covered Matthew chapter 5, verses 1-16, so we will pick up in this post with verse 17 and cover through verse 20. To recap part 1, we saw that Yeshua was bringing the attributes of the Kingdom of God, or rather, the attributes of the people of God that had already been portrayed throughout the Tenakh to the forefront of His listeners minds. He knew that they were already familiar with the scriptures to one degree or another, and they would easily equate the attributes that Yeshua covered (the poor in spirit, the meek, those that mourn, etc.) with the appropriate sections of scripture. It would also serve to set the standard for the rest of His teaching, as He would be countering the prevailing interpretations of His day with that of His own. He wanted the mind/heart attitudes of the people to be primed for His teaching by causing them to "zakar" ("remember" by way of bringing a known element to the forefront of the mind) those same attitudes/attributes from the scriptures.

So now, as Yeshua is about to go into His teaching, He sets a caveat right at the beginning: "Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets...." This particular statement (and really, verses 17-20) has seen much debate, and varied interpretations. Some have sought to demonstrate that Yeshua came to do the very thing that He just said He came NOT to do - to destroy the law (usually by saying that He "fulfilled" the law so that it no longer need be observed or obeyed,or that He replaced it with the "law of Christ"). They point out that Yeshua said that He came to "fulfill" the law, and so now that it has been fulfilled, it is no longer relevant to our lives. But Yeshua contrasted His purpose of "fulfilling" the law with what He did not come to do -destroy it! So, to fulfill it cannot mean to do anything that would diminish it, or remove it's validity in the lives of God's people. To "fulfill" means to accomplish, as well as, to interpret correctly. To "destroy" is to disfigure, mis-interpret, and mis-apply it. Satan's temptation of Yeshua in the wilderness was a good example of "destroying" the "law". He quoted from it (from Psalm 90), but he misapplied it in an attempt to get Yeshua to "test" God. Satan was far more subtle here with the Son of Man than he was with Eve when He outright denied the outcome of what God had said. Yeshua did not come to remove, diminish, or mi-interpret the Tenakh in any way.

When Yeshua said that He came to "fulfill" the law, He intended to "fill full" the law with it's intended sense, heart and meaning. Isaiah 42:21 says "The LORD is well pleased for His righteousness sake; He will magnify the law and make it honorable." This is exactly what Yeshua meant when He said that He came to "fulfill" the law. We see also that He did not intend to give us a "higher" law to the negation of the law of Moses because He said "Whosoever therefore shall break one of these least commandments, and shall teach men so, shall be called least in the Kingdom of Heaven." It is clear by verses 19-20 that Yeshua expected His followers to obey the law. The rest of His teaching is meant to show how to do it God's way. He was about to challenge the prevailing interpretations of His day, and hence, verses 17-20 are His declaration to the people that, rather than coming to destroy the law, He was about to bring it to it's fullest clarity.

So, Yeshua has now brought to the forefront of our minds the heart attitude that should be characteristic of God's people - the characteristics that had been given throughout the Tenakh, and now drawn out and presented to the people by Yeshua. He then reminded them that the people of God should be clearly visible to all by the attitude of their heart, demonstrated through their actions. He then prepared them to receive the pure teaching of the Torah (law), which had been bent out of shape, so-to-speak, by the prevailing interpretations of the teachers of Israel.

In the next post we will begin to get into the specific teachings and interpretations of the Torah by Yeshua. Until then, may the LORD bless and keep you.

The Torah Teaching on the Mount, Part 1...

Or, more popularly known as the "Sermon on the Mount." So, why did I title this the "Torah Teaching on the Mount?" Well, I hope to show you shortly. ;-) This teaching will actually be a multi-part entry as it will be rather lengthy. At this point I'm not sure how many parts this will take, but we'll see as we go. I will be covering Matthew chapters 5-7, and I hope to draw out some things that you have not seen, nor most likely considered before. Of course, my main goal is be be as biblical as possible, though obviously any explanation of the scriptures by anyone is an interpretation. However, I hope this will be a blessing to you none-the-less.

It has been taught for a long time now by many Christian teachers and Pastors that the "Sermon on the Mount" is one of the greatest teachings/passages of scripture in the bible - and indeed, it is! It has also been taught that Yeshua replaced the "letter of the law" with a much "higher", or "loftier" law, one that surpassed the law of Moses. However, I am going to show that this section of scripture should really be called the "Torah Teaching on the Mount" because rather than teaching some new, "higher" law, Yeshua was taking the pure word of God, which had been interpreted and parceled out by the "teachers of the law", and instead, taught the word of God the way it was intended, and with it's intended meaning. We will soon see that this was Yeshua's own stated goal when we get to chapter 5 verses 17-20.

Yeshua did not teach anything that was and is not already written - to do so would have been to violate Deuteronomy 12:32; Proverbs 30:5,6 and Revelation 22:18. Rather, He countered the prevailing "interpretations" of the law in His day, and interpreted the Torah/law the way that was meant to be taught, as I stated above. I trust that this will become clear as we move forward.

Matt. 5:1,2
     Yeahua saw a multitude of people, so He took the opportunity to teach them. Verse 2 let's us know that what is to follow is not something new, per se, but rather, is a teaching on what is already written: "And He opened His mouth, and taught them, saying...."
Matt. 5:3-16
     Verse 3-16 are commonly referred to as the "Beatitudes." This section of His teaching sets the stage for all that is to follow, as it deals first and foremost with the heart. Each "beatitude" is just that - the "attitude" that should "be" in the followers of Yeshua. Each beatitude deals with a heart issue and/or mindset. Repentance is to turn around, or, to go in the opposite direction than the way one was going before. But it starts with the heart and mind. If the heart/mind is changed, the actions will follow. So, the heart issues of the Kingdom are given to us as follows:

-Blessed are the poor in spirit...
     We see great exapmles of this type of person in the Psalms.
        *Psalm 51:17 - We see the person with a broken spirit.
        *Psalm 10:14 - The poor "committeth himself", or, entrusts himself to God. They don't trust in    their own strength - they trust in the LORD.
        *Psalm 34:6 - "This poor man cried [out], and the LORD heard and saved him." The poor in spirit cry out unto their God - the proud do not.
        *Psalm 86:1 - The "poor" recognize their need. The proud do not. David, who wrote these particular Psalms, was in every case speaking of being poor in spirit. David was poor in spirit, and we are told in the scriptures that he was a man after God's own heart. Because David was poor in spirit, he sought the LORD and put all of his trust in God.

-Blessed are they that mourn...
     Isaiah 61:1,2 - We see in just these two verses alone that those that mourn are equated with the broken hearted and the meek. In fact, Yeshua was very likely alluding to these verses when He said "blessed are they that mourn.

-Blessed are the meek...
     We see that in Isaiah 61:1 that the "meek" were to receive "good tidings." But more directly, Yeshua is quoting Psalm 37:11. Again, meekness is a heart/mind issue. How much "meekness" do we see in Hollywood, Wallstreet, Professional Sports, American Idol, Dancing With the Stars, etc.?

-Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness...
     *Isaiah 55:1 says "Ho, everyone that thirsteth, come to the waters...." We know that this is speaking of spiritual thirst because verse 2 says "...and let your soul delight itself in fatness."
     *Isaiah 65:13 - The LORD's "servants shall eat...[and] shall drink...." We can see that this again is spiritually speaking because the context of the surrounding verses indicate that those that "shall be hungry" were/are those that "did not hear, but did evil...."
     *To hunger and thirst for righteousness is to desire the ways of the LORD.

-Blessed are the merciful...
     *2 Sam. 22 is actually another Psalm of David. Verse 26 says "with the merciful thou wilt show thyself merciful...." Of course, we can see that God is merciful many times throughout the scriptures, and that mercy is shown to the merciful.

-Blessed are the pure in heart...
     *In both2 Sam. 22:27 and Psalm 18:26 we are told that "with the pure thou wilt show thyself pure." In other words, just like Yeshua said "the pure in heart shall see God (ie. God will show Himself....)

-Blessed are the peacemakers...
     *The scriptures that speak of those that seek peace, to dwell in peace, the peace of others, etc. are too numerous to recount here. But suffice it to say, the concept of God's people being people of peace, or rather, are peacemakers is a well established concept throughout the Tenakh (OT).

What Yeshua is doing here in the first 9 verses or so is setting up for the rest of His teaching. In the Tenakh, the most common word translated as "remember" (as in "remember the Sabbath day" for example) is the Hebrew word "zakar." The word zakar can mean to "remember" something that was forgot (such as is the common usage of the word remember today, as in "oh, I just remembered"), but also has a richer, wider meaning.It means to bring something to the forefront of your mind. For example, an engineer, when at home or at leisure doesn't "forget" the necessary mathematical equations he needs to use when calculating specs on a design, but they aren't at the forefront of his mind when he is watching a football game, or when he is out fishing. But when he is working on a design, he then brings the necessary formulas to the front of his mind. When he does this he is fulfilling the second meaning of "zakar" that I shared above.  He didn't remember something that he forgot, he purposely brought information from the back of his mind to the front. He is directing his attention to it. So, when we read that "God remembered Noah..." in Genesis for example, what it means in Hebrew is that God directed His attention toward Noah. - he made Noah the object of His attention. And this is what Yeshua was doing in the Beatitudes. He was drawing from various sections of the Tenakh (OT) attributes which make up the heart/mind of the servants of God. He began His teaching by first bringing to the forefront of the peoples minds the attributes that God sees as most important. "Poor in spirit" can more easily be converted into "rich in faith" than pride can. The poor in spirit, those that mourn (over sin), the meek, the pure in heart, peacemakers - these are the ones that are more apt to "hear" and "do" (indeed, "Hear O Israel [with the intent to do]...). Yeshua was and is setting up the hearers for the rest of His teaching.

Yeshua went on to say that if you follow the LORD, it should and would be clearly seen by all (in verses 13-16) - "Ye are the light of the world." It is to be through those whose hearts are that of the previous 12 verses,and whose actions are as the remainder of His teaching (chapters 5:21-7:27) that the world will "glorify [the] Father which is in heaven."

That is all for this post. In the next (Part 2), we will begin at chapter 5 verse 17 and get into the meat of the teaching. I think we will see some interesting things that will tie the scriptures together, both those in the Tenakh, and those later in the New Testament.

Until then, may the blessings of the LORD be upon you.

John McTernon's Insights For August 26, 2011

Read This one...August 26, 2011.

Turn to the LORD Yeshua with all of your heart.

"Pirates Of The Caribbean" A Subtle Promo For Homosexuality?

I think Joe Schimmel of Fight The Good Fight Ministries has hit the nail on the head with THIS article!