2022 Gospel and Acts Commentary (With Psalms)

Matthew 1, Matthew 2, Psalm 85

The genealogy of Jesus contains five women: Tamar, who pretended to be a prostitute to conceive with Judah, who was supposed to rede em her on account of his sons who had died, but violated this law until Tamar took God’s law into her own hands; Rahab the harlot, who feared God and hid the messengers in Jericho and helped Israel spy out the land prior to their invasion; Ruth, a Gentile who was grafted into Israel after following her mother-in-law Naomi into the faith and trusting in the Lord to provide a redeemer in Boaz; Beersheba, who committed adultery with David, who then murdered her husband Uriah the Hittite, David’s only recorded sin; and Mary, the woman who trusted fully in God to protect her and provide for her, offering up herself “according to [the Lord’s messenger’s] word.”

These five women and the many kings in lineage of both Joseph and Mary represent the human heritage of our Lord Yeshua, who’s name means Yah Saves. These kings, as we’ve just read in Kings and Chronicles, all had fatal flaws and could not bring the Kingdom of God to the Earth. Only the King of kings and Lord of lords will do this on the Last Day. He saves everyone who puts their faith in Him and follows Him with a repentant and humble heart.

Psalm 85 tells this story of salvation: “O Lord, You showed favor to Your land; You restored the captivity of Jacob. You forgave the iniquity of Your people; You covered all their sin. You withdrew all Your fury; You turned away from Your burning anger. Restore us, O God of our salvation, And cause Your indignation toward us to cease. Show us Your lovingkindness, O Lord, And grant us Your salvation. I will hear what God the Lord will say; For He will speak peace to His people, to His godly ones; But let them not turn back to folly. Surely His salvation is near to those who fear Him, That glory may dwell in our land. Lovingkindness and truth have met together; Righteousness and peace have kissed each other. Truth springs from the earth, And righteousness looks down from heaven. Indeed, the Lord will give what is good, And our land will yield its produce. Righteousness will go before Him And will make His footsteps into a way.” God answered this prayer in Yeshua.

Daniel’s prophesy explains exactly who these “wise men” were from the East. They would have come after Jesus returned to Bethlehem from Jerusalem so that Mary and the child could fully recover and build strength. At this point, the news of His birth would have spread, and Herod himself was about to learn of it. These men were students of Daniel who lived in Babylon, who studied his prophesies and knew exactly when and where the Messiah was foretold to come. Thus, the star was not so much the sign but the confirmation that the Messiah had been born at the appointed time, and they would have known where to look due to all of the prophesy, which they had surely read and studied. Remember: The Jews brought the Truth of God to Babylon, and then to Media-Persia. What’s more, Daniel was a very wealthy man, assistant to the king of Babylon and two kings of Media-Persia, but he was also a eunuch, so he had no children. Who would he have left his fortune to?

It is believed that his inheritance was left to the Messiah whom he prophesied so much about. Thus, these wise men were literally fulfilling Daniel’s trust and bringing his fortune at the appointed time to the Messiah, who they expected and were waiting for. The gifts were symbolic and practical: gold was for the King of kings, the frankincense for the High Priest, and the Myrrh was for the Lord’s burial after His blood sacrifice as our Passover Lamb. The gifts from the wise men would have paid for the family’s journey to Egypt, their stay there, their return, and their establishment in Nazareth upon their return. To understand these details of the story make it abundantly clear that there can be no mistake who Yeshua really is, and many Jews in the region would have celebrated this birth of their Messiah, before retuning to their routines.

Yeshua’s early fame petered out for two reasons: 1) He was a baby, and babies do not rule on thrones, and 2) Herod, prompted by Satan, sought the life of Yeshua and sent the young family running into Egypt, prompted by an angel in a dream. (As an aside: these verses are Scriptural evidence to support the idea that angels appear in dreams and warn people of things to come and help to direct their lives; but as we read in 1 John 4, it is critical that we “test the spirits.”) When Joseph, Mary and Jesus returned into the region of Israel, they settled in Nazareth of Galilee, which was about 70 miles away from Bethlehem. The people of the region would not have heard about the birth of the Messiah and many who did hear might have assumed that Herod’s prophesied massacre of the young children of Bethlehem ended the Messiah’s life. Yeshua therefore would be raised in obscurity to protect Him for the mission God had given Him, which He would not begin until much later.

Dad said: “The humble St Joseph, the foster father of our Lord, was present and ready to serve when The Holy Spirit called, yet when the Magi came to bring homage to Jesus, he remained in the background and is not even given mention, giving all glory to Jesus.  In the face of ridicule and in spite of danger, his honor comes from his unwavering willingness to do whatever God asked and to be a righteous model for The Son of God.  He sacrificed his own wants and goals and lovingly supported Mary and Jesus by the sweat of his brow and the work of his hands.  He was their protector and guide.  He spent his life in the perfect accomplishment of duty to The Lord.  He is the righteous model for every father.”

Matthew 3, Matthew 4, Psalm 86

“From that time Jesus began to preach and say, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.””
Matthew 4:17

Jesus, our Lord and Savior, was baptized by immersion before He began His ministry, sometime in the year AD 26 (His crucifixion is recorded historically in AD 30 and He taught for 3.5 years—evidence of His birth leads to BC 4). The Holy Spirit descended upon Him at this time. He later told us to preach the Gospel throughout all the nations and baptize new believers in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Adult immersion baptism is a Biblical requirement, and not just a good idea. Jesus even says Himself: “Most assuredly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God” (John 3:5). Following repentance, we have to go through this Mikveh to literally die to our physical self, or our ego, and to be born again in the Holy Spirit, a new man (or woman) in Christ. Before the baptism, John the Immerser’s message applies: repent and go and sin no more. “Therefore bear fruits worthy of repentance,” John said, essentially laying out the Biblical pattern for eternal inheritance: obey the commandments of God and keep the faith of Yeshua. This is the man Jesus said was “the greatest ever born of a woman.” It’s imperative that we follow this Biblical pattern.

Following His baptism, “Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil.” This is a natural part of being a Christian. We will face persecution, yes from “flesh and blood,” but more importantly, our opposition will come from the “principalities,” “powers,” “rulers of the darkness of the world,” and “spiritual wickedness in high places.” (Ephesians 6:12) Following our baptism (as was the case for mine), we are going to encounter MAJOR spiritual warfare, just as Jesus did as the Firstfruits of all creation. Satan “walks around like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour.” (1 Peter 5:8) Satan doesn’t need to devour non-Christians, because he already has them in his grasp. He wants to take down people who are believing, baptized Christians, because it is his objective to destroy the ones who belong to God. Here, he even goes up against the Son of God, trying at every turn to stop His mission from reaching its victorious conclusion. This is spiritual warfare at the highest level.

It’s important to notice in the verse from 1 Peter 5:8 that Satan walks around “like a roaring lion,” and the key word here is “like.” This simile is so important! The devil is the great impostor. Jesus, our Lord and savior, is the “Lion of the Tribe of Judah.” Satan imitates Jesus, and we see the greatest example of this and warning within Jesus’s desert experience. Let’s take a look at how this plays out.

Satan says, “If You are the Son of God, command that these stones become bread.” Notice the slight of hand. He did this to Eve in the garden. “Did God really say that you must not eat from any tree in the garden?” No, He didn’t. He told Adam and Eve they COULD eat from any tree in the garden, just not the one in the midst. This trickery was used to deceive Eve and convince her to violate the commandments of God. She, and then Adam after her, failed the test of temptation. Jesus is the Son of God, but being the Son of God, He doesn’t take commands from Satan, and unlike Adam and Eve, He overcame this temptation.

Satan’s temptation is craftier than it looks on the surface. Didn’t John just say, “God is able to raise up children to Abraham from these stones.” Follow this logic: Jesus is the Word of God (Scripture) who became flesh. The Word of God in the Old Covenant was written on two tablets of blue sapphire stone, but in the New Covenant it is written on the tablets of our two-chambered heart. In the incarnation of God in the body of Jesus, the Word of God literally becomes His entire Body. Is this not bread that has come from stones? Jesus compares His body sacrificed on the cross to bread, which we ought to eat, meaning that we are to consume the Word of God for our spiritual nourishment, for life everlasting.

And so, Jesus’s response to Satan is not only appropriate, but a victorious blow, as described in Ephesians 6:17, with “the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God.” This sword He pulls out from its sheaf is from Deuteronomy 8:3, deep in the Torah: “And God humbled you and let you hunger and fed you with manna, which you did not know, nor did your fathers know, that he might make you know that man does not live by bread alone, but man lives by every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord.” To be clear, Jesus says to Satan: “It is written, ‘Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.” Jesus is the manna that fell from Heaven, the Bread of life, the very embodiment of “every Word that proceeds from the mouth of God,” and He pulls from Torah Scripture to completely annihilate the devil’s temptation on an intensely deep spiritual level.

Then Satan says, “If you are the Son of God, throw Yourself down. For it is written: ‘He shall give His angels charge over you,’ and, ‘In their hands they shall bear you up, lest you dash your foot against a stone.’” This is from Psalm 91:11-12: “For He will command His angels concerning you to guard you in all your ways. They will lift you up in their hands, so that you will not strike your foot against a stone.” I could go on and on about what Satan is doing here, but in short it is clear. He is twisting the meaning of Scripture to fulfill his evil purposes. Once again, he uses the preposition “if” to cast doubt on the truth that Jesus IS the Son of God, which is meant to throw Him off balance. Again, this is: “Did God really say?” The truth is that God will command His angels concerning “He who dwells in the secret place of the Most High,” to guard us in all our ways. Read Psalm 91 in full. It’s not ambiguous. And herein lies the greatest threat to our salvation: Satan is speaking 100 percent truth here, and he is quoting Scripture verbatim, but he twisting it for his own purposes, to throw Jesus off using the time-tested faith killer: pride.

What’s more, Satan showed him the pinnacle of the Temple, the very place where the glory of the Lord had departed from, the very place where the Messiah was prophesied to appear. What better way to show all of the Jews that their Messiah had come than to throw Himself down from the pinnacle of the temple and live? This was the Messiah the Jews were expecting. The one who would do signs and wonders.

Jesus responds from Deuteronomy 6:16-19: “You shall not tempt the Lord your God as you tempted Him in Massah. You shall diligently keep the commandments of the Lord your God, His testimonies, and His statutes which He has commanded you. And you shall do what is right and good in the sight of the Lord, that it may be well with you, and that you may go in and possess the good land of which the Lord swore to your fathers, to cast out all your enemies from before you, as the Lord has spoken.” Jesus said to Satan, “It is written again, ‘You shall not tempt the Lord your God.’”

Massah means “testing,” and the reference is to Numbers 20:2-13 and Deuteronomy 1:37, where Israel put God to the test by the waters of Meribah, meaning “quarreling.” The people tested the Lord, literally rebelling against Him in the spirit of Antichrist, bemoaning that they had not died with the other rebels earlier or that they left Egypt, the land representing bondage to sin. Moses, calling them rebels, then rebels Himself and takes credit for bringing out the water from the rock, to which the Lord replies, “Because you did not believe in me, to uphold me as holy in the eyes of the people of Israel, therefore you shall not bring this assembly into the land that I have given them.” Faith is a key component of being a Saint saved for the promised inheritance of Heaven. Jesus is stating that only God’s timing for His glorification is appropriate. He’s not going to sin like Moses and take the glory for Himself. Jesus, in so doing, both acknowledges that He IS the Son of God and that God would glorify Him at the appropriate time; He need not take matters into His own hands. The second sword fight ends in a second blow against Satan using the Word of God.

Satan, then taking Jesus to the highest mountain, conceivably the very mountain on which God’s throne sits overlooking all of creation, said to Jesus, “All these things I will give You if You will fall down and worship me.” Was this Satan’s gift to give? In John 12:31-33, John 14:30, John 16:11, Jesus calls Satan “the ruler of this world.” Read all of Ezekiel 28; Satan was “on the Holy mountain of God,” he was “the seal of perfection.” It is important to note, yes, Satan has dominion over all of the kingdoms of the Earth and he will retain that dominion until the Last Day, when he is destroyed. “Will you still say before him who slays you, ‘I am a god’ But you shall be a man, and not a god, In the hand of him who slays you,” God tells Satan. And Jesus echoes this same truth: “Away with you, Satan! For it is written, ‘You shall worship the Lord your God, and Him only you shall serve.’”

This is Deuteronomy 6:13, which follows the section 6:4-15 that contains “the greatest commandment,” according to Jesus; namely, “Hear oh Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is One. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your strength. … You shall fear the Lord your God and serve Him, and shall take oaths in His name. You shall not go after other gods, the gods of the peoples who are all around you (for the Lord your God is a jealous God among you), lest the anger of the Lord your God be aroused against you and destroy you from the face of the earth.” Satan is not a god, he is a created being, and one who fell. Jesus is the one who slays Him, and while the sentence against him has been declared and Satan no longer has access to the Kingdom of Heaven, but we are still waiting for our King to execute the sentence.

Jesus prophesies later, “I saw Satan fall like lightening from Heaven.” This was achieved at His resurrection. Jesus literally threw Satan out of Heaven forever. Satan now rules the Earth, but soon that also will be taken from Him when God creates a New Heaven and New Earth as an inheritance for His Saints, who keep the commandments of God and their faith in Yeshua. With the Sword of the Spirit, Jesus battles against Satan and wins, quoting from the Torah each time and drawing from deep spiritual meaning. In Revelation 5, following His resurrection, Jesus is the one who is worthy to open the seals, which is the mortgage document for the Earth. His death and resurrection became the victory over Satan and over death, and right now we are simply waiting for the deed to be executed. All Jesus has to do is execute the document, open the seals, and Satan will be a man in the hands of Jesus, who slays him.

Matthew 5, Matthew 6, Psalm 87

Matthew 5 and 6 require a longer analysis, because this is among the most important New Testament Scripture that there is, particularly, through chapter 7:

Verses 1-3 are among the most often repeated themes throughout the whole Bible. God will not have relationship with the proud, but He will only meet with those who humble themselves before Him and keep His commandments; those who “fear God and not man.” To the world, humbling yourself before God may appear to be pride, but it is not. People don’t like to align themselves with God’s heart, but they prefer to follow their own heart. They balk at the idea of having to obey God, which is the very definition of pride. To be humble is to obey God. To be humble before the Lord is to obey Him and keep His commandments and to teach other men and women to do so.

To me, each of these sayings in verses 3-6 are all focused on the same thing. Those who humble themselves before God, those with Godly sorrow who repent, those who understand they are nothing without faith in Jesus, those who long for God’s law to be honored on Earth, these are the people who will inherit the Kingdom of Heaven. Jesus is basically stating the root message of His ministry, “repent and hear the good news.” He is looking for men and women to give Him their whole hearts and to put the Kingdom of Heaven and its precepts first before the precepts of this world. Whenever we read the words of our King, it is critical that we recognize He is speaking about His kingdom. It is very important that we don’t apply a worldly meaning to what He is trying to communicate. His message is always about Heaven: what it is, what the rules are, how to get there, and why we should give up everything to do so.

The first beatitudes equate to “Love the Lord your God with all of your heart, all of your mind and all of your strength.” The beatitudes in verses 7-9 equate to, “love your neighbor as yourself.” Because people do not learn easily and are generally self-focused, Jesus, like any good teacher, has to say the same thing many times over. He’s asking us with these beatitudes to focus on others more than ourselves. Be merciful toward others, because God is merciful toward us. Focus on what is good and true and godly, for anything else will lead down a road of separation and destruction. Make peace with everyone, but not at the expense of God’s law. It’s about tactics: deescalation and focus on shared goals, particularly meeting the interest of the other person while standing by one’s own principles will net the best outcome every time.

In verses 10-12, persecution comes to light. Today in America, persecution for being a true Bible-believing Christian is real, but it is nothing in comparison to the suffering of Christians in China, Afghanistan, or Australia, among other places. In any case, we are to be blessed and joyful in persecution, for it is a sign that we are being strengthened for eternity by our Father. As gold is heated up to remove the dross from it, so do we face persecution to further purify our hearts for God’s purposes. Should more persecution come our way in America, it will be a blessing for those who have become too complacent in their faith, too comfortable in their lifestyle, and too enamored by the world. We should live with all joy for the Lord, with our whole heart dedicated to Him and His purposes, no matter what comes our way.

In verses 13-16, to be salt means we ought to flavor our human interactions with God’s truth. People ought to want more of our company because of the flavor we bring. Salt also fertilizes, and it’s our job to sprinkle the soil with the truth of God so that the seeds of the Gospel can grow in it. Salt also preserves, and it is our role to preach the Gospel throughout the World and baptize new believers in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. If we use too much salt in any of these scenarios, we risk destroying the chances of a soul that God loves, and that would be good for nothing indeed. To be the light means that we ought not keep our faith hidden, but to live it out every day of our lives in every way. Just like the salt, we ought to bring God’s light into every situation of our lives; we ought to shine God’s light in us on the soil to help the seed of truth grow, and we ought to shine God’s light in darkness, and even a little light overcomes darkness. We must shine God’s light.

Jesus’s words here in verses 17-18 are clear, and clearly prophesy, because He knew that wolves in sheep’s clothing would teach that the law no longer needs to be followed, which is a lie from the pit of Hell. Speaking to a Jewish audience, the words he says in Matthew 5:17 might seem crazy, because the Scripture repeats that the Messiah would come and the law of God would pour out into all the nations from Zion. That is exactly what happened. Jesus said, “Therefore you shall be perfect, just as your Father in heaven is perfect.” (Matthew 5:48). He also provided us with “a helper,” the Holy Spirit, who would help us to follow the law when we indeed seek God with all of our heart, but ONLY if we seek God with all of our heart. Paul, in Romans 3:31, clarifies that the law is not just a tutor, but also our obligation: “Do we then make void the law through faith? Certainly not! On the contrary, we establish the law.” “Establish” = Strongs Gk.2476 | ἵστημι | histémi. “to make to stand” or “to uphold.”

As to the Pharisees, they did NOT observe the written law perfectly, in fact Jesus says just the opposite. Look at Mark 7, here quoted in part, as he speaks to the scribes and pharisees: “He answered and said to them, ‘Well did Isaiah prophesy of you hypocrites, as it is written: ‘This people honors Me with their lips, But their heart is far from Me. And in vain they worship Me, Teaching as doctrines the commandments of men.’ For laying aside the commandment of God, you hold the tradition of men—the washing of pitchers and cups, and many other such things you do.” When Jesus says specifically the issue is that the Pharisees teach as doctrines the COMMANDMENTS OF MEN, that is what he means. They practiced the Rabbinical law in the Talmud perfectly, but they DID NOT practice the Law of God. Jesus says: “LAYING ASIDE THE COMMANDMENTS OF GOD, you hold the tradition of men.” All you have to do is read the Babylonian Talmud, Seder Nashim, Excerpt of Soran 4B, an example pertaining to Mark 7

If Jesus is calling the pharisees hypocrites for making up their own law, He certainly isn’t going to do the same thing. And so, when Jesus says, “If you love me, you will obey my commandments” in John 14:15, and when Jesus says through the angel to the prophet John, “Here is the patience of the saints, here are they who keep the commandments of God and the faith of the Messiah Yeshua” (Revelation 14:12), the commandments that are being referred to here are the commandments given to Moses by God, who is Jesus Christ. There are not two gods and there are not two commandments. Throughout the rest of Matthew 5-7, we see Jesus teach His disciples, who are ALL Jews at this point, exactly what the commandments mean. Later, as Gentiles are grafted-in to the faith, they also must follow Jesus in this way. He is their Rabbi, interpreting the law of God. He tells us that we need to keep the spirit of the law, and not the letter, and we need to do this with all of our heart. In Luke 10:28, when a man cites the commandments, Jesus says, “Do this and you shall live.” This is the truth.

In verse 19 and 20, The three statements need to be taken together. No man or woman born as a descendant of Adam is in the Kingdom of Heaven right now. Only God, Jesus and the Heavenly Host are in the Kingdom of Heaven today. So when someone is teaching that God’s Old Testament laws are no more or shouldn’t be highly regarded, these people will be considered the least by the Kingdom of Heaven, which in the vernacular means, they won’t make the cut. To prove this, next Jesus says that we won’t make it to Heaven unless our righteousness, which means our obedience to the Law of God in the Old Testament, exceeds the righteousness of the Pharisees. And so, lets explore what this means. If our righteousness doesn’t exceed their righteousness, we will not be raised up into the Kingdom of Heaven on the last day with the other faithful believers. The lawless will be raised to condemnation with the goats.

Jesus explains why the Pharisees are not righteous in Mark 7:

“And in vain they worship Me, Teaching as doctrines the commandments of men.” (Mark 7:7):

The Pharisees were teaching Rabbinical Law as if it was doctrine. Doctrine is defined as the Scripture of the Old Testament by 2 Timothy 3:16. At the time that Paul wrote, there wasn’t a New Testament. There was only the Old Testament, and that’s what he’s talking about here. Clearly, the New Testament is also part of Scripture today, but we need to understand what Scripture was when Jesus spoke. The problem with the Pharisees is that their Rabbinical Law is NOT part of Scripture, but it’s more than this:

The Pharisees also REJECTED the law of God given by Moses: “He said to them, “All too well you reject the commandment of God, that you may keep your tradition.” Mark 7:9

Let us not make this same mistake today. Jesus said, “If you love me, you will obey my commandments.” He gave these commandments to us throughout the Old Testament.

The Sermon on the Mount is Jesus’s teaching of the Torah, and we should receive it with joy. As Paul writes in 2 Corinthians 3:4-6, “we have such trust through Christ toward God. Not that we are sufficient of ourselves to think of anything as being from ourselves, but our sufficiency is from God, who also made us sufficient as ministers of the New Covenant, not of the letter but of the Spirit; for the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life.” This is Jesus’s teaching. It is not enough to follow the letter of the law, for the letter condemns the sinner (law violator) to death—“for the wages of sin is death”—, but in Christ, the spirit of the law leads to life—“the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.” If we blindly do what the words say on the page of the Torah, it isn’t enough—we will die. If we know, understand, and apply the love language of God—the “living Word”—and uphold the spirit of the letter, and follow the law out of love in our hearts, because we love Him and because we love each other, this leads to eternal life. The path to life is narrower than it first appears.

It’s not enough to live a life without murdering someone, the 6th commandment (Exodus 20:13, Deuteronomy 5:17). God wants us to avoid thinking evil about another person. Even to think evil about another is to commit murder, and there is no difference between the actual act and the desire of hatred in our hearts. What is in our hearts is of utmost importance in all areas of our life, according to our Lord Jesus. Our hearts ought to be pure, humble and loving toward all, especially our enemies. It may be the difference between living life as a Christian and not. But even if we do murder someone, as David did to Uriah the Hittite, the husband of Bathsheba with whom he committed adultery, God forgives us when we approach Him with a humble and contrite heart, when we have true remorse and truly repent, and then go and sin no more. Read Psalm 51: “Create in me a clean heart, oh God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me.” That means no more evil thoughts, either. Only with the power of the Holy Spirit is this possible. Praise Jesus for His teaching and His grace.

Further, the act of adultery or even fornication itself is certainly a violation of the 7th commandment (Exodus 20:14), and the punishment for violating this commandment is death. (Leviticus 20:10). It’s not physical death that should be our concern, but the second death on the last day. “If we deliberately go on sinning after we have received the knowledge of the truth, no further sacrifice for sins remains, but only a fearful expectation of judgment and of raging fire that will consume all adversaries.” (Hebrews 10:26-27) There is no Kingdom of Heaven for those who continue to lust after women. David’s first sin was not to look away from Bathsheba, who was bathing on the rooftop. Watching pornography can make one prone to committing this sin with women in real life, but even looking with lust affects the heart and objectifies the woman whom God loves. Whether standing outside the bedroom window, standing on the neighboring roof, or looking through an electronic screen, looking lustfully at the opposite sex is equivalent to the actual act.

The good news: Jesus forgives us from sin with His blood, and He calls us away from sin and provides us the strength with the power of His Holy Spirit dwelling in us. Here’s a story that will help put the good news of God into perspective: Recall the story in John 8 of the woman caught in adultery. Recall again that adultery is a sin worthy of death—the second death—from my previous comment. Recall, the Lord says, “Vengeance is mine, I will repay.” (Deuteronomy 32:35). Jesus says to the crowd looking to stone this woman, “He who is without sin among you, let him throw a stone at her first.” (John 8:7) “For there is not a just man on earth who does good and does not sin.” (Ecclesiastes 7:20) After the crowd disperses, Jesus forgives the woman, and then commands her: “Go and sin no more.” (John 8:11) “‘For I have no pleasure in the death of one who dies,’ says the Lord GOD. ‘Therefore turn and live!’” (Ezekiel 18:32) The Bible is marvelously consistent. God wants us to repent and live!

“Therefore what God has joined together let no man separate,” including the man and wife themselves. Divorce usually arises when one or both spouses seek first their own interests instead of the interests of their spouse. Jesus uses the imagery of marriage to explain His relationship to the Church, and His part in the marriage was to give absolutely everything, even His very life, for the benefit of His Spouse. All He asks in return is obedience, not blindly to the letter, but willfully out of love and desire. The Church here also must willfully and joyfully sacrifice self interest for the benefit of her husband, the Lord God Yeshua. Likewise, a husband ought to die 1000 deaths for his wife daily, and a wife ought to do the same. Each of their focus ought to be on building each other up, helping each other, filling in the gaps and weaknesses of the other, and putting the other’s interest first. If one spouse isn’t doing this, the other ought to continue to do this anyway, with prayer.

When Jesus is speaking about oaths, His Word aligns with the law of God in the Torah and calls attention to Rabbis who had created many different rules in the “oral law,” known today as the Talmud, that discuss how to swear different oaths. The examples Jesus gives are actually Rabbinical law, not Torah law. Jesus routinely denounces the “oral law” of the Talmud and calls it the “doctrines of men” or “your tradition” while upholding the Torah itself as the law of God that it is. One of the simple laws of the Torah applies here: “Do not bear false witness against your neighbor” (Exodus 20:16, Deuteronomy 5:20). Jesus, our great Rabbi, makes it clear how to obey the Spirit of the Law: “let your yes be yes and your no be no.” Here’s that same verse in the Torah: “That which has gone from your lips you shall keep and perform, for you voluntarily vowed to the LORD your God what you have promised with your mouth”(Deuteronomy 23:23).

When Jesus says, “You have heard it said, An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth, but…,” it’s important to note that Jesus is not contradicting this law with His statement; rather He is clarifying it. He is explaining what “an eye for an eye” means. In short, it means “Do unto others as you want them to do unto you.” God’s law is quite clear that “you reap what you sow.” If you reap hatred and anger and malice and ill will, that is what God will pour out on you, especially on Judgement Day if you don’t repent of it. If you reap forgiveness and mercy and justice and love, this is what God will sow into you, especially on Judgment Day, if we can continue in a life of righteousness through Christ. The Holy Spirit helps us to do this, to love our enemies, just as God has asked us to do in His law, and to give to those who hate us, and to forgive those who wrong us.

You’ll see these principles laid out quite well in Torah:
Leviticus 19:18: “You shall not take vengeance, nor bear any grudge against the children of your people, but you shall love your neighbor as yourself: I am the Lord.”
Exodus 23:5 also commands us to love our enemy: “If you see the donkey of one who hates you lying under its burden, and you would refrain from helping it, you shall surely help him with it.”
Jesus makes it abundantly clear: “Do this and you shall live.” (Luke 10:28) Jesus clarifies the law with His teaching. He interprets it for those who have misinterpreted it, and redirects our hearts to obey God and not man, to work for our life in Heaven and not for our life in the world.

When Yeshua says, “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.” The saying Yeshua quotes is not a commandment of God from Scripture. “The Community Rule” and similar documents date back to roughly 100 B.C. and regulated a Jewish sect at Qumran, which set themselves apart in the wilderness to await the end of the age. In a sectarian error, they taught that commandments to love “your brother,” “the sons of your people,” and “your neighbor” from Leviticus 19:17-18 applied only to the members of their disciplined, ritually pure community. While wrong to hate or practice revenge against a neighbor, they taught that hatred against an enemy is endorsed by God's example, citing Nahum 1:2, which says: “The Lord takes vengeance on His adversaries and keeps wrath for His enemies.” Clearly, the interpretation is wrong.

The Lord says, “vengeance is mine, and I shall repay” in Deuteronomy 32:35, making it clear that we are to leave judgment and wrath to Him. In His teaching from Matthew 5, Yeshua rebukes this sectarian teaching from roughly 130 years prior, saying “love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.” In Truth, God’s commandment to treat our enemies with kindness is implied in Exodus 23:4-5 and Job 31:29, and quite emphatically, Solomon echoes the sentiment in Proverbs 25:21-22: “If your enemy is hungry, give him food to eat; and if he is thirsty, give him water to drink; for you will heap burning coals on his head, and the Lord will reward you.” Our role is to follow Yeshua, and to bring sinners to repentance, for this is what it means to “love your enemy.”

Why do we do what we do? Do we do it to create a name for ourselves or do we do it to honor God and to serve Him? In Matthew 6:1-4, Jesus explains that everything we do ought to be in love of and service to God and others. If we’re not acting for the love of God and others, it is better not to act at all. “Enlightened self interest” was a concept I once appreciated, but it needs more context to work for the Kingdom of God. We don’t do things for others so that we can get something back, we do things for others because that is what God wants us to do, and we love Him, and we love others. Rather than expect, we ought to trust that God will provide us with everything we need. It shouldn’t even be part of the equation. If there is any goal of what we do at all, it ought to be to entry through the gate into the Kingdom of Heaven. Any other self-interest is not of God, when we put it first before doing God’s will.

Further, in the last section of Matthew 6:31-34, Yeshua is explaining that our focus ought to be on loving God with obedience to the commandments, according to the Spirit of the law and not the letter, and loving our neighbor as well as our enemy as the law instructs, just like we love ourselves. God tells us that we love ourselves most by obeying His commandments. The inverse of this idea can be found in Proverbs: “He who disdains instruction despises his own soul, but he who heeds rebuke gets understanding” (Proverbs 15:32). Thus, by putting God, His commandments and His Kingdom first in our lives, and humbly coming before Him to seek His mercy, we override every worldly concern and count it all joy for our King, our Lord, our High Priest, our God, who is preparing a place for us, if we will only keep our focus on it always.

Regarding prayer: it may include supplications, or requests to heal, or to help us through our struggles, but our prayer ought to be focused on praising and worshipping the Lord, acknowledging His gifts to us with gratitude and asking for His protection and guidance as we go about our lives to keep us in line with His will. The Lord knows what we need. We may remind ourselves of His promises to us, which are aligned with His will, and ask Him to keep us faithful to our side of the covenant we made when we accepted the body and blood of our Lord Jesus Christ for our salvation. But all we ought to desire is our daily spiritual bread and to walk a straight path toward Heaven, not looking back, not looking to the left or right, and not stumbling. I want to run the race to win, which means humbling myself to the Lord’s will in all things and putting the prize above all else. To get that prize, we have a clear, narrow path ahead. I pray for the Lord to keep me on it. There is nothing else I want, but to know the Lord.

Further, when we pray, we first must acknowledge God and His presence, His power and His love. He didn’t just create us, He created everything. How glorious is He? He didn’t just create everything though, He gave us free will to choose to love Him, or not, He gave us His law for our good, but didn’t force us to follow it—only if we love Him. And He gave us His son to die for the atonement of our sins, so we can be raised on the Last Day to be with Him if we keep His commandments and our faith in Yeshua. Holy is His Name! His will be done on Earth as it is in Heaven. Our only prayer should be to understand Him better through the daily consumption of His Word, which is the only bread that our soul needs to live on, and that He forgives us for our debts to the law, or our shortcomings from it, as we forgive whatever anyone else might do against us or against God. Repentance comes first. His kingdom, power, and glory will last forever, and we can be a part of that. Praise His Holy Name! Praise Yeshua!

In Matthew 6:6-18, Jesus explains that fasting is not about piety, it’s not about religious observance, and it’s not about duty. Just like any other aspect of the law, it is about revealing areas of ourselves that must be cast out so we can better obey God and ultimately grow closer to Him. If we shower, bathe and act normally while we are fasting, only God and our internal selves will know that we are fasting, and that is how it should be. The whole purpose of fasting is to deny the flesh, to turn off our physical connection to the world and what our flesh desires and to completely connect with the Holy Spirit of the living God. In Isaiah 58, God makes it clear that those who expect God’s blessings because of religious acts do not understand the Spirit of the Law. Fasting is about realigning our soul with God’s Holy Spirit so we can do His will instead of our own will, to have His heart instead of our own heart. Fasting brings sin to the surface and exposes it so we can repent and rid ourselves of sin. It’s purpose is for spiritual alignment. Jesus here tells us how to align our hearts during the process: Don’t let other people know we’re doing it, because it’s between us and God alone.

In Matthew 6:19-34, Jesus is talking about one thing: Where is our heart? Are we chasing after the things of this world? Are we trying to protect what we have in this world? Or, are we building up treasures in Heaven and building our fortune there? Where is our eye focused: on the world or on Heaven? This is a real problem today as Christians look to prosperity gospels and believe—like Sadducees—that God’s blessings are only for this age. God does bless us in this age, with persecutions, but the authentic blessing is in the age to come: eternal life (Mark 10:30), a blessing that is harder to grasp. As Jesus told Thomas, “Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed." Jesus only blesses us when we put His Kingdom first, which means leaving behind those parts of our life that do not align with His Kingdom and not looking back, like Lot’s wife who turned into a useless pillar of salt. Anything that separates us from God’s purposes must be abandoned. Whether we are persecuted and destitute or wealthy and have luxury; what we eat, drink, or wear—none of these things ought to concern us. When we seek God first, we will have everything we need now and forever. Amen.

Matthew 7, Matthew 8, Psalm 88

In Matthew 7:1-5, Jesus tells us not to judge the eternal disposition of another’s soul. That’s God’s job. “Vengeance is mine, I shall repay, says the Lord.” His point is that we ought to be mindful of our own salvation, repent of our own sins, and walk in righteousness. We cannot be, as Luke writes, “the blind leading the blind,” we must be righteous before we can lead others. God says many times that we ought to warn our brothers and sisters about their sins, or we will be judged for not warning them. Just read Ezekiel 33. 1 Corinthians 2:15 highlights the principle here: “But he who is spiritual judges all things, yet he himself is rightly judged by no one” because “we have the mind of Christ.” John 7:24 says “do not judge by appearances, but judge with right judgment.” Proverbs 31:9 says “judge righteously.” Jesus Himself, also clarifies His truth in Matthew 18:15: “If your brother or sister sins, go and point out their fault, just between the two of you. If they listens to you, you have won them over.” The one who does not listen is ultimately thrown out of the church. It is our duty to judge fellow Christians, but we must do so from a place of humility, love and righteousness. This is Jesus’s point.

In Matthew 7:7-14, the Lord is speaking about living a Kingdom life. He’s not saying that if we ask for a Ferrari or a big house that He will grant such material wealth. In fact, He just finished saying we can’t serve God and mammon. The Word is consistent. He is saying that if we ask for protection, or guidance, or wisdom, or a loving heart, or forgiveness, God will build these things into our spirit. He’s saying if we ask for Him to take away our sin and help keep us from temptation, He will do that for us. He will do anything at all to improve our spiritual walk toward Heaven when we seek Him with all of our heart.

He then sums up the entire Old Testament by saying, “whatever you want men to do to you, do also to them.” Many other summaries are made throughout Scripture, but the point is that we are to love God and love each other, and the rest of the Torah fills in the details on how to do this. This is why Jesus concludes this section with a clear message: “Enter by the narrow gate … difficult is the way which leads to life, and there are few who find it.” For clarity: “wide is the gate and broad is the way that leads to destruction.” It’s not enough to trust summary statements and follow our own heart, we need to meditate on the law day and night, understand it, obey it, and adopt it into our daily life, for faith without works is dead. This is life and death—literally. We cannot follow our own way and make it into Heaven. We have to follow God’s way—His law—and His salvation, which is faith in Yeshua.

Lest there be any mistake about this interpretation, Jesus concludes His sermon with two warnings and a parable in Matthew 7:15-29. The first warning: “Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ravenous wolves. You will know them by their fruits.” He’s talking about pastors or teachers who tell you that the law is done away with or that we don’t have to follow it. He’s talking about people who believe that God’s Sabbath and Holy Feast Days have been rejected, even though He makes it clear we ought to “remember” and “observe” them “FOREVER.” These are antinomian preachers who think that saying a prayer to Jesus is enough, and we can go on living in sin and we’ll be just fine. This is a lie from the pit of Hell, and Jesus makes that clear right here: “inwardly they are ravenous wolves” and “you will know them by their fruits.” A ravenous wolf is one who disobeys the law of God and leads others to do the same. Homosexual or LGBT pastors, pastors committing adultery or watching porn, pastors who lie, cheat or steal. Is that the fruit of God’s Kingdom?

So in His second warning, when Jesus says that “not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,” shall enter the Kingdom of Heaven, but He who does the will of My Father in Heaven,” He’s talking about Christians and only Christians. These people have so much of the Holy Spirit they have “prophesied in Your name, cast out demons in Your name, and done many wonders in Your name.” These are not just Christians, but Christians who have the power of the Holy Spirit! Those who run the race but don’t endure are those who call Him “Lord,” but do not do the will of the Father. What is the will of the Father? It is to obey His law from Genesis to Revelation, as a matter of the heart—with love. Can we do this perfectly? Absolutely not. This is the whole reason Jesus came to die for us. Without His death and resurrection, without His grace, we are doomed to die the second death. This is why we are SAVED by grace through faith alone. However, “you who practice lawlessness,” literally, you who violate the law of God in the Old Testament because you think it’s no more, or you think a prayer is enough to cover intentional, repeated sin, these Christians will be doomed to destruction. So when we read in Revelation 14:12 that the Saints are “those who keep the commandments of God and the faith of Yeshua,” we need to “DO THIS, and live.”

Finally, the parable Jesus tells concerns those who are obeying the commandments as a matter of the heart, as a matter of love, and who keep their faith in Yeshua. These are those who build their house on the rock. What is the rock? Peter said it: “You are the Christ, the son of the living God.” It’s faith in the Messiah Yeshua. But as we know from James 2, faith without works of the law is dead. Those who keep the law of God are those “who hear these sayings of mine and does them.” It doesn’t matter what trouble may come, our house, our body, our temple will be preserved for the Kingdom of God when we keep the law. Those who continue to live, think or dwell in sin, and who deny the law of God, are those who “hear these sayings of Mine, and do not do them.” These will be destroyed in the second death by fire. The Jews who heard Jesus were astonished at His teaching, because He taught with authority, clarifying that the law is fully upheld, but the law can’t just be followed dutifully on the surface, or trumped up with all manner of “commandments of men” misinterpreting every detail and heaping up burdens for others that are too hard to keep ourselves, it must be followed out of a desire to put God first—out of love—and according to the Word of God alone. Great multitudes followed Jesus because of these teachings! He taught that we must love God with all of our heart, soul, mind and strength, and love our neighbor as ourselves.

Over and over again Scripture encourages us to “endure until the end;” Jesus says, “those who endure until the end shall be saved” in Matthew 24:13, and Paul in 1 Corinthians 9:24 says “Do you not know that those who run in a race all run, but one receives the prize? Run in such a way that you may obtain it.” These metaphors all coincide with “the narrow gate;” “for small is the gate and narrow is the way that leads to life, and only a few find it.” Here is the gate: “Here is the perseverance of the saints; here are those who keep the commandments of God and the faith of Jesus.” (Revelation 14:12)

How many Christians do both of these things? Only a few, Jesus says. They wouldn’t both be spelled out as attributes the Saints (those going to Heaven) need to possess, if they weren’t both necessary. “Many,” the Lord says, do not find this path. Many Christians say “Lord, Lord,” but they do not know Him.

The Gentile Centurion is one of the first Gentiles mentioned in the New Testament. This man exhibits more faith than “all of Israel,” according to the Lord. His faith is an example to us, because Jesus is not here with us in the flesh as we read His Word today. The Centurion knew that Jesus was the King of Heaven, He knew that Jesus had the power to heal his servant, and he knew that Jesus did not have to physically touch his servant to heal him. This faith brought the power of God into this man’s home, and it is the same faith that brings the power of God into our lives. This is a faith that we must have. It’s not enough to just hold the belief in our hearts. This man acted. He spoke to Jesus, as we can do, and accepted Jesus’s power and authority to bring healing. The act was done, according to his belief. The very act of walking back to his home expecting his son to be healed is the faith in action that healed his son. Faith without works is dead, and this Centurion shows us how faith with works brings healing and eternal life.

Matthew 9, Matthew 10, Psalm 89

In today’s reading, the Word is very clear in establishing Jesus is one in being with God, and in fact, is God.

The story of the man lowered from the roof for healing is the first example. “Jesus said to the paralytic, ‘Son, be of good cheer; your sins are forgiven you.’” The Scribes and Pharisees immediately react: “This Man blasphemes!” Are they right? The answer is critical: “Yes and No.” They are correct if Jesus is only a man, and for what He said, He should be put to death, for it is blasphemy of the highest order. Only God can forgive sins, just like these religious leaders said. They’re right.

Consider these three examples from the Old Testament:

“And the Lord passed before him and proclaimed, “The Lord, the Lord God, merciful and gracious, longsuffering, and abounding in goodness and truth, keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, by no means clearing the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children and the children’s children to the third and the fourth generation.” (Exodus 34:6-7)

“To the Lord our God belong mercy and forgiveness, though we have rebelled against Him.” (Daniel 9:9)

“I, even I, am He who blots out your transgressions for My own sake; and I will not remember your sins. Put Me in remembrance; let us contend together; state your case, that you may be acquitted.” (Isaiah 43:25-26)

This is clear. God asks for our repentance and our faith and trust in Him, and then He forgives our sins and remembers our sins no more. Jesus did this for this paralytic man. “‘For which is easier, to say, ‘Your sins are forgiven you,’ or to say, ‘Arise and walk’? But that you may know that the Son of Man has power on earth to forgive sins,’—then He said to the paralytic, ‘Arise, take up your bed, and go to your house.’” The paralytic was healed and everyone marveled and glorified God. The “Son of Man” is a term used in the Old Testament for the Messiah, and it identifies Jesus as this one, especially when He uses it about Himself. The truth is this: No man can forgive sins. Only God can forgive sins. Jesus, who is God who came in the flesh, forgives the sins of this paralytic, among others. To be healed, a man must first be forgiven upon repentance, and then He must have faith in God. That’s the point of this story.

When Jesus says “Go and learn what this means: ‘I desire mercy and not sacrifice’,” he is referring directly to Hosea 6:6, among other Scriptural verses, “For I desire mercy and not sacrifice, And the knowledge of God more than burnt offerings.” It should be clear from the reading that He is saying that He has come to bring mercy to sinners by forgiving their sins upon repentance, but ONLY if they pursue knowledge of the Torah and go and sin no more. What good are ceremonies without obedience? Obey first, and then celebrate in the manner God has asked of us. How does one go and sin no more? By obeying the law of God in the Torah, including the Sabbath law, of course. It’s not ambiguous. What’s more, these same pharisees are asking whether Jesus and His disciples ever fast, which they hold up in high regard as part of their religious observance. Without delving into too much detail, the purpose of fasting is to deny the flesh and to get close to God in spirit. Jesus’s point in this conversation is: why would His disciples need to fast when God is sitting right there dining with them?

Next, Jesus gives a masterful double parable that does not mean what most Christians think it means. I’m referring to the patch on the old garment and the new wine in old wine skins parables. Generally, the meaning in modern vernacular is: “you can’t teach an old dog new tricks.” The context makes this clear. Jesus has pharisees pondering whether they should become disciples, but they have learned so many false doctrines from their Rabbinical training—just like so many Christians today have learned so many false doctrines from modern Churchianity—it is nearly impossible to erase those false doctrines and teach them the truth of the Torah. They don’t even know the purpose of fasting and they don’t understand that God calls sinners to repentance. How can they be Jesus’s disciples? Jesus is happily teaching sinners about repentance and obedience to the Torah, something they will learn readily because they have a clean slate.

As Jesus prepares to send the 12 apostles out to preach to the Jews first, He leads them into prayer. Prayer ought to occupy a good part of our quiet time before we engage in any activity whatsoever. Even if the prayer is short, such as, “Lord, help,” giving all things to the Lord is the best way ensure we have the right heart going into any circumstance. The Lord’s hand is moving and He will interact in all things, but He is much more likely to intercede when a Saint who keeps His commandments and has complete faith and trust in Yeshua asks Him according to His will for assistance.

This is the first time Jesus sent out His disciples to preach and heal, and notice that He only sent the 12, representing the 12 tribes of Israel, and He only sent them to Israel. He specifically said not to go to the Gentiles. As we will soon read in the next few days, He sends out 70 next to the nations, which represents the Gentiles. Paul notes that these two occurrences are part of prophesy and also part of his own mission to introduce the New Covenant: “For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ, for it is the power of God to salvation for everyone who believes, for the Jew first and also for the Greek.” (Romans 1:16). Note that the Jews’ “harlotry,” or walk away from God to follow after other gods, would be forgiven through the New Covenant, and this New Covenant was prophesied, among other places, by Isaiah (Isaiah 59:20,21;  Isaiah 61:8), Ezekiel (Ezekiel 16:60-62; Ezekiel 34:25; Ezekiel 11:16-21; 20:37; 37:25-27), Jeremiah (Jeremiah 31:31-34; Jeremiah 32:38-40), and Hosea (Hosea 1: 6-11; 2:1,2). Outside of fulfilling prophesy, Jesus is training His disciples to build the Church, among the Jews first, and then the Gentiles.

As Jesus sends the disciples out, He teaches them a handful of key concepts in Matthew 10, which apply to us today as His modern-day disciples:

“And as you go, preach, saying, ‘The kingdom of heaven is at hand.’ Heal the sick, cleanse the lepers, raise the dead, cast out demons. Freely you have received, freely give.” > While the Apostles are literally doing these things as the plain words intend, and proving it through the works of the Holy Spirit with the authority of Yeshua, Jesus also intends spiritual meaning here. He is asking them to bring the luke-warm surface-level believers who disobey the commandments (the sick) into obedience (Revelation 2:22). He’s asking them to cleanse those spotted with leprosy, or sin, which is again a violation of the commandments of God. He’s asking them to raise the dead, or bring back those who are dead in their sins or dead because they never believed in God to begin with. He’s asking them to cast out demons, or wolves in sheep’s clothing, who teach false doctrines and lead the flock astray. This is the Gospel message that Jesus wants them to preach, for the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand.
When we are persecuted, it is so that we can be a testimony to “governors and kings … and to the Gentiles.”
Don’t plan ahead for what to say, “it will be given to you in that hour what you should speak … it is … the Spirit of your Father who speaks in you.”
Jesus came to bring a dividing Sword, which is the Word of God, also known as the Commandments of God, which will divide family members and friends and everyone. We must love God and His commandments more than anything else. Those who hold on to the whole Law of God will be hated for Jesus’s name’s sake, as we most certainly are. We will be persecuted and put to death for this, as we have been throughout history. We may flee to continue teaching the truth as long as possible to ensure the Gospel message gets out: The Saints are those who keep the commandments of God AND faith in Yeshua. We must endure in our faithfulness to the end to be saved.
Don’t fear death or torture. God values those of us who endure more than anything else and will reward us greatly. “He who finds his life will lose it, and he who loses his life for My sake will find it.” We must never put the preservation of our lives, property or family members above the commandments of God and faith in Yeshua.
When we confess Jesus and His commandments before men, He will confess us before God. He will call us by name. Our names will be written in the Lamb’s book of life. We will live eternally. If one denies Jesus and/or His commandments, Jesus will say He never knew this person on the Last Day, and only judgement will await.

Today’s reading concerning the two blind-men’s healing and the dumb speaking is Isaiah 29 prophesy fulfilled. I highly recommend reading Isaiah 29 completely, for it tells of the mission that Jesus fulfilled that we’re reading about today. The prophesy speaks first of how the Lord will close the eyes and ears of the religious leaders, so that their knowledge becomes a hinderance, because they have “removed their hearts far from me” and taught their own commandments instead of God’s commandments.  (Let that be a lesson to us, so that our heart is always fully devoted to the Lord and His Word). The knowledge will instead be delivered to the ignorant and illiterate, Isaiah writes: “In that day the deaf shall hear the words of the book, and the eyes of the blind shall see out of obscurity and out of darkness. The humble also shall increase their joy in the Lord, and the poor among men shall rejoice in the Holy One of Israel.” The Lord came to save sinners, to bring vision and hearing to those who were neglected, due to the failure of religious men.

After the fall, God needed to ensure His People love Him, trust Him and will seek Him no matter what, and so He tests us here in this place. We are in a wilderness experience, like Israel when they left Egypt (the bondage of sin). Look to the desert to see how many times Israel was tested, and how few of them made it to the promised land—only 2. “Many are called, but few are chosen.” Don’t be mistaken: God is not going to let just anyone into the promised land, the Kingdom of Heaven. “Many will say in that day, ‘Lord, Lord,” … I will say, depart from me, you who practice lawlessness.” Only those who obey God by keeping His commandments and who keep faith in Yeshua are going to make it back into the Garden upon Christ’s coming. God is merciful and our faith and love will cover a multitude of sins, but He will not excuse repeated lawlessness. That is specifically what He is trying to uncover in this place—those whose hearts are not with Him. He only wants those who put Him first.

Satan hates the fact that God made man to begin with. He was happy being the deputy in Heaven, with all the Host of Heaven below him except God. But then God made man, and purposed to make Man in His image. This triggered Satan, to use modern terms, and he rebelled against God and has been trying to destroy every single one of us ever since. God loves His creation and wants us to choose to be with Him, and so He has been long-suffering, and even came to die as a man on our behalf, to make it possible for us to return to Him. He wants those of us who choose to do so. Satan doesn’t care about the lost. He already has them in his camp, whether atheists, pagans, unbelievers or believers who fail to obey God. Satan wants us, the believers who obey, and he will do everything he can to take us away from God. He is a roaring lion seeking someone to devour. God sent us the Holy Spirit as an advocate to withstand the wiles of the devil, but we have to equal partners in the fight to win.

Our testimony about Yeshua the Messiah is paramount to our ultimate glorification with Him on the Last Day. It is the second component of the Revelation 14:12 description of the Saints: those who keep the commandments and faith in Yeshua. Faith in Yeshua, says James 2, is doing; both doing the commandments as well as holding fast to our mission, which is this: “Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.” Amen.” (Matthew 28:19-20). How can we “confess [Jesus] before men” in any other way? If we fail to spread the Gospel of Yeshua and teach the commandments, Jesus will “deny [us] before [the] Father who is in Heaven.” Let us therefore confess Jesus before all people, no matter what the consequences.

Matthew 10:34 is the most apparent message that Jesus is not some happy, peaceful hippy that goes around saying, “I love you mahn” all the time. He does love us, very much, but He also expects us to obey Him as our Father in Heaven if we love Him back, and the relationship must be mutual for glorification on the Last Day (Isaiah 9:6, John 14:15). Jesus came to bring a sword of division, which will lead to much disagreement and ultimately, separation of the sheep from the goats; the wheat from the chaff. What is that sword? It is the Word of God (Ephesians 6:17) from Genesis to Revelation. If we aren’t keeping the commandments (All of them), then we are on the wrong edge of that blade. Teaching Christians they have to keep the commandments has brought more division than I’ve ever seen or known, especially among family members (father, mother, brother, uncle, best friends, and etc.) Jesus said we ought to expect this, and that we need to endure in our faith, teach the Word of God, especially Matthew 5:17-18, and then explain how Christians do need to start transforming their lives by eating clean foods, celebrating God’s feasts, instead of Man’s pagan feasts, and keep the Sabbath every week on Saturdays. This truth divides, but it is the truth nonetheless. We have to give up our former lives to follow Jesus, and that means giving up everything that ties us to the World and the ways of Man—everything! Get it out of your camp, or in modern terms (get it off your property and out of your lives). Yeshua, our savior, the Word of God who became flesh, must come first before all people, places and things, or you won’t make it. The Apostles don’t tell us to “endure” without reason.

Matthew 11, Matthew 12, Psalm 90

Matthew 11:2-19 has some fantastic prophesy in it that can be missed if we gloss over it. It may even be confusing. Didn’t Yeshua say “among those born of women there has not arisen anyone greater than John the Baptist!” He is “Elijah who is to come,” Yeshua says. When baptizing Yeshua, He said “I am not fit to untie his sandals.” In Luke, we see a prophesy that John was to announce the coming of the Messiah, and the fetus John actually leaped in his mother’s womb when the newly pregnant Mary walked into Elizabeth’s presence. John knew who Jesus was and he had no doubt that Jesus was the Messiah. None at all. So what is going on here? “Now when John, while imprisoned, heard of the works of Christ, he sent word by his disciples and said to Him, “Are You the Expected One, or shall we look for someone else?” Let’s remember where John is when he’s asking this question: He’s imprisoned. He knew Jesus was the Messiah and He knew the prophesies. If He was as great of a prophet as Yeshua said, and I have no reason to think that he wasn’t, he was asking a much more powerful question here and for a particular reason.

If you look at the Greek to understand this verse, John is actually asking Jesus, “Is this your only coming, or should we look for a second coming?” The reason he would ask this question is that he’s in prison, and if Yeshua had come to take the throne, He would then release John from prison. John is wondering about his own fate, and when Yeshua is going to assume the throne. As such a great man of God, John might also be asking for the good of Israel, for he deeply loved Israel himself and was the very man who prepared the way for the Lord as one calling out in the wilderness. In any case, we also know that this is the question that John asked because of the way Jesus responded. Rather than talk about the Messianic prophesies that foretell him taking the throne, Jesus responded with the prophesies that foretold His first coming as the suffering servant: “Go and report to John what you hear and see: the blind receive sight and the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed and the deaf hear, the dead are raised up, and the poor have the gospel preached to them. And blessed is he who does not take offense at Me.” We need to dig into Scripture to fully understand.

Now, Yeshua compares His own ministry as the suffering servant with John’s ministry to call sinners to repentance and prepare the way for the Lord. He criticizes the blind leaders who have rejected both God’s prophet as well as God who came in the flesh, but in a humble way, Yeshua also identifies that John is not the Messiah, for He says, “the one who is least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he.” At this particular point, there was not a single human being in the kingdom of heaven.” Humans go to Heaven on the Last Day, when Yeshua returns and raises all of the dead from their graves and changes those of us who are alive in Christ in “a blink of an eye” (1 Corinthians 15). Thus, those who are least in the kingdom of God are angels, and before the resurrection on the Last Day, angels are greater in the Kingdom than any man who has ever lived, with the exception of Yeshua. Yeshua says this to make a distinction between Himself and John.

Nevertheless, the people who rejected both John and Yeshua with their two manners of calling sinners to repentance would suffer a greater fate than Sodom and Gomorrah, according to the Lord. Their judgement would not come until the Last Day, He says. Jesus’s point is that it doesn’t matter in which manner the truth was shared with them, they reject it and stick with their own preconceived notions and the thoughts and intents of their own hearts. No song and dance, no solemn assembly, no kingly robes, and no humble love would change their hearts. These are the sinners in Psalm 1 who sit in the seat of scoffers. They’re not getting up to repent, no matter what approach is used. Yeshua’s point is to warn His followers not to listen to them. He says, “He who has ears to hear, let him hear!” In other words, if you are willing to hear the truth, hear it, repent, and walk according to the narrow path of freedom that leads to the Kingdom of Heaven. Jesus didn’t come to bring peace, but a sword, to divide the sheep from the goats, the wheat from the chaff, one group to everlasting life and the other to destruction. He’s telling His disciples to choose life.

When scoffers accuse Yeshua of doing His miraculous works by the power of Satan, this is what prompts Him to explain blasphemy against the Holy Spirit. Blasphemy of the Holy Spirit is a violation of the third commandment. (Exodus 20:7, Deuteronomy 5:11). It is an UNFORGIVABLE sin to attribute the works of the Holy Spirit to works of the devil, to “call good evil, and evil good.” Isaiah 5:20: “Woe to those who call evil good, and good evil; Who put darkness for light, and light for darkness; Who put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter!” Yeshua once again is simply teaching the Word of God, which He embodies. “Whoever speaks against the Holy Spirit, it will not be forgiven him, either in this age or the age to come.” This is a BIG DEAL! Observe those in society who are doing this right now—who say abortion, LBGT, communism, even Satanism, or any manner of evil is good—and then understand why we are coming into judgment. Understand that those who call the Sabbath evil also may face this same judgment.

By blaspheming against the Holy Spirit and calling good evil, and evil good, the Pharisees in this passage have brought the curse of death upon themselves by violating the third commandment: “You shall not take the name of the LORD your God in vain, for the LORD will not hold him guiltless who takes His name in vain.” (Exodus 20:7)

The word for vanity, Strongs Heb. 7723: שָׁוְא, shav, has significant meaning beyond the English: “Or shav {shav} from the same as show' in the sense of desolating; evil (as destructive), literally (ruin) or morally (especially guile); figuratively idolatry (as false, subjective), uselessness (as deceptive, objective; also adverbially, in vain) -- false(-ly), lie, lying, vain, vanity.”

The Pharisees are intentionally using deception to account for Jesus’s righteousness; to lead others astray. They say the power of demons is healing the sick and casting out demons. It doesn’t even make sense. Nor do many things from Satan for those whose eyes are open.

Yeshua also separates Himself from His family, who was looking for Him, conceivably to ask for Him to come home, rest, and have something to eat. In another place, Yeshua said that His ministry would pit father against son, mother against daughter, and so on. He did not come to bring peace, but a sword. What is this sword? Paul tells us: “The sword of the spirit, which is the Word of God.” The Law of God is the sword that divides the wheat from the chaff—the sheep from the goats. Any family members who attempt to take a Yeshua-following, Torah observant believer away from the path of salvation ought to be rejected. Yeshua promises an abundance of family members in the Kingdom of Heaven, where “whoever does the will of My Father in Heaven” will dwell. These are our “brother and sister and mother.” God willing, our biological family members will accept Yeshua and the Law of God and follow the narrow path, but if they don’t, we cannot look back. We have to love God more than anything else.

Throughout the Gospels, the writers give multiple examples of Yeshua clarifying the law and explaining the spirit of the letter, while also rebuking the laws of man. Rabbinical law, which is not the law of God, but rather the law of man, has gotten so ridiculous that you can’t even rip toilet paper on the Sabbath or turn on a light switch, because somehow that constitutes work. The Torah is much more clear, and much more purposeful in its commandment (see Exodus 20 and Deuteronomy 5), which is fully upheld by Yeshua in today’s reading. By no means and in no way did Yeshua violate the Sabbath, and in fact, these examples of Jesus apparently doing so serve two purposes: 1) To show the hypocrisy of the commandments of men, and 2) to establish that Yeshua is God and He knows the law He gave to man better than any man ever could.

Despite the Rabbinical Talmud saying one thing, there absolutely is no law that says you cannot forage for grain as you’re enjoying a walk through a field on the Sabbath, especially while devoting the day to the Lord. Harvesting grain is definitely forbidden, but picking grain to snack on? Don’t be ridiculous!  God didn’t create laws to oppress us, He made laws for our good. And Yeshua, who is “Lord of the Sabbath,” because He created the Sabbath, brings this point home. On the Sabbath, Yeshua commands us to rest and do no work, which is one of the reasons He says His “yoke is light.” He is literally commanding us to do no work, which is a light yoke indeed. Also we aren’t to cook or clean, buy or sell, or do anything worldly. This is what the law commands. The day is meant to be set aside to spend time with the Lord and in fellowship with other believers. We are to give the day to worship of the Lord of the Sabbath, Jesus Christ. It is “the Lord’s Day.” He created it, and He commands us to keep it, and to do so brings such joy and freedom; one only has to obey to find out for themselves.

Note these important definitions in the prophesy of Moses found in Psalm 90. Use these definitions to interpret prophesy elsewhere in Scripture:
“For a thousand years in Your sight Are like yesterday when it passes by, Or as a watch in the night.”  => Millennial reign of Christ.
“As for the days of our life, they contain seventy years, Or if due to strength, eighty years, Yet their pride is but labor and sorrow; For soon it is gone and we fly away.” => The generation that sees the beginning of the end days will see the last of them, but not without tribulation.
So teach us to number our days, That we may present to You a heart of wisdom. Do return, O Lord; how long will it be? And be sorry for Your servants.” => Endure in the faith by keeping the commandments of God and the faith in Yeshua, without reservation, and He will remember us.
Keep this prophesy in mind as we read through Matthew and the rest of the New Testament, because it is all there.

Matthew 13, Matthew 14, Psalms 91

God confounds the disobedient so they can’t see, and this can be explained Biblically. In Matthew 13:10-17, Yeshua makes it clear that only the ones who seek righteousness can know the mysteries of the kingdom of God, but to those who refuse to hear on account of their sin, they will only receive parables and not understand them. He quotes Isaiah 6:9-10 within the passage, which ostensibly says what He has quoted. The key point here in this verse is this: “Lest they should understand with their hearts and turn, so that I should heal them.” In other words, God will forgive the sins of those who turn, or repent, from their sin and then walk in the law of God in the faith of Yeshua and come to the hidden knowledge of the Word through that relationship. This is why the Word might confound us. It means our heart is not right with God and we are not following Him with all of our heart. This we can change.

Proverbs 1:20-23 refers to the Wisdom of God, and includes this section that makes it clear that God will only clarify the meaning of His Word for those who repent and walk according to the law: “How long, you simple ones, will you love simplicity? For scorners delight in their scorning, And fools hate knowledge. Turn at my rebuke; Surely I will pour out my spirit on you; I will make my words known to you. Because I have called and you refused, I have stretched out my hand and no one regarded, Because you disdained all my counsel, And would have none of my rebuke, I also will laugh at your calamity; I will mock when your terror comes.” So we see here, we must repent and then God will pour His Spirit on us, but for what purpose? “To make my words known to you.” It couldn’t be more clear, but just to make sure, God comes at the same concept from the opposite angle right within His Word: “Because I have called and you refused, ... because you have disdained my counsel ... I will mock when your terror comes.” The Lord will utterly destroy the lawless ones, and He will not allow them to see the truth UNTIL they first are convicted by the law and then repent.

We read over and over again: “The fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge, but fools despise wisdom and instruction.” (Proverbs 1:1-7, Job 28:28, ). What is fear of the Lord? Wisdom and instruction in the Word of God and getting to know who God is and what he requires of us (Psalm 119:38, Proverbs 2:5). “The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom; all who follow His precepts gain rich understanding. His praise endures forever!” (Psalm 111:10). “He who disdains instruction despises his own soul, but he who heeds rebuke gets understanding.” (Proverbs 15:32). If you don’t want to read the Word of God in the Old Testament and receive conviction by it, then you literally despise your own soul, because such disobedience leads only to death. It is he who reads and understands the Word, because he is convicted by it and repents, who then has the life promised by God and increased understanding from His Word.

In brief, the fear of the Lord means learning, knowing and obeying His Word, which was given to us as instruction since the beginning. You can see that here in Ephesians 2:8-10, “For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast. For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them.” What did God prepare beforehand? His law, of course, which defines exactly what it means to do good works; it means to follow the law of God. We are justified by faith alone in Jesus Christ, following repentance, but then we are sanctified by doing His good works, which are defined by the law. This was the very first message that Jesus brought to the public when He began His ministry: “Repent, for the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand.” (Matthew 4:17). How can one experience the Kingdom? (Literally, King Jesus is standing in front of them, teaching them about His Torah.) They have to first repent, He said.

So when Jesus talks about the seeds that fall along the wayside, these are those who hear the Word of God, but disregard it, reject it or disbelieve it. The devil (birds) easily snatches these souls away from the Kingdom life. Those who hear the Word of God and believe it, and maybe they even go to church regularly, but they do not have the depth of knowledge by studying the Word and learning, knowing and doing the law, and applying it to their lives, are those who grow up in shallow soil. When lawlessness abounds, as it does today, these Christians don’t know what to do because they do not have the law to guide them. The devil will destroy these, too (this is the scorching of the sun, or the heat of the world). Many American Christians are not prepared for the tribulation that is upon us, and thus they will not endure for lack of depth of knowledge and faith, which is doing the Word (law) and not just hearing only. Our faith needs depth in order to survive hardship.

Those who hear the word but grow among thorns are too caught up in the world and they get deceived by false teachers. Many false teachers are glorified psychologists, who use the Bible to teach people how to think positively during this life, and focus them on how to get through their days with coddling ideas of love without truth. Included in this deception is the “prosperity gospel” and the “solo fide” or “sola gratia” teachings, which leave people unprepared to face the persecutions and trials and tribulations of this life, and lacking in knowledge to grow the fruits of the Word, which are the works outlined by the law of God. Giving your life to Christ is not just a one-time prayer; it may begin there, but the devotion to the new life only begins that day. These chocked-off believers are the ones who will say, “Lord, Lord,” and will be dismissed as “workers of lawlessness,” unless they repent and cut away the briars and thorns that are choking them. We must have love and faith, but we also must have truth. These are lacking in the latter.

The seeds planted in good soil that produce fruit are those people who have a depth of knowledge and wisdom from reading the Torah, who have the interpretation of the Torah by Yeshua, our Master, and who have the Holy Spirit helping them become “perfect, as our Father in Heaven is perfect,” by doing the Word of God with love, and not just hearing it. By doing the works of the law, Christian believers produce fruit, and that fruit spreads the seed further into all these same areas of soil. These do as their Master taught: Go throughout all the world and teach the Gospel, baptizing new believers in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. This is the wheat that grows up in the field next to the tares. On the Last Day, Jesus will separate the wheat from the tares, bringing the wheat into His barn (His Kingdom) and sending the tares into the fire (judgement and destruction).

Do you produce fruit? Paul tells us, that means “love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self control.” Love God and love your neighbor, the summary commandments of Yeshua lead off the list. They summarize all of Torah, but goodness and faithfulness are also in the list, and that accounts for the rest of the details of Torah; if we love God, we’ll keep His commandments. We must exercise self-control to make sure we do this. Count it all joy. Rejoice always! No matter what comes your way. Be at peace. Be patient, even in the midst of tribulation. Be kind to everyone, even those persecuting you. If this is you, you are the wheat, and will be gathered up into Heaven. For those who say, “Lord, Lord,” but practice lawlessness, which means violation of the law of God, the fire is what awaits.

The parable of the leaven and the mustard seed are the same parable. While the Word of God is so simple, so small a concept—namely, keep the commandments and keep faith in Yeshua—this truth explained in detail throughout all Scripture will so grow in the life of a believer that it overcomes everything else. And on that Day—the Last Day—the Kingdom of God will become an eternal reality and nothing else will matter.

The treasure hidden in the field and the pearl of great value are the same parable. When we understand that we must follow the commandments of God and keep the faith of Yeshua, we will subjugate absolutely everything else in our lives to this, and seek the Lord with all of our heart, soul, mind, and strength. Jesus just finished telling us that we can’t serve God and manna, that we ought not to worry, but to seek first the Kingdom of Heaven and everything we need will be added to us. Our great Teacher repeats Himself here with the same principle: The Kingdom comes first before EVERYTHING else, and nothing at all that we have, not even our mortal lives, should come before obedience to God and faith in Jesus.

Yeshua, our great Teacher, fulfilled the prophets in every way: “I will open My mouth in parables; I will utter things kept secret from the foundation of the world.” As in the beginning, so in the end: God will reveal His truth to those those who seek Him and His Word with all of their hearts. “Every scribe instructed concerning the Kingdom of Heaven is like a householder who brings out of his treasure things new and old.” In other words, Jesus is teaching a new interpretation—the spirit of the law—of the Old Testament, and we ought to learn from our Teacher. We ought to study, learn, know and do the whole law, with faith in Jesus, and this will become a treasure to us incomparable with any other. It brings unparalleled joy, even in this life. After all, the Lord has made it clear: “My mother and My brothers are these who hear the word of God and do it.” Faith is doing, not just hearing. The Saints must keep the commandments of God and faith in Yeshua.

Yeshua, the Manna from Heaven, who fed the Israelites in the wilderness when there was no food to eat by miraculously raining bread like dew every morning, was the same God He always was—and is—& will be—and He was about to do a new thing in a similar way. The 12 apostles had just returned from their mission to teach the Gospel of the Lord to all of Israel, and these 5,000 Jewish men wanted in. The 12 had done their job & now their work was paying off—5,000 men who heard the good news and believed it and wanted to see for themselves; they followed Yeshua and the 12 into the wilderness. Yeshua would not disappoint. But much like He had just done, by sending the 12 out to teach, He now asked Phillip to give them something to eat—“to test him.” Both he & Andrew thought-up worldly solutions, even after seeing Jesus raise the dead & heal the sick. We don’t have money to buy the bread, said Phillip. Here’s two small fish & five loaves of bread, but what are they for so many?, said Andrew.

They were about to get their hearts refocused. Recall that Yeshua had just taught them right before sending them out to teach that they ought to put the kingdom of God first, and everything they need would be added to them. Why then did they keep returning their focus to the world? Why the fear of hunger? They showed some care for their fellow man, but didn’t believe anything could be done about it. They were wrong about this, and Jesus would actually use them to do the work. While Jesus broke the bread, He distributed it to the 12 to pass out. It was an act of faith for them to begin taking these fragments and giving them to people. Surely they would run out! But no! Through their act of faith and obedience, and through their action to go and do what the Lord commanded, the bread and fish multiplied so there was abundance. Faith and then obedience always leads to blessings, and here is a prophesy about what is happening to the Apostles and the 5,000:

“The Lord will establish you as a holy people to Himself, just as He has sworn to you, if you keep the commandments of the Lord your God and walk in His ways. Then all peoples of the earth shall see that you are called by the name of the Lord, and they shall be afraid of you. And the Lord will grant you plenty of goods, in the fruit of your body, in the increase of your livestock, and in the produce of your ground, in the land of which the Lord swore to your fathers to give you. The Lord will open to you His good treasure, the heavens, to give the rain to your land in its season, and to bless all the work of your hand. You shall lend to many nations, but you shall not borrow. And the Lord will make you the head and not the tail; you shall be above only, and not be beneath, if you heed the commandments of the Lord your God, which I command you today, and are careful to observe them.” (Deuteronomy 28:9-13)

“And God is able to make all grace abound toward you, that you, always having all sufficiency in all things, may have an abundance for every good work.” (2 Corinthians 9:8). Whenever we trust God and do what He asks of us, He will give us everything we need unto abundance, especially to do His work. May God redirect us in the same way He redirected the apostles here, by showing them the benefit of putting God first and doing what He asks, even when we don’t understand the reason. When we obey God—even when His commandments, like the food laws or the feasts or the Sabbaths, don’t seem to make sense to us—He will bring such abundance into our lives we will have joy left spilling over into whatever comes next. Obedience literally multiplies life for us. I’ve experienced this joy, and I want you to experience it, too.

Jesus, having just gone out into the wilderness to mourn the death of His cousin did not for a moment stop to consider His own needs; He fed the people with manna from Heaven and blessed them while He was hurting. That is who our Lord is.

Herod in the story here is actually the son of the Herod who murdered the babies in Bethlehem, but clearly just as evil. Herod shows some humanity in him; he even enjoyed listening to John preach the Torah, but Herod’s wife—who was his brother’s wife first—hated John for exposing her adultery. Her lack of repentance embittered her heart to the extent that she soured the mood of her husband’s birthday party, making him keep his word and do a heinous act that he didn’t really want to do. Was God calling out to Herod, to save him? Yes. Sadly, Herod didn’t follow the commandments. He heard them, but didn’t do them. James tells us in Chapter 2 of his letter that even the demons believe in God. But to inherit eternal life, we have to do the Word of God.

Matthew 15, Matthew 16, Psalm 92

Matthew 15:1-20 and Mark 7:1-23 require significant exegesis to make sure we don’t miss what’s going on here and misinterpret the Gospel, using eisegesis, as many Christians have done.

There are some key things here that bear pointing out:

1) The Scribes and Pharisees, those folks who Jesus called “blind guides,” “hypocrites” and “whitewashed tombs” in Matthew 23, Jesus identifies further in Matthew 15:1-20, the parallel section to Mark 7:1-23. These are “hypocrites” there also, and “well did Isaiah prophesy about you,” Jesus said about these scribes and Pharisees, because they are “teaching as doctrines the commandments of men.” This particular fact needs to be fully studied. What does it mean? In brief, it means they are teaching the Talmudic law of men as if it is the Torah law of God, particularly in this case regarding the subject matter at hand.
2) These Pharisees saw that some of the disciples ate “with unwashed hands” and they found fault with this (and ONLY this).
3) This is explained in detail in the next two verses: “For the Pharisees and all the Jews (Jewish leaders) do not eat unless they wash their hands in a special way, holding to the TRADITION OF THE ELDERS.” Verse four explains other traditions of the elders that they engage in, such as the “washing of cups, pitchers, copper vessels, and couches.” Let’s take a close look at what I put in caps. Does the Scripture here say “the Torah?” Does it say “the law of God?” It does not! It says “the tradition of the elders.” Doesn’t this sound like it might be exactly what Jesus is talking about when He says they were “teaching as doctrines the commandments of men”? They were not teaching the commandments of God, but they were teaching the commandments of men.

Let’s look at those contradictory commandments of men, which I must add, contain quite a bit of eisegesis themselves.

The Law on Washing Hands from the Babylonian Talmud, Seder Nashim, Excerpt of Soran 4B:
“Rabbi ‘Awira expounded sometimes in the name of Rabbi Ammi and at other times in the name of Rabbi Assi: Whoever eats bread without previously washing the hands is as though he had intercourse with a harlot; as it is said, ‘for on account of a harlot, to a loaf of bread’ (Proverbs 6:26). Raba said: [On that interpretation] the verse, ‘for on account of a harlot, to a loaf of bread’ should have read: ‘On account of a loaf of bread, to a harlot.’ But, said Raba, [the meaning is:] whoever has intercourse with a harlot will in the end go seeking a loaf of bread. Rabbi Zerika said in the name of Rabbi Eleazar: Whoever makes light of washing the hands [before and after a meal] will be uprooted from the world. Rabbi Hiyya Ben Ashi said in the name of Rab: With the first washing [before the meal] it is necessary to lift the hands up; with the latter washing [after the meal] it is necessary to lower the hands. There is a similar teaching: who washes his hands [before the meal] must lift them up lest the water pass beyond the joint, flow back and render them unclean. Rabbi Abbas’s says: Whoever eats bread without first wiping his hands is as though he eats unclean food; as it is stated: and the Lord said, even thus shall the children of Israel eat their bread unclean.” (Ezekiel 6:13, out of context).

Proverbs 6:26 actually reads: “For by means of a harlot a man is reduced to a crust of bread, and an adulteress will prey on his precious life,” which has obvious meaning not at all related to washing hands. Ezekiel 6:13 says nothing at all about eating bread with washed or unwashed hands. To be clear, these rabbis aren’t even agreeing with each other in this ancient text that completely misses the meaning of Scripture. So which elder are we listening to, Rabbi Awira, Rabbi Ammo, Rabbi Assi, Rabbi Raba, Rabbi Zerika, Rabbi Eleazar or Rabbi Hoya Ben Ashi, who spoke in the name of Rab, or all of them, or none of them? According to Jesus, we ought to listen to NONE of these blind guides or hypocrites, who teach as doctrine the commandments of men. We ought to listen to our Rabbi Jesus, who taught us the commandments of God.

Here’s another Talmudic writing from Everyman’s Talmud, The Major Teachings of Rabbinic Sages, by Abraham Cohen: “A person who despises the washing of hands before a meal is to be excommunicated (Ber 19a). There is even a benediction prescribed for the purpose, Viz. ‘Blessed art Thou, O Lord our God, King of the Universe, Who hast sanctified us by Thy commandments and commanded us concerning the washing of the hands.’ (Ibid 60b). The cleanliness applied also to vessels used during a meal. ‘Rinse the cup before drinking and after drinking’” (Tamid 27b)

Can you find these writings anywhere in the Bible—in Scripture? You will not find any such law in Torah that has such an instruction or interpretation. The Scribes and Pharisees here were teaching as doctrine the commandments of men. They were not teaching the doctrine of the law given by God to Moses, on the other hand, which is why they were blind guides and hypocrites. And Jesus is referencing these exact teachings, which is clear by reading them.

Let’s move on in the verse to further analyze. In Mark 7:5, the Pharisees themselves confirm that their concern is that the disciples are eating with unwashed hands:

“Then the Pharisees and scribes asked Him, “Why do Your disciples not walk according to the tradition of the elders, but eat bread with unwashed hands?”

It’s not the Torah or the law of God being discussed here. It’s “the tradition of the elders,” which I just quoted from the Talmud. And it’s in the next few verses of Mark that Jesus makes abundantly clear what the problem is here:

“He answered and said to them, ‘Well did Isaiah prophesy of you hypocrites, as it is written: ‘This people honors Me with their lips, But their heart is far from Me. And in vain they worship Me, Teaching as doctrines the commandments of men.’ For laying aside the commandment of God, you hold the tradition of men—the washing of pitchers and cups, and many other such things you do.”

“He said to them, “All too well you reject the commandment of God, that you may keep your tradition. For Moses said, ‘Honor your father and your mother’; and, ‘He who curses father or mother, let him be put to death.’ But you say, ‘If a man says to his father or mother, “Whatever profit you might have received from me is Corban”—’ (that is, a gift to God), then you no longer let him do anything for his father or his mother, making the word of God of no effect through your tradition which you have handed down. And many such things you do.”

And so Jesus, laying all ambiguity aside says “For laying aside the commandment of God,” which is the Torah, “you [scribes and pharisees] hold the tradition of men,” then He proceeded to list these “traditions of men” right out of the Talmud. He gives another example, saying “All too well you reject the commandment of God that you may keep your tradition.” He continues, “Moses said, ‘Honor your father and your mother’.” This is the Fifth Commandment of God. Moses is a synonym for the Torah. Moses didn’t say this, Moses recorded this, and the meaning is preserved with the use of the synonym “Moses” for “Torah,” where it is clear that God commanded Moses (See Exodus 20, “And God spoke all these words:”). But these “blind guides and hypocrites” don’t keep the law of God; they say that they can give a gift to the Temple instead of take care of their parents, a Talmudic concept known as “Corban.” This is also a tradition of men, rather than a law of God, and this is what makes them blind guides and hypocrites. They teach the commandments of men, the tradition of the elders, and they “lay aside,” meaning that they do not teach, the commandments of God. Do you still think Jesus came to do away with the Torah? (Matthew 5:17-20) It is clear that He did not, for this is the whole point of this teaching.

Finally, we get to the section that is often quoted and taken out of context. I’ll quote all of it for context:

“When He had called all the multitude to Himself, He said to them, Hear Me, everyone, and understand: There is nothing that enters a man from outside which can defile him; but the things which come out of him, those are the things that defile a man. If anyone has ears to hear, let him hear!’ When He had entered a house away from the crowd, His disciples asked Him concerning the parable. So He said to them, ‘Are you thus without understanding also? Do you not perceive that whatever enters a man from outside cannot defile him, because it does not enter his heart but his stomach, and is eliminated, thus purifying all foods?” And He said, “What comes out of a man, that defiles a man. For from within, out of the heart of men, proceed evil thoughts, adulteries, fornications, murders, thefts, covetousness, wickedness, deceit, lewdness, an evil eye, blasphemy, pride, foolishness. All these evil things come from within and defile a man’.”

And so Jesus, our Lord and Savior, God in the flesh, who gave the Ten Commandments to Moses on Mt. Sinai, and who just got finished calling the Scribes and Pharisees “blind guides and hypocrites” for “laying aside the commandment of God” and “holding the traditions of men” is all of a sudden going to himself lay aside the commandments of God from Leviticus 11:1-47, Deuteronomy 14:3-21, Deuteronomy 12:23-25, and Genesis 18:6-8? Wouldn’t that make Him a “blind guide and hypocrite,” especially when He is quite clear in Matthew 5:17-20 that not one letter of the law would be done away with until heaven and earth have passed away?

How, then, should we interpret His words?

Well, first of all, let’s take a look at the key verse that is misinterpreted: “that he made it clear that Jesus declared all foods clean” (v.19). Many false teachers quote from the NIV version of the Bible, which reads, ‘For it doesn’t go into their heart but into their stomach, and then out of the body.’ (In saying this, Jesus declared all foods clean.)” This translation, particularly with the parenthetical section and the word “declared,” is interpolation, or the insertion of something of a different nature into something else. The original text simply cannot be translated in this way. It is not an accurate translation. And so it will help us to study the Greek original language for this verse, which you can do here: https://biblehub.com/interlinear/mark/7-19.htm. You will see the verse literally translates to: “because not it enters of him into the heart but into the belly and into the sewer goes out purifying all the food.” The article “the,” which is in the original Greek, makes it abundantly clear that Jesus is not “declaring all food clean;” He is simply saying that the clean food—bread—eaten with unwashed hands was never unclean to begin with. For Jesus to declare a new law that all foods are now clean would be contradictory to the law of God, and Jesus had literally just made a point about how such a thing is hypocritical. Rather, Jesus is saying that food that has been “defiled” because it is eaten with unwashed hands is purified when it goes into the stomach and then into the sewer. He’s not saying pork or shellfish is now clean. He is saying that bread eaten with unwashed hands was never unclean to begin with. To make His point clear, He goes into a laundry list of sins that defile a person, several of them representing the sins being committed by the very scribes and pharisees in question. These are all sins found within the Torah, the law of God recorded by Moses.

Secondly, let’s look at the parallel story of this interchange between Jesus and the Pharisees in Matthew and note specifically how it ends. After listing the sins (lawlessness) that defile a man, Jesus says this in Matthew 15:20: “These are the things which defile a man, but to eat with unwashed hands does not defile a man.” The verse could not make this situation more clear. God does not change His Holy Torah, but the law remains constant. The whole section is about eating bread with unwashed hands, a topic that is not in the Torah, but is instead only found in the man-made Talmud.

In conclusion, it is eisegesis to suggest that the verse in Mark where Jesus says, “There is nothing that enters a man from outside which can defile him” somehow means that He has done away with the food laws that He gave to Moses. Within the context of the verse and the law, Jesus is making it clear that there is no clean food that can defile a man when it is eaten with unwashed hands, because that is the matter being discussed here. It is pure interpolation to suggest that this statement extends to anything outside the matter being discussed, because to take that meaning from this verse is simply not consistent with the rest of the text. Jesus absolutely DID NOT “declare” all foods clean.

The Rabbis enacted fence laws, such as “you can’t eat bread with unwashed hands,” to make it impossible for people to even accidentally break the law of God, but in doing so they heaped up unnecessary and excessive burdens on people that even they were unwilling to keep. What started out as well-intentioned turned into a legalism that oppressed people. Instead of deliver joy and understanding, the faith became confusing and overwhelming. Jesus was teaching restoration of God’s way. He redirected our focus to what is in our heart. If we love God and each other, then with the help of the Holy Spirit we will almost automatically follow the law of God, because God is a God of love and His law is loving and meant to instill joy and relationship with Him and one another. Simultaneously, it certainly helps to study God’s Word to learn His way and obey Him. Jesus reminds us that a diseased heart is what truly defiles, because it breeds wickedness and opposes God’s love. Let your heart be pure.

In other verses today, a Gentile woman prompts Jesus to being shifting focus toward the Gentiles. While He was sent to the Jews first, and then the Greeks, this faithful Gentile calls Jesus’s attention to the Gentiles and He will soon send out disciples to reach them.

In His feeding of the 4,000, Jesus repeats His miracle from before and for the same reason. The apostles had to have faith in Jesus to be able to distribute the limited bread to so many. He is truly trying to get the point home that the Father will provide everything we need, all we need to do is have faith.

The sign of Jonah is the sign of the crucifixion and resurrection after three days. Even hearing about this sign and seeing the evidence that it truly happened historically is enough for me. I fully believe. But even witnessing Jesus rise from the dead was not enough to convince some scoffers to repent. The same is true today. Nothing will change some people’s minds, and sadly, in their hard hearts, they will be destroyed on judgment day.

The disciples still didn’t get it. They were still expecting the Messiah to be a King who would conquer the Romans and rule from Jerusalem. He will, but not at His first coming. As the Lord teaches them to beware of the teaching of the Scribes and Pharisees, He uses a Passover metaphor; namely, “beware of the leaven.” The whole spiritual idea behind eating unleavened bread during the Passover feast is that we ought to get the leaven—or sin—out of our lives. “A little leaven leavens the whole loaf,” or in other words, just a little sin is enough to destroy a person’s soul forever. God’s Holy Feast of Passover—the feast Jesus asked us to practice in memory of Him—was a feast dedicated to the forgiveness of sin and the purposeful concentration toward getting sin out of our lives. In contrast, the Scribes and Pharisees had sin that Jesus warned us about repeatedly; namely, “teaching as doctrines the commandments of men.” It is a grave sin to follow after one’s own heart rather than obey the commandments of God. Jesus was pointing this out. The disciples are slow to recognize that Jesus’s Word is Spirit and Truth, and not a literal, physical communication. He never spoke about this world, except negatively; His only concern is the Kingdom of Heaven.

Matthew 16 has two often confused verses, which are beautiful in their rich spiritual meaning. “But who do you say that I am?” Simon Peter gets it right: “You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.” Yes, and the Father has revealed this to Him. This truth—not Peter—is the rock on which Jesus will build His Church. The Church testifies about the name of the Messiah Yeshua and keeps the commandments of God. Recognizing Jesus’s identity is the first part of coming into the faith; it is the very basis of salvation and what establishes the Church. The gates of Hell will not prevail against the Son of God. The keys of the kingdom unlock the spiritual power of God, which is established through the Son, the only mediator between God and Man. Each of us has this connection, so that when we do God’s will, the Holy Spirit works through us to bind or loose what God wills on the Earth. This verse is saying the same thing: “Again I say to you that if two of you agree on earth concerning anything they ask, it will be done for them by My Father in Heaven. For where two or three are gathered together in My name, I am there in the midst of them.” This verse also says the same thing: “And these signs will follow those who believe: In My name they will cast out demons; they will speak with new tongues; they will take up serpents; and if they drink anything deadly, it will by no means hurt them; they will lay hands on the sick, and they will recover.”

Matthew 17, Matthew 18, Psalm 93

In Matthew 17, Yeshua notes that we ought to deny the desires of our own hearts to be His disciple, which we must be to enter the Kingdom of Heaven. Jesus said, “follow me.” We have to put our life here on this Earth second to doing what Christ commands. This is incredibly important to understand, especially in this evil age. We must obey God rather than Man. “Whoever would save his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will save it. For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world and loses or forfeits himself?” We cannot give up our inheritance for a bowl of soup, as Esau did with Jacob.

Leading up to His transfiguration, Jesus says that He would be returning and would glorify those who have given everything to follow Him. He then says that some of the men standing before Him would see Him in the Kingdom of God while they still lived. About a week later, Jesus took Peter, John and James to a mountain top and fulfilled this prophesy. These men saw Jesus in His glory—in His Kingdom—just a short while after the statement was made. He appeared with Moses (the law) and Elijah (the prophets). This once again represents the whole structure of the faith, which is obedience to the commandments and faith in Jesus. In the Spirit of prophesy, the trio discuss Jesus’s coming crucifixion and the significance it would bring; namely, we are saved by grace through faith alone. In Heaven, all three stand side-by-side, the law, the prophets and the Gospel. We can’t do without any one of these foundations of the faith.

When Yeshua heals the demoniac, He explains that this healing requires fasting and prayer. Fasting and prayer are an excellent way to eliminate evil spirits and bring the dark recesses of our own spirit up to the surface for examination and elimination—which only the Holy Spirit can help us do. We ought to fast and pray regularly. This type of devotion can absolutely make sure our heart, mind, soul and strength are always focused on God and not on our flesh.

Next, Yeshua directs His teaching to obedience, and uses multiple examples to explain just how important all of God’s commandments throughout the Old Testament are to follow. When Jesus says, “unless you are converted and become like little children, you will by no means enter the kingdom of Heaven,” He is NOT saying that we ought to be innocent and unknowing, for such would contradict the rest of Scripture which tells us to seek God with all our heart and study His Word day and night to develop wisdom, understanding and discernment. Little children don’t do that, so what’s His point here? Little children obey their Father and do what their Father asks them to do without questioning Him. They do it because their Dad asked them to do it. They don’t reason as to why a certain law exists, they just do it because they love their Dad. This is Jesus’s meaning and the following frightening text bears this out to be true in context.

Directly after Yeshua says we must obey like little children in humility, Yeshua explains that the one who serves is greater than the one who seeks to be elevated, which follows well. Little children humbly obey. But Yeshua goes further than this and tells us that if our hand causes us to sin to cut it off or if our eye causes us to sin to gouge it out. He is saying that we ought to search our hearts, minds and souls to find any area where we are potentially in violation of the law and immediately repent and correct the situation. It is better to obey God and live than to disobey Him due to the intents and thoughts of our own heart and go to Hell. He paints a frightening picture of the “worm” never dying and a “fire” never being quenched. The worm is the squiggling soul that is writhing back and forth from the pain of isolation from God, and the fire is the fire of God that burns off all the impurities. The warning is real: Repent, believe and obey. It is what we are called to do.

Jesus’s parable about the servant and the merciful master continues this theme by extending it out to how we interact with other people. If we are merciful toward those who are under our care, God will be merciful toward us. If we are not merciful toward those who are under our care, God will not be merciful toward us. We must show love toward others and forgive others for their wrongs they commit against us, even if they are our enemies persecuting us. This by no means says that we ought to roll over and accept every offense without retorting with the truth. If we do that, it is impossible to reach the other person with the Gospel. In fact, to love our neighbor or our enemy, we must be sure to explain the truth to them, exhort them when appropriate and rebuke them when they refuse to be encouraged according to the truth. Patience, mercy and love are key to getting through.

When challenged about paying taxes to Caesar, Jesus instructs Peter to pay the tax “so as to not offend.” This coincides with Romans 13, which teaches that we are to obey the government so long as the government does not ask us to disobey God. The purpose is not to be obedient to the government as if the government is some kind of God-appointed order. The purpose is to “not offend.” We know this because Jesus says right before it that “sons are free” from paying taxes, but “strangers” pay the taxes and customs. As sons of the Father, we are not obligated to pay taxes, but we pay them so that we can potentially reach people within government and bring them to Christ. If we make ourselves a stench to the government, we cannot possibly reach any of them with the Gospel message. Now, very clearly, Jesus and Paul in Romans 13 are not saying to disobey God in order to obey the government, and so we must have discernment on when to “Obey God, rather than man,” as Peter instructs in Acts 5:29.

Matthew 19, Matthew 20, Psalm 94

Reading from the NASB, I noticed a different translation for Matthew 19:16-17, as follows: “And someone came to Him and said, ‘Teacher, what good thing shall I do that I may obtain eternal life?’ And He said to him, ‘Why are you asking Me about what is good? There is only One who is good; but if you wish to enter into life, keep the commandments.’” Consulting with the Interlinear Bible, I find this to be an accurate translation, which demystifies these two verses for me completely: If you’ve ever wondered about this section, as I have, check out the interlinear for both verses: https://biblehub.com/interlinear/matthew/19-16.htm and https://biblehub.com/interlinear/matthew/19-17.htm. Of course Yeshua is a good teacher, because He is one in being with the Father, but this is not what He corrected the student on in this verse. He corrected the student about “what is good,” and the answer is that only God is good.

When Yeshua taught about the Kingdom of Heaven, He wanted all to hear and obey so they can make it. However, he also made it clear that the road to Heaven is “narrow” and there are only a “few who find it.” Why might that be? The question asked here is “What good thing shall I do that I may obtain eternal life?” It’s a critical question. First off, Jesus clarifies from Scripture (Eccles. 7:20 and Psalm 53:3): There is nothing that is good but God; we all fall short of His perfection. We need His grace and salvation to cover us, and there is no other way we’re going to make it. The second thing Jesus says is critical: “if you wish to enter into life, keep the commandments.” I’m not sure how any Christian can say the law doesn’t apply to us—it confounds me.

When asked which ones, Yeshua says, in linguistic paraphrase, you know, the commandments, and he proceeds to list 6 of them, including the rest by default. Jewish teaching style includes lists all of the time, and often times teachers quote items from a list without repeating the whole list. It is a known style from the First Century, and Yeshua is absolutely using it here. In other places, He makes it clear that the first four commandments ought to be followed also. In another place, he says that not one jot or tittle of the whole law is done away with; it remains fully in force for anyone who seeks the Kingdom of God. Let us “work out our salvation with fear and trembling.”

This particular student had kept the law, which Yeshua had just commanded him and all of us to do, but keeping the law is not enough. We must also have faith in Jesus, and we ought to be willing to give up everything we have in our life to follow Him. That doesn’t mean we have to immediately sell everything we have and become homeless and wander around teaching the Gospel, although if Yeshua calls us to this path, then yes, we ought to do that. What it means is that we ought to give the Lord our whole heart, without any reservation, and be ready, willing and able to do whatever He asks of us. And then when He asks of us, we ought to do what He asks without delay. This is true faith. We must have both faith in Yeshua and obedience to the law to inherit eternal life. This is not the wide road; it is the narrow path, and there are few who find it. I pray sincerely that each of us find it.

These verses were part of my Bible study on the Fruits of the Spirit, specifically regarding “love,” this week, and you can find that here if you missed it: https://odysee.com/@FirstFruitsMinistries:b/Fruits-of-the-Spirit--Love:1. Yeshua’s new commandment, to love one another as He loved us, is explored in great detail. We must follow Yeshua to enjoy the love that He has given us, and the love that He gives us should be shared with everyone we encounter.

In Matthew’s rendition of Yeshua’s parable in Matthew 20, the denarius represents the price of entry to the Kingdom of Heaven. Whether the laborer worked all day, a majority of the day, or just a fraction of the day, each one who worked with all of their heart for the landowner received the reward—entry into the Kingdom of Heaven. The warning to the ones who worked all day—the believing Jews—is this: Don’t bemoan the Gentiles, the sinners, and the lost who the Lord gives entry into the Kingdom, lest you call evil good and good evil and have your reward stripped from you. It’s a gentle rebuke in this story, so these who worked all day most likely represent the apostles, who like the Sons of Zebedee wanted to sit at Yeshua’s right and left hand.

Yeshua notes that the greatest in the kingdom have a servant’s heart, putting others before themselves and not considering their stature before God or Man. To be welcomed in the Kingdom, no matter how long or how hard we have worked, is a reward that only the Son of God can give, because God has granted to Him the right to be the judge on the Last Day. To receive this reward at all is a blessing that deserves our gratitude. We have a righteous God who delivers what He promises. Happy are we who are called, who dutifully do as we’re asked, and are then chosen to enter the Kingdom.

Matthew records that Yeshua clearly told the Apostles and all the disciples that He would be executed in Jerusalem by the Jewish leaders with the help of the Romans. He also explains that He will rise from the dead on the third day. The resurrection stories explain that the apostles remembered these sayings once Yeshua had risen from the dead, which is one of the reasons their fear turned into boldness, and they too were wiling to die to spread the Gospel. Prophesy is best understood in retrospect; we know the Prophet was true when we see His Word come to pass. Let us likewise consider that we may expect the Lord to do things a certain way in our lives, when He has an entirely different plan. “And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose.” (Romans 8:28) Our role is to trust in the Lord, no matter what happens to us, and keep our faith in Him and do what He has asked of us.

The blind men call out and won’t stop, “Have mercy on us! Have mercy on us!” This is the heart of the one who persistently prays and sustains a repentant heart; his or her faith will receive sight; their faith will open up the Word of God to them so they might understand it and apply it to their lives. Note, the formerly blind men “follow Him” after receiving their sight, meaning that they show their faith by keeping the commandments.

Matthew 21, Matthew 22, Psalm 95

Just as the lamb being selected for the Passover sacrifice was done on the 10th of Nisan (Exod. 12:1-3), so was Jesus selected by the people as their king and inspected for His perfection—while the lamb for Passover had to be without blemish, our Lord Yeshua, our Passover lamb and our Unleavened Bread of Life, lived a life without sin. On this day, the people of Jerusalem inspected the “Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!” (John 1:29). When He was finished, “no one was able to answer Him a word, nor did anyone dare from that day on to ask Him another question” (Mt. 22:46). He was found blameless; the spotless lamb of God, who asked us to “follow Him,” to cover ourselves with His righteousness by doing what He did and believing in His power to help us do it. We must love as He loved, do as He did, and trust Him without fail, our trailblazer who made the only path for life.

Just as the King was to ride into Jerusalem to be coronated, riding on a donkey, as Solomon was on the day of his coronation, our Lord Jesus did this and fulfilled prophesy. Philippians 2 9-11 explains the type of King Jesus would become. He would be given a “name above every name” to which “every knee will bow” in Heaven and on Earth. The Jews who would become the first generation of Messianic Christians cried out, “Blessed is He Who Comes in the Name of the Lord,” just as the Jews on the Last Day will call out in suffering for the coming of their Messiah, “Blessed is He Who Comes in the Name of the Lord.” These Jews who followed Him would be saved by His death and resurrection, as we have been today.

Jesus’s last teachings before His crucifixion are highly significant to the coming Kingdom, and while the parables have similarities, they each teach a different truth about the Kingdom. Over the two days between His coronation/inspection and His crucifixion as the Passover Lamb, Jesus taught each of these parables to the people who were following Him. To the Jewish leaders looking to trap Him, He let them continue to live in blindness.

In Matthew’s rendition of Yeshua’s vinyard prophesy, he includes a preamble that explains the principles laid out in Ezekiel 18 and 33; namely, those who repent of whatever many sins they may have committed and subsequently obey God will enter the Kingdom of God, while those who are all talk—I’ve been saved—but then don’t do what the Lord has asked, will be condemned. The way of righteousness, or obedience to God’s law, is a necessary proof that we have true faith in Jesus, because we “follow” Him and do what He did. When Jesus says “the kingdom of God will be taken from you and given to a nation bearing the fruits of it,” Jesus speaks directly of the spiritual Nation of Israel, which again, is made up of Saints who are obedient and faithful. The physical nation, made up of people who are physical dependents of Jacob, is precious in the eyes of God, but only those among that nation who also confess Yeshua as Messiah will be saved.

In Matthew’s rendition of Jesus’s wedding parable, many are called to the Kingdom of God, to obey God and have faith in the Messiah (the guest of honor at the wedding), but because of rejection of one or both of the testimonies for entry, many people who were invited will not get in. Thus, the Lord has opened up His invitation to all, as prophesied by Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel and others, and anyone who comes (obeys) and wears a wedding garment (faith in Yeshua) will be part of the eternal celebration. The man without the wedding garment inside the wedding is Satan. Recall, when Judas was possessed by Satan at the Passover Seder (Last Supper), Jesus called him “friend,” and told him to go do what he had to do quickly. Satan rejects the authority of Jesus and hates His authority. He has done everything he can to both destroy the faith in Yeshua as well as the commandments of God, and he is attempting to devour as many saints as he can. In the end, he will be destroyed with everyone else who has not obeyed out of the abundant love of their hearts covered by the blood of Yeshua.

After Jesus told these several parables that clearly reflected poorly on the Jewish leaders, Pharisees and Herodians came to trap Jesus, but instead He provided us with such a timeless truth, that sadly is often missed. The point of the “render unto Caesar” story is not to say that we ought to obey Caesar blindly and we ought to be careful that we don’t fall into the pagan beliefs and worship him—or in our case, worship the flag, the constitution or the country itself. When asked whether it is lawful to pay taxes to Caesar, Jesus exposes the hypocrisy of those asking the question while also answering it according to the Word of God. He asks, “Whose image and inscription is this” on the denarius. Note that the Roman denarius had the image of Tiberius Caesar and the inscription said, “TI CAESAR DIVI AVG F AVGVSTVS,” or “Tiberius Caesar son of the DIVINE Augustus.” The reverse tells of his title as “PONTIFEX MAXIM” or “head priest of the Roman religion.” This is why Jesus asked them about both the image and the inscription. Jesus told these supposedly holy Jewish leaders to give Caesar back his blasphemous coin.

The unsaid, but implied, question that any Jew or Christian worth his or her weight in salt would know is “Whose image is on you? “So God created man in His own image; in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them.” (Genesis 1:27) When Jesus says “Give to Caesar what is Caesar’s and give to God what is God’s,” He says very clearly, give Caesar back his blasphemous coin and give God absolutely everything you have, up to and including your very life, but especially your heart, because that is how you will get into Heaven. Absolutely everything in creation belongs to God, even the very metal of the blasphemous denarius. The only thing that belongs to Caesar and all who are perishing is the inscription and image on that coin.

Is that inscription and image a “mark of the beast?” Anything that is not of God is of the devil and will be thrown in to the fire. Make sure you read Deuteronomy 6 and have the mark of God—love for His Holy commandments and faith in the Messiah Yeshua—written there on the frontlets between your eyes (forehead, where you think and meditate) and bound on your right hand (representing everything you say and do). God’s story repeats itself in every passage of Scripture. Who’s image is on you?

If you read Hebrews 6:1-3, we see the “resurrection of the dead” is an elementary principle of the faith. In Luke, Jesus says something important about the resurrection of the dead: “those who are counted worthy to attain that age, and the resurrection from the dead, neither marry nor are given in marriage; nor can they die anymore, for they are equal to the angels and are sons of God, being sons of the resurrection.”

This gives us a little glimpse into the realities of Heaven:
The Kingdom of God is another age; an age to come. It does not happen right after death.
The resurrection of the dead happens upon the dawn of that next age.
Once we are in our eternal bodies, we will be equal with the angels.
The angels are “sons of God” and so too will we be adopted “sons of God” through the resurrection.

It’s important to note that the Sadducees, much like the Samaritans, only used the Torah as their Scripture. They did not use the wider Tanakh that we call the Old Testament. Thus, they didn’t have the passages in Samuel and all the prophets by which we can see the reality of the resurrection, but Jesus, who gave the Torah, recalled what He said to Moses at the burning bush: “I am the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.” The verbal tense is critical here. “He is not the God of the dead, but of the living.” The souls of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, as well as all who die, sleep in the grave until the Last Day, when Jesus comes again to raise and judge both the living and the dead. Remember Lazarus. He was only sleeping, the Lord said.

In Matthew 22, a lawyer asks Jesus what the “greatest” commandment in the law is. The answer should not surprise anyone, not the least of which Jews, who already believed the Sh’ma was the greatest commandment. Deuteronomy 6:4-5: “Hear O Israel, you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your mind, and all your strength,” and Leviticus 19:18: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself” Jesus is teaching us that the Sh’ma was the same commandment that summarized the full list God gave as recorded in the Torah by Moses, and it still has the same authority now. Also, He had just finished teaching about the resurrection of the dead, which is why I believe He added the word “soul” to the Sh’ma, though it was certainly already implied from the original text. The soul is the life of a man (or woman) and it is the part of us that sleeps in the grave awaiting the resurrection of the dead on the last day. Jesus also emphasized an ancillary verse that the Jews had missed in their understanding of the Torah, quoting from Leviticus to point out that part of loving God is loving each other.

Jesus says “the whole law and prophets” “hang” on these summary commandments. The word “hang” is Strongs Greek 2910. kremannumi κρεμάννυμι, which literally means “hang,” but in the usage here it means “depend on” or “are summarized by.” In Mark’s version, Jesus says “there is no greater commandment than these.” In other words, if your interpretation of any of the other commandments doesn’t involve loving God AND loving your neighbor, then you aren’t interpreting them right. By saying something is the greatest or the first, this by no means excludes those commandments which are not as great or come afterward in stature. More positively, Jesus’s point here is that these two commandments are the decoder key for the entire Scripture and all of the other commandments. Thus, whenever we don’t understand a passage of Scripture, we ought to go back to Jesus’s words here: The interpretation must be aligned with God’s intent for us to love Him and love each other. This helps us obey God with the right heart—not by blind obedience, but with love in “spirit and truth.”

What is the “spirit of the law” and not the “letter”? Jesus gives us the keys to the kingdom with this teaching. The commandments—all of them—ought to be kept by us in our heart. We ought to meditate on them day and night. We should teach them diligently to our children, and talk of them when we sit in our house, when we walk by the way, when we lie down, and when we rise up. We should bind them as a sign on our hand, meaning that we ought to speak and act according to the commandments, and they ought to be as frontlets between our eyes, meaning that we ought to be thinking about them 100 percent of the time. They ought to occupy our every thought. They ought to be on the doorposts of our house and on our gates, meaning that everyone who comes into and goes out of our house ought to dwell on the commandments of God all the time, and when anyone leaves they ought to take these truths with them. This is the “mark of God,” when we do this.

As Yeshua teaches with authority in this section, He preempts a challenge to what He is teaching by asking the Jewish leaders a question instead. This is meant to take them off guard and sets up His challenge to their authority in the next section. Jesus asks, “How is it that the scribes say that the Christ is the Son of David? For David himself said by the Holy Spirit: ‘The Lord said to my Lord, Sit at My right hand, Till I make Your enemies Your footstool’.” Jesus not only interprets this Psalm as a Messianic prophesy, but also asserts that the Messiah is one in being with God. Jesus in the flesh was indeed the Son of David, in that His mother’s bloodline traced back to the prophetic king, but He is the Son of God, one in being with the Father, and in His Deity He was not created, but was rather the Creator, who preexisted all of creation. There is salvation in no other name than Yeshua.

Matthew 23, Matthew 24, Psalm 96

Here’s Jesus’s teaching: “Therefore, whatever they tell you to observe, that observe and do.” In other words, when they teach on the Law of God, make sure to obey these teachings.

Second part: “do not do according to their works, for they say, and do not do.” In other words, they are hypocrites, who teach the Law of God, but don’t keep it themselves.

Here’s what they do instead of keeping God’s law: They bind heavy burdens, hard to bear, and lay them on men’s shoulders; but won’t do these things themselves. In other words, they create Rabbinical laws that misinterpret the law of God, and even they themselves don’t keep to this law.

Other issues: They also enlarge their tzit-tzit, like to look important, and make all appearances about doing what is right. They like men to look at them and offer them praise. The ego boost is their motivation. They aren’t doing this for God, but for themselves.

Jesus is teaching: Wear tzit-tzit, but out of love of the commandments and a desire to remind oneself to keep them. Walk humbly into a dinner party so that the host can elevate you. Look to Jesus alone as our Rabbi—our Teacher—God as our Father, and serve each other in the love of Jesus to give glory to God alone.

Jesus then gives a teaching on your Word: “let your yes be yes, and your no be no.” The Old Testament teaches the same thing in the commandments. “Do not bear false witness.” In giving oaths, we ought to just do what we say we’re going to do. At the same time, Jesus warns us against blaspheming when we promise to do something, but instead to give honor to the Temple, to Heaven and to the throne of Almighty God.

When Jesus says, “you pay tithe of mint and anise and cumin and have neglected the weightier matters of the law: justice and mercy and faith.” The key is in the next verse: “These you ought to have done, without leaving the others undone.” Importantly, we ought to tithe, Jesus says. Tithing is a commandment of God, but we ought to do the more important things, which Jesus had just summarized for us: Love God and love each other.

When Jesus says, “you cleanse the outside of the cup and dish, but inside they are full of extortion and self-indulgence,” He takes us back to the teaching of Mark 7 when he condemned them for keeping the commandments of men, but not the commandments of God. Briefly, there is no law of God that commands washing of hands or cups or dishes, but the Pharisees taught that there is. They made this up and then held people to account by it. He is pointing out, again with the “whitewashed tombs” metaphor, that these men keep all appearances, but they don’t obey the law of God as they ought to. He concludes by explaining that these men are the same types who murdered the prophets and would murder Jesus, too. He notes that His desire is to gather the children of Israel and protect them, but these leaders have led many of them astray. For those common Jews and Gentiles who follow Jesus, on the last day, He will bring them home while destroying the rest.

Yeshua’s prophetic comments from Matthew 24 as well as other sections were divided into two sections. Yeshua said, “Do you not see all these things? Assuredly, I say to you, not one stone shall be left here upon another, that shall not be thrown down.” This is important, because the first question the Apostles ask is “Tell us, when will these things be?” Jesus answers this question in the following text, and in all of His answer, He is prophesying what occurred in 70 AD when Rome destroyed Jerusalem and the Temple. This part of the prophesy was fulfilled. The second part of the prophesy answers this question: “And what will be the sign of Your coming, and of the end of the age?” These are two different questions separated by thousands of years; about 2000 years if my eschatology is correct.

And so, when Yeshua says to the Jews, “You will not see me again until you say, ‘Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord’,” this is about the second question. In Matthew 24, Jesus also points the Apostles to Daniel and asks them to read it, which is an unusual thing for Him to say. Usually He just says to listen. Here He says to read. Daniel 8, written in the sixth century BC, talks about the Abomination of Desolation that would occur during the reign of Antiochus IV Epiphanes in the 2nd century BC. This led to a desecration of the Temple and then its cleansing, which happened exactly as Daniel prophesied. The next abomination of desolation wouldn’t occur until 70 AD, when Rome destroyed the Temple and left all of Jerusalem desolate. Today, a Mosque sits where the Holy of Holies was and literally says on its walls: “God has no son.” If this isn’t an abomination of desolation, a blasphemy of blasphemies against our Messiah Yeshua, I don’t know what is.

Daniel 9 explains that the Temple & Jerusalem would remain desolate until the time of the End, which is the answer to the second question, “What will be the sign of your coming & of the end of the age?” Jerusalem will be divided in half & Israel will be so oppressed that they turn toward Heaven & call out to Yeshua, saying, “Blessed is He who comes in the Name of the Lord.” Yeshua will not return until the Jews turn to their Messiah Yeshua (Jesus) & worship Him as their Messiah. This is happening today, particularly as many Gentiles recognize the heritage of the true Christian faith & return to its Jewish roots, keeping the commandments as Jesus asked us to, and especially, remembering the Sabbath (fourth commandment) & the other appointed times that prophesy about the Last Day. When the full remnant of Jews and Gentiles come together as One Body in Christ, & they call out in agony during the Tribulation to the Messiah, “Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord,” He will come.

Here’s Jesus’s warnings and guidance to us in Matthew 24 as we enter any tribulation:

Take heed that no one deceives you.” “For false messiahs and false prophets will rise and show great signs and wonders to deceive, if possible, even the elect. See I have told you before hand.” Beware of “wolves in sheep’s clothing.” Beware of those whose fruit is thorns and thistles. Do not be deceived by them. Depend on the Holy Spirit who dwells in you. If you are among the elect, you can be assured that it is impossible to be deceived, but ONLY if you continue in your obedience to God and do not fall into sin. Then you, too, can be deceived.
“See that you are not troubled…” We need to trust in the Lord alone at all times, and not depend on ourselves in any way. No matter what happens to us, we put first the Kingdom of God. We fear God and not men. “And do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. But rather fear Him who is able to destroy both soul and body in hell.”
“And because lawlessness will abound, the love of many will grow cold.” Do not let the sins of others turn you into the older brother in the story of the prodigal son. We must pray for those who persecute us, hate us, and put us to death. We must love our enemy, as the Lord instructed. If we let our love grow cold because of the terror and horror of the tribulation around us, we will not be saved.
“But he who endures to the end shall be saved.” Any man or woman who continues in the Lord’s kindness by obeying the commandments and keeping the faith of Yeshua, which is not just hearing, but also doing the Word of God, these will be saved. If the end is our untimely death of martyrdom, death by natural causes or literally living through the tribulation until Jesus comes on the clouds of Heavens, we must endure until that day in the faith and not turn from it to the left or the right, and nor should we look back at our previous life before we knew Jesus. To do so is to invite death into a life that will last forever in Christ. Endure until the end!

“Say among the nations, “The Lord reigns; Indeed, the world is firmly established, it will not be moved; He will judge the peoples with equity.” Let the heavens be glad, and let the earth rejoice; Let the sea roar, and all it contains; Let the field exult, and all that is in it. Then all the trees of the forest will sing for joy Before the Lord, for He is coming, For He is coming to judge the earth. He will judge the world in righteousness And the peoples in His faithfulness.”
Psalms 96:10-13

Matthew 25, Matthew 26, Psalm 97

The parable of 10 virgins is a warning to those who believe in a pre-tribulation rapture who won’t understand the time of tribulation is upon them because they are waiting to be raptured before it comes. This puts them at the risk of being deceived. They lack oil in their lamps, or the Holy Spirit that helps them light up their lives, because they aren’t preparing for the time of tribulation and the difficulties that it will bring. It is hard to endure to the end when you don’t have the right spirit to do so, because you are expecting to be removed from it. When early Christians faced persecutions like being fed to lions and being lit as Roman Candles, or they were literally burned at the stake or crucified for keeping the Sabbath of God or following the Biblical adult immersion baptism practice, why would Christians in the Last Days be excused from such persecution? It doesn’t make logical sense. …

… And Jesus is clear that we will face persecutions and martyrdom for the faith, particularly in the last days. We too need to have the oil in our lamps to preach the Gospel and keep the faith of God by following His commandments so that we can endure until the end, no matter what confronts us. The bridegroom is coming, but not at an hour we will expect. Here we see the “Lord, Lord, open to us,” again, indicating that these virgins are Christians, but the Lord doesn’t know them. We’ve seen this same terminology in several other parts of the Gospels. Jesus doesn’t want it to be lost on us that MANY people who believe in Jesus will not be saved. Why not? Ezekiel 18 and 33 explain why. They don’t follow the commandments and they don’t watch and show their faith through works. Faith is by doing, not by hearing. It is by loving God and loving each other, not only through knowing or believing.

Jesus tells us in the parable of the talents how to ensure we have oil in our lamps and enough oil left over to spare. That’s why the parable comes right after the parable of the virgins. They’re related, intended to teach two truths about the proper way to live in the end days. We cannot take the Gospel and the Tanakh that the Lord has given to us and keep it hidden in the confines of our prayer closet or within our own personal prayers when we are meditating in the church pews. Our faith has to move into the World and actively work with the power of the Holy Spirit to convict people of their sin and lead them to repentance so they can take upon them the faith of Jesus and then start following Him, which means to obey His commandments. Whether the work you do is twofold or fivefold, salvation awaits, but if you do nothing with the Truth of God’s Holy Word, then you are fit to be destroyed along with the unbelievers. Those who do the most work for the Lord will be given the most power to do more work. Those who do nothing with their faith will have that “blessed assurance” taken from them; they are worse than unbelievers.

Jesus then makes it clear the distinction between those who will be saved and those who will not, and the meaning is richer than appears on the surface. We can also see the teaching of Isaiah 58 in the Word to the wise that Jesus gives to the Apostles describing the “sheep” who are called into His kingdom at the End of Days in Matthew 25:31-46, as we see in part: “Then the King will say to those on His right hand, ‘Come, you blessed of My Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world: for I was hungry and you gave Me food; I was thirsty and you gave Me drink; I was a stranger and you took Me in; I was naked and you clothed Me; I was sick and you visited Me; I was in prison and you came to Me.’” Let us go and do likewise, both for the physical needs of others, which are plain in the text here, but also their spiritual needs, which are very much present in these words also. For Jesus is talking about both aspects here. When we give drink to the thirsty, we ought to be conduits of Jesus’s living water that He gives through His Holy Spirit. When we take in the stranger, we welcome the unbeliever into the faith. When we clothe the naked, we lead sinners to Christ, who covers the sins of the unrighteous upon their repentance, for the shame of sin makes us naked in the eyes of the Lord (see Adam and Eve in Genesis). When we visit the sick, we work with Christians who are going astray and lead them back onto the narrow path, using sound doctrine to correct them of their sin. When we go to the prisoner, we introduce the unbelieving sinners to Jesus, who frees them from the bondage of sin and brings them into the light of His Salvation.

And remember, Jesus made it clear that His words should be interpreted by the Spirit in the Kingdom of God, not in the flesh in the Kingdom of this world. Jesus says in John 18:36, “My kingdom is not of this world. If My kingdom were of this world, My servants would fight, so that I should not be delivered to the Jewish leaders; but now My kingdom is not from here.” And in John 15:19, “If you were of the world, the world would love its own. Yet because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you.” And then in John 6:63, He said, “It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh profits nothing. The words that I speak to you are spirit, and they are life.” And so, we must interpret Jesus’s words with both their plain meaning as well as their Spiritual meaning, which is where we get into the kingdom work that Jesus has asked us to do.

I’ve spent a lot of time studying the chronology here, and there is some dispute about how all of this went down. One thing is clear: Jesus is the Passover Lamb, whose blood was shed to be spread on the doorpost between Heaven and Earth so that the angel of the second death would pass over the souls of those who put their trust in Jesus and keep His commandments. From today’s readings, it is quite clear that the Last Supper was a Passover Seder, which takes place on Nisan 14 at sundown, which is the beginning of Passover. This seems to imply that Jesus would have been crucified on Passover itself.

Here’s the Scripture about this week: “These are the feasts of the Lord, holy convocations which you shall proclaim at their appointed times. On the fourteenth day of the first month at twilight is the Lord’s Passover. And on the fifteenth day of the same month is the Feast of Unleavened Bread to the Lord; seven days you must eat unleavened bread. On the first day you shall have a holy convocation; you shall do no customary work on it. But you shall offer an offering made by fire to the Lord for seven days. The seventh day shall be a holy convocation; you shall do no customary work on it.’” (Leviticus 23:4-8 also Exodus 13: 4-10; Numbers 28:16-25; Deuteronomy 16: 2-4, 8). As we will see in the balance of the chronology, the weekly Sabbath also comes into play, for that week there are two Sabbaths (Passover/Unleavened Bread as well as the weekly Sabbath). The Feast of First Fruits (Resurrection Day) is Biblically the first day of the week following the weekly Sabbath during the Feast of Unleavened Bread.

During the Passover Seder, it’s critically important to notice that Matthew points to three of several events that take place during this memorial. The bread that Jesus broke was the afikomen, which is the bread that is hidden in the room until the end of the meal, when it is then found by the children and eaten by all. This bread represents the Messiah’s death, burial and resurrection, and it was part of the Passover celebration from the very beginning. Yeshua was celebrating it here. The cup that He drank with them, “the blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for forgiveness of sins,” is the third cup during the Passover Seder, and it prophetically represents what Yeshua fulfilled on the cross. The fourth and final cup during the Seder represents the coming of the Messiah to rule in His kingdom. This is why Yeshua said, after drinking the third cup, “I will not drink of this fruit of the vine from now on until that day when I drink it new with you in My Father’s kingdom.” There is so much power in this event when fully understood.

The woman who poured spikenard oil on Jesus is remembered to this day, just as Jesus said she would be. Having been moved by the Holy Spirit, she literally prepared the Lord for burial. Was she someone who actually believed Him when He plainly said He would be crucified and then would rise from the dead? I believe so. If so, she was not among a large group of believers. I think it’s quite relevant that the Gospel records women being among the most faithful followers of Jesus. Is this why Jesus also appeared to women first after He resurrected from the dead? In the time of Jesus’s visitation, women were considered second-class citizens, but Jesus (and Paul in his ministry) elevate them and offer them dignity. Their faith, I believe, is the reason. These women knew the Son of God when they saw Him, and they didn’t look back. They clung to Him, just as the Church ought to be doing today.

It’s fascinating that this very act of faith is what led Judas to fall away from his faith in the Messiah. Why did he fall away? He rejected faith when the temptation of greed led him into sin, and that sin opened him up to the attack of Satan. He also expected the Messiah to reign as King at this time, and when Yeshua made it clear this wouldn’t be his path, Judas rejected Him. We must be mindful of temptation so that with the Holy Spirit we can work through it and remain faithful.

It’s imperative to acknowledge here that the Gospels literally say that “Satan entered Judas.” He was literally possessed by the ruling angel of darkness. And so it was indeed Satan who offered up Jesus to the Chief Priests to sacrifice Him. While very difficult to acknowledge, note that God allows Satan to do something evil because God intends to use it for good. Notice when God allowed the Satanic Babylonian empire to destroy the apostate Jerusalem. Notice when God allowed Satan to tempt Job, even up to the point of death. When David numbered Israel, 1 Chronicles 21:1 says, “Now Satan stood up against Israel, and moved David to number Israel,” while 2 Samuel 24:1 says, “Again the anger of the LORD burned against Israel, and He stirred up David against them, saying, ‘Go and take a census of Israel and Judah.’” There is no contradiction here. God used Satan to judge Israel in the case of Babylon and in the case of David’s census, and He used Satan to test Job in that account. He used Satan to bring Jesus to the cross, also. Remarkable that this act would lead to Satan’s ultimate destruction.

Matthew 27, Matthew 28, Psalm 98

“O sing to the Lord a new song, For He has done wonderful things, His right hand and His holy arm have gained the victory for Him. The Lord has made known His salvation; He has revealed His righteousness in the sight of the nations. He has remembered His lovingkindness and His faithfulness to the house of Israel; All the ends of the earth have seen the salvation of our God. Shout joyfully to the Lord, all the earth; Break forth and sing for joy and sing praises. Sing praises to the Lord with the lyre, With the lyre and the sound of melody. With trumpets and the sound of the horn Shout joyfully before the King, the Lord. Let the sea roar and all it contains, The world and those who dwell in it. Let the rivers clap their hands, Let the mountains sing together for joy Before the Lord, for He is coming to judge the earth; He will judge the world with righteousness And the peoples with equity.”
Psalms 98:1-9

In Psalm 98, we read, “The Lord has made known His salvation.” In Hebrew, this is “Yahweh has made known His Yeshua.” His Yeshua is יְשׁוּעָת֑וֹ, with יְשׁוּעָ being “Yeshua,” and תו being “of Him.” Some have said this is just coincidence, but we also see “His right hand” and “His holy arm,” which have gained the victory for Him. And we see, that Yahweh has revealed “his righteousness” to the sight of the nation and His lovingkindness and faithfulness to the House of Israel. This is all about the time we’re living in, for Yeshua has come in the flesh, His righteousness, lovingkindness, and faithfulness have been revealed to all the World. The whole world has heard about our Jesus. We ought to shout joyfully to the Lord, to break forth and sing for joy and sing praises to God. We ought to sing joyfully before our King Jesus, our Messiah Yeshua, all of Creation. He is coming quickly “to judge the earth …. to judge the world with righteousness and the peoples with equity.” He will separate the sheep from the goats, the wheat from the chaff, and then He will reign forever.

The psalm is a perfect complement to our reading in Matthew 27 and 28 today, for we know that God’s right arm gained the victory over sin and death for us on the cross. The grave could not contain Him. But upon His resurrection, He told us to “go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you…” Are we doing this ourselves? Are we praising Him with joy and thanksgiving and sharing His righteousness with all the nations, all things that He has commanded us? The onus is on us. We are His body, who He said would do greater things than Him in the flesh. “Most assuredly, I say to you, he who believes in Me, the works that I do he will do also; and greater works than these he will do, because I go to My Father.” (John 14:12). He is coming next to judge the Earth and there will be no mercy left as He separates those who were obedient and those who were not. What will He find us doing when He comes?

A JAMA article from 1986 described the gruesome details of Jesus’s scourging and death on the cross, and there is no doubt that He died as the Passover Lamb in AD 30: https://www.dropbox.com/s/xky9uzyih8haq1b/onthephysicaldeathofjesus.pdf. The physical evidence from the Gospels is convincing. Much of the damage was done before He was even nailed to the cross, which is what we’ve read about here. The water and blood that later poured from His side is scientific evidence of His death. The descriptions are important because Jesus’s death on the cross is critical to His being the Messiah, who was cut off, and then resurrected from the dead. Any claims that Jesus did not die on the cross can be refuted from the science of what the Gospels describe. He absolutely died, and He died for us, a most heinous and gruesome death, perhaps more grueling than any other. If you’ve never read the JAMA article, linked above, you ought to. It will increase your faith.

The trial of Jesus was likely filled by the same people who had berated Jesus the night before. These weren’t the people at large, but rather Jewish Scribes, Pharisees, Priests and other Levites, and perhaps their servants and others who did not follow Jesus. Herod and Pilate both took a cautious look at Jesus; they knew something was different about Him. I almost think Pilate might have come to believe himself if his reputation as governor for Caesar didn’t take precedence. Jesus didn’t speak before Herod, who had killed His cousin John the Immerser. What good would have come of it. We’re told, “Don’t cast your pearls before swine,” and certainly Herod would fit that description. Jesus had called Herod a “fox,” a rather derogatory term. But with Pilate He spoke. There was at the very least a respect here for the governing authority, who Jesus Himself said was put in place by God Most High. “You could have no power at all against Me unless it had been given you from above. Therefore the one who delivered Me to you has the greater sin.” The Aaronic Priests are those who delivered the Lord, and these had failed in their role from Moses to this day.

During the trial before Pilate, Yeshua of Nazareth, the Son of God, Son of Man, Messiah Son of Joseph, Messiah Son of David, stood next to a man called Yeshua bar Abbas, which means, Yeshua, Son of the Father. Multiple Gospels say bar Abbas was both a robber and a revolutionary. During the same scene, Jesus said “My kingdom is not of this world. If My kingdom were of this world, My servants would fight, so that I should not be delivered to the Jews; but now My kingdom is not from here. … “You say rightly that I am a king. For this cause I was born, and for this cause I have come into the world, that I should bear witness to the truth. Everyone who is of the truth hears My voice.” The priestly entourage asked for bar Abbas to be released, rather than the Messiah, asking for Yeshua to be crucified. Like many Jews of the day, these leaders were also looking for the Messiah to be a conquering King rather than a suffering servant. They asked for the release of the revolutionary instead of their own suffering Messiah specifically because of this expectation. Let this be a lesson to us as we prepare to welcome back our King, who will conquer. Will He come in a way that we expect? Will we be ready when He comes?

We also read, “the graves were opened; and many bodies of the saints who had fallen asleep were raised; and coming out of the graves after His resurrection, they went into the holy city and appeared to many.” These aren’t spirits that are being raised into Heaven, like you might assume by a cursory reading. These are “bodies of the saints,” or in other words, people from the same generation of Jesus who had died before Jesus’s crucifixion. Like Lazarus, Jesus rose them from the dead—body, soul, and spirit—and they went into the city to testify concerning the resurrection of Jesus. These were people known by the community, thus for example, Uncle Jake who had died a month or two ago, came in the front door and said, “I’m here for dinner.” The people would have recognized him. The purpose of this witness was to testify to the resurrection of Jesus. This was a one-time occurrence, just like the resurrection of Lazarus was a one-time occurrence. These people later died and now await the resurrection of the dead on the Last Day. Their resurrection here was so profound that even Roman soldiers began to believe in Jesus as the Son of God. Many became true believers because of this. This was the purpose of this event; the same purpose as the resurrection of Lazarus.

From the cross, Yeshua said, “Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani?,” and the assumed, “My God, My God, why have you forsaken Me?” may not be the proper translation. According to George M. Lamsa, author of the Aramaic Peshita translated into English, who wrote in his book, “Idioms in the Bible Explained and A Key to the Original Gospels,” the English translation of “Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani” is “My God, My God, for this I was kept.” According to Lamsa, in Matthew’s Gospel, the Apostle didn’t actually translate the words, but just left “Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani” as is, because most of his readers would understand the original Aramaic. Some later translators might not have understood the Aramaic, and thus translated it INCORRECTLY into Greek. The Aramaic word “nashatani” means “forsaken me,” but “sabachthani” means “kept me.” Thus, Jesus would have meant with his statement, “My God, My God, for this I was kept” or “this was my destiny” or “I was born for this.” This translation makes perfect sense with Jesus’s entire ministry and aligns with the rest of what He told us.

In his book, Lamsa notes, “Jesus only made a statement to Himself and to the friends who were also standing and hiding in the crowds near the cross. That He was born for that hour that He may bear witness to the truth and open the way for the others who were to be crucified–that was His destiny. … The disciples and women who were from Galilee never for a moment could have thought that Jesus said that God had forsaken Him. How could He say that when He had told His disciples that the whole world would forsake Him, even they, but that the Father would be with Him. When He told Peter that, if He wished, He could bring angels to fight for Him, and when He said, ‘Father let it be Thy wish if I should drink this cup.’ These words, ‘Eli, Eli lama sabachthani,’ even today are used by Assyrians when they suffer and die unjustly. Instead of complaint and dissatisfaction, they leave everything to God. They believe that it is God’s desire that they should pass through such experiences.”

The verse is also derived from Psalm 22, which David wrote as he was hiding in caves escaping the wrath of Saul, who was seeking his life. The Hebrew verb in the verse is “azab,” which means to leave, but it’s not to leave in the sense of “to walk away from,” but more in the sense of a teacher who instructs a student on how to solve a difficult problem, and then says “I’ll leave it to you” to write out the complete solution. This supports the idea that even here God didn’t walk away, but rather that it was now in Yeshua’s hands to forgive the sins of the world through His death, and He was prepared to do the task that He had come for. Likewise, in the original, God was leaving it to David to honor God’s Word and make his way to the crown, despite Saul and all his men seeking his life. God had already anointed David through Samuel and told him he would be king. David just had to realize that future for himself. The verse fits both scenarios.

The Resurrection occurred at the “Appointed Time” known as First Fruits, which occurs on the day after the Sabbath, after the Passover, according to Leviticus 23:9-14. In other words: Resurrection Day—see 1 Corinthians 15:20-23 also.

Lee Strobel’s “The Case for Christ” goes into detail about the four Gospel accounts of the Resurrection. Strobel notes that the differing details of the Gospels lend them credence from the standpoint of modern forensic science. Identical stories of a historical event indicate falsification or collusion, while stories that differ in inconsequential details support truth. We know that Jesus was in the tomb behind a heavy stone protected by Roman soldiers, that angels moved the stone and that Jesus was not inside when they did, but His burial clothing was there, we know that He showed Himself first to women, an act that in itself lends credence to the story. Women were not considered credible witnesses in the First Century, and so the fact that the Gospels record that He appeared first to women supports the veracity of the story. He then appeared to the Apostles and then to Thomas on the Eighth Day, which was another Jewish Festival (the Eighth Day of Unleavened Bread), and then to Saul who became Paul. He appeared to men on the road and men inside locked rooms. He appeared on the seaside. He ate and drank with them and was touched and held. Jesus is risen!

Among the most fascinating testimonies of Jesus’s historical existence and proof of the resurrection is an account in the secular historical writings of Josephus. Often noted as a minor mention of our Lord, perhaps to discredit the source, I actually think Jospehus’s reference is monumental in significance, even though he uses few words, and think it should be widely shared: “Now there was about this time Jesus, a wise man, if it be lawful to call him a man, for he was a doer of wonderful works–a teacher of such men as to receive the truth with pleasure. He drew over to him both many of the Jews, and many of the Gentiles. He was Christ; and when Pilate, at the suggestion of the principal men amongst us, had condemned him to the cross, those that loved him at the first did not forsake him, for he appeared to them alive again the third day, as the divine prophets had foretold these and ten thousand other wonderful things concerning him; and the tribe of Christians, so named from him, are not extinct at this day.” (Quoted from: “The Works of Josephus: Complete and Unabridged”, “The Antiquities of the Jews,” Translated by William Whiston, page 480).

1 Corinthians 15 explains exactly what happened from a theological standpoint during Yeshua’s resurrection, and what we have to look forward to as we await His coming on the clouds of Heaven.  I encourage you to read the whole thing, but here is an excerpt: “But now Christ is risen from the dead, and has become the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep. For since by man came death, by Man also came the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ all shall be made alive. But each one in his own order: Christ the firstfruits, afterward those who are Christ’s at His coming. Then comes the end, when He delivers the kingdom to God the Father, when He puts an end to all rule and all authority and power. For He must reign till He has put all enemies under His feet. The last enemy that will be destroyed is death.” A Jewish prayer says, “and on that day, and on that day, His name will be echad [one]”. By the name of Yeshua HaMashiach we will be saved, an by no other name under Heaven. Jesus is the Way the Truth and the Life and no one gets to the Father except through Him. Let us then be doers of the Word to show that we truly believe, and not hearers only, lest we be deceived.

Mark 1, Mark 2, Psalm 99

Mark has an interesting style of summarizing what are much longer stories in Matthew with far more detail, but there is value in reading a shorter version. What did Mark highlight and why? Here are my takeaways from Mark 1 & 2:
John the Baptist preached “a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.” After His baptism and His time in the wilderness, Yeshua came into Galilee preaching “the gospel of God, and saying, the time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the gospel.” In both messages, we see “repent,” which means to walk away from sin—to sin no more. John baptized to cleanse the repentant of sin; Yeshua baptized to bring good news to the repentant: through faith in Him, sins would be forgiven. The only difference is that John points forward to the Savior, and Yeshua is the savior. When the king is in your midst, so is His kingdom.
Jesus called fishermen, simple laborers, to follow Him, to do as He did, to perform miracles by His power, and to teach Salvation to the Jews who would listen. He ate with tax collectors and sinners, to bring healing to those who were spiritually ill. He still has this heart today, and asks us to do the same—not to become like the sinners, but to build a relationship with them and show them by example the light of the world.
He went into the synagogue on the Sabbath to teach, and He taught with the authority of God, because He is God. He is Lord of the Sabbath because He created the Sabbath by resting on the seventh day after creating the heavens and the earth and everything in them during the first six days. He brought understanding to the Jews who had misinterpreted His law, showing them how to interpret in spirit and truth, with love. It is lawful to forage for grain in a field or to heal on the Sabbath, and yet the Jews had created laws of men that said it was unlawful. Jesus corrected them.
Jesus had the authority to forgive sins, and the Pharisees were right in saying that only God could forgive sins. One of my favorite lines is this: “But so that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins’—He said to the paralytic, ‘I say to you, get up, pick up your pallet and go home.’” God can create something out of nothing, of course He can forgive sins and heal a paralytic. He can do these works today, if He wills it, and we have the faith.

Mark 3, Mark 4, Psalm 100

Here are my takeaways from Mark 3 & 4:
It is lawful to heal and to do good on the Sabbath, which is confirmed in Torah, also. It’s important to note where Yeshua was going on the Sabbath: “He entered again into a synagogue.” We are to follow Yeshua and obey the Sabbath, spending the day in fellowship with God and other believers, shut off from the world. But as we go, we must also practice every other aspect of the law, doing good and healing those we encounter along the way or when we are there. This is the very reason why we gather.
It is blasphemy against the Holy Spirit to call good evil and evil good. To say that someone is practicing witchcraft when in reality the Holy Spirit is doing the work through that person to heal, this is a powerful example of blaspheming the Holy Spirit. This sin is devastating and requires deep, thoughtful and sincere repentance, if there is still hope at all.
Our brothers, sisters, mothers and fathers are the people who obey God’s commandments and keep the faith in Yeshua, for these are the ones we will spend eternity with. We must put first the Kingdom of God, not worrying about the things or concerns of this world and not catering to the fears of the people whose hearts are not with the Lord, but rather calling on them to repent and follow Yeshua.
This is how our faith works today by the power of the Holy Spirit, and this is how God has always spoken His Word, and how He has always given interpretation to His Saints: “With many such parables He was speaking the word to them, so far as they were able to hear it; and He did not speak to them without a parable; but He was explaining everything privately to His own disciples.” If you are a disciple, He will reveal His Word to you, and its understanding.
Yeshua can calm every storm, if we have faith. The storm may not go away, but there will be peace.

Mark 5, Mark 6, Psalm 101

Here’s my takeaways from Mark 5-6:
The demons knew who Yeshua is and trembled, reminiscent of what James writes in James 2. As God, Yeshua created the Heavens and the Earth and everything in them, including the angels who later fell and the evil spirits that proceeded from them, because they had rebelled against God. He has power over them, and over the unclean pigs that he destroyed by sending the demons into them. On the Last Day, these same demons will be destroyed forever for their rebellion along with any people who rebel with them. When we follow Yeshua, we must both obey Him and trust in His ways. The man who was freed from demonic possession wanted to go with Yeshua, but as a saved man, He obeyed His master, going into Gerasenes to preach the Gospel, “the great things the Lord has done for you, and how He had mercy on you.” Our testimony ought to be like this.
The hemorrhaging woman reached out to touch the fringes on Jesus’s garment, which represented the commandments of God. She was healed by her faith in God’s Messiah and the commandments that He gave to us to follow, and any one of us will be healed eternally by doing and enduring in the same faith as her.
When we die, like the little girl, we go to sleep, but God can raise us up as He pleases, and outside of the miracles Yeshua did to show us that He is the Son of God and to give us the faith we need for salvation, we will all be raised up from our sleep on the Last Day.
Again we see that “When the Sabbath came, [Yeshua] began to teach in the synagogue.” We ought to follow our Lord and be in church or synagogue on the Sabbath, learning the laws of Moses and the redemption we have in our Messiah Yeshua, and the whole day ought to be dedicated to this purpose.
Yeshua instructs us to teach everyone who is willing to receive us and listen to us, and if they are not willing, we ought to move on to the next person and let the dust of our feet testify against those who are blind and deaf. Only God can open their eyes and ears, if these will let Him do that. Many won’t.
Yeshua went to the mountain to pray. Even the Son of God needs time alone to pray and worship and so we ought to learn from His example and spend time alone in prayer and fasting so that we can build our relationship closer with God.

Mark 7, Mark 8, Psalm 102

Here’s my takeaways from Mark 7-8:
Pharisees, then and now, are those who hold on to the traditions of men, or the traditions of the elders, and forsake the commandments of God. They believe the tradition of men is more important than what God has said out of His own mouth. I don’t understand it, but I know it is a human tendency to take others’ word for it rather than checking things out for themselves. Sadly, the blind shall be leaders of the blind and they will all walk off the same cliff to their demise. Yeshua says: what comes out of men defiles them. We ought to put into ourselves only the Word of God, and thereby the commandments of God will also come out of us as fruit of the Holy Spirit.
Yeshua values our faith above all else, but what is faith? As the Gentile woman who asked for crumbs off the children’s table showed us, it is trust in the Lord’s promises and willingness to put everything else aside, even reason itself, so that we can realize those promises. We need to be willing to pursue Him even when He is working on other things, for God hears the persistent prayers of the righteous man.
The apostles showed they lacked understanding through the two occasions where Jesus multiplied food. They had faith enough to trust in Yeshua and watched him multiply food to feed thousands, but they missed a metaphor concerning the Pharisees, to not sin like they do. Why would he warn them about this? Their understanding was focused on the things of this world; namely, what they would eat, where they would sleep, what they would put on, just like the Pharisees, who had interpreted God’s law in a worldly manner. Peter himself was expecting to anoint Yeshua as king and serve before Him on the throne. How dare Yeshua say He was about to suffer and die! The truth is that when we put our trust in Christ first and do His will in our lives, He gives us everything we need, and even if things don’t work out like we expect, they work out to the glory of God. His plan is best, and it is our role to trust and obey. Everything else has to come second to doing the will of our Lord.

Mark 9, Mark 10, Psalm 103

Here are my takeaways from Mark 9-10:
Peter, James and John enjoyed a prequel of the Lord’s glory, which is what we will see when He comes again to rule forever. Revelation says He will literally light up the whole world, and there will be no need for a sun or moon. These three, of any writers of Scripture, ought to be listened to, for the Lord shared His glory with them. Moses and Elijah were among the few who witnessed the same level of glory from God. One day this gift will be shared with all.
Our faith is what opens doors for us and brings healing, all we have to do is trust in the Lord, believe in His promises, and wait for His will. We ought to pray like the father of the epileptic boy, “I do believe, help my unbelief.”
Sin is serious, and we truly must cut it out of our lives. If our foot, eye or hand causes us to sin, we ought to cut it off, for it is better to be maimed or blind than to miss the Kingdom of Heaven. The sayings here are hyperbole to prove a point: when we come into the faith and decide to follow Yeshua, we must repent and go and sin no more. We can’t do this alone. We rely on God’s Holy Spirit to help us. To inherit eternal life, we must keep the commandments of God, but not just this; we also must put Christ first in our lives and His will for our lives in front of everything else. With our own effort, this is impossible, but with Christ, all things are possible. He gives sight to the blind, and ears to those who cannot hear, if they let Him.

Mark 11, Mark 12, Psalm 104

Here are my takeaways from Mark 11-12:
Like Solomon, Yeshua rode into Jerusalem, presumably through the East Gate, on a donkey, which was His initial coronation as King. Yet, the rulers of Judah rejected their Messiah; they rejected their king, but this too was foretold. He would die so that we might live. The parable of the vinedressers tells this same story. The leaders of the world reject the prophets and they even reject the son, but when the Lord comes in His glory, what will He do with those who “rule the world”?
When Yeshua saw buying and selling in the Temple, like Nehemiah his righteous anger grew to a level we had not seen before. Buying and selling is one of the four things we must not do on the Lord’s Day, which is the Sabbath. Nor are we to buy or sell during God’s Holy Convocations, His feast days of Leviticus 23. Nor are we to mix the Holy with the profane. Yeshua was enforcing this law. There is a time and place for buying and selling, but it is not in the church and it is not in a place of prayer.
We must give everything to God, for His image is written on us. Yes, we also must pay Caesar what he demands, for we are to obey the governing authorities so long as they do not oppose God’s laws. We should not cling to our money that taxes are even a concern for us, for our treasures and our inheritance are in Heaven. The woman who gave the two mites—everything she had—understood this principle. We must do likewise. Everything belongs to the Lord, and nothing ought to distract us from putting the Lord first in our lives, including fighting over taxes.
The sh’ma is the greatest commandment, for to love God means to do His commandments, which are at the very forefront of our mind, our innermost being, our whole being, and our every word and action. To love our neighbor as ourselves is secondary to loving God, and so as we love our neighbor, we must obey God’s commandments and those teach us how to love our neighbor the way God loves us.

Mark 13, Mark 14, Psalm 105

Takeaways from Mark 13-14:
Mark 13 is a shorter version of Matthew 24, and it has the same truths: The apostles asked when would the Temple be destroyed AND when Yeshua would return and the end of the age take place. For two different questions, there are two different answers, and we must pray the Holy Spirit helps us discern which answers apply to which question. The Temple was destroyed in 70 AD, 40 years after Yeshua rose from the dead. Jerusalem was destroyed and made desolate in 135 AD, following the False Messiah Simon Bar Kophka’s short three-year reign. The Messiah will return at the end of the age, on the Last Day, when the stars will be rolled up like a curtain and the Saints collected from the four-winds, alive or dead. Yeshua’s message: endure in your faith until I come. “Be alert!”
The Last Supper was a Passover Seder, which Yeshua asked us to do in memory of Him once a year. This gives new meaning to the third Kiddish Cup, which Yeshua drank with all of them. It represents the redemption of Man from Sin, and it also represented the cup of the covenant, the betrothal with the Bridegroom. If we drink the third cup in memory of Yeshua, as He asked, we literally accept the New Covenant and begin to live in wait for the Marriage Supper of the Lamb. He said, “This is the blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many.” But He didn’t drink the fourth Kiddish Cup of the Passover Seder, because it represents the coming of the Messiah and the Kingdom of Heaven for eternity. Yeshua rightly said, “Truly I say to you, I will never again drink of the fruit of the vine until that day when I drink it new in the kingdom of God.” We will celebrate Passover in memory of what He did for us every year in the Kingdom of Heaven, and so we ought to start rehearsing now, in memory of Him, like He asked.
The Messiah visited the Temple, stood before the Sanhedrin, the Temple Priests and Scribes and was found blameless, He remained silent among false accusations against Him, but when asked directly, “Are you the Messiah, the Son of the Blessed One?,” He answered, “I am, and you shall see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of Power, and coming with the clouds of heaven.” How were they not terrified to put Him to death? How were they not able to see their God standing in their midst; their Messiah, the one they had been waiting for for so many years. He said “I am.” Wouldn’t you think they would want to make sure? The Stone that the builders rejected has become the chief cornerstone. It had to be this way. It is now our role, as the fullness of the Gentiles is accomplished, to bring our brothers and sisters in the Jewish community back into Israel so that we can be one in Messiah Yeshua. Our role is to bring the Jews to jealousy so they will accept their Messiah once and for all. One day soon, we will all see Him seated at the right hand of Power and coming with the clouds of Heaven.

Mark 15, Mark 16, Psalm 106

Takeaways from Mark 15-16:
Yeshua, the king of the Jews, was crucified by “the chief priests with the elders, and scribes and the whole Sanhedrin,” who “stirred up the crowd” to ask for the revolutionary by the same name, Yeshua Bar Abbas, instead of Yeshua HaMashiach, who came to die for our sins. Man has always wanted salvation today, rather than to wait on God’s timing for salvation. God delivered His salvation, but not how Man expected. Today, only those who believe without seeing, and pick up their cross to follow Messiah Yeshua will receive the promised inheritance at the appointed time.
The sponge filled with sour wine was delivered on hyssop, just to make sure we know that Yeshua is the Passover Lamb who takes away the sin of the world.
The veil of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom. Did the earthquake push the doorway’s stones apart at the top causing this tear? Regardless, it was God’s hand that symbolically removed the veil that separated Himself from mankind through the death of Yeshua. As we read in Hebrews, we now have an intercessor on the throne of God, and we can enter the Holy of Holies by His blood and ask for His will to be fulfilled in our lives, and He will do it when we approach with total faith and a humble, contrite heart, obedient to His will.
Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James (also the mother of Yeshua), and Salome went to the tomb “when the Sabbath was over,” “very early on the first day of the week.” If Sunday was meant to replace Saturday at the Sabbath, we would read about it here, but we do not. The Sabbath is the Lord’s Day, and the first day of the week in AD 30 when Yeshua rose from the dead was the feast of First Fruits, and Yeshua Himself was the wave offering for all of Mankind before the Lord God Most High. He appeared first before His Father in Heaven before He showed Himself to His disciples, risen from the dead. Hallelujia!  “But now Christ is risen from the dead, and has become the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep. For since by man came death, by Man also came the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ all shall be made alive. But each one in his own order: Christ the firstfruits, afterward those who are Christ’s at His coming.” (1 Corinthians 15:20-23) We ought to celebrate First Fruits each year in memory of Christ’s resurrection, and with the Truth in mind: He is risen!
Yeshua sent us out to make disciples of all people groups throughout the World, the Jew first and then the Gentile. We must follow Him, and do what He did, fulfill the law like He did, even suffer and die like He did, if that is what we are called to do as a witness to the faith. Our reward is not in this life, but in Heaven, and He is coming again to judge the living and the dead. Those found patiently keeping the commandments of God and the faith of Yeshua will be glorified with Him on the Last Day, the harvest that is ripe for the picking, but the workers are few.

John 1, John 2, Psalm 107

John’s Gospel focuses on proving the divinity of Christ. He starts with the doctrine of the Davar, Imrah, Miltha/Meltha, Memre, or Logos, the Word of God, who created the heavens and the earth and everything in them, rested on the seventh day and hollowed it, spoke the commandments to Moses on Mt. Sinai, and then became flesh and showed us by example how to do His will. He is the visible manifestation of the invisible God, as John writes, “No one has seen God at any time; the only begotten God who is in the bosom of the Father, He has explained Him.” Yeshua didn’t just explain Yahweh with His Word, but with His every action, too, because He is Yahweh. He died on the cross, not to do away with His Word, but to establish it in the hearts of everyone who calls upon His name and decides to follow Him on account of His sacrifice on our behalf, and His resurrection into glory, which He invites us to share with Him. He baptizes with fire, which comes to dwell within those who believe and burns up everything that is of the flesh, leading those who are in Messiah to obey God’s Spirit of the law in Truth.

He asks us to follow Him, to come and see, and to trust in Him, the Son of God, who has ascended and will descend upon the clouds of Heaven with His angels. He is consumed with zeal for righteousness, calling out hypocrites and those who break the law in the name of their religion; calling those who stumble but whose heart is to obey Him. He destroys the temples we erect and builds His own Temple, an eternal one, made up of every believer who trusts in Him and keeps the commandments of God in Spirit and in Truth. He knows what is in man, and therefore died for us, but He calls us to repent and follow Him, to trust in Him, and when we do, He shows us who He is in His glory, and puts Himself in our hearts so we can become a new creation in Him, now and forever, amen.

John 3, John 4, Psalm 108

Regarding baptism in water, Scripture is quite clear. “Jesus answered, ‘Most assuredly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God.” This may not be about salvation, for salvation is through grace alone through faith in the Messiah Yeshua. This may not be about sanctification, for sanctification is the process of seeking the Lord by keeping His commandments in every way we think, say and act, with the help of His Holy Spirit. But this is about glorification, which is the last stage of the faith that has been promised to us, which we do not receive until Yeshua comes again on the clouds of Heaven to raise the living and the dead. For this, we must be baptized by our own free will when we come to believe in the savior, AND we must be baptized by the Holy Spirit. While I do not judge the eternal disposition of anyone’s soul, I would personally not leave conscious and deliberate baptism out of my walk in faith, which is why I was baptized in water by choice as an adult in the name of Jesus.

Peter pairs baptism with salvation: “There is also an antitype which now saves us—baptism (not the removal of the filth of the flesh, but the answer of a good conscience toward God), through the resurrection of Jesus Christ,” (1 Peter 3:21) It’s not about submersing ourselves in water, but it is about burying our life of flesh and being born again as a new creation in Christ. Jesus answered Nicodemus and said to him, “Most assuredly, I say to you, unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.” He clarifies what this means: “Most assuredly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God.” The baptism of the Spirit is the baptism by fire that helps us to burn up our flesh and take on the Truth of God’s commandments in our new lives following Christ. The baptism by water helps us to bury the flesh and make a commitment to put Christ first in our lives.

John’s ministry was preparation for the Messiah, but his ministry ought to prepare all people who come to know the Lord, even today. Before we can be baptized by either the Spirit or by water, we must repent of our sins and ask for forgiveness in the name of Jesus. We won’t receive the Spirit any other way. Now one might point out that one who has the Holy Spirit already doesn’t need the “outward sign” of baptism, but Scripture would disagree with you. Both Paul the Apostle and Cornelius the Roman Soldier received the Holy Spirit before they were baptized, but then they were immediately baptized with water after this. There was an urgency to it, and there ought to be an urgency in your heart calling you to be baptized by choice as an adult. We can only be saved by our own free will offering of our very own lives, and this is what baptism represents. Pastor Daniel Joseph has a three-part teaching on baptism that gets into far more detail, and it is must-watch material on this topic: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLmI6y1h4ekf5F4HviduGbDdX_eYSnY5Ok

God loved the world in this way: He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have everlasting life. To believe in something means to fully embrace it, to make it a part of who you are. To believe in Christ is to trust in Him, to believe what He said and to do what He said. It is an action, not just a thought in the head. You must be born again. Your life must change and there should be evidence that you are not of this world, even though living within it.

Yeshua said that “no one has ascended to heaven but He who came down from Heaven, that is, the Son of Man who is in Heaven.” John makes it very clear here that Yeshua is God, and that He is the only Man who has been in Heaven and the only Man who has ascended into Heaven. No one else makes it up there until the Last Day. We all sleep in the grave when we die until that day. Scripture clarifies in many places that we ought to be in the grave, and that our bodies should not be burned.

Yeshua told the woman at the well a critical thing: “Woman, believe Me, the hour is coming when you will neither on this mountain, nor in Jerusalem, worship the Father. You worship what you do not know; we know what we worship, for salvation is of the Jews. But the hour is coming, and now is, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth; for the Father is seeking such to worship Him. God is Spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth.” In whatever form of worship we offer, whether reading the Word to hear from God, singing a song to praise God, praying before God to converse with Him, meeting with other believers for prayer, fellowship, and learning, or spreading His Word to people who don’t know it, we must do this in Spirit, by the power of the Holy Spirit, and in Truth, which is according to the Word of God. There is “no prophecy of Scripture is of any private interpretation, for prophecy never came by the will of man, but holy men of God spoke as they were moved by the Holy Spirit.” (2 Peter 1:20-21) and “the spirits of the prophets are subject to the prophets.” (1 Corinthians 14:32) Scripture does not contradict because “God does not lie.” We must have both faith and obedience, for this is Spirit and Truth.

John 5, John 6, Psalm 109

When Yeshua, the Lord God of Heaven who became flesh, gave us His example on the Earth, He obeyed His own commandments. “There was a feast of the Jews, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem.” This is straight out of Torah. Leviticus 23 identifies the feasts, which He commanded us to worship as memorials in Spirit and Truth. He was working on the Sabbath, yes, but He was doing the Lord’s Work; the Work of the Holy Spirit! He was healing, which is a gift of the Holy Spirit that some of us can partake in for the good of the Church. And where was Yeshua on the Sabbath? He was in the Temple. He wasn’t working as a carpenter. He wasn’t doing yard work. He wasn’t cooking a meal. He was healing a lost soul on His way to the Temple to worship God. And even more so, despite the Rabbis insistence that picking up a bed violates Sabbath, you will not find that law in Scripture. Yeshua never once violated the Sabbath, and as He showed us by example, so must we do if we truly follow Him. We must “go and sin no more,” just like He told the man whom He healed.

Yeshua made it clear what will happen when the Father hands all authority over to the Son, which He did upon the resurrection. This is when we’ll see Him next: “an hour is coming, in which all who are in the tombs will hear His voice, and will come forth; those who did the good deeds to a resurrection of life, those who committed the evil deeds to a resurrection of judgment.” It won’t be Yeshua who accuses us before the Father, but our own deeds. Yeshua says, “the one who accuses you is Moses,” meaning that the law itself will testify against their evil deeds, and by this they will be judged. But Moses wrote about Yeshua, and what He wrote was meant for us to believe, and do. Ultimately, what He wrote we must fully embrace, for He wrote the Word of God and He wrote about the Word of God who became flesh and dwelt among us. When we come to Yeshua, we gain eternal life, for He is the Word of God. He showed us how to interpret the law in Spirit and Truth so that we can hear His voice and live.

Feeding thousands with bread from Heaven during the feast of Passover, Yeshua once again shows how it is faith in Him that leads to life. If the bread fed them for a day, Yeshua feeds us for eternity. The Spirit gives life, the flesh profits nothing; the words that Yeshua speaks to us are spirit and life. Anyone that has heard and learned from the Father through His Word can draw closer to the Son and believe in Him for eternal life. We must eat His bread, which is His sacrifice, and drink His blood, which is His covenantal promise, and we will inherit eternal life. We must be willing to follow Him and do what He did, and if we follow Him in all His ways, God Himself will teach us by the power of His Holy Spirit. When we trust and obey Him, He will raise us up on the Last Day.  

John 7, John 8, Psalm 110

When Yeshua went up to the Feast of Tabernacles as commanded by God in Leviticus 23, some said, “He is good;” others said, “No, on the contrary, He deceives the people.” Jesus responded: “My doctrine is not Mine, but His who sent me. If anyone wills to do His will, he shall know concerning the doctrine, whether it is from God or whether I speak on my own authority.” This tells us everything we need to know. We either believe unto life, or disbelieve unto death. One thing is clear, if we believe, we ought to be doing and teaching the doctrine of the Father, which we read about in the law given to Moses. This is how we know whether we teach the Truth of God or whether we are teaching according to the dictates of our own heart, a sin that leads to death.

Yeshua confirms this interpretation later on in John 15:18-21, as we read: “If the world hates you, you know that it has hated Me before it hated you. If you were of the world, the world would love you as its own; but because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, because of this the world hates you. Remember the word that I said to you, ‘A slave is not greater than his master.’ If they persecuted Me, they will persecute you as well; if they followed My word, they will follow yours also. But all these things they will do to you on account of My name, because they do not know the One who sent Me.” If we know God and we love Him, we will obey His commandments and teach them to everyone who has ears to hear, just as He did.

As Yeshua stood before the rebellious ones, He said, “If anyone thirsts, let him come to Me and drink. He who believes in Me, as the Scripture has said, out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.” The Jews would pour water and wine out during the Feast of Tabernacles to represent the coming Messiah. Here is Yeshua, the Messiah in the flesh, and He speaks directly to their ritual, explaining that He is the One to trust in, and when one trusts in Him, He will receive the Holy Spirit of God. Some believed, but others did not, as it will always be until He comes.

Only if we are like the woman caught in adultery, humble and contrite, ready to accept the punishment for our sins, can we possibly enter the Kingdom of God. Her repentant heart is what Yeshua picks up on, showing her accusers why they ought to acknowledge it. How can we pull a speck out of a sister’s eye if there is a beam in our own? As they recognize their desperate state of sin and walk away convicted, Yeshua tells the woman to “go and sin no more.” May we each do the same by His power and His grace, for God is long-suffering and does not want any one of us to perish, but to turn to Him and inherit eternal life.

John 9, John 10, Psalm 111

Yeshua came to bring sight to the blind and to blind those who pridefully believe they see. In Yeshua, we can see, and when we can see, we follow Him, regardless of the consequences. The blind man whom Yeshua healed was thrown out of the synagogue on account of His faith. What are we willing to give up? Yeshua says we must be willing to give up everything.

Yeshua also said that His sheep “hear” His voice, and we know that His voice is the Word of God. Do we hear and obey, or do we disregard and elude? This is how we know we are a disciple, if we hear and obey the voice of the Lord.

Yeshua is the Lord of the Council, one in being with the Father. The Jews picked up stones to stone Him because yes, He said He is God, and they didn’t believe Him. They were so blind as to not see the Messiah in front of them on the Hanukkah festival that prophesies the light coming into the world. They didn’t hear and obey His voice, either. Let us not make these same mistakes, I pray in the name of Yeshua.

I heard an interpretation today of the man blind from birth who was healed that made perfect sense:

Consider: “While I am in the world, I am the Light of the world.” When He had said this, He spat on the ground, and made clay of the spittle, and applied the clay to his eyes, and said to him, “Go, wash in the pool of Siloam” (which is translated, Sent). So he went away and washed, and came back seeing.”

If you recall from Gen. 2:7, “And the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living being.” Now, God has come into the world and taken on flesh; there was no greater light than Him. In this story, God spits into the dust of the ground by which He made Man in His image, and now He uses the dust to heal a man to the fullness He intended. By sending him to wash in the pool of Siloam, the man must act by faith to do what Yeshua commanded. Upon obedience, the man sees and can guide others back to the Truth.

John 11, John 12, Psalm 112

As Yeshua prepares to raise Lazarus from the dead, the people ask a very important question: “Could not this man, who opened the eyes of the blind man, have kept this man also from dying?” Only God could open the eyes of the blind man, and only God can raise the dead. Yes, this Son of Man could keep the man from dying, but He had something better in store: He was planning to raise Him from the dead. Now Martha, His dutiful student knew that Messiah would raise all of the dead on the Last Day, and she expected her brother to be among those who receive this inheritance, but Yeshua had something better in mind: “I am the resurrection and the life; he who believes in Me will live even if he dies, and everyone who lives and believes in Me will never die.” The light of the world, God in the flesh, the same God who created the Heavens and the Earth and everything in them, can heal the blind and raise the dead. With faith, all things are possible. “Do you believe this?”

Stunned yet again, the Jewish leaders plotted to kill him. The High Priest Caiaphas, in an interesting twist, prophesied, which can only happen by the Holy Spirit of God. He said, “You know nothing at all, nor do you take into account that it is expedient for you that one man die for the people, and that the whole nation not perish.” John then goes on to write, “being high priest that year, he prophesied that Jesus was going to die for the nation, and not for the nation only, but in order that He might also gather together into one the children of God who are scattered abroad.” This is all-out prophesy indeed, and it makes me wonder about how much Caiaphas actually knew about Yeshua and why He had come in the flesh. If Caiaphas prophesied this specific Truth about Jews and Gentiles being grafted-in to the Tree of Israel to be supported by the root, Yeshua, it is very difficult to see him as doing anything other than obeying God.

Yeshua then tells a beautiful parable, that unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it cannot produce fruit, and when it dies, it produces fruit abundantly. Considering that He would be offered up to God on the throne of Heaven as our First Fruits sacrifice, the metaphor has much meaning about the harvest that is coming as part of the Fall Feasts at the End of the Age. And He says in John that His troubled soul concerning His pending death does not lead Him to ask for salvation Himself, because it was “for this purpose” that He “came to this hour.” Satan would be cast out from Heaven, and the world would be judged—but not until He comes again.

As He tells us Himself, we must love Yeshua more than our own lives by following Him. He says, “where I am, there My servant will be also; if anyone serves Me, the Father will honor Him” He will “draw all men to” Himself, He says. Even several of the Jewish rulers believed in Him, but refused to publicly admit it. We know that these would not be presented before the Father as redeemed because of this. (Luke 9:26) Yeshua makes it clear that when we believe in Him, we confess the God who created the Heavens and the Earth and everything in them, and we will dwell with Him in the light forever. However, if we believe upon hearing His sayings, but do not keep them, He would not judge them upon His first coming, but His Word would judge them on the Last Day. Yeshua didn’t speak for Himself, but spoke on account of the commandments God gave to Moses. In fact, Yeshua says, “I know that His commandment is eternal life,” and He emphasizes how He spoke and acted just as the Father told Him in the Holy Scriptures. We must do likewise.

John 13, John 14, John 15, Psalm 113

To be great, we must serve those who look up to us, just like our Master did. Not everyone is clean, and those within the camp who sow division and discord and seek their own benefit must be cast out. Those outside the camp must be fought for, loved on, and shown the path to walk righteously with God. Once they are in the camp, believers who are following Him, they ought to be encouraged along with patience and long-suffering, modeling our God. Discernment is needed between these groups. Yeshua cast out Judas, but forgave Peter. Peter’s heart was to do the work of the Lord, yet he stumbled. Judas’s heart was to destroy the Lord for his own gain. The law is written on our hearts and we will know them by their fruits, for these fruits proceed out from the heart.

Yeshua made it very clear that we must do as He did. If we love Him, we will keep His commandments. His new commandment was to follow His example, to love one another as He loved us. He is the way, the truth and the life, and no one gets to the Father except through Him, but moreover, He IS the Father. He said, “if you have known me, you have known the Father” and “if you have seen Me, you have seen the Father” God is one, and while there may be distinction in how He manifests Himself, He is only one God and is the same yesterday, today and forever. For this very reason, when Yeshua says He does “exactly as the Father commanded Me,” we too must do that. The helper, the Holy Spirit, will teach us all of these things. As we come into the synagogue every Sabbath, we will learn more and more about Him. Therefore, if we pursue Him with all of our heart, soul, mind and strength and do what He did, we will join Him in the place He has prepared for us. He went away then, but later on the Last Day we will follow Him there.

He supports us in our walk, and when we are in Him, meaning that we have faith in Him and are also following Him in all trust, He will prune us so that we can grow even stronger in Him and produce fruit year after year. What does He prune off? Whatever remains of the flesh, or of our love for the world; in whatever way needed, He chastens us to further prepare us for His Kingdom. We must rejoice in this process, for apart from Him, we can do nothing. “If you keep My commandments, you will abide in My love; just as I have kept My Father’s commandments and abide in His love. These things I have spoken to you so that My joy may be in you, and that your joy may be made full.” These are not different commandments, but the same commandments; as it was in the beginning, so it is now and ever shall be. We must rejoice in these things, for we are His friends if we do what He commanded us. We should expect to face hardship as a result of this, but we ought to rejoice in this also, for through this the Lord uses us to do His will and bring even more brothers and sisters into the camp.

Addendum from study on John: 'Journey Through John: Upper Room Discourse,' by David Cook:
https://www.bible.com/en/reading-plans/11214

John 13:1-17:
Peter had already gone through the ceremonial Mikvah, and he doesn’t need to again here. More important than this, though, Peter’s heart was to follow the Lord Jesus, as our heart also must be. In this, he was clean also. Judas did not have such a heart. His heart was to oppose Jesus, even though by outward appearance he was about to sit down with Jesus and enjoy the Passover Seder. It’s not enough to go through the ceremonies or to follow the commandments, but those commandments need to be written on our heart. Our hearts ought to be to serve Jesus and do as He said to us, always. If our hearts are aligned with Christ through faith in this way, then He can serve us and provide us with everything we need. In this case, He washed the disciples feet. In a day, He would suffer and die on the cross as the Passover Lamb, the one-time sacrifice to end all sacrifice. While we live on the Earth, we must follow Jesus and become servants of all, our neighbor and our enemy, for the Gospel.

John 13:18-35:
When Jesus came in the flesh, it was the first time God had ever done such a thing; many Jews, on account of the veil of unbelief, didn’t even believe it possible. They still cite Numbers 23:19, “God is not a man that He should lie, nor a Son of Man that He should change His mind.” These things aren’t inconsistent. Jesus never lied; nor did He change His mind. When He prayed in the Garden, He said, “your will be done,” and on the cross He also said, “for this I was kept.” He prayed at Gethsemane that the fullness of the compassion He felt for those who believe in Him would help Him to endure through the suffering. The plain English doesn’t do justice to what is actually communicated by Jesus in the garden and on the cross. Thus, when God came in the flesh and completely and totally fulfilled the law in every way, exhibiting what it means to love God and love one another, He commanded us, “Love one another AS I HAVE LOVED YOU.” Do what He did, even up to death on a cross. This was new.

John 13:36-38, John 14:1-14:
Jesus is God. The Father and Son are not two, but one, and the Holy Spirit is the same God. God manifested Himself in the flesh, and whoever has seen Jesus has seen the Father. As an extension, whoever has received the Holy Spirit has received both the Father and the Son. The invisible God, the God who we cannot see lest we die, we can now see, hear, touch and follow. His new commandment, to “love one another as I have loved you” is to do all of the works that He did, and even greater works than He, because Jesus is sitting on the throne of Heaven. He will help us keep His commandments (John 14), something that we could not do without Him, but now we can do with total righteousness because of Him. Whatever we ask in His name, He will do, and how much greater will He respond when we ask Him to help us keep His will.

In an apparent response to Jesus’s words today, we read In Hebrews 10:19-23: “Therefore, brethren, having boldness to enter the Holiest by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way which He consecrated for us, through the veil, that is, His flesh, and having a High Priest over the house of God, let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water. Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for He who promised is faithful.” It is through our faith in Him, “the Way, the Truth and the Life,” that we have hope without wavering in His promises of the world that is to come, the place that He has gone to prepare for us, “so that where I am, there you may be also,” as He said. He is coming back for us to bring His chosen there on the Last Day, “And the Lord shall be King over all the earth. In that day it shall be—‘The Lord is one,’ and His name one” (Zechariah 14:9)—Yeshua!

John 14:15-31:
Do you love Jesus? Then you will keep all of the commandments of God. Here’s the good news: When you do this, Jesus will send His Holy Spirit to dwell within you to help you understand how to keep the law with love, which is key to unlocking its meaning, and this defines righteousness. The Holy Spirit will teach you how to interpret Torah, taking the veil off of your eyes and heart that previously covered the eyes and heart of the Jews, and the Holy Spirit will bring to remembrance the principles of Torah so that when you are going throughout your day, you will know how to respond to any circumstance that comes your way. For those who truly love Jesus and want to follow Him, the Spirit will write the law on our hearts so we will know it always, just as the law was written on the heart of Noah and Abraham, who didn’t have the law written down. We have the wonderful gift of the letter, but must remember the Spirit gives life, so we must interpret the letter in Spirit and in Truth.

John 14:25-27:
The Word of God, from Genesis to Revelation, is the authoritative Word of God, and not a single letter or even the dot on the i has been changed. God is the same yesterday, today and forever. His redemptive plan through Jesus was planned from Creation, for He is the one who created all things. He knew, because He is God, that if He gave us free will that we would fall, but He also knew that He would provide us a way back to Him. This is how He could ensure that only those whose deepest desire is to be with Him and to do His will are the ones who will ultimately be with Him. It would be their choice, so that they would not be robots or pets, but His spouse, His helpmate, His companion. It is so important that we now Trust in His promises and rely on His Holy Spirit to help us obey His Word in Spirit and Truth, even in the midst of great terror and persecution, because He is with those who trust in Him and follow Him, no matter what comes our way. We are being prepared to dwell with Him.

John 15:1-27:
As Paul details in Romans 11, we are grafted-in to Israel through the Messiah, Jesus. Whether Jew or Gentile, we must become one with Jesus as the King of Israel in order to bear fruit. Without becoming a part of the Chosen People, we cannot bear fruit for God.

We are “friends” of Jesus if we do what He commanded us. Jesus showed the greatest love for His friends by dying for them. He laid down His life for His friends. If you don’t do what He commanded you, then you are not His friends, and He did not die for you, unless you repent. The sheep and the goats are separated and judged according to the Word of God, when He comes again.

Jesus says repeatedly, “I and the Father are One.” Therefore, there is no differentiation between the Father’s commandments and the Son’s commandments, they are ONE in the same commandments, and they define what “love” actually means. Jesus teaches us proper interpretation, because as men, we mess that up, and so we must receive His Holy Spirit to help us interpret the law. To “love one another as [Jesus] loved you,” we must do what He did. He said, “pick up your cross and follow me.” He said, “Unless you forsake everything you have, you cannot be my disciple.” We must forsake everything about ourselves and fully embrace the law of God and ask for Jesus to help us keep it with His Holy Spirit. Our lives need to change and become like His life, or we cannot be His disciples. The Torah is the letter, and on its own, it condemns all to die, but through the grace of Christ, the Spirit of Christ gives life to it and helps us to understand it so we can apply it with love in our lives.

John 16, John 17, John 18, Psalm 114

Yeshua spoke to us words of encouragement to keep us from stumbling, for if we truly follow Him, we will become outcasts from society. Those who follow a false tradition will look at your ways in Christ and call you a heretic, just as they did Him. Those who persecute or even kill us will believe they are serving God by doing so, but they don’t know the Father and thus will be deceived. Yeshua says to endure. He explained that He would ascend to the Father after His resurrection and leave us here in the world so that He could send His Holy Spirit to dwell within us, to convict the world concerning sin and righteousness and judgment, to guide us in all the Truth, to disclose the knowledge of God in plain language, and to give us peace, despite the tribulation of the world. He instructs us to be in the world, but not of the world. To wait through the tribulation until He comes again, for that will be a time of great joy.

Next, Yeshua explains that eternal life is to know God by knowing Him, which is to study Scripture with the help of the Holy Spirit, to spend time in prayer, and to wait on the Lord for His guidance by the Holy Spirit. In His magnificent prayer on our behalf, He prays for those who are His, and not for those who reject Him. He prays for those whom He is sending out to preach His Gospel, but also for us, who believe on account of their work. He prays that we may be one with Him as He is one with God, and one day, during the Marriage Supper of the Lamb, as Christ comes for His Bride, we will be one in Him. He prays that the Holy Spirit keeps us away from the evil one, and likewise we should pray.

As Yeshua faces Pilate, He explains that He is a king, but not of this world, that that His role was to “testify to the truth,” which is the Word of God. He embodied the Truth, yes, but He also taught the Truth from Scripture. Pilate admits, “I find no guilt in Him.” He was perfect, flawless, and both Jews and Gentiles testify to this. And yet they put Him to death as our Passover Lamb—as the sacrifice to end all sacrifice, so our sins could be forgiven. He taught openly in synagogues and in the temples on Sabbaths and Holy Days, and we should do likewise. He stood before His enemies who condemned Him and did not rebel, but stood firm to the Truth. We should do likewise. Whether it is our calling to die for Him or not, the Holy Spirit will support us during that hour, but in the meantime, we ought to preach His Truth to all who will listen, even though we know beforehand that we will be rejected. We don’t do this for ourselves, but for God, and in Christ, we will be rewarded in Heaven. Our hope is to be with Him when He comes, and there is frankly nothing else to live for. He is the creator and the purpose of life.

Addendum from study on John: 'Journey Through John: Upper Room Discourse,' by David Cook:
https://www.bible.com/en/reading-plans/11214

John 16:1-16
We ought to expect that the Truth we preach will not be accepted by the world, but more so than this, it will not be accepted by other people who say they follow Jesus. Most Christians will get it wrong—it is a narrow road indeed. Therefore, those who rebuke the Truth will believe they are doing so offering service to God. They actually don’t know the Father and they don’t know Jesus, and this is why they reject the Truth. The hour has come for persecution of God’s elect, and it is helpful to read the Lord’s words to remind me of these things. It is good that the Lord’s Holy Spirit dwells within me, for He helps me to understand and discern the Truth of God from all of Scripture.

The Holy Spirit also uses me to convict the world concerning sin and righteousness and judgment, which is this: It requires faith in Jesus to be forgiven of sin, and so by teaching people about God’s commandments, we reveal the need to believe in Jesus for salvation, and we believe in the commandments on account of the Lord giving them to us and asking us to keep them. In these two witnesses, we know that some will be judged and reserved for eternal damnation and others will be judged for eternal life with God. The Spirit guides the faithful in all of Truth, glorifying Christ, explaining the ways of the Father to us so that we can abide in them. A little while longer and the day will come when Yeshua comes on the clouds of Heaven. It is not far off. Whether we wake up from our sleep in the grave or He comes in our lifetime, there isn’t much time left, so we must repent and follow Him now.

John 16:17-33
We can’t imagine what it would have been like to dwell with God in the flesh, to follow Him, to be His personal friend, to see Him heal, to come to know Him and love Him, to expect Him to take the throne and bring in the great Messianic age, and then to see Him be crucified and die. Sorrow may not be a strong enough word, despondence might not even be strong enough. The woman in labor metaphor refers to the Last Days and applies to what we’re going through today, but first Jesus speaks about the world rejoicing while the disciples weep and lament about His death; about their sorrow, which will be turned into joy. They would see Jesus resurrected. What an emotional three days! It truly is hard to imagine. But then even beyond this, this resurrected Messiah would tell them again that He was going away. He would go away so they could receive the Holy Spirit, so they could ask in the name of Jesus, and anything that was according to His will would miraculously occur.

He was telling the disciples these things so they would have peace, so they would know what to expect and come to a resolve to do God’s will despite things not going according to their expectations. In fact, things would get worse from a worldly perspective. Not only would Jesus no longer walk physically with them in the world, but they would face tribulation like He did, up to and including death on the cross. And so might we. The most wonderful Truth of all is that this world is not what we live for, and this world has been overcome. Just like a woman giving birth, she labors in pain and sorrow, but then rejoices upon the new life that is born into the world, so too do we live in this world of tribulation, suffering with sorrow and pain, but when Jesus comes again, our hearts will rejoice, and no one will take that joy from us, because we will dwell with Him forever in His Kingdom. So long as we put our Trust in Him and do His will, the New Heaven and New Earth will be our forever home, because He has overcome the World.

John 17:1-5:
Jesus is God! He is “one in being with the Father.” He was “begotten not made,” as we see in John 1:14, 3:16, 3:18. He is the “only begotten son of the Father.” In Isaiah 9:6-7, He is “Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.” In Philippians 2:5-11, He was in the form of God, and it was not robbery for Him to be equal with God, but He humbled himself into the likeness of men, but because of this God gave Him a name above every name, so that every tongue would confess that “Yeshua HaMashiach IS Yahweh,” or “Jesus Christ IS Yahweh,” to the glory of God the Father. There are hundreds of other references. We see angels and men that ask men not to worship them, such as the angel in Revelation or Peter with Cornelius. Jesus, on the other hand, not only accepted worship, He encouraged it (Matthew 28:17, John 20:28). Jesus is the “one who is, who was, and who is to come.” (Revelation 1:4).

In Jn. 8:58, He tells His accusers, “before Abraham was, I AM.” That’s ego eimi (ἐγὼ εἰμί). He uses this term regarding Himself many times: Mt. 14:27, Mk. 6:50, Mk. 13:6, Lk. 21:8, Mk. 14:62, Lk. 22:70, Jn. 4:26, Jn. 6:20, Jn. 8:24, Jn. 8:28, Jn. 8:58 (see above), Jn. 9:9, Jn. 13:19, and Jn. 18:5,6,8, and I’m sure there are others. The phrase, “ego eimi” (I AM), occurs in the Septuagint (LXX) in a number places—Deut. 32:39, Is. 41:4, 43:10, 13, 25, 45:19, 46:4, 48:12, 51:12, 52:6, among others—and always refers to the One and Only Great Yahweh God Almighty. This is why in Jn. 8:59, the Lord’s accusers pick up stones to throw at Him. The LXX does not do justice in its translation of Exodus 3:14, which is where God speaks from the burning bush saying “I am who I am” (asher-ehyeh-asher—אֶֽהְיֶ֑ה אֲשֶׁ֣ר אֶֽהְיֶ֖ה). You can see in Hebrew the words are a mirror, and ought to be translated “ego eimi ho ego eimi” (ἐγώ εἰμι ὁ ἐγώ εἰμι) in the Greek, but the LXX uses, “I am the being” (ego eimi ho on— ἐγώ εἰμι ὁ ὤν), which is more of a meaning-to-meaning translation than a literal word-for-word translation. In any case, “ego eimi” is undoubtably a reference to the One True God, and Jesus clearly claims this as His identity.

It may be difficult in our human perception, other than through reading Philippians 2:5-11 or John’s references, to understand how God the Father and God the Son are One Being. The early church adopted the “Trinity” doctrine, which is not wrong, but perhaps imprecise, to try and explain this. The use of the words “three persons” in English refer to three different beings that are united as one power, and that can be confusing in English, particularly to a monotheistic Jew. Jews often discount Jesus on account of this concept, calling it polytheism, and they have a point when they point this out. The language is imprecise and easily misinterpreted. The Truth is quite the opposite of the interpretation I’ve just expressed, and the complete Truth is one that many Jews welcome, which is why they’ve been coming into faith in Messiah Yeshua. He is the integral component of their own theology, when properly explained. This more precise expression may be one way you and I can convince Jews to start proclaiming, “Blessed is He who comes in the Name of the Lord,” a precursor to His return.

Stemming from Philo’s “two powers doctrine,” which predates Christ by a generation, the Scripture shows an invisible God who we cannot see, lest we die, and a visible God who shows Himself to many who do not die. The visible God is what many Christians have called a “Christophany,” or a pre-incarnate appearance of Jesus, and I believe this to be exactly right. He appeared before Abraham, for instance, among many others. Philo of Alexandria concludes that God manifests Himself by these two powers in order to interact with us and in order to rule from His throne in all of His holiness. Hovering around the philosophy is God’s Shekinah, a Holy Spirit manifestation who can be seen as a thick cloud or as a fire, as the finger of God that wrote the Ten Commandments or wrote on the wall in Babylon, and as the tongues of fire that descended on the believers at the first New Covenant Pentecost (Shavuot). The Holy Spirit is a third “power” or “manifestation” of God, and the “Father” and the “Son” are two other “powers” or “manifestations” of One God.

So here is a more precise expression in English of who God really is: God is One “person” who “manifests” “His power” in “three different ways,” as the invisible Father, the visible Son, and the Holy Spirit that unites all who belong to Him. He was begotten, not made, when He was born in the flesh through the immaculate conception and pregnancy of Mary, but He was God before this, and God after this, and God during His incarnation as well, even though He chose not to exercise His fully Godly power. While He lived in the flesh, God’s power was manifested in the body of Jesus, but God was also manifesting His power as the Father as well as through the Holy Spirit, and at the same time, there was, is, and always will be only one God. As a necessary conclusion of all of this, Jesus was not a man who shows us how we can become God also, but He was, is and shall be God who invites us to be wed to Him on the Last Day and become His bride, His helpmate, His companion, to dwell with Him for eternity. We become “one” with God in the way that a husband becomes one with His wife, but Jesus in the flesh was one with God in that He was, is, and ever shall be God Himself.

So when Jesus prayed to the Father, He speaks from His fleshly body that He Himself took on, limiting Himself intentionally so that He could make the way through the impassible barrier that separated God and Man; namely, the impassible barrier of sin, which is lawlessness. God being Holy, He could not abide with anything that is not perfect like He is perfect, which is why no man could see His face and live. Therefore, He who is perfect came and lived as one of us as a perfect man in the flesh, both to show us how to live the way He intended us to live, but also to die as our redeemer. As the perfect, unblemished sacrifice, only He could break the impasse and create a way for man to stand before God. His blood would atone for our sin, if we accept Him as our sacrifice and then follow Him by walking in the same way that He walked. He invites us in John 14 to love Him by becoming obedient to God following repentance by His blood, which gives us a clean slate, and He promises that He will help us become “perfect as your Heavenly Father is perfect” by sending His Holy Spirit to dwell in us and guide our every word and deed.

In John 17, the Son is approaching the moment of sacrifice, the one-time sacrifice that would atone for sins, and in His obedience, He willingly offers Himself up so that the Father could be glorified before Man through the death and resurrection of the Son. The Father has given the Son authority over all flesh, so that through His death and resurrection, the free gift of grace, all those who choose to believe in Him can have eternal life, but those who don’t the Word of God itself will condemn. The Father has called all men to this grace, and has thus given all flesh to the Son, but as we read in other parts of Scripture that clarify this verse, not all flesh will accept Him. Thus, only those who choose the Son and follow Him can be saved unto eternal life. John 3:18 is a perfect example of this: “Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because they have not believed in the name of God’s one and only Son.” Matthew 7:21 is another: “Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father in heaven.” We must accept the free gift of salvation, that is our choice, and then we must choose to do the will of the Father, with the help of the Holy Spirit.

Upon accepting this free gift, we receive salvation, and walk with God being born again into eternal life. “This is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent.” The Father and the Son, both manifestations of God, can be known only by those who accept Him. This is remarkable, for no man can see the Face of God and live, but because of what Jesus accomplished in the flesh, we can live forever in the presence of Almighty God. When Jesus, who was in the flesh, says “glorify Me together with Yourself, with the glory which I had with You before the world was,” we see the reality of our One God. After His resurrection and ascention into Heaven, Jesus became One with the Father once more, no longer separated as a different manifestation. He is sitting at the right hand of God, meaning that He is the Word and the deeds of the Father manifested in the World through the Holy Spirit.

In Zechariah 14:9, we see that when Jesus comes again on the clouds of Heaven and collects His Saints, whether Jew or Gentile, those who have patiently endured by keeping the commandments of God and the faith in Messiah Yeshua, He will bring in a New Heaven and a New Earth where we will dwell with God forever. While described in Revelation 21 and 22 quite beautifully, we don’t want to miss Zechariah’s key Truth: “And the Lord shall be King over all the earth. In that day it shall be—“The Lord is one,” and His name one.” Paul describes this also in 1 Corinthians 15:28, “Now when all things are made subject to Him, then the Son Himself will also be subject to Him who put all things under Him, that God may be all in all.” His name will be Yeshua, the One God who existed from the beginning, who exists today, and who always will be God. We read in Revelation 1:8, from “the Revelation of Jesus Christ:” “I am the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End,” says the Lord, “who is and who was and who is to come, the Almighty.” And we know from Hebrews 13:8, “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever.” Yeshua is God, and He has made a way for us, if we decide to follow Him.

For further research: https://hermeneutics.stackexchange.com/questions/59842/i-am-in-greek-septuagint-translation-of-exodus-314-vs-john-858-how-do-the

John 17:6-19:
In this section of John 17, Jesus prays specifically for the apostles that would launch the ministry for the Saints following the death, resurrection and ascension of our Lord. These are the ones who Jesus called—presumably at the prompting of the Holy Spirit—and who dropped everything to follow Him. These would establish the Body of Christ, the Temple of the Living God. Jesus notes in a key verse that “I was keeping them in Your name which you have given Me, and I guarded them and not one of them perished but the son of perdition, so that the Scripture would be fulfilled.” While God knew that Judas would fall, Judas still made that choice on his own, for we are imbued with free will. Both things are true: God can know what’s going to happen to us, because He is outside time and space, but he also can leave the decision up to each of us to make. Just because He knows our decisions before we make them does not mean that He predestines us to make them. He may even prompt us through intercession to make certain choices, but the choice is still up to us. Judas did not have to get up and leave the room to betray Jesus; He made that choice himself.

Those who chose to remain with Jesus would glorify Jesus through their ministry once they received the Holy Spirit on Shavuot (Pentecost), which Jesus had just promised them in John 14. Jesus also prays in another very particular way that further shows our free will: “I do not ask You to take them out of the world, but to keep them from the evil one.” The evil one prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone of faith to devour. He already has the doubters and the unfaithful. The persecution that would follow Jesus’s ascension would turn the fainthearted away, and many who came into the faith on account of the apostles’ teaching fell away against this persecution; history shows this happening. But the 11 who stayed faithful to Christ did not, and they went to their own deaths proclaiming the Gospel, which is why we still have it today. If they had not been telling the absolute Truth, they would not have all went to their death proclaiming it. Jesus’s prayer to “sanctify them in the truth,” which He defines as the Word of God, was fulfilled, and they taught the whole counsel of God to their dying breath.

We read John write in Revelation 14:12: “Here is the patience of the Saints; here are they who keep the commandments of God and the faith of Jesus.” This is what the apostles taught, and it was through their teaching, which extended the ministry of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, that we all believe today. In the last section of John 17, which we’ll presumably read next, Jesus prays for those who would come to know Him through the apostles’ ministry, which includes you and me. It’s important to note that in this section of the Lord’s prayer, He is referring only to His apostles. These apostles are going to be the very foundation of the New Jerusalem, the Temple of God that is being built, with Christ as the cornerstone. In Revelation 21, Jesus describes the Holy City that will descend from Heaven and become the center of the New Heaven and New Earth, and verse 14 in particular is what I refer to: “Now the wall of the city had twelve foundations, and on them were the names of the twelve apostles of the Lamb.” We, who build on the foundations of the temple, God-willing with “gold, silver, jewels” (1 Corinthians 3), can’t even be a part of the structure without their teaching.

John 17:20-26
When Thomas put his fingers into the side of Jesus’s resurrected, previously wounded body that retained the scars of where He was pierced, He said, “My Lord and My God.” In response, Jesus said in John 20:29, “Thomas, because you have seen Me, you have believed. Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.” Our verses in John 17:20-26 are concerning those who “have not seen and yet have believed,” those of us who believe in the ministry of Jesus in the flesh, His death, and His resurrection through the Word of those apostles that Jesus wrote about in the rest of this chapter. It is in the context of this verse—“I do not ask on behalf of these alone, but for those also who believe in Me through their word”—that we know Jesus is now praying for you and me, and beforehand, He was praying only about His apostles. We should read John 17 in this context, for it is highly instructive.

As Jesus prays for you and me, He prays that we may be One in Him on the Last day, perfected in unity, so the world will know that the Father sent Jesus. He prays that we too will see His glory on the Last Day, which of course is God’s will for us, that we all will be saved, but not all of us will be. If we accept God’s free gift of grace, which is an act of our free will alone, we will be risen on the Last Day and we will stand with Christ in His glory. On that Day, “every eye will see Him, even those who pierced Him” (Revelation 1:7), and every man and woman will be judged. At that time, only if we have freely chosen to trust in Jesus and obey His commandments will we inherit eternal life, for all will be resurrected from the dead or change in the blink of an eye, but there will then be a division in that resurrection: “Do not marvel at this; for the hour is coming in which all who are in the graves will hear His voice and come forth— Those who have done good, to the resurrection of life, and those who have done evil, to the resurrection of condemnation.” (John 5:28-29)

This is Jesus’s desire about you and me: “that they also, whom You have given Me, be with Me where I am, so that they may see My glory which You have given Me.” Despite God’s will and Jesus’s desire for each of us, we must choose Him. He leaves this up to us, and does not force our hand. A gift is given, but must be accepted. An invitation to follow Him has been offered, but must be acted on. Without our own conscience decision, there is no faith and no salvation. “But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves” (James 1:22). “Faith without works is dead.” (James 2:20)

Jesus says: “The one who overcomes will be clothed the same way, in white garments; and I will not erase his name from the book of life, and I will confess his name before My Father and before His angels.” (Revelation 3:5) The Lord said to Moses, “Whoever has sinned against Me, I will blot him out of My book.” The Word also says, “If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” (1 John 1:9) “I call heaven and earth as witnesses today against you, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing; therefore choose life, that both you and your descendants may live.” (Deuteronomy 30:19) We have free will and must use it to choose God. "Here is the patience of the Saints: here are they who keep the commandments of God and the faith of Jesus." (Revelation 14:12) Those who endure in the faith will be one with Him as His Bride on that Last Day.

John 19, John 20, John 21, Psalm 115

Pilate has no authority to crucify Yeshua on his own, but only God can enable him to crucify Jesus. This is an important point of consideration. God, who is being crucified, gave Pilate the authority to crucify Him. Thus, this was God’s plan, and He freely offered Himself up on our behalf. Pilate even tried to get out of carrying through with the execution, but God did not let him. God used his human weakness, for he did not want to be accused of going against Caesar, to ensure the crucifixion was completed on Passover, just as it was foretold from old. John includes several fulfilled prophesies here that have deeper meaning, but the point is this: Yeshua is the prophesied Messiah, who died to take the sins away from those who confess Him.

On Sunday morning before the sun came up, Yeshua was missing from the tomb, but He appeared before Mary and showed Himself to her first. This was recorded, I believe, for the most important point that comes next: “I have not yet ascended to the Father … I ascend to My Father and your Father, and My God and your God.” To fully fulfill prophesy, Yeshua had to be waived as a waive offering before the throne of God in Heaven. He was the First Fruits of the Resurrection, and as such, He had to ascend before He could appear before the world in victory.

Later that same Sunday night, He did appear to the Apostles and offered them “shalom,” for in the fulness of Christ we are complete and at rest. It is in the peace that we have through Him that He sends us out to make disciples, with full confidence that He has saved us from our sins and that He will guide us to help us walk blamelessly in Him. On the last Day of the Feast, he appeared before the Apostles again, and particularly to Thomas, and this appearance is meant to send a message to you and me: “Blessed are they who did not see, and yet believed.”

The other Gospels indicate that Jesus appeared many times before He ultimately ascended to sit on the right hand of the Father, but we know that He appeared to the Apostles again by the Sea of Tiberias. He instructs them to throw their net into the water on the right side of the boat, instead of the left, and this is important. No longer would the Apostles hide the knowledge of God that was shared with them when He came in the flesh, but now they would share the knowledge of God through their actions, with everything they say and everything they do. This is what the right hand represents. Notice that the fish respond to a fisherman who is not a hypocrite, who says what he does and does what he says. This is why the fish respond to the net on the right side, but not the left.

Yeshua asks Peter twice, do you “agapas” me?, meaning, are you willing to sacrifice everything to do my will? Peter says that He cares for Yeshua, and loves Him, as a friend, He “philo se” Yeshua. This tells me that he was hurting from denying Yeshua just before the crucifixion, and Yeshua needed to build him back up. At the Last Supper, Peter said he would never stumble and he would follow Yeshua even to the cross, and then Yeshua prophesied that Peter would deny him three times, and it happened, devastating him. Now Yeshua was building him back up, asking Him to confirm three times that he loves Him. The third time, Yeshua asks, "do you "phileis me" Peter? Yeshua takes Himself to Peter's level, giving him the opportunity for redemption. Peter responds again, yes I do, three times confirming His love for the Lord. Next, Yeshua prepares Peter for the mission that is ahead of him, pointing out that he will have to sacrifice himself for Yeshua in the end. “Truly, truly, I say to you, when you were younger, you used to gird yourself and walk wherever you wished; but when you grow old, you will stretch out your hands and someone else will gird you, and bring you where you do not wish to go.”

Yeshua tells Peter, feed and care for my sheep, and when you are older, you will be ready to sacrifice yourself fully for me. It took the Holy Spirit to get Peter to the place where he would have the strength to do this, but He did ultimately give his life in that way. And only with the Holy Spirit do any of us have this strength to fully follow Yeshua like this. To further direct Peter to his own mission field, note that Peter asks about John and whether John will die the same way Yeshua is saying Peter will die. Yeshua tells Peter, as He tells all of us: Concern yourself with your own walk when it comes to your relationship with God, rather than concern yourself with what others are doing. Do what the Lord asks of you, and not what He asks of another. This doesn’t mean that we aren’t to care for one another or exhort them in the Word, but it does mean that we are all different parts of the Body of Christ and we all have our own walk with Him.

We ought to do what Yeshua asks of us, and not what He asks of another. He told me: Feed my sheep. Three times. This is the same thing He told Peter. He later said, “It’s you,” when I asked Him who was the pastor that I was looking for in NH. God knows what my end will be, but everything inside of me says that to make it to Heaven I will have to follow Christ all the way to the death, in the same way as Peter, and not in the same way as John. I pray for His strength, for I cannot do whatever He asks of me without His Spirit, but like Peter ultimately exhibited, I also say, “yes, Lord, I agape you.” Thank God we have the apostles as giants in the faith and models for us to look up to; for as they followed Yeshua and gave us the faith we have today through their words, we follow Yeshua because of the work they did to preserve the Truth of the Gospel. We owe them all a great debt of gratitude and honor, and we truly ought to pray & strive to approach the same level of faith that they had.

Luke 1, Psalm 116

Luke was a physician who became a disciple of Paul and wrote 27.5% percent of the New Testament, his version of the Gospel account as well as the book of Acts. He wrote more of the New Testament than anyone else. He makes it very clear that He has compiled an account of the things that were handed down from the eyewitnesses and servants of the Word, and that he has taken special care to investigate everything and write it down in order, so that we might know the exact truth about the things that we have been taught. A few things ought to strike us here: 1) He is a physician, and thus precise and purposeful, working to get everything right; 2) He was a disciple of Paul, and thus learned the Gospel from Paul, and then wrote this Gospel with the help of other collections of writings that he personally verified; and 3) He makes a point to note the chronology of the events as being precise, and so we can look to Luke’s telling as historically accurate.

And so it is important that he emphasizes that Zacharias was of the division of Abijah and was ministering in the Temple during that custom when the angel appeared to him there, and that when he left this duty to go home, he impregnated Elizabeth, and six months later, Mary was impregnated with Yeshua by the Holy Spirit. We must assume that both pregnancies lasted nine months, as they typically do, and thus can say with reasonable certainty that Yeshua was born during the Feast of Tabernacles, although there is a possibility, because priests of the order of Abijah served in the temple during two distinct times of the year, that He could have been born during the Feast of Hanukkah. However, considering that the Feast of Tabernacles is about God coming to dwell among us, and it is the first possible time for Yeshua to be born, and God certainly did a new thing by coming in the flesh, I believe that Luke is pointing out the details to show us when Yeshua was born; namely, during the Fall harvest during the Feast of Tabernacles. He is the light of the world, and the other possibility also has meaning. While we can’t be certain, it is good to consider the clues Luke has left us and look to the significance of God’s Holy Convocations to better understand Christ.

John’s role was not insignificant, for He was to be great in the sight of the Lord, to take a Nazarite vow from birth, to be filled with the Holy Spirit from the time he entered his mother’s womb (let that fact sink in), and he would turn many sons of Israel back to God to prepare them for the coming of Yeshua. He would have the spirit and power of Elijah, to turns the hearts of the fathers to the children, and the disobedient to the attitude of the righteous. For we must repent and turn toward God’s righteous to receive the grace afforded through Yeshua as a free gift, to forgive us from our sins. Zacharias did not believe the angel’s prophesy at first, and thus suffered from being mute until he spoke the name of his son to those standing by at his circumcision on the eighth day.

Mary on the other hand, with humility instantly accepted the Word of God that she received, which allowed the Holy Spirit to impregnate her with the Lord God of Heaven and Earth who became flesh in her. Surely, Mary is blessed among women, for no other person who ever lived can ever say they gave birth to God Most High. Nevertheless, as a woman, Mary also sinned, for none of us are fully righteous, no not even her, and thus she needed her son’s forgiveness in His death and resurrection to receive salvation. Yet, her faith was certainly accounted to her as righteousness, for God could not have otherwise come to dwell in her. She gave birth to the Messiah, the savior of the world, the very Son of God. The Holy Spirit wanted this to be known. John, who would later announce the coming of Yeshua, announced His coming as a pre-born child by leaping in the womb at Mary’s arrival. She was bearing the Son of God; how could anyone filled with the Holy Spirit not leap?

Mary, despite being chosen by God to bear His Son, humbles herself. Her soul exalted the Lord, and Her spirit rejoiced in God her Savior! She too needed her Son Jesus to save her. From that time on all generations ought to call her blessed, for what a blessing it is to bear the Son of God, for He would bring mercy upon generation after generation for those who FEAR Him. Those who are proud would be scattered, while those who are humble and follow after Him alone would be exalted. He would bring salvation to Israel His servant, in remembrance of His mercy and promises that He spoke to the fathers. He would be risen up as a horn of salvation, the very power of God, to show mercy toward Israel and remember His covenant sworn to Abraham. Let us do as Zechariah prophesied here, and serve Him in holiness and righteousness before Him all our days.

Luke 2, Luke 3, Psalm 117

Luke, again a student of Paul, emphasizes the law in almost every line. From His very birth, Yeshua kept the law, and we know that He didn’t have a single blemish as the Passover Lamb. He was blameless.

Luke 2 includes some major prophesies: 1) angels appeared to shepherds, bringing “good news of great joy for all the people,” the Messiah had  been born. 2) God told Simeon he would live to see Messiah, and right before his death, he saw Yeshua, God’s salvation, who was prepared in the presence of all peoples, a light of revelation to the gentiles and the glory of God’s people Israel. 3) Simeon continued, Yeshua would come to bring the fall and rise of many in Israel, He would be opposed, and He would bring a sword (the Word of God) to pierce even Mary’s soul, for His Truth would convict many and reveal their hearts. 4) Yeshua was found as a 12 year old in His “Father’s house,” and He was humbly conversing with the teachers, both listening to them and asking them questions. He continued to grow wise from this point.

As Annas and Caiaphas became High Priests, Yochanan the Immerser went out and prophesied how Yeshua would baptize with the Holy Spirit and fire, that He would collect the wheat into the barn, and burn up all the chaff with unquenchable fire. He prepared the way for salvation by preaching a baptism with water for repentance and forgiveness of sins. This is necessary before we can be truly saved by Christ, for how can we be forgiven what we don’t ask Him to forgive? The Lord forgives those who turn toward Him and away from sin.

Luke 4, Luke 5, Psalm 118

Satan tempts us after we are saved, baptized and receive the Holy Spirit, not before, because before all that we are living fully in Satan’s domain. Why would he have anything to do with his slaves, who he orders to do his will and who do it without any effort. It is the easy, wide road, after all. And so we should expect, as Christians saved by the blood of Yeshua, baptized by choice unto His death so that we can die to our flesh, and baptized with the Holy Spirit unto life everlasting, that Satan will come after us, because he wants us back. He will cajole us using our flesh, he will demand worship, he will demand we test God’s promises and call them into question. He will use Scripture to do all this, and he will twist it for his own devices. Yeshua, God in the flesh, by the Power of His Holy Spirit, showed us how to do Spiritual warfare. We live not on bread, but on the Word of God, which we must read every day from Genesis to Revelation. We worship God alone, and God is Spirit, we do not worship idols or images or any other flashy thing in this world that might call our attention. We do not allow Satan to lead us into temptation against God’s Word. We do not test God’s Word with pride, but humbly follow it and trust in His promises.

The demons know who God is, and they know who belongs to God. They do not have power in our presence, but rather, in Christ, we have power over them. Yeshua said, do not rejoice that you have power over demons but that your names are written in the Book of Life. Humility, not pride, must be our mindset. As Paul said, boast alone in Messiah. Peter showed us the right attitude, “go away from me Lord, for I am a sinful man!” But the Lord say “no,” as He says to you and me. He knocks and knocks and knocks with long-suffering, not desiring that a single one perish in the fire. He said, “Do not fear, from now on you will be catching men.” He forgives our sin so that we can follow Him. We should do as Matthew did, and drop absolutely everything in our former lives of the flesh that do not edify us or others in Messiah, and follow Messiah with every moment of every day from the time that we meet Him and accept Him. We must say, “if you are willing, Lord, you can make me clean.” He is willing, He says, “be cleansed.” When He sees our faith in Him and what He has accomplished, He says, “your sins are forgiven you.” We must obey Him and pick up our bed and walk. We must eat with tax collectors and sinners, but not join them. Rather, through Christ’s example we ought to lead them to repentance. Only then should they join us in the Holy Convocation. We must meet in the synagogue/church every Sabbath and learn from the Word of our Lord. We must testify by the law of our freedom in Christ, for the law written on our hearts by the Holy Spirit is the “perfect law of liberty.”

The two commandments Yeshua cited (or confirmed, depending on which Gospel you read) are from the Torah (Deuteronomy 6:5 and Leviticus 19:18), the eternal law of God, which is His love language. It was not a new thing that Yeshua instructed us to follow these two commandments as the greatest—the key, if you will, to understanding all of them. The young ruler was correct when he cited these commandments from Torah, and Yeshua confirmed a common understanding that they were the greatest. That was not new, and it wasn’t a new understanding. The new understanding was to interpret all of the commandments of Torah according to the example of Yeshua, which we did not have before He came in the flesh. It goes beyond this, though, which Paul explains in Romans 7-8 quite well, we must receive Yeshua’s Holy Spirit to now help us interpret the law of God according to Spirit and Truth, so that we can keep it as He did.

The old wineskins were the interpretations of the Rabbis that were called the “oral law” at the time of Yeshua, but were later recorded in the Talmud Bavli (or Babylonian Talmud) and the Talmud Yerushalmi, also known as the Jerusalem (or Palestinian) Talmud. These are 1552 and 2711 double-sided pages respectively, full of the laws of the Rabbis, which some have called mountains that are held up by the strings of Torah. If you don’t understand the metaphor, consider that the corner fringes God commands us to wear on our garments to remind us of His law in Numb. 15:38. The mountains are what Man has attached to them, the “heavy burdens that are hard to bear.“ For those fully invested in those mountains, it’s hard to cut them off, which is why you cannot put new wine in those wineskins. However, for those who have not learned to navigate those mountains, it is easy for them to keep the commandments of God, represented by the strings, and these are the people to whom Yeshua taught God’s law.

Mark 7 makes a key distinction between the “traditions of the elders” and the “commandments of God,” and clearly we must keep the latter, but not the former. The “traditions of the elders” are those mountains from Talmud, which came from the oral tradition of the Jews. Rabbinical Judaism fully depends on them today. The commandments of God are found in Torah, and interpreted in Spirit and Truth through Yeshua’s example and by the Power of the Holy Spirit living in those of us who believe in and obey the Lord, for faith without works is dead. Those who are saved depend fully on Yeshua and obey His commandments with His help. The Lord can pour His new wine in the wineskins of those who are ready to accept the Truth and nearly impossible for those who have bought the lie, but nothing is impossible with God.

Give thanks to the Lord, for He is good, His lovingkindness is everlasting. The Lord is for me; I will not fear; what can man do to me? It is better to take refuge in the Lord than to trust in man, or princes. The Lord is my strength and my song, and He has become my salvation. Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord.

Luke 6, Luke 7, Psalm 119

Deuteronomy 23:25 says, “When you come into your neighbor’s standing grain, you may pluck the heads with your hand, but you shall not use a sickle on your neighbor’s standing grain.” It is clear that Luke 6 begins by showing Yeshua obeying, rather than breaking, this commandment: “Now it happened that He was passing through some grainfields on a Sabbath; and His disciples were picking the heads of grain, rubbing them in their hands, and eating the grain.” Yeshua was the “SPOTLESS” Lamb of God. He didn’t violate a single commandment of God, nor did He allow His disciples to do so, and He still commands obedience to the commandments of God, which we will do if we love Him. With this understanding, we can unpack the teaching here and recognize that the many Talmudic laws, which were in Yeshua’s day the “oral tradition” of the elders, is the problem here, and not the Law of God, which says to “Remember the Sabbath Day and Keep it Holy.”

Yeshua kept the commandments, for He Himself is the Lord of the Sabbath. He created the Sabbath so that we would have a day to spend fully with Him and rehearse our time with Him in eternity. All we have to do is read the first few chapters of Genesis to learn that WORK is the curse, and the Sabbath, the day when we shall do NO WORK, is the blessing. But we should not allow Pharisees to judge us when it comes to how we observe the Sabbath, for God’s law is simple and elegant, and not complex. We shall do no work. We shall not cook or clean. We shall not buy or sell. We should give the day to God. There is nothing else to it, according to the law of God. There are no other requirements, but the Rabbis seem to think they know better than God what it means to break the Sabbath. They don’t. God knows better.

And so we know that it is lawful to “do good on the Sabbath,” and to “heal on the Sabbath.” In fact, we should be praying for healing and witnessing the healing power of God on the Sabbath. This is something Yeshua encourages us to do. But notice, that “on another Sabbath He entered the synagogue and was teaching.” He wasn’t out in the world on the Sabbath doing His own thing. He was in the synagogue on the Sabbath teaching, which is where we should be also, either teaching or learning, depending on the role He has given us. If on the way to church, on the way home, or at church itself there is an opportunity to do good—help someone change a flat tire, or heal someone who has a bad knee—then we ought to do that if the Holy Spirit so directs us. Who knows if that’s someone God wants us to bring with us to church, who doesn’t know Yeshua and YOU are their only chance. We can’t be like the Levite and the Priest who passed the injured Jew on the other side of the road, but like the good Samaritan who helped him.

There is no doubt whatsoever that the Greatest Commandments are the key to understanding all of the law of God, but love does not give us an excuse to fully disregard the law of God. Rather, it is with love that we ought to interpret and keep the law of God. Love for God, and love for one another. When we read the commandment to keep the Sabbath, we ought to keep it, because we love God. When we are on the way to church on Saturday and encounter someone who needs help, we ought to help them, because we love God and we love one another. When we read about adulterer who was weeping on Yeshua’s feet and anointing them with perfume, we ought to consider His long-suffering and loving-kindness and mercy endure forever, and while the woman has committed sin worthy of death, which one of us hasn’t? It is with love that we approach Yeshua and ask for His forgiveness, worshipping Him and praising Him so that we can “go and sin no more.” And so as we prepare to teach, we must first address our own sins and turn from them before we open our mouths.

Luke’s beatitudes contain a terrifying portion not included in Matthew’s version; namely, that those who are rich, well-fed, who laugh, and who receive praise will receive great woe. This is not to say that these will end-up in Hell, but it is certainly leaning that way. It is easier for a camel to thread a needle than for these to make it into Heaven, but with God everything is possible. If God has blessed us with abundance, do we give the glory to God? Do we share in our abundance with others? These are the questions we must ask ourselves. In America, we are wealthier than any other nation on Earth, even still in the moral depravity we now dwell. Yet, it is in that moral depravity that we are “wretched, miserable, poor, blind, and naked.” Yeshua instructs us to buy from Him gold refined in the fire, white garments to clothe us and salve for our eyes so we can see. This means that we must do the works of the law, and flee from sin and open our eyes to see His law, so that we can be zealous and repent, and walk with Him according to His ways, and not our ways.

“Everyone, after he has been fully trained, will be like his teacher,” Yeshua said. Do we bear good fruit? Do we do the works of the law? From Psalm 119, we know that the law defines righteousness and Truth, and what is good. And “the good man out of the good treasure of his heart brings forth what is good.” Is the law written on our heart? Then we will see obedience to the law in our lives. If we do not see obedience, then what is in that heart of flesh other than evil treasures that we covet and can’t let go. Yeshua can help, if we repent. Those who call themselves Christian, Yeshua asks you directly: “Why do you call Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ and do not do what I say?” If we call Yeshua Lord, we must keep His commandments. The commandments are the strong foundation set on the rock, which is our salvation through Messiah’s sacrifice. Nothing can separate us from the love of God if we love Him and keep His commandments.

John the Baptist does not ask whether Yeshua is the Messiah in Luke 7:19, but rather He asks whether he could expect Yeshua to take the throne during this coming or whether to expect another coming. This is of interest to him because he is in prison awaiting the death sentence. Yeshua has the same answer to John that He has for us. I have come to bring salvation from the second death on account of sin, and look at the prophesies more closely and you will see this described. In other words, the answer is yes, you should expect another coming. John, the greatest man outside of Yeshua Himself, would have to wait in the grave until Yeshua returned to raise the living and the dead. Whether we look to John’s ministry to call sinners to repentance, or Yeshua’s ministry to save repentant sinners, the Pharisees rejected both because they believed in a kingdom of this world run by them and their own oral tradition. We must have faith and hope in the one who promises eternal life, for His promises are faithful and will come to pass when we least expect.

Here are some key nuggets of Truth from Psalm 119: “How blessed are those whose way is blameless, Who walk in the law of the Lord … Who seek Him with all their heart. They also do no unrighteousness; They walk in His ways. … Open my eyes, that I may behold Wonderful things from Your law. … You rebuke the arrogant, the cursed, Who wander from Your commandments. … Take away reproach and contempt from me, For I observe Your testimonies. Your testimonies also are my delight; They are my counselors. … Incline my heart to Your testimonies And not to dishonest gain. …May Your lovingkindnesses also come to me, O Lord, Your salvation according to Your word; So I will have an answer for him who reproaches me, For I trust in Your word. … and I will walk at liberty, For I seek Your precepts. … I shall delight in Your commandments, Which I love. … Teach me good discernment and knowledge, For I believe in Your commandments. … Revive me according to Your lovingkindness, So that I may keep the testimony of Your mouth. Forever, O Lord, Your word is settled in heaven. O how I love Your law! It is my meditation all the day. Your commandments make me wiser than my enemies, For they are ever mine. I have more insight than all my teachers, For Your testimonies are my meditation. I understand more than the aged, Because I have observed Your precepts. Your word is a lamp to my feet And a light to my path. I have sworn and I will confirm it, That I will keep Your righteous ordinances. … I hate those who are double-minded, But I love Your law. You have rejected all those who wander from Your statutes, For their deceitfulness is useless …. Establish my footsteps in Your word, And do not let any iniquity have dominion over me. … Your righteousness is an everlasting righteousness, And Your law is truth. … Your testimonies are righteous forever; Give me understanding that I may live. … You are near, O Lord, And all Your commandments are truth. … Of old I have known from Your testimonies That You have founded them forever. … The sum of Your word is truth, And every one of Your righteous ordinances is everlasting. … Those who love Your law have great peace, And nothing causes them to stumble. … I hope for Your salvation, O Lord, And do Your commandments. Let my tongue sing of Your word, For all Your commandments are righteousness. … I have gone astray like a lost sheep; seek Your servant, For I do not forget Your commandments.”

Luke 8, Luke 9, Psalm 120

Read the parable of the sower in Luke 8 carefully, for we have the advantage of Yeshua interpreting this for us, and many of the people following Him did not get this luxury. The parable clearly shows how it is possible to lose your salvation if you are not found producing fruit for the Kingdom of God when He comes. The Word of God falls on the ears of some, who don’t receive it because the devil does not allow them. These are not saved, but reject the Word. The word is received by others, who believe and are joyful, but they don’t move beyond the elementary principles of the Word (see Hebrews 6:1-4). When they are tested in their faith, they fall away, despite their salvation, because they do not have depth of understanding and the Sprit cannot help those who do not fully embrace the commandments of God. Others are saved and begin to follow, but then the persecution they face or the things of the world prevent them from giving everything to the Lord and putting Him first. These too don’t make it, because they have chosen another God besides Yeshua. Only those who receive the Word, believe in Christ for salvation, and then keep His commandments and thus bear fruit in their lives, year after year, with perseverance, will make it into the Kingdom.

The Lord casts out demons into swine of all creatures, which are unclean and clearly chosen by Yeshua for this reason. The man delivered from possession by Legion wants to follow Him, but Yeshua tells Him to follow Him, he must go and preach the Gospel to His community. He obeys. Those who trust in Him and obey Him are His brothers and sisters and mothers, and at this point in His ministry, His own mother and brothers had not yet come to understand this. They do later. We must always put Yeshua first, even before our own families, because this life is perishing, but our soul will live into eternity. Only when we put Yeshua first, shining His light for all to see, despite the consequences, can we be with Him. He will calm the storms in our lives and provide us with everything we need to obey, but He leaves the choice up to us to obey or not.

The woman who reached out in the crowd and was healed “touched the fringe of Yeshua’s cloak.” These were his Tzit-tzit, or corner fringes, which Numbers 15:38 commands all believers to wear. They represent the commandments of God. This woman was healed because she reached out to grasp the commandments of God, as they were embodied in our savior Yeshua. It is not correct to say that He didn’t know who touched Him, because Yeshua is God and He knows all things. He made a point to ask who touched Him in the crowd so that He could teach them about faith. The woman testified to the whole crowd: “she came trembling and fell down before Him, and declared in the presence of all the people the reason why she had touched him, and how she had been immediately healed.” This is why Yeshua asked the question. He said to her, “Daughter, your faith has made you well. Shalom.” In other words, because you believed and ACTED ON YOUR BELIEF, you were healed. Be filled with the wholeness that only God can provide, He said. She is our example.

The girl who died provides another example, right after this, for he tells the parents of the girl, “do not be afraid any longer, only believe, and she will be made well.” Without faith in action, it’s impossible to see the healing power of God. However, with faith in action, He heals the sick and raises the dead. The parents allowed Yeshua, Peter, John and James to come into their home to see the dead girl, which would have made all of them unclean. This was an act of faith in itself, and it is why they didn’t want Yeshua to trouble Himself by coming, because it would have been trouble for Him had the girl stayed dead. He would have had to isolate Himself and wash and remain unclean until evening, according to the law. However, He raised her from the dead, negating any uncleanliness and showing yet another example of faith in action.

Yeshua multiplied loves and fish to feed thousands, because with God He provides abundance out of our simple act of faith to trust in Him. Not only do all eat, but they are satisfied, and there is left over food to eat. This is the same thing He can do for you and me if we trust in Him and obey His commandments. Nothing but blessings will come, if not in this life, then in the next. And that leads us to the point where He makes it clear that persecution, suffering and even death will come to those who truly follow Him. “If anyone wishes to come after me, he must deny himself and take up His cross DAILY and follow Me. For whoever wishes to save His life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake, he is the one who will save it.” He is the Christ, the Son of the Living God, who taught us how to keep the commandments of God and trust in Him. This must be our everything in this life. If it is not, then He has said, we will not make it. Don’t trust anyone’s else’s word who tells you differently, for Yeshua spoke the Word of God and He has spoken the Truth.

Luke 10, Luke 11, Psalm 121

There is so much here. A few points:
The harvest is plentiful but the laborers are few. Are we going to work for the Lord or for ourselves? What matters more for our eternal salvation. he says elsewhere, put first the Kingdom of God and everything you need will be added to you. A good study of what to bring with you when you are serving God follows. If we speak God’s Word, anyone who listens to us listens to Yeshua Himself, and He who rejects the commandments rejects Christ.
Satan fell like lightning from Heaven upon Yeshua’s ascension, and Yeshua prophesied that here.
Yes, with the Holy Spirit we can cast out demons, tread on serpents, and overpower the enemy, but we ought to rejoice in our salvation, not in the powers that we have access to by the Holy Spirit.
What shall we do to inherit eternal life? Yeshua answers directly: What is written in the Law? We must keep the commandments of God to make it, as they are interpreted by the key of love, Loving God first, and then our neighbor, and our neighbor is anyone we come across who needs aid.
On preparation day, Martha was busily preparing for the Sabbath, but Mary was listening to her Lord teach. At some point, we need to say enough, we have what we need, it’s time to sit down and listen to the Lord and rest. Mary chose what is “good,” which was to cease from her work and devote her time to the Lord. Yeshua said Mary’s “rest” or shalom, will not be taken from her.
Yeshua teaches us how to pray, and He confirms that if we ask anything according to the Father’s will, it will be done for us.
Yeshua teaches against blasphemy, or calling good evil or evil good. He says that He cast out demons by the finger of God, meaning the Holy Spirit. Thus, when women attempt to bless Mary over (or even next to) Him, Yeshua corrects this behavior: “blessed are those who hear the Word of God and observe it.” He couldn’t be more clear about what is good and evil, and hypocrites as well as law-breakers will not make it on the Last Day.

Luke 12, Luke 13, Psalm 122

The Lord lays down some heavy truths that can’t be overlooked:
All hidden things will be exposed, and everything we have said or done will be known by all.
We ought not fear death or torture, but we should fear the Lord who can destroy us, to do His will. Yet we also ought to recognize His love for us and desire for us to be with Him.
The Holy Spirit will give us the Word to say when the time comes according to His will.
We ought not concern ourselves with storing up treasure on Earth, but rather in Heaven, for there treasure lasts forever. Worrying about anything does nothing but harm our health, for God knows what we need and will provide it. We ought to prepare for His kingdom, dressed in readiness, with our lamps lit.
We ought to be loving toward our fellow brothers and sisters in Christ, so that when the Lord returns He finds us doing the work that He asked of us.
Christ’s Word divides the sheep and the goats, and it is evident which side we choose.
We ought to emphasize repentance, so we are not destroyed in judgment.
It is lawful to heal on the Sabbath.
The road to salvation in narrow, and many who believe they are saved will not enter the Kingdom of God on account of their lawlessness.
One day, all of the Jews will call out to Messiah, and He will return. Until then, we wait.

Luke 14, Luke 15, Luke 16, Psalm 123

Takeaways from Luke 14-16:
It is lawful to heal on the Sabbath, and it is lawful to handle other emergent or urgent matters that would cause harm by waiting, such a son or ox falling into a well.
We ought to aspire to the lowest place of honor, so the Lord can lift us up.
We ought to consider the ones who are not often invited when we have public gatherings, for the Lord will reward this kindness in Heaven.
We must put Yeshua first before anything else, even our own family, which we must love less than Him. By no means does this mean that we should not love our family. Our wealth, our provisioning, everything we have belongs to the Lord, and we ought to offer it all to Him for His purposes.
Salt is only good if it has flavor or substance, and is useless if lacking. Our flavor comes from obedience to the Word of God.
The Lord desires repentance; a humble and a contrite heart that seeks Him: 1 John 1:8-9: “If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.”
The prodigal son represents every sinner who returns to the Lord after forsaking Him; the Lord celebrates the repentant more than anything. The one who will not forgive for selfish reasons remains cast out by his own pride.
We cannot serve both our worldly desires as well as the Kingdom of God. One will trump the other. Where do we want our treasures? Here in this fleeting world, or in our eternal home?

Luke 17, Luke 18, Psalm 124

Takeaways from Luke 17-18:
We will face hardship, but we had better not cause it. If our brother causes hardship, we ought to call him on it, but if he is convicted, we ought to forgive him.
The servants of God obey His will and keep His commandments, but we had better not expect a reward for this, for this is what God expects of us.
Only those who are grateful for the healing God brings to them through Christ will actually realize the salvation it brings.
Christ is coming on the clouds of heaven, and will appear as fast as lightening appears, like a thief in the night. Will we be prepared and ready for Him? It will be like the days of Noah, when the thoughts of every heart will be only evil continually, except for the remnant. Isn’t that like today? We ought not to look back at the world, but abandon it, putting the Kingdom of God first, and then when the angels come to gather the living and the dead, we will be among them. How much faith will He find on the Earth? Will there be any? Only if you and I persevere.
God will answer our prayers when we pray consistently and with earnest desire to serve Him.
Do we think we are better than anyone else? We will suffer for it. Those who are favored by God are those who recognize they need Him to save them.
To inherit eternal life, we must keep the commandments of God and the faith of Jesus. Our treasure ought to be in Heaven, not here on the Earth. With God, all people can be saved so long as they trust Him and keep His commandments.

Luke 19, Luke 20, Psalm 125

Takeaways from Luke 19-20:
Yeshua came to save sinners during His first coming. Zaccheus, who repents and gives his life to Christ, determines to obey God’s commandments as a result, but offers to double the restitution for his extortion, according to the commands of Leviticus 6. It’s possible he is looking to Exodus 22:1, “If a man steals an ox or a sheep, and slaughters it or sells it, he shall restore five oxen for an ox and four sheep for a sheep.” Because he stole from God’s sheep, did he restore four times back to them? Yeshua recognizes his heart and says “salvation” has come to him and restored him.
The parable of the nobleman is Luke’s version of the parable of the talents. We have to do God’s work with the gifts He gives us, and not just sit languishing without using them.
Yeshua fulfills the prophesy that the suffering servant Messiah Ben Joseph would come into Jerusalem riding on a donkey.
Yeshua prophesies with deadly accuracy the coming destruction of Jerusalem at the hand of the Romans. “The days will come upon you when your enemies will throw up a barricade against you, and surround you and hem you in on every side, and they will level you to the ground and your children within you, and they will not leave in you one stone upon another, because you did not recognize the time of your visitation.” What happened in AD 70 was just part of it. In 132-136 AD, the Rabbis named Simon Bar Kokhba the Messiah because He captured Jerusalem from Rome and ruled for a few years. Yeshua said many false Christs would come, and Bar Kokhba was the most deadly example. Rome came back with a vengeance and wiped out Jerusalem completely, barring any remaining Jews from living there. The Jews denial of Yeshua and acceptance of revolutionaries cost them everything.
Yeshua dismantled the Levitical priesthood and created a new priestly order according to the rite of Melchizedek. The vinedressers did not accept God and His promises, but sought their own glory. Thus, the Son will throw them out and give the promises to those who accept Him and do His will.
As Yeshua points out Caesar’s image on the denarius, He instructs His accusers to give Caesar back his blasphemous coin, but He doesn’t hesitate we ought to give God what is God’s, and God’s image is on you. Thus, we ought to give God everything up to and including our whole self.
Yeshua describes Heaven for those “who are considered worthy to attain to that age.” We are like the angels, the sons of God when we become sons of the resurrection upon Christ’s return. There is no death, nor is there marriage for those who trust in God and obey Him, but anyone who rejected Yeshua or HIs commandments will be condemned.

Luke 21, Luke 22, Psalm 126

We ought to be like the poor widow, who gives everything to God, especially now that we worship in Spirit and in Truth, from wherever we happen to be. Yeshua prophesies of the future in Luke are recorded differently than those in Matthew, and while Matthew emphasizes the End of Days, Luke is prophesizing more about events that would occur in AD 70 and AD 136; the Temple was destroyed in the first event, and the whole city was wiped out and the Jews dispersed in the second event. As always, prophesy’s purpose is to increase faith, and so knowing that these events occurred should give us true understanding that Yeshua is who He said He was, and that everything else He told us we can fully expect without doubting. As it pertains to the End, we must be sure not to be misled by false teachers, terrified by natural disasters, persecution or the other tribulations caused by men, for our testimony ought to stand strong during this time. By enduring in faith, we will gain eternal life.

The time of the Gentiles is about to be fulfilled, and Israel will be the only nation to endure. The great falling away is in progress, and then Yeshua will return to take those who belong to Him into His Kingdom, while everyone else will be destroyed. He tells us: “straighten up an lift up your heads,” during the time of tribulation near the End, “because your redemption is drawing near.” We know this seasons is upon us, because Yeshua told us we would know the season, just as when a fig tree puts forth leaves. We must be careful not to squander energy or resources or turn to drunkenness or the worries of this life, so that we are not trapped by the day of the Lord when it comes. Rather than be surprised by the Day, we need to be alert to the signs of its arrival, praying we will have strength to escape all the horrors that are coming and stand before the Son of Man.

As Luke started out His Gospel account, we must recall as we look to the chronology of the crucifixion and Resurrection. Luke, who notes his meticulous attention to the historical account and the details of times and places, notes that the Last Supper took place on the first day of unleavened bread, which takes place at sundown on the 14th day of the first month. He and His disciples celebrated a Passover Seder, and Yeshua asked us to do this in memory of Him. He even said, “earnestly I have desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer.” He also says that He will eat it again in the Kingdom of God, which tells me that the Feasts of the Lord will be celebrated as memorials every year in the Kingdom. This speaks to the importance of keeping God’s feasts, and not our own feasts, even now, as rehearsals for the Day that is coming.

We read in John how Yeshua asked Peter three times whether he loved Him, and this was redemptive in nature, because here Peter denies Yeshua three times. Satan indeed has come to sift him like wheat, but when Peter was restored as we read in John, Yeshua prophesies that he will “strengthen [his] brothers.”  Peter would indeed rise to the challenge later on, but in this time he was vulnerable and fell into fear.

Let there be no ambiguity: when the Jews asked Yeshua, “Are you the Son of God, then?” He said to them: “Yes, I am.” He is the Messiah, the Son of the living God, who came in the flesh to die for our sins. He was the first born of the dead, and we will all follow Him into the Kingdom if we love Him, trust in Him, put our faith in Him and keep His commandments.

Luke 23, Luke 24, Psalm 127

Psalm 127 starts out, “Unless the Lord builds the house, They labor in vain who build it; Unless the Lord guards the city, The watchman keeps awake in vain. It is vain for you to rise up early, To retire late, To eat the bread of painful labors; For He gives to His beloved even in his sleep.” What is it that we’re doing here if not waiting on the Lord and doing His will? How can we possibly think anything we do is of any consequence without the Lord’s hand in it? And those who oppose Him call Him a deceiver, even making up lies against Him that are not true. He is the King of the Jews; the Messiah who died so that we might live, if we rely fully on Him and believe in His words by acting them out in our lives. The Lord has to build the house, not us. We need to trust in His Word, not our own.

Tonight at sunset to tomorrow at sunset we celebrate the Lord’s Holy Convocation called Yom Kippur; the Day of Covering. We celebrate because Jesus died for our sins on Passover and covered them, and on this day, we humbly look inside ourselves to find any sins that we are harboring that we can offer up in repentance to the Lord. The Day of Atonement looks forward to Judgment Day, a day we hope to be covered by His blood, but will stand before Him and answer for ourselves. It’s a day of celebration, in that His blood has made us free from the punishment of sin, and a solemn day, because He suffered on account of our sins. We also do no work and participate in a corporate fast to deny our flesh and focus solely on our spirit. As Jesus said, “A man does not live by bread alone, but by every Word that proceeds from the Mouth of God.” Let our hearts fully rely on Him and follow Him in all His ways.

Luke again records these last days of Yeshua’s life in the flesh. He was crucified on Passover, the first day of Unleavened Bread (Nisan 15), following the Passover Seder the night before. This was the day before the high weekly Sabbath, which is the Sabbath during the Feast of Unleavened Bread. He rose on the first day of the week, First Fruits, at early dawn. His followers rested on the Sabbath according to the commandment, and Yeshua rested in the grave. This was a Saturday in AD 30, as it is every week since the beginning of creation. He rose on the First Day of the Week and gave Himself as a First Fruits offering before the Lord. Then He appeared to His disciples, ate with them, touched them, and gave them His shalom. This peace will dwell in the hearts of all who trust in Him.

Oh to hear Him teach the law and prophets on the road to Emmaus. We have His Word in the Gospels and His Holy Spirit to help us understand the rest of Scripture. How much more does He give those of us who follow Him by keeping His commandments with love? It is endless wisdom, knowledge and truth, with love, and while each Truth satisfies us, we seek Him further and He gives us more, in abundance. “Thus it is written, that the Messiah would suffer and rise again from the dead the third day, and that repentance for forgiveness of sins would be proclaimed in His name to all the nations, beginning from Jerusalem.” Yes, now we are “are witnesses of these things” in Spirit and Truth, and we have the promised Holy Spirit, the “promise of Yeshua’s Father;” we are clothed with God’s power from on high. Let us not bury this power and wait for His return, but use it to do as He commanded and spread the good news of repentance for forgiveness of sins in the name of Yeshua. Amen.

Acts 1, Acts 2, Psalm 128

Luke, who was meticulous in writing the historical account of our Savior, goes on to write Acts, an accurate historical account of the work of the Apostles that Yeshua had given authority to record His Word for all mankind. His Apostles were chosen to do this work, because they had witnessed all of it. They would be the leaders who would share the good news of the Messiah’s coming with all, both Jew and Gentile. He presented Himself alive, resurrected, following His crucifixion, and He commanded them to stay in Jerusalem until they received the gift of the Holy Spirit. Even after Yeshua resurrected from the dead, they still didn’t know whether He was going to take His throne at this time or not. they asked Him, “Lord, is it at this time You are restoring the kingdom to Israel.”

He replied, “It is not for you to know times or epochs which the Father has fixed by His own authority; but you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be My witnesses both in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and even to the remotest part of the earth.” This is the great commission, and it still falls upon us to teach the Gospel and the commandments of God, a testimony of two, to all who believe that the Messiah has come to forgive sins. We “confess with our mouths and believe with our hearts,” and are saved, and when our heart is to obey Him we receive His Holy Spirit to help us do that, so that even though we may stumble, we may not fall into sin. The Holy Spirit helps us obey, and helps direct us away from the sins of the flesh and the call of the world, which leads to the destruction of many souls. He was lifted up from them, and will return in the same way, at the appointed time. He commanded us to watch and to do what He commanded us until He returns.

Peter now does what Yeshua had commanded him to do, to comfort his brethren and lead them, calling for prayer to God to help the brothers select a 12th apostle to replace Judas. This apostle, Matthias, would become a leader among the 12, one who had witnesses everything that happened himself, so that he could go out and teach as a witness. What happened to Joseph called Barsabbas? Did he not go out and teach also? Not with authority as an apostle, according to this account. He may have been a student, he may have been a Christian, but he was not called to teach. Those who are called to teach are a select few, and only when they are called by God ought they consider the path. The prayer of the apostles to God to help them select an apostle was answered, and by drawing lots, God showed them which man was an apostle, ready to teach. This is not unprecedented in Scripture, for even Joshua handed out inheritance to the 12 tribes by lot, as we read in Joshua 14:12. There are many other examples.

Pentecost is the Greek word for Shavuot, which is one of the seven feasts of the Lord. It occurs on the 50th day following First Fruits, the day Yeshua resurrected from the dead. First Fruits is the day following the weekly Sabbath during the week of Passover, and the evening of Passover, as Nisan 14 transitions into Nisan 15, was the night of the Last Supper, the Passover Seder. Yeshua was crucified on the first day of Unleavened Bread, which is also called Passover, the day following the evening of the Seder, Nisan 15. He rested in the grave and the apostles rested during the weekly Sabbath, a high Sabbath because it occurred during the week of Passover/Unleavened Bread. Now that He was resurrected, and appearing to the apostles, the fulfillment of Shavuot would be realized.

The Holy Spirit would descend again on Israel and enter into the ones who believed in God. Many years earlier on Shavuot in the wilderness, the Holy Spirit wrote the commandments on tablets of stone on Mt. Sinai, and tongues of fire descended and all the people of the world heard the commandments spoken by the voice of God in their own language. These were the “thunderings and lightenings.” They trembled, and eventually rebelled due to their own weakness, and 3000 souls were lost that day in the rebellion. Those who hung on, and asked Moses to mediate for them survived long enough to raise up a generation that would enter the promised land. Now, on this First Century Shavuot, 3000 souls were gained for the Kingdom of God when they heard the Gospel preached in their own language.

They were all gathered for the feast of Shavuot, as commanded, and they were from all over the world. The purpose of the gift of tongues was to reach these souls through understanding of what was being taught to them. It was for a sign. This is what led them to believe, but then they also received the Holy Spirit on account of their belief in the death and resurrection of Yeshua for the atonement of sin. It was Peter, and His Holy Spirit filled interpretation of the message that they all heard in their own language that led to the salvation of their souls. Read Peter’s sermon 100 times and it won’t be enough. What a blessing we have in Messiah Yeshua, who heals us from our sins, saves us by His grace, and helps us keep His law and keeps us from falling away, when our heart is to serve and obey Him. We ought to celebrate in the same way as our brethren who showed us the way, the truth and the life, because they are the ones who are responsible for our knowledge of the Lord and our own salvation today. Thanks be to God that He set these apostles up to teach.

Acts 3, Acts 4, Psalm 129
They say Peter was a a simple man, a fisherman, and yet he spoke as though he was among the most learned on account of the Holy Spirit in him. We see this play out in the impromptu sermons he gives after healing a man who was lame from birth by the name of Yeshua. It was not by Peter’s own power or piety that the man walked, but the holy and righteous one, Yeshua, the “prince of life, the one whom God raised from the dead, who made the man whole by faith in His name. He now had perfect health; meaning wholeness, or shalom, and he spent his first moments of freedom praising the name of God. Coming right out of the gate, filled with the Holy Spirit, here is Peter’s message to us all: “repent and return, so that your sins may be wiped away, in order that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord.” Peter also knew the prophesy, for He knew that Jews must call upon the name of Yeshua for Him to return, and then He would restore all things.

God foretold the coming, the death and the resurrection before hand, but it’s important to note that He did this through the “spirit of Christ” that was in them. (1 Peter 1:11). Even Moses, full of the Holy Spirit, prophesied, saying, “the Lord God will raise up for you a prophet like me from your brethren; to Him you shall give heed to everything He says to you. And it will be that every soul that does not heed that prophet shall be utterly destroyed from among the people.” All the prophets of old announced these days, when all the families of the earth would be blessed by the Anointed One, but for Jews first, God raised up Jesus and sent Him to bless Israel by turning those who would follow Him away from their wicked ways.

The Jewish leaders didn’t like their authority undermined, and thus threw Peter and his cohort into prison, but they could not deny the miracle done in Yeshua’s name. “For the fact that a noteworthy miracle has taken place through them is apparent to all who live in Jerusalem, and we cannot deny it,” they said. Peter spoke on, noting that the man was healed by the name of Yeshua HaMashiach, the Nazarene, who died on the cross and God raised from the dead, and it is by this name, Messiah Yeshua, that salvation comes to all who call upon Him, and there is no other name by which we can be saved. While the leaders attempted to silence them, as they attempted to silence Yeshua, death could not hold Him, and threats and persecution could not hold Peter’s tongue. “Whether it is right in the sight of God to give heed to you rather than God, you be the judge; for we cannot stop speaking about what we have seen and heard.”

And then one of my favorite verses of praise follows: “O Lord, it is YOU who made the heaven and the earth and the sea and all that is in them, who by the Holy Spirit, through the mouth of our father David Your servant, said, ‘Why did the Gentiles rage and the peoples devise futile things? The kings of the earth took their stand, and the rulers were gathered together against the Lord and against His Christ.” We know both Herod and Pontius Pilate, and the Gentiles and the people of Israel, crucified our Lord, and then they threatened His servants, but these same servants prayed that God would strengthen them to speak with all confidence, because signs and wonders were occurring on account of the risen Messiah. Many who witnessed all this believed and received the Holy Spirit, shaking the hegemony of the rulers whose power was not long for the world. Those who have the Holy Spirit speak the Word of God with boldness, for it is duty as soldiers in the army for Christ.

Acts 5, Psalm 130

Psalm 130 struck me today. Focus on this verse: “If You Lord should mark iniquities, O Lord, who could stand? But there is forgiveness with You, that You may be feared.” If the Lord looked at the law without impunity, every single man would be struck down dead forever. But there is forgiveness in Christ. We are saved by His blood. And what is the result of this forgiveness? Is it continued iniquity? Is it lawlessness? No! It is fear. If the Lord can offer such abundant redemption through His own sacrifice on our behalf, how can we live a single day not dedicated to doing His will? It is because of His forgiveness that we obey; it is not to earn forgiveness. It is because of His lovingkindness that we wait for the Lord’s promises and hope in His Word.

To understand what happens to Ananias and Sapphira in the first part of Acts 5, we must first read the account of Joseph, called Barnabas, in Acts 4:24-37. Barnabas, a Levite of Cyprian birth, sold the tract of land he owned and laid all of the money at the apostles feet. It wasn’t because He had to, but because He wanted to, so that there was not a needy person among them and they all enjoyed each other’s abundance. Barnabas’s voluntary act most definitely would have brought great joy, and it is likely he also received some esteem for this, but that’s not what he was seeking. We see the contrast come in with Ananias and Sapphira, for the verse begins, “But a man named Ananias…” The word “but” indicates the contrast. This man sold a piece of property and kept back some of the proceeds for himself. Now, he certainly had the right to do that. However, the context of the story makes it clear that he presented the money as the full proceeds. The problem is not that he didn’t give all of the proceeds; the problem was that he lied to the Holy Spirit to seek esteem in the shadow of Barnabas.

We cannot do our deeds to be seen by men, Jesus told us. Matthew 6:1-4 records this teaching well: “Take heed that you do not do your charitable deeds before men, to be seen by them. Otherwise you have no reward from your Father in heaven. Therefore, when you do a charitable deed, do not sound a trumpet before you as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, that they may have glory from men. Assuredly, I say to you, they have their reward. But when you do a charitable deed, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, that your charitable deed may be in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will Himself reward you openly.” Barnabas did his deeds for God, not to be recognized, and so God made sure to recognize him. Ananias and Sapphira did their deeds to seek glory for themselves, and therefore they not only lost the reward they sought, but they lost their lives. We can learn a lot from this story.

Reading about the powerful works of Peter and the Apostles ought to give us faith. Yeshua said if we have faith like a mustard seed, we can move mountains, so long as moving them aligns with God’s will. Like Jesus promised, Peter and the apostles did mightier works that Yeshua, for even people around Peter would be healed by their faith in Yeshua when Peter walked by. They too healed the sick, and cast out demons. The priestly order did not want to tolerate such upheaval to their hegemony. Imprisoning and torturing the apostles, they thought they could silence them, saying, “we gave you strict orders not to continue teaching in this name” Yeshua, but Peter reduces our whole duty of response to this: “We must obey God rather than men.” The God of our fathers raised up Yeshua, whom you crucified, and He is the one God exalted to His right hand as a Prince and a Savior, to grant repentance to Israel and forgiveness of sins. As we read in the Psalms, this is the very reason we ought to obey and worship Him, and no one can contain this message of love.

Acts 6, Acts 7, Psalm 131

The Hellenistic Messianic Jews were right to question the status of widows were were being overlooked in the serving of food, but the native Hebraic Messianic Jews were right to devote themselves to praying and preaching the Word of God. Remember Yeshua told us, “you shall always have your poor.” This is not to say we are not to take care of widows and orphans, for James says this is what pure and undefiled religion is comprised of. Yet, this episode clearly recognizes that the highest need of the church is to preach the Gospel to all the world and pray for God’s guidance. There is no higher calling. Nevertheless, the Apostles delegated to seven deacons who would care for the people’s needs, and they laid hands on them to consecrate their mission by the power of the Holy Spirit. Stephen was among them, and while he did the duty he was called to do, he also performed great wonders and signs, as he was filled with grace and power, and this expanded the Gospel. Again, this is the highest calling, and Stephen fulfilled it too, even while caring for the widows.

Because of his effectiveness, a group of elders, scribes and false witnesses trumped up charges against Stephen, saying that he had spoken “blasphemous words against Moses and against God.” This type of persecution was also expected, for they had accused Jesus and later Paul of the same thing, and no student is above their master. Note these incredibly important words: “They put forward FALSE WITNESSES who said, “This man incessantly speaks against this holy place and the Law.” Quite importantly, this witness against Stephen is FALSE. He did no such thing, and wouldn’t, because Yeshua had asked His followers to follow Him by doing His will and the will of the Father who sent Him. Stephen had the “face of an angel,” meaning that He was blameless. He kept the commandments of God and the faith in Jesus.

As he was in trial, Stephen speaks Truth, telling the accurate and fascinating story of the Word of God, how Israel had rejected the prophets and rejected the law that God had given them. Now, they had also rejected the promised Messiah, the Son of God. It’s important to note which Old Testament stories he recites, for these all are relevant to our understanding of Yeshua as the prophesied Messiah. Like Yeshua, Stephen forgave his executors as he was about to die. He testified about the Lord, asking Yeshua to receive His Spirit. This is critical, for it speaks to the divinity of Christ. When we die, “Then the dust will return to the earth as it was, and the spirit will return to God who gave it.” (Ecclesiastes 7:7). If Stephen’s spirit is returning to Christ, this clearly identifies Yeshua as God. The soul, also known as the living being, or the part of us that is “alive,” made up of both body and spirit as a testimony to the Image of God, goes to sleep in the grave until Christ comes again. After forgiving his executors, Stephen “fell asleep.” What an amazing reunion it will be to be risen up with men like Stephen on the Last Day.

Acts 8, Acts 9, Psalm 132

Psalm 132:17 says Jerusalem is the place where God would “cause the horn of David to spring forth; I have prepared a lamp for Mine anointed.” He is the light of the world, and His Word is a lamp for my feet to direct me where to walk. He has come in the flesh, died for our sins and risen from the dead, and the witnesses to this one-time prophesied miracle were being persecuted by Saul. God meant for this to happen, for how else could He scatter the witnesses abroad to spread the Gospel Message? Philip and then Peter and James were in Samaria making disciples, humbling even great warlocks who were seen to be gods by his countrymen. No longer. Now even Simon was grasping for humility, pleading for forgiveness and guidance to know the one True God Yeshua. Having succeeded there, Philip went south and converted the Ethiopian Eunuch, who became a powerful disciple in Ethiopia, spreading the Gospel in that land. Philip continued to Caesarea.

Nothing could stop the Gospel’s spread, and Saul’s vain attempts ended when Yeshua Himself appeared to Him and showed him his blindness, calling on him to not only drop everything in his life, but to turn 180 degrees toward God and become “a chosen vessel of Yeshua’s, to bear the name of the Son of God “before the Gentiles and kings and the sons of Israel.” Ananias became the one who Yeshua used to bring Saul his sight, to baptize him and lay hands on him to offer the Holy Spirit to him. From that point on, Saul became Paul and would go out and preach the Gospel just as emphatically as he had persecuted it prior. He had no fear. Once you know the Truth, how can you fear man? What can man do to you. The Son of God must be proclaimed to all. Meanwhile, Peter continued to travel around, healing and preaching, even raising the dead. What faith! The Gospel was spreading throughout the world, according to God’s will. Praise God!

Acts 10, Acts 11, Psalm 133

As if God knew to align Psalm 133 with our reading of the first Gentiles coming into the faith, “Behold, how good and how pleasant it is for brothers to dwell together in unity!“ No longer would Gentiles be separated from Jews, but in Christ, all would be one; Israel would be one nation, Jew and Gentile alike, who confessed the name of the Lord Yeshua. A vision from God to Peter confirmed that Gentiles were part of the Body, rather than unclean, and God’s Holy Spirit descended on the Gentiles, just as it had on the Jews, as they heard the Word of God about the coming of our Messiah Yeshua. Once they received the Messiah’s Holy Spirit, it was an urgent matter for them to be baptized into the faith, to crucify their flesh and to take on new life as part of the Body. From there, the Gospel spread further, and persecution and famine lead Christianity, as it began to be called in Antioch, to spread all throughout the world, to the Glory of God.

Acts 12, Acts 13, Psalm 134

Persecution is the natural order of the church, but we see in Peter’s deliverance from Prison part A of a two-part series of what happens when Angels open prison doors for God’s people. Peter is released from prison and led out, and continues to bring a message of faith the build up the early body of believers. Paul is later released from prison by angels and remains, despite the doors being open, so as to convert the prison guard and his whole household into the faith. In the first instance the prison guards were killed by Herod, while in the second instance the prison guard escaped as a new believer. This is a perfect example of how God does not always do what we might expect by reading His Word. He does a new thing, always, for His ends and His purposes. Our duty is to obey and to go with the Spirit, wherever it leads, so that God’s will can be done. There are prophetic meanings in each instance. While some will be saved on account of faith, others will be lost due to the hardness of their hearts.

When Paul and Barnabas went into Cyprus, first the Lord used Paul to curse a man who was teaching falsely by the name of Jesus. Read Deuteronomy 28; the Lord brings blessings and curses, blessings to those who trust Him and obey His commandments, and curses to those who thwart His will and confound others. The New Covenant does not change the nature of God, it only enhances it.  Among the enhancements of God was His testimony through Paul to the Gentiles. Paul had an opportunity to preach the Gospel to both Jews and God fearers in the synagogue on Sabbath, and some Jews believed, while others did not. The Gentiles who were there spread the word, and almost the entire town gathered on the Sabbath to hear the Gospel the following week. Many believed; all who had hearts prepared to obey the Lord. We ought to recognize that when God moves in such a marvelous way, the devil is going to move to try and take some away from the Truth, and so Satan sent envious women and leaders who could not bear to share their fame with God’s Messiah. These would be among the destruction, but how many did they take with them? Beware of wolves in sheep’s clothing, for our heart must always seek the Truth of the Lord and not be taken off course. We ought to remain steadfast in our faith and obey the commandments of God.

Acts 14, Acts 15, Psalm 135

Many misinterpret Acts 15 and believe that somehow Gentiles have a limited law that they have to keep, all spelled out here, and somehow the law of Moses is no more. This is a false teaching, and Yeshua Himself warned against this misinterpretation in Matthew 5:17-18: “Do not think that I came to destroy the Law or the Prophets. I did not come to destroy but to fulfill. For assuredly, I say to you, till heaven and earth pass away, one jot or one tittle will by no means pass from the law till all is fulfilled.” Heaven and Earth remain, and so does the law and the prophets. In fact, Jesus later says in Luke 21:33, “Heaven and Earth will pass away, but my Word will never pass away.” His Word is the law given to Moses, interpreted in spirit and truth, with love, and shown to us by His living example. There are not two gods, but one God, and He created the Heavens and Earth and everything in them and rested the seventh day and hallowed it, and He told us when He came in the flesh that “if we love Him, we will keep His commandments,” just like He did.

Do not misunderstand Acts 15. This law applies to Gentiles completely and fully—for how else do we follow Jesus?—and this is the very meaning of Acts 15. It says the opposite of what many teach, and be warned, for it is indeed a salvational matter to be called “least” in the Kingdom of God. Those called least in the Kingdom are at risk of destruction by the angels on the last day for denying the Word of God. Beware and repent, for the Kingdom of God is coming quickly! You DO NOT want to teach that the law of God given to Moses does not apply to us. It applies in every single way, for those who “practice lawlessness” will be cast into Hell, Jesus says in Matthew 7. Those who call Him Lord, Lord, but do not do what He says, are hypocrites and will not make it.

There are two questions asked at the beginning of the chapter, but first the primary question is noted: “Some men came down from Judea and began teaching the brethren, ‘Unless you are circumcised according to the CUSTOM of Moses, you cannot be saved.” This is not a law of God, but a custom they are speaking about. Where God does command circumcision, on the eighth day, it remains. When an adult is converted to the faith, however, there is no such commandment. There is a custom of the Jews that developed because God asked men to circumcise themselves on a handful of occasions. God said it would be a sign of His covenant, a covenant which the Jews broke.  This is why the new covenant was brought to all mankind through Christ, and a new sign for the new covenant was given; namely, circumcision by the Holy Spirit. Circumcision is required in both covenants, but these men of Judea were teaching circumcision of the flesh, when Christ brought circumcision by the Spirit.

The two questions are then asked: “some of the sect of the Pharisees who had believed stood up, saying during the Jerusalem council, ‘It is necessary to circumcise them and to direct them to observe the Law of Moses.’” These are two matters, and the council addresses them separately. The first question is about Gentiles who are coming into the faith; namely, is there any additional sign they must do upon becoming a Christian. The answer is not “no.” The answer is that they must immediately purge themselves of idol worship, something Paul addressed in Acts 14, they must avoid eating blood or food that is strangled, and they must avoid sexual immorality. These immediate actions are required of those coming into the faith, so that their bodies can be purified for the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit will not remain with those who are unclean, and thus these four things must be done, and maintained. Circumcision, however, is not in the list, because the sign of circumcision of the heart is already present in those Gentiles who believe.

Concerning these key verses: “And God, who knows the heart, testified to them giving them the Holy Spirit, just as He also did to us; and He made no distinction between us and them, cleansing their hearts by faith. Now therefore why do you put God to the test by placing upon the neck of the disciples a yoke which neither our fathers nor we have been able to bear?” This is all about circumcision, and circumcision alone. Their hearts were cleansed by faith. In other words, they received the Holy Spirit, which cleansed their hearts—it was a circumcision of their hearts, which is a concept first articulated by God to Moses in prophesy.

Thus, James instructed these Gentiles to keep themselves cleansed through the four immediate actions for purification. The yoke that the fathers were not able to bear, in this context, is also circumcision and only circumcision. Historically, the time of Antiochus Epiphanies had just ended, and many Jews hid their circumcision through grotesque measure to fit in with the Gentile overlords during their “games,” for the competitions were in the nude. This is what he’s talking about when he says that our fathers did not keep this tradition; they literally hid their circumcisions by cutting themselves further. Many failed to circumcise their boys, also, in order to fit in with the Greeks. There is nothing that God hates more than this type of cowardice against knowing Him (those who deny me before men, I will deny before my Father), and Peter and James both point out the Jews’ hypocrisy by bringing up this sad history.

The second question is then very clearly addressed. Should Gentiles be directed to “observe the law of Moses.” The answer is definitively “Yes.” We read: “For Moses from ancient generations has in every city those who preach him, since he is read in the synagogues every Sabbath.” In other words, the Gentiles who now believe and who have now cleansed their temple by doing those four immediate things, would come into the synagogues on the SABBATH and learn from Scripture, because it is taught there weekly. The Holy Spirit would convict them to obey God’s commandments, and they would do so, because of their faith and love for Yeshua. Only Satan would say that God’s law no longer applies, and trick Christians into believing this absolute heresy. How could God, who does not lie, ever contradict something that He reiterated over and over and over again in the Old Testament and the New Testament. You either believe in Jesus and keep the commandments of God, or you don’t, but there is no in between. It is a narrow path indeed, and it is very easy to be deceived.

For something as immense as the law of God given to Moses, only God Himself could negate it and say it no longer applies to Gentiles, and He does no such thing. No man could every make such a judgment, and if they do, they blaspheme. I urge you to search the words of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ and point out to me where He has said we can be clean when we disregard or rebel against God’s law. You cannot find it, because He didn’t say it, He never would have said it, because to do so would have been to deny His own being. Not only did God never say this and Jesus never say this, neither did Paul, and neither did Peter and neither did James, nor any other New Testament writer. They all say we are saved by the grace of God through the death and resurrection of Yeshua on the cross, and the account of our sin, which we have all committed, is wiped clean, but then we must follow Yeshua and sin no more. His Holy Spirit helps us obey the law of Moses, and if our heart is not to do this, then yes, not only is such a one unclean, but He is a sinner worthy of death, for Christ is not a minister of sin. (Galatians 2:17). The lawless ones will not make it to Heaven.

Paul emphatically rejects idol worship among the Gentiles in Acts 14, and urges them not to worship him and Barnabas. Paul is not a god, he refuses to be worshipped as one, and he redirects those who attempt to sacrifice to him or any other false god to worship the Creator of Heaven and Earth alone, who is Jesus Christ. For this teaching, Paul is stoned, almost to death, by some of the Jews who rejected the Gospel and rejected his teaching to the pagans. Note that in Iconium, both Jews and Greeks believed in the Gospel, and they came together in their believe as one body. They worshipped on the Sabbath in the synagogue, both Jews and Gentiles, just as we ought to do. Satan tries to take Paul out for bringing this unity to the Body of Christ, to both Jews and Gentiles, but not only does Christ preserve him, but brings him forward healthy to continue teaching unity.

Paul says to the pagans: “We are also men of the same nature as you, and preach the gospel to you that you should turn from these vain things to a living God, who made the heaven and the earth and the sea and all that is in them.” Why then do men who claim to profess Christ still turn to these vain things today? It is precisely because they have been told the law is no more, and this has created a blindness in them that leads to death. There is no doubt that “Through many tribulations we must enter the kingdom of God.” It is no tribulation at all to live as you wilt; rather, this is the only commandment you’ll find in the Satanic bible. We must reject this vain thinking and fully embrace God’s Word, which makes it clear that to enter eternal life, we must keep God’s commandments with all faith in our Messiah Yeshua to cover us when we stumble. We can’t stumble when we don’t try at all, and there is no other word for this than rebellion against God. We must turn from vain things and do God’s will with all of our heart. To reject the path of righteousness, which is God’s law obeyed according to the Spirit with love, is to reject Jesus Christ.

Acts 16, Acts 17, Psalm 136

I find it such a blessing that Luke turns from praising many Gentiles who came to belief to going the other way around when speaking about Timothy. It is critical that modern Christians do not grow haughty in their platitudes, but fear God and live. It is only by the testimony of two—obedience to God’s commandments and the faith of Jesus—that any saint, Jew or Gentile, will make it into Heaven. You see, Timothy was “the son of a Jewish woman who was a believer, but his father was a Greek.” The implication, of course, is that his father did not believe. The Body of Yeshua is Israel, and Israel is made up of believing Jews and Greeks, who are no longer two but one man in Christ. And those who follow Christ do all things to sacrifice their own will for the will of God. In Timothy’s case, he went through an unnecessary physical circumcision to silence any opposition about his unbelieving Greek father. The spiritual circumcision is all that is needed for an adult convert in the New Covenant.

The Holy Spirit of Christ leads us, not to places of our own hearts desires, but to where He wants us to go. God sent Paul not to Asia, but to Macedonia, where he met with many people, both Jew and Greek, on several Sabbaths to teach the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Lydia and her household believed and were baptized there, and then she said something critical, “If you have judged me to be faithful to the Lord, come into my house and stay.” Faith requires works of faithfulness to the law of God, which includes such hospitality, or it is false and not faith at all. Paul and Silas were faithful to do God’s will unto imprisonment and even death, and yet God had mercy on them to continue their mission, and opened the prison doors. Rather than leave as Peter had been led by the Spirit to do in an earlier chapter, Paul Silas remained and called out to the jailer to preserve his life. It is on account of their love and care for the prison guard’s well being that he desired the faith that they had. It was a demonstrable faith, one that showed a character not like the world, because it was faith in action.

Infant baptism is not Scripturally sound, but those who practice it cite this section of Scripture, where the jailer and all his household were baptized following the prison incident. As the context of this verse shows, the jailer “brought them into his house and set food before them, and rejoiced greatly, having believed in God with his whole household.” The remaining members of the household who were baptized were old enough to believe, which is a prerequisite for salvation. However, you will note that they believed in something, and not nothing. The very next verse says “they spoke the word of the Lord to him together with all who were in his house.” It was Scripture that he believed in; that is, Scripture from the Old Testament, the law of God, which prophesied the coming of Yeshua, the Messiah, who would forgive all who repent from their sin and turn toward Him, promising to follow Him from that point forward. We see evidence of this salvation the very next day, as the jailer brings good news that the magistrates had agreed to release Paul and Silas. The new believer had surely acted to make that happen.

Paul, continuing on, continued to preach to Jews and Gentiles in the synagogues on the Sabbath, for the Sabbath is the proper day to gather for worship, fellowship and study, according to the law of God. God-fearing Greeks, or Greeks who had converted to Judaism, were among the Jews who believed in the Gospel message in Thessalonica. “Some of them were persuaded and joined Paul and Silas.” In Berea, the noble-minded Jews there “received the word with great eagerness, examining the Scriptures daily to see whether these things were so. … Therefore many of them believed, along with a number of prominent Greek women and men.” You cannot believe in nothing, but you must believe in the Truth, and the Truth is only found in God’s Word, which is also His law. Without Scripture, and I mean Old Testament only, there is no Jesus to be saved by. The New Testament records the words and deeds of our living God who came in the flesh, lived perfectly according to the law, and asked us to follow His example and do the same. Acts records the first disciples doing just that.

Paul was greatly grieved by the pagan gods and symbols he saw in Athens; “his spirit was being provoked within him as he was observing the city full of idols.” This is the same Godly sorrow a.k.a. righteous anger that was expressed by “righteous Lot,” as Peter calls him, in Sodom. We should share in this same heart for God’s righteousness and be grieved greatly by what goes on in the World, rather than join in with it. Yet, as Yeshua ate with tax collectors and sinners, so too does Paul move into the Areopagus—following his teaching in the synagogues to “Jews and God-fearing Gentiles,” and in the marketplace—and he uses the idols “TO AN UNKNOWN GOD” to preach Yeshua, the Creator of Heaven and Earth and everything in them. He makes it clear that Gentiles and pagans no longer have any excuse, but they are invited by Christ directly to worship the one true God and abandon their idols of ignorance. Sadly, many Christians are still caught up in these ancient idols today.

Pay special attention to the truth Paul brings to these pagans: “Therefore having overlooked the times of ignorance, God is now declaring to men that all people everywhere should repent, because He has fixed a day in which He will judge the world in righteousness through a Man whom He has appointed, having furnished proof to all men by raising Him from the dead.” He’s not talking about salvation here, but judgment. For anyone who continues to worship idols or practice pagan syncretism within the Christian faith, Jesus is coming to judge, and He will not have mercy on those who practice lawlessness. He absolutely will save all who believe in Him and His Word, which He says will last longer than Heaven and Earth themselves. Paul’s appeal to the fear of destruction brought in some of these pagans to the faith, and Dionysius and Damaris, among others, believed and joined the Body of Christ.

Acts 18, Acts 19, Psalm 137

Paul found Aquila, a Jew from Pontus, and his wife Pricilla, escaping Rome during one of the early purges of the Jews from the empire. Did not God bring this about to bring them into the company of Paul and his teaching, to edify them and equip them further in the Way? God uses everything for good for those who love Him according to His purposes. They met because they were both tent makers, and they went into this business together, earning their own living. Of course, the rested on the Sabbath and taught about Jesus each Saturday in the synagogue. But when Silas and Timothy arrived, Paul felt the call of God to began devoting every day of the week to the Lord, testifying that Yeshua is the Messiah. Some of the Jews, but not all, resisted the faith, and so Paul taught next door at the home of Titius Justus.

The Lord strengthened Paul with His voice, and so Paul taught for a year and a half there. His teaching was so effective that even the Jewish leader of the synagogue, Crispus, came to believe in Yeshua, and came to meet with Paul and Titius there, eventually bringing many of the Corinthians into the faith. The faith must have been firmly established there, for Paul then left. Interestingly, after Paul had passed through Ephesus, a man named Apollos came onto the scene, and He knew about Yeshua, but hadn’t been baptized into the faith to follow Him. He only knew about the baptism of John. Pricilla and Aquilla, having been trained by Paul and left there to teach, took Apollos aside and “taught him the Word of God more accurately.” If only Christians today would be as open as Apollos to hearing the Truth of Scripture, the world would surely be a better place. Once fully equipped, Apollos also went out to teach, using the Torah and the Prophets, saying that Yeshua, the Messiah, had come in the flesh.

Paul himself experienced something similar where he met disciples who had not yet received the Holy Spirit because they also did not know about the baptism of Yeshua. As soon as Paul baptized them in the name of Yeshua, he laid hands on them and they received the Holy Spirit and began prophesising. With this new group of disciples, Paul first taught in the synagogues, but then the unbelieving Jews forced him out to preach in the school of Tyrannus, a medical school. He taught there for two years, and marvelous works followed. People were so obedient to the Word of God on account of Paul’s teaching that they burned up books on sorcery and medicines, considering them idolatry, and abandoned the pagan goddess Artemis. The movement had grown to such a point that the artisans who had made pagan idols complained about their lost business and tried to drum up a marketing campaign to bring back their customer base. We must beware of this story, for there are clearly two sides on which we might fall. Do we cherish God or do we cherish worthless mammon? The same choice is up to us. Anything that comes before God will be burned up, and it is better for us if we are the ones who do the burning before Christ returns. We cannot worship any other god besides Yeshua.

Acts 20, Acts 21, Psalm 138

“Only this, I want, but to know the Lord, and to bear His cross, and to wear the crown he wore.” Like Paul, I too sing this song with intention, celebrating the Feast of Unleavened Bread in memory of my Lord Yeshua’s sacrifice on the cross, rushing to prepare for the Pentecost and obeying His command to go into places where I will be persecuted, for I know that through that persecution God will be glorified. Sadly, savage wolves did come in following the departure of the Apostles and did not spare the flock, but led them all astray, to worship other gods and to learn a different way than the Lord walked. Both Yeshua and Paul warned us this would happen. Rather than seek to bring in men for themselves, we ought to serve as teachers, for as Yeshua said, “It is better to give than receive.” A true preacher will never do anything to take away from Yeshua, the way, the truth and the life; for no one gets to the Father except through Him and by following His ways.

Paul, a humble servant of the Lord, was bound for Jerusalem to keep the feast of Pentecost, and he brought great testimony to the apostles in the city concerning the Gentiles who had been coming into the faith. Many believing Jews had been misinformed about Paul, though, believing that he taught Gentiles to forsake the law, and this could not be further from the truth. How could Paul, who taught that two people had become one, suddenly say there was a different path for one group than another? The idea is not consistent, and therefore is not true. Now Paul had told Gentiles not to circumcise themselves as adults, but he never told anyone not to circumcise their children on the eighth day and he even circumcised Timothy, who had a Grecian father. He didn’t tell them to forsake Moses either, but he certainly was telling them not to keep the customs of the elders, just like Jesus taught in Mark 7.

On account of this, Paul and the other apostles suggest Paul should lead a Jewish purification ritual, as a Pharisee, so that the believing Jews can see that Paul indeed cares about the Jewish law. However, they are clear that Gentiles don’t need to purify themselves in this way, for they have already been purified by avoiding blood, strangled meat, meat sacrificed to idols or sexual immorality. They had not taken part in the Nazarite Vow, as these Jews had, and so why would they go through the rites to purify themselves to end it? This is not to say Gentiles could not choose to take a Nazarite vow, but such a vow was not necessary, unless the Holy Spirit had called them to do it, and they had not done it. Thus, James makes the distinction that the Gentiles who were with Paul did not have to further purify themselves, for they were already pure. The Jews who had taken the vow would need to go through the rest of the rite according to the law. Nevertheless, the situation causes a stir, which we’ll pick up in tomorrow’s reading.

Acts 22, Acts 23, Psalm 139

Paul knew the commotion in Jerusalem would come, and that he would end up in chains. Several prophets warned him about this, but he went anyway. Why? He was obeying the commandments of God to keep the feast in Jerusalem. Perhaps Paul knew that the Holy Spirit was using him in his obedience to testify again to those who would hear him in Jerusalem. He told the story of his conversion, which did not help his case, but hurt it. He appealed to his Roman citizenship, which helped him avoid a flogging. He spoke about being a Pharisee, to cause dissension among the ranks of the Jewish unbelievers. Some of the Jews reasoned after this exchange that he might even have received a divine vision, and so his testimony began to take its effect. Ultimately, Paul would use his chains to come before governors and ultimately the emperor himself. Our care should never be about our circumstances, but as it was for Paul here, our care should be to spread the Gospel.

Acts 24, Acts 25, Acts 26, Psalm 140

Paul said, “I would wish to God, that whether in a short or long time, not only you, but also all who hear me this day, might become such as I am, except for these chains.” Paul’s mission was to spread the Gospel of Messiah Yeshua, spoken of by the prophets, and walk a blameless life before God, fully upholding the law. His deepest desire was that anyone who hears him—or even reads his words 2000 years later—would become exactly like he is, except for the physical chains that bound him. Whether Felix, Festus, King Agrippa, or any of the bystanders, Paul preached Christ crucified, resurrected and the coming resurrection of the dead on the Last Day when Christ comes again. Today, Oct. 17, 2022, is actually a celebration of that day, the Eighth Day, a Holy Convocation of God. God asked us to celebrate this day forever as we wait in humble expectation for the coming of our Lord God Yeshua, who will raise the living and the dead and establish His eternal Kingdom.

Paul says, “this I admit to you, that according to the Way which they call a sect I do serve the God of our fathers, believing everything that is in accordance with the Law and that is written in the Prophets; having a hope in God, which these men cherish themselves, that there shall certainly be a resurrection of both the righteous and the wicked. In view of this, I also do my best to maintain always a blameless conscience both before God and before men.” This is what Paul prays for you and I to model in the name of Yeshua. Keep this in mind, and consider it for yourselves.

Felix, upon hearing the words of Paul as he was discussing “righteousness, self-control and the judgment to come,” grew frightened and sent Paul away for “when I find time.” We can’t keep putting off our faith and our righteousness before God. He is calling you this day, whom shall you serve? The gods of your fathers along with the pagan traditions that have been mixed in with their belief in Christ, or the God who created Heaven and Earth and everything in it, who came in the flesh, died on the cross for our sins, rose from the dead and promises to come and take those of us to the place He has prepared for those who love Him and keep His commandments. Today is the day to choose. Felix chose wrongly, and so do so many who hear about Jesus and the commandments of God, putting off their decision for another day, for there are other priorities to attend to that come before God. Know this: God takes not, for He has commanded us to put no other god before Him. Today is the day. Choose whom you will serve.

Paul, appealing to Caesar, would earn a free trip to Rome, to the heart of the empire, to bring the Gospel to the most powerful men in all the world. This work would eventually lead to the spread of Christianity throughout the whole world. Even though a false Christianity was spread, the authentic form was preserved in God’s Word, and all who truly pursue Christ can read it for themselves and believe. Nevertheless, the Truth would not have reached your hands had it not been for the work of Paul, which Christ Himself commissioned Him to do. While grateful for the willingness of Paul to serve Yeshua, we must give thanks and praise to Messiah Yeshua who worked through him to bring the Gospel to the far reaches of the earth, and to the center of man’s kingdom and power, challenging the hegemony of man once more. Paul had done nothing wrong, Festus and King Agrippa both knew this, but he had appealed to Caesar. This was not a mistake. This was God’s will. Only through this appeal did Paul have the opportunity to challenge the kingdoms of this world with the Word of God, announcing the Truth that God’s kingdom will be the only to remain in the End.

This too is the message that Paul proclaimed: “but kept declaring both to those of Damascus first, and also at Jerusalem and then throughout all the region of Judea, and even to the Gentiles, that they should repent and turn to God, performing deeds appropriate to repentance. So, having obtained help from God, I stand to this day testifying both to small and great, stating nothing but what the Prophets and Moses said was going to take place; that the Christ was to suffer, and that by reason of His resurrection from the dead He would be the first to proclaim light both to the Jewish people and to the Gentiles.”

The message of the Gospel is this, repent and turn to God by obeying His commandments; for these are the “deeds appropriate to repentance.” Then, the “help from God,” His Holy Spirit, will come. From that point on, our life is dedicated to spreading the Gospel, which is the gift of grace through Christ and the faith that is acted out in obedience to God’s will.

Acts 27, Acts 28, Psalm 141

Paul’s journey from Jerusalem, ultimately to Rome was quite an adventure, similar to what we might read in an epic story of ancient times. The Holy Spirit continued to lead Paul, despite his chains, and his word helped keep several men alive, and perhaps even led some to faith. Upon reaching Malta, Paul healed many sick and was not hurt by the bite of a viper, for the Holy Spirit neutralized the venom. Reaching Rome, Paul experienced more of the same from along his whole path: He taught to Jews and Gentiles, and some of each group believed, some of the Jews and some of the Gentiles, and some of each group didn’t, some of the Jews and some of the Gentiles. He would continue to teach in Rome to all who would listen, creating one new Body in Christ, until the day of his execution there.