2023 Prophets Commentary

Isaiah 1, Isaiah 2, Isaiah 3, Isaiah 4

Many have used Isaiah 1 to discredit the commandments of God to keep His Feasts, His Sabbaths, and His New Moons, but the context of the prophesy does not allow this interpretation. The Lord explains that He cannot tolerate sinful hearts that go through the motions. He hates even the prayers of those people who refuse to keep His commandments. He says, “I cannot endure wrongdoing and the sacred assembly … Your hands are covered with blood. Wash yourselves and make yourselves clean. … Stop doing evil, learn to do good, seek justice, rebuke the oppressor, obtain justice for the orphan, plead the widow’s case.” The Lord loathes “YOUR” festivals and Sabbaths and prayers, He says, when we do things OUR own way. He cherishes when our hearts are turned toward Him and do things according to His Word, according to HIS way, depending on Him to make our “scarlet” “sins” us as “white as snow.” I think it’s incredibly important for us to make this distinction, for the Lord does so in His Word. If you look at Leviticus 23:2, the Lord announces “MY” feasts, speaking about what He has consecrated and what He expects of us. Our hearts must be humbled before Him.

For the remnant that humbles themselves before the Lord, those of us who do not puff ourselves up in some human definition of freedom that the Lord never intended, but rather bring ourselves low and seek the Lord with everything we have, obeying His Word in Spirit and in Truth, there is hope that we will be brought by Messiah Yeshua to the mountain of the Lord so we can learn His ways and walk His paths. The Holy Spirit helps us to do this according to the Truth of God’s Word. The worldly pursuits of the people of this world will be burned up, whether Jew or Gentile it doesn’t matter. Only that which has been fully subjugated to the Lord will last. This is not something we ought to consider in fear, but in a love so strong that there is nothing else more important. We only want the Lord to take away our filth, to let us be called by His name, to take away our disgrace. We who are called by His name will be considered holy, not on our own account, but because of Him. And the Lord will purge all sin and bloodshed from the Earth and He will be our shelter.

Isaiah 5, Isaiah 6, Isaiah 7, Isaiah 8

The Lord’s vinyard produced immature grapes; they were not ready to receive their Messiah. They went into exile twice for lack of knowledge, because they failed to know the Lord and His commandments and they failed to recognize their Messiah when He came to save them. The Lord advises us all that those who call evil good and good evil have cursed the Holy Spirit of God, the unpardonable sin, just as when the Pharisees told Yeshua that he casted out demons by the power of demons. What blasphemy. Those who speak against the Holy Spirit of God and the good work that it is doing to edify and build up believers who are saved from their sin had better get down on their knees and repent, or there will be no hope for them. We should not look to our own knowledge or skill or wisdom for the Lord’s insight, but to the Word of God. We should not focus on the pleasures of this world, but on the ways of God. We must embrace the Lord of Armies and His law, or else our corpses will lay like refuse in the middle of the streets, but the Lord will not rest until all rebels are destroyed.

We should look to Isaiah’s humility as a model for how we ought to look at the Lord and His Word: “Holy, Holy, Holy, is the Lord of armies. The whole earth is full of His glory.” Then I said, “Woe to me, for I am ruined! Because I am a man of unclean lips, And I live among a people of unclean lips; For my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of armies.” With this attitude, God sends His holy angles with a cleansing coal to take away our guilt. When we humble ourselves before our Messiah Yeshua, and recognize our own insufficiency before Him, He cleanses us by HIs blood. It is in this state of faith that He can use us to do His will. Unfortunately, many of the people we encounter will reject the Truth of the Gospel we bring. It is our duty to obey the God anyway, but the Lord will cleanse the land of all who disbelieve.

The virgin indeed conceived and brought forth God with us, and He schooled the rabbis even while he still ate curds and honey.

Yet He would be a stumbling block and a rock of offense to His own people. In fact, so many of them would stumble over Him to the point of their own destruction. Rather than turn to the Lord their God, who came in the flesh to save them, they turn toward mediums and New Age witchcraft. Their dawn will not come, but to those who keep the law of God and the testimony of Messiah Yeshua, we will wait eagerly on the Lord to return, and we will dwell with Him on Mount Zion.

Isaiah 9, Isaiah 10, Isaiah 11, Isaiah 12

A light did rise in Galilee of the Gentiles, and from Him the nations multiplied and rejoiced His good news. It was a child who was born in Bethlehem who grew up in Galilee, He is “Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Eternal Father, Prince of Peace,” one in being with God because He is God, and His government of righteousness shall endure forever. We have seen the nation of Israel, because they rejected Yeshua, lose both their head—the wisdom of their elders—and their tail—the Truth of their prophets. All of the false teachers, the briars and thorns, will be burned up. The proud will consume their own strength, for there will be woe upon those who use their power to bring injustice. These will have nowhere to run from God’s wrath, though they will try. We will watch the proud nations waste away to nothing as if God had given them a wasting disease, and His glory will burn and devour all that opposes Yeshua on a single day. The remnant will be tiny on this day; a child could write down their names. These will return to worship God and glory in His presence. “with righteousness He will judge the poor, And decide with fairness for the humble of the earth; And He will strike the earth with the rod of His mouth, And with the breath of His lips He will slay the wicked. Also righteousness will be the belt around His hips, And faithfulness the belt around His waist.”

In the Last Day, we won’t eat meat and neither will the animals. There will be no more death. The lion will eat straw just as he did in the Garden of Eden. The whole Earth will be restored to God’s perfection. All the Lord’s people would be gathered to the Lord, a second time, and they will possess the land—the whole land. And we will dwell in peace. I say in my heart this day, as we will all say then: “I will give thanks to You, Lord [Yeshua]; For although You were angry with me, Your anger is turned away, and You comfort me. Behold, God is my salvation, I will trust and not be afraid; for the Lord God is my strength and song, and He has become my salvation. … Give thanks to the Lord, call on His name. Make known His deeds among the peoples; Make them remember that His name is exalted.”

Isaiah 13, Isaiah 14, Isaiah 15, Isaiah 16, Isaiah 17

The Lord uses those who are fully devoted to Him, who worship Him and not any other, to execute justice when judgment comes. “All hands will fall limp and every human heart will melt.” The fire of the Lord will “exterminate … sinners from” the land. The audacity of the proud will be brought low, and none of them will be spared. Babylon, the World system that Man has raised up to replace their faith in God Most High, will be utterly annihilated; there will be no memory of it. Israel, made up of descendants of Jacob and strangers who “attach themselves to the house of Jacob” through Messiah Yeshua, will resettle the land and make their former oppressors into their servants. The whole earth will be at rest. Isaiah 13 and 14 is a description of the Day of the Lord, the seventh day of rest, and the preceding wrath of God. Satan will have fallen into the pit, because he said he would be like God, and the faithful will say, “is this the man who made the earth tremble, who shook kingdoms, who made the world like a wilderness and overthrew its cities, who did allow his prisoners to go home?” Yeshua will release all of his prisoners and will destroy him and all of his offspring. “Prepare a place of slaughter for his sons because of the wrongdoing of their fathers. They must not arise and take possession of the earth, And fill the surface of the world with cities.” No, but the meek, the believing, the faithful will inherit the Earth. “The Lord has founded Zion, and the poor of His people will take refuge in it.” A small remnant will live from every nation, but the rest will be destroyed. Justice is coming.

Isaiah 18, Isaiah 19, Isaiah 20, Isaiah 21, Isaiah 22

Even those places that have flourished will be destroyed, but the Lord will take “a gift of tribute,” a remnant from each land. Babylon will fall, Egypt will fall, Ethiopia, formerly a wealthy nation, will fall, Assyria will fall. Isaiah the prophet showed this by taking what God had dignified (his life as a prophet) and walked naked and barefoot for three years, disgracing himself. So too would Egypt and Ethiopia walk naked and barefoot, fallen from their former glory. Media, too, which would conquer Babylon, would fall herself. Judah, the “valley of vision,” all their rulers would go into captivity and the city of Jerusalem would be destroyed. All of the wrongdoing of the world would continue, no matter where in the world we’re talking about, and no atonement would come, until death, until Yeshua’s death. Eliakim (raised up by God), son of Hilkiah (my portion is Yahweh)—Hilkiah is also the priest who found the Torah and reestablished it—this is prophetic picture of our Messiah Yeshua. He would restore God’s commandments and call everyone to devote their whole lives to God, and for this He would be crucified but then raised up. He would have the key of the house of David on his shoulder and what he opens no one will shut and what he shuts no one will open. He will take the throne of glory. And though He would fail, with the weight of the least of God’s children hanging on Him, He would be raised up.

Isaiah 23, Isaiah 24, Isaiah 25, Isaiah 26, Isaiah 27

I found an interesting prophesy in Isaiah 23 that I want to highlight: “It will come about at the end of seventy years that the Lord will visit Tyre. Then she will go back to her prostitute’s wages and commit prostitution with all the kingdoms on the face of the earth. Her profit and her prostitute’s wages will be sacred to the Lord; it will not be stored up or hoarded, but her profit will become sufficient food and magnificent attire for those who dwell in the presence of the Lord.” We know today that the prostitute is fornicating with all the kings of the Earth. The false church, the beast system of world government, they are profiting off of all of the evil they are promulgating. However, they are also storing up treasure for themselves in the Earth, all the wealthiest among our global population; you might call them kings and queens with all the wealth they possess. The Lord is saying here that this abundance will be used as “sufficient food and magnificent attire for those who dwell in the presence of the Lord.” In other words, “the meek shall inherit the earth.” Just as Israel walked into the promised land and everything was already done for the people to inhabit the land, so too will the Lord’s kingdom be established in this way when He conquers His enemies.

In Isaiah 24, we see that the Lord will lay waste to every person, no matter who they are, and all of their power if they are not aligned with Him. He will even put the sun and the moon to shame with His glory, and those who know the Lord and obey Him will be there with Him, basking in His glory. This is why Isaiah continues in chapter 24 explaining that he will exalt the Lord and give thanks to His name, because all of the Lord’s promises will be fulfilled. He is a stronghold for the weak and powerless, a help to those who need refuge, the one who provides everything we need. Those who trust in Yeshua and keep God’s commandments will experience this Day of the Lord, this reign where we will rejoice and be glad in His salvation, for we will have rest on His mountain. Isaiah 26 and 27 contain much of the same imagery of Revelation and other Last Day prophesy. It’s worth bookmarking these chapters to revisit to help us fully understand the prophesy of the Lord’s promises. Let this be our prayer: “O Upright One [Yeshua], make the path of the righteous level. Indeed, while following the way of Your judgments, Lord, We have waited for You eagerly; Your name, and remembering You, is the desire of our souls. At night my soul longs for You, Indeed, my spirit within me seeks You diligently; For when the earth experiences Your judgments, The inhabitants of the world learn righteousness.” The time of the wicked will soon perish.

Isaiah 28, Isaiah 29, Isaiah 30

I have heard misinterpretations of the Lord’s Word to Ephraim, which metaphorically represents Israel, in Isaiah 28, a chapter that begins a new section of prophesy set apart from the last several chapters. Prophetically, Isaiah is talking about Israel in the flesh, the Israel that fell to Assyria, yes, but also the Israel that existed at the time of Christ, and many within the Church today who don’t even understand the elementary principles of faith (found in Hebrews 6:1-3), which Paul chastises them for in 1 Corinthians 3:1-3. Todays Christians are in worse shape, even denying the very Lord who came to save them, in many cases, or explaining away His very Word and Will that He has for us, saying deceitfully that Christ came so that we could become children of Hell who disregard God’s law. God forbid this travesty of sinfulness! May He use us to call all to repentance!

God says, “Woe to the proud crown of the drunkards of Ephraim, ... of those who are overcome with wine ... The priest and the prophet reel with strong drink, they are confused by wine and stagger from strong drink.” The people and their prophets have fallen into drunkenness and debauchery, and every manner of sin against God, and so they are incapable of prophesy.

“To whom would He teach knowledge, and to whom would He interpret the message? Those just weaned from milk? He’s talking about the spiritually immature, who don’t even or just barely understand the elementary principles of the Faith. This isn’t just Israel. Paul chastises His students a few times for not advancing past the “milk of the Word.” The writer of Hebrews and Peter also use this language.

How could they prophesy when they don’t understand the basic principles of God’s Word and flat out ignore them? How could they possibly speak God’s Word? These are the ones who say “Order on order, order on order, Line on line, line on line, A little here, a little there’,“ in the NASB. In the NKJV, it’s “Precept upon precept, precept upon precept, Line upon line, line upon line, Here a little, there a little,” The Lord does not want His people to read His Word or prophesy in His name like this; He wants them to fully understand His message, and His message is simple: Repent, and obey in faith, and live.

God, through the prophet, corrects these blind guides by telling a parable in verses 23-29, likening the preachers who say “line by line, precept by precept” to farmers who repeatedly till the soil expecting to harvest fruit from it. He says not only must we till the soil, but also plant the seed, nourish the plant, and harvest the fruit, and process the fruit so it can be consumed, so that it can be distributed to others. In fact, this lesson is directly tied to the one Paul is teaching in 1 Corinthians 1, 3 and Hebrews 6. We don’t just read the Word little by little over time to remain fools and ignorant, we read the Word and the Holy Spirit helps us understand it, and then we plant the seed in others and bear fruit so that they too can grow in the Lord and repeat the cycle. This is the role of a Christian, as we are called “kings and priests” who are doing the Lord’s work with the help of His Holy Spirit. He wants us to understand His Word and to teach the understanding to others. He wants us to take the entire book, from Genesis to Revelation, and put all the pieces together for a complete understanding of the “full counsel of God,” which does not contradict in any place, because “God does not lie,” and then share our knowledge that He has given us with others.

In Isaiah 29, the prophet turns his attention to Ariel, meaning the "lioness of El," a symbolic name for Jerusalem of Judah, Israel’s whorish sister. These are the ones Yeshua commented on in Mark 7, “Because this people draw near with their words And honor Me with their lip service, But they remove their hearts far from Me, And their reverence for Me consists of tradition learned by rote, Therefore behold, I will once again deal marvelously with this people, wondrously marvelous; And the wisdom of their wise men will perish, And the discernment of their discerning men will be concealed.” Reading the Word of God is not something we do to remember the verses and recite them as if we have some great knowledge. Absolutely not! Reading the Word of God in righteousness is to hear God speak into our lives; or even more specifically, to speak life into us. How does the living Word literally change our lives? It had better do that, or we aren’t living in faith.

Do we think we can hide our heart from the Lord? God says “woe to those who deeply hide their plans from the Lord and whose deeds are done in a dark place.” Who sees us, Who knows us? God does, that’s who. He knows the thoughts and intents of the heart and He searches them day and night. How dare the creation question the Creator? Didn’t Job teach this same lesson? We must not question the Lord, but do what He says, because He said to do it because He loves us and knows what we need, and because He said to do it to show we love Him. Thank God in His mercy He had prepared Jacob to prepare the way for the Messiah. For the children of Isaiah’s generation would “sanctify My name; indeed, they will sanctify the Holy One of Jacob and will stand in awe of the God of Israel. Those who err in mind will know the truth, and those who criticize will accept instruction.” Those who turned toward their Messiah when He came in the flesh fulfilled this prophesy.

False sons, Isaiah writes in Isaiah 30 are “Sons who refuse to listen to the instruction of the Lord.” These are the ones who want to hear “illusions” and “pleasant words” and say, “tell us no more about the Holy One of Israel” and His law. For these false sons: “iniquity will be to you like a breach about to fail, ... whose collapse comes suddenly in an instant.” Jesus told us He will come like a thief in the night, and it matters what he finds us doing at that moment. Those who are violating God’s law will be thrown into “outer darkness, where there is weeping and gnashing of teeth.” Those who are “good and faithful servants,” who keep the commandments and faith in Jesus, will be welcomed into His kingdom. It’s all here: “For thus the Lord God, the Holy One of Israel, has said: “In repentance and rest you will be saved, in quietness and trust is your strength.” This is Revelation 14:12 all over again. “The Lord is a God of justice, how blessed are all those who long for Him.”

One day soon, “He, your Teacher, will no longer hide Himself, but your eyes will behold your Teacher. Your ears will hear a word behind you, “This is the way, walk in it,” whenever you turn to the right or to the left.” We will say “be gone” to our idols. When we do this, we will have the bounty of the Lord and share in His abundance. We will make it into His kingdom, which is described beautifully here: “The light of the moon will be as the light of the sun, and the light of the sun will be seven times brighter, like the light of seven days, on the day the Lord binds up the fracture of His people and heals the bruise He has inflicted. You will have songs as in the night when you keep the festival, And gladness of heart as when one marches to the sound of the flute, To go to the mountain of the Lord, to the Rock of Israel.” For those who refuse to obey, “the Lord will cause His voice of authority to be heard, and the descending of His arm [Jesus] to be seen in fierce anger, and in the flame of a consuming fire in cloudburst, downpour and hailstones. ... the breath of the Lord, like a torrent of brimstone, sets [the world] afire.”

Isaiah 31, Isaiah 32, Isaiah 33, Isaiah 34, Isaiah 35

Isaiah 31 helps direct our hearts away from help that might come in the world—here from Egypt and its horses and chariots—for us, perhaps positions, or fame, or prestige, or fortune, or provision. If our trust is in these things, we become fools, “and any helper will stumble and one who is helped will fall.” These things are not God, and nor are they Spirit. Our hearts must rely fully on the Lord, for our home is not here but in the Kingdom of God.

Isaiah 32 explains that God’s people will live with peace, righteousness, quietness and confidence when our heart is to spread the Gospel (the wilderness becomes a fertile field), to keep justice, to pursue God’s righteousness—to keep the commandments of God and faith in Jesus. Both saved Jews and Gentiles (the ox and the donkey) will go out freely together in this time, but the city of fools who speak nonsense and rogues who both sin and thwart the Word of God will be removed.

Those rebelling against God will be destroyed, we read in Isiah 33. For we who trust in Yeshua, we ask for His grace and wait patiently for Him to come: “Lord, be gracious to us; we have waited for You.” We ask for the Lord’s strength every morning and our salvation from times of distress. The Lord will be exalted by the justice and righteousness of His people. He is our salvation, our wisdom and our knowledge, and “the fear of the Lord” a treasure. The Lord’s people ask, trembling in the fear of the Lord, “Who among us can live with the consuming fire?” This consuming fire is Yeshua, for He will burn up all unrighteousness on the Last Day. The answer to the question is this: “One who walks righteously and speaks with integrity, one who rejects unjust gain and shakes his hands so they hold no bribe, one who stops his ears from hearing about bloodshed and shuts his eyes from looking at evil.” Yes, this is the one who will “dwell on the heights.” He will have the bread and water from heaven, and his eyes will see the King in His beauty.

Isaiah 34-35 goes through the punishment that will come upon all peoples who turn their backs on the Lord and the salvation that will come on those who turn toward Him. There is imagery of both Jews and Gentiles being destroyed in iniquity and Jews and Gentiles being redeemed by God. The Highway of Holiness will be the narrow pathway for the redeemed to return to Zion with joyful shouting, for everlasting joy will be on our heads.

Isaiah 36, Isaiah 37, Isaiah 38, Isaiah 39

In today’s reading, particularly Isaiah 38, we can discern the heart of a man who put God first, even when faced with certain death. Hezekiah had a fatal illness, but he turned to the Lord in prayer, saying “Restore to me to health and let me live! Behold, for my own welfare I had great bitterness; but you have kept my soul from the pit of nothingness, for you have hurled all my sins behind Your back. For Sheol cannot thank You, Death cannot praise You; those who go down to the pit cannot hope for Your faithfulness. It is the living who give thanks to You, as I do today; A father tells his sons about Your faithfulness.” The Lord healed Hezekiah and gave him 15 more years of life because Hezekiah put his life into the Lord’s hands.

Contrast this with the story of Asa in 2 Chronicles 16:12-13. He “became diseased in his feat, and his malady was severe; yet in his disease he did not seek the LORD, but the physicians. So Asa rested with his fathers; he died.” It is critical that we go to the Lord first and often whenever we face trials in this life. The Lord will answer those who put Him first, but He will not hear those who do not turn to Him—particularly when their first instinct is to look to the “experts” among men for answers.

Isaiah 40, Isaiah 41, Isaiah 42, Isaiah 43, Isaiah 44

The devotional creators present two possibilities for the post-Babylonian writing in the book of Isaiah. In the first possibility, Isaiah is a true prophet and God has shown Isaiah His heart concerning current conditions in Judah, post-Babylonian conditions, Messianic conditions—first and second coming—, and End of the World, New Jerusalem conditions, and He records them all for us to be read and understood at the appointed time. In the second possibility, the devotional creators cite Isaiah 8:16; 29:10-12; 30:8-9 as examples of prophesy that hints of some disciples who will pick up where Isaiah left off later. In this scenario, these post-Babylonian disciples of Isaiah took the prophet’s words and added to them, applying them to their present day. The second possibility discredits Isaiah’s visions, as I see it, and turns the book into a poetic chronicle of history. It strikes me a secular interpretation—one lacking faith. For me, I believe the first interpretation is correct. The prophet Isaiah was told by God to seal up his prophesies, which were all written down by him directly, so that the disciples of God (those of us who know Yeshua) could read His words and believe in God and His promises at the appointed time.

The story of Hezekiah from 2 Kings 18-20 is very similar with Isaiah 36-39, and this makes for a very interesting transition between the two prophetic sections. I wonder whether 2 Kings 18-20 was inserted with some clarification into Isaiah as a reference, or was Isaiah 36-39 inserted into 2 Kings with some clarification as a reference? In any case, it clearly is a transition between prophesies of judgment and redemption to prophesies of redemption and glorification or judgment again.

As we move into Isaiah 40, God asserts Himself as the One who created all things and who interacts in the world regularly and has influence over every situation. There isn’t a thing He doesn’t directly oversee and have His hand in. He asks how any man could possibly worship an idol when it is clear that He is God. We must repent, turn to God and walk in His ways. This theme continues throughout our reading today.

There’s so much to write here, and too much to study. We see Messianic prophesy throughout, but if you look at Isaiah 42, you see Isaiah writing about the Babylonian captivity as if it has not yet happened (because it hadn’t at the time of Isaiah’s writing). God would use this captivity to judge Israel, but then He would lead them back and redeem them. Israel as a nation is imperative in God’s overall interaction with mankind. Israel is not replaced by the coming of Messiah, but rather continues to be the canary in the coal mine, if you will, that shows us where we are on the prophetic clock. Ultimately, through Messiah Yeshua, God would redeem all who turn to Him, the Messiah, for salvation, whether Jew or Gentile, and everyone else, whether Jew or Gentile, would be cut off. Jerusalem will remain as a focal point for God’s work in the world. It is a place we can look to and see what God is doing, though He will also have His hand on all the nations. Yeshua, our King, is one in being with the Father, and everything said about God in these chapters can be said about Him. He is God’s right hand in the world who redeems all who turn to Him.

Isaiah 45, Isaiah 46, Isaiah 47, Isaiah 48

Isaiah 45 includes prophetic language that provides evidence for the deity of Messiah Yeshua when taken with the totality of Scripture. Here the Lord writes through the hand of Isaiah:

“Declare and present your case; Indeed, let them consult together. Who has announced this long ago? Who has long since declared it? Is it not I, the Lord? And there is no other God besides Me, A righteous God and a Savior; There is none except Me. “Turn to Me and be saved, all the ends of the earth; For I am God, and there is no other. “I have sworn by Myself; The word has gone out from My mouth in righteousness And will not turn back, That to Me every knee will bow, every tongue will swear allegiance. “They will say of Me, ‘Only in the Lord are righteousness and strength.’ People will come to Him, And all who were angry at Him will be put to shame. “In the Lord all the offspring of Israel Will be justified and will boast.””

Consider:
* “For when God made a promise to Abraham, because He could swear by no one greater, He swore by Himself,…” (Hebrews 6:13).
* “It is also written in your law that the testimony of two men is true. I am One who bears witness of Myself, and the Father who sent Me bears witness of Me.” (John 8:17-18)
* “Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus, who, BEING IN THE FORM OF GOD, did not consider it robbery to be equal with God, but made Himself of no reputation, taking the form of a bondservant, and coming in the likeness of men. And being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself and became obedient to the point of death, even the death of the cross. Therefore God also has highly exalted Him and given Him the name which is above every name, that AT THE NAME OF JESUS EVERY KNEE SHOULD BOW, OF THOSE IN HEAVEN, AND THOSE ON EARTH, AND THOSE UNDER THE EARTH, AND THAT EVERY TONGUE SHOULD CONFESS THAT JESUS CHRIST IS LORD, TO THE GLORY OF GOD THE FATHER.”

Yeshua Hamashiach is Yahweh, to the glory of Abba Elohim. God is ONE, and He is Yeshua, He is the Father, and He is the Holy Spirit.

Isaiah 49, Isaiah 50, Isaiah 51, Isaiah 52, Isaiah 53

Isaiah 49-53 is a full-on prophesy of the coming, death, resurrection and second coming of our Lord Yeshua, and it goes through the story several times. In Isaiah 49, God announces the coming Messiah, who will be His own Spirit embodied in human flesh. He will be a sharpened sword, who will go forth with the Word of God and keep it fully and call others to repent and follow Him. He will save the nations, and He will save Israel. How could He forget His chosen people? All who are captive to sin will be set free by Him, those who turn to Him will be redeemed. In Isaiah 50, He continues, for He has the “tongue of disciples” to sustain the weary with a single Word—those who have the Spirit of Christ dwelling in them. Though He would be crucified, as described here, the Lord would help Him; He would raise Him up. Those who trust in Him will be sustained, though those who trust in flaming arrows will be burned up by them.

In Isaiah 51, we see that the righteousness of Messiah Yeshua is near to us, His salvation is available—it has “gone forth.” His arm will judge the people when He returns. You see, the “coastlands” referring to far-off places like Europe, America and other Gentile nations will “wait for Me.” His salvation will be forever, as will His righteousness, which will not fail. We know from Psalm 119:142, “Your righteousness is an everlasting righteousness, And Your law is truth.” God says, importantly: “Listen to me you who know righteousness, a people in whose heart is My Law….” it is our duty to obey Him. “…do not fear the taunting of people, nor be terrified in their abuses.” These Last Days are upon us, and we as Christians who do not waver will be persecuted like never before. We must Trust in the Lord, in His promise to bring us into His kingdom, for He will comfort us, establish us, call us as His own, resurrect us from the dead and allow us to live with Him in the New Heaven and New Earth forever. Those who taunt us or rebel against the Lord will be eaten up by the moth, like a garment. They will be destroyed.

In Isaiah 52, “Awake, awake,” the Lord calls, “clothe yourself with your beautiful garments, Jerusalem, the holy city, for the uncircumcised and the unclean will no longer come into you.” This is the New Jerusalem, when sin and defilement will be no more, and we cannot live in such lawlessness if we desire to be there with Him. The Lord makes this so clear. He has redeemed us without money—but by his blood. The price for sin has been paid. “My people shall know My name,” Yeshua said. “Here I am,” He said and will say again. Will we bring delight to our Heavenly Father and proclaim the good news of Yeshua on the mountains? Your God reigns, Zion! He is Yeshua, and He lives! He instructs His people: “Do not touch what is unclean … purify yourself.” We cannot follow the Lord and practice lawlessness. We must separate the Holy from the profane and follow the Lord with all of our heart.

Because His appearance was marred beyond that of a man, He sprinkles so many nations with His blood, and all who accept and follow Him will be saved. He is high and lifted up, and we only have His righteousness to boast in. And just in case it’s not clear who Isaiah is foretelling, Isaiah 53 removes all doubt that this is our Lord Yeshua, who came in the flesh and died for our sins in the way described, but then God has prolonged His life, for He is God who came in the flesh. “He was cut off from the land of the living for the wrongdoing of my people to whom the blow was due … He renders Himself as a guilt offering.” For this, “He will see His offspring,” all who believe in Him, and “He will prolong His days.” Yes, He will come again and reign forever. He will justify the many who call upon His name and trust in His promises. Praise be the mighty name of Yeshua!

Isaiah 54, Isaiah 55, Isaiah 56, Isaiah 57, Isaiah 58

The New Jerusalem will be perfect, and there will be nothing that stands against it. It will be the heritage of the “servants of the Lord,” we read in Isaiah 54. Our faith will be vindicated by what the Lord does for us. This doesn’t cost us anything, only that we seek the Lord while He may be found, call upon Him while He is near, abandon our wicked, lawless ways, and return to the Lord and His ways. And He will abundantly pardon, because His ways are higher than our ways and His Word will return to Him, accomplishing all He set out to do, we read in Isaiah 55.

Those of us who are Gentile believers in Yeshua, or otherwise excommunicated from the physical Israel, we ought to keep the seventh-day Sabbath of our God, we learn in Isaiah 56. When Yeshua came, He taught us to do this by doing it Himself, in Spirit and in Truth. Those “sons of the foreigners who join themselves to the Lord,” we who keep His Sabbath His way will be storing up treasures in Heaven. Isaiah 56 is the reason I keep Sabbath today. It is abundantly clear that it applies to us. And in Isaiah 58, we are told that we ought to seek the Lord on this day, and not our own way. It is a shadow of the things to come, and those are things we want to embrace by putting the Lord first today. Those who are contrite and lowly in Spirit, who do the will of the Lord, we will dwell in His kingdom, while those who rebel against the Lord will be cut off, we read in Isaiah 57. He will raise up those who are persecuted today, and destroy the oppressor.

In Isaiah 58, the Lord explains the type of fast that He desires. I’ve written entire sermons on this section, but today I want to hone in on a few things. The Lord chooses a fast that “releases the bonds of wickedness, to undo the ropes of the yoke, and to let the oppressed go free and break every yoke.” In other words, the purpose of a fast is to become introspective and ask for the Lord to search for ways in us that are unclean, sinful, wicked, unrighteous, and etc., and ask for the blood of Christ to free us from these bonds. He is our bondage breaker, and sin is the bondage that tries to keep us prisoners. A fast, in the Spirit and Truth of Christ, opens us up to release these bonds and repent of these sins so they can be conquered once and for all by His blood. Secondly, we ought to be in service to the homeless, the poor, the blind and the naked, and to ensure we hide ourselves from our own flesh. In other words, we are to call to sinners to come home to Christ, to uplift the humble in Spirit with the promise of redemption, to bring sight to the blind by opening their eyes to the Truth of God’s Word, and to explain that Christ’s righteousness clothes us so that we can walk into the throne room of God. Fasting ought to help us abolish the call of our flesh so we can walk in the Spirit of Christ. It ought to be done regularly. Then “your light will break out like the dawn and your recovery will spring up quickly and righteousness will go before you and the glory of the Lord will be your rear guard.” We are the salt and light for Christ when He dwells with us, He walks before us and prevents us from looking back. Yeshua said in Matthew 9:15 that this is the age for fasting.

Rita Vaags
I’ve loved truly meditating on that chapter during fasts. What really stood out for me is the stark contrast between displeasing fasts where we want God to hit our enemies with an iron fist whereas what He desires is for us to intercede for them, that their iron yokes be broken!
. And in that process “don’t hide from own flesh (look in the mirror).”
I’ve often meditated on the following verses, too.
BLESS and PRAY for your enemies (ENDURE):
- those who curse you Luke 6:28 and 1 Peter 3:9 and Rom 12:14 & 1 Cor 4:12
- those who abuse/persecute you Luke6:28 (Luke 23:34 and Acts 7:60 & 2 Tim 4:16 & Matt 5:44
- offer the other cheek to the one who strikes you Luke 6:29 and 1 Peter 2:20 & 1 Cor 4:12
- to bless them means you are interceding for their REPENTANCE! Acts 3:26 “to BLESS you BY TURNING every one of you from your wickedness.”
Such an amazing chapter! Thank you so much for sharing it!

Isaiah 59, Isaiah 60, Isaiah 61, Isaiah 62, Isaiah 63

I can’t help but get giddy reading Isaiah, for the entire book is about Yeshua, His first and second coming, His accomplishments and His promises amidst our failures. When we have hope in Him alone and walk in His ways, there is hope, when we turn our backs on Him and go our own way there is death.

From Isaiah 59:1: “Behold, the Lord’s hand is not so short that it cannot save; nor is His ear so dull that it cannot hear.”

Yeshua is calling to us all, and salvation is available to all who call on His name.

From Isaiah 59:2-4: “But your wrongdoings have cause a separation between you and your God, and your sins have hidden His face from you so that He does not hear. For your hands are full of blood, and your fingers with wrongdoing, your lips have spoken deceit, and your tongue mutters wickedness.”

Do not think that we can call on the name of the “Lord, Lord,” and still be saved, for the Lord will say, “depart from me, you who practice lawlessness” (Mt. 7:21-23). He will not even hear the prayers of those who disobey His commandments.

John 9:31 reads, “Now we know that God does not hear sinners; but if anyone is a worshiper of God and does His will, He hears him.” It really is that simple. We must repent and follow Yeshua!

Isaiah 59:20-21: “A Redeemer will come to Zion, And to those in Jacob who turn from wrongdoing,” declares the Lord. “As for Me, this is My covenant with them,” says the Lord: “My Spirit who is upon you, and My words which I have put in your mouth shall not depart from your mouth, nor from the mouth of your offspring, nor from the mouth of your offspring’s offspring,” says the Lord, “from now and forever.”

For those who repent (turn away from sin and “go and sin no more”), Yeshua will redeem us by His blood. For those of us who do this, His Spirit will be upon us. Read John 14:15-21, for it says the same thing. His Helper will be upon those who love Him and keep His commandments, and we know His commandments are not hard, except on account of deception where many have been led astray and follow the traditions of the elders instead of the commandments of God. For this, we too must repent and turn back to God.

In Isaiah 60, the Lord calls upon His people on the Last Day. This verse reflects the great resurrection from the dead at the end of the age: “Arise, shine, for your light has come and the glory of the Lord has risen upon you. For behold, darkness will cover the earth and deep darkness the peoples, but the Lord will rise upon you and His glory will appear upon you.” All will come before Yeshua and give Him glory, all will praise Him who were risen and redeemed by Him. Even all those from Sheba will come, for the Queen of Sheba will rise up in the Last Day and stand next to our Messiah as He judges the generation that put Him to death. (Matthew 12:42).

And in the midst of this prophesy of the End Days, we see the glimpse of an earlier fulfillment: “All those from Sheba will come; They will bring gold and frankincense, And proclaim good news of the praises of the Lord.“ The wise men came from Babylon bringing gold, frankincense and myrrh. But notice myrrh is missing here? Myrrh is the burial ointment. Gold and frankincense are fit for a king. By this we know that this prophesy speaks of the second coming. In the rest of this chapter, we see descriptions of the New Jerusalem that can be compared to Revelation 21-22.

In Isaiah 61, we see the Lord bring us revelation of both His first and second coming. In Luke 4:16-21, Yeshua read from verses one and the first part of verse two and said, “Today this Scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing. That means the second part, from the second part of verse two to the end, are about His second coming. Read it, and you’ll see. While in Christ’s first coming, He came “to proclaim the favorable year of the Lord,” in His second coming he will proclaim “the day of vengeance of our God.” And yet He will still comfort those who mourn and bring the oil of gladness upon them, for they mourn at the wickedness of the world all around them, just like righteous Lot when he was in the midst of Sodom. The Lord will bring His everlasting covenant to those who “love justice.” Those of us who “are the offspring whom the Lord has blessed” will recognize Him, and thus we will “rejoice greatly in the lord,” for “He has clothed me with the garments of salvation and He has wrapped me with a robe of righteousness.” Righteousness and praise toward God will be the only thing that remains.

In Isaiah 62, we will be called by the name of Yeshua and Israel will no longer be forsaken or desolate, but we will be “married” to the Lord our God. Those of us who are grafted-in to Israel are the bride of our brideroom Yeshua, and He will protect us and provide for us and never let us go. “The holy people, the redeemed of the Lord” will live in the city that is “sought out” and “not abandoned” forever.

In Isaiah 63, we read about the one who comes from Edom, which represents the Kingdoms of this World who put their own interests first before the Lord. The One majestic in apparel marching in the greatness of His strength is the Lord Yeshua, and He speaks in righteousness, while being mighty to save. There is an important question asked here that answers a mystery in Revelation. “Why is Your apparel red, And Your garments like one who treads in the wine press?” We read in Revelation 19:13: “He is clothed with a robe dipped in blood, and His name is called The Word of God.” Many Christians interpret this incorrectly, saying the blood is Christ’s from the cross. That blood has already been shed and the redemption of the Saints, who keep the commandments of God and faith in Yeshua, is sealed. “It is finished.” The blood that will be on His garments is from another source, and our reading confirms this: “I have trodden the wine trough alone, and from the peoples there was no one with Me. I also trod them in My anger and trampled them in My wrath; and their lifeblood is sprinkled on My garments, and I stained all My clothes. For the day of vengeance was in My heart, And My year of redemption has come.” We must look to our Lord, our Father, Our Redeemer, and call on Him to “return for the sake of Your servants, the tribes of Your heritage,” and we will not be among those trampled if we love Him and do His will.

Isaiah 64, Isaiah 65, Isaiah 66

As Isaiah did, I shout to the Lord, “Oh, that You would tear open the heavens and come down.” To make the name Yeshua known to His adversaries and so all people may tremble at His presence. There is no other God beside Him who acts on behalf of the ones who wait for Him. He meets with those who rejoice in doing righteousness and remembers His Ways, for He is the Way, the Truth and the Life, and no one gets to the Father except through Him. He was angry at our sin and He still judges those who sin; in fact, there is no forgiveness for those living in lawlessness, who refuse to repent. There is no righteous deed and no sacrifice that He will consider, for all of the works done with unrepentant hearts are like filthy garments. He hides His face from those who walk in their sins and do not repent. Only those who repent, trust in Him, and walk in His ways have any hope of salvation. These verses in Isaiah 64 are often misinterpreted. It is only the righteous deeds of the lawless that are filthy in the sight of the Lord; on the contrary, He meets with those who trust in Him and follow Him; He helps them in direct relationship to fully uphold His righteousness. We must seek Him with all of our hearts, or we will be cast down into the fire

Because of the apostasy of Israel, the “people who continually provoke [Him] to [His] face,” the Lord permitted Himself to be found by those who had not sought Him, the Gentiles, but He still calls for our love, our obedience and our trust. He won’t heed the calls of rebellious people, who call upon His name but eat swine’s flesh, who burn incense to idols, who are swallowed up in their pride, saying “I am holier than you,” while they themselves disregard the Word of the Lord. Those who carelessly sin will be like smoke in God’s nostrils. But He will save some of His servants and not destroy all of them; He will bring forth some from Jacob, and all of His chosen ones shall inherit the Promised Land given to them; namely, Mt. Zion. For those who seek Him with all their hearts, they will find rest in the Lord. Anyone who abandons the Lord, forgets His promises or sets their tables for worldly pleasures alone will be destroyed by the sword. He called, do we answer? His servants will eat and drink eternal joy, but those who turn away will be hungry and thirsty. A New Heaven and Earth await, and the former things will not be remembered or come to mind. Let us live for this promise and nothing else.

There is no house that can contain the Lord except the man or woman who is humble and contrite in spirit and who trembles at His Word. With this one the Lord will dwell. We cannot choose our own ways and delight in abominations and expect to see the Lord. When we live for ourselves, any religious gesture we make will be pointless and the Lord will look at it with disdain. The Lord called and spoke, but do we listen to what He said and do we follow Him? For those who hear the Lord’s Word, Isaiah does not parse words, we will be hated and excluded for Yeshua’s sake. But ultimately, those who persecute us will be put to shame. It is our duty to glorify the Lord. The prophet finishes with End Days metaphors; like a pregnant woman, the Earth shall deliver her dead to resurrected bodies and the Land of Israel will be born in a day. Those alive in Christ will join them and be changed in the blink of an eye. The New Jerusalem will be our mother that feeds us milk and honey, and peace will run through her like a river. Any enemy of God will be burned up. God’s glory will reign, and from Sabbath to Sabbath, all mankind will bow before Him forever.

Jeremiah 1, Jeremiah 2, Jeremiah 3

God knew Jeremiah from his mother’s womb; He knew He was going to call Jeremiah as a prophet. Like all prophets, Jeremiah was humble about the calling, and said, “I’m too young.” The Lord responds marvelously saying that Jeremiah will go where the Lord commands and when He does the Lord’s will, the Lord will put the Word in his mouth. The Lord will be with the prophet to “save” him. This aligns with the testimony of two: If we endure in obedience to the commandments of God and keep the faith of Yeshua, we will enter the Kingdom of God.

I love the play on words in Jeremiah’s first vision. He sees the “rod of an almond tree” [almond (shakade שָׁקֵד)], and the Lord says, “you have seen well, for I am watching over My Word to perform it” [watching (shakad שָׁקַד)]. In one sense, it’s powerful to recognize the poetic language that the prophet uses to communicate God’s Truth. While He does this, we also see that His poetry aligns with Scripture in Isaiah 55:11, where Yahweh says: “So shall My Word be that goes forth from My mouth; It shall not return to Me void, But it shall accomplish what I please, And it shall prosper in the thing for which I sent it.” The significance of the almond tree is that it is the first tree to wake up after winter and send forth its bloom. Jeremiah, the prophet, is the first Godly man that God is waking up to the Truth of Israel’s situation. There is warning in this that God is always watching, and He knows the thoughts and intents of our hearts (Jeremiah 17:10). God is about to speak judgement on Israel that will be accomplished, but in this judgment He expects repentance among the remnant. There will be almond fruit borne from the judgment that is about to come, and in this we have hope.

And the judgment against Israel is the very next thing God shows Jeremiah, the boiling pot facing away from the north—from Babylon, there will be calamity. Calamity (ra — רַע) is not the same thing as evil (ra’a — רָעַע), for evil is the absence of—or rebellion against—God’s will, and God does not bring evil on a land; it is against His nature. God brings judgment in the form of calamity, and the purpose of this is always to stimulate repentance. Read Deuteronomy 28. It explains what the Lord will do in response to “wickedness,” which is disobedience or rebellion against God. Israel is cavalier about their sin, much like many modern Christians are. They might say, “oh, the law of God is not as important as the tradition of the elders” or “we are worshipping God with this idol or tradition we have kept from the pagans who surrounded us.” They may believe they are doing right by God, but they’re not obeying Him in Spirit and Truth according to what God has said. For this they will be judged. The whole book of Jeremiah can be read as if it is written to American Christians today, and it absolutely applies in the same way. We are presently being judged for our wickedness and we will soon be destroyed without full repentance (changing our ways to be like God’s ways). The remnant who withstands the evil day will be preserved, but not without tribulation, just like in Israel’s case.

God separated Israel from Egypt and loosed her of bondage by the blood of the Lamb, an allegorical metaphor for how Christians have been removed from the bondage of sin by the blood of Yeshua. We were made holy to the Lord, the first of the harvest. But we all have become guilty and therefore judgment has come upon us. Why have Americans, like Israel, turned from God and walked after emptiness and become empty? God gave us a fruitful land to eat its fruit and its good things, but we have defiled His land and made the gift of God an abomination. The priests, the prophets and the shepherds have not called out to the Lord, except for a remnant. Instead, they have conspired with the world to make Christianity more “palatable” to the world by apologizing for the harsher words that God has given toward an evil people. Because of this, we now participate in yoga, and allow prayers to Brahma in our halls of government, and we worry about saying anything against the transgender movement or women who abort their children, and some have even adopted pronouns to become more approachable to those caught up in their sin. This prostitution with the world will only lead to death for the sinner and the one who tolerates sin (Romans 1).

Christians have said, “I will not serve” the Lord—I will not preach His Word to its full extent. The church has become “the degenerate shoots of a foreign vine.” God said to Jeremiah, “Although you wash yourself with lye and use much soap, the stain of your guilt is before Me.” Christians may go to church, but they go on the day of the sun devoted to Sol Invictus because of their tradition, but they do not honor the Lord’s Day, which is the seventh-day (Saturday) Sabbath. They think it heals them, but they live like hell the rest of the week. Christians have “said to a tree, ‘You are my father,’ and to a stone, ‘You gave me birth,’” for they recognize “mother earth” and consider the lies of evolution that have been disproven by real science, and yet they refuse to see that every Word of Scripture is Truth, that our Earth is now only approaching its 6000th year since Creation. In our time of trouble, we may say to the Lord, “arise and save us!” God will say to those Christians who have turned their backs on Him, “Where are your gods which you made for yourself? Let them arise, if they can save you in the time of your trouble” (Matthew 7:21-23). Many Christians do not accept the discipline of the Lord, for it is “grace, grace,” except that we have been called to keep the commandments of God, if we love our Savior Yeshua (John 14:15-18).

While many Christians, like Israel of old, say, “we are free to roam; we will no longer come to You?” The Lord says “how well you prepare your way to seek love.” The Gospel IS all about love, but it is love defined by God in His Word, not by you and me by our flesh. And yet many Christians argue in favor of abortion, which is sacrificing their own children to Moloch, they argue for sexual freedom and practice it and there is adultery even at the heart of many pulpits. In spite of this, many say, “I am innocent; surely His anger is turned away from me.” The “greasy grace” message of many churches allows so many to fall into sin and death. We are not saved by grace if we turn the grace of God into lewdness (Galatians 2:17). We are not saved by grace if we do not repent and follow our Messiah by keeping the commandments of God, by following Him, as He asked us to do. We cannot say, “I have not sinned,” for John has written that those who say they are without sin are liars and the Truth is not in them, and yet he also wrote that those who say they know the Truth and don’t keep God’s commandments are liars and the truth is not in them. John seems to be pulling from the words of Jeremiah, and these words apply to so many Christians today. We must all repent, for the Lord looks upon those with humble and contrite hearts, and to these He offers grace.

In Jeremiah 3, we read: “God says, “If a husband divorces his wife And she leaves him And becomes another man’s wife, Will he return to her again? Would that land not be completely defiled? But you are a prostitute with many lovers; Yet you turn to Me,” declares the Lord.” We must consider this from a religious perspective. How many pagan traditions have been brought into Christianity and considered holy by the tradition of the elders? But Jesus has told us through the prophet Isaiah, woe to those who call evil good and good evil. He said that those who elevate their tradition above the commandments of God do not know God (Matthew 15, Mark 7). He said we must be better than the scribes and pharisees to make it to Heaven. We must not only keep the commandments of God, but teach them to everyone we baptize in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit (Matthew 5, Matthew 28).

Despite all of this, the Lord still loves us and calls on us to repent. The Lord says, “‘Return, faithless Israel,’ declares the Lord; ‘I will not look at you in anger. For I am gracious,’ declares the Lord; ‘I will not be angry forever. ‘Only acknowledge your wrongdoing, That you have revolted against the Lord your God,” Don’t you know that you are grafted-in to Israel when you accept Christ? (Romans 11). … “‘Return, you faithless sons,’ declares the Lord; ‘For I am a master to you, And I will take you, one from a city and two from a family, and bring you to Zion.’” Did not Jesus say one would be taken on the rooftop and the field while the other would remain (Matthew 24). Our Master is Yeshua when we keep the commandments of God and our faith in Him, no matter what the world throws our way (Revelation 14:12). He will bring us into His Kingdom when we repent, when we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us and lead us to repentance by the power of His Holy Spirit. When we do this, when we repent, when we turn from our sin and turn toward God and what He has commanded in His Word, this is when He will give faithful shepherds to us to lead us and guide us in all the righteousness of God. And from this narrow path of faithfulness to Him, we will stand before Him in His Holy city when He returns and bask in His glory alone.

Jeremiah 4, Jeremiah 5, Jeremiah 6

When any people called by God fall away from God, there is a clear reason for it, and God explains in Jeremiah 4, 5 and 6. The reason was the same for Israel leading up to the captivity, and it is the same for MANY Christians today. Let this be a warning: “An appalling and horrible thing Has happened in the land: The prophets prophesy falsely, And the priests rule on their own authority; And My people love it this way! But what will you do when the end comes?’” So many Christians love to hear they can do what they want, eat what they want, and worship like they want, but God has never told us that this is His will. He has always spoken against it, imploring us to do things His way. But the people fail, because “from the least of them to the greatest of them, Everyone is greedy for gain, And from the prophet to the priest Everyone deals falsely. They have healed the brokenness of My people superficially, Saying, ‘Peace, peace,’ But there is no peace. Were they ashamed because of the abomination they had done? They were not ashamed at all, Nor did they know even how to be ashamed. Therefore they will fall among those who fall; At the time that I punish them, They will collapse,’ says the Lord.” It is not OK at all for Christians to follow after their own heart, as so many pastors preach. It is not OK at all for us to say we will all be saved on account of God’s grace, as so many churches trumpet. This is peace, peace, when there is no peace! Those who will be saved by Christ on the Last Day are those set-apart ones who keep the commandments of God and the faith of Jesus. This testimony of two, in all endurance, is the only way we will make it to Heaven. We have to give up everything for God, or there is no salvation. His grace only saves those who turn toward Him, for Christ is not a minister of sin (Galatians 2:17).

He even tells us this: “‘If you will return, Israel,” declares the Lord, ‘Then you should return to Me. And if you will put away your detestable things from My presence, And will not waver, And if you will swear, ‘As the Lord lives,’ In truth, in justice, and in righteousness; Then the nations will bless themselves in Him, And in Him they will boast.” As the Lord spoke to the men of Judah and Jerusalem, He says to us as Christians today: “Break up your uncultivated ground, And do not sow among thorns. Circumcise yourselves to the Lord And remove the foreskins of your hearts … Or else My wrath will spread like fire And burn with no one to quench it, Because of the evil of your deeds.” We must go forth and baptize in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, making disciples, and we must teach them the commandments of God. This is the great commission, to break up the uncultivated ground. But we are also warned not to sow among thorns, because false prophets will confuse the seed that is the Word of God and will make its fruit into nothing. We must seek the uncultivated ground, while removing all sin from our own hearts—we must take the beam from our own eye before we can point out the speck in the eyes of others. This work of the Gospel is what it means to be faithful. If we aren’t doing what the Lord commanded, how can we expect to be saved? He will burn up the faithless and lawless on the Last Day. We do not want to be among them.

Jeremiah 7, Jeremiah 8, Jeremiah 9

Here is another message to the Christian church of today, as was given to the pre-Babylonian Jerusalem: “Will you steal, murder, commit adultery, swear falsely, offer sacrifices to Baal, and follow other gods that you have not known, then come and stand before Me in this house which is called by My name, and say, ‘We are saved!’—so that you may do all these abominations?” The Lord continues, “As for you, do not pray for this people, and do not lift up a cry or prayer for them, and do not plead with Me; for I am not listening to you.”

Can we possibly go into church on a day the Lord has not chosen, on a day he never appointed, can priests commit sexual atrocities, can pastors steal from the collection plates, can churches use pronouns and bow down to Satan, can women call on the name of the Lord and commit atrocities counter to nature, can the people worship Ishtar and Mithras and slap Christian names on pagan tradition and then say “We are saved!”? Is Christ a minister of sin? Certainly not! There is no salvation for those who are unrepentantly doing these things. He will say, “depart from me, you who practice lawlessness.” (Matthew 7:21-23)

As Yahweh speaks to Jerusalem in Jeremiah 7: “Then I will eliminate from the cities of Judah and from the streets of Jerusalem the voice of joy and the voice of gladness, the voice of the groom and the voice of the bride; for the land will become a site of ruins.”

Yeshua, in the same way, speaks to Jerusalem and all of us in Luke 17: “And as it was in the days of Noah, so it will be also in the days of the Son of Man: They ate, they drank, they married wives, they were given in marriage, until the day that Noah entered the ark, and the flood came and destroyed them all. Likewise as it was also in the days of Lot: They ate, they drank, they bought, they sold, they planted, they built; but on the day that Lot went out of Sodom it rained fire and brimstone from heaven and destroyed them all. Even so will it be in the day when the Son of Man is revealed.”

Yes, so many who call themselves Christians today are guilty of this: “They have spoken what is not right; No one repented of his wickedness, Saying, ‘What have I done?’ Everyone turned to his own course…. Behold, they have rejected the word of the Lord, So what kind of wisdom do they have? … they will fall among those who fall. … ‘For they proceed from evil to evil, And they do not know Me,’ declares the Lord. … They weary themselves committing wrongdoing.” These will be utterly destroyed.

There is only one hope for us, and it is Christ: “This is what the Lord says: “Let no wise man boast of his wisdom, nor let the mighty man boast of his might, nor a rich man boast of his riches; but let the one who boasts boast of this, that he understands and knows Me, that I am the Lord who exercises mercy, justice, and righteousness on the earth; for I delight in these things,” declares the Lord.” The endurance of the saints is to keep the commandments of God and the faith of Jesus. We must have circumcised hearts by the power of the Holy Spirit, to truly seek the Lord and all His ways.

Jeremiah 10, Jeremiah 11, Jeremiah 12, Jeremiah 13

There is only one thing that Jeremiah 10 could possibly describe, and it ought to be abundantly clear to all modern Christians who read it. Yes, the Lord wants us to turn from such idolatry. He has told us so: “Thus says the Lord: ‘Do not learn the way of the Gentiles; do not be dismayed at the signs of heaven, for the Gentiles are dismayed at them. For the customs of the peoples are futile; for one cuts a tree from the forest, the work of the hands of the workman, with the ax. They decorate it with silver and gold; they fasten it with nails and hammers so that it will not topple. They are upright, like a palm tree, and they cannot speak; they must be carried, because they cannot go by themselves. Do not be afraid of them, for they cannot do evil, nor can they do any good.”

Paul in 1 Corinthians 8 and 10, like Jeremiah here, shows us that idols do not have any power over us if our heart is to follow Christ, but He also notes that we cannot partake in idolatry and also partake in Christ. I pray for the conviction of the Holy Spirit on all Christians to turn toward God with all of their hearts and to leave behind those things of the world and of the flesh that are perishing. Let us walk in the newness of life, and say as Jeremiah does: “There is none like You, Lord [Yeshua]; You are great, and Your name is great in might. Who would not fear You, O King of the nations? For it is Your due! For among all the wise men of the nations And in all their kingdoms, There is none like You.”

In Jeremiah 11, the prophet speaks of the Old Covenant, but we are living in the New Covenant. Do his words apply to us? Yes! Scripture verifies a handful of differences between the two covenants: Moses was the mediator between God and man, but now we have Yeshua as our intercessor sitting on the throne in Heaven. Aaron and his line led Israel as high priests who made sacrifices of bulls and goats to atone for the sins of the people, but now we have Yeshua our High Priest who sacrificed Himself on the cross so all who repent and walk in His ways in faith would be forgiven for all time. Before, God met with Israel in the Tabernacle, the Temple in Jerusalem and on Mt. Gerizim, but today His Holy Spirit dwells in those of us with faith to reveal God’s Truth, and we are the Temple of God. The law was written on tablets of stone, but now the law is written in the very core of our being and the Holy Spirit helps us interpret it using the example of Yeshua when He walked the Earth.

In Jer. 12 the prophet asks what we often wonder about. Why do Bill Gates, Klaus Schwab, George Soros and other wicked men seem to prosper from doing evil deeds? He asks the Lord to set these apart for the day of slaughter. The Lord responds indicating that He will indeed drive the wicked out of His land, but he will also have compassion and call all to return to Him. Yeshua told us to love our enemies and do good to those who hate us. Paul, quoting Solomon, explains how this brings conviction leading to repentance. “If they really learn the ways of My people, to swear by My name … they will be built up in the midst of My people,” the Lord says. “But if they do not listen, then I will drive them out.” We are all like soiled undergarments good for nothing because we have forsaken God and trusted in lies—we all ought to have shame for what we have done. We need this repentant heart before the Lord can forgive us. But how long will we remain unclean? We must turn to His righteousness.

Jeremiah 14, Jeremiah 15, Jeremiah 16, Jeremiah 17

The people love to wander and do not restrain themselves, and so the Lord does not accept them; He will fully judge them for their sin; He will not hear our prayers for the wicked, for these will die by the sword, famine, plague and the wild  beasts of the Earth. If the people return to the Lord, He will restore them, and if they don’t, let us return so he will restore each of us. The Lord will stand against all who persecute us for abiding in His righteousness. He will call His people from all the lands of the Earth, and will uphold us by His grace and compassion. He will send us as His fishermen, to preach His Gospel, to baptize in the name of the Father, Son and Spirit, and to teach His commandments. He will make known His power to us all.  

This is what the Lord says in Jeremiah 17: “Cursed is the man who trusts in mankind And makes flesh his strength, And whose heart turns away from the Lord. … Blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord, And whose trust is the Lord. “For he will be like a tree planted by the water That extends its roots by a stream, And does not fear when the heat comes; But its leaves will be green, And it will not be anxious in a year of drought, Nor cease to yield fruit. The heart is more deceitful than all else And is desperately sick; Who can understand it? “I, the Lord, search the heart, I test the mind, To give to each person according to his ways, According to the results of his deeds. Lord, the hope of Israel, All who abandon You will be put to shame. Those who turn away on earth will be written down, Because they have forsaken the fountain of living water, that is the Lord. Heal me, Lord, and I will be healed; Save me and I will be saved, For You are my praise. Look, they keep saying to me, ‘Where is the word of the Lord? Let it come now!’”

Jeremiah 18, Jeremiah 19, Jeremiah 20, Jeremiah 21, Jeremiah 22

The Lord will remake us as many times as it takes to mold us into His image. As many times as we rise up by our own strength, he will fold us back into a lump of clay and start again. We do not want to become so hardened in our ways that the Lord has no choice but to break us beyond repair, but even then the clay can be ground up into dust and reconstituted with living water. The only way to stand as a vessel for good use is to allow the Lord to have His way with us and submit to His will completely. He is the Potter, we are the clay.

Jeremiah is punished by Pashhur, another prophet, and he is arrested and kept in the stocks for his harsh words against Jerusalem. His words foreshadow the words of the Apostle Paul who spoke equally harshly against Jerusalem. In Galatians, in particular, he compared the Jerusalem that stood with a functioning Temple to the bondage of Hagar and Ishmael, and he likened the promised New Jerusalem to the liberty of Sarah and Isaac. How many times was he arrested or beaten? It is the lot of a true prophet of God. In the end, all prophets can say like Jeremiah: “my persecutors will stumble and not prevail. They will be put to great shame because they have failed, an everlasting disgrace that will not be forgotten.”

We do not want the fate of naysayers or contrarians. We ought to “sing to the Lord, praise the Lord! For He has saved the soul of the needy one from the hand of evildoers.” The Lord will make war against all who rebel against Him; He will punish all people according to the results of their deeds. He desires His servants to “do justice and righteousness, and save one who has been robbed from the power of his oppressor,” to love the stranger, the orphan and the widow and refrain from murder. The Saints endure by keeping the commandments of God and the faith of Jesus.

Jeremiah 23, Jeremiah 24, Jeremiah 25

To any Christian pastor, deacon, or elder who preaches falsely about the Word of God; namely, that Jesus did away with the commandments of God or that we as Christians don’t need to follow them, and that if we sin persistently, we will be OK, and anyone who listens them, this is what the Lord says: “Do not listen to the words of the prophets who are prophesying to you. They are leading you into futility; They tell a vision of their own imagination, Not from the mouth of the Lord. “They keep saying to those who despise Me, ‘The Lord has said, “You will have peace” ’; And as for everyone who walks in the stubbornness of his own heart, They say, ‘Disaster will not come on you.’ “But who has stood in the council of the Lord, That he should see and hear His word? Who has paid attention to His word and listened? “The anger of the Lord will not turn back Until He has performed and carried out the purposes of His heart; In the last days you will clearly understand it.

The Lord separates good figs and rotten figs into baskets, the good figs are those Christians who keep the commandments of God and the faith of Jesus. The bad figs are those Christians who walk flippantly through life and disregard the Commandments of God, or turn the grace of God into lewdness. God makes it clear that He will preserve the first and destroy the second. The cup of His wrath will pour out on all who disobey Him, or do not trust Him by doing what He asked. We will all be passed through the fire, but only those with faith in Christ to follow Him with their whole heart will not be burned up.

“Seek the LORD while he may be found; call on him while he is near.” Isaiah 55:6

Jeremiah 26, Jeremiah 27, Jeremiah 28, Jeremiah 29

When God calls Jeremiah to speak out against the people of his own land, the leaders of his people, the elders of the Temple and all the people who God had appointed to lead Jerusalem, we have to ask when it is acceptable to do such a thing. Are we not to submit to the governing authorities? Yes, we are, but only when they are aligned with the will of God and the Word of God. When God’s Word indicates that the rulers of a people are rebelling against Him, and when God asks us to speak out against this rebellion, it is our duty to do so, even if it means punishment, persecution or death for us. At least some of the people of Jerusalem heard Jeremiah’s words, for they said, “No death sentence for this man! For he has spoken to us in the name of the Lord our God.” Did some repent?God’s blessing on those who went into captivity seems to back this up. Remember Gamaliel in Acts 5, who said the following about the Apostles: “in the present case I advise you: Leave these men alone! Let them go! For if their purpose or activity is of human origin, it will fail. But if it is from God, you will not be able to stop these men; you will only find yourselves fighting against God.”

The Lord had made up His mind, all the Earth will fall under the rule of Nebuchadnezzar. God raised up this king to rule over the known Earth, and He did this for His own glory. Anyone, Jew or Gentile, who opposed this Truth was destroyed. Likewise, anyone who stands against God’s Messiah Yeshua will be destroyed, whether Jew or Gentile. If God says to go into captivity, there is no choice. It’s either captivity or death. We serve the Lord, in prison or out of prison, we ought to count it all joy.

We don’t want to be against the Word of God. We don’t want to prophesy peace when there is no peace. Hananiah the prophet was used as one example of many, but God brought death to him for falsely prophesying restoration when God had other plans. We must be careful when speaking about the peace that we have in Yeshua, for there will be no peace for those who don’t obey God. Many false prophets speak only about grace and ignore the rest of the Gospel message. The Saints are those who keep God’s commandments and the faith of Jesus.

The Lord’s prophesy to the exiles in Babylon is beautiful, and yet it doesn’t contradict our duty to God first before our duty to serve our neighbor and even our enemy in the land the Lord has planted us. No matter where we end up in this life, no matter what circumstances, we ought to love God first, and then love our neighbor as ourselves. That means we draw the line when an authority asks us to do something that we cannot do according to the law of God. We are to live life to the fullest, strive to do good to all around us, and enjoy the life the Lord has given us, and at the appointed time, the Lord will deliver us into the life He has for us. We are to be grateful when times are good, and grateful when times are evil.

I love this verse, and yes it applies to the Jewish captives in Babylon, but it also applies to the Christian captives in this world, for the Lord is taking us out of this world into His kingdom when He comes. He says, “For I know the plans that I have for you,’ declares the Lord, ‘plans for prosperity and not for disaster, to give you a future and a hope. Then you will call upon Me and come and pray to Me, and I will listen to you. And you will seek Me and find Me when you search for Me with all your heart.” This is the Truth, and it is one we ought to live by.

Jeremiah 30, Jeremiah 31

Jeremiah 30 and 31 contain significant prophesy that we ought to contemplate and study. First of all, the Lord loves Israel, and His people Israel in the flesh are a leading indicator for the prophetic clock. The Lord will preserve His people Israel in the flesh so long as the heaven and earth exist as they do now since creation, and whether Israel is being blessed in her own land or scattered abroad help the whole world to see that God is, and that He will fulfill His promises, for better or for worse. And it is quite clear by His Word that those who bless Israel in the flesh will be blessed, and those who curse Israel and her people in the flesh will be cursed: “‘Therefore all who devour you will be devoured; And all your adversaries, every one of them, will go into captivity; And those who plunder you will become plunder, And all who plunder you I will turn into plunder.” As Gentiles, particularly Christian Gentiles, we need to take this to heart. Israel in the flesh represents our brothers and sisters, and we are the adopted ones through the Lord Yeshua.

In the Spirit, only those who call upon the name of the Lord Yeshua will be saved. The Lord will destroy those, whether Jew or Gentile, who reject Him and His commandments, and He will preserve and save those who call upon His name and keep His commandments. Here in Jeremiah 31 the Lord announces His New Covenant, which is His everlasting covenant with all people. But this covenant applies to Gentiles only when we are grafted-in to Israel, and we are grafted-in by the blood of Yeshua and His resurrection from the dead. He tore down “the middle wall of separation” between Jews and Gentiles, we read in Ephesians 2. When we are grafted-in, the law of God is written on our hearts and we will all know the Lord, but this doesn’t change the fact that we must also read the law so the Lord can establish it in us. It cannot be written on our heart without knowledge, as Peter explains in 2 Peter 1. Faith leads to virtue to knowledge, and this is knowledge of God’s law, and that leads to self-control, then perseverance, then godliness, then brotherly kindness, and then love. Love is the culmination of faith with the Holy Spirit, but we must also have knowledge so we can apply it.

Jeremiah 32, Jeremiah 33, Jeremiah 34

God instructed Jeremiah to redeem his uncle’s land so that after the captivity the land could belong to his family. This sets the stage for the short-lived anger of the Lord, which burns brightly to bring the people to repentance. Repentance doesn’t stop judgment, but it restores us to righteousness and the Lord’s blessings.

This describes our God, Yeshua: “The Lord of armies is His name; great in counsel and mighty in deed, whose eyes are open to all the ways of the sons of mankind, giving to everyone according to his ways and according to the fruit of his deeds.” We ought to keep this in mind; the Lord tests the heart and knows our souls. He knows our every intent. We must get our hearts right with the Lord.

This ought to be our attitude toward our understanding of the Lord: “Behold, I am the Lord, the God of all flesh; is anything too difficult for Me?” The question is rhetorical and the answer is “no.” The Lord wants our love and obedience, and He will bless those of us who give it to Him with willing hearts.

The Lord wants us to know Him intimately, and each day ought to be spent getting to know Him better. He says, “Call to Me and I will answer you, and I will tell you great and mighty things, which you do not know.”

Jeremiah 35, Jeremiah 36, Jeremiah 37

The Rechabites are the sons of Moses’s Father-in-law Jethro through Jonadab and Rechab. These were Gentiles who came up with Israel from Midian to dwell as grafted-in children, but their father had told them not to build buildings or plant vineyards. God’s Kingdom is not of this world; His Promised Land is not the physical land of Canaan, but instead the New Jerusalem that is to come. These Rechabites not only kept the 5th commandment, to honor their father and mother, but they also honored all of God’s commandments by keeping their eyes on God’s Precious Pearl instead of what they could accomplish here. On account of their faithfulness as grafted-in Gentiles, despite the testing that God brought directly to them, God said the Rechabites would never lack a man to stand before Him in all of eternity. These Rechabites represent Gentile believers in Yeshua, grafted-in to Israel by His blood, who remain faithful and keep God’s commandments, despite the world falling away. These people were able to honor their earthly father, and resultantly their Heavenly Father, shaming Judah with their example of faithfulness. Israel did not listen to Yahweh despite many prophets who warned them, including Jeremiah. Judgment on Judah would continue.

In Jeremiah 36, Jeremiah dictated to Baruch the words of this prophesy, and Baruch read them to the people, to the priests and scribes, and even to servants of the king, and they all were brought to their knees in fear, but when servants brought the scroll into the king to read them, the king and his court rejected the Word of the Lord and the king cast it into the fire. This is important! Go back to 1 Samuel 12 where the Lord spoke about the impact of a king’s sin against the nation or the nation’s sin and how it affects the king; notably verse 14, 15 & 25: “If you fear the Lord and serve Him and obey His voice, and do not rebel against the commandment of the Lord, then both you and the king who reigns over you will continue following the Lord your God. However, if you do not obey the voice of the Lord, but rebel against the commandment of the Lord, then the hand of the Lord will be against you, as it was against your fathers. … But if you still do wickedly, you shall be swept away, both you and your king.” The land is judged on account of the sinful leader or the sinful people or both. This was the hazard of Israel electing to have an earthly king, and now Judah would be judged on account of the obstinance of their king.

Israel is God’s chosen nation, His chosen people, and they grew prideful in their position as the “canary in the coal mine” nation for creation’s relationship with God. The Lord warned them repeatedly that He would discipline them in their disobedience, and bless them in their obedience, and He has, proving Himself to be the God He says He is to the whole world. But in her prideful disobedience, Judah is holding on to the Lord’s promises despite their sin. This is what I see happening today in the Church, which has been grafted-in to Israel and is thus treated with the same approach as the whole nation of Israel. As grafted-in believers in Yeshua, we too will face blessing (eternal life) with our obedience, but discipline and maybe even eternal damnation with our continued disobedience. And yet the church continues to deceive herself, saying that the Lord’s grace will cover all of our sin. Yes, the blood of Christ does cover all sin, but only when the people are following after Him and doing what He has commanded, for this is what it means to be faithful. We can expect to be caught up in judgment along with the rest of the world on account of our disobedience. Let the remnant repent and turn our hearts fully to the Lord.

Jeremiah 38, Jeremiah 39, Jeremiah 40, Jeremiah 41

People do not want to hear the Truth, and prefer to believe the lie. It’s easier for them to rally behind the cause of patriotism or the liberty that God has promised rather than recognize their own sin and the judgment that necessarily results from it. People don’t want to hear it, but that doesn’t make it not so. The Lord delivered on His promised judgment because the people failed to repent. Jeremiah, who faithfully spoke the Lord’s Word even though it brought great harm to him, was given the freedom to choose his fate. God may have directed the Chaldean’s heart to give him this choice, perhaps he himself knew the godliness of the man and was compelled to give him the freedom he deserved. Even in the midst of great tribulation, the people of God will be cared for, but not without suffering. Those who fail to heed the Word of the Lord will be killed by the pestilence, the sword, the famine or by the beasts of the Earth. Now the Lion of Babylon had come to judge Judah on behalf of the Lord, and the meek inherited the land.

Jeremiah 42, Jeremiah 43, Jeremiah 44, Jeremiah 45

The people went to Jeremiah stating they were ready to listen to the Lord, but were they truly serious? They sought the Lord to justify their own pre-determined course of action to go to Egypt, but the Lord would not bless it. The Word of the Lord offered them peace and prosperity in the Promised Land, if they would only Trust Him. After saying they would do what the Lord commanded, they rebelled again, for He did not say what they wanted to hear. They went with their own hearts down to Egypt, and there they were destroyed by war, famine and disease. And the very Nebuchadnezzar they left Judah to evade came to them and wiped out the rest of them in Egypt. Only when we listen to the Voice of the Lord in His Scripture and follow the Holy Spirit of Messiah Yeshua as He directs our steps can we possibly live in the land He has given us. If we attempt to go our own way, we will be destroyed. It’s so easy to do what is right, but why do we rebel over and over again. God help us to do your will, in Yeshua’s name, I pray.

Jeremiah 46, Jeremiah 47, Jeremiah 48

God was not just concerned about Israel, but all the people He created, but this is what He has to say about the whole world: “Jacob My servant, do not fear,” declares the Lord, “For I am with you. For I will make a complete destruction of all the nations Where I have driven you, Yet I will not make a complete destruction of you; But I will correct you properly And by no means leave you unpunished.” Israel, those native born and those grafted-in, are the only people who will live in the Kingdom of God. The nations will be utterly destroyed and there will be none left among those who do not know the Lord. The enemies of God—Egypt and their gods, the Philistines and their gods, Moab and their gods—will be wiped out entirely. God is, as He said, “a jealous God,” and He will visit the iniquity of the fathers upon the children to the third and fourth generations of those who hate Him, but show mercy to thousands, to those who love Him and keep His commandments. The Saints, according to Revelation 14:12, are those who “keep the commandments of God” and “the faith of Jesus.” There will be a remnant of Jacob that survives; namely, those who endure, for we will not go unpunished when we fear the Lord, but our salvation will come when we wait on the Lord.

Jeremiah 49, Jeremiah 50

Who is like Yahweh, and who will summon Him into court? “And who then is the shepherd who can stand against Me?” The Lord is our Shepard, and we shall not want. Yeshua is the good shepherd, and His sheep hear His voice. What antichrist will stand against Him? Why would they dare. The Lord’s purposes will be fulfilled on the Earth, and there is literally nothing we can do about it. We are either for Him or against Him, and our fate will be sealed when we make that choice. For those who have chosen wrongly, they ought to repent. It is the only hope.

The Lord explains that He will cast out the false gods of Ammon (the sons of Lot) and Elam (Susa in Persia), and elevate these lands to stand with Him in the latter days, but He will utterly destroy Damascus (Assyria) and Kedar and Hazor (other Turkish lands), for this is where the antichrist will rise up from, and He will destroy Edom (the sons of Esau) and Babylon, for they rose up against Israel, and any land that stands against Israel will be destroyed. Those that bless her will be blessed and those who curse her will be cursed. The Lord has spoken on this several times.

Jeremiah 51, Jeremiah 52

Jeremiah tells us that he read the prophesy against Babylon in Babylon before the people. This is the courage that we must have in our faith, so that we can speak the Truth no matter how much it may hurt us to do so. We must be willing to give up our lives for the sake of our God, Yeshua (Jesus). He is the Creator of Heaven and Earth and everything in them; He is one-in-being with Yahweh, and when He speaks, we ought to listen. His sheep hear His voice and follow Him, even until death on a cross.

Babylon represents the kingdom of Nebuchadnezzar in the near term, but Jeremiah also prophesies the coming of another Babylon at the end of time. We can see Jeremiah 51 echoed in the book of Revelation, and Babylon was long gone when John wrote. We can expect another Mesopotamian empire that stretches through Turkey into Greece, and encompasses Israel and northern Africa. This will be a brutal empire, and one that could be forming soon; a leopard with four heads. The people of God are commanded to come out of her, and to not take her mark. Babylon will be destroyed in a day, the Day of the Lord, when Yeshua returns, and He will bring His people to safety in Zion.

It’s sad to read about the fall of Judah, her kings, her temple, David’s house, and all of the wonderful things that God had blessed the children of Israel with, but this is a reminder to us that it is God that rules and any prosperity or blessing we receive is from Him and Him alone. We must worship God, and no other God beside Him. He is Yahweh, He is Yeshua, and they are one God, one Holy Spirit. He gives all things and He takes away all things. Blessed be His name, for in Him alone is there life.

Ezekiel 1, Ezekiel 2, Ezekiel 3, Ezekiel 4

The Lord of Glory rode on a chariot of fire to speak with Ezekiel, and He called him to be a prophet, but as a prophet, also a watchman. The watchman is akin to a pastor, one who must speak God’s Truth to all, whether they want to hear it or not. A watchman brings judgment on his own head when he stays silent despite God’s command for Him to speak. However, if he speaks when God commands, only the listeners will be judged according to his words and the watchman will be saved. This is a warning to all who would become pastors. James 3:1 reads, “My brethren, let not many of you become teachers, knowing that we shall receive a stricter judgment.” However, it is an honor to serve the living God.

Jeremiah’s theatrical prophesies are somewhat disturbing to me—this is not the way I have been called to teach, thank God, but for Ezekiel, it was his lot. He made a model city to be judged, and then he bound himself for well over a year to eat grain baked on cow dung. The Lord changed his command from human dung, because Ezekiel’s heart was to not defile himself and this aligned with the Lord’s will for him. Ezekiel’s bread is sold in stores today, and it is quite nutritious. While this must have been a miserable year for the man lying on his side bound up, what glory and joy it was compared to the destruction that would come on those who remained disobedient.

Ezekiel 5, Ezekiel 6, Ezekiel 7, Ezekiel 8

The Lord uses four judgments against nations on account of wickedness, but here in Ezekiel 5-8 we see the sword, pestilence and famine prophesied on account of Jerusalem’s wickedness. While Israel sinned through idolatry, a form of adultery against God, their husband, God’s fury grew until His vengeance fell upon His people. It is through this evident, historical judgment that we can see that God IS and He fulfills His promises, for better or for worse. We must be careful not to look down on Israel for its depravity, for our depravity is worse, and God will judge—He is the executor of vengeance. How could any one of us desire any false idol or representative object of worship when we have access through the blood of our Messiah Yeshua to the One who created the Heavens and the Earth and everything in them? How could any one of us turn our backs against any of God’s people, either? Jude instructs us to correct some with gentleness, and to use fear to pull others out of the fire. As our whole world prepares for the same judgment God brought upon Israel, this is the only thing we can do—and we must do it. As Ezekiel obeyed, we must obey. Isaiah, Jeremiah and now Ezekiel have written a testimony of three to God’s plans of old, which occurred, and now will repeat against this rebellious world. He will preserve a remnant, and I pray for His protection among God’s holy people.

Ezekiel 9, Ezekiel 10, Ezekiel 11, Ezekiel 12

In Ezekiel 9, the Lord says to the destroying angels: “Go through the midst of the city, through the midst of Jerusalem, and make a mark on the foreheads of the people who groan and sigh over all the abominations which are being committed in its midst … do not touch any person on whom is the mark;”

In Revelation 7:3, the Lord says to the destroying angels: “Do not harm the earth, the sea, or the trees till we have sealed the servants of our God on their foreheads.”

The Mark of God is written on our hearts; it is the seal of the Holy Spirit helping us to keep the commandments of God and the faith of Yeshua. We are those who endure and who groan and sign over the abominations which are committed around us, for we so desire that all people turn to the Lord our God and live in the peace and joy of our salvation.

The Lord’s judgment will fall on all of us, righteous and disobedient, but the Lord will keep His remnant from eternal harm, even if they suffer in this time. The Lord will turn His back to the disobedient and allow their own sins to overcome them; He does not answer the prayers of an unrepentant people. His goal in judgment is to purify the land and to purify His remnant. He writes concerning that remnant in Ezekiel 11:18-20: “When they come there, they will remove all its detestable things and all its abominations from it. And I will give them one heart, and put a new spirit within them. And I will remove the heart of stone from their flesh and give them a heart of flesh, so that they may walk in My statutes, and keep My ordinances and do them. Then they will be My people, and I shall be their God.” God is also clear that He will be no means accept the guilty as He continues in Ezekiel 11:21: “But as for those whose hearts go after their detestable things and abominations, I will bring their conduct down on their heads,” declares the Lord God.” God’s appointed time for judgment is approaching. It is time to align with Him and receive His seal of life, or die.

Ezekiel 13, Ezekiel 14, Ezekiel 15

Yeshua, Paul and Peter all warned us against “wolves in sheep’s clothing.” Here Ezekiel, like Isaiah and Jeremiah, warn us about the same: priests, pastors and prophets who follow after their own spirit rather than wait on the Lord, and who prophesy peace when there is no peace. He speaks against women who lead people to find peace in created things, rather than the Creator. The Lord offers peace only to those who keep His commandments and keep their trust in His good will for them, but to those who rebel, He offers judgment with the hope of bringing them to repentance. In their choice God weighs their life and death in the balance. This applies to each individual as well as the whole people of a nation, we read in Ezekiel 14. It’s not just Jerusalem, but any nation that the Lord will judge in this way, and bring famine, pestilence, the sword and wild beasts of the earth against any nation that persists in lawlessness. In that judgment, only blameless men like Noah, Job and Daniel will be preserved by God for His kingdom. The fire will come to consume up all unrighteousness in the end, and only those who have been purified by the blood of Yeshua and walk in His ways will stand alive in the fire.

Ezekiel 16, Ezekiel 17

The metaphor of the harlot is difficult to read. How could such a tender babe, grown into a gorgeous woman and so eloquently adorned by her husband turn to such fleshly pursuit, so many lovers, so much depravity. How filthy an image of Israel to think of her as a defiled woman. Yet the Lord will forgive her in her shame, and on that day she considers her deeds and repents, the Lord will cover her yet again through His own blood. The husband would literally die on behalf of his adulterous wife, so when resurrected they could remarry and she would live with Him in humility.

In Ezekiel 17:24, we read “And all the trees of the field shall know that I, the Lord, have brought down the high tree and exalted the low tree, dried up the green tree and made the dry tree flourish; I, the Lord, have spoken and have done it.”

In Luke 23:28-31, as Yeshua is walking to be crucified, women follow him and mourn and lament his apparent end. This is what He says to them, ““Daughters of Jerusalem, do not weep for Me, but weep for yourselves and for your children. For indeed the days are coming in which they will say, ‘Blessed are the barren, wombs that never bore, and breasts which never nursed!’ Then they will begin ‘to say to the mountains, “Fall on us!” and to the hills, “Cover us!” For if they do these things in the green wood, what will be done in the dry?”

Such depravity would follow for the Jews after Yeshua’s death, resurrection and the end of the Second Temple. The land became a desolation, and even to this day the Temple Mount is worse than desolate; there is an abomination on top of the mount’s desolation, a mosque that says on its walls, “God has no son.” What blasphemy! The good news is that the dry tree will flourish again and turn green when the King returns and takes His bride for Himself, covering all of her shame.

Ezekiel 18, Ezekiel 19, Ezekiel 20

Ezekiel 18 is the Gospel message. All souls belong to the Lord. The soul who sins shall die. Each person bears responsibility for their own salvation, which is through repentance and a life in Messiah Yeshua. “The righteousness of the righteous shall be upon himself, and the wickedness of the wicked shall be upon himself.” If a righteous man acts wickedly, his righteous deeds will not be remembered. This is why the Lord says to the lawless ones in Matthew 7, “I never knew you.” However, if a wicked man repents and turns, he will live. And if the righteous man who acted wickedly repents and turns back to the Lord, he too will live. The Lord desires us to live in Him, through Him and by Him, and when we do, we will live.

Ezekiel 19 is aligned with Romans 9, 10 and 11 (yes, that is about an olive tree, so it is slightly different, but the meaning is the same). And the vine is used also in so many other New Testament metaphors. Read these verses here with them. The unrighteous branches of Israel are broken off the vine. Yeshua said, “I am the vine, and you are the branches.” We can only live on the vine if we live through Him, by following Him in His ways. Gentiles are grafted-in when they trust in Yeshua and keep the commandments of God. Jews who turn to Yeshua are grafted back in. Any branch on the vine must bear good fruit, or it will be cut off. A branch that is worthy to be saved will be pruned by the Father, a process that leads to more and better fruit.

In Ezekiel 20, the Lord says, “I gave them My statutes and showed them My judgments, ‘which, if a man does, he shall live by them.’” If a man does not do them, he will be cut off. Yet, the Lord was long-suffering toward Israel on account of the Gentiles, so that His glory would be preserved in the sight of all nations. We also see in this chapter an interpretive verse for Isaiah 1, where the Lord says the Sabbaths and feasts of Israel disgust Him. It is because the Israelites did them their own way, rather than the Lord’s way. Here He explains this: “But I said to their children in the wilderness, ‘Do not walk in the statutes of your fathers, nor observe their judgments, nor defile yourselves with their idols. I am the Lord your God: Walk in My statutes, keep My judgments, and do them; hallow My Sabbaths, and they will be a sign between Me and you, that you may know that I am the Lord your God.’” The Lord wants us to live according to His commandments, not our own traditions. Because man routinely mixes the Holy with the profane, the Lord routinely rejects our observances. The Lord wants us to come before Him with clean hands and clean hearts to celebrate with Him the way He has called us to celebrate. With a mighty hand, an outstretched arm and fury poured out, the Lord will rule over the remnant of people who desire to do things God’s way, and all who don’t will be the object of His fury. His parables are consistent throughout Scripture.

Ezekiel 21, Ezekiel 22

The wrath of God comes as judgment upon His people who violate His commandments and mix the Holy with the profane. Yeshua, Peter and Paul all warned about this very thing, for us as Christians to look out for it: “Her priests have done violence to My Law and have profaned My holy things; they have made no distinction between the holy and the common, and they have not taught the difference between the unclean and the clean; and they have closed their eyes from My Sabbaths, and I am defiled among them. Her leaders within her are like wolves tearing the prey, by shedding blood and destroying lives in order to make dishonest profit.” We must be careful not to mix God’s Holy ways with pagan or rabbinical tradition. We must be careful to do things His way, rather than our own. We must be careful not to listen to teachers who say anything different than this. Messiah Yeshua stood in the gap for us, and He offers salvation to all who come to Him, but then He expects us to follow Him and walk in His ways, not in our own ways or the way of the world. His offering was one-time for all sin, but by no means will those who practice lawlessness be saved. We must “go and sin no more.”

Ezekiel 23, Ezekiel 24

The name for Samaria, Ohalah means “she who has a tent,” and for Jerusalem/Judah, Ohaleevah means “my tent in her.” God gave the people of Israel the gift of dwelling within their midst so they could understand the Creator of Heaven and Earth and everything in them and build a sustaining and everlasting relationship with Him. They were not faithful to God, but chose to worship pagan gods from the lands around them. They even brought idol worship into the Tent that Solomon had made for God to dwell in. This is akin to adultery, but it’s worse, for God is eternal and He gave Israel the opportunity to dwell with Him forever. This is grievous sin that deserves judgment and death. Paul writes similarly to Ezekiel for Christians who are now saved by Christ’s blood and have the opportunity with the Holy Spirit dwelling within them to dwell with God forever: “Do not be unequally yoked together with unbelievers. For what fellowship has righteousness with lawlessness? And what communion has light with darkness? And what accord has Christ with Belial? Or what part has a believer with an unbeliever? And what agreement has the temple of God with idols? For you are the temple of the living God” (2 Corinthians 6:14-16). Because we are the tent of God Most High, we must keep our temple holy and not profane it with any worldly or fleshly things, which include the pagan traditions of our forefathers.

Ezekiel 25, Ezekiel 26, Ezekiel 27

In each case from Ezekiel 25-27, Ammon, Moab, Seir, Edom, the Philistines, and Tyre (the Phoenicians) gloated in the fall of Judah at the hands of Babylon, a judgment of God, and on account of this, each of them would be wiped out. Those who stand against Israel will be destroyed. The Lord has said it, and it will come to pass from now into eternity. We should never have a heart that says “aha, see what you have done,” when it comes to the Jews, but we must have a loving heart that pities disobedience to God and His Messiah Yeshua. Our heart should be one of despondence and lamentation, not one of pride. In 2 Peter 2:7, we read, “[God] rescued righteous Lot, being distressed by the conduct in sensuality of the lawless.” We must be distressed by unrighteousness, and not relish the judgment that will surely come. I pray the Lord correct my heart to feel this same distress toward my fellow Americans, my fellow Christians and all the people of the world who are falling into lawlessness. I must not long for their judgment, but rather, I must long for their repentance. This is the heart of our Lord, and the heart we must possess.

Ezekiel 28, Ezekiel 29, Ezekiel 30

The king of Tyre was a man to be rebuked for sure, just like Pharaoh, but here Ezekiel lays out prophetic understanding of why Satan fell from Heaven. This King of Tyre was in Eden? No, but Satan was there. He was also a covering Cherub, as close to God as one can get, and He was splendid, but on account of pride he fell to the point where he is now scheduled to be killed like men. He will be destroyed so that all who remain on the Earth, the children of God, will see his ashes. No one will see the work of Satan any longer, but God will show Himself Holy in the sight of all the nations, and God’s people will live in Israel with no one around them to cause them trouble. Pharaoh, another demonic representative, made himself god and said he made the rivers that cause sustenance, but only God can make this claim. For blasphemy, God would destroy this demon and lay it waste. This is about the Day of the Lord, which is yet to come, when all those who stand against God will fall. A precursor of this event was played out when Babylon conquered the world, but Babylon too will fall, and likewise, all the powers of the Earth will fall, for Christ will return to rule as King.

Ezekiel 31, Ezekiel 32, Ezekiel 33

Assyria, Egypt, Edom and Babylon, all governments given authority and great power over the men of the Earth for a time, turned their backs against God and were toppled. America will be no different. Nor will China or any other Earthly power that God gives authority to rule. God has his purposes for raising up empires, to do His bidding, but when they look to themselves in pride and don’t recognize their glory is a gift from God, they are toppled and they will be no more. Nations are elevated and judged by God as a whole, but individuals within them face their own judgment. God sends watchmen/prophets/pastors/teachers to preach His Word to the people, and the people who listen to them will be saved by God, but those who don’t will lose their chance at redemption. When the watchman himself fails to warn the people, both the people and the watchmen will be judged. And so, whether the people respond or not, watchmen are obligated to speak the Word of God. As Christians, Yeshua made every one of us into watchmen in Matthew 28. We are to preach the Gospel to all people, baptize those who repent and accept Christ, and teach them the commandments of God. This is a calling on every one of us. Those who repent and walk righteously in Christ will live. Those who turn from righteousness and walk wickedly will die. The Lord is clear. To trust in our own righteousness means to think that we are safe on account of our deeds, when it is our hearts that must remain permanently aligned with Christ.

Ezekiel 34, Ezekiel 35, Ezekiel 36

I can’t help but be convicted by Ezekiel 34. Why would the Lord call me to be a pastor and allow me to neglect His flock in any way whatsoever? I don’t want to do do any disservice to Him or His flock, but how can I not fill myself with His Word and become fat in understanding? It is so very difficult to manage those who are sickly in their faith, or diseased with false doctrine, or broken with past emotional or spiritual wounds, or scattered by their own fears, insecurities or misunderstandings, but the Lord has called me to go after all of them with long-suffering and love. Oh how I have failed! Have any been scattered by my style or my own confidence in the Word? Have I used too much force in my language or dominated conversations to the detriment of others? The Lord is going to judge me more harshly, James writes in James 3:1, because those who teach will receive a stricter judgment. This aligns with Ezekiel 34, for the Lord says He is against the shepherds, and when He comes He will feed us with judgment. He will gather all His sheep to Himself and He will feed the lean and judge the fat, He will judge one sheep from another and become one Shepherd, the Son of David, forever more. I want this for all of His sheep now; I plead for the Lord to come and take over, to take over today. Only He can lead the sheep, and He alone is the shepherd.

The Lord will judge those who prop themselves up in pride, such as Edom, and lift up the humble. The proud will be made desolate, Mt. Seir and all Edom, because they desired their brothers’ land and were not willing to submit to God as Jacob was. And yet, Jacob’s sons fell, too. They too were judged and scattered for their iniquity, but God will restore them all for His glory, so all the World will know that He is God, and God will not allow His Name to be put to shame. He will establish and restore all of Israel so the whole world will know that He is God. It is not for Israel’s righteousness that God will do this, but on account of His own righteousness. This is grace. Nothing more, nothing less.

Ezekiel 37, Ezekiel 38, Ezekiel 39

Ezekiel 37-39 are about the Last Days. The Lord will resurrect the dead and lead an army of His Kingdom Israel against Gog of Magog, the land of Pergamon, which is in modern Turkey. If you look at Micah 5, we see both Messiah Yeshua prophesied as the coming King from Bethlehem and we also see the Antichrist prophesied as the Assyrian. Pergamon was in Assyria, and Gog is a historical figure who represents Antichrist from this same region, the place where Satan’s throne sits, according to Revelation 2:12-17. In the Last Days, God will cause the Antichrist to be so puffed up He will challenge united Israel, made up of those who were risen with Messiah, and Yeshua will slaughter Gog and all his army to the point that there will be a great feast of wild animals devouring the flesh of all the slain. The King’s robes will be soaked in blood—not his own blood—it will be the blood of the rebellious in their final battle against God. God will prevail, and His people will dwell in safety in the Promised Land from that point on. Our Messiah will reign forever.

Ezekiel 40, Ezekiel 41, Ezekiel 42

Ezekiel 40-42 are not inaugurated eschatology, so far as I can tell. This prophesy is about the design for the Second Temple, which was then later executed and built by the returning exiles. The Temple design has significance for this second temple period for one important reason. If you look at Haggai 2:9, we read, “‘The glory of this latter temple shall be greater than the former,’ says the Lord of hosts. ‘And in this place I will give peace,’ says the Lord of hosts.” This is a salient verse on account of the fact that the Glory of the Lord literally filled the Holy of Hollies of the First Temple (1 Kings 8:11), but did not come into the second temple during the time that it stood on the Earth. Ezekiel’s vision, as it continues, reveals the Messiah coming in through the East Gate, which still exists, but has been closed since not long after the crucifixion of our Lord. Many say Messiah Himself will reopen the gate when He comes. While the Gospels do not record which gate Yeshua entered the Temple court yards, many believe when He entered the Temple He came in through the East gate while He lived, but when you consider that Yeshua is God incarnate, His very presence in the Second Temple brought far more glory to it than ever before. Thus, Haggai’s prophesy came to pass. Will He come the second time through this same gate?

In Ezekiel 42, the Angel describes the Middle Wall of separation, “Now when he had finished measuring the inner house, he brought me out by way of the gate which faced east, and measured it all around. He measured on the east side with the measuring rod: five hundred rods by the measuring rod. He measured on the north side: five hundred rods by the measuring rod. On the south side he measured five hundred rods with the measuring rod. He turned to the west side and measured five hundred rods with the measuring rod. He measured it on the four sides; it had a wall all around, the length five hundred rods and the width five hundred, to divide between the holy and the common.” This wall mentioned here separated the outer courtyard from the area Gentiles could gather who believed in the name of the Lord, but when we read Ephesians 2, we learn that Messiah through the cross tore down this “middle wall of separation” and made the two people into one people, Jews and Gentiles, who call upon His name. In the Earthquakes that occurred during the crucifixion, these walls literally came down, which of course was symbolic. God is good at doing this. As the one who designed the Heavens and the Earth and everything in them, His creativity knows know bounds.

Ezekiel 43, Ezekiel 44, Ezekiel 45

Ezekiel 43-45 do not appear to be inaugurated eschatology as a whole, but do appear to be referring to the 2nd Temple period only. At the same time, the vision speaks about the Lord coming in through the East gate, and no one else entering by that way. As I noted for our previous chapters, this gate exists today and is sealed, and no one has come in by it since the second temple period. Did Yeshua enter the courtyard that way?

The Lord also says, “This is the law of the house: its entire area on the top of the mountain all around shall be most holy. Behold, this is the law of the house.” The Lord begins to separate the holy from the profane, and He later instructs His priests to teach this separation. In the fullness of interpretation, this is not a separation of Jews and Gentiles, but of those who are holy to the Lord through faith and those who do not believe. See Ephesians 2.

Ezekiel 46, Ezekiel 47, Ezekiel 48

Property rights are firmly established in Ezekiel 46; each man ought to maintain his inheritance, no matter what. The prince ought not take from the layman, and the layman shall not take from the prince. The Lord’s Sabbath and New Moons ought to be regarded with our sacrifice of reasonable service to the Lord. Ezekiel 47-48 seems to describe scenes from Revelation, which describes the New Jerusalem; here the city is called Yahweh-Shammah “the Lord is there.”

Dad said:
In the end times, Jerusalem, set within the boundaries of an arid land, will have a new river which comes forth from God’s Temple.  It will, at once, be a physical blessing which brings abundant life to the desert and a symbolic spiritual blessing signifying the outpouring of God’s Grace through The Holy Spirit which flows out from Christ’s sacrifice on the cross.

I saw water coming out from under the threshold of the temple toward the east Ezekiel 47:1

where the river flows everything will live. Ezekiel 47:9

but one soldier thrust his lance into his side, and immediately blood and water flowed out.  John19:34

And he showed me a pure river of water of life, clear as crystal, proceeding from the throne of God and of the Lamb. Revelation 22:1

As the deer pants for the water brooks, So pants my soul for You, O God.  Psalm 42:1

Hosea 1, Hosea 2, Hosea 3, Hosea 4, Hosea 5, Hosea 6, Hosea 7

Hosea expresses through a miserable and painful life of being abandoned and rejected by his wife the same pain God feels when His people Israel turned their backs on Him and picked up the tradition of following after idols. He feels even worse after giving His blood for us on the cross when we reject what He has done for us to cover our sins, and yet like Hosea who paid his own wife her wages as a prostitute to have her back, God gave up His own glory to die for us and pay for our sins. Those who are not His people on account of their doubt will become His people when they confess their faith in Him and live it out in their lives. We deserve to be completely vulnerable before our God, fully exposed in all of our shame, and we will be on the day of judgment, and yet He will forgive us through our faith in Messiah Yeshua. We are His people, and He is our God through the gift that He has given us. How can we go on living in any way that He despises? He tells us plainly: “I will go away and return to My place until they acknowledge their guilt and seek My face; In their distress they will search for Me.” We must confess our sins to be forgiven by Him; we must repent before He will allow us to see Him.

The Lord gives us several Words of wisdom in Hosea that we should embrace: “My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge. Since you have rejected knowledge, I also will reject you from being My priest. Since you have forgotten the Law of your God, I also will forget your children. The more they multiplied, the more they sinned against Me; I will change their glory into shame. They feed on the sin of My people, And long for their wrongdoing. And it will be, like people, like priest; So I will punish them for their ways And repay them for their deeds.”

We need to know God’s law so that we can live by it. The priests failed to preach it, but the people are guilty still. We will be punished eternally if we do not repent.

This is why Hosea exhorts us with his prophesy: “Come, let’s return to the Lord. For He has torn us, but He will heal us; He has wounded us, but He will bandage us. He will revive us after two days; He will raise us up on the third day, That we may live before Him.”

On account of Yeshua’s death and resurrection, we can be revived, but it is up to us to return to the Lord and live by what He has commanded. He gives us another chance to be with Him that we don’t deserve. How could we even consider squandering it?

Hosea 8, Hosea 9, Hosea 10, Hosea 11, Hosea 12, Hosea 13, Hosea 14

In Hosea 8-10, the Lord uses Hosea’s poetry to convey that He will send His angels to destroy Israel and scatter her on account of her apostasy. Israel, who had access to the One True God who created heaven and earth and everything in them decided to worship idols and demons instead. They rejected their position as a nation of priests who would teach the whole world about God Most High, and instead embraced the allure of the world and of the flesh. God’s glory would be revealed to the nations through this scattering; however, and the very exile of Israel and Judah would show that God is who He said He is and He will do what He promises. Now that Israel is back in the land, we have another witness that God is who He says He is and He will do what He said. It is by the tragedy of antisemitism that many Christians miss this clear message from Israel’s story. God’s glory was revealed by Israel’s exile and return. It is clear that His commandments ought to be obeyed by all who say they believe, and belief without works that show that belief is not belief at all, but the heart’s own deception. We ought to have the heart of Hosea toward God, willing to do what God commands, even if we don’t understand all of the reasons. God’s glory will be revealed.

In Hosea 11-13, we read about Jacob the patriarch as a contrast with Jacob as a nation; namely, His children who inhabited the Land. Jacob the patriarch is an example of who we ought to emulate. He took His brother by the heel, striving to take God’s notice as the First Born who is due the inheritance. He did the same thing when he wrestled with the angel and prevailed, weeping and imploring His favor. This is the grace of God that Jacob wrestled for, and he prevailed. This is what we must all do in this life. We must wrestle against our flesh and against the world and instead strive  after the Holy Spirit, not letting go until we receive the blessing. This is the very illustration of what faith actually looks like. It’s not just a heart condition, it is also the action that results from that heart condition; namely obedience to God, because we love Yeshua. Jacob the children on the other hand did not do that, but God is instructing them to be like their father Jacob, to turn away from their sin, and to strive with God instead. “Return to your God, maintain kindness and justice, and wait for your God continually.” Do not continue to follow after idols, to follow your own ways, to follow the traditions of the elders; reject these ways and follow God, or you will be disgraced, the Lord says. Those who follow their own heart or own ways will be destroyed, those who obey God and trust in Messiah Yeshua will be saved.

In Hosea 14, the Lord gives one final appeal to each individual as well as the nation as a whole: “Return, Israel, to the Lord your God, For you have stumbled because of your wrongdoing. Take words with you and return to the Lord. Say to Him, “Take away all guilt And receive us graciously, So that we may present the fruit of our lips.” This is the Gospel message. The short version of this is the exact thing that Yeshua said when He began His ministry: Repent, and hear the good news. Repent means turn away from your sin and disobedience, stop following your own heart. Return to the Lord and obedience to His commandments. And then, He will take away our guilt through His blood sacrifice on the cross and receive us graciously, so that we may present our words to praise Him. Before we repent and turn to Yeshua in faith, we cannot praise God. It is impossible. And if we could, the Lord would not listen. He listens only to those humble and contrite in heart, willing to follow Him in ALL of His ways. When we do this, He heals our apostasy and we are grafted-in to the Olive Tree that is Israel, and we will produce fruit among the Body of Yeshua. From Him comes our fruit. “The ways of the Lord are right, and the righteous will walk in them, but wrongdoers will stumble in them.” This is as true today for anyone who calls on the Name of the Lord as it was for Israel then.

Joel 1, Joel 2, Joel 3

As the world heads quickly to the Day of the Lord declared by the prophet Joel, we must take his advice and cry out to the Lord. We ought to desire the Lord in the same way that animals and plants next to dried up stream beds pant for water. When the Day of the Lord comes, the Valley of Judgment will be filled with blood (the juice of grapes ready for harvest); the vats will overflow. The Prince riding on the white horse will be covered with the blood of His adversaries. He will gather all of His children and bring them to safety and establish them forever. The nations may jeer, but they will meet their end. Never again will a stranger come into Israel, and thus it is clear that we must be grafted-in to Israel through Yeshua if we expect to live in His kingdom. “It will come to pass that everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.” Everyone who says “Baruch Hashem Yeshua” will be saved. This will be the time when Yerushalaim flows with milk and honey, and all the lands who opposed Yeshua will be barren and desolate. Jerusalem will be the center of all life forever and ever. Vengeance belongs to the Lord. He will repay. For us, it is imperative that our love not grow cold.

Amos 1, Amos 2, Amos 3, Amos 4, Amos 5

Some thoughts to ponder from Amos 1-5: “Certainly the Lord God does nothing Unless He reveals His secret plan To His servants the prophets. A lion has roared! Who will not fear? The Lord God has spoken! Who can do anything but prophesy? … For behold, He who forms mountains and creates the wind, And declares to a person what are His thoughts, He who makes dawn into darkness And treads on the high places of the earth, The Lord God of armies is His name. … For this is what the Lord says to the house of Israel: ‘Seek Me so that you may live. Seek the Lord so that you may live, Or He will break through like a fire, house of Joseph, And it will consume with no one to extinguish it for Bethel’ … Woe to you who are longing for the day of the Lord, For what purpose will the day of the Lord be to you? It will be darkness and not light; As when a man flees from a lion And a bear confronts him, Or he goes home, leans with his hand against the wall, And a snake bites him. Will the day of the Lord not be darkness instead of light, Even gloom with no brightness in it? … let justice roll out like waters, And righteousness like an ever-flowing stream.”

Amos 5:21-24  is analogous to Isaiah 1:10-17, and the mainstream Christian interpretation is not correct. In fact, it is dangerously incorrect. In Amos, the Lord says, “I hate, I reject your festivals, Nor do I delight in your festive assemblies. Even though you offer up to Me burnt offerings and your grain offerings, I will not accept them; And I will not even look at the peace offerings of your fattened oxen. Take away from Me the noise of your songs; I will not even listen to the sound of your harps. But let justice roll out like waters, And righteousness like an ever-flowing stream.” The Lord will not accept even the prayers from our lips or the music from our instruments if we do not act righteously according to His law. He doesn’t even accept prayer from us if we do not obey Him first. Even our Lord Yeshua says this same thing, when He says, “If you love me, you will keep My commandments.” And to love God is the first and greatest commandment above all else.

In Isaiah 1:10-17, the Lord speaks in the same manner saying, “To what purpose is the multitude of your sacrifices to Me? … I have had enough of burnt offerings of rams and the fat of fed cattle. I do not delight in the blood of bulls, or of lambs or goats. When you come to appear before Me, who has required this from your hand, to trample My courts?” Does the Lord not want us to come to Church? He continues, “Bring no more futile sacrifices; incense is an abomination to Me. The New Moons, the Sabbaths, and the calling of assemblies.” Does He want us to neglect His Holy Days that He called Feasts Forever for all of our generations? Does the Apostle Paul lie to us when He says, “keep the feast” (1 Corinthians 5:8)? Here’s the answer: ABSOLUTELY NOT! And the key to understanding this: The Lord says, “I cannot endure iniquity and the sacred meeting.” We cannot go before the Lord as unrepentant sinners and expect Him to pay attention to us. He does not want our company when we go on sinning. Paul says this in Galatians 2:17, “should we go on sinning so grace may abound? CERTAINLY NOT! Christ is not a minister of sin.”

He continues: Your New Moons and your appointed feasts My soul hates; they are a trouble to Me,
I am weary of bearing them.” Contrast this message with Leviticus 23:2, where the Lord lists HIS eight feasts, which include the seventh-day Sabbath. He says: “The feasts of the Lord, which you shall proclaim to be holy convocations, these are My feasts.” The Lord hates OUR feasts because He wants us to keep HIS feasts. The proof follows: “When you spread out your hands, I will hide My eyes from you; even though you make many prayers, I will not hear. Your hands are full of blood.” If we are to believe that the Lord wanted any of His people, Jews or Gentiles, to give up His Sabbath and His sacred assemblies, then He surely also wants us to give up praying and worshipping Him. The thought is ludicrous. No, the point is that the Lord does not want us to mix the Holy with the Profane. He does not want us to come before Him as hypocritical sinners, who disobey Him but then call out to His name and ask for blessing. He won’t do it. He says this directly: “Wash yourselves, make yourselves clean; put away the evil of your doings from before My eyes. Cease to do evil, Learn to do good; Seek justice, Rebuke the oppressor; Defend the fatherless, Plead for the widow.” If we obey God’s law, then He will hear our prayers and accept our worship. Then we can come before Him during His Holy Convocations and He will meet us there.

Amos 6, Amos 7, Amos 8, Amos 9, Obediah 1

As Amos concludes, the Lord continues His theme from previous chapters. Yeshua hates when we arrogantly give lip service to the Lord in His House of prayer, but only use His festivals to fatten ourselves and indulge in every delicacy. He hates it! His feast days are for us to spend time with Him, not for us to indulge ourselves. What’s worse, the Jews counted the hours of their holy festivals, waiting for them to conclude so they could go back to buying and selling and oppressing the poor by extorting wealth from them. They were going through the motions of keeping God’s feasts, but they didn’t keep them in their hearts. We see this particularly in Amos 8:4-7:  “Hear this, you who trample the needy, to put an end to the humble of the land, saying, “When will the new moon be over, So that we may sell grain; And the Sabbath, so that we may open the wheat market, To make the ephah smaller and the shekel bigger, And to cheat with dishonest scales, So as to buy the helpless for money, And the needy for a pair of sandals, And that we may sell the refuse of the wheat?” The Lord has sworn by the pride of Jacob, “Indeed, I will never forget any of their deeds.” The Lord wants us to be with Him, which is why He created His Sabbath and His feasts. Read Isaiah 58:13-14, which makes this quite clear.

If the Jews were only giving lip service to God’s Holy Convocations and only going through the motions, how much worse are today’s Christians who have turned their back on God’s Word all together? God said that because all of humankind, Jews and Gentiles alike, have turned their back on Him, He will allow a time like no other to come about when men will search for God’s Word to be preached but won’t find it. Preachers will give pep talks instead of read from God’s Word. They will bear false witness through misinterpretation of Scripture, and the people will desire God but won’t be able to find Him because no preacher will preach His Word. They will tell lies and preach peace, when there is no peace. The Lord says in Amos 8:11-12: “Behold, days are coming,” declares the Lord God, “When I will send a famine on the land, Not a famine of bread or a thirst for water, But rather for hearing the words of the Lord. “People will stagger from sea to sea And from the north even to the east; They will roam about to seek the word of the Lord, But they will not find it.” Sadly, I believe this day is upon us. And those preachers who do preach the Word of God today are too few to amount to much, and they are hated by society and all of their contemporaries. What a horrible famine we are experiencing. Praise be to God for the remnant and the set-apart few.

The Lord’s eyes see all, and He will destroy any sinful kingdom and destroy it from the face of the Earth. America will be no more. China and Russia will be no more. Iran will be no more. But Israel will stand, and if we hope to stand as individuals, we must be grafted-in to Israel. God’s people will inherit the Earth. All Sinners, even if they are of Israel, will die by the sword, even those who cry out “Lord, Lord,” to Jesus, thinking their salvation is secure. It is not secure for those who practice lawlessness. But God’s people Israel, those Saints who keep the commandments of God and their faith in Yeshua, will be restored and will possess all of the lands, the lands of America, the lands of China, Russia, Iran and even Edom, which represents fallen humanity. We will all worship Messiah Yeshua in Jerusalem, we will plant vineyards and drink wine, not to get drunk, but to celebrate the life we have in the Lord, and we will plant gardens and eat fruit, not to indulge ourselves, but to feast with the Lord. When our hearts are to serve the Lord and be with Him and do His will, He will plant us in the land as a permanent inheritance and we will dwell with Him forever.

Obadiah is a very simple message: We must not gloat over God’s judgment of any people, especially when He judges His people Israel. Those who say, “I told you so” will be destroyed, and those who take advantage of God’s tribulation upon His people when they sin, will be destroyed with the unrepentant. God does not appreciate pride to any degree and He will bring pride to an end. We read in Hebrews 12 that the Lord chastens those He loves, thus we ought to appreciate the chastening of the Lord and inspire others to repentance when they are undergoing chastening. The Lord has asked us to preach the Gospel to all nations and teach His commandments, thus when we see His calamity come, this is our opportunity to point all eyes to the Lord. Edom will not be repossessed by the Edomites. The Edomites, those proud and boastful people who laugh at their brothers’ calamity, will be destroyed forever. It will be the humble and contrite people who obey and trust in the Lord who will inherit the lands of Edom and the lands of Israel, and God’s people will inherit the whole Earth when He returns. God’s people will be grafted-in to Israel from all nations, and this is the people who will dwell forever in all the lands, and the Kingdom will be the Lord’s.

Jonah 1, Jonah 2, Jonah 3, Jonah 4

Untaught and unlearned Gentiles without knowledge of God, blindly immersed in their own sins, immediately turned toward God on two occasions when they heard about Him and His mercy. This is a prophetic template of what would happen when pagans heard the Word of God who came in the flesh to save sinners of the world from their own depravity. He would not go after the Gentiles, though, until His death, and then when He arose. Jonah was a Jew, and God instructed the Jews to bring the knowledge of God to all Nations. Jonah, in a microcosm of his people, did not desire this, for the Jews had separated themselves from the Gentiles, misreading God’s Word, rather than separating the Holy from the profane. Jonah therefore ran from God’s calling to reach Gentiles, but the Gentiles praised God and repented of their sin as they witnessed the miracles of God at Jonah’s death, and then, once Jonah was raised from the dead on dry land. They heard him and repented. Jonah may have doubted God’s plan and desired his enemy’s downfall, but God showed that He loves all people and wants all men to come to repentance, and only destroys those who don’t. He would come in the flesh to ensure each man, woman and child has a chance to turn toward Him.

Micah 1, Micah 2, Micah 3, Micah 4, Micah 5, Micah 6, Micah 7

Micah gets into some serious end time prophesy, describing both the coming of Messiah Yeshua from Bethlehem and the Antichrist from Assyria. He rebukes the proud and unjust leaders of any land, not just Israel, while lifting up those who turn their hearts after God; those who love justice (defined by Torah), who love kindness toward others (defined by Torah) and who walk humbly before God, knowing His righteousness is what purifies us by His favor so that we can walk according to His ways. Our duty is to love God and love one another, and God has told us that this is good, and instructed us on how to do this. We only need to hear, trust and obey.

Nahum 1, Nahum 2, Nahum 3

There are plenty of verses articulating the Lord’s mercy and grace, and we certainly love to think of our God in that way, and He is that way. However, the Lord will also have no mercy nor grace for those who rebel against Him and His commandments. Rather, the Lord will be avenging and wrathful. While slow to anger and great in power, “the Lord will by no means leave the guilty unpunished.” It matters not whether a person has confessed Messiah Yeshua or not, if their heart is to do evil and to walk in their own ways, rather than in God’s ways, Christ will say “depart from me, you who practice lawlessness,” even to those who say “Lord, Lord.” Everyone who rebels will be cut off and will pass away, along with the many nations who rebel against God, leaving Israel to celebrate their days with the Lord in peace. Egypt, Jericho, Assyria and Babylon become prophetic representations of the World system that will ultimately be thrown down, their people scattered without relief. The Lord absolutely knows those who take refuge in Him. He knows His remnant. We shall be gathered as children of God, to dwell in the land of Israel forever.

Habakkuk 1, Habakkuk 2, Habakkuk 3

Like Habakkuk, we might cry out to the Lord, “Violence!” Why have you allowed the world to become so depraved around us and yet not act. In 2 Peter 3:9, God answers: “The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness. Instead he is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance.” And this is what God also explains to the prophet: “Behold, as for the impudent one, His soul is not right within him; But the righteous one will live by his faith.“ And then He explains what we must have faith in: He says, “the Earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea,” for “the Lord is in His Holy Temple, and the Earth will be silent before Him.” We will rejoice in the God of our salvation, for He is coming to save His people by the hand of His anointed Messiah. We triumph alone in the Lord, for He is the God of our salvation. He is our strength and helps us to walk on High places. No matter what happens in the world, we must endure in our faith in Yeshua and keep His commandments.


Zephaniah 1, Zephaniah 2, Zephaniah 3

Zephaniah is End Times prophesy that can help us further understand Revelation. Study the two together. The Earth will be devoured by the fire of God’s jealousy, and all the inhabitants of the Earth will be devoured by it, except for those who do this: “Seek the Lord, All you humble of the earth Who have practiced His ordinances; Seek righteousness, seek humility. Perhaps you will remain hidden On the day of the Lord’s anger.” Those who remain hidden and those whom the Lord raises from the dead on the Last Day for salvation will dwell in peace in His eternal cities, but those who are of the world will be burned up. If there is no righteousness in a person, there will be nothing that remains after the fire, but a person who has Christ in them—our righteousness—the fire will not consume. Yeshua will come to dwell with us forever: “The Lord your God is in your midst, A victorious warrior. He will rejoice over you with joy, He will be quiet in His love, He will rejoice over you with shouts of joy.” For those who lamented the sin of the world and the ignorance and rebellion against God’s ways, the Lord says: “I will gather those who are worried about the appointed feasts.” He will restore all of His ways.

Haggai 1, Haggai 2

The people of Israel were returning from Babylon, a miracle of God that was prophesied by Jeremiah, and yet they were tending to their own needs before tending to the Lord. Our Lord Yeshua says we must put Him first in our lives. He says, “Put you first the Kingdom of God, and [everything you need] will be added to you.” God says the same thing here. If we put God first in our lives and what He desires from us, the Lord will bless us greatly. Convicted by this message, the returning rulers and priests devoted themselves to restoring the Temple, but the Lord rebuked them again, saying that any uncleanliness of thought, word or deed would make everything they constructed unclean. We can’t mix the holy with the profane. We can’t eat at the Lord’s table and at the table of Belial, Paul wrote. And yet, Haggai also notes quite powerfully about the future (now past): “The latter glory of this house will be greater than the former,’ says the Lord of armies, ‘and in this place I will give peace,’ declares the Lord of armies.” Our Messiah Yeshua walked in that Temple, and God Incarnate who came to save us from our uncleanliness delivered far more glory to the Temple even in the flesh than God’s unapproachable glory did in the First Temple. Now, on account of Christ, God is with us, available to each of us through Christ’s blood when His Spirit comes to dwell within us, and this intimacy with us was His desire all along. This is why the Lord can say He will bless us from that day forward.

Zechariah 1, Zechariah 2, Zechariah 3, Zechariah 4, Zechariah 5, Zechariah 6, Zechariah 7

Zechariah is inaugurated eschatology, in that it refers to both the near-term vision of Israel returning to Jerusalem, as well as the far-off vision of Messiah arriving in both His first and second coming. I believe we should read this book more so than others as if it applies directly to us. When the Lord says “Return to Me … that I may return to you,” we ought to take this to heart. The Lord desires our whole hearts, not just our lip service. He wants us to pursue Him fully in everything we think, say or do, and then He will come with us with His Holy Spirit to be the Lord of our lives. Blessings will ensue. He clarifies what we need to “return” from: “from your evil ways and your evil deeds.” Anything in opposition to God is “evil.” Anything that rebels against God’s commandments is “evil.” We must turn away from this rebellion, and turn toward obedience. If we do this, the Lord says, “I will be a wall of fire … on all sides, and I will be the glory in her midst.” The Lord will protect us from all evil and will give us His glory to behold.

We also know that when the Lord “has roused Himself from His holy dwelling” to dwell in our midst, many nations will join themselves to the Lord and become His people. His servant the Branch, or the Sprout, will be a sign. He will be the cornerstone of God’s third temple, a stone with seven eyes, which are the complete all-seeing eyes of God. He will search our ways to watch whether we invite our neighbor to sit under His vine and His fig tree, to enjoy their fruit. Will we execute on Yeshua’s commandments to go forth and spread the Gospel, to baptize in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, and to teach the commandments of God, thus bearing the fruit of the Spirit? If we do, this lamp stand of all gold with its bowl on top will bear sprouts witnessed by the Torah and the Prophets, the two witnesses of God. This lamp stand is the complete Church that Yeshua brought to the Earth, and the sprouts are the new vine that He expects us to go forth and multiply. Our faith is not executed by “might, nor by power, but by [God’s Holy] Spirit.” Zion will shout out, “grace, grace to it” because nothing but grace can save us from our own depravity.

As we continue into Zechariah 5, the great Scroll is the Word of God that judges all mankind, for those who steal or those who swear falsely, two example commandments of God, will be condemned by it. And yet despite this warning, wickedness, the woman measured inside an ephah, would be built into a temple and put up on a pedestal in Shinar. Men, despite all of the warnings of God, will continue to rebel and will not turn toward God, but will rather revel in their own wickedness. They will receive God’s judgment, continuing into chapter 6, particularly when the four spirits of heaven, the four horsemen, come out to bring pestilence, the sword, the famine and the beasts of the Earth to judge the Earth. But for those who completely obey the Lord, they will be built into the temple of the Lord by the Messiah, whether near or far.

In Zechariah 7, the Lord clarifies the meaning of prophesies of Amos 5:21-24 and Isaiah 1:10-17, just as He did in Ezekiel 20:11-29. The Lord doesn’t want us to fast and mourn as a matter of rote religious obligation, and He doesn’t want us to eat or drink at His feasts to gorge ourselves with tasty food and get drunk on wine. Zechariah writes, “Are these not the words which the Lord proclaimed by the former prophets, when Jerusalem was inhabited and carefree along with its cities around it,…?” The Lord God says this is what He desires most: “Dispense true justice and practice kindness and compassion each to his brother; and do not oppress the widow or the orphan, the stranger or the poor; and do not devise evil in your hearts against one another.’” He complains that the people make their heart “as hard as a diamond” so they could not hear the Law and the words which the Lord of armies had sent by His Spirit through the prophets, and thus wrath follows. Despite His best effort to reach us, most people simply reject the Word of God and follow their own way instead. But God wants us to follow in His ways, rather than our own ways. He wants us to hear His heart and do His commands out of desire for them, not out of rote obligation or some desire to please ourselves. The Lord says, “just as [the Lord] called and they would not listen, so they called and I would not listen…” The Lord will not abide with people who rebel against Him, nor will He hear their prayers.

Zechariah 8, Zechariah 9, Zechariah 10, Zechariah 11, Zechariah 12, Zechariah 13, Zechariah 14

Zechariah 8-14 is all Messianic prophesy and it speaks to Yeshua’s first and second coming. Much of the prophesy in the Gospels and in Revelation can be understood by reading these prophesies. The Lord, whose glory left the Temple, said “I will return to Zion and dwell in the midst of Jerusalem.” Read the Gospels, particularly John, and you will see Yeshua fulfilling this prophesy. This is the time when the Lord saved His people from the east and the west, and many came to dwell in Jerusalem. He was identified as God for all believers “in truth and righteousness.” The remnant of this people, the first believers, whether Jew or Greek, would be treated differently; they would be under a new covenant. The Lord describes this here: “there will be the seed of peace: the vine will yield its fruit, the land will yield its produce, and the heavens will provide their dew; and I will give to the remnant of this people all these things as an inheritance.” Yeshua said, “I am the vine, and you are the branches.” He is the Prince of Peace, the Sar Shalom, and He instructed His remnant to bear fruit, and if they obeyed, the Kingdom of God would be their inheritance.

As Zechariah 8 continues, the Lord indicates that Judah and Israel will be a house of blessing in the Lord. He says, “do not fear, but let your hands be strong. … Speak Truth to one another, judge with truth and judgment for peace at your gates. Also, let none of you devise evil in your heart against another, and do not love perjury; for all these things I hate.” This is the plainly the Gospel message. We are to love Truth, which is the Law and the Prophets as lived out in the life of our Lord Yeshua, and we are to speak it and judge according to it, with peace. Peace can only be derived from the grace of God, which is a free gift from Christ. When peoples come in—when they are grafted-in to Israel—the Lord says we are to go at once and plead for the “favor”=grace of the Lord. This is when ten men of every nation will grasp the garment of a Jewish man—namely, the tzit tzit of Yeshua Himself—, saying “Let us go with you, for we have heard that God is with you.” When people of every nation grasp onto the commandments of God lived-out perfectly by Messiah Yeshua, we know that the Lord has come and He is doing His work.

In Zechariah 9, the Lord speaks of the Nations that elevate themselves above God. Clearly, He will bring destruction upon them, but then we see this: “Then they also will be a remnant for our God, And be like a clan in Judah,…” In other words, Gentiles from every nation will be grafted-in to Judah through Messiah Yeshua and will become a part of Israel, but those pagans that do not convert will be destroyed. This will come about from the King who rode into Jerusalem on the colt of a donkey, humble, righteous, and endowed with salvation for all who accept Him. He spoke peace to all nations and His dominion is all of mankind. Because of the blood of His covenant, the prisoners will be set free from the waterless pit, and those of Israel who accept Messiah Yeshua will be given their double portion, for to the first born goes the double portion.

In the middle of Zechariah 9, the prophet’s words switch to End Times prophesy, for we know that the “Lord of Armies,” Yeshua, will protect the Jews who shout out “Baruch Hashem Yeshua,” or “Blessed is He who comes in the Name of the Lord.” He will save them on the day the whole world comes up against them. This had its first iteration during the time of the false Messiah Simon bar Kokhba in 132-136 AD, when the Jews were barred from living in Jerusalem for more than 1,000 years, but all the world will stand against Jerusalem again at the End of Days. Grain and New Wine will bring all men and women together in Messiah to flourish in their inheritance at this time.

Moving into Zechariah 10, the Lord speaks of the years of drought in Israel that would follow the fall of Jerusalem to the Gentile nations. There would be no shepherd for Jews who did not accept the Messiah, and any leaders of Israel, the Rabbis and their Rabbinical system, would result in illusion and deceit. The Lord is against these shepherds, for “the Lord of Armies has visited His flock, the house of Judah, and will make them like His majestic horse in battle.” The prophet speaks about how this remnant will preach concerning the Cornerstone, the tent peg, the bow of battle, …” Yeshua, the Lord will be with His people and any who face them will be put to shame. Because of the Lord’s compassion on His people, He will bring Judah back into the land, even the house of Joseph, and we saw this happen in 1948, “from distant countries,” “I will whistle for them and gather them together, for I have redeemed them,” and “they will be as though I had not rejected them.” This ought to make all believers rejoice in their hearts. As prophesy unfolds, we will see more and more of them turn to their Messiah Yeshua to the point that they will be strengthened by the Lord, and in His name [Yeshua] they will walk.”

In Zechariah 11, in the ancient return of Israel from Babylon, we see that there would be a flock pastured that is still due for slaughter. With two staffs, “Favor=grace” and “Union,” the Lord pastures them in the second temple period (and even still today), but those shepherds who continue to turn their back on God would be removed in one month, “for my soul was impatient with them, and their soul was also tired of me.” Was this during the month of Aviv when Christ was crucified? Will it be the month when Christ returns? The Lord says to those who reject Him: “I will not pasture you. What is to die, let it die, and what is to perish, let it perish, and let those who are left eat one another’s flesh.” Here we see the Lord break His staff “Favor=grace” in two; the time of the Lord’s grace for those rejecting Him would end. Anyone among the faithful watching this would realize that God’s gift of grace is through the Word of the Lord, who became flesh, and thus He would demand His wages from us, which are our obedience to the commandments of God. And yet Christ also redeemed these wages through His crucifixion, for He purchased our redemption by dying on the cross for our sins, and those 30 pieces of silver paid for the potter’s field. From this accomplishment, the Lord would divide the sheep from the goats, and those who serve themselves would be destroyed, while grace would still be offered to those who remain faithful.

In Zechariah 12, we see a dual prophesy of the time of the false Messiah Simon bar Kokhba in 132-136 AD as well as the end of days, as Israel is once again in the land as they were then. While the Lord preserved His people from the first iteration of this, because the Lord told them in Matthew 24 that when they saw the armies around Jerusalem to flee for the hills, we know also that in the second iteration of this, one third of the people who remain will be saved, because they will call out “Baruch Hashem Yeshua.” Jerusalem will be a heavy stone for all people in those days. They were a heavy stone for Rome back in the 130s, and they are a heavy stone for the whole world today. Anywhere you go, the whole world has heard about Jerusalem and has an opinion about what should happen there. This is unusual, and thus can only be explained by God’s prophesy here. Any who attempt to “lift the stone” will injure themselves severely. You see, this must be an end time prophesy though, because in the 130s, Jerusalem was fully destroyed, while in the Last Days, this prophesy will be fulfilled and the enemies of Jerusalem will be fully destroyed in the battle of Megiddo/Armageddon.

We read: “On that day the Lord will protect the inhabitants of Jerusalem, and the one who is feeble among them on that day will be like David, and the house of David will be like God, like the angel of the Lord before them. And on that day I will seek to destroy all the nations that come against Jerusalem.” We read next, “And I will pour out on the house of David and on the inhabitants of Jerusalem the Spirit of grace and of pleading, so that they will look at Me whom they pierced; and they will mourn for Him, like one mourning for an only son, and they will weep bitterly over Him like the bitter weeping over a firstborn. On that day the mourning in Jerusalem will be great, like the mourning of Hadadrimmon in the plain of Megiddo.” This is that day Jerusalem will call out, “Baruch Hashem Yeshua.” This is the day He will come. This is the day they will realize they had rejected their Messiah for all these years, and those who remain will weep bitterly for what their fathers did against their God.

Following this, in another dual prophesy of the first and second coming, we read on in Zechariah 13, the Lord will cleanse the land of idols, false prophets, and demons from the land. Only the Lord Himself will prophesy, and He will explain that the wounds on His hands are those he received on account of His brothers in Israel. His living water flowed forth from the Holy Spirit, and while His servants were scattered, and while they were refined through the fire (of persecution) that comes and will come again, they will remain standing in the Lord as fine silver and gold, they will call upon the name of the Lord and He will answer them, saying, “they are my People.” And the people will respond, “Yeshua is my God.” Based on this prophesy, it could be postulated that one third of Israel believed in Messiah Yeshua and became the first Christians. It could also be understood that one third of Israel will believe in Him at the end. But from the earlier prophesy in Zechariah 10, we see that they will be as numerous as they were before. I believe the other two-thirds will be made up of grafted-in Gentiles.

Zechariah 14 concludes with what can only be seen as End Times prophesy. When Jerusalem is breached in the end, the Lord will come and respond to those shouting out to Him, and He will stand on the Mount of Olives again. We will see Him return in the same way that He left, as we read in Acts 1. The Lord Himself will fight against all of the nations, and His holy ones, those who were raised from the dead or raptured into the clouds, will fight with Him. This will be a day of darkness, for the sun and the moon will literally be no more, and the heavens will roll back like a curtain and reveal all things to those who remain in the flesh, but at the end of the day the Lord’s light will shine, and it will not be extinguished. The fire that comes from Heaven will burn up all unrighteousness, and any rebellious ones will be destroyed standing in their place. What remains will be God’s people, who will come up to Jerusalem year by year to celebrate the Lord’s presence with us and worship Him. The Lord will be one, and His name will be one; I believe it will be Yeshua, and He will dwell with us forever. Any who rebel will die in a plague of drought. There will no longer be merchants, because the Lord will provide everything needed.

Malachi 1, Malachi 2, Malachi 3, Malachi 4

The Lord demands our faithfulness, and He will continually take down those who are not faithful until the end when He destroys them all, but the righteous—those with faith in God who heed His Word in the Torah and Prophets, He will uphold. In fact, to the righteous, those with faith in Yeshua who keep God’s commandments, He will write their names in “His book of remembrance,” which is the Lamb’s Book of Life. He gives a few examples of faithlessness: those who divorce their righteous wives and follow new wives and sinful, idolatrous practices; those who bring their leftovers to God, rather than their first and their best; and those who do not preach the Word of God, but rather come up with their own teaching that tickles the ears of those who listen. The Lord continually tires of the rebellious—those who practice lawlessness. He says, “Be careful then about your spirit.” He says, “You have wearied the Lord with your words. … In that you say, “Everyone who does evil is good in the sight of the Lord and He delights in them.” This is the mantra of most Christian pastors today, but we know from Paul in Galatians 2:17, “Christ is not a minister of sin.” We cannot continue to sin and expect salvation. The “God of justice” will come and destroy those who “practice lawlessness.” “Woe to those who call evil good, and good evil,” we read in Isaiah.

Yeshua, the Messenger of God, the Angel of God, would clear the Way for God—He would make it clear. The Lord, whom Israel has been seeking, would come to His temple (His second temple), but who would endure His coming? He would be like a refiner’s fire and launderers soap, to purify silver and gold from that which defiles. Then our offerings of our “reasonable service” and “the prayers of the saints” would be accepted as pleasing to the Lord. The Lord will bring swift witness against sorcerers, adulterers, those who swear falsely, those who oppress the wage earner, the widow or the orphan, those who turn the stranger away from justice, those who don’t fear God; in brief, those who disobey God’s commandments. The Lord then tells Malachi the same thing He told Zechariah: “return to Me, and I will return to you.” In other words, repent, hear the good news, and walk in the way that Messiah walked. The refining fire is coming yet another time, but all of the arrogant (those who rebel against God’s commandments) and every evildoer (those who practice lawlessness) will be chaff and they will be burned up. They will have neither root or branches, but will be cut off. But for those who fear God, we will crush the wicked underfoot (for they will be ashes under our feet.)

The Lord reminds His servants to keep the law of Moses, as Elijah the prophet once did. When the fathers teach their children the law, and the children uphold it and respect their fathers and love their Father in Heaven, the Lord will preserve the land.

Job 1, Job 2, Job 3, Job 4

Job lived in the Land of Uz. Uz means “advice” or “council” in Hebrew, which lines up with the theme of the book, but the land is likely named after Uz, the son of Aram. Genesis 10:23, Genesis 22:21 and 1 Chronicles 1:42 mention Aram, son of Shem, whose firstborn son is named Uz. Aram was a nation northeast of Israel and north of Ammon within what would later be called Assyria. Perhaps this gives a chronological period for Job, in that he lived when Uz succeeded his father Aram, or even after Uz passed and his name remained on the land for a period? Jeremiah 25 lists Uz and Edom, but not Aram, the distinction indicating that Uz is likely the same as Aram, and not Edom as other Bible scholars have proposed. In any case, Job was a real, historical man who lived in a real historical place, and he lived after the time of Abraham’s children. God said by His Word that He created Job, and that there was no one else like him on the Earth at the time that he lived. God’s Word always has a historical reality as well as a spiritual reality, and Job is no different.

Job, or אִיּוֹב (E-yov) in Hebrew, comes from the Hebrew word אָיַב (a-yav), meaning hated, or persecuted. It is possible that he was among the children of Israel, but he doesn’t have to be. He could be a Gentile, for all of his friends were Gentiles. He certainly was a righteous man, and if he wasn’t living in Israel, but Uz or Aram, then how could he be construed as righteous considering that God had commanded all of Israel to possess the Promised Land? His friends were contemporaries of Jacob’s sons, particularly Eliphaz the Temanite, who was Esau’s son through his wife Adah (Genesis 36:10). The other friends are less chronologically placed, but we do know Bildad the Shuhite was a descendant of Shuah, the son of Abraham through his concubine Keturah (Genesis 25:2), Zophar the Naamathite is a man from Naamah in Arabia. And mentioned later, Elihu the son of Barachel, is a descendant of Buz, who is mentioned in Genesis 22:20-21 as a son of Nahor, Abraham’s brother.

Importantly, some folks have said that Job is about the problem of human suffering, but that it does not answer the question as to why suffering occurs. I agree on the first point, but disagree on the second. The Scripture as a whole certainly does answer the question as to why suffering occurs, even as pertaining to Job in particular. Within the book of Job the question is also answered, and right in the beginning. Job was blameless, completely righteous in all his ways, which is not to say he never sinned, but rather to say that his heart was aligned with God’s instruction and he desired to do God’s will always, just as any Holy Spirit filled Christian ought to be today. He was so faithful, in fact, that he prayed for his children so that God would have mercy on them, despite their sins. In Ezekiel 14, God explained to the prophet that only Noah, Daniel and Job could be saved, in a wicked land that was suffering the judgment of God, just like “righteous Lot” was from Sodom.  

Each faced their own struggle, but Job’s is identified in James 5:10-11, wherein the Apostle even called Job a prophet, writing, “My brethren, take the prophets, who spoke in the name of the Lord, as an example of suffering and patience. Indeed we count them blessed who endure. You have heard of the perseverance of Job and seen the end intended by the Lord—that the Lord is very compassionate and merciful.” On account of Job’s righteousness, the Adversary asked God for permission to test Job, for this was his created role that HaSatan still fulfills even though he is in rebellion against God. The Lord sometimes allows us to be tested, to make us stronger and prepare us for His purposes. Yeshua told Peter that HaSatan asked Him whether He could “sift him like wheat,” and we know that the Lord allowed Peter to suffer so He could prepare Him for His Mission. Suffering is intended to test us and to strengthen us and to teach us, and Job passed the test, saying,“ Naked I came from my mother’s womb, And naked I shall return there. The Lord gave and the Lord has taken away. Blessed be the name of the Lord.”

We must always endure in the testing the Lord allows, for it is designed for our good. When HaSatan returned to God asking to give him illness to test him further, God allowed this and Job also passed that test, even rebuking his wife, who had become “like one of the foolish women,” meaning, one of the women rebelling against God. Recognize that when things get difficult and we endure through these tests of suffering in our lives, more difficult tests are coming our way; things get taken to the next level. The purpose of this is not to punish us for sin; rather, the purpose is to prepare us for greater purposes. Read Hebrews 12, but particularly verses 7-8: “If you endure chastening, God deals with you as with sons; for what son is there whom a father does not chasten? But if you are without chastening, of which all have become partakers, then you are illegitimate and not sons.” Job is an adopted son of God through faith in the Messiah Yeshua, when he says later in Job 19:25, “I know that my Redeemer lives.”

If these two tests were not enough, Job had to deal with a third ordeal: all of the temptations brought about by his “friends” Eliphaz, Bildad, Zophar and Elihu. While these four know Scripture well, none of them correctly interpreted it. Only Job was correct in all that he did to the point where God uses him as an example three times of how our faith ought to carry us through this life. Job is not wrong to feel depressed, to want to die in his suffering, to ask, “Why is light given to one burdened with grief … who are filled with jubilation and rejoice when they find the grave.” The Apostle Paul wrote, “To live is to live for Messiah, and to die is gain.” Those who know the Lord understand that this life is but the wilderness testing ground where God either refines us into the people He created us to be, or destroys us because we rebel against Him and the work He is trying to accomplish. Our faith in Yeshua and faithfulness to God’s commandments are what bring about the promised life that is to come. It is our duty to endure, and we certainly should be asking God for help and pondering life’s more difficult questions with Him along the way. He designed us to seek Him and build this relationship with Him and He will reward those who endure in His Kingdom.

Job 5, Job 6, Job 7

Eliphaz is correct when he writes: “happy is the man whom God corrects; therefore do not despise the chastening of the Almighty.” God both “bruises and binds up, He wounds, but His hands make whole.” How can we be afraid or despair in trouble when our help comes from the Lord? We should be thankful for the opportunity to grow in character, in faith and in our relationship with Yeshua, in both good times and bad. As Hebrews 12:11 indicates: “No chastening seems to be joyful for the present, but painful; nevertheless, afterward it yields the peaceable fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it.” Job writes, “it is still my comfort, and I rejoice in unsparing pain, that I have not denied the words of the Holy One.” He suffers to the point that he is at pain all day, longing for night, but then he is in his bed, tossing and turning, longing for the day. Like Job, we ought to use times of suffering for self reflection. “Have I sinned? What have I done to you? … Why then do You not forgive my wrongdoing and take away my guilt?” We read and pray as in Psalm 139: 23-24: “Search me, O God, and know my heart; Try me, and know my anxieties; and see if there is any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.”

Job 8, Job 9, Job 10

Bildad says correctly that God will not reject a person of integrity, and He will not help evildoers, but this is only true of the Kingdom to come. He rewards those who love Him and keep His commands and condemns the wicked on the Last Day, but we aren’t there yet. In this wilderness in which we live, God tests the righteous to make sure we will remain faithful, and He seeks out the evildoers and urges them to repent. In both cases, He seeks those who will repent and endure in faithfulness.

Job knows this. He says, “How can a person be in the right with God?” He continues: “I am disgusted with my own life … I will say to God, ‘Do not condemn me; let me know why You contend with me.”  We must always seek to be sanctified by God’s Holy Spirit through repentance.

Let the Lord NOT take His rod away from us, for the day we lose our fear of God is the day we die the second death. If we do not fear God but stand proudly, God would hunt us like a lion seeking its prey. We must be humble, like Job, saying, “If I am wicked, woe to me! But if I am righteous, I dare not lift up my head. I am full of shame, and conscious of my misery.” Only with faith in Yeshua and enduring faithfulness can we be saved.

Job 11, Job 12, Job 13

Zophar presents an inverse reality that is simply false, and in this he presents as a false prophet or a false teacher. He says, “The eyes of the wicked will fail, and there is no escape for them, and their hope is to breathe their last.” This could not be further from the Truth, and it is frankly Satanic. The only hope the wicked has is that the Lord will allow them to live long enough so He can lead them to repentance. Peter writes in 2 Peter 3:9, “The Lord is not slack concerning His promise, as some count slackness, but is longsuffering toward us, not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance.” Ezekiel 18 says something similar. The Lord does not want any of us to die, but rather that we turn and live. It is Satan alone who wants us to die in our sin.

Job is aware of this and makes it known to his companions, saying, “with you wisdom will die.” When wisdom dies, there is no more hope. The reality is this, God will make these false teachers grope in darkness without light so long as they continue to walk in their ignorance. But Job is not like this. He says, “though He slay me, I will hope in Him. Nevertheless I will argue my ways before Him.” The Lord chastens those whom He loves as sons, and we ought to relish in this, arguing our ways before Him. This does not mean that we contend with God, but rather ask, “How many are my guilty deeds and sins? Make known to me my wrongdoing and my sin.” He’s saying this on account of his heart for repentance. He knows that the godless cannot stand before God, and so he seeks to humble himself before the Lord and repent of anything that separates them. This is the right attitude we all ought to possess all of the time.

Job 14, Job 15, Job 16

In Job 14, the prophet explains that when we die, we rest in the grave until the Last Day. The Bible is consistent about this eschatology throughout: “Oh, that You would hide me in the grave, That You would conceal me until Your wrath is past, That You would appoint me a set time, and remember me! If a man dies, shall he live again? All the days of my hard service I will wait, Till my change comes.” This aligns with Paul’s writing in 1 Corinthians 15:51-52: “Behold, I tell you a mystery: We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed—in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed.”

Eliphaz reminds me of all of the atheists and agnostics who have grown angry with me on account of my confidence in our God and my faith in His promises. They see it as arrogance, when it is simply faith and faith alone. Eliphaz asks, “What do you know that we do not know? What do you understand that we do not? “Both the gray-haired and the aged are among us, Older than your father.” The answer is simple. Those who trust in and fear God have been granted a portion of His wisdom and understanding, and we know infinitely more than they. Psalm 119:97-99, reads: “Oh, how I love Your law! It is my meditation all the day. You, through Your commandments, make me wiser than my enemies; for they are ever with me. I have more understanding than all my teachers, for Your testimonies are my meditation.” This is not arrogance, it is simply the knowledge of God, and it is Truth. Peter calls us to move from faith to virtue to knowledge in 2 Peter 1, for it is the foundation of godliness and a correct understanding of love. Those who study the Word of God day and night know more than those who don’t. Those who do this with the Holy Spirit guiding them know infinitely more. It is wisdom to humble ourselves before God and to seek understanding by His Word, and it is the darkness of ignorance for look for knowledge anywhere else.

Job continues that we ought not shake our fists at those in ignorance, but rather patiently endure them and gently turn them toward the Truth. We are to endure, as Messiah Yeshua did, the aggressive actions of criminals, as they slap us on the cheek with contempt we ought to turn to them the other cheek. Our witness is in heaven and our advocate on high, even though He allows us to suffer, our suffering is for our good, and it is a witness to those who testify against us. We can pray for those who scoff against the Lord, for their end is destruction if they do not turn. Let us weep to God, “that [we] might plead for a man with God as a son of man with his neighbor.” Perhaps they will repent and return to God? Job knows the Way of Yeshua, and he teaches it to us. We would be wise to listen to him.

Job 17, Job 18, Job 19, Job 20

Both Bildad and Eliphaz contend Job must have sinned to bring God’s judgement upon him, and they are right that God judges wicked nations, but when calamity comes upon a righteous man, it is simply a test from God, a chastening, a refiner’s fire, and it is for our good.

Job is not wicked; for God Himself said He is blameless, and we see His blameless spirit in words like this: “My spirit is broken, my days are extinguished, the grave is ready for me.” We know from David in Psalm 51:17, “The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit, A broken and a contrite heart— These, O God, You will not despise.” And God says in Isaiah 66:2, “But this is the one to whom I will look: he who is humble and contrite in spirit and trembles at my word.” Job can rest assured that he has certainly gotten the attention of God with his faithfulness. And his faithfulness has given him understanding, for he KNOWS this life is just a testing ground, a temporary sojourn, and we dwell in tabernacles—“even after my skin is destroyed, yet from my flesh I will see God,” he writes. “I know my Redeemer lives, and at the last, He will take His stand on the earth.” Yeshua is coming back, He will raise the dead, and all of the righteous will dwell within Him forever in resurrected bodies that live forever. Job knows this, and that is his only hope. Let his words be engraved on rock forever. For we know that God’s wrath will come, but only at the end on those who do not trust Him.

Job 21, Job 22, Job 23

The wicked, grasping at their worldly possessions, but ignoring God, face the same mortality as those who, while possessing many things, look to God for their life and their purpose. On this side of Heaven it doesn’t make sense to the unbelieving or the weak of faith, but Yeshua said the wheat and tares would grow up together and on the Last Day, after the harvest, they would be separated—the wheat gathered into the barn and the tares burned up with fire.

Elphaz continues to speak forked-tongued like Satan, bringing many truths but interpreting them falsely. He speaks as an accuser, looking at all the faults of his brothers rather than looking to God with humility himself, knowing that God is judge, not he.

Job most eloquently responds, explaining that God desires to be with His children who love Him and keep His commandments. While we cannot see or know what God is doing, we know that He sees us, and so we ought to walk with upright and righteous hearts, joyful to endure any test that makes us into better men. “When He has put me to the test, I will come out as gold. My foot has held on to His path; I have kept His way and not turned aside.” May this be something my own heart testifies.

Job 24, Job 25, Job 26, Job 27, Job 28

In Job 24, we see again that this life is a testing ground for the righteous and the wicked, to see if they will remain righteous or wicked, and to see if not everyone will repent and walk in the ways of God. Job 26 and 27 states that the wicked tremble in their graves awaiting the judgment of God, implying that our time to turn away from wickedness in repentance is now. Bildad asks a pertinent question in Job 26, “How then can mankind be righteous with God? Or how can anyone who is born of women be pure?” He asks this, as the wicked do today, saying, “We can’t possibly keep the commandments of God, so why should we bother?” Job answers the question in the only way that it can be answered in Job 28, for wisdom cannot be purchased and it cannot be earned, but it is achieved alone through repentance and humility: “Behold, the fear of the Lord, that is wisdom; and to turn away from evil is understanding.” Our duty is to walk according to God’s commandments because we love Him, and we ought to look to Him alone to help us, for He has promised to do so.

Job 29, Job 30, Job 31

In his speech from Job 29-31, Job articulates what it is to be righteous, and we ought to pay close attention, for this is our calling: To “save the poor who cried for help and the orphan who had no helper;” to “make the widows heart sing for joy.” He wore righteousness as a robe, for this was the faith in Yeshua that we too must share. He helped the blind see and those who could not walk. He investigated situations that were unknown and rescued the oppressed from the wicked. He judged rightly against the oppressors, for we are called to judge those who are within (1 Corinth 5). But more-so than this, he did not curse God when misfortune fell upon him. He says, “I made a covenant with my eyes, how then could I look at a virgin?” He heard the complaints of his servants against him and addressed them, for God made both him and his servants for His pleasure. He put no confidence in his wealth, of which he had much, but he put all of his trust in God. He did not take pleasure in the misfortune of others, even when they were his enemies. He served them by feeding and clothing them, and he opened his doors to strangers.

In summary, we can look to what James writes in James 1:27: “Pure and undefiled religion before God and the Father is this: to visit orphans and widows in their trouble, and to keep oneself unspotted from the world.”

From Job 30, I get the impression that Eliphaz the Temanite, Bildad the Shuhite, Zophar the Naamathite and Elihu the son of Barachel are not “friends” come to comfort Job, but rather adversaries come to gloat over him. He calls them youth that mocks him, whose fathers were worthless and without a name—it’s implied—without a name written in the Book of Life.

Job 32, Job 33, Job 34

In Part 1 of Elihu’s speech, he shows his youth by rambling on with many words (huh), but he doesn’t say anything different. Job 32 notes that Elihu’s anger burned against Job. Yeshua said in Matthew 5 that those who are angry with their brother are liable to the judgment of God. At the same time, Elihu rightly surmises that Elphaz, Bildad and Zophar did not “answer Job.” He also rightly explains that God is greater than mankind and His ways are not our ways; we can’t understand His fullness. Yet, Elihu wrongly accuses Job of blaming God for injustice or answering foolishly. Nowhere in Job’s speech do I see this (correct me if I’ve missed it). While Job certainly questions God for what he perceives as injustice, I don’t see Job questioning God for any other reason than to reach understanding, and this is not only his right but his duty. He believes he has been righteous, and by God’s own Word, Job has been righteous. All I have seen in Job’s questions is his attempt to understand why he is suffering. He has been searching himself to try to find sin in himself, and this is also righteous and proper. In fact, God desires that we do this, and God has explained that in His own time He will reveal the things that we need to know.

Job 35, Job 36, Job 37

Elihu mixes in half truths with arrogance, saying, “there is still more to be said on God’s behalf.” Really? Does Elihu speak for God? As far as the Word is concerned, Job is the only one who is said to be blameless by God Himself. Elihu isn’t really adding anything of value to the conversation. He, like so many readers, misinterprets Job’s heart. Job, just searching for answers, is looking for a relationship with His Creator, and this is the heart we must all have, for the Lord is looking for those who seek Him out with all of their hearts. Elihu claims we have a distant God who cannot be known. He’s wrong. We may not be able to know the fullness of God, but when we seek God with all of our hearts, we have eternity to get to know Him better.

Job 38, Job 39

When God says, “Who is this who darkens the divine plan By words without knowledge?,” He is speaking to Job’s companions, who think they can speak for God, but cannot. Only God can judge man’s eternal disposition, but Job’s companions believe they know God’s plan of judgment. They darken the divine plan by ascribing a mortal mind to it, when in fact Job simply wants to know more about His Creator. Job is not darkening the divine plan, He is simply asking God questions about His creation. God explains: It’s too much for you to know right now. God created the Heavens and the Earth and everything in them. How could Man possibly know all My ways?, God says. In Jeremiah 29:13-14, the Lord says, “you will seek me and you will find me when you seek me with all of your heart.” We have eternity to get to know God, and God wants this from us. He wants us to know Him and to seek Him each and every day. This is Job’s heart, and Job is both righteous and blameless in seeking these answers.

Job 40, Job 41, Job 42
 
To Job’s companions the Lord says two times: “My wrath is kindled against you and against your two friends, because you have not spoken of Me what is trustworthy, as My servant Job has.” AND “For I will accept him so as not to do with you as your foolishness deserves, because you have not spoken of Me what is trustworthy, as My servant Job has.” This testimony of two confirms as Biblical fact that EVERYTHING Job said was trustworthy, firm, correct and firm in faith for the Lord, and reconfirms what God said in the beginning, that Job is blameless. Not only that, but the Lord accepted what Job said in judgment against his companions and commanded them—but not Job—to repent. Job repented in the face of God and His awesome presence, because no man can stand in front of God and live in the midst of His perfection. He did not repent for sin, but for simply being a man in His presence, and God seeks those like Job with humble and contrite hearts. The very fact that we are creations of God’s makes us unable to stand before him. We have no choice, but to humble ourselves in his presence. I wrote about this extensively in my recent sermon from this past Saturday. Please feel free to read it. I will post the link in the next comment. The sermon is about Job in large part. When God speaks to Job, He refers to Job as a striver with God. To strive with God is to do what we ought to do in this life. Jacob’s name was changed to Israel, because he became a striver with God. We ought to strive after God this entire life that we have, because He desires that we seek him with all of our heart. He wants our hearts to earnestly and honestly seek Him, and Job has done this. Nevertheless, God‘s majesty is too large to behold, and Job is no exception to you and me. God asserts Himself as being larger than we can comprehend, but at the same time there is no rebuke, because He wants us to seek Him. Job receives the double blessing, symbolic for an eternal inheritance, as His reward for righteous living.

Ruth 1-4

We have a redeemer Lord who takes whoever is lost on account of sin, but who turns away from his or her old life and turns toward Him to cling to Him and not let go, and gives him or her new life in Israel, whether they are Jew or Gentile. The story of Ruth and Boaz, the ancestors of Yeshua, is a detailed picture of what Yeshua would do for anyone who repents and turns toward Him. There is life and redemption to come for the one who clings to Yeshua, and who is grafted-in to Israel so that His people become our people and His God becomes our God. Everything we knew before knowing Him must be cast off.

Esther 1-10

If you have not watched it yet, this sermon series from Pastor Daniel on the Book of Esther is comprehensive and amazing: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLmI6y1h4ekf7R73vxou_0hFYR1b26YSGG&si=I-Ht5pGktK0FBYbP

Daniel 1, Daniel 2, Daniel 3

We live in Babylon, and we have the option whether to eat what the world offers, all the delicacies of kings and rulers, or we can eat what the Lord commanded and walk with love toward His commandments. Our spiritual well being will ultimately be blessed or cursed by our desire to serve the Lord in this way. Whose god is their belly? Only those who are perishing. Whose God is the Lord? Those who obey God and love and trust in His commandments.

God is the one who reveals secrets to His children. He allows those who humble themselves before Him to soak up His wisdom, but He will not speak to the proud or arrogant of heart. Only those sold out for the Lord will receive His anointing. We too much boldly proclaim the Lord in the midst of certain death, for the Lord’s name may very well be glorified by it.

The statue is a sign of the beast, and the enemy will one day require all men, women and children to worship his image, or face certain death. It matters not what fire confronts us, or torture or death, but only that we obey the Lord. We cannot bend the knee to any other god beside Him, Yeshua HaMashiach, our King of kings and Lord of lords. When we hold fast to our faith in the face of all odds, He will save us from this and give us life eternal. Who will walk in the light of God? Who will trade the light for darkness? Only the fiery trial will test us to find out. As for me and my house, we shall serve the Lord.

Daniel 4, Daniel 5, Daniel 6

Nebuchadnezzar’s own account appears in the book of Daniel, perhaps something he gave to Daniel to keep in his archives. This man went from boasting in his own strength—“Is this not Babylon the great, which I myself have built as a royal residence by the might of my power and for the honor of my majesty?”—to boasting in God Most High alone and making Him famous throughout the whole land: “Now I, Nebuchadnezzar, praise, exalt, and honor the King of heaven, for all His works are true and His ways just; and He is able to humble those who walk in pride.” Let us all be humble before our God, for if we boast He will humble us, but we who humble ourselves will be exalted.

Belshazzar, though he knew these lessons his father learned and heard about the majesty of God Most High, did not think it strange to treat God as a novelty and use sacred artifacts as objects of pagan worship. God hates nothing more, for He is a jealous God and will not bear this type of iniquity. When the fear of God comes upon me, I pray that such a proclamation as follows is never made of me in Heaven, and I pray there is no idol in my life or anything that rises above God Most High in my heart: “‘Menē’—God has numbered your kingdom and put an end to it. ‘Tekēl’—you have been weighed on the scales and found deficient. ‘Perēs’—your kingdom has been divided….” May the Lord weigh me in the scales and find that my heart desires Him greater than any other thing; that I plead with Him and pray with Him daily to direct my heart toward Him and rely on Him for all things; that I wait on Him and look to Him as the giver of life and my salvation, and without Him there is no life. May His Kingdom reign forever and ever, and may I have a place in it, no matter how small that may be. May any obstinance in me be used to the praise and glory of God, and may it be an obstinance against the World and that which I can see, hear, and feel, and instead firmly planted in my faith in God and His purposes alone. In Yeshua’s name, I Pray.

Like Daniel, we ought to pursue excellence in everything we do in the world so long as we are not compromising our faith. Like Daniel, we ought to serve both our neighbor and our enemy to the glory of God Almighty and may all honor and glory be given to Him, for He has given us all things, even our very lives and all of our talents. Like Daniel, we ought to worship and praise God even if it becomes illegal to do so, and we ought to be willing to die for our faith in Yeshua. Let there be no person, place or thing in this life that keeps us from serving God first, and let us be willing to give up everything we have, even our own very life, to worship and praise God Most High. May God use us to make His name famous, and may His glory shine through us in this dark world, just as it did for Daniel. For every knee will bow before Messiah Yeshua, and every tongue will confess that Yeshua HaMashiach is Yahweh, to the glory of Elohim, our Abba.

Darius gave this testimony after observing Daniel’s great witness: “May your peace be great! I issue a decree that in all the realm of my kingdom people are to tremble and fear before the God of Daniel; For He is the living God and enduring forever, And His kingdom is one which will not be destroyed, And His dominion will be forever. “He rescues, saves, and performs signs and miracles In heaven and on earth, He who has also rescued Daniel from the power of the lions.” Let our words and actions, which begin in our hearts, bring this same praise to the name of Yeshua.

Daniel 7, Daniel 8, Daniel 9

Daniel 7-9 contains mostly realized prophesy of the coming kingdoms following Babylon of Media-Persia, Greece/Rome and then potentially the Islamic Caliphate, which is different from all the others. It’s possible a far-off prophetic realization is yet to come. The little horn, Antiochus Epiphanies IV, emerged out of the divided Grecian kingdom and fits the prophesy perfectly as one who cast Truth (the Word of God) to the ground and brought great distress until he was overthrown by the Maccabees, but he also may prophetically represent a coming Antichrist. Historically, the Maccabean revolt made way for the rise of the Pharisaical order, and then Yeshua Himself would come, Messiah the Prince, and He would condemn this order before He would be cut off (crucified); yet He would prolong His days (He was resurrected). Eventually the Temple would be destroyed in 70 AD, and then the city of Jerusalem itself in 136 AD., and this is key information because Messiah the Prince would come before the Second Temple was destroyed—Yeshua was prophesied to the day by Daniel’s writing. This destruction would be followed by an undefined time of desolation of the Temple, which I believe we are still experiencing. Only after that unknown time period would complete destruction come to the world, and then Messiah would return to rule forever from Jerusalem. Daniel’s example of repentance in Chapter 9 should be fully contemplated by all who call upon God’s name.

Daniel 10, Daniel 11, Daniel 12

Like the earlier chapters, these prophesies have short term and long-term fulfillment. We read about the conquest of Greece, of Antiochus Epiphanies IV, of Rome, and the peoples beyond, and the destruction of the Temple as well as the annihilation of the Holy City. We read of a time of desolation, and there is none like days preceding 1948, when the people who rebelled against God, the Islamic Caliphate, set up their own temple on the Temple Mount, and wrote the inscription, “God has no son” on its walls. There is no greater desolation to the Holy Place of God than this. It is an abomination of desolation, and it still stands to this day. God will destroy it at the appointed time. Let us, like Daniel, be found treasured by God by keeping the commandments of God and the faith in Yeshua, no matter what horrors come our way. We must stand firm for God and not waver to the pressures of the world. There will be life in no other manner, and those who don’t do this will be destroyed. Those who serve God will receive their allotted portion when He returns.

Ezra 1, Ezra 2, Ezra 3

The Lord fulfills His promises. This is the lesson of Ezra 1-3. When the people had endured their judgment and turned their hearts back to Him, He delivered them the blessing of return, just as He had told Jeremiah. I wonder whether Malachi or Esther had anything to do with Darius’s turn of heart to build the Lord a house in Jerusalem. The Lord works out all things for good. But the old men remembered their lives in captivity and how their sin had led to it, and now their lives were spent. They wept knowing they would not have long to enjoy the life that should have been theirs; the life they gave up by following their own heart instead of God’s heart. They would not live to see God’s glory return to the Temple, when Yeshua walked in it’s gates. Many of their sons would miss it, for they would expect a different reality. Let us learn from this by learning to wait on God in all things, for everything will be accomplished according to His will at the appointed time. Our duty is to obey Him and trust in Him. Nothing more. Nothing less.

Ezra 4, Ezra 5, Ezra 6, Ezra 7

While the people who lived around Judah attempted to thwart the Lord’s efforts to rebuild the temple in Jerusalem, God made sure it happened and He had set up this new order of things well before they came to pass. Esther had indeed brought love of God into the kingdom that at that point ruled the world and this made Yahweh famous throughout the world. It is refreshing to see the nations pouring in treasure to rebuild Jerusalem and its temple, just as prophesied. God knows what He’s going to do well before He does it and He puts things in motion, and then He depends on faithful men who trust Him and execute His will without fear to do the work. What a glorious thing to be called by God to such a task as this.

Dan Itse: “I just noticed something interesting that caused me to look up the lineage if the kings of Persia.   There are multiple Dariuses, Artaxerseses, Xerxeses.  Cyrus II, Cyrus the great, who sent Zerubbabel;  Cambysus II; Darius I (also Ahasuerus, who probably married Esther), Xerxes I; Artaxerses I who probably sent  Ezra; Xerxes II; Darius II who probably sent Nehemiah.  Note that in Ezra 7:27 Artaxerses says  "Blessed be the Lord God of our fathers," because Esther (his grandmother) raised her children as Jews. This also explains why Ezra and Nehemiah appear to flip back and forth between Darius and Artaxerses.”

Ezra 8, Ezra 9, Ezra 10

1 Corinthians 7:12-16 reads, “But to the rest I, not the Lord, say: If any brother has a wife who does not believe, and she is willing to live with him, let him not divorce her. And a woman who has a husband who does not believe, if he is willing to live with her, let her not divorce him. For the unbelieving husband is sanctified by the wife, and the unbelieving wife is sanctified by the husband; otherwise your children would be unclean, but now they are holy. But if the unbeliever departs, let him depart; a brother or a sister is not under bondage in such cases. But God has called us to peace. For how do you know, O wife, whether you will save your husband? Or how do you know, O husband, whether you will save your wife?”

Solomon’s foreign wives led his heart away from the Lord and cause Israel to be cut in two because of the idolatry the wives brought into Israel. Israel as a nation has not recovered from this sin of Solomon, even to this day, and only Yeshua Himself will unite Israel and heal the nation of this sin. Clearly Ruth, a Moabitess, was from among the people who God commanded Israel never to marry at all, not even to the 10th generation. This was because the Moabite women tempted the men of Israel to commit cult prostitution with them and their gods, who were demons, and caused a plague to come upon Israel and bring great destruction. But Ruth, who predates Solomon and was actually one of his matriarchs, shows us the healing that Yeshua will bring. She clung to Naomi, we read in Ruth 1, and said, “Your God shall be my God and your people shall be my people.” God cares about our heart condition more than anything else. Ruth was grafted-in to Israel and was no longer a Moabite woman. She was a woman of Israel. She was redeemed by Boaz, a man of God and prophetic template for Yeshua, who would bring Jew and Gentile together into the Chosen People of God—Spiritual Israel—those people who put God first in their hearts.

And so, in this story in Ezra, the foreign wives were not the problem. The problem was that these priests were perpetuating the sin of their fathers that caused God to send them into exile in the first place, and their wives were not grafted-in to Israel. On the contrary, these men had been grafted-in to Babylon, the nation representing the World that will ultimately be utterly destroyed when our Lord returns. And so, because Babylon is the world, these marriages represented men of Israel clinging to the world, rather than clinging to God. Like Ruth, to be redeemed, they would need to cling to God and let go of all the things of the world. They would have to give up everything they had, even wife or children, mothers or fathers, just as Yeshua said, so they could put God first. This is no course, Old Testament story that leaves us hanging.

“If anyone comes to Me and does not hate his father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes, and his own life also, he cannot be My disciple” (Luke 4:26). Clearly, Yeshua does not mean “hate.” He means that we ought to love these relationships less than we love Him, and that is the subject of Ezra, also. It’s the same story, and the same message: God always comes first.

It is a prophetic—yet historical—parable that explains what we must do if we truly want to be grafted-in to Israel to follow Messiah Yeshua. We must be willing to give up everything we have to follow Him. While the text in Ezra doesn’t say this, it is very clear from the whole of Scripture that wives who had become like Ruth would not be considered foreign, and thus would remain as women of Israel. The foreign wives were idolaters whose whole existence was a direct challenge to God and all of His ways. They were redirecting their husbands’ hearts to the world, rather than to God. In such a scenario, they would have to be abandoned if the husband truly did want to seek after God. The wisdom of Paul in 1 Corinthians 7 shows us that if there is a chance that a marriage can edify doubtful woman and eventually turn their wicked hearts fully toward the Lord, they should remain married; however, if they are intent on rebelling against God, then it is righteous for us to let them leave and follow their own path to their own destruction. The Word of God is always about the heart condition, and we must read every passage in this way, because God always speaks in parables, even when the parables are historical.

Nehemiah 1, Nehemiah 2, Nehemiah 3

Nehemiah 1 gives us the example of a fruitful prayer to engage in when the world is presenting a challenge to our way of life as believers in Yeshua. Though God scattered Israel amidst all the unbelieving nations because they forgot Him and His ways and focused on themselves and the sins that brought delight to their flesh, He would bring them back to their land if they approached Him with humility and repentance and began to seek Him with all of their hearts, obeying His commandments out of desire. Though God scatters believers in Yeshua and isolates them amidst a sinful, violent, arrogant and self-serving people when we forget Him and His ways and focus on ourselves and the sins that bring delight to the flesh instead, God will bring us back to having influence in the world and blessing when we approach Him with humility and repentance and begin to seek Him with all of our hearts, obeying His commandments out of a great desire to please our Savior, who is coming again to save all who trust in Him, both Jew and Gentile alike.

In Nehemiah 2, when Nehemiah had a chance to address the king about what was weighing on his heart, his heart turned instantly and in the moment to prayer, and that instinct to pray and rely on God brought instant fruit, showing us an example we should follow in our own lives. We read: “Then the king said to me, “What would you request?” So I prayed to the God of heaven. Then I said to the king, “If it pleases the king, and if your servant has found favor before you, I request that you send me to Judah, to the city of my fathers’ tombs, that I may rebuild it.” Whenever we face a challenging situation, we should not wait, but pray in the moment and before we even speak: “God help!” Such a simple prayer, but a prayer with so much power. God wants to help His people. He sent us His Helper, the Spirit of Truth, to do just that. Let us meditate on His Word day and night and pray to our Father in Heaven, for through His Son we have access to the throne room of Heaven no matter where in the world we happen to be, and He hears the prayers of His faithful ones. Prayer was the foundation of Nehemiah’s efforts to rebuild Jerusalem’s walls of protection and keep out those who sought to destroy God’s people. We need such protection while the enemy seeks to destroy us, but one day there will be no need for walls, when the enemy is ultimately destroyed. That day has not yet come. Come Lord Yeshua!

Nehemiah 4, Nehemiah 5, Nehemiah 6

Nehemiah 3-5 is great material to help us understand true Spiritual warfare, and when the enemy comes to steal, kill and destroy, it all starts with this understanding: “Do not be afraid of them; remember the Lord who is great and awesome, and fight for your brothers, your sons, your daughters, your wives, and your houses.” We can throw off our fear, which the enemy means to use to cripple us, by remembering all of the great things God has done for us and our Fathers, putting our trust in Him, and then move to defend ourselves and our work in the Lord and continue according to plan, so we are not distracted. The enemy taunts us, threatens us, tries to cause us to sin to use that sin as a stumbling block against us, but we must have discernment to know the Lord and His Word and not depart from it to the left or the right on account of fear. If we do sin, we can expect setbacks, but the Lord is faithful to forgive the one who repents and walks away from sin. Our weapons are used for self defense as we go about our work for the Lord, and remember this: the sword of the Spirit is the Word of God, which should always be by our side and ready. The enemy loses confidence when we accomplish our work with the help of our God.

Nehemiah 7

Israel had returned, and Nehemiah went to work accounting for the families who were there as a people set apart As the priesthood was being reestablished, it was essential for Nehemiah to differentiate who was eligible from who was not so the Temple sacrifices could be reinstated. We see that everyone gave from their increase from what they were able.

Nehemiah 8 & Nehemiah 9

A public reading of Scripture has the potential to open up many discussions about God and His ways, and we do indeed read the Ten Commandments every Sabbath for this reason. We also read a Torah Portion each week, and then my sermon is based on that reading. This follows in the tradition set up by Nehemiah. At the Day of Atonement and Feast of Tabernacles, the Israelites following Ezra and Nehemiah read the Torah, and the priests did a fantastic job summarizing it, as we read in Nehemiah 9. Our monthly Bible study follows this pattern, also. We must remember on all but one Holy Days, including the Sabbath, but not the Day of Atonement, we ought to feast and be glad before the Lord, for these days are meant to focus on the joy of the Lord—He is our refuge. Yes, we ought to focus on the joy of the Lord every day, but the Lord has asked us to set aside these days to give them to Him exclusively. How could we not obey and rejoice in the Lord for one day during His appointed times? In eternity, we will do this. Is one day of rehearsal too much now? There is no greater pleasure, for me, than to take refuge in the Lord as He has commanded.

Nehemiah 10, Nehamiah 11

In Nehemiah 10, we read that all the people who had knowledge and understanding, “are taking on themselves a curse and an oath to walk in God’s Law, which was given through Moses, God’s servant, and to keep and to comply with all the commandments of God our Lord, and His ordinances and statutes…” I believe this applied to everyone 20 and older, because in the wilderness these were the ones who were cursed to die in the wilderness for their sin of rebellion, and only their children could enter the Promised Land with Joshua and Caleb. The curse of the law refers to Deuteronomy 28, where God outlines the blessings of the law for obedience and the curses of the law for disobedience, and this is what the people were acknowledging, having just repented of their sins and returned to the land, per the Word of the Lord in Deuteronomy 28. In the Old Covenant with God, the Day of Atonement was structured so that Israel could atone for their sins and be restored to a right relationship with God for one year. In the New Covenant, we have “a better way.”

Firstly, consider Hebrews 9:13-15, which refers directly to the Old Covenant vs. New Covenant application of the Day of Atonement (Yom Kippur): “For if the blood of bulls and goats and the ashes of a heifer, sprinkling the unclean, sanctifies for the purifying of the flesh, how much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered Himself without spot to God, cleanse your conscience from dead works [this means sinful thoughts and actions] to serve the living God? And for this reason He is the Mediator of the new covenant, by means of death, for the redemption of the transgressions under the first covenant, that those who are called may receive the promise of the eternal inheritance.” This explanation is quite clear, and I will summarize: The law is fully applicable today, but the curses of violating the law are now redeemed by the blood of Christ rather than the blood of bulls and goats. We read in Galatians 3:13, “Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the law, having become a curse for us (for it is written, “Cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree”), that the blessing of Abraham might come upon the Gentiles in Christ Jesus, that we might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith.”

And so what we have in Messiah Yeshua is a new way to be cleansed from sin, and this cleansing is eternal, so long as we continue to live according to the commandments of God. The blessings and curses of Deuteronomy 28 apply to those of us in covenant with God, because the Old Covenant was not replaced, but expanded. This means that Yeshua added a new process for the forgiveness of sins, and that is faith in His death and resurrection for redemption; His body (the Word of God as He showed us by example), and His blood (the sacrifice He made on the cross as a one-time sacrifice for sin). As Yeshua said so many times in His ministry, when we are forgiven by His sacrifice, we are to “go and sin no more,” with help from His Holy Spirit, of course. But if we “practice lawlessness,” there is nothing other to expect for us than the curses of Deuteronomy 28. He became a curse for us so we would not be cursed when we have faith in Him and obey God’s commandments, but in this great freedom He has provided, we must walk “In the newness of life” and “walk the way that He walked,” a blameless Man who is walking toward God.

In Nehemiah 11, we read that the musicians among the Levites “were the singers for the service of the house of God.” And “there was a commandment from the king concerning them and a royal command for the singers day by day.” What a marvelous thing to sing thanksgiving and praise to God 24/7 in the sanctuary as a celebration of His mercy and grace. I know of a handful of churches that are actually doing this today, and I’m going to one of them on the 17th for the 10 Days of Awe during the Holy Week coming up between Yom Teruah and Yom Kippur. I look forward to being among a people who are dedicating constant praise and worship to the Lord. Let us all be willing to humble ourselves in this way.

Nehemiah 12, Nehemiah 13

The Book of Nehemiah is among the books of the Law and Prophets, as Yeshua called it, and it would not be done away with until Heaven and Earth were done away with. It’s not here as history, but as an authentic acknowledgment of God’s will and God’s word for those who follow after Him, and we must remember that God the Father and God the Son are ONE God, not two or three. God’s Holy Spirit directed Nehemiah, as the leader of Israel, to bring both worship (via beautiful music) and knowledge (by reading Torah and interpreting it) to the dedication of the city’s wall, which was necessary to keep the enemies of God at bay. Until Yeshua comes again, Satan rules this world and we must pray with all diligence for God’s angels to build walls around us for our protection from the evil one. That God is responsive to such prayer is worthy of great praise and thanksgiving, for without this protection we are lost. Our God is stronger. The light casts out darkness. Perfect love casts out fear. We worship and praise the Lord and remember His Word so that we might live.

Nehemiah teaches us both the value and the blessing that comes from keeping the Lord’s Day Holy, for the Sabbath (Saturday) is a rehearsal dinner for the day Yeshua returns to judge the Earth and take His people into the marriage celebration that has been prophesied since Creation. It is imperative, not out of duty but out of love for God, that we shut off the world on this day, that we treat it as an imperative that separates life from death, and that we understand fully that our desire to do this is life, it is peace and it is rest in Yeshua, and Yeshua alone. Likewise, we must shut out all foreigners when we worship, which is not to say that people who are outside Israel are not welcome in our churches, for certainly this is not true, but people who do not believe in Yeshua as their Messiah should not be at church to worship with believers. This is an abomination, and God has made this clear. The time for discipleship, or work, is the other six days of the week, and we certainly should meet with sinners as Yeshua did to teach them faith and obedience to God, but on the Sabbath, we enter into communion with the Lord, and there is little more sacred and glorious than this. What a blessing to be invited to sit with Yeshua at His table. What a blessing to be invited to sit with Yeshua at His table. Praise be to God when we come with great desire and expectation, in humility, recognizing that God comes to dine with us.