Newcomers to the faith - did you know you are no longer a "Gentile?"

A WORD FOR NEWCOMERS TO THE TORAH OBSERVANT FAITH: Did you know that when you become a believer in YAHWEH/Yeshua/Torah, you are no longer considered a "gentile" because you have "crossed over" to become a "Hebrew?”

The word "Hebrew" in the Hebrew language means "to cross over"(Ezra 6:21, Nehemiah 5:8-9, Isaiah 9:1, 42:6) - which is what the pagan Chaldean, Avram (later renamed "Avraham"), did in Genesis 12, when he accepted Yahweh as His God and obeyed the command to go to the Land he was told to enter.

Genesis 12:1 Now Adonai said to Avram, “Get yourself out of your country, away from your kinsmen and away from your father’s house, and go to the land that I will show you. 2 I will make of you a great nation, I will bless you, and I will make your name great; and you are to be a blessing. 3 I will bless those who bless you, but I will curse anyone who curses you; and by you all the families of the earth will be blessed.” (CJB)

Avram was referred to as “Avraham the Hebrew” in Genesis 14:13, which is the first time that the word is used in the Bible. He was ultimately renamed "Avraham" (Genesis 17:5) which means "father of many."

In the Tanakh ("Old Testament") the words "gentile", "heathen" and "pagan" were often synonymous. Therefore, when gentiles accept YAHWEH as their ELOHIM and Yeshua as His Divine Messiah, they can refer to themselves as "Hebrew" if they wish.

A response to the Paul haters….

I can’t understand why some people insist that Paul was a “false” Apostle who never upheld Torah!  The following few passages totally disprove the Paul haters!

Paul always points back to YHWH; Yeshua and Torah. Think about verses like this, versus passages in which he is hard to understand as he attempts to explain difficult Hebrew concepts to those who don't know Hebrew or the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. Cases in point:

Luke 8:1. And it happened after these things that Y'shua was going around in the cities and in the villages and was preaching and declaring the Kingdom of Elohim. (AENT)

Acts 28:23 From morning till evening the Apostle Paul explained and declared the Kingdom of God and tried to convince people about Yeshua from the Law of Moses and from the Prophets. (CJB)

Acts 24:14. But this indeed I (Paul) acknowledge, that in that same doctrine of which they speak, I do serve the Elohim of my fathers, believing all the things written in Torah and in the prophets. (AENT)

Romans 15:4. For everything written of old was written for our instruction; that we, by patience and by the consolation of the Scriptures, might possess hope. (AENT)

NOTE: Here is one of the clearest pro-Torah statements in all of Romans. Rav Shaul believes that "everything written of old" is for the instruction of the Gentiles, this clearly indicates Paul's intent. Compare this statement to Romans 3:31 and 7:12.

Romans 15:9. And that the Gentiles might glorify Elohim for his mercies upon them, as it is written: I will confess to you among the Gentiles, and to your name will I sing psalms. 10. And again he said: Rejoice, you Gentiles, with His people. 11. And again he said: Praise Master YHWH, all you Gentiles; (and) laud him, all you nations. (AENT)

NOTE:  "His People" = YHWH's people, Israel. The Gentiles are fully invited and expected to join in together with Netzari (Nazarene) synagogue practice, as one people, into one Kingdom according to One Torah.

Peter actually warned us that Paul is hard to understand, and that people would ultimately twist Paul's teachings; but that doesn't mean Paul was a "false" apostle!

2 Peter 3:15 And think of our Lord's patience as deliverance, just as our dear brother Sha'ul also wrote you, following the wisdom God gave him. 16 Indeed, he speaks about these things in all his letters. They contain some things that are hard to understand, things which the uninstructed and unstable distort, to their own destruction, as they do the other Scriptures. 17 But you, dear friends, since you know this in advance, guard yourselves; so that you will not be led away by the errors of the wicked and fall from your own secure position. (CJB)

If you're interested in more explanation of the much-misunderstood writings of Paul, please check out our website’s article.

Passover and the Feast of Unleavened Bread are on the Horizon!

PASSOVER AND THE FEAST OF UNLEAVENED BREAD ARE ON THE HORIZON; time to start cleaning out the leaven in your homes! At our house this year, we will be celebrating beginning at sunset April 12, with the final day ending at sunset on April 19.

OVERVIEW:

Passover/Unleavened Bread/Hag HaMatzot celebrates the deliverance of the slaves from Egypt. It is the story of redemption by the killing of the Passover Lamb, the blood of which was applied to the doorposts while the Israelites were still in Egypt, shortly before their Exodus.

The original Passover was commanded and occurred in Exodus 12:1-20 (see the pertinent passages at the end of this article), when the Angel of Death was to pass through the land and "pass over" those houses whose doorposts had blood on them so that the first-born within could be spared from the Tenth Plague/Curse against Pharoah who refused to let God's enslaved Chosen People leave Egypt.

ELOHIM’s instructions for His people (His Hebrew Name is יְהוָֹה, transliterated from the Hebrew from the letters “Yud-Hey-Vav-Hey” into English as “YHWH”) was to take a lamb into their homes for a few days, and then kill it for the purpose of spreading its blood on the doorposts, and eat its meat.

Passover not only serves as a reminder of the events leading up to the Exodus from Egypt; but it is also the story of redemption through YHWH’s Son, Messiah Yeshua, whose shed blood on the cross freed Believers from the slavery of earthly bondage to “the world!” Ultimately, Yeshua was referred to as the “Lamb of Elohim” because he was sent into the world to deliver humanity:

John 1:29. And on the day that followed, Yochanan saw Y’shua who was coming towards him, and said, “Behold the Lamb[*] of Elohim, He who takes away the sins of the world. (AENT)

NOTE: This “Lamb” harkens back to the Akeida (binding of Isaac) when Isaac showed his willful obedience to lay down his life at the command of his father Avraham. Avraham and Isaac did not know then that YHWH would provide the ram caught in the thicket. Yitzak (Isaac) the son of Avraham and Sarah foreshadows Mashiyach (Messiah) ben Yoseph (the Son of YHWH via Yoseph and Miriam). YHWH provided Himself a “seh” lamb for the Perfect and complete sacrifice, not as the “ayil” (ram) caught in the thicket, but through the Lamb of YHWH, His only “begotten” Son Yeshua, that was in the place of Yitzhak’s, as seen in the sin sacrifices in the temple system, “A life for a life.”

NOTE ALSO, that the original Pass-Over Lambs were NOT “SIN sacrifices.” They were “substitutes” or “redemption.” They weren’t taken to the Temple to be sacrificed; they were merely killed so that their blood could be smeared on the doorposts of the Hebrews’ homes for the purpose of “substitution.”

The death of Yeshua (who was our Final “Sin Sacrifice,”) also fulfilled this Pass-over event when he was crucified (see 1 Corinthians 5:7-8). He martyred himself on our behalf, so that his divine blood could remove our PAST sins; and become our “substitute” and “redemption.”

So this is the whole Passover connection: Yeshua was our substitute and redemption - and by believing in him and in the shedding of his divine blood, and always following YHWH's Torah to help us to lower our tendency to sin and do our best to NOT sin anymore, we get to have the chance for eternal life!

WHAT TO DO FOR PASSOVER:

Simply clean out all the “leaven” and “leavened products” from your home, leaven represents SIN!

Some people will insist you are to clean out your “yeast” before Passover, but this is not true. There is NO way to get rid of yeast, because yeast spores are everywhere, including in every breath we take. (For an indepth explanation, check out our article entitled, Yeast or Leaven.)

NOTE: In case anyone is interested, we offer a free downloadable haggadah (liturgy) for Pesach/Passover on our website. Just click on our Articles and Studies page, and scroll down until you see "Free calendars, Siddurs & Pesach Seder", and choose one of the final two links...

HERE IS YHWH’s ORIGINAL COMMAND:

EXODUS 12: 1 Adonai spoke to Moshe and Aharon in the land of Egypt; he said, ² “You are to begin your calendar with this month; it will be the first month of the year for you. ³ Speak to all the assembly of Isra’el and say, ‘On the tenth day of this month, each man is to take a lamb or kid for his family, one per household — ⁴ except that if the household is too small for a whole lamb or kid, then he and his next-door neighbor should share one, dividing it in proportion to the number of people eating it. ⁵ Your animal must be without defect, a male in its first year, and you may choose it from either the sheep or the goats.

⁶ “‘You are to keep it until the fourteenth day of the month, and then the entire assembly of the community of Isra’el will slaughter it at dusk. ⁷ They are to take some of the blood and smear it on the two sides and top of the door-frame at the entrance of the house in which they eat it. ⁸ That night, they are to eat the meat, roasted in the fire; they are to eat it with matzah and maror. ⁹ Don’t eat it raw or boiled, but roasted in the fire, with its head, the lower parts of its legs and its inner organs. ¹⁰ Let nothing of it remain till morning; if any of it does remain, burn it up completely.

¹¹ “‘Here is how you are to eat it: with your belt fastened, your shoes on your feet and your staff in your hand; and you are to eat it hurriedly. It is Adonai’s Pesach [Passover]. ¹² For that night, I will pass through the land of Egypt and kill all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, both men and animals; and I will execute judgment against all the gods of Egypt; I am Adonai. ¹³ The blood will serve you as a sign marking the houses where you are; when I see the blood, I will pass over ^[a] you — when I strike the land of Egypt, the death blow will not strike you.

14 “‘This will be a day for you to remember and celebrate as a festival to Adonai; from generation to generation you are to celebrate it by a perpetual regulation.

15 “‘For seven days you are to eat matzah — on the first day remove the leaven from your houses. For whoever eats hametz [leavened bread] from the first to the seventh day is to be cut off from Isra’el. 16 On the first and seventh days, you are to have an assembly set aside for God. On these days no work is to be done, except what each must do to prepare his food; you may do only that. 17 You are to observe the festival of matzah, for on this very day I brought your divisions out of the land of Egypt. Therefore, you are to observe this day from generation to generation by a perpetual regulation.

18 From the evening of the fourteenth day of the first month until the evening of the twenty-first day, you are to eat matzah. 19 During those seven days, no leaven is to be found in your houses. Whoever eats food with hametz in it is to be cut off from the community of Isra’el — it doesn’t matter whether he is a foreigner or a citizen of the land. 20 Eat nothing with hametz in it. Wherever you live, eat matzah.’” (CJB)

We humans don’t really have a clue…

WHEN IT COMES TO YAHWEH, WE HUMANS HAVEN’T A CLUE!  I invite you to read just the first chapter of Ezekiel, who received a glimpse of Elohim and His Realm. It is absolutely mind-blowing … not at all the way we tend to envision God or His Messengers.

EZEKIEL 1:

1 In the thirtieth year, on the fifth day of the fourth month, while I was among the exiles by the K’var River, the heavens were opened, and I saw visions of God. 2 On the fifth day of the month, which was during the fifth year of King Y’hoyakhin’s exile, 3 the word of Adonai came to the cohen Yechezk’el son of Buzi, in the land of the Kasdim by the K’var River; there the hand of Adonai was on him.

4 I looked and saw a windy storm approaching from the north and a huge cloud with flashing fire, glowing brightly all around with the color of gleaming amber from within the fire. 5 Inside, there appeared to be four living creatures that looked like human beings; 6 but each one had four faces and four wings. 7 Their legs were straight, with feet like calves’ hoofs. They glittered like burnished bronze.

8 Beneath their wings they had human hands on their four sides. The four of them had faces and wings as follows: 9 they touched one another with their wings; they did not turn when they moved, but each one moved straight forward; 10 as for the appearance of their faces, they had human faces [in front], each of the four had a lion’s face on the right, each of the four had a bull’s face on the left, and each of the four had an eagle’s face [toward the rear] — 11 thus their faces. As for their wings, each had two that stretched upward and joined those of others, and two more that covered their bodies.

12 Each [living creature] moved in the direction of any of its faces; in whichever direction the spirit wanted to go, they went, without turning as they moved — 13 thus the appearance of the living creatures.

With them was something that looked like fiery coals burning the way torches do, with the fire flashing here and there between the living creatures; the fire had a brilliance, and out of the fire went lightning. 14 The living creatures kept speeding here and there like flashes of lightning.

15 As I gazed at the living creatures, I saw wheels on the ground, one next to each of the four-faced living creatures. 16 All four wheels looked the same: their inner parts gleamed like beryl, and their structure seemed to be that of a wheel inside a wheel. 17 When they moved, they could go in any of the four directions without turning as they moved. 18 Their rims were tall and fearsome, because the rims of all four were full of eyes all around.

19 When the living creatures moved, the wheels moved along with them; and when the creatures were lifted off the ground, the wheels went with them. 20 Wherever the spirit was to go, they went, in the direction the spirit wanted to go. The wheels were lifted up next to them, because the spirit of the living creatures was in the wheels.

21 When [the living creatures] moved, [the wheels] moved; when the former stood still, the latter stood still; and when the former were lifted off the ground, the wheels were lifted up next to them; because the spirit of the living creatures was in the wheels.

22 Over the heads of the living creatures was what appeared to be a dome glittering like ice; it was awesome, spread out over their heads, above them. 23 Under the dome each had a pair of wings spread out straight toward those of others, and each had a pair which covered his body.

24 I heard the sound of their wings when they moved; it was like the sound of rushing water, like the voice of Shaddai, like the noise of a tumultuous crowd or army. When they stopped, they lowered their wings. 25 Whenever there was a sound from above the dome over their heads, they stopped and lowered their wings.

26 Above the dome that was over their heads was something like a throne that looked like a sapphire. On it, above it, was what appeared to be a person. 27 I saw what looked like gleaming, amber-colored fire radiating from what appeared to be his waist upward. Downward from what appeared to be his waist, I saw what looked like fire, giving a brilliant light all around him.

28 This brilliance around him looked like a rainbow in a cloud on a rainy day. This was how the appearance of the glory of Adonai looked. When I saw it, I fell on my face, and I heard the voice of someone speaking. (CJB)

FOLKS, this is just one of myriad proof texts throughout the entire Bible that provide us with proof about the awesome Elohim we serve - a Being without beginning or end; who created everything, has great love for us, and whose Divine Instructions are NOT to be taken lightly, if we wish to spend Eternity with Him. 

The planet He placed us on is simply a classroom where we receive the basics about YAHWEH, so I beg you to take advantage of what He has chosen to reveal to us in the pages of what we call "the Bible." 

Don't cherry-pick His Word!  EAT it!  Ingest it, so that you can "be all you can be" BEFORE Yeshua returns and we are "caught up to meet him in the air" upon Yeshua's Second Coming (1 Corinthians 6:14; 1 Thessalonians 4:13-17). 

And remember this, because it is important:  ONLY the "wholehearted" will get that privilege! 

Deuteronomy 18:13 "You must be wholehearted with YAHWEH your God!"  (CJB)

Deuteronomy 13:4 You are to follow ADONAI your God, fear him, obey his mitzvot, listen to what he says, serve him and cling to him; (CJB)

Deuteronomy 30:15 “Look! I am presenting you today with, on the one hand, life and good; and on the other, death and evil — 16 in that I am ordering you today to love Adonai your God, to follow his ways, and to obey his mitzvot, regulations and rulings;  (CJB)

Ezekiel 20:11 I gave them my laws and showed them my rulings; if a person obeys them, he will have life through them. 12 I gave them my shabbats as a sign between me and them, so that they would know that I, ADONAI, am the one who makes them holy. (CJB)

Leviticus 11:44 For I am YAHWEH your God; therefore, consecrate yourselves and be holy, for I am holy; (CJB)

Leviticus 20:8 Observe my regulations, and obey them; I am YAHWEH, who sets you apart to be holy. (CJB)

Proverbs 28:9 If a person will not listen to Torah, even his prayer is an abomination. (CJB) (See also 1 Peter 3:12, Proverbs 15:29, James 5:16, Isaiah 59:2, James 4:3-8, James 1:6-7, John 15:7, Revelation 21:8)

Romans 10:12. And in this, it discriminates neither Jews nor Gentiles. For there is one, Master YHWH, over them all, who is abundantly generous towards every one that calls on him. 13. For everyone that will call on the name of Master YHWH, will have life. (AENT)

Romans 1:18-21: "For the wrath of Elohim from heaven is revealed against all the iniquity and wickedness of men who hold the truth in iniquity. Because a knowledge of Elohim is manifest in them; for Elohim has manifested it in them. For, from the foundations of the world, the hidden things of Elohim are seen by the mind in the things he created even his eternal power and divinity, so that they might be without excuse. Because they knew Elohim and did not glorify him and give thanks to him as Elohim, but became vain in their imaginings and their unwise heart was darkened." (AENT)

Last but not least, it is imperative to remember that Messiah Yeshua said He would spit/vomit out all those who were "lukewarm" toward God (Revelation 3:16)...