8 thoughts on “Deuteronomy 11 Re’eh — “Resting in Jesus”, False Prophets, the Feasts to Be Kept Outside Israel

  1. Dear Brother in Yeshua!
    I just watched one of you teachings. Bibletruth indeed, as usual. But You wore a Tshirt with a kind of eagle on it. To me it looked like some heathen symbol! It is so important to examine our outer appearance. Our clothings, hats, necklaces and so forth are being trumpeting our personality. No offence, Nathan. Just had to mention this.
    Lars in Norway

    • Your assumptions are false. Please be very careful before making accusations. The Bible instructs a just and righteous judge in Israel to judge righteous judgment based on truth and righteousness, not based on assumptions. First one asks questions and gets the information, then judgments are made based on the facts. Otherwise, one is basing their judgments on prejudice and bigotry. In this week’s Torah portion, for example, Scripture explains how the Levites, who were the judges in Israel, were to determine the guilt or innocence of an individual when a crime was committed. There were certain criteria to follow (see Deuteronomy 19:15–21; 21:1–9 cp. Matt 18:15–20 and 1 Tim 5:19; see also Rom 14:13). Next time, I urge you to ask questions about my tee shirt instead of assuming things that are not true.

      I purchased the tee shirt on my recent trip to Alaska. This was my fifth trip to that state. On the shirt is some native art from the Tlingit Indians picturing the mythical thunderbird, which is similar to an eagle. In my trips to Alaska, I have studied Tlingit art, talked to Tlingit natives and inquired about their beliefs and spiritual practices. The thunderbird (look it up oh Wikipedia), was not an object of worship but rather was a mythical creature (like sasquatch/Big Foot, the Loch Ness monster, the abominable snowman, the Phoenix bird, the biblical Leviathan and the unicorn, or the griffen or winged lion (which is a representation of the Cherubim in the throne room of Elohim). Moreover, the thunderbird (not an object of worship) represented the good powers of heaven, while in other native cultures the the great horned serpent represented the lower powers of darkness, hell or Satan (now that’s one tee shirt that I would never wear!).

      Moreover, the Tlingit art (like all of the art of the coastal indigenous peoples of the NW Pacific coast (including Canada, Washington state and Oregon) is a highly stylized art that looks pagan but is not. These are highly caricaturized pictures of animals such as whales, ravens, eagles and salmon that represented their nation, clans, subclans. My wearing a thunderbird is no different than wearing a stylized eagle, which is a patriotic representation of America, since the eagle symbolizes America. Since I am an artist, I like artistic things, and I like native art (as long as it’s not pagan), since it often represents natural elements in YHVH’s creation (such as wind, rain, fire, trees, mountains and sky, earth, etc.) in a stylized way. I rather think that YHVH was keen on symbolic art himself. For example, look at all of the implements in the Tabernacle of Moses. They are are symbolic of many things!!!! Since I am an outdoorsman and make my living working with trees and plants and have spent much time in the forests and mountains, I tend to like things that depict or symbolize natural elements or aspects of YHVH’s creation. After all, doesn’t Romans 1:20 tell us that by his creation, which points to him, we understand his invisible attributes?

      I pray that this addresses the issue satisfactorily.

      However, if my tee shirt is a stumbling block and a source of offense to anyone, then I will refrain from wearing it every again while making a video as per Romans 14.

      Love and blessings in Yeshua to you and anyone else who may be reading this.

      • P.S. One more thing. Even the Christian cross is a pagan symbol going back to sun god worship, but now is a symbol for Christianity. I tend to think that the cross symbol goes back, potentially, to the Paleo-Hebrew letter tav which may mean “sign of the covenant”. So we potentially have a good symbol that was taken over by the pagans and corrupted as part of their idolatry, then they crucified Yeshua on their altar to their sun god, and now it’s a Christian symbol. What came first, the chicken or the egg? You see, symbologies can be complicated, since our world is full of them, and many of our words we speak, clothes we wear, things we eat, cultural practices and traditions come out of ancient paganism. Whole books have been written about this, and some Torah-minded people in their search for truth tend to get overly hung-up on this and begin to get legalistic and start judging others on what they say or do. (Look at some of the extremists in the sacred names movement where you’re forbidden to say “Jesus” or even have a Bible that has “Jesus” or “God” or “Lord” in it. As one can see, we want to avoid any pagan symbology that is overtly pagan, but to avoid it all we’d have to live naked in the woods and speak our own invented language, right?

        When I was living in Europe, I knew a man in my church who hated organ music because it reminded him of the Catholic Church that he came out of. There was another man who criticized me for wearing a red carnation in the lapel of my suit because this happened to be the symbol of the French communist party. It goes on and on!

  2. Yes…it does goes on and on. TY for your explanation of the Thunderbird which I was not aware of. I have a fine Western shirt which I have no longer wear because I wonder about the native Indian artwork sometimes also seen on pottery–which may well be innocent. Likewise I have wondered about the Christian adoption of the Tau as well. Which one…indeed…came first?

    • As an art lover and academically trained graphic and fine art artist, I have an interest in art. So when I have a chance to talk to the artists, I ask them about their art including the techniques they use and the meaning of any symbolism in their art. I like native pottery including that from the SW Indians. When I was in the Phoenix, AZ area a few years ago, I purchased a pot from a Navajo potter who explained the meaning of the symbols on the pottery. I didn’t want to buy anything that had an idolatrous connotations. I was happy to learn that on the pot I wanted to buy the images represented mountains, clouds, rivers, and the like. That pot now sits happily on my bookshelf next to my Bible books. When I can, I like to support local artists.

  3. Hi Nathan,

    You wrote: “..then they crucified Yeshua on their altar to their sun god”. I’ve never heard this before. Could you explain?

    • Good question. A cursory study of the history the cross (the internet is full of info on this), will show that its origins are definitely pagan and pre-Christian going back to many forms of sun-god worship. In fact, the cross was considered a good-luck charm and an object to be worn, inscribed, painted and worshipped. The cross was also used as an object on which to execute people long before Messiah’s death. In all honesty, in my current research to answer your question, I could find no overt evidence that the cross was an actual altar to the sun god (I picked that idea up somewhere along the way—I think from Michael Rood—without checking it out), but I don’t think it’s a terribly logical stretch to say that an object of worship upon which you now murder your enemies is a sort of altar in honor of the god that that symbol represents. This would be similar to the Canaanite practice, which Scripture condemns, of sacrificing one’s children to the god Moloch, Chemosh or Baal in honor of that god, that is, to seek his favor through human sacrifice——a common practice among the ancient pagan (and current Satanists, by the way), or the Egyptian practice in the Bible of throwing babies into the Nile, ostensibly in honor of the river god, which when flooded irrigated the land so as to produce crops for food.

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