Category Archives: General

Trying to Catch Flies With Vinegar — Let’s Stop Bashing Christians!

Posted on by
2

I’d like to take this opportunity to make my dear readers aware of some important facts about our Christian brothers and sister.

Close up of a man hand pointing at camera on a white background

First, let me say that I’m not angry at Christians, I don’t hate them, and I try not to speak disparagingly of them. There for the grace of YHVH go I. Until YHVH opens their eyes to the truth of the rest of Torah, they will remain where they are, even as most people reading this blog post once were smugly blind in the Christian church to the deeper truths of the Torah until YHVH opened their eyes. So let’s have mercy on them! Please!!!

Next, the ones I have a real problem with in the Christian church are the hireling leaders. They should know better, since they purport to be Bible experts. However, many of them are trapped in a harlot, secular humanistic religious system that has elevated the mind of man over that of the Creator. This is a classical definition of secular humanism. Go read Continue reading →

 

Free Bible Study Resources from Hoshana Rabbah

Posted on by
5

Understanding the Bible from a Hebraic perspective is at your fingertips!

The following is a list of free biblical study resources that this ministry provides and are available only a click away on your computer!

  • Check out Torah Explorers, which is a downloadable weekly gospel-oriented Torah study guide for pre-teens and teens at http://www.hoshanarabbah.org/parshiot.html.
  • Our weekly adult Torah study guide is available at http://www.hoshanarabbah.org/parshiot.html.
  • Biblical calendars are available at http://www.hoshanarabbah.org/calendars.html. Click this link for a free, printable monthly calendars listing Friday night sundown times, the weekly Torah parashah reading schedule, the dates for up coming biblical festivals and more.
  • Access Natan’s teaching articles on a number of biblical subjects including the biblical feasts, the Sabbath, salvation, redeemed Israel, biblical prophecy, the end times, Yeshua, the Tabernacle of Moses and much more at http://www.hoshanarabbah.org/teaching.html.
  • Our Read-the-Bible-in-a-Year Scripture Reading Schedule is available at http://www.hoshanarabbah.org/pdfs/read-bible-in-a-year_2014-15.pdf. This unique schedule incorporates the Jewish Torah reading schedule into it, but at the same time allows you to read daily from the other three portions of the Bible as well: the Writings (Ketuvim), the Prophets (Neviim), and the Testimony of Yeshua (New Testament). This way, you get balanced spiritual full meal deal. By the end of the year, you will have read the whole Bible. Imagine that!
  • Hoshana Rabbah has its own YouTube television station with 190 teachings to date on dozens of biblical subjects from six different Bible teachers. We call it Waters in the Wilderness where you can get a drink of pure spiritual water from the Word of Elohim. There we connect the gospel message to its pro-Torah Hebrew roots. Check it out at https://www.youtube.com/user/HoshanaRabbah.
  • You can keep up with the latest news by following Hoshana Rabbah on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/HoshanaRabbah  or on Google Plus at https://plus.google.com/u/0/+HoshanaRabbah/posts?cfem=1.
  • You can follow Natan on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/jnathan.lawrence.
  • Of course, if you’re reading this, you already know about Natan’s interactive Bible study blog.

If you’ve been blessed and fed spiritually by this ministry, please consider supporting it financially. You can do so on the home page of the Hoshana Rabbah website at hoshanarabbah.org. Thank you!

(By the way, none of the money you give goes into my pocket personally. I receive no financial remuneration from this ministry other than an occasional love offering that comes to me directly. I support myself and my family through my tree care business. The money you give goes right back into supporting the expenses of this ministry and to helping the poor. Natan)

 

Still Feeding the Sheep After All These Years…

Posted on by
Reply

One thing hasn’t changed much from my youth growing up on the family farm until now. Back then, my alarm clock would go off early each morning and I’d get up and read and study my Bible and then pray. Then I’d go downstairs (my room was in the attic of the old farm house) and I’d eat some hot cereal. After that, I’d put put on my rubber boots and  I’d go out and feed and water the sheep, goats, chickens, cows, turkeys, ducks and pigeons. Then I’d go off to school or to work around the farm pruning the fruit trees, doing other farm work, or working in my dad’s nursery.

The front of Natan's converted chicken house office. Notice the rooster yard art by the front door.

The front of Natan’s converted chicken house office. Notice the rooster yard art by the front door.

Now, I still get up early each morning, go out to my chicken house converted into an office, read and study my Bible, then pray. Then I feed YHVH’s spiritual sheep (via this blog, YouTube, answering emails and YouTube and blog questions and comments, writing articles and preparing teachings/sermons on Bible subjects). Then I go and eat my breakfast cereal, and it’s off too work I go pruning trees and tending people’s gardens.

20892595

 

On Vacation… Cruising Alaska!

Posted on by
7

Sorry, but I won’t be posting any blog articles this week. My wife Sandi and I will be gone for a week on a cruise through the inland passage to Alaska looking at whales, glaciers and much more. We’re celebrating our anniversary and have wanted to make this trip for years, but only now have we been able to do it.

When we get back, we’ll post photos.

(P.S. Okay, since I initially wrote this post, I’ve scheduled out a couple of blog posts (including one later today) that will automatically post while I’m away. So keep checking this blog site and stay tuned for those.)

In the mean time, please stay busy studying the Bible. There are many ways we can assist you in doing this. Here is a list of possibilities:

  • You can review some of the more than 1000 posts I’ve made on this blog over the past several years. Just scroll down, and keep scrolling and scrolling and scrolling until you fine something that interests you. You can also type a search word in the blog’s search box at the top this page and see what comes up. Then click and read.
  • You can visit the Hoshana Rabbah YouTube channel at https://www.youtube.com/user/HoshanaRabbah?feature=mhee where you will find about 180 Bible teaching videos that we’ve done.
  • You can go to the Hoshana Rabbah website to access my Torah portion study guides at http://www.hoshanarabbah.org/parshiot.html. There you can keep up with the Torah reading schedule and do the interactive study guides on your own.

This should keep you all more than busy while I’m gone. Even your high-energy, type A, tireless Bible study blogger needs a break once in a while.

See you when I get back!

Love and blessings in Yeshua,

Natan

A Cruise Ship Leaving Seward, Alaska

 

Answers from Amos

Posted on by
3

I’ve been studying Elohim’s word this morning, and I was led to open up the little Book of Amos. I read all nine chapters. Somehow, I sensed that the answer to the question I asked in the previous post might be found therein. That question was how do we get to the next stage in our spiritual walk?

I can’t say that I have the full answer, but some spiritual insights were garnered.

15227437

The bottom line is that we need a fresh prophetic vision — a divine revelation of where YHVH wants us to go next.

It goes back to Proverbs 29:18, which says that without prophetic vision, YHVH’s people perish or become unloosened spiritually. Additionally, all prophetic vision should be on a solid Torah foundation — something that doesn’t exist among the so-called prophets in the contemporary mainstream church  system.

Amos explains the role of the prophet and how people really don’t want to hear YHVH speak to them through his servants, the prophets, much less obey the word of Elohim they’re proclaiming. So why then should YHVH send them his prophets if his people refuse to hear and to obey?

Though I’m not a prophet, as a servant of the Most High, I should be speaking prophetically as inspired by the Holy Spirit. This applies to you too. When a Bible teacher or preacher gets up in front of others to speak, he should do so prophetically; that is, in an inspired way that brings forth divine revelation from the word of Elohim. The problem is that most people start to shut the preacher off when he urges them to repent of sin. As a preacher, I can tell you this is the case. Almost every time I preach a message of repentance, someone gets offended and blames me for their angst. Instead of looking at themselves in the mirror and conforming their lives to the word of Elohim, they make excuses why it doesn’t apply to them, and then they shoot the messenger. Frankly, it get’s tiring after a while!

Okay, enough of this. Let’s see what Amos had to say. Here are some insights from this prophet I gathered this morning.

Amos 8:11, A famine…of hearing. Hearing is the Hebrew word shema, which has the compound meaning of both hearing and doing. In our modern world, the word of Elohim is more proliferated than ever before, especially Continue reading →

 

Thank you!

Posted on by
11

I’m very grateful to all of you who read this blog, and especially to those who take time to contribute with your encouraging, provocative and insightful comments. Thank you so much!

Keep studying, feeding on and obeying the Word of Elohim. The Word of Elohim is the only hope for this world. Although your efforts in this respect may not find their full fruitfulness in this life, your investment will pay off under the reign of King Yeshua when in his millennial kingdom, as his kings and priests, we will have a whole world of physical people that will need to be taught the higher ways of life and truth.

Love and blessings to all of you through Yeshua our Messiah and our Father in heaven to whom all glory and honor belong forever and ever. Amein!

IMG_0851