Church, Inc.—Drive merchandizing out of the corporate church!

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Matthew 21:12–13, Yeshua went into the temple.

Greed, merchandizing, corporatism, and peddling must be driven from the church, even as Yeshua drove the money changers and merchandizers out of his Father’s house of prayer. The church of Elohim must be cleansed of these illegitimate and unrighteous activities. The tables of those who promote such a system must be overturned.

Yeshua is going to clean house before his second coming and expose those who are the greedy hirelings who are shearing his sheep for their personal financial gain versus those who have a heart of sacrificial service and obedience to him. 

Elsewhere Yeshua rebukes the selfish shepherds who refuse to lay down their lives for his sheep (John 10:11–13). Ezekiel the prophet also excoriates the greedy hireling shepherds who feed themselves instead of feeding YHVH’s sheep resulting in spiritually weak and malnourished sheep who are prey for the grievous wolves (Ezek 34:1–31). 

At the same time, YHVH promises to raise up shepherds after his own heart who will gather in and care for his lost and scattered sheep (ibid.). 

Similarly, Paul the apostle though in full-time ministry for decades still worked with his hands as a tent maker to support himself financially. He rebuked some of his fellow ministers when he said, “For we are not, as so many, peddling the word of Elohim; but as of sincerity, but as from Elohim, we speak in the sight of Elohim in Messiah” (2 Cor 2:17). Paul goes on to say elsewhere that in his day there were those preachers “whose mouths must be stopped, who subvert whole households, teaching things which they ought not, for the sake of dishonest gain” (Titus 1:11). 

Peter chimes in on the subject as well identifying those in the ministry who “[b]y covetousness they will exploit you with deceptive words; for a long time their judgment has not been idle, and their destruction does not slumber” (2 Pet 2:3). 

Finally, Yeshua when speaking of rewards refers to those who serve YHVH for earthy rewards versus those who do so for heavenly rewards:

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Don’t cause YHVH to treat you like a stubborn mule!

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Psalm 32:8–9, Do not be like. When YHVH disciplines us, he would prefer that we respond to his gentle voice of correction such as mere look of his eye whether it be that he is showing his approbation or disapproval for what we are doing.

If we fail to respond to his slightest glance of correction, he may have no alternative but “to turn up the heat, so that we’ll see the light” by treating us like a stubborn mule, who needs the bridle and bit (and maybe even the quirt) to bring it back into line.

 

Origination of “Hoshana Rabbah”

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Matthew 21:9, Hosannah in the highest.The simple Hebrew phrase hoshana rabbah has more depth and spiritual significance than first meets the eye. Let’s explore it.

First of all, it was this phrase—hosanna in the highest—(Heb. hoshana rabbah) that the crowds of Jews exclaimed as Yeshua entered Jerusalem riding a colt in Matthew 21:9 (also Mark 11:9; Luke 19:38). This event has become known as Yeshua’s “Triumphal Entry.”

The phrase hoshana rabbah, in part, derives from Psalm 118:25, a psalm which is called the Great Hallel (Heb. meaning “praise”), and was the climax of a series of psalms that the priests would proclaim or sing from the temple in Jerusalem on various feast days including the Feast of Tabernacles.

Psalm 118 is a prophetic psalm, which speaks of the coming Messiah who was the hope of the Israelite people. The words of this psalm prophetically points to Yeshua the Messiah in every way. That’s why the crowds proclaimed “hoshana in the highest, ” at Yeshua’s entry into Jerusalem, for upon him, they had pinned their highest hopes of a Messianic figure who would deliverer them from their oppressors (in this case, the Romans).

The actual Hebrew words in Psalm 118:25 are ana YHVH hoshiah na, which can be translated as “I beg you YHVH save now,” (Green’s Interlinear), “Save now, I pray, O YHVH” (KJV), or “O [YHVH], please save us!” (The ArtScroll Stone Edition Tanach).

The phrase “Hosanna in the highest” was an added exclamation of the people, and is not a direct quote from the Tanakh. In Hebrew it would be hoshiana rabbah or hoshanna rabbah, which, according to Jewish understanding, is the name of the seventh or last day of the fall biblical Feast of Tabernacles (or Sukkot).

It was on this “last great day” of the Feast that the joyous water pouring ceremony occurred, and when the Jews prayed to receive rain from heaven to water their crops including the latter (spring) rains and the former (fall) rains. In the arid region of the land of Israel, rain was received as a gift and a favorable blessing from heaven, since it meant that the crops would flourish and famine would be averted.

Prophetically, the rains of Hoshana Rabbah speak of a time when during the Millennium (of which Sukkot is symbolic picture) YHVH will pour out the rain of his Spirit (along with his Torah and his glory) upon the world, thus spiritually cleansing and refreshing mankind resulting in a great harvest of souls into the kingdom of heaven. When this occurs, the nation of Israel will be walking in spiritual communion with its Creator. This is why the Jews sang Isaiah 12:3 on Hoshana Rabbah,which declares “Therefore with joy we will you shall draw water out of the wells of salvation.” 

Similarly, it was on Hoshana Rabbah (“the last day of the feast,” John 7:37–39) that Yeshua encouraged his followers to come to him as the spiritual River of Life. This would result in the dry ground of their spiritual lives being quenched, and in their becoming a river of life like him resulting in abundant spiritual fruits of salvation of lost souls coming to Yeshua (i.e. the regathering of the lost sheep of the house of Israel, Matt 10:6; 15:24).

This phrase hoshana rabbah can also mean, “save us O great one,” since the Hebrew word rabbah can mean “great one.” The term rabbi (the title for a Jewish Bible teacher) originates from this word. Rabbi literally means, “my great one,” which is why Yeshua forbad his disciples (and us) from taking this word as an ecclesiastical title for themselves, or from calling someone else by that title (Matt 23:8). This is a title that should be reserved only for Yeshua himself (Matt 23:10)!

Hoshana rabbah in its fullest sense means “I pray, I beseech thee to open wide, free, succor, deliver,help, preserve, rescue, bring salvation, bring victory, save greatly, in abundance, increasingly, or please deliver us Great One.”

 

Yeshua (and Moses) on Divorce

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Matthew 19:8, Moses permitted. From Yeshua’s statement here, it seems that Elohim gave Moses certain freedom and latitude to redefine and adapt some Torah principles to accommodate the needs and realities of fallen and sinful man. 

In the case of marriage, even though it was Elohim’s highest ideal for a man to leave his parents and cleave to one wife for the rest of his life or until she died (Gen 2:24), the reality is that man is too often incapable of living up to the Creator’s highest ideal because of the hardness or sinfulness of his heart; therefore, divorce was permitted. 

It is important to note that YHVH gave the marriage command before the fall of man had occurred (Gen 2:24 cp. Gen 3:1–6). In light of the fact of the fall of man when sin entered the world thus negatively affecting the marriage relationship, YHVH allowed Moses to permit divorce under certain circumstances (see Deut 24:1–4). 

Had Moses not made allowances for the sinfulness and hardness of the human heart and forbad all divorce in Israel in an effort to strictly adhere to YHVH’s highest letter-of-the-law ideal for marriage, then the societal results might have been unimaginably chaotic. For example, people would have been compelled to remain in abusive, criminal, adulterous, irreligious or even anti-religious relationships or in situations of abandonment or substance abuse. What kind of impact would this have had on the children and on future generations? Probably it would have had even worse consequences than those resulting from divorce.

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Do you have a secret place with Elohim?

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Psalm 31:20, Secret place…presence…pavillion. Secret place means “shelter or hiding place” and presence is panyim meaning “faces or presence” of Elohim. Pavillion is “sukkah.” In this set-apart and private place, one not only finds communion with Elohim, but a refuge from “the strife of tongues [Heb. lashon] or the evil tongue of our accusers and persecutors.

The secret presence of YHVH is our personal “God bubble” in which to escape the strife caused by evil-does around us, and to find the peace of YHVH in his presence. 

 

Our (Yes, Yours and Mine!) Father Abraham…An Example of Faithfulness and Obedience

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What is the relevance to you and me of studying the life of Abraham? Much! To start with, did you realize that when you came to faith in Yeshua the Messiah, you became a literal, spiritual-biological descendant of Abraham? That’s what Paul says in Galatians 3:29,

 And if you are Christ’s, then you are Abraham’s seed [Greek: sperma], and heirs according to the promise.

The Greek word sperma means “something sown, that is, seed (including the male “sperm”); by implication offspring; specifically a remnant (figuratively as if kept over for planting): – issue, seed.” Bet you never heard that preached in your church before, but there it has been, right in your Bible all along! The two verse just before that, Paul states,

For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek [i.e. Gentile], there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus. (Gal 3:27–28).

So, according to Paul, the Jew-Gentile paradigm that the mainstream church has been teaching us for about 1,800 years is all wrong.The concept of Jews versus Gentiles shouldn’t even enter into our theological discussions! Paul doesn’t view the saints in the church as two separate people groups, for elsewhere, Paul calls believers who used to be Jews and Gentiles “the one new man” (Eph 2:15).

Moreover, Paul when talking to believers in Rome who were previously of both Jewish and non-Jewish ethnic origins, refers to Abraham as “the father of us all” (Rom 4:16). Paul reiterates this point in Romans 9:8–11.

So if Abraham is our father, and the apostle uses his life as an example of how believers are saved (read Romans chapter four), and of how to walk in faith before Elohim in obedience to his commandments (Heb 11:8–12), and refers to Abraham as our father, then perhaps there is something to be gained by studying his life as an example of how to walk righteously before our Creator.

And now, on to our study of the life of Abraham.

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