The West’s Idols and High Places Are Being Attacked

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Ezekiel 6:3–5, High places…idols…corpses. As a judgment against the backslid and idolatrous “mountains of Israel” (Ezek 6:1), YHVH promises to bring a sword against his people as they are worshipping their idols instead of him.

The “mountains of Israel” in this instance is a poetic and prophetic Hebraism for the nations of Israel that YHVH has scattered around the world because of his judgments against their sin.

In this modern age, few people bow down to literal idols, but idolatry is as rampant now as it was in ancient times. Any person, thing or idea that gets in the way of or hinders a person from worshipping and obeying Elohim is an idol to that person. It may be money, sex, drugs, education, power, sports, philosophies, entertainment or pleasure.

The “mountains of Israel” today are largely the Christian nations of the world, which are backslid spiritually.

Typically, YHVH raises up Israel’s enemies to punish his backslid people in hopes they will repent of their sinful ways and return to him. The biblical Edom (or the jihadist Moslems) are YHVH’s end times paddle by which he is spanking his wayward people.

So what are the high places of the Christian nations where their idols are located that Edom is attacking resulting in slain corpses being strewn about? Think of the places where Edom has been detonating bombs and spraying bullets in their attempts to massacre the “people of the book” (as the Koran calls them), who are the Jews and the Christians. The West’s high places of idol worship include sports arenas and sporting events, Christmas parties, schools, night clubs, “gay” night clubs, financial centers, churches and other places of religious activity, places of governmental authority and military installations to name a few. All these high places where idolatry occurs represent the gods and idolatrous concepts of post-Christian Israelites who have rejected Elohim for their idols.

These are YHVH’s judgments upon his people to bring them to repentance.

 

Are your prayers being hindered or rejected by heaven?

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Numbers 16:5–6, Who is his…take censers. Incense is a biblical metaphor for the prayers of men coming up before YHVH’s throne (Rev 5:8; 8:3). YHVH accepts some men’s prayers as holy and rejects the prayers of other men whom he deems not to be holy.

The story of Korah teaches us that YHVH doesn’t hear the prayers of self-centered, self-seeking, prideful and jealous rebels such as Korah et al (Prov 15:29). YHVH’s ears are open to the prayers of the righteous (Ps 34:15; 1 Pet 3:12; Jas 5:16; Heb 11:6).

The prayers of a righteous man can be hindered, as well, due to unrighteous behavior such as not treating his wife in a godly manner (1 Pet 3:7) or because we have ought with our brother (Matt 5:23–24).

 

Blog Scripture Readings for 7-2 Through 7-9-16

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THIS WEEK’S SCRIPTURE READINGS FOR STUDY AND DISCUSSION:

Parashat Korach — Numbers 16:1 – 18:32
Haftarah — 1 Samuel 11:14 – 12:22
Prophets — Ezekiel 6:1 – 12:28
Writings — Esther 4:1 – 10:3
Testimony — 1 Corinthians 7:25 – 11:33

Most of this week’s blog discussion points will be on these passages. If you have general comments or questions on the weekly Scripture readings not addressed in a blog post, here’s a place for you to post those. Just use the “leave a reply” link below.

The full “Read Through The Scriptures In A Year” schedule, broken down by each day, can be found on the right sidebar under “Helpful Links.” There are 4 sections of scripture to read each day. One each from the Torah, the Prophets, the Writings, and from the Testimony of Yeshua. Each week, the Torah and haftarah readings will follow the traditional one-year reading cycle.

Weekly Blog Scripture Readings for 7/3 through 7/9/16.

 

Shabbat Shalom to all my friends in Yeshua around the world

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As you know, I just posted a piece on Trump vs. Clinton. Reading this stuff is like walking through stinky barnyard muck that is knee-deep!

When I read Robert Daniel Phillip’s comment to that blog post, it punctuated the dilemma most Elohim-fearing, Bible-loving Americans are facing regarding who to vote for in our upcoming presidential elections.

The distasteful and bleak outlook of our elections in turn prompted me to take a stroll through my garden to de-pollute my mind. Here are some photographs of the flowers that are currently in bloom in my garden. Allow me to share this unparalleled beauty of YHVH’s creation with you on this beautiful Shabbat morning.

When the things of man look bleak and hopeless, let’s turn our eyes to YHVH the Creator and to the beauty of his creation all around us that silently shouts at us to cast our attention skyward to the source of all love, joy, peace, goodness and beauty. Yehovah Elohim is the ultimate Righteous Judge of the universe who, in due time, with the purifying fires of justice, will destroy all the wood, hay and stubble of men’s humanistic machinations and attempts to dethrone him.

I am casting my vote for YHVH Elohim—Yeshua!

Sorry Hitlerey, Tromp et al, but the flowers in my garden are a much prettier sight  to my eyes and sensibilities than you’ll ever be!

Shabbat shalom everyone…please enjoy the Creators gift to us of flowers!

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How to Tie Tzitzit

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I hope you will appreciate this vintage video I made a few years back. It was one of the first videos I did using my old i-Phone as a video camera, and is eighth most popular video (over 10k views) out of the 250 plus we have done to date. Please enjoy as you learn!

In this video, Natan Lawrence shows you how to make your own fringes or tzitzit (plural: tzitziyot). It’s fun and easy to fulfill the biblical command to wear fringes on your garments (Numbers 15:37-41). Free study guide available at http://hoshanarabbah.org/blog/2013/03/24/the-law-of-the-fringes/.

 

Resting on the Sabbath is an act of faith

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Resting on the Sabbath day is not only about obedience to the laws of the Creator, but is also about worshipping the Elohim, about imitating him by doing what he did and thus becoming like him, and it demonstrates our faith in the Creator while we are obeying, worshipping and imitating him as we will discuss below.

Numbers 15:32–36, On the Sabbath day. Let’s take a closer look at the Sabbath desecration in the wilderness. The Torah juxtaposes the sins of idolatry and Sabbath desecration because they represent the same concept. Just as the idolater denies the sovereignty of Elohim, so too, one who flouts the Sabbath, which testifies to Elohim’s creation of the universe, declares his lack of faith in the Creator. Because of the vital place of Sabbath in the constellation of Jewish belief, the Torah places this incident here, although it did not necessarily happen immediately after the rebellion of the spies (The ArtScroll Stone Edition Chumash, p. 815).

Working on the Sabbath is evidence of lack of faith in the Creator to provide for our needs on the other six days so that we will not have to work on the seventh day. Working on the Sabbath is also a result of unbelief (faithlessness), which is fear (the antithesis of faith; see 2 Tim 1:7). It is doubt, unbelief and fear (faithlessness) that prevented Israel from entering into the Promised Land for 40 years (Heb 4:1–11). As we see from Hebrews 4, the Sabbath is a picture of entering YHVH’s spiritual rest and is a spiritual picture of the Promised Land and the Millennium. When we rest from our physical labors on the seventh day we demonstrate that we have the requisite faith to enter the spiritual or millennial rest that YHVH has prepared for us, unlike the ten evil Israelite spies who lacked the faith in YHVH’s word necessary to go in to possess the Promised Land. Joshua and Caleb had this faith and they were able to go in. Remember that the Sabbath is the sign of the Sinaitic Covenant (Exod 31:7, 13). If one walks in the righteousness of that covenant, one will be a recipient of the promised blessings of the New Covenant, which also includes the blessings of Torah-obedience as found in the Sinaitic or Mosaic Covenant. Perhaps this is why the Sabbath incident is juxtaposed with the spy incident in this section of the Torah. It shows the connection between keeping the Sabbath and entering the Promised Land.

 

Willful Sin Vs. Presumptuous Sin

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Numbers 15:27–31, Two types of sin are delineated in this passage. They are the sin of ignorance and the sin of presumption (i.e., willful sinning, or literally, “sinning with a high hand”). For the first sin there is an offering or atonement. For the second sin, the penalty is death as illustrated by the example of the Sabbath-breaker in verses 32–36. It is interesting to note that breaking the Sabbath is the example the Torah uses to illustrate willful or presumptuous sin. Why is this? Likely, YHVH in his prescience realized that Sabbath observance would be a great bone of contention and point of struggle for his people. Indeed, even to this day, the idea of resting on the seventh day Sabbath still raises the antagonism of many in the church.

Numbers 15:30–36, The person who does anything presumptuously. Here we see an example of presumptuous sin with regard to the Sabbath. Presumptuous sinners despise the Torah-commands in YHVH’s Word thinking themselves to be above the laws of Elohim thus refusing to be ruled by it. The act of gathering the sticks on the Sabbath was an affront both to the law and the Lawgiver says Matthew Henry.

Here are some word definitions:

Presume means “to assume, to undertake without leave or clear justification, dare.”

Presumptuous means “audacity; overstepping due bounds, taking liberties.”

The Hebrew word for presume is ruwm/ OuR /resh-vav-mem sofit (Strong’s H7311) meaning “to rise up, be high, be lofty, be exalted, to exalt oneself, magnify oneself, to be rotten, and to be wormy.”

Reflect on your own life. Are there areas of disobedience in your life of which you need to repent? Many times we sin out of human weakness, not willful disobedience. Can such sin, if not eliminated, lead to presumptuous sin? Can we become so callous to sin that we become brazen and willful in our disobedience to YHVH’s laws? Paul talks about those whose consciences have become seared (1 Tim 4:2). What does this mean? In the Testimony of Yeshua, willful or presumptuous sin is often known in common parlance as the unpardonable sin. Note what the writer of Hebrews has to say about this (see Heb 6:6–7 and 10:26–31).