What is the bedrock foundation upon which the enitire Bible stands? What is the very heart, characateer, nature, mind and will of the Creator? What is man’s purpose and destiny? How does man enter into an everlasting spiritual relationship with the Creator? How can man experience a blessed and abundant life now and for eternity? The answers are in this video from the pages of the Bible.
Well, I finally got this project completed. Had to go through hours of film footage and scads of photos, and then all the editing, adding titles, sound effects and music. Here it is:
This fun video presents highlights from Hoshana Rabbah’s Sukkot Northwest 2014 eight day long Feast of Tabernacles celebration on the Rogue River near Grants Pass in SW Oregon, USA.
We’re happy to announce that we’ll be hosting Sukkot NW 2015 in the same spot again this year, except this year we’ve reserved the entire campground for us —— exclusive use. Only redeemed Israelites (no foul-mouthed, racist, drunken heathens outsiders to ruin our righteous fun in YHVH Elohim!). Consider joining us this year! Stay tuned for details on this blog and at SukkotNW.org.
Parashat Mishpatim — Exodus 21:1 – 24:18
Haftarah — 2 Kings 12:1-17; Exodus 30:11-16**
Prophets — 1 Kings 20:1 – 22:53; 2 Kings 1:1 – 4:44
Writings — Psalms 119:161 – 131:3
Testimony — Luke 22:1 – 24:12
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.
** A different Haftarah is read when it is a special sabbath in Jewish tradition. This week is Shabbat Shekalim (Sabbath of Shekels).
Weekly Blog Scripture Readings for 2/8 through 2/14/15.
A 14-year old St. Charles boy who spent 15 minutes under water after falling through the ice of Lake Ste. Louise has made a recovery no one can explain.
It’s a recovery so complete, our Kay Quinn spoke on-camera to young John Smith about his near-drowning, and his amazing story of survival.
Three 14-year-old boys fell through the ice on Martin Luther King Day.
When rescuers arrived, one was almost out of the water, another was holding onto the ice and one couldn’t be found.
Eighth grader John Smith is doing something doctors never believed would be possible.
“I don’t remember much about it to be honest, but I do remember the tubes,” says Smith.
He is walking and talking, here with his pastor Jason Noble by his side. And trying to make sense of how he’s not just alive, but thriving after being under water for 15 minutes.
“After listening to what the paramedics and doctors said I’m pretty surprised at the outcome,” says John.
An outcome some say fits in with all of the other miracles that day and in the days that followed.
Like the fact Lake St. Louis Fire and Emergency crews had just practiced ice rescues the week before they pulled John out.
And the doctor who was on duty in the emergency room at SSM St. Joseph Hospital West the day of the accident: Dr. Kent Sutterer, whose daughter’s in the same class with John at Living Word Christian School.
“In my mind this is a very grim, very poor chance of survival already,” says Dr. Sutterer of the moment John came in.
Dr. Sutterer and his team performed CPR on John for 27 minutes with no success. The question was raised: how long should they continue?
“He was dead for 45 minutes,” says Dr. Sutterer.
What happened next defies explanation. Dr. Sutterer called John’s mother into the room to give her the news.
“She started praying loudly,” says Dr. Sutterer.
“I don’t remember what all I said,” recalls John’s mother, Joyce Smith. “But I remember, ‘Holy God, please send your Holy Spirit to save my son. I want my son, please save him.’ And they hadn’t been getting a pulse at that time, so all of a sudden I heard them saying, ‘We got a pulse, we got a pulse.'”
“Within a matter of a minute or two, his heart started again,” says Dr. Sutterer.
It’s an experience that’s shaken many of those in the emergency room that day. This veteran of responding to medical crisis wrote a letter about it as a way to cope.
“His heart was jump started by the Holy Spirit listening to the request of his praying mother,” reads Dr. Sutterer, from the letter he wrote.
Dr. Jeremy Garrett who oversaw John’s recovery even goes a step further. “It’s a bonafide miracle.”
John was airlifted to SSM Cardinal Glennon Children’s Medical Center about two hours after the accident. Dr. Garrett says he knew within about the first 16 hours after John’s arrival that his body would physically survive the ordeal what he didn’t know was how much brain function he would have.
Dr. Garrett watched John’s body react to being under water so long: his circulatory system went into shock, acid built up in his bloodstream.
But within 48 hours, family members reported things he didn’t expect. Like John opening his eyes.
Then, relatives told him this teen who loves to play and watch basketball was responding to questions about his two favorite players.
“So I did a very interesting neurologic exam,” says Dr. Garrett. “We said, well John, pretend your left hand is Lebron James and your right hand is Michael Jordan, then asked him a series of questions and he got them all right. It’s truly amazing.”
What’s happened since then has been a dizzying rate of continuous recovery. One even doctors are trying to keep up with.
“To watch your son sit up and amaze the doctors, the neurologist comes in and says, we don’t know what to do next because we’ve never seen this before,” says Joyce.
While we were visiting, John’s rescuers from the Lake St. Louis fire department showed up, bringing lunch. Seeing for themselves, the boy who survived 15 minutes under the ice.
“I know it doesn’t fit into our neat little box of today,” says John’s father, Brian Smith of this miracle, “but again, you can’t refute the clinical evidence.”
And while these parents haven’t spoken of his impulsive decision to walk out on the ice that day with two friends, they know their son has learned more than any lecture could teach him.
“I’m surprised I’m alive but it’s a real miracle that I’m alive, and I thank God I’m alive, and there’s a reason I’m alive, so I’m just going to kind of follow what God has in store for me throughout my life,” says John.
John still has a cough, and he’s getting physical therapy to help him regain some of the movement in his hands.
But he could go home by the end of the week.
Exodus 20:1, And Elohim spoke all these words, saying.
The following is an excerpt from a larger article on the subject of the Torah, which can be found at http://hoshanarabbah.org/pdfs/torahprimer.pdf.
What Is the Essence of the Torah?
Let us answer the question by posing a question. Why do you call yourself a believer, Messianic, Christian or otherwise? Why do you believe that the Scriptures are the Word of Elohim? Why are you currently reading this teaching article? Why were you created and what is your purpose in life? What is the meaning of life and what is your future destiny? Is there a Supreme Being in this universe and what does he expect from you, as a human, if anything at all? Does he care about you personally, and if he does, does he have anything to say to you about life – and about your life, in particular?
Very few humans alive, or who have ever lived, have answers to these questions. Most humans simply exist. Few actually live with purpose and meaning to their lives.
But you are privileged, for you are about to learn the answers to which so-called philosophers, sages and religious luminaries have been seeking since man has existed. Tidal waves of religion, philosophy and politics have swept across this planet carrying away peoples and nations promising to answer men’s most perplexing questions. Though volumes have been written, though countless libraries are full of millions of books, scrolls, papyri, clay tablets, documents and computer files, the answer to it all is surprisingly simple. In fact one word: It is T-O-R-A-H! The Torah of YHVH-Elohim is the Light of Truth from the Originator of Light and Truth. And it has been miraculously transmitted from heaven to earth, from the infinite to the finite, from the spiritual, boundless, eternal, omniscient and all wise mind of Elohim to the limited confines of physical existence on earth. Like a beam of Light shot through space from the great beyond, penetrating the darkness of human existence that Light became the written Torah, the Word of Elohim in the form of a Torah scroll written in Hebrew script of the set-apart Hebrew tongue (lashon kadosh) thousands of years ago.
The Torah-Word of Elohim forms the very bedrock foundation of the Scriptures. The spiritual building of the Prophets, Writings and Testimony of Yeshua rests squarely and securely upon the foundation of the Torah without which the rest would instantly crumble into nonexistence. Elohim was so determined to make that foundation so rock solid that he literally dictated it audibly letter-for-letter and word-for-word to the man Moses, who like a stenographer, wrote down exactly what he heard. This become the Books of the Law of Moses, or the Torah of YHVH Elohim. None of the Prophets or Writings in the Tanakh, though the inspired and infallible Word of Elohim, were so transmitted. The only words in all of Scripture that approach this level of purity and perfection are those words of the Written Word or Torah made flesh; namely, the words of Yeshua as recorded in the Gospels of the Testimony of Yeshua.
The level of one’s understanding of the written Torah is the key to having a deep and abiding understanding of Yeshua, the Living Torah, and ultimately of having a blessed, a right, eternal relationship with our Father in heaven. Having a deep walking-it-out understanding of the Torah will also determine one’s level of rewards in the Kingdom of Elohim — whether YHVH bestows the title of The Least or The Greatest upon one (Matt. 5:19).
Below are quoted some deeply held, age-old convictions that the Jewish sages have lived and died for regarding the Torah. As you read them, please keep in the forefront of your thoughts the concept of Yeshua, the Living Torah-Word of Elohim, who was made flesh Continue reading
Shame on President Obama for his idiotic comments at the National Prayer Breakfast linking the acts of some Christians with the murderous jihadists cutting people’s heads off and burning people alive! The President reveals how vacuous his understanding is of Islam, history, Christianity and the Bible. Or, is he simply a lying propagandistic spinmeister who knows the facts, but could care less about them in an effort to force his ideological agendas upon the American people?!
I feel like we’re living in Goebbels Germany, or that I’m reading the Pravda of the former Soviet Union.
First, the Koran tells its followers to spread its faith by dismembering and murdering its enemies. History records that Mohammed did this. On the other hands, Yeshua/Jesus told his followers to love your enemies and his disciples followed his example.
Second, true disciples of Yeshua do not behead, crucify or burn their enemies. A thousand years ago when some “Christians” did this in medieval Europe, this was aberrant not normative Christianity. What the Muslims are doing to their enemies is normative not aberrant Islam according to the Koran. Go read the Koran for yourself and you’ll see what I’m saying is correct.
Third, the Crusades were in defensive response to the jihadist Muslims of that day that had taken over major parts of southern Europe and were moving northward quickly. This is history 101. As a former college professor, Mr. Obama doesn’t know this? Yeah right! So what’s his point?
The fact is, we have Edom in the White House, which is the spirit of Antichrist. Period!
Exodus 19:10, Consecrate them today.
Discussion A. Why is it essential to study the example of the children of Israel preparing themselves to come into the presence of YHVH in Exodus 19? After all, if Yeshua did it all for us, we can just come boldly before the Father’s throne anytime, anyway we want, right (Heb 4:16)?
Let’s explore this concept a little to see what the Bible has to say about it.
Paul says in I Corinthians 10:11,
Now all these things happened to them [i.e., the children of Israel] as examples, and they were written for our admonition, upon whom the ends of the ages have come. (See also Rom 15:4.)
The writer of Hebrews has something similar to say in his prefatory remarks to his statement in Hebrews 4:16 about coming boldly before the throne of YHVH through the merits of the sinless righteousness of Yeshua our High Priest. In the preceding several verses, the author draws upon the example of the children of Israel (Heb 4:1–10) as an example for us not to follow. They were a faithless and disobedient (they rebelled against the Torah-word of Elohim) lot!
Then in Hebrew 4:11, the author starts with the connecting word “therefore,” indicating that what follows is related to that which preceded it. He goes on to admonish us not to follow the Israelites’ example of disobedience (i.e., Torahlessness or lack of faith in and obedience to the word of Elohim).
Next, the author likens the word of Elohim to a sharp two-edged sword that has the ability to separate between those who come to YHVH with wrong (carnal) heart motives versus those who have right ones, for nothing is hidden from the Almighty, so religious pretense and sham need not apply (Heb 4:12–13).
This reminds me of Yeshua’s harsh rebuke against the religious hypocrites of his day who thought that just because they were the sons of Abraham, they had a special “in” with Elohim. Quoting Isaiah, Yeshua criticized their sham religious expressions accusing them of drawing near with their mouths, but having hearts that were far from him (Matt 15:8–9 cp. Isa 29:13). In fact, Isaiah goes on in the same verse to deal with the issue of the improper fear of Elohim (Isa 29:13b). Yes, the fear of Elohim—a subject not taught much in the church these days (it’s not user-friendly)! Perhaps we Continue reading