It is written in our Scriptures: “As a man thinks in his heart, so is he.” We often see what we want to see more than what is really there. That’s called wishful thinking. We overlook much, and we often ignore what might challenge our own preferred interpretations. For example, we may think that we are trusting God for our lives, but we worry, we attempt to control others, we get angry, and so on. We have a blind spot regarding the question whether we really trust God, perhaps because seriously investigating what we really believe seems too threatening (John 16:31-32). After all, what if we don’t really know what to believe? What if we struggle to believe? What if we are confused? What does that say about who we are? So we ignore the real problem (namely, our lack of truth and our little faith in God) and continue to think we are something we are not. We fool ourselves and trade a sense of “satisfaction” at the expense of truth. This is a common failing of human nature. During the Nazi years, many ordinary Germans refused to investigate reports of atrocities at the death camps because it was too costly to discover the truth (the same might be said about any patriotic citizens who rationalize the actions of their government regardless of the moral issues involved). By willfully hiding from the facts, we pretend we are not responsible, and therefore we justify passivity in the face of injustice and evil.
Month: April 2021
Atonement and the New Covenant…
How are we to understand the apparent contradiction that Yom Kippur is to be observed as a “statute forever” (Lev. 16:29) while the New Testament emphatically states that Yeshua puts an end to animal sacrifice and now is our eternal atonement (Heb. 9:12; Heb. 9:24-26)? To begin we must note that this contradiction only arises when we make the (false) assumption that the Sinai covenant could never be abrogated, which would imply that a new covenant is logically impossible. If we can only relate to God through the covenantal terms given at Sinai, in other words, then the Levitical priesthood (alone) serves to mediate us before God, and there would be no need for a covenant based on the better priesthood and promises of the Messiah (Heb. 8:6). Nevertheless, the new covenant was clearly foretold throughout the Torah, the writings, and the prophets, and the assumption that the Sinai covenant is “immutable” is therefore false. We can understand this by an analogy: If an employer makes a contract with an employee with certain provisions and conditional benefits that are subject to annual review, but later rescinds that contact and offers a new one with far better benefits, there is no contradiction involved. In our case a real contradiction would be, “you must observe Yom Kippur forever,” and then – in the very same contract – later read, “you no longer need observe Yom Kippur forever.”
Yom Kippur: Climax of the Torah
The holidays of Torah find their origin in the events of the Exodus, which were later commemorated as rituals at the Tabernacle. On the first of Nisan, two weeks before the Exodus, the LORD showed Moses the new moon and commenced the divine lunar calendar. This is called Rosh Chodashim. Two weeks later, God was ready to deliver the Israelites from their bondage in Egypt. Earlier that evening the Israelites kept the Passover Seder and sprinkled the blood of the lamb on their doorposts. At the stroke of midnight of Nisan 15 the LORD sent the last of the ten plagues on the Egyptians, killing all their firstborn. On the 6th of Sivan, exactly seven weeks after the Exodus (49 days), Moses first ascended Sinai to receive the Torah (Shavuot). Just forty days later, on the 17th of Tammuz, the tablets were broken. Moses then interceded for Israel for another forty days until he was called back up to Sinai on Elul 1 and received the revelation of Name YHVH (Exod. 34:4-8). After this, he was given the Second Tablets and returned to the camp on Tishri 10, which later was called Yom Kippur. Moses’ face was shining with radiance in wonder of the coming New Covenant which was prefigured in the rituals of the Day of Atonement (Exod. 34:10).
Forsake me not, O LORD…
Though it is true that God will never leave nor forsake us, he nevertheless allows trouble in our lives so that we will learn to call upon him and know his heart… For how else will we understand the truth of our great need for him, and how else his great provision? “Blessed are the poor in spirit,” describes the poignant awareness of our inner poverty, our bankruptcy of heart, the destitution of our condition (Matt. 5:3). We cry inwardly, “Forsake me not, O LORD: O my God, be not far from me” (Psalm 38:21) because we realize our need for deliverance from ourselves; we understand that we cannot take a step in his way apart from his upholding. “Hold thou me up, and I shall be safe: and I will have respect unto thy statutes continually” (Psalm 119:117). “Do not forsake me, O LORD, is the mantra in our darkness, the antiphon of God’s promised Presence; it is the cry of the heart that knows that only God can get us through the next moment and its temptation to despair. “Do not forsake me, O LORD, lest I be swallowed up by my pain, my fear, my sadness, my anguish of heart; do not forsake me, for I am nothing but the anguish of the moment, the sorrow of loneliness, the fear of my own heart as I tremble before you in my desperation…
Our Common Struggle…
We all struggle with sin in our lives, and each of us needs deliverance from various attachments and fears that keep us from the deeper life… The problem is within ourselves, that is, the contradiction of heart we experience in our double-mindedness, our ambivalence, and our unbelief (Jer. 17:9). We may recite the Shema every day and say that we love God with all our being, but in the ordinary moments of daily life we are drawn to other concerns, alien affections, other “gods.” Indeed, whatever matters most to us, whatever consumes our attention, time, resources, and our interest, is something we “worship,” that is, something we esteem as worthy and valuable…
People necessarily value things, and therefore every person alive is a “worshiper” (i.e., a person who finds “worth” in something). This applies equally to a devout atheist or pious skeptic as much as it does a deeply religious person… The question that matters, however, is what is your ultimate concern? What do you really want? Only when we begin to understand what draws and attracts us can we begin to discern what we really need. Therefore we must first acknowledge our false worship, our radical selfishness, and our sundry attachments in order to be set free. We must confess the truth that we are slaves.
The Will to Believe…
The central issue of your spiritual life is the willingness to do God’s will, or the willingness to believe, since these amount to the same thing…. Believe what? That God is real, that He has (personally) called you by name, that he has particularly redeemed you by Yeshua’s own blood poured out for your sins, and that therefore that your identity and life are bound up with his mercy and truth… Perhaps this message seems too good to be true, and yet it is the heart’s duty to take hold of hope and to refuse to yield to despair, as it is written: “Let not love and truth forsake you; bind them around your neck; write them on the tablet of your heart” (Prov. 3:3).
The spiritual danger here is being “pulled apart” in opposite directions, dissipating the soul so that it will not be unified, focused and directed. Both loving and hating the good is a state of painful inner conflict, ambivalence, and self-contradiction. “Who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean? there is not one” (Job 14:4), yet this is our starting point: “I find it to be a law that when I want to do right, evil lies close at hand” (Rom. 7:21). We are often willing and unwilling, or neither willing nor unwilling, and this makes us inwardly divided, weak, fragmented, anxious, and “soulless.” An honest faith that “wills one thing” binds the soul into a unity, or an authentic “self.” As King David said, “One thing have I asked of the LORD, that will I seek after: that I may dwell in the house of the LORD all the days of my life, to gaze upon the beauty of the LORD and to inquire in his temple” (Psalm 27:4).
The way to be healed of a divided heart is to earnestly make a decision: “Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you” (James 4:8). There are no conditions given here — other than your raw need to connect with God for help. “Purify your hearts, you double-minded ones” (δίψυχοι, lit. “two-souled ones”); make up your mind and be unified within your heart: “How long will you go limping between two different opinions?” (1 Kings 18:21). You are invited to come; God has made the way; your place at the table has been set and prepared…
Your Ultimate Concern…
Our faith is expressed every day by what we regard as most important. What do you treasure in life? What is your “pearl of great price”? Some people will say that loving God is their greatest blessing, though their choices indicate that they are focused on various temporal and worldly concerns. The life of faith requires the whole heart and singleness of vision, as King David said, “One thing I ask of the Lord; that is what I will seek.” David asked for one thing – not many things. He did not come with a litany of requests. He was not double minded. As Kierkegaard said, “purity of the heart is to will one thing.” Despite his troubles and pains, David sought the best he could find.
The most important thing in life is to decide what is the most important thing in life – and then to act accordingly. Time is short for all of us, and it is more vital than ever to find healing for our woundedness. We have to quit pretending to be what we aren’t and learn to be honest and vulnerable. Spirituality without honesty and humility is a sham. If you don’t know how to begin, then begin there – by knowing your confusion and your need for the miracle of God to teach you… For instance, if you don’t know how to really love, then confess your heart’s loss and pray for the miracle you need. As it is written, “God has compassion for the lowly and broken, and saves the souls of the powerless.”
Hebrew Lesson:
When God said, “Let there be light, and there was light” (Gen. 1:3), He seemed to put on light as a robe of the Divine Majesty and Kingship: He wrapped Himself with radiance as a tallit gadol… Da lifnei mi attah omed (דַּע לִפְנֵי מִי אַתָּה עוֹמֵד) – “Know before whom you stand.” The whole earth is lit up with God’s glory, and every bush of the field is aflame before us — if we have eyes to see (Isa. 6:3). May it please the LORD to open our spiritual eyes so that we can behold more of His glory and majesty in this hour… Amen.
“The” Question of Passover…
During the Passover Seder we begin our retelling the story of the Exodus when the question is sung: “Mah nishtanah ha-lailah ha-zeh mikol ha-leilot?” – What makes this night differ from all other nights? This is “the” central question of Passover, asked for thousands of years, and the answer is always the same: Avadim Hayinu: “We were slaves, but God redeemed us from bondage by the blood of the lamb (דַּם הַשֶּׂה).” Note again that there were not many lambs, but the LORD told Israel: “You shall keep it [i.e., the Passover lamb] until the fourteenth day of this month, when the whole assembly of the congregation of Israel shall slaughter him (את) at twilight (Exod. 12:6). Each family put their trust in God’s uniquely appointed sacrifice to be delivered from the plague of death (מכת המוות).
There is no Passover apart from the blood of the Lamb of God….
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The Evils of Social Fascism…
Tonight at sundown marks Yom HaShoah, or “Holocaust Remembrance Day,” which again provides us with an opportunity to ask some difficult questions about the nature of evil, and in particular, the nature of political evil, and how it is possible that such evil is at first tolerated by society and then justified to establish and sustain a culture of fear and oppression that leads eventually to the madness of genocide…
A typical refrain heard at this time is Le’olam lo od – “Never again! Le’olam lo od – “Never again!” and yet it needs to be emphasized that not only could the madness of Nazi socialist fascism happen again, it is indeed already here, since the same dialectical mechanisms of social fascism are clearly at work in the world today – though in today’s techno-fascist world the propaganda is global in scope, the scripted disinformation and cognitive dissonance are broadcast across cultures as a call for “unity,” and the lockdown mindset is now ubiquitous… People have become self-censoring and the “cancel culture” suppresses freedom of thought and speech. “Groupthink” and sound bites have supplanted clear thinking and logical reasoning. You are now tagged as an enemy of the state if you dare question the official narrative or raise honest questions regarding the “science” that is used to justify the extreme measures of social control we are seeing today… The Vaccine Passport is the “Yellow Star” of today; those who do not “show their papers” will be either sent to “reeducation camps” or so ostracized that they will be unable to buy or sell in the globalist dystopian economy to come…
Is “Good Friday” Biblical?
Recall that Yeshua said he would be “three days and three nights” in the earth after his crucifixion and then resurrected (see Matt. 12:40). There is no way, however to sum three days and three nights from Friday afternoon to Sunday before sundown… Therefore Yeshua was not crucified on a Friday. Instead Yeshua was crucified and buried Thursday afternoon on Nisan 14, before the Passover high Sabbath began; He was in the tomb throughout Nisan 15 (Thursday night and Friday day) as well as Nisan 16 (Friday night and Saturday day), and then He was resurrected Nisan 17 (Saturday night). The women arrived to see the stone removed before sunrise on Sunday (Matt. 28:1). Note that the Greek text of the New Testament says that women came to the tomb at the end of the “Sabbaths” (σαββάτων), indicating both the Sabbath of the Passover as well as the weekly Sabbath.