Many people are anxious about dying, though it would profit them more to be anxious about living well instead.  Indeed the best reason to think about death (memento mori) is to think about the value of life (memento vivere). Likewise many people are anxious over the prophesied “End of Days,” though it would profit them more to be anxious about walking their present day in the Presence of the Lord (Psalm 16:8).

In the Gospel of Matthew we read these words of our LORD Yeshua the Messiah: “Therefore do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble” (Matt. 6:34).  Soren Kierkegaard comments: “If there is no next day for you, then all earthly care is annihilated. When the next day comes, it loses its enchantment and its disquieting insecurity. If there is no next day for you, then either you are dying or you are one who by dying to temporality has grasped the Eternal, either one who is actually dying or one who is really living… The one who rows a boat turns his back to the goal toward which he is working. So it is with the next day. When, with the help of the Eternal, a person lives absorbed in today, he turns his back to the next day. The more he is eternally absorbed in today, the more decisively he turns his back to the next day.”  Amen. May God help us live for Him today.  Today is the day of salvation; today may we hear His voice.

The walk of faith is one of “holy suspense,” trusting that God is on the other side of the next moment, “preparing a place for you” (John 14:3). In the present, then, we live in unknowing dependence, walking by faith, not by sight. For “hope that is seen is not hope; for who hopes for what he sees?” (Rom. 8:24). This is the existential posture of faith – walking in darkness while completely trusting in God’s daily care. Our task at any given moment is always the same – to look to God and to accept His will. This is where time and eternity meet within us, where God’s kingdom is revealed in our hearts. It makes no sense to worry about the future if the Good Shepherd tenderly watches over your way (Psalm 23:1-3).

 

Hebrew Lesson:

 

• Psalm 23:1-3a Hebrew page (pdf)

As followers of Yeshua, we must be “theocratic” in our focus, as our Lord himself was. He taught us to pray: “Thy kingdom come; Thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven” (Matt. 6:10); he instructed us to “seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness” (Matt. 6:33), and gravely warned that those who practice lawlessness (i.e., ἀνομία) are cut off from the hope of God (Matt. 7:23). Indeed God’s curse is on all those who seek to eat from the “tree of the knowledge of good and evil,” that is, those who define good and evil in their own terms, disregarding the revelation of Torah, and who desire to do only what they think is right “in their own eyes.” In the end, every knee shall bow and every tongue will confess the truth about Reality, friends… That day is coming soon.

 

Hebrew Lesson:

 

In order to say, “thy kingdom come, thy will be done” we must let go of our own agenda; our ego must be deposed from its petty little kingdom… Likewise, we can’t say, “Come, Lord Jesus” by putting our fear first, or by otherwise demanding that our life should center on our own personal “advent.” No, you must consciously choose to live in exile to this world (Gal. 6:14). How can we ever expect the LORD to live out His life through us if we do not genuinely offer our lives to Him?  And yet this is exactly the problem of the ego…

A principle of spiritual life is that we descend in order to ascend, or the “the way up is the way down.” As Yeshua said, “Whoever would be first among you must be slave of all” (Mark 10:44). Becoming nothing (i.e., ayin) in this world is the condition for seeing something in the world to come. But we become nothing by trusting in the miracle, not by trying to efface ourselves… This is not another venture of the ego. Life in the Spirit means trusting that God will do within you what you cannot do for yourself… We can only take hold of what God has done for us by “letting go” of our own devices (Phil. 2:13). When we really let go and trust, we will become nothing (i.e., klume: כְּלוּם), carried by the Torah of the Spirit of life. The way is not trying but trusting; not struggling but resting; not of clinging to life, but of letting go…

This is another example of the difficulty of truly trusting God for the miracle, of genuinely receiving the miracle… Some people scorn the idea of “easy believism,” though of course there is nothing at all “easy” about exercising true faith in the LORD and living the truth in our lives. We need the miracle; we need grace from heaven to impart real passion for us to walk according to God’s heart. Amen.

The theological “problem of evil” can be summarized by saying that the following three propositions are incompatible or inconsistent: 1) God is all-loving; 2) God is all-powerful, and 3) evil exists. First it must be said that strictly speaking there is no formal contradiction between the statements (i.e., you can rationally believe all three propositions without explicit contradiction). However, the atheist believes that if you “tease out” the assumptions behind each statement you will eventually expose an inconsistency or contradiction, and therefore a rational person will admit that at least one of three statements must be in error: either God is not all-loving (i.e., perhaps he is “beyond good and evil”), or he is not all-powerful (i.e., perhaps he is limited in his ability to fight evil), or evil does not really exist (i.e., perhaps evil is an illusion). Since the existence of evil is said to be self-evident, however, the problem must be with one (or both) of the first two propositions, with the conclusion that God (understood as both all-loving and all-powerful) does not exist. Or so the atheist or skeptic may argue…

The denial of the existence of the God who is both all-loving and all-powerful (i.e., the Supreme Being) based on the existence of evil is not logically persuasive, however, first because there is no formal contradiction between the three statements (i.e., that God is all-loving, God is all-powerful, and evil exists), and second because the atheist’s conclusion that the Supreme Being does not exist is a “universal negative” statement, that is, a statement that ranges over the set of all existing things, claiming (omnisciently) that of nothing in all of existence is God… When we consider that claim, however, it should be clear that skeptical “atheism” cannot possibly justify its conclusion, since it cannot justify the essential premise that the mind can know everything that exists….

Moreover, since atheism usually adheres to some form of “natural” evolutionary theory, it assumes the claim that the universe has always existed (i.e., that there was no “First Cause” that is its personal Creator), and therefore it assumes that the “mechanism” of evolution has always been at work. Consequently it must assume that everything that now exists, and whatever has evolved, is the inevitable result of impersonal processes of reality. Such a metaphysical viewpoint is of course incapable of making moral distinctions between, say, the actions of Adolf Hitler and Moses, since there is no essential difference between them as “products” of the grand evolutionary machine.

Indeed the “machine” metaphor that nature operates according to certain “laws” that constitute reality reveals an epistemological weakness to the entire “narrative” of atheism. If human beings have evolved over billions (trillions? quadrillions?) of years in a closed system of cause and effect, then how is human consciousness — itself a product constrained by such impersonal forces — able to transcend the system that programs it to evaluate its meaning and truth? To say that categorically everything evolved by an impersonal system of cause and effect is therefore a self-refuting and metaphysically meaningless claim…

Atheists often claim that God “cannot” exist because the world is so unjust and full of pointless suffering, and yet from what source does this ideal of justice derive? How is it possible to define what “evil” or “good” mean by appealing to natural processes alone? How does the atheist derive any “ought” from any “is” based on the faith that whatever happens ultimately comes from entirely impersonal natural processes? On the grounds of philosophical naturalism (i.e., that there is nothing but “natural elements, principles, and relations” of the kind studied by the natural sciences) there is no such “thing” as “right” or “wrong,” there is no realm of “ought,” but only brute facts of reality, and therefore there is no way to criticize whatever happens since it is, after all, an inevitable and necessary outcome. The only recourse – on naturalism’s grounds – is to claim (with Thrasymachus) that “might makes right” (the survival of the fittest), and to abandon any talk of ethical idealism. Ironically enough, since naturalism reduces (or redefines) morality to mere description of natural processes, it cannot say anything meaningful about what is morally right or wrong at all. In short, atheism is a morally bankrupt philosophy based on irrational thinking, darkness, and despair.

Read more “The Despair of Atheism…”

The Scriptures declare that though the “outward self” (ὁ ἔξω ἡμῶν ἄνθρωπος) inevitably wastes away (διαφθείρω), the “inner self” (ὁ ἔσω ἡμῶν) is being renewed (ἀνακαινόω, i.e., “raised up in newness of life”) day by day (2 Cor. 4:16), which implies that we have nothing to fear regarding our perpetuity and acceptance as God’s beloved children. Therefore we do not “lose heart” (lit., act badly, from ἐκ, “out” + κακός, “badly”). Despite the shadows of this world, we take hold of the words of our Savior, who said: “I give you eternal life, and you will never be destroyed (ἀπόλλυμι), and no one will snatch you out of my hand” (John 10:28). And in another place he likewise said, “Everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die (οὐ μὴ ἀποθάνη)” (John 11:26).

 

Hebrew Lesson:

 

God has redeemed you, friend, and he has called you by your name; he knows you intimately, and you belong to Him. God does not call groups, but rather individuals. The Spirit calls out, “follow me…” The Lord never leaves nor forsakes those who trust in Him, even if they should face waters that seem to overwhelm or fires that seem to devour and consume.

From our Torah this week (i.e., Beha’alotekha) we read: “At the command of the LORD they camped, and at the command of the LORD they set out” (Num. 9:23). This teaches us that God’s Name is to be heeded every step of the way. Whenever we journey someplace, near or far, say, “With God’s help (בעזרת השם) I am going to this place, and I will stay for so long, if it pleases God (אם ירצה השם).” As James the Righteous reminds us, “You do not know what tomorrow will bring. For what is your life?  You are a mere mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes (James 4:14-15).

“Man is like a breath; his days are like a passing shadow” (Psalm 144:4). We share exile with the LORD in this age, as strangers and sojourners with Him; indeed, our lives are hidden with Him, waiting to be revealed (Col. 3:1-4). “The present form (τὸ σχῆμα) of this world is passing away” (1 Cor. 7:31), and the heart of faith looks for a city whose designer and builder is God Himself (Heb. 11:10). “So we do not lose heart… For the things that are seen are turning to dust, but the things that are unseen endure forever” (2 Cor. 4:16-18).

 

Hebrew Lesson:

 

• Prov. 3:6 Hebrew page (pdf)

It has been said that there are two ways to be fooled. One is to believe what isn’t true; the other is to refuse to believe what is… Hence thinking that you are spiritual when you really are not is to deceive yourself, but so also is thinking you are not spiritual when you really are. In the former case you are a hypocrite, but in the latter case you are a person of little faith… If you are willing to honestly examine the status of your spiritual life, see whether you are trusting in your own will to believe, in your own obedience to the moral law, etc., or whether you are trusting in the Reality and power of the resurrected Savior to give you life from the dead…

We’ve learned from repeated failures that “the power of sin is in the law” (1 Cor. 15:56), that is, in the unjustified pride of the flesh (ego) that attempts to validate or justify itself. The business of working on yourself, excusing yourself, defending yourself, and so on runs so deeply within that Paul calls it the “law of sin and death” (תּוֹרַת הַחֵטְא וְהַמָּוֶת). Often we have to keep revisiting the same sins over and over until the message sinks in and we begin to “get it.” Only God Himself knows how many iterations are needed, but the flesh seems irrepressible in its pride and therefore keeps attempting to operate “under the law.” Living under the law, however, means living under the principle of self-justification, which invariably leads to failure, guilt, and the need for further self-justification. “Religion” can serve as a construction of the ego, an acronym that means “easing God out.” The solution to this ever-turning “wheel of sorrow,” this infinite and self-defeating “loop,” is to “die to the law” and its demands and be raised to live in newness of life (Rom. 7:1-6; Gal. 2:19-21).

We read in our Torah portion this week (Beha’alotekha): “Now the man Moses was exceedingly humble, more than any other person on the face of the earth” (Num. 12:3). Note that the word “humble” (i.e., anav: עָנָו) can be rearranged to spell the word “iniquity” (i.e., avon: עוֹן) by swapping the letter Vav (ו), the symbol for man (i.e., “flesh”), in place of the letter Nun (נ), the symbol for life/Yeshua. This suggests that when we put ourselves as the center, we cease to be humble but instead become perverse; conversely, putting Yeshua in the center of your life instills true humility…

 

Hebrew Lesson:

 

• Prov. 16:25 Hebrew page (pdf)

Hebrew Lesson:

 

Those who deny that objective truth exists (or those who deny that something may be known about reality) are themselves making a truth claim, namely the claim that there is no such thing as objective truth (or that real knowledge of the world is not possible). This self-inflicted incoherence is a sign of irrationalism, of course, the abandonment of reason, which perhaps is the ulterior motive for such manner of thinking, after all. The person who denies truth does so to escape the demands of truth – to flee from personal responsibility before moral and spiritual Reality. It is a form of “wish-fulfillment” to say that people are not responsible for what they believe and how they live their lives. Hence our culture’s obsessive “busyness,” its craving for ongoing diversion, entertainment, fantasy, escapism, and so on.

Our generation finds evil in “boredom” and finds nothing of lasting interest because it has forsaken the big questions of life and the pursuit of truth. Popular culture encourages apathy, indifference, and seeks to enslave people to thrills (and fears) of the present moment… The ancient pagan world at least esteemed honor and believed in the pursuit of virtue and truth, but today’s post-Christian world is nihilistic, anarchist, and therefore marks a return to barbarism.

 

What you say about the present state of mankind is true: indeed it is even worse than you say. For they neglect not only the Law of Christ, but even the Law of Nature as known by the Pagans. For now they do not blush at adultery, treachery perjury, theft and other crimes, which I will not say Christian doctors, but the Pagans and Barbarians have themselves denounced. They err who say: “The world is turning pagan again.” Would that it were! The truth is, we are falling into a much worse state. Post-Christian man is not the same as pre-Christian man. He is as far removed as a virgin from a widow … there is a great difference between a spouse-to-come and a spouse sent away. (C.S. Lewis: Latin Letter 23, 1953)

The unintelligible claim that truth does not exist is not unlike the the incoherent claim that there is no God, no Supreme Being, and no Primordial Intelligent Cause for all that exists. For an atheist to seriously claim there is no being in any possible world that fits the description of “God,” he or she would have to be omniscient, omnipotent, and indeed exercise the very attributes of the Being which is denied to anywhere exist…

 

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