WRITINGS
“There is a way that seems right to a man, But its end is the way of death” (Proverbs 14:12 & 16:25, NKJV). Yeshua affirmed this when He said, “Enter by the narrow gate; for wide is the gate and broad is the way that leads to destruction, and there are many who go in by it. Because narrow is the gate and difficult is the way which leads to life, and there are few who find it” (Matthew 7:13-14).
The Exodus from Egypt and the liberation of the Jewish people from slavery marked the birth of the nation of Israel, and is considered by the Jewish people to be the single most important event in their history. The delivery itself was both miraculous and divinely orchestrated entirely at His hand. The Lord had sent Moses to Pharaoh to deliver this message; “Let my people go, that they may hold a feast to Me in the wilderness” (Exodus 5:1, NKJV).
The Latin word “Ex Nihilo” (yesh me-ayin in Hebrew), means out of nothing, and is used to describe God’s creation of the universe and His forming of life from nothingness. Let us therefore ask this question: Can something actually be created out of nothing? Rationally, our minds would tell us no. But if we believe—by faith—that God created the universe ex nihilo, which is both irrational and seemingly impossible to comprehend, then we can also conclude that the universe cannot continue to exist apart from the One who created it.
On Friday, January 20, 2017, my son and I attended the inauguration for President Donald John Trump. Truth be told, I would have preferred to watch it from the warmth and comfort of my living room, and with our new high definition television, the details of the ceremony would have been far more visible. Still I felt there would be something magical about actually being there.
It is said by the Jewish rabbis that parents receive a glimmer of divine inspiration when they give their child a Hebrew name. We can clearly see evidence of this in scripture, “But while he thought about these things, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream, saying, ‘Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take to you Mary your wife, for that which is conceived in her is of the Holy Spirit. And she will bring forth a Son, and you shall call His name Jesus, for He will save His people from their sins’” (Matthew 1:20-21).
I find it interesting how the church has reached a place where the mere expression ‘we are no longer under the law,’ has somehow erased God’s moral standards as a prerequisite for living a holy and sanctified Christian life. In fact I believe it has led some into apostasy due to a lack of accountability, and has begun to present the world a church that looks very much the same.
“For I could wish that I myself were accursed from Christ [Yeshua] for my brethren, my countrymen according to the flesh, who are Israelites, to whom pertain the adoption, the glory, the covenants, the giving of the law, the service of God, and the promises; of whom are the fathers and from whom, according to the flesh, Christ came, who is over all, the eternally blessed God. Amen” (Romans 9:3-5).
Much has been written about the Old and the New Covenants. Clearly from scripture we find the new is a better covenant. However, does the Old Covenant still serve a purpose in the life of a Christian today? There are many arguments on both sides; some claiming the law has been completely superseded by the New Covenant—called supersessionism—while others within the Messianic Community still follow the Law of Moses, claiming the law is an eternal statute given to the Jewish people.
The year was 2002, and our family was living in Merrimack, New Hampshire. We began attending a conservative Baptist Church just down the street, a traditional New England church building with a white steeple and bell tower.
I was a new believer in Jesus, but I was confused about Christianity. Did my Jewish heritage mean anything? After all, I knew that Jesus was a Jewish man. And wasn’t His actual name Joshua, pronounced Yehoshua in Hebrew?
We read, “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth” (Genesis 1:1).
The first word in Hebrew is Be-reisheet. This word signifies the very act of creation—God brought “being” into existence from “non-being,” something from nothing. In the beginning (Be’reisheet), the Lord God-YHVH made everything perfect. Each living organism on earth is divinely planned and woven into the most remarkable fabric of creation, a living tapestry of God’s artwork. Every detail is carefully and methodically executed by the wisdom of God, for creation without wisdom would be chaos. But the universe is far from that. It is intelligently designed by God’s hand. Each star and speck of dust moved into place, every planet in our solar system carefully aligned, and the earth itself delicately cloaked in a firmament of water and oxygen, a biosphere capable of sustaining all life.
The story of David, an ordinary boy raised to extraordinary heights by an extraordinary God. The Son of Jesse, a simple shepherd boy chosen by God to be the King of Israel. And the only figure in the bible to be called: “A man after God’s own Heart.” In so many ways David is given to us as a type of Yeshua, a preeminence of Him to come.
In God’s infinite wisdom He has woven into the fabric of humanity a plan for the redemption of fallen man. We can see that by His divine election that He has preserved a seed that extends from Adam through Noah, Abraham and King David, ultimately bringing forth the Messiah Yeshua, the stem and the root of Jesse, and the branch and arm of God. But with Abraham, God made a covenant to create a nation that would literally become ‘one’ with Him. To understand His purpose for humanity we must look to Israel, for she is the only nation on earth to receive direct revelation of God, and the only nation to be born of His Covenant.
