News Letter 5852-053
The Shemitah Year-The Acceptable year of Yehovah
The 26th day of the 13th month 5852 years after the creation of Adam
The 13th Month in the Seventh year of the Third Sabbatical Cycle
The 3rd Sabbatical Cycle after the 119th Jubilee Cycle
The Sabbatical Cycle of Earthquakes, Famines and Pestilence
The Year of letting the land rest
The Sabbatical year that begins March 10, Aviv 2016 and goes to Aviv 2017
March 25, 2017
Shalom to The Royal Family of Yehovah,
In The Mail
We received a number of emails this week. Some contending with us about the 3 days and 3 nights and how to count them. I have read their points of view and I do not agree with them.
But the woman who asked the question about the Road to Emmaus was thrilled to hear our response to the question. We did mention this in our 3 days and 3 nights podcast and I hope to have time to do the Road to Emmaus as well in a podcast teaching. We do hope you are benefiting from being able to learn about these things while you are driving or walking about. Again, once we have attained a number of listeners and positive reviews then we can open up to the radio shows.
It is important that you help us by subscribing and ranking the shows each time you can.
Joseph Dumond, I am standing with applauds for this in depth answer and for squelching other non-Biblically based traditions to which we have become accustomed since the days of Constantine. Throughout this news letter, I could clearly see how the powers of darkness have cunningly devised a way to confuse us by taking the truth and twisting it just enough to make it seem believable. It takes time and much effort to peel back the layers to reveal the accuracy and preciseness of The Word. Thank you sincerely for taking the time to investigate this. I can’t thank you enough. May you continue to be richly blessed by Yahovah. Tammy Gose
Podcast Links
I am pleased to announce that James Relf has now begun to teach on our podcasts stations. His first teaching is a dragon slayer.
What I would like to do here is provide you with all the links I can think of with which you can now tune in to the podcasts and listen to those things we are teaching and expounding on. Many times I do not get them into the News Letter and other times we go off on subjects at the spur of the moment that we do not cover in the News Letter.
I do hope they are a blessing to you.
You can rate them. Comment on them and share them. We do thank you for all and any help you give us. Keep praying that we can reach the many yet to hear this end time message about the Sabbatical and Jubilee years.
We post each teaching at Blubrry. And they then distribute the show to each of the other sources we are going to list. You can subscribe to each source or the one you use the most. I know they are getting better with each one we post. Thank you for your patience
http://sightedmoon.blubrry.com/ Â All of our teachings are listed here. You can also leave comments on each show as you listen to them.
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The Shemitah Year Aviv 2016-Aviv 2017
With the Crescent moon being sighted this coming Wednesday March 29, 2017, the New Year will have begun. Those of you who have kept the Sabbatical year this year from Aviv to Aviv will have completed your first one ever in your life. Congratulations! You have moved from being under the curse of the law for not obeying to being in a position where you can receive the blessings for obedience. You have passed another test. The weekly Sabbath, The Holy Days and the Sabbatical year are tests, and you just passed this one.
Exo 16:4Â Â Then said the LORD unto Moses, Behold, I will rain bread from heaven for you; and the people shall go out and gather a certain rate every day, that I may prove them, whether they will walk in my law, or no.
Before we began this Sabbatical year, a number of you wrote to me concerned you would starve to death. As I have not heard from you, I must assume you actually did starve to death. LOL. No, you did it and you have learned many things because you obeyed. Now you can explain why others need to prepare to keep the next Sabbatical year in 2023. It will be much harder to do then. But you start to plan now for it.
So here are the items we are to do during the Sabbatical year. I will post it here for the last time as we come to the close of the 3rd Sabbatical Cycle and begin the 4th Sabbatical cycle in this 120th Jubilee cycle.
You must decide how you are going to work back into the food chain. For me, I do the following. When strawberries come in fresh I then can begin to eat them. When peas and corn are being harvested, then I can begin to eat them at that time. Potatoes will be in August. Wheat products after Shavuot. This is what I am doing and each of you must decide for yourselves.
I pray Yehovah will bless you for having tried and failed, for having tried and succeeded and for have learned so much along the way. Many of you can now teach it and you are now responsible to help share that message. You are part of the restoration of all things.
The Sabbath began to be restored by the Wiliam Miller in the 1831. He was convinced that the Messiah would come back in 1844 which led to the Great disappointment of that year. This became a National movement in the 1840’s as Millerism. From this group came Ellen G. White and the Seventh Day Adventists in 1845.
The Church of God (Seventh Day) represents a line of Sabbatarian Adventists that rejected the visions and teachings of Ellen G. White before the formation of the Seventh-day Adventist Church in 1863. Robert Coulter, ex-president and official historian of the The General Conference of the Church of God (Seventh Day), in his book titled “The Journey: A History of the Church of God (Seventh Day)” (2014) credites Gilbert Cranmer (1814â1903) of Michigan as being the founder of the Church of God (Seventh Day). Gilbert Cranmer was a Christian Connection minister and a Biblical Unitarian. He was introduced to Sabbath keeping in 1852 by Joseph Bates known as the founder and developer of Sabbatarian Adventism. In 1858, five years before the founding of the Seventh-day Adventist Church, a group led by Gilbert Cranmer separated from the Adventists who supported James Springer White and Ellen G. White. Another independent Sabbatarian Adventist body formed in Iowa in 1860, and joined with the Church of God (Seventh Day) in 1863.
A publication called The Hope of Israel (now The Bible Advocate) was started in 1863, and this publication extended the influence of the body into other areas. Through this publication, the doctrines of the second advent and seventh-day Sabbath were promoted, and other Christians were invited to gather for meetings. This extended the movement into Missouri, Nebraska and other places, and in 1884 the General Conference of the Church of God was organized. They incorporated in 1899, and “(Seventh Day)” was added to the name in 1923. Offices were established in Stanberry, Missouri.
A.N. Dugger and C.O. Dodd (1935) wrote a book attempting to trace the Church’s history back to the Apostles through various medieval groups which they believed were Sabbath-keeping. In the case of some of these groups, such as the Waldensians and Paulicians, that claim is disputed.
The Sacred Name Movement (SNM) is a movement within the Church of God (Seventh-Day) in Christianity, propagated by Clarence Orvil Dodd from the 1930s, which claims that it seeks to conform Christianity to its “Hebrew Roots” in practice, belief and worship. The best known distinction of the SNM is its advocacy of the use of the “sacred name” Yahweh, i.e. the reconstructed proper name of the God of Israel, and the use of the original Hebrew name of Jesus), often transcribed as Yahshua. SNM believers also generally keep many of the Old Testament laws and ceremonies such as the Seventh-day Sabbath, Torah festivals and kosher food laws.
The Sacred Name Movement arose in the early 20th century out of the Church of God (Seventh Day) movement. This movement was influenced by Joseph Franklin Rutherford who changed the name of the main branch of the Bible Student movement to Jehovah’s witnesses in 1931, based on his belief in the importance of the Hebrew name of God. C. O. Dodd, a member of the Church of God (Seventh Day), began keeping the Jewish festivals (including Passover) in 1928, adopting sacred name doctrines in the late 1930s.
The Assembly of Yahweh was the first religious organization in the Sacred Name Movement. It was formed in Holt, Michigan, in the 1930s. The Assembly of Yahweh believes the name of the Almighty Yahweh should be used along with his son’s name, Yahshua. They keep the seventh day Sabbath (Friday sunset to Saturday sunset) along with all the scriptural feast days. They believe the Torah (law) was not done away with. They believe Yahshua is the son of Yahweh and that his life, death, burial, and resurrection give us salvation. They believe after a person repents of sin, they should be baptized in the name of Yahshua. They first met in private homes near Lansing, Michigan. Later the assembly was located at The Camp of Yah outside of Eaton Rapids, Michigan. The land was owned by the Smith family, and Pearl Smith was the first pastor of the assembly. For a time after her leadership, the assembly was governed by a group of male elders. Some time in the late 1960s, Samuel Graham was made pastor. The congregation purchased a one-room school house and an additional 79 acres (0.32Â km2) a few miles from the original Camp of Yah. They later put a small addition on the original building. In 2008, the group received an anonymous donation to be used for a larger building. The main meeting room now allows up to 200 to meet for worship.
A well-publicized member of the Church of God (7th Day) was evangelist Herbert W. Armstrong (1893â1986). In 1927 Armstrong was challenged by his wife, Loma, to find a Biblical justification for keeping Sunday as the Christian Sabbath day. Loma had come under the influence of Mrs. Runcorn, a member of the Seventh Day church in the Willamette Valley of Oregon. Emma Runcorn and her husband Ora were lay leaders in the Oregon conference. Armstrong soon became a minister for that church and a writer for the Bible Advocate journal. Within a few years Armstrong began teaching the British-Israel Theory – the alternative history that regarded the nations of Western Europe and North America as the literal descendants of the “Lost Ten Tribes” of Israel – and the mandatory keeping of the Feast Days in Leviticus 23. Armstrong disassociated himself from the Church of God (7th Day) – Salem Conference over these two issues, which were not original doctrines of the Churches of God (7th Day); years later, Church of God (7th Day) revoked his ministerial credentials with their Church, but by this time he was well-established in his own church, the Radio Church of God.
I was first challenged about the Sabbath in 1982 by the Radio Church of God. I began to attend the World Wide Church of God in 1983 and was baptized in 1984. It was here that I first learned about the Holy Days and their meanings. After the death of H.W. Armstrong in 1986 many groups began to splinter off as the church began to go in a new direction. I left the WWCG in 1994 and had to restudy everything I thought I had come to know using only the bible. I had studied and kept the Sabbath and Holy Days by myself for 7 years and when 9/11 took place in 2001, I returned to one of those splinter groups, The United Church of God only to leave them in 2006.
In 2004 I first learned about the crescent moon to begin the month and the barley to begin the year from Nehemiah Gordon and Michael Rood in Lansing, Michigan. In 2005 I had to decide if I was going to obey this new found truth or remain under the Hebrew Calendar. At Passover in 2005 I kept the Holy Days by the Barley and the crescent moon for the first time. It was only then that I had came to understand when the Sabbatical and Jubilee years and when they are. But I could not get any of the leadership in the UCG to hear what I had come to learn. In 2004 I had learned God had a name, Yahweh, as I understood at that time.
In 2005 I began to keep the Holy Days using the Barley to begin the year and the crescent moon to begin the month. At the Feast in 2005 was the first time I had met what I call Messianic brethren. It was also at this Feast I began to speak about the Sabbatical and Jubilee years in public for the first time. In 2008 I spoke in Eaton Rapids, Michigan explaining the Sabbatical and Jubilee years to this other branch of Sabbath Keepers. I also spoke with a group of the Sacred Namers in PA at this time as well, when I was on tour with the Prophecy Club in March of 2008.
2009-2010 Aviv to Aviv was the first time I kept the Sabbatical year. I had returned to Jerusalem for all three chags that year.
Mat 17:11Â Â And Yeshua answered and said unto them, Elias truly shall first come, and restore all things.
First the Sabbath was restored, then the Holy Days and then the Name and and then searching for barley and the sighting of the crescent moon to begin the month. And now the Sabbatical years. And you brethren are now part of this historical restoration of all things.
I had the distinct pleasure at Sukkot this Shmitah year to be at Joshua’s Altar which was the place Joshua read the entire Torah that very first year they entered the land of Israel. That year was a Jubilee year. We did not have time to read the Torah at the altar on this trip, but our entire group read the Torah as commanded at the Gihon Spring 7 days before this day on the first day of Sukkot, Â which is below where the Temple once stood. This was indeed a very special year for me.
Again I am going to share with you the commandments for the Sabbatical year, for the very last time until the next Sabbatical year begin in 7 years time. The Sabbatical year began with the sighting of the moon on the evening of March 10, 2016.
1) Â Do not plant
2)Â Do not harvest
Lev 25:3  You shall sow your field six years, and you shall prune your vineyard six years, and gather in the fruit of it. 4  But in the seventh year shall be a Sabbath of rest to the land, a Sabbath for Jehovah. You shall neither sow your field, nor prune your vineyard. 5  You shall not reap that which grows of its own accord of your harvest, neither gather the grapes of your undressed vine. It is a year of rest to the land.
3) You can eat what grows on itâs own.
Lev 25:6  And the Sabbath of the land shall be food for you, for you and for your servant, and for your slave woman and for your hired servant, and for your stranger who stays with you, 7  and for your cattle, and for the beast that is in your land, shall all the increase of it be for food.
4) Stock up on food in the 6th year.
Lev 25:20  And if you shall say, What shall we eat the seventh year? Behold, we shall not sow nor gather in our increase! 21  Then I will command My blessing on you in the sixth year, and it shall bring forth fruit for three years.
5) Forgive any debts people owed to you by obedience.
Deu 15:1  At the end of every seven years you shall make a release. 2  And this is the manner of the release. Every man who has a loan to his neighbor shall release it. He shall not exact it from his neighbor, or from his brother, because it is called Jehovahâs release. 3  You may exact it from a foreigner, but your hand shall release that which is yours with your brother,
6) Read the Torah out loud at receive so all can hear it being read.
We have linked you to the News Letter with the laws you are to read just by clicking the link above.
Deu 31:10  And Moses commanded them, saying: At the end of seven years, at the set time of the year of release, in the Feast of Tabernacles, 11  when all Israel has come to appear before Jehovah your God in the place which He shall choose, you shall read this Law before all Israel in their hearing. 12  Gather the people, men and women and the little ones, and your stranger who is within your gates, so that they may hear and that they may learn and fear Jehovah your God, and be careful to do all the words of this Law, 13and that their sons who have not known may hear and learn to fear Jehovah your God, as long as you live in the land where you go over Jordan to possess it.
And by now you should also have completed all your obligations to the widows, orphan, and Levites from your tithes for the 6th year that is now past.
Deu 14:28  At the end of three years you shall bring forth all the tithe of your increase the same year, and shall lay it up inside your gates. 29  And the Levite, because he has no part nor inheritance with you, and the stranger, and the fatherless, and the widow, who are inside your gates, shall come, and shall eat and be satisfied, so that Jehovah your God may bless you in all the work of your hand which you do.
Ask Yehovah to bless you for having completed this task and then ask Him to bless your efforts as you keep the Sabbatical year and keep your food safe from decay or flood or hydro blackouts and from scavengers like rodents. Ask Him to protect it and to bless you for keeping His commandments.
Deu 26:12  When you have made an end of tithing all the tithes of your increase the third year, the year of tithing, and have given it to the Levite, the stranger, the fatherless, and the widow (that they may eat inside your gates and be filled), 13  then you shall say before Jehovah your God, I have brought away the holy things out of my house, and also have given them to the Levite, and to the stranger, to the fatherless, and to the widow, according to all Your commandments which You have commanded me. I have not broken Your commandments, neither have I forgotten. 14  I have not eaten of it in my mourning, neither have I putany of it away for unclean use, nor have I given of it for the dead. I have listened to the voice of Jehovah my God, and have done according to all that You have commanded me. 15  Look down from Your holy dwelling, from Heaven, and bless Your people Israel and the land which You have given us, as You swore to our fathers, a land that flows with milk and honey. 16  Today Jehovah your God has commanded you to do these statutes and judgments. You therefore shall keep and do them with all your heart and with all your soul. 17  You have today said that Jehovah is your God, and that you would walk in His ways, and keep His statutes and His commandments and His judgments, and listen to His voice. 18  And Jehovah has taken you today to be His peculiar people, as He has promised you, and to keep all His commandments, 19 and to make you high above all nations which He has made, in praise and in name and in honor, and that you may be a holy people to Jehovah your God, even as He has spoken.
May Yehovah bless each and every one of you for keeping the Sabbatical year commandment and breaking the curses that are upon our nations because we have not kept them in the past.
Getting the Leaven Out
You can listen to this teaching on one of our podcast channels. Here are the two links.
https://www.blubrry.com/sightedmoon/21935562/remove-your-leaven-sightedmoon-podcasts/
https://www.blubrry.com/sightedmoon/22061268/remove-the-leaven-pt2-sightedmoon-podcasts/
I was planning on starting with a new series that I was working on but I thought that with Passover just around the corner and being that for some of us just coming out of a Sabbatical year, that I would talk about that oh-so-common discussion of âLeavenâ in relation to Passover.
For all of us who keep the Passover which as we know is the first of the yearly Feasts or Moedim, laid out for us in Leviticus 23. Now it starts out with the Sabbath, then moves on to Pesah or Passover in verse 6.
So let’s get started:
1 Corinthians 5:6-8:Â â6 Your boasting is not good. Do you not know that a little leaven leavens the whole lump? 7 Cleanse out the old leaven that you may be a new lump, as you really are unleavened. For Messiah, our Passover lamb, has been sacrificed. 8 Let us therefore celebrate the festival, not with the old leaven, the leaven of malice and evil, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.â
What is the leaven that is spoken about here? Most people would say if they are familiar with this term, would probably say it is âSINâ. To be honest for many years I thought the same way because I did not take the time to search this out and prove it to myself what leaven was. So letâs carry on. I believe now that sin is a result of the leaven but scripture does not tell us that sin is leaven. It has another definition of leaven, turn to Matthew 16:1-12
1 And the Pharisees and Sadducees came, and to test him they asked him to show them a sign from heaven. 2 He answered them, âWhen it is evening, you say, âIt will be fair weather, for the sky is red.â 3 And in the morning, âIt will be stormy today, for the sky is red and threatening.â You know how to interpret the appearance of the sky, but you cannot interpret the signs of the times. 4 An evil and adulterous generation seeks for a sign, but no sign will be given to it except the sign of Jonah.â So he left them and departed. 5 When the disciples reached the other side, they had forgotten to bring any bread. 6 Messiah said to them, âWatch and beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and Sadducees.â 7 And they began discussing it among themselves, saying, âWe brought no bread.â 8 But Messiah, aware of this, said, âO you of little faith, why are you discussing among yourselves the fact that you have no bread? 9 Do you not yet perceive? Do you not remember the five loaves for the five thousand, and how many baskets you gathered? 10 Or the seven loaves for the four thousand, and how many baskets you gathered? 11 How is it that you fail to understand that I did not speak about bread? Beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and Sadducees.â 12 Then they understood that he did not tell them to beware of the leaven of bread, but of the teaching of the Pharisees and Sadducees.
So here we can see that Yeshua is not saying directly that it is âsinâ but that it has something to do with the Pharisees & Sadducees and their teachings. So what was it about these that the Messiah did not like? Letâs look at Luke 12:1 for a better idea of what is being discussed here.
1 In the meantime, when so many thousands of the people had gathered together that they were trampling one another, he began to say to his disciples first, âBeware of the leaven of the Pharisees, which is hypocrisy. 2 nothing is covered up that will not be revealed, or hidden that will not be known.â
We already have many Torah commandments that teach us what SIN is, and the more we study the Torah the more we are reminded not to sin and break the commandments. But what Yeshua is talking about here is a distinction of those who walk in an illusion of keeping Torah and submission to the Almighty, but inside hidden from everyone, because they were being hypocrites, was the truth. The truth was they were not walking the walk that they wanted the world to believe they were walking. In other words they put on a good show for everyone but that was where it ended.
Now letâs look at Matthew 23 for a more detail explanation of what the Messiah and Paul are talking and that it is not sin even though there is sin involved but that leaven is something more. So letâs start at verse 13 and pay attention to how many times Yeshua repeats Himself when talking about the Pharisees & Sadducees.
I think that we can all agree that we should pay attention if the Messiah mentions something to us that we need to learn but let’s see how many times he repeats Himself here:
1)Â Â Â Â Matthew 23:13 13 âBut woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites!
2)Â Â Â Â Matthew 23:14 14Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites!
3)Â Â Â Â Matthew 23:15 15 Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites!
4)Â Â Â Â Matthew 23:23 23 âWoe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites!
5)Â Â Â Â Matthew 23:25 25 âWoe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites!
6)Â Â Â Â Matthew 23:27 27 âWoe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites!
7)Â Â Â Â Matthew 23:29 29 âWoe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites!
We have a total of 7 times that the Messiah calls them âhypocritesâ. Anyone who has done a study on the numbers in Torah can tell you that 7 is the number for completeness, perfection. I can assure you that the Messiah was not calling them perfect or compete. I encourage each and every one of you to read through these âWoesâ which are listed above as we examine ourselves at this time of the year.
Now to better understand what Messiah is talking about I want to go into more detail about each of these seven woes. Lets start with:
 Matthew 23:13 13 But woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you shut up the kingdom of heaven against men: for you neither go in yourselves, neither suffer you them that are entering to go in.
In other words; âThey taught about God but did not love God â they did not enter the kingdom of heaven themselves, nor did they let others enter.â According to the Rabbiâs you would have to have to keep the Talmud as well as the Torah before you were allowed in. Which is adding to the Torah, again something we are not allowed to do but they made it mandatory and this was what Paul was saying when he mentions that âthe law itself, does not obligate the Almighty to let you inâ. He wasnât talking about the Torah but about the added oral commandments in the Talmud.
What they had done was basically bypass the process that takes it to the heart and changes us, to just being a work that has to be done to gain access to the Kingdom. Here we see the dreaded misunderstood phrase that Paul teaches, âwe are not saved by worksâ, that so many people seem to use as a crutch or stumbling block because they obviously do not understand that if you truly walked in obedience and kept Torah then you would be transformed and your transformation would manifest itself in your works or walk.
We see this in Galatians 5:22-23 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, 23 Meekness, temperanceâ, where we see the fruits of the spirit or what you have learned and how you apply the Torah commandments. There is nothing here about earning your way in through works or your salvation is dependent on it. More proof of this is shown us in Deut 8:2 where we see that the Almighty tells us that He will take us though the wilderness and test us to make us humble and see our true heart. Without the testing its just words, which is what is being addressed here by Yeshua when he address the Pharisees & Sadducees.
Matthew 23:14 14Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you devour widowsâ houses, and for a pretense make long prayer: therefore ye shall receive the greater damnation.
So what we have here is really spoken to those ministries that are taking money from people who really canât afford it and making this into a business and then cover up this heartless act with long winded prayers to make themselves look good but has no value or assists those who want to gain access to the Kingdom. The only one who comes out of this with anything is the Pharisees.
Matthew 23:15 Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you travel across sea and land to make a single convert, and when he becomes a convert, you make him twice as much a child of hell as yourselves.
Again for the third time, we see Yeshua talking about seeking converts only to have them under their thumb and then teach them false teachings and away from the Truth of Torah, which in the end gets the person who is seeking entry to the Kingdom nowhere and no closer to the Kingdom. We can see this every day for those who step into a church under the guise of walking in obedience and salvation, by following a messiah that does not keep the Torah. That it was all nailed to the cross and done away with, just one lie after another and because those coming in do not know any better, they believe and are lead to their own death. It’s almost like they teach that you can have your salvation without any consequences because you donât have to eat kosher, keep Torah, keep the Feasts, keep the Sabbath or Sabbatical years, I mean, what else is there?
So what we have is a Kingdom that is rule free. To be honest it does not sound like the Kingdom of Heaven because nowhere in scripture do I see that anyone gets a free ride and has no accountability. The Father has rules for His Kingdom and only those that follow those rules outlined in the Torah will be allowed a chance to enter. At this point there is no way that anyone has the right to say who gets in and who does not, because we have not stood before the Father and been judged by Him yet. It is ONLY then that anyone will know with any certainty if they are welcome or not. One thing is for certain and that is, if one is not following Torah because they believe it is done away with, then they will never enter the Kingdom because they refused to do as the Almighty has outlined in His instructions called the Torah. Letâs continue with one more scripture before I close this session for today and we will continue on after that another day.
Matthew 23:23-24 âWoe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you tithe mint and dill and cumin, and have neglected the weightier matters of the law: justice and mercy and faithfulness. These you ought to have done, without neglecting the others. 24 You blind guides, straining out a gnat and swallowing a camel!â
We can see here that you canât do the mechanics, which means learning it in our heads without processing it through our heart. Tithing needs to be done, but with the right spirit and heart. You can keep the Feasts and keep Sabbath and eat correctly, but if you do not treat people with meekness, humbleness, kindheartedness, gentleness and so on which is the more difficult things to do, then our efforts are hypocritical just like the Pharisees. As my wife always tells me, there are two sides to Torah – the physical and spiritual. We can do all the physical things but if we do not change inside, the spiritual, then we have not obtained the Heart of YHVH, and I believe that is why He gives us these things to do, to prove the condition and change our heart towards Him and our fellow brothers in the faith. So where is your heart if you were to stand before Him today? Would you be welcomed or turned away?
Letâs continue with the âWoesâ from Matthew 23 starting with verse 25.
Matthew 23:25 âWoe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you clean the outside of the cup and the plate, but inside they are full of greed and self-indulgence.
They presented an appearance of being ‘clean’ (self-restrained, not involved in carnal matters), yet they were dirty inside: they seethed with hidden worldly desires, carnality. They were full of greed and self-indulgence.
We can have all the mechanics or knowledge of the Bible and appear the part of the perfect Christian, but remember what Paul said, that just because we know it all, does not mean that you are guaranteed a spot in the Kingdom. In reality there is only one salvation issue, are you becoming the type of person that the Almighty is going to want to give âforeverâ to in the Kingdom? Just because we know the Torah does not mean we have to flaunt it in front of others or always beat others up because they do not know as much as you do. Where is you heart and compassion towards others? Outward appearance vs. inward truth, this is the hypocrisy that Yeshua is speaking about here.
Matthew 23:27-28 27 âWoe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you are like whitewashed tombs, which outwardly appear beautiful, but within are full of dead people’s bones and all uncleanness. 28 So you also outwardly appear righteous to others, but within you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness.
This ties right in with the previous verse whereas the previous verse was talking about knowledge and here it is talking about physical appearance. They exhibited themselves as righteous on account of being scrupulous keepers of the law, but were in fact not righteous: their mask of righteousness hid a secret inner world of ungodly thoughts and feelings. They were full of wickedness. Remember what the Almighty says, âeverything that is hidden will be revealed.â We think we are more than we really are and we have to guard against these thoughts or we will become self-righteous.
In Philippians 2:12 it tells us to, âwork out your own salvation with fear and trembling,â which means that we need to stop and think before we start trying to change others because we think we know it all. We will have more than enough to work through and change if only we take the time to really examine ourselves with, âsincerity and truthâ 1Cor. 5:8.
Matthew 23:29-30 29 âWoe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you build the tombs of the prophets and decorate the monuments of the righteous, 30 saying, âIf we had lived in the days of our fathers, we would not have taken part with them in shedding the blood of the prophets.â
They professed a high regard for the dead prophets of old and claimed that they would never have persecuted and murdered prophets, when in fact they were cut from the same cloth as the persecutors and murderers: they too had murderous blood in their veins.
So contrary to what we may have always been told, leaven does not represent sin, per se, but represents hypocrisy and voluntary blindness in our approach to Torah and its application.
So the Pharisees received all these woes, because they chose to for their own en-grandeurment, if that is even a word, a path where they would choose to be blind to what they could see because it served their purposes, rather than the Almightyâs. It was the voluntary blindness that got them in trouble simply because it threatened their authority, their position, and their comfortable lives.
This type of hypocrisy is a lot like deceit because you are lying to yourselves and then it spreads, and you start deceiving the world because on the outside you are saying one thing but on the inside you have something completely different.
Okay so where do we look for the leaven? The leaven of the Pharisees was evident from their daily walk. In other words it could be seen by looking at their daily activities. If we were to closely examine our own daily walk, what would we find? Letâs go to Psalms 26:1 and see what David does.
Psalms 26:1-5 1 Judge me, O YHVH; for I have walked in my integrity: I have trusted in YHVH, without wavering. 2 Examine me, O YHVH, and prove me; try my kidneys and my heart. 3 For your loving-commitment is before mine eyes: and I have walked in thy truth. 4 I have not sat with men of falsehood, nor do I enter with pretenders. 5 I have hated the assembly of evildoers; and I do not sit with the wrong.
Here is Davidâs approach. In verse 1 he says that he walks in his integrity. This is why he was a man after YHVHâs own heart. This seems to be the complete opposite to walking in hypocrisy. So we need to see if in our own walk we are walking in integrity. If we look up the word âintegrityâ we find the definition: âthe quality of being honest and having strong moral principles; moral uprightness.â
If you are serious about this walk maybe offer up the prayer that David mentions in verse 2:
âExamine me, O YHVH, and prove me; try my kidneys and my heartâ, in other words test me. Lets see if, Deuteronomy 8:2 âto humble you, prove you, to know what was in your heart, whether you guard his commandments, or notâ.
Before you do this, make sure you are ready to ask for this because it will come and you will be humbled and tested. I have seen this too many times in my own life to know, not to ask this lightly. He will test you and show you what is truly in your heart but be prepared because you may not like what He shows you there.
If you were to be examined, letâs just put this into a courtroom scenario. If we were to put you up on the stand and examine you, would there be enough evidence there to convict you of being an Israelite? To being a follower of Yeshua, to being a follower of YHVH instructions and teaching in His Torah? Is there enough evidence to convict you of walking in belief and in truth?
James 1:19-24 19 So then, my beloved brothers: let every man be swift to hear, slow to speak, slow to anger; 20 for the wrath of man does not work the righteousness of Elohim. 21 Therefore put away all filthiness and overflow of evil, and receive with meekness the implanted word, which is able to save your lives. 22 But become doers of the Word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves.
This is the hypocrisy right here.
23 Because if anyone is a hearer of the Word and not a doer, he is like a man who looks at his natural face in a mirror. 24 For he looks at himself and goes away and immediately forgets what he was like.
This is the big problem. Are we looking in the mirror and seeing all the blemishes and then walking away and thinking we look perfect?
James 1:25-27 25 But the one who looked into the perfect Torah, that of freedom, and continues in it, not becoming a hearer that forgets, but a doer of work, this one shall be blessed in his doing. 26 If anyone among you thinks he is religious, but does not bridle his tongue but deceives his own heart, this one’s religion is worthless.
Right here we have the biggest problem of all. The tongue is the biggest piece of the puzzle for us being like the Pharisees and Sadducees because it is our talk that expresses our hypocrisies. Yeshua said that it was not what goes into a man but what comes out, this is what He was talking about.
There is also a verse that says, and I am just quoting, âOut of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks.â This is where the hypocrisy is evident because when you are trying to put forth the appearance of righteousness and then you open your mouth, the truth is revealed. We need to be constantly examining ourselves so that we do not have that problem.
Letâs imagine a scenario where, as we mentioned before that we were going to be put on trial and the evidence would be brought forward against you. Now imagine that Yeshua was going to be spending one year with you, going everywhere you go, watching everything you do at home, work, watching TV or what you are doing on the internet, how much time you spend in prayer, or studying Torah, how you keep the Sabbath or Festivals, how you treat each other, what is coming out of your mouth, and all this will be brought before the Almighty where we are and will be judged one day. What will Yeshua tell the Father about you in that court case and it will happen exactly like that? We all have our date in court and this is one date we canât miss. At that point we will have to give an answer for everything that we have done and said in our lives, and YHVH we will not fooled by any hypocrisy. So do you have any leaven of the Pharisees?
In Philippians 2:5
âlet this mind be in you which was also in Messiah Yeshua.â The key word here is âletâ, that is the hardest part. You can stop the whole process and donât have to let it be there, be in you. So what is going on in your mind? Is every thought being taken into captivity?
What do you think about, meditate on, and worry about? How much time do you spend each day in prayer, study and meditation of Torah? Is it as much time as you spend watching television or playing games that bear no fruit?
This is just another area that we need to be looking for the hypocrisy of the Pharisees in every aspect of our lives, if we are going to walk according to Torah. We no longer have the option to be nice and loving to one person who agrees with us and then bad mouth another just because they do not agree with something that we do or say. We have to step past that now and look deeper into ourselves than we have ever looked before, and before that time is run out and we no longer have the time to look.
In Lamentations 3:40 âlet us search and examine our ways and turn back to YHVHâ.
The whole point of this process is that we get the opportunity NOW to examine ourselves and teshuva, turn and go back to YHVH.
2 Corinthians 13:5 5 Examine yourselves, whether you are in the belief – prove yourselves. Or do you not know yourselves that Yeshua Messiah is in you, unless you are disapproved.â
We need to examine ourselves to see what we believe. Just because you may have made a confession does not mean that you are in the belief. The only thing you have that will prove if you are in the belief is your walk, thatâs it! Examine your walk.
James 2:18 âI will show you my faith by my worksâ.
So it is your works that demonstrate you belief and is a manifestation of your faith. I hope that is clear.
I Corinthians 11:28 âBut let a man examine himself, and so let him eat of that bread and drink of that cup.â
As we head into Passover when we eat of that bread and drink of that cup, something that we should be doing every day. I am not talking about that as a ritual but eating of the bread of Torah and drinking the wine of the Messiah and we need to be examining ourselves as we approach that time to see if there is any leaven within us. Because if there is then instead of hearing, âWell done my good and faithful servantâ we may hear, âWoe unto youâ, for acting just like the Pharisees and Scribes.
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ADDENDUM to Podcast on Leaven
I wanted to make a statement regarding something that I said in my podcast about fearing the Day of Judgement when we will all stand before YHVH and be judged on our efforts and walk during this time here on earth. I said that I feared that day, because in truth it will be a day that many of us who say that they are following YHVH, will find out the truth that they have not been doing it according to His Word.
My remarks are based focused on my past, which is something we, as man, do much too often instead of focusing on the present. The here and now is the only thing we can live in and deal with at one time. Let me remind each and every one who reads this news letter, if we follow Torah and do as instructed then doing Teshuvah, meaning when we fall away or make mistakes, we repent and return to YHVH, we WILL be forgiven of our mistakes and when that day does come, they will not be remembered by YHVH.
So as a word of encouragement, I want to say that although this news letter is about leaven, we do have the choice to change who we are by keeping Torah and allowing Him into our hearts. In doing so those things that we let control us over the years will be removed, then when we stand before the Almighty we can receive the grace we have sought for so many years and enter His Kingdom, knowing that all of the struggles, effort, and sacrifices have been worth the prize yet before us. Do not give up hope or let your past hold you in the past. If the Almighty can forget your past then it is about time we did as well, and learn from the instructions He has given to us and walk in His understanding with confidence. Shalom
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