Evil is oh so Cutesy Wootsy!

Evil is oh so Cutesy Wootsy!

Rabbi Yehudah ben Shomeyr

Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil; that put darkness for light, and light for darkness; that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter! – Isa. 5:20

This is the number one objective, the prime directive, the method of operation in the war room of Satan himself.

Lest Satan should get an advantage of us: for we are not ignorant of his devices. – II Cor. 2:11

In Satanism, he is often prayed to or addressed in the reverse, in a backward chant, whether it be a living or dead language it is pronounced and said backwards. Satanism habitually inverts or puts upside down symbols such as the pentagram and the cross. This is Satan’s fingerprint and calling card. He does the opposite and flips things around and upside down.

Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil; that put darkness for light, and light for darkness; that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter! – Isa. 5:20

This verse is all about this day and age we live in:

·       Militias and law abiding gun owners practicing their right to bear arms and is our first line of homeland defense if civil unrest. Has been since America began! Now this is suddenly seen as evil and such persons who believe this are unruly extremists who should have their guns taken away. People are calling good evil and evil good.

·       Saving money and precious metals for the future and non-perishable items for a natural disaster is seen now as hoarding and only crazy conspiracy theorist would do that. Such folk need to have their goods taken away and distributed among those in need and they need to be locked up. They are a danger to society. People are calling good evil and evil good.

·       Believing in the sanctity of marriage between one man and one woman is now seen as self-righteous, old fashioned, narrow minded, intolerant, prejudice and bigoted as well as a hatemongering hate crime. People are calling good evil and evil good.

·       Believing and declaring any moral absolutes is now seen as self-righteous, old fashioned, narrow minded, intolerant, prejudice and bigoted. People are calling good evil and evil good.

Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil; that put darkness for light, and light for darkness; that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter! – Isa. 5:20

Those who know me well, knows I am not hung up on paganism to the point of being a paga-phobic and deeming virtually everything as pagan. Nonetheless, evil and that which is pagan at the root is covered in a veneer of cute and cuddly fluffiness, and is thus blindly accepted by the masses. Those who decided to celebrate the Feasts of the LORD instead are seen as strange, unpatriotic, self-righteous, and such folks are deemed as bad parents for depriving our children of fun. After all, how can harmless, cute and cuddly fun be evil!?

·       Eggs dipped in the blood of sacrificed infants and ritualized cultic sex unto a fertility goddess are now replaced with pastel colored eggs and multiplying cute and cuddly furry bunnies and downy chicks. People are calling good evil and evil good.

·       The night when virgins daughters are kept under lock and key lest they be kidnapped, defiled and or sacrificed. The night where produce is carved into frightening visages to ward off evil spirits and food is placed outside to appease the spirits has become a time to dress up as cute, puppy-eyes, bobble headed ghouls with plastic jack-o-lantern buckets in which to collect candy in door to door. People are calling good evil and evil good.

·       The darkest time of the year when all nature seemed dead, where folks would leave candles burning in every window, when the elemental spirits and phallic gods would be offered gifts in order to hasten the coming of spring has become a commercialized, hedonistic time for your materialistic wishes to be granted. People are calling good evil and evil good.

Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil; that put darkness for light, and light for darkness; that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter! – Isa. 5:20

The Evil One asks oh so innocently, “Come now, how can something so cute and fun be pagan, harmful or evil?”

Lay a woolen fleece upon a wolf or but a bowtie on a bear get him to balance upon a ball and see how cute and cuddly they really are if you try and snuggle up to them. They may look cute and cuddly, but they are nonetheless deadly and ravenously wild animals.

As the old saying goes, no matter if you take a pile of manure, spray it with perfume and put it into a jewel incrusted silver box and put a gilded bow around it, inside it is still manure.

Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil; that put darkness for light, and light for darkness; that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter! – Isa. 5:20

People, we must repent, stand up, be counted and pray.

If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land – II Chron. 7:14

Yeshua Said, “Don’t Touch Me!”

Yeshua Said, “Don’t Touch Me!”

Rabbi Yehudah ben Shomeyr

But Mary stood without at the sepulchre weeping: and as she wept, she stooped down, and looked into the sepulchre, And seeth two angels in white sitting, the one at the head, and the other at the feet, where the body of Jesus had lain. And they say unto her, Woman, why weepest thou? She saith unto them, Because they have taken away my Lord, and I know not where they have laid him. And when she had thus said, she turned herself back, and saw Jesus standing, and knew not that it was Jesus. Jesus saith unto her, Woman, why weepest thou? whom seekest thou? She, supposing him to be the gardener, saith unto him, Sir, if thou have borne him hence, tell me where thou hast laid him, and I will take him away. Jesus saith unto her, Mary. She turned herself, and saith unto him, Rabboni; which is to say, Master. Jesus saith unto her, Touch me not; for I am not yet ascended to my Father: but go to my brethren, and say unto them, I ascend unto my Father, and your Father; and to my God, and your God. – John 20:11-17

“Don’t touch me!” Ever wonder why Yeshua said that to Miriam (Mary), it seems to always strike Western readers as Yeshua was being snotty or aloof.

For goodness sake Yeshua, she’s glad You’re alive! You could have at least patted her on the back and said, “There, there, it’s okay.”

But again, it is due to Gentile ignorance and bias that we would ever think such. So, ever wonder the real reason why Yeshua said this to Mary? To find out guess where we have to go? That’s right, the Torah, the Law.

And the Lord spake unto Moses, saying, Speak unto the children of Israel, and say unto them, When ye be come into the land which I give unto you, and shall reap the harvest thereof, then ye shall bring a sheaf of the firstfruits of your harvest unto the priest: And he shall wave the sheaf before the Lord, to be accepted for you: on the morrow after the sabbath the priest shall wave it. And ye shall offer that day when ye wave the sheaf an he lamb without blemish of the first year for a burnt offering unto the Lord. And the meat offering thereof shall be two tenth deals of fine flour mingled with oil, an offering made by fire unto the Lord for a sweet savour: and the drink offering thereof shall be of wine, the fourth part of an hin. And ye shall eat neither bread, nor parched corn, nor green ears, until the selfsame day that ye have brought an offering unto your God: it shall be a statute for ever throughout your generations in all your dwellings. And ye shall count unto you from the morrow after the sabbath, from the day that ye brought the sheaf of the wave offering; seven sabbaths shall be complete: Even unto the morrow after the seventh sabbath shall ye number fifty days; and ye shall offer a new meat offering unto the Lord. – Lev. 23:9-16

The Sunday after the weekly Sabbath that occurs after Passover begins for Messianic and Natsari believers the Counting of the Omer and during the Passion week, this feel on the 17^th of Nissan. According to Torah this is when the First Fruit offering was presented in the Temple. Yeshua, typifying and bringing full meaning and fulfillment to this Offering, Yeshua was the First Fruits, the Best, Brightest and Most perfect from all who had been resurrected.

Jesus, when he had cried again with a loud voice, yielded up the ghost. And, behold, the veil of the temple was rent in twain from the top to the bottom; and the earth did quake, and the rocks rent; And the graves were opened; and many bodies of the saints which slept arose, And came out of the graves after his resurrection, and went into the holy city, and appeared unto many. – Matt. 27:50-53

Yeshua needed to be on time in heaven to appear in the Heavenly Temple before the Father as THE First Fruit offering.

But now is Christ risen from the dead, [and] become the firstfruits of them that slept. – I Cor. 15:20

It’s not that Yeshua didn’t want to be touched, or touched by a woman. It did not render Him an invalid offering. Notice He did not say, “Great! Just Great! I have been tainted by human hands, yea, a woman’s hand and cannot present myself as a pure and unblemished firstfruit offering before my Father! Nice going Mary!” No, Yeshua did not say that. If you read the passages in the Greek, Hebrew and Aramaic what Yeshua said doesn’t sound so harsh. We should read it as, “Don’t cling to me (for I cannot be late).”

HE IS RISEN HALLELUYAH!!!

OMER DAY 5

“Today is five days of the Omer.”

·       Theme of the week: Chesed – Loving kindness

·       Theme of the day: Hod - Glory

·       Overall Theme: “The Glory of His loving-kindness.”

The full realization and fruition of the Love of YHWH for us is when we see the Son coming for us in all His Glory and we in turn will be glorified at His appearing.

John 1:14 And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth.

Luke 9:26 For whosoever shall be ashamed of me and of my words, of him shall the Son of man be ashamed, when he shall come in his own glory, and in his Father's, and of the holy angels.

Col. 3:4 When Christ, who is our life, shall appear, then shall ye also appear with him in glory.

II Thess. 1:7-12 And to you who are troubled rest with us, when the Lord Jesus shall be revealed from heaven with his mighty angels, In flaming fire taking vengeance on them that know not God, and that obey not the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ: Who shall be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord, and from the glory of his power; When he shall come to be glorified in his saints, and to be admired in all them that believe (because our testimony among you was believed) in that day. Wherefore also we pray always for you, that our God would count you worthy of this calling, and fulfil all the good pleasure of his goodness, and the work of faith with power: That the name of our Lord Jesus Christ may be glorified in you, and ye in him, according to the grace of our God and the Lord Jesus Christ.

I Thess. 4:17-18 Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord. Wherefore comfort one another with these words.

I Cor. 10:31 Whether therefore ye eat, or drink, or whatsoever ye do, do all to the glory of God.

Glory is likened unto light and to glorify brings the connotation to shed light upon or to praise. So until Messiah returns we are to be tantalizing hints and reflections of such Glory.

Matt. 5:16 Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven.

The Traditional text to read is Psalm 119:33-40:

33     ¶ HE. Teach me, O LORD, the way of thy statutes; and I shall keep it unto the end.

Boy, David really wants to know G-d’s Chukim, even if he doesn’t understand it he says he wants to keep them. I have heard many well meaning people say they will not follow Torah until they understand it, and that is noble, you certainly want to understand why they are doing what they are doing. But this can be a devil’s cop-out too. If it was a matter of truly understanding all of G-d’s 613 Mitzvot, I would never begin to obey one. All of them are so deep and multi-faceted that no one can truly understand them fully because they come from the mind of an infinite G-d to a finite creation.

34     Give me understanding, and I shall keep thy law; yea, I shall observe it with my whole heart.

He says that he will keep G-ds Laws even if he doesn’t understand them, but here he is praying for that understanding anyway. Because to understand is to fulfill with a full, joyous and fully engaged heart. 

35     ¶ Make me to go in the path of thy commandments; for therein do I delight.

Clearly keeping the Torah wasn’t some laborious, burdensome task to David. He loved it, he enjoyed it, and in a way he is saying that even in the rare times that, “I don’t wanna”, he says make me “wanna”.

36     Incline my heart unto thy testimonies, and not to covetousness.

And with bounty come that temptation of greed and covetousness for more. David is saying, “Let my motive always be pure and true, don’t let me glory in the tools that You give me to fulfill Your Commands.” If he covets, he wants to covet the true life stories of His Word. He is asking G-d to tune his ear to understand these true life, historical stories of G-d’s actions on behalf of His people Israel.

37     ¶ Turn away mine eyes from beholding vanity; and quicken thou me in thy way.

Basically as his son Solomon would say in Ecclesiastes that all is vain but His Torah. David says, enliven me to be able to keep Your Torah.

38     ¶ Stablish thy word unto thy servant, who is devoted to thy fear.

David is T-totally submitted to YHWH, He says, “Go ahead G-d lay down the Law to me and I will follow it, Your wish is my command.”

39     ¶ Turn away my reproach which I fear: for thy judgments are good.

David knows how bad he can really be and that scares him, he knows that adhering to G-d’s Toarh can change all that when he submits to them.

40     ¶ Behold, I have longed after thy precepts: quicken me in thy righteousness.

David desires all of G-d’s Torah, especially the commandments he doesn’t fully understand, he is asking G-d to give him the strength to keep His Torah, for it is the Righteousness of G-d. You see as James said that faith (belief in G-d and His Word) without works (doing the Torah) is dead. There is Faith Righteousness, that is believing in G-d and His Word, and Works Righteousness (Keeping the Commandments) and you cannot have one without the other, like the yin and the yang, like peanut butter and chocolate, like peanut butter and jelly…. Well, you get the picture.

“Abba YHWH Elohim, You not only the saved us because of Your love for us, but also You allow us to share in Your Glory. We are humbly silent in praise and adoration before Your throne when we remember this fact. In Yeshua’s Glorious Name we pray, Ameyn.”

Angels or Men?

Angels or Men?

Rabbi Yehudah ben Shomeyr

Then the devil leaveth him, and, behold, angels came and ministered unto him. Matt. 4:11

When one leaves the familiar paths of Christendom and begins walking the Hebraic path of the Natsari and as one’s mind and spirit is transformed, the Brit Chadasha (New Testament) is read a fresh, as if a brand new book and things jump out that previously seemed uneventful or even mundane.

In the passage above we may envision a renaissance artist’s depiction of heavenly winged angelic beings cradling Yeshua in their arms as they feed him honey cakes and give him a cruse of water after His 40 day Temptation and Fast. But perhaps this is yet another example of Gentile misinterpretation of Scripture.

I know that angelic beings exists and appear in Scripture doing the bidding of the Almighty Creator, but has Christianity read angels where there are none? For example, by now it is well established that the “angels” of the seven “churches” in the book of Revelation, is actually the Rabbi’s and or congregational leaders of the seven synagogues and or messianic assemblies. For what good would it do for Yochannon (John) to write to angelic protectors of these seven congregations and not to the leaders themselves? The Greek word for angel can also be translated as messenger and is translated so in the Aramaic translation.

In like manner, is Matthew 4:11 really speaking of winged angelic beings or mere mortal messengers that ministered to Yeshua after His temptation in the desert? Again, the Greek word in this passage translated in the English as angel is the word that could be translated as messenger and is such in the Aramaic translation of Matthew.

To get to the bottom of this let us look at the preceding verses.

Again, the devil taketh him up into an exceeding high mountain, and sheweth him all the kingdoms of the world, and the glory of them. And saith unto him, All these things will I give thee, if thou wilt fall down and worship me.Then saith Jesus unto him, Get thee hence, Satan: for it is written, Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve. – Matt. 4:8-10

This “exceedingly high mountain” spoken of here is believed to be among the desert mountains and caves of the Essene of the Qumran Community occupied. The same ones that produced the famous Dead Sea Scrolls and the very desert community it was believed Yochannon the Immerser (John the Baptizer) and Yeshua’s cousin, was a part of. So it was very likely the very private Essenes were aware of and were tracking Yeshua movements in their back yard.

To further the case that these “angels” in Matthew 4:1 were actually Essenes of the desert Qumran Community, let us look at verse 12 of Matthew chapter 4.

Now when Jesus had heard that John was cast into prison, he departed into Galilee; - Matt. 4:12

Seeing as verse 11 speaking of the angels is right to verse 12 speaking of Yeshua’s cousin Yochannon’s arrest, does it not make sense that Yeshua heard it from these Essene messengers/angels that assisted Him after His Temptation and Fast and who likely knew Yochannon personally, seeing as he was formerly a part of their community? Of course it does. It is more likely these “angels” of Matthew 4:11 was actually men.