“Seek Yahweh while He may be found.  Call upon Him while He is near.”

Isaiah 55: 6

דרשו יהוה בהמצאו קראהו בהיותו קרוב׃

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I Hate Religion and Yahweh Does, Too

I could have titled this editorial “Yahweh Hates Religion and I Do, Too”.  My hatred of religion came from Him.

Below is an excerpt from my book His Name is Yahweh: Revised Edition.  It gets to the heart of the matter:

We must seek Yahweh, but we must do it with all our heart and all our soul.  Regrettably, that is not the way many people seek Yahweh.  He wants us to have a burning desire to know Him, and then He reveals Himself to us in a close, personal way.

Be honest with yourself and think for a moment about the way many people seek Yahweh.  For many of them, it is a once a week activity at best.  On Sunday Christians head for church and on Saturday Jewish people head for synagogue.  Religiously they take their seats.  Someone (a preacher, a rabbi, a song leader, or maybe an elder) stands in front of the congregation and reads from a script, and dutifully they follow along by doing whatever they are told to do.  Some congregates are prepared before they arrive, and they are actually seeking Yahweh.  But others are not ready.  They are simply going through the motions.

They stand up.  They sit down.  They read a verse from the Bible.  They sing a song.  They go through a well-rehearsed routine, and they call it worship—seeking Yahweh.  But they are not seeking Yahweh with all their heart and all their soul, and Yahweh is under no obligation to reveal Himself to them.

Many congregates are simply engaging in religious activity, and Yahweh never once promised that He would honor religious activity.  In fact, He said just the opposite in Isaiah 29: 13-14:

“Because this people draw near with their words and honor Me with their lip service, but they remove their hearts far from Me, and their reverence for me consists of tradition learned by rote, therefore behold, I will once again deal marvelously with this people, wondrously marvelous; and the wisdom of their wise men shall perish, and the discernment of their discerning men shall be concealed.”

These verses make it clear that Yahweh hated their religious activity because it was not what He desired, and He punished them for it.  He aimed His remarks primarily at the religious leaders, the priests, since they should have known better.  They were leading the people astray, and in effect they were mocking Yahweh seeing as they must have thought that He did not know, or worse, that He knew and did not care.  Through Isaiah, Yahweh was telling them to wake up and do right or suffer the consequences.

Yahweh will not honor our religious activity unless we are worshipping Him with all our heart and all our soul.  In fact, it offends Him when we go through the motions and call it worship.  Yahweh wants our hearts and souls.  He knows that if we give them to Him our attitudes and actions will come into proper alignment with His will.

I used the word “obligation” earlier.  That is exactly what I intended to say.  Yahweh made a promise.  If we seek Him with all our heart and all our soul, then He will reveal Himself to us.  In a literal sense, He is obligated to reveal Himself to us if we seek Him the way He directs because He said He would, and Yahweh cannot lie.  But He does not do it out of duty or obligation.  He does it because He loves us and because He wants to have an intimate relationship with us.  Try Him and see for yourself.

The Bible says a great deal about seeking Yahweh in a way that will glorify His Name and be rewarded.  Below are a few examples:

• • “Oh give thanks to Yahweh, call upon His Name; make known His deeds among the peoples. Sing to Him, sing praises to Him; speak of all His wonders.  Glory in His holy Name; let the heart of those who seek Yahweh be glad.  Seek Yahweh and His strength; seek His face continually.” (1 Chronicles 16: 8-11)
  • “…for Yahweh searches all hearts, and understands every intent of the thoughts. If you seek Him, He will let you find Him; but if you forsake Him, He will reject you forever.” (1 Chronicles 28: 9)
  • “If…My people who are called by My Name humble themselves and pray and seek My face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, will forgive their sin and will heal their land.” (2 Chronicles 7: 14)
  • “Yahweh is with you when you are with Him. And if you seek Him, He will let you find Him; but if you forsake Him, He will forsake you.” (2 Chronicles 15: 2)
  • “And those who know Your Name will put their trust [faith] in You, for You, O Yahweh, have not forsaken those who seek you.” (Psalm 9: 10)
  • “Let all those who seek You rejoice and be glad in You; let those who love Your salvation say continually, ‘Yahweh be magnified!’” (Psalm 40: 16)
  • “How blessed are those who observe His testimonies, who seek Him with all their heart.” (Psalm 119: 2)

It is clear that seeking Yahweh the way He desires is not a once-in-a-while thing, and it is not something that we are supposed to do only in church or in synagogue.  Yahweh instructed us to seek Him continually with all our heart and all our soul.  Continually means all the time—literally all day every day.

Hebrews 11 talks about people of faith, people who had a relationship with Yahweh.  Through them, Yahweh did amazing things.  He is doing the same kind of thing now through people of faith.  Take the time to examine the lives of the people mentioned in Hebrews 11.  They were not religious people.  They were people of faith.  They did what Yahweh told them to do.  See The Trilogy.

This Isn’t a Testimonial Despite Appearances

This editorial isn’t a testimonial, but I am going to reveal some personal details that will make it sound like one.  It may sound a little like stream of consciousness oration, too.  So be it.

I was saved when I was 8-years-old in McRae, Georgia.  We lived across the street from the church at the time.  I had no idea what “being saved” meant.  All I knew, and I knew it to the core of my being, was that Yahweh had plucked me out, and He was going to use me.  He made that perfectly clear.

Not a Missionary, Please

I didn’t make a deal with Yahweh.  I didn’t know enough about Him to do that, but I did tell Him that I did not want to be a missionary.  I’m serious.  I thought about it and told Yahweh that I did not want to be a missionary.

It was 1958.  The pastor in the church across the street talked a lot about missionaries.  He focused most of his attention on Africa.  In South Georgia at that time, we didn’t get a lot of television channels, but we were able to get one channel that ran Tarzan movies on Saturday mornings.  Johnny Weissmuller was Tarzan.

I learned everything I knew about Africa at that time from Tarzan movies.  Swimming in rivers, swinging on vines, wrestling alligators, and other things really interested me, but I didn’t like it when the natives came pouring out of the jungle to attack Tarzan.  Nope.  I didn’t want to go to Africa, and I didn’t want to be a missionary.  I made that clear to Yahweh.

The Bible

My mother and father gave my brother and sister and me Bibles for Christmas in 1957.  I still have mine.  It’s a King James Bible, and I actually read it.  Back then, I didn’t like reading very much, but I enjoyed reading the Bible.

Luke 2, Psalm 23, and Psalm 100 were my favorite passages of Scripture.  Nobody told me to read the Bible.  I just did it, and I didn’t talk to anyone about it.

I’ve always hated memorizing and I didn’t set out to memorize those passages, but I did.  I knew those passages by heart.  It was as though Yahweh planted them in me word for word.  To this day, I can still recite them if I want to. That’s how firmly planted in me they are.

Luke 2

In 1958, I had no idea that there is a nugget of wisdom in Luke 2 that would come in handy many years later.  This is the passage from the King James:

And there were in the same country shepherds abiding in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night. And, lo, the angel of the Lord came upon them, and the glory of the Lord shone round about them: and they were sore afraid. And the angel said unto them, Fear not: for, behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people. For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord. And this shall be a sign unto you; Ye shall find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger. And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God, and saying, Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men. (Luke 2: 8-14)

Two things stood out to me back then:

1. “the City of David”
2. “a savior who is Christ the Lord”

About 40 years later, I was on a mission.  I’m still on it today.  It involves Yahweh’s Name (see His Name is Yahweh: Revised Edition), the City of David, and Yahweh’s Temple.

Yahweh’s Temple was in the City of David.  It was not on the Temple Mount.  That’s important.  See “Yahweh’s Temple was not on the Temple Mount (Part 1)”.

The City of David

In 1958 when I was a young boy growing up in South Georgia, I had no idea that the City of David (Jerusalem/Yerushalayim) would become a passion of mine much later in life.  The Messiah was born in Bethlehem (Beit Lechem).  It’s called “the City of David”, too.  As a boy, I knew that the City of David was special for me.  Which one didn’t matter to me.  It matters to Yahweh, though.  He told me which one to pay attention to.

Katie and I have been exploring Israel for more than 2 decades.  We’ve spent more time in Israel than we have spent in any other country except the United States.  We’ve explored Israel from north to south and from east to west, but the only time I have ever been in Bethlehem was when I was driving through the town on Highway 60 on my way from Arad to Jerusalem for Sukkot.  I didn’t even slow down.

We spend most of our time in Israel in Jerusalem.  Many evenings, we walk to HaMoshava (a.k.a. Emek Refaim or the German Colony) to sit, relax, and enjoy a glass of wine.  Sometimes we go there in the morning for breakfast and coffee, but we never go to Bethlehem.  It’s less than 4 miles from HaMoshava.  Bethlehem is under Palestinian control.  That’s a problem for me, but I won’t take the time to explain why in this editorial.

At this point in my life, I’m beginning to understand why the City of David is important to me.  I have a role to play there.  Actually, I’ve started playing it already.

Again, read “Yahweh’s Temple was not on the Temple Mount (Part 1)” and watch the video below.  Yahweh started prepping me for this phase of my life in 1958 when He implanted Luke 2 in my being.

Time to Yahweh

Time to Yahweh isn’t like time to us. Albert Einstein said that time as we know it is a “stubbornly persistent illusion”.  He understood that past, present, and future are human constructs.

Yahweh isn’t bound by time as we know it.  He sees the past, present, and future at the same time, so when Yahweh says “in a little while”, He may be talking about days, months, years, decades, or centuries.  You never know for sure until (or unless) He tells you.

For example, I know that I will live in Jerusalem.  Yahweh has made that clear to me.  I know where I will live, too.  Yahweh showed me.  I’ll move to Israel and spend most of my time there “in a little while”.

Sometimes I want to say, “Yahweh, can’t You be a little more precise?”  He can be more precise, but He won’t be more precise until He’s ready.  My job is to go where I am told and to do what I am told when He tells me.  That’s called faith and obedience.  Those are the only two things that Yahweh requires.

I’ve known about the importance of the City of David in my life for more than 60 years.  As I said, I have already done some of the things related to the City of David that Yahweh told me about, but I have a lot more to do. Generally speaking, I already know what I have to do, but I can’t get started until Yahweh says, “It’s time.”  I’ll be glad when it’s not “in a little while”. The specifics of my mission will come when I move to Israel.

Waiting on Yahweh isn’t always fun, but it is essential.  He’s never late, and He’s never early.  He’s always right on time, to the second.  The only way to get in sync with Yahweh is to follow the leading of His Spirit.  I’m not talking about religion.  I’m talking about relationship.

Religion

People who don’t have a relationship with Yahweh don’t have a clue what I’m talking about.  Religion doesn’t provide the answers.  Neither does the Bible.  Yahweh provides the answers in real time when He’s good and ready.

I cherish my relationship with Yahweh, and I enjoy spending time with people who have relationships with Him.  Playing church, religion, leaves me cold.  I avoid it.

People who say, “Everything I need to know is in the Bible” don’t get it, either.  Usually, when people say that, they mean the King James Bible.  They believe that the King James Bible is the only inspired version of the Bible.  They are too religious for me.  They are too religious for Yahweh, too.

Yahweh expects us to do the things He created us to do.  I read the Bible, and I pray.  I do both of those things a lot, but that’s not what Yahweh created me to do.  The details that I need to know are not in the Bible.  Sometimes when I pray, Yahweh starts telling me specifics, and sometimes He starts telling me things when I’m going about my business.  It depends on Him.  The only way that I can accomplish my mission is to be faithful to Yahweh and to be obedient to the leading of His Spirit. That requires a relationship with Him.  I can’t make it happen, so I don’t even try.

A Perfect Example of Religion

Below is a picture of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in the Christian Quarter of the Old City of Jerusalem.  It shows a perfect example of religion.

In the 300s AD, the Church of the Holy Sepulchre was built over the site where the Roman Emperor Constantine’s mother, Helena, was told the Messiah was crucified, buried, and resurrected.  At that time, it was a rock quarry.  Today, it is a major tourist site that attracts millions of Christian pilgrims each year.

The Church of the Holy Sepulchre is governed under a Status Quo agreement that dates back to 1757.  Under the agreement, the Greek Orthodox, Roman Catholic and Armenian Apostolic, and to a lesser extent the Coptic Orthodox, Syriac Orthodox and Ethiopian Orthodox churches are responsible for day-to-day operations inside the church.

According to the Status Quo agreement, the church is divided into sections that are controlled by those church groups.  Every square inch of the church is accounted for in the agreement.

The church groups responsible for running the Church of the Holy Sepulchre are very possessive about their areas of control and defensive about letting another church group encroach on their territory.  From time to time, fist fights among priests have broken out when a priest inadvertently overstepped his bounds and did something like sweep the floor belonging to another group.

The Status Quo agreement was reached to prevent that kind of thing from happening, but altercations still erupt on occasion.  According to the agreement, nothing in the church can be changed in any way unless there is unanimous agreement among the churches involved in the agreement.

Take a close look at the picture.  Above the main entrance to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, there are 2 large windows.  Below the window on the right, there is a step ladder.  It has been in that exact spot for more than 300 years.

A few years after the Status Quo agreement was signed, work was being done on that window.  When the work was completed, the priests could not reach an agreement on removing the ladder, so there it sits waiting on unanimity among the priests about what to do with it.

That’s an example of religion on display.  That kind of thinking pervades Christian churches all over the world.

Relations among the church groups responsible for running the Church of the Holy Sepulchre are very bad.  They don’t trust each other enough to let one group control the key to the front door.  To this day, the key to the door remains in the hands of a Muslim family.  Each day, a member of that family opens and closes the door to the church.

It’s easy to understand why Yahweh hates religion.  What’s not to hate.

The Name Yahweh

The King James Bible is loaded with errors.  Religious people will be tempted to stop reading when they see that sentence, but it’s true.

Yahweh’s Name appears almost 7,000 times in the Old Testament, i.e. the Tanach.  It appears all over the New Testament as well, because the New Testament is chock-full of quotes from the Old Testament.

How many times does Yahweh’s Name appear in the King James Bible?  The answer: Not even one time.  That’s a serious error, and it’s repeated thousands of times.  I can’t tell you how serious that problem is.

I’m not picking on the King James Bible.  Few Bible translations show Yahweh’s Name correctly where it belongs in the Bible, but the King James Bible is thought to be the gold standard.  It’s not.

People who worship the King James Bible had better get their act together.  Yahweh didn’t tell us to worship the Bible, any Bible.  He told us to worship Him.  The Bible tells us about Him.  Knowing the Bible is a good thing, but knowing the Bible is not a substitute for knowing Yahweh.  The most important details in every person’s life are not in the Bible.  They must come from Yahweh directly.

Some King James Bibles have a note at the beginning explaining that Elohim’s Name is Jehovah. That’s wrong, too.  Jehovah is the English transliteration of the Hebrew name Yehovah.  That name was made up by rabbis in the mid-second century BC and taught to Jewish people, so they wouldn’t accidentally say “Yahweh”.  For a detailed explanation, read His Name is Yahweh: Revised Edition.

Be that as it may, in 1958 Yahweh started telling me about Himself, and it was hidden in plain sight in Luke 2: 11:

“For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord.” (Luke 2: 11, King James Bible)

Controversy is Unavoidable

This is controversial, but the original New Testament manuscripts were not written in Greek.  They were written in Aramaic.  Later, they were translated into Greek, and the Greek manuscripts became sacrosanct.

Religion keeps popping up.  Problem is, the Greek manuscripts are loaded with translation errors.  (See Ruach Qadim by Andrew Gabriel Roth.)  Proof of that fact is all over the New Testament, but preachers are too well-churched (indoctrinated) in seminaries to see it.  Seminary professors teach as an article of faith that the Greek New Testament manuscripts are letter perfect, and that’s what preachers tell their congregations.  That’s another serious problem.

Most of the preachers I’ve talked with are so convinced that the original New Testament manuscripts are written in Greek that they refuse to consider the possibility that they are wrong.  That’s when you know for sure how religious a preacher is.  Most of the ones I know are religious to a fault, often wrong but never in doubt.  As I said, religion is a problem.

Luke 2: 11 Translated from Aramaic

The King James Bible quote of Luke 2: 11 is based on Greek manuscripts.  This is what the original Aramaic manuscripts say:

“For today is born to you in the City of Dawid the Savior who is Master Yahweh, the Mashiach.”

To be precise, the Aramaic manuscripts say “MarYah” instead of “Master Yahweh”.  MarYah combines Master and Yahweh.  In Aramaic, “Master” is “Mar”.  “Yah” is the short form of Yahweh’s Name.  It’s like saying “Don” instead of “Donald”.  Thus, the Messiah (the Mashiach) is Yahweh.

Lots of religious Jews will be shocked when He returns.  This is what He told them the first time He came:

“Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you, how often I have longed to gather your children together, the way a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, and you were not willing.  Look, your house is being left to you desolate.  For I tell you, you will not see Me again until you say, ‘Blessed is He who comes in the name of Yahweh.'” (Matthew 23: 37-39)

This message is crystal clear in the Aramaic manuscripts: The Child born in Bethlehem is Yahweh.  That fact is repeated all over the Bible, both the Old Testament and the New Testament.  For example,

• “For a Child will be born to us, a Son will be given to us. The government will rest on His shoulders, and His Name will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty Elohim, Eternal Father, Prince of Peace.” (Isaiah 9: 6)
• “Behold, the days are coming,” declares Yahweh, “when I will raise up for David a righteous Branch. He will reign as king and act wisely and do justice and righteousness in the land.  In His days Judah will be saved, and Israel will dwell securely.  This is His Name by which He will be called, ‘Yahweh our righteousness.’” (Jeremiah 23: 5-6)
• “The Messiah said to them, ‘Truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham was born, I am.’” (John 8: 58)

John 8: 58

In John 8: 58, the Aramaic manuscripts don’t say “before Abraham was born”.  They say “before Abraham existed”.  In other words, the Messiah is Yahweh.  He created Abraham.

Yahweh’s Name derives from the Hebrew verb “hayah”.  It’s probably more accurate to say that the Hebrew verb “hayah” derives from Yahweh’s Name.  The closest English verb to “hayah” is “to be”.

“I Am” is one of Yahweh’s Names.  It means “I exist”.  Yahweh is the Creator.  He wasn’t created.  He is the ever-present force in the universe.  He holds all things together, and He still has plenty of time for you and me.  Yahweh is amazing.

For more detail, read His Name is Yahweh: Revised Edition.

Most religious people refuse to take the time to search out the truth.  They take the easy way out.  They think these things can’t be true, because if they were true, a preacher would have told them somewhere along the way.  The fact that they haven’t heard it in church settles the matter for them.  Others think these things can’t be true, because they’re not in the King James Bible.  I’ve learned a lot from every Bible translation, but I haven’t seen a perfect translation yet.

Thankfully, Yahweh is not constrained by our mistakes.

I Hate Religion

The more religious people are, the less likely they are to understand what Yahweh actually said and what He expects from us.  Religion is an impediment to the truth, and it’s not a substitute for faith and obedience.  Overcoming religion in the well-churched is virtually impossible.  Thankfully, Yahweh can do the impossible.

In 1958, Yahweh implanted information in my being that I would need later.  Primarily, it was about His Name and who He is, but there is more.

In the mid-1970s, Yahweh told me that I would do something very specific for Him.  I was working on a Ph.D. degree in business at the time.  Yahweh didn’t want me to be indoctrinated by seminary professors.

In the mid-1980s, Yahweh took me out of organized religion altogether and started teaching me Himself.  He hates religion more than I do.  I, in turn, taught my daughters.  I wasn’t taking chances with preachers.

Relying on preachers to teach the truth is worse than relying on public school teachers to teach your kids.  I hope you understand what I mean. If you don’t understand, you need to look more closely at what is taking place in our public schools.

If it sounds like I’m not sanguine about most preachers and teachers, I’m communicating.  As groups, preachers and teachers have failed us miserably.  Over-reliance on them has proven to be one of the worst mistakes we have made as a nation.

Thankfully, Yahweh is taking care of the problem Himself.  He’s doing it right now.  I think we are beginning to experience an outpouring of Yahweh’s Spirit in this nation the likes of which we haven’t seen for a very long time, and it’s taking place in people’s hearts, not in churches.  Yahweh’s people are listening to His voice. That’s the way it’s supposed to be.

So, while preachers dress up like movie stars, put on slick television productions like Hollywood celebrities, and pump smoke like rock bands in concert, Yahweh is moving them to the sidelines.  Yahweh has had His fill with most preachers.

Yahweh doesn’t need artificial theatrics.  When He puts on a show, nothing is phony.  I’ll leave it at that.

Since I retired from the University of Virginia in 2004, I have published His Name is Yahweh: Revised Edition and The Trilogy. Both books are controversial.  They challenge things that people hear in church and provide information that they never hear in church.  Both of those things are problematic for religious people.

The next step for me takes place in Jerusalem.  I’ll be there “in a little while”.  Yahweh, I hope it’s soon as I understand time.  I would love to start making detailed plans tomorrow, but I know that You know the right time.

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“The glory which You have given Me I have given to them, that they may be one, just as We are one; I in them and You in Me, that they may be perfected in unity, so that the world may know that You sent Me, and loved them, even as You have loved Me. Father, I desire that they also, whom You have given Me, be with Me where I am, so that they may see My glory which You have given Me, for You loved Me before the foundation of the world.” (John 17: 22-24)

See “His Name is Yahweh”.