“Seek Yahweh while He may be found. Call upon Him while He is near. Let the wicked forsake his way and the unrighteous man his thoughts and let him return to Yahweh, and He will have compassion on him. Turn to our Elohim, for He will abundantly pardon.”
Isaiah 55: 6-7
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“Beware of False Prophets”
While I was writing His Name is Yahweh, I gave many presentations about what I was learning to groups ranging in size from a few people to several hundred people. After I published the book, I was invited to make presentations at several Sukkot gatherings. That’s when I came into personal contact with people who claimed to be believers, but they were salesmen who sold Yahweh as a product. They had turned Yahweh into a cottage industry. For some of them, it was a big business.
I am not their Judge, but I don’t want to have anything to do with them.
At one Sukkot gathering, a speaker dressed up in ancient priestly garb before he took the stage. To me, he looked like he had dressed for a costume party. I followed him onstage. I was wearing blue jeans and a baseball cap. Since I’m retired, that’s normal attire for me these days.
As Yahweh would have it, the next morning, he and I shared a ride to the airport. It took about an hour. Along the way, he gave me some advice. He said, “Neil, you need to get some priestly robes and wear them when you make presentations.”
I thought, That won’t happen.
During that same Sukkot, a man sang a song that he had composed. The music and the lyrics for the song were beautiful. It could have been and should have been recorded and made available to a mass audience.
A short while later, I got a call from the man who composed the song. Turns out the man who had dressed in priestly garb approached him after he sang the song and asked to represent him. The composer asked me what I thought he should do.
I said, “What experience does he have in the music industry?”
“None.”
“This is my advice: Find someone in the music industry to represent you. Experience matters.”
At another Sukkot gathering, I spoke with a man who had written a book, and he was talking about it at gatherings of various sorts all over the country. He and I were talking one night, and he said, “So, you are joining the circuit?”
I asked him what he meant, and he said, “To promote our books, we talk about them at gatherings like this one.”
I didn’t tell him that I was offended, but I was. The next day, I gave all the books that I had brought with me to the man who organized the Sukkot and told him to give them to the participants.
I wasn’t selling a book. I was delivering a message. The book contains the message in complete detail. That’s why I brought it. I didn’t want to be thought of as a salesman. My job is to tell people what I know. Yahweh’s Spirit does the rest.
Yahweh’s Messengers or Profiteers?
Many people who claim to love Yahweh are creating businesses to sell their products which include supposed messages from Him, books about Him, and paraphernalia that suggests a close connection between the businessmen and Yahweh. None of the Messiah’s disciples did anything like that. See the excerpt from Acts 8 below:
Now when the apostles in Jerusalem heard that Samaria had received the word of Elohim, they sent them Peter and John, who came down and prayed for them that they might receive the Holy Spirit. For He had not yet fallen upon any of them; they had simply been baptized in the Name of our Master Yeshua. Then they began laying their hands on them, and they were receiving the Holy Spirit.
Now when Simon saw that the Spirit was bestowed through the laying on of the apostles’ hands, he offered them money, saying, “Give this authority to me as well, so that everyone on whom I lay my hands may receive the Holy Spirit.”
But Peter said to him, “May your silver perish with you, because you thought you could obtain the gift of Elohim with money! You have no part or portion in this matter, for your heart is not right before Elohim. Therefore, repent of this wickedness of yours, and pray that, if possible, the intention of your heart may be forgiven you. For I see that you are in the gall of bitterness and in the bondage of iniquity.”
But Simon answered and said, “Pray to Elohim for me yourselves, so that nothing of what you have said may come upon me.” (Acts 8: 14-24)
I have learned many lessons over the past 20 years. This is one of the most important things I have learned. Yahweh doesn’t expect or want His people to create businesses and try to sell Him or His messages to unsuspecting believers. Even so, it happens all the time, and conmen can and do deceive many real believers.
I’m not suggesting that making money is evil, but I am saying that Yahweh’s people don’t sell Him as a product.
“Beware of the false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly are ravenous wolves.” (Matthew 7: 15)
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“I am the good shepherd. I know My sheep and My sheep know Me — just as the Father knows Me and I know the Father — and I lay down My life for the sheep. I have other sheep that are not of this fold. I must bring them also. They too will listen to My voice, and there shall be one flock and one Shepherd. The reason My Father loves Me is that I lay down My life — only to take it up again. No one takes it from Me, but I lay it down of My own accord. I have authority to lay it down and authority to take it up again. This command I received from My Father.”
John 10: 14-18
