“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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This is My Biggest Concern for Jewish People
In Monroe Hall at the University of Virginia, I used to teach leadership classes in a room with huge ceiling-to-floor windows that face Alderman Library. In most of those classes, at some point during the semester I would ask my students this question: “How many books do you think there are in Alderman Library.”
No one knew the exact number, but someone would always say, “I’m sure it’s more than a million.”
That’s correct. It’s actually close to 2 million.
Then I would ask the class another question: “What percent of all that can be known do you think is covered in those books?”
After a few seconds, someone would say something like this: “Those books cover an infinitesimally small percentage of the things we could know but don’t know. In fact, we are just beginning to understand what questions we should be asking.”
That’s true, too. We know a lot, and we are learning new things at an accelerating rate. As we learn new things, we open the door to learning about more things that we didn’t even know existed until a short while ago. In other words, the more we learn, the more we realize how much more there is to learn. There is no reason to believe that will ever change.
At some point during the discussion, I would quote the Bible:
“Things that no eye has ever seen and no ear has ever heard, and things that have not even entered the mind of man, all that Yahweh has prepared for those who love Him.” (1 Corinthians 2: 9)
Paul wrote that in a letter to the Corinthians, but he didn’t make it up. He was paraphrasing Yahweh and Isaiah:
“For from days of old they have not heard or perceived by ear, nor has the eye seen an Elohim besides You, who acts in behalf of the one who waits for Him.” (Isaiah 64: 4)
“For behold, I create new heavens and a new earth; and the former things will not be remembered or come to mind.” (Isaiah 65: 17)
Yahweh is Elohim. He gave us information about Himself so that we would not be confused and so that we would not be at the mercy of people who have agendas to promote. And He gave us His Spirit to lead us in His direction.
How much sense does it make to read a few sources that talk about the things Yahweh said and did and then think you know all there is to know about Yahweh? That makes no sense at all.
How much sense does it make to read a few sources that talk about the things Yahweh said and did and never go to the original source to see what Yahweh actually said and did? That makes even less sense. No serious scholar would do that.
Reading Yahweh’s word is a great way to get to know Him personally. So is praying. If you do those things, eventually He draws close to you and begins to reveal Himself to you. It goes beyond the words written on paper and the words you speak in prayer. Yahweh honors your coming to Him and takes you where He wants you to go. When it happens, you will know it, and you won’t be in doubt.
The Messiah is the Word of Yahweh
Psalm 138 talks about the Word of Yahweh:
“I bow down toward Your holy temple and give thanks to Your Name for Your loving devotion and Your faithfulness. You have exalted Your Word above Your Name.” (Psalm 138: 2)
In His Name is Yahweh, I said you can rest assured that Yahweh does not exalt words written on paper above His Name. The psalmist wasn’t talking about the Scriptures. He was referring to the Messiah as the Word of Yahweh. John explained it this way in his gospel:
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with Elohim, and the Word was Elohim. He was in the beginning with Elohim. All things came into being through Him, and apart from Him nothing came into being that has come into being. In Him was life, and the life was the Light of men. The Light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it. […] The Word became flesh, and dwelt among us. [He tabernacled or pitched His tent among us.] We saw His glory, glory as of the only begotten Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.” (John 1: 1-5 and 14)
This is my biggest concern for Jewish people: Very few of them know what is in the Tanach (a.k.a., the Old Testament), and very few of them know what is in the Talmud, the Mishnah, and the Gemara (a.k.a., the Oral Law). Most of them know only a few tidbits from the Tanach and the Oral Law that they pick up over time from rabbis who focus almost exclusively on the Oral Law.
Some people say that ignorance is bliss, but that’s not true. Where Yahweh is concerned, ignorance can get you into a lot of trouble for eternity.
There is not one thing about the Messiah that is discussed in the New Testament (I wish it wasn’t called the “New Testament”, but it is.) that isn’t covered in greater detail in the Tanach. Exactly who the Messiah is should not be a mystery to any Jewish person, but because they don’t know the Tanach, they buy the lies about Him that are presented in the Oral Law.
Rabbis and Priests Lied about the Messiah in the Oral Law
The rabbis and priests who lived during the time that the Messiah was with us in Person hated Him, because He exposed them in front of the Jewish people. Most of the rabbis and priests were corrupt hypocrites. ( See Matthew 23.) They stood to lose their wealth, power, and social positions if enough Jewish people believed the Messiah. That’s why they wanted Him dead, and that’s why they told lies about Him.
Yahweh did the same thing about 600 years earlier. He told His prophet Ezekiel what the rabbis and priests had done, and He said that He would come in Person to shepherd His sheep. (See Ezekiel 34.) The Messiah’s appearance in human form was the fulfillment of that prophecy.
To see how the rabbis and priests lived while the Messiah was with us in Person, watch the video below. It will amaze you. Most of them were filthy rich and rotten to the core.
The lies told about the Messiah by the rabbis and priests stuck, because they were responsible for the Oral Law, and they used that power to attack Him.
The Messiah is Yahweh. That’s not conjecture. Yahweh told Jeremiah the Messiah’s Name:
“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 live securely. This is His Name by which He will be called, ‘Yahweh Our Righteousness.’” (Jeremiah 23: 5-6)
The Jewish religious leaders who were alive while the Messiah was with us in Person controlled the Temple, and they had the power to determine what went into the Oral Law. They used their positions of influence in both of those areas to spew their hatred of Yahweh among Jewish people. It is impossible to exaggerate about how much damage they did to Jewish people in the process.
The Messiah warned about what would happen to the Jewish people as a result of the rejection of Him by their rabbis and priests:
“Jerusalem, Jerusalem, who kills the prophets and stones those sent to her, how often I have longed to gather your children together the way a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were not willing! Look, your house is left to you desolate. For I tell you that you will not see Me again until you say, ‘Blessed is He who comes in the Name of Yahweh.’” (Matthew 23: 37-39)
As Yeshua approached Jerusalem and saw the city, He wept over it and said, “If only you had known on this day what would bring you peace! But now it is hidden from your eyes. For the days will come upon you when your enemies will barricade you and surround you and hem you in on every side. They will level you to the ground — you and the children within your walls. They will not leave one stone on another, because you did not recognize the time of your visitation from Elohim.” (Luke 19: 41-44)
On the 9th of Av in 70 AD, 40 years after the Messiah gave them that warning, Roman soldiers leveled Jerusalem and razed Yahweh’s Temple to the ground. When they were through, no one could tell that Yahweh’s Temple ever existed. It remains that way to this day. See “Yahweh’s Temple was not on the Temple Mount“.
The priests’ houses that are shown in the video above were destroyed at the same time and covered with dirt. They remained hidden until excavations started in 1967 following the Six Day War. All of those things happened as a direct result of the rabbis and priests rejection of Yahweh and their efforts to demonize Him in the Oral Law. As I said, Yahweh told them about what would happen, and He was accurate to the nth degree.
A couple of days after the Messiah told them about what would take place, the rabbis and priests asked Pontius Pilate to crucify Him. The rest is history. It includes intense persecution of Jewish people all over the world for the last 2,000 years and counting. It did not have to be this way. Rejecting Yahweh was and is a costly mistake.
Any Jewish person who takes the time to study Yahweh’s word, the Tanach, will know the truth. As a starting point, they should read His Name is Yahweh. I wrote the book, but it’s not about my opinions. It is based on the things Yahweh told us in the Tanach, and it is referenced meticulously. Yahweh left no room for doubt about who He is. Doubt entered the picture because of the lies that were told about Him by corrupt rabbis and priests.
From Moses to Moses, there were None Like Moses (Maimonides)
It annoys me to no end when a Jewish person tells me what Moses Maimonides said about something when I have good reasons to believe that he has not checked what Maimonides said for accuracy. Maimonides was a smart man, but he was far from perfect. In many instances, he was dead wrong. I think it’s fair to say that in many instances Maimonides was perplexed. That’s a pun. Jewish people should get it. Most Christians won’t.
Most Christians (i.e., believers or called out ones) don’t have a clue who Maimonides was, and most Jews don’t know what Maimonides said. All most of them know is what someone told them Maimonides said.
Moses Maimonides is not Yahweh. If Maimonides contradicts Yahweh, Maimonides is wrong.
Interestingly, Maimonides was born about 1,100 years after the Messiah was with us in Person. He had no first-person accounts about the Messiah to share. All he knew was the things said about Him in the Oral Law. Therefore, where the Messiah is concerned, Maimonides is not a reliable witness.
If you want to read first-person accounts about the Messiah, read the 4 gospels: Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. Paul is a reliable witness, too. He wrote several letters in which he talked about the Messiah.
It should interest you to know that the rabbis and priests who wrote about the Messiah in the Oral Law could not deny the things said about Him in the 4 gospels. Thousands of Jewish people witnessed the things He did and said. Denying those things would have been ridiculous. So, instead of denying them, they attributed the things He did and said to the devil. Jewish people need to understand that.
I make no apologies for being so blunt. The truth needs to be told.
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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
