“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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The Day is Coming when We will Know as We are Known
I have always enjoyed math, science, and astronomy. As a boy in South Georgia, I used to sit in the dark at night and stare at the sky. McRae, GA is a small town, so there wasn’t too much artificial light. That made viewing conditions very good on clear nights.
When I was in the 6th grade, my family moved to Athens, GA. It’s much bigger than McRae, and it produced a lot more artificial light at night. As a result, viewing conditions in Athens weren’t nearly as favorable.
Artificial light produced by street lights, billboards, signs on stores, and other things in cities combine to obscure the faint light that we can see in the heavens at night. In very large cities, those artificial lights can cause all but the brightest objects in space to disappear. The objects are still there, but we can’t see them.
The University of Georgia is in Athens. In the 1960s, Athens was a university town. (I think it still is.) The number of very well-educated people in Athens was and is very large. They represented and still represent an unusually high percentage of the Athens population. Well-educated people expect their children to be well-educated, too. Thus, Athens High School had to be a very good school academically, and it was. A few years after I graduated, Athens High School became Clarke Central High School.
The 1960s ended before well-educated people en masse started to view themselves as “liberal progressives” and before feelings meant more to otherwise intelligent people than facts. That’s another story. I won’t tell it here. Let it suffice to say that the 1960s were great years to grow up in Athens, GA and get a great education.
In the 1960s, there was only one high school in Athens, and there were no private schools. Athens High School had to cater to the needs of students with a wide range of interests. Any high school student in Athens who was interested in higher learning could get it at no additional cost to his parents.
I took advantage of that fact. In the 10th and 11th grades at Athens High, I took every advanced math course that was offered including algebra III, calculus, probability, and analytic geometry. Most students at Athens High in the 1960s probably didn’t even know some of those courses were available. None of those courses were required, and all of them were regarded as very difficult. That meant those courses had very small classes and some really great teachers.
I was a junior in college before I took a math course that I had not taken already in high school. I’ll never forget taking finite math in my sophomore year at UGA. It was considered to be a very difficult course. Students would cram for the exams and show up early for class the day of exams hoping that someone would be there who could help them understand something with which they were having difficulty.
I never showed up early for exams in finite math, and I aced all of them. For me, it was an easy course, because it only added new things at the margin. I had been taught the basics of finite math in the 11th grade. I didn’t even need to study. The things in finite math that most students in my class had difficulty understanding and remembering during exams were second nature to me by then. To me, they were as simple as 2 + 2 = 4. It wasn’t because I was so smart. I learned it before, and I knew it. That’s why it was easy.
We had about an hour to complete the exams, but I completed them in less than 15 minutes. It took me that long, because I always double-checked my math. I’ll never forget the final exam. We had 3 hours to complete it. I finished the final in about 15 minutes, too.
A lot of confidence comes with knowing and knowing that you know. Not knowing and knowing that you don’t know produces a lot of fear and anxiety. Many people who don’t know something have a bad habit of believing that if they can’t understand it, neither can anyone else. The people who took finite math with me and watched me leave shortly after the exams were passed out didn’t realize that I had done the hard work 4 years earlier. I knew the subject matter well.
People who don’t know Yahweh tend to think that no one can know Him, because they don’t know Him. At this point, it’s true that we can’t know everything about Yahweh. After all, He is infinite and we very finite, but we can know a lot about Him.
Similarly, people who have never heard Yahweh’s voice tend to think that no one can hear it, because they have never heard it. They don’t realize that hearing Yahweh’s voice is something anyone can do if he is willing to relax, be quiet, and listen. Yahweh is not a puppet on a string. He speaks when He is ready. To hear Him, we must be ready when He speaks. People who are not ready when He speaks will never hear His voice.
How much we know about Yahweh is determined by His willingness to reveal Himself to us, and His willingness to reveal Himself to us is determined by our faithfulness to Him and our willingness to obey Him in areas where we already have knowledge. Anyone who says that he wants to know Yahweh and hear His voice but refuses to obey His simple commands is deluding Himself. Yahweh knows our hearts. Why would He take the time to tell us about anything if we reject the things He has told us already?
Moses Maimonides is probably the greatest Jewish thinker of all time. He was a physician to the caliph in Córdoba, Spain, and undoubtedly, he was a very intelligent man. Today, he is almost idolized by religious Jews, and the more orthodox they are, the more Maimonides is idolized. Religious Jews commonly refer to him as “Rambam”, and they say this about him: “Between Moses and Moses, there was no one like Moses.”
That gives you some idea what religious Jews think about Maimonides. They almost deify him. Religious Jews think that if Maimonides said it, it must be true. Problem is Maimonides did not know Yahweh. He only knew about Yahweh.
It’s one thing to read about Yahweh in the Tanach and the Oral Law. It’s another thing altogether to know Yahweh personally. The difference is like night and day.
Many religious Jews will respond by saying, “That’s blasphemy. No one can know Yahweh.”
The only reason anyone would say that is because he doesn’t know Yahweh, and he believes that if he doesn’t know Yahweh, no one else can know Him, either. Thankfully, knowing Yahweh is up to Him, not religious Jews.
A quick look at Moses, Aaron, and Miriam in the Torah proves my point. They were siblings. Moses was the younger of the 3, but Yahweh chose Moses to lead the Children of Israel to the Promised Land. At first, there were no problems, but eventually, Aaron and Miriam became jealous of Moses and challenged his authority. Yahweh was furious. He made it clear to them that Moses was His man. See Numbers 12.
Moses knew Yahweh personally. Aaron and Miriam knew only what Moses told them about Him. Yahweh was traveling with the Children of Israel. He appeared to them as a column of smoke by day and a column of fire by night. Aaron and Miriam could see His presence, but they didn’t know Him. Regularly, Yahweh called Moses to the Tabernacle to talk with Him. This is how it’s explained in Exodus:
“Yahweh would speak to Moses face to face, as one speaks to a friend.” (Exodus 33: 11)
I’m not blaspheming. I didn’t try to raise myself up to Yahweh’s level to talk with Him. I couldn’t do that even if I wanted to. He came down to my level to talk with me the way a parent knells down to talk with his small child.
That’s the good news of the gospel: Yahweh came to our level as a Man. He died for us as our atoning sacrifice, and He is the Perfect Lamb whose shed blood covers our sins. He is our Savior and our Redeemer. He paid the price for our sins. It was a price that none of us could pay.
About 700 years before the Messiah was born, Isaiah explained it as well as anyone could explain it:
He was despised and forsaken of men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. Like one from whom men hide their face, He was despised, and we did not esteem Him.
Surely our griefs He Himself bore and our sorrows He carried, yet we ourselves esteemed Him stricken, smitten of Elohim, and afflicted.
But He was pierced through for our transgressions. He was crushed for our iniquities. The chastening for our well-being fell upon Him, and by His scourging we are healed.
All of us like sheep have gone astray. Each of us has turned to his own way, but Yahweh has caused the iniquity of us all to fall on Him.
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By oppression and judgment He was taken away. As for His generation, who considered that He was cut off out of the land of the living for the transgression of my people, to whom the stroke was due?
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But Yahweh was pleased to crush Him, putting Him to grief. If He would render Himself as a guilt offering, He will see His offspring; He will prolong His days; and the good pleasure of Yahweh will prosper in His hand. As a result of the anguish of His soul, He will see it and be satisfied. By His knowledge, the Righteous One, My Servant, will justify the many as He will bear their iniquities. Therefore, I will allot Him a portion with the great, and He will divide the booty with the strong; because He poured out Himself to death, and was numbered with the transgressors. Yet He Himself bore the sin of many, and interceded for the transgressors. (Isaiah 53: 3-6, 8, and 10-12)
The more religious people are, the more likely they are to think they don’t need a Savior. They probably think Yahweh would be thrilled to talk with them. Aaron and Miriam may have harbored that thought.
The Messiah told us why He came:
“I have not come to call the righteous but sinners to repentance.” (Luke 5: 32)
Why didn’t the Messiah come to call the righteous? King David understood why, and he explained it in a psalm:
The fool has said in his heart, “There is no Elohim.” They are corrupt. They have committed abominable deeds. There is no one who does good. Yahweh has looked down from heaven upon the sons of men to see if there are any who understand, who seek after Elohim. They have all turned aside. Together they have become corrupt. There is no one who does good, not even one. (Psalm 14: 1-3)
According to David, no one is righteous, “not even one”. This is how Isaiah explained it:
For all of us have become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous deeds are like a filthy garment. All of us wither like a leaf, and our iniquities, like the wind, take us away. (Isaiah 64: 6)
According to Yahweh’s written word, all of us are sinners, not just some of us. All of us, including those who like to think of themselves as super righteous human beings, people like the religious Jews who ran the Temple and the Sanhedrin, need a Savior/Redeemer. Anyone who doesn’t believe that is deluding himself and denying Yahweh’s assessment of reality.
The religious leaders in Jerusalem didn’t see it that way, even though the evidence shows that they had used their positions to enrich themselves personally. They would do anything to protect their positions, their power, and their wealth. In Matthew 23, the Messiah called them hypocrites 7 times, blind guides, blind men, or blind Pharisees 5 times, fools, whitewashed tombs, serpents, and a brood of vipers. He had nothing good to say about them. Matthew 23 ends with this chilling prophecy:
“Jerusalem, Jerusalem, who kills the prophets and stones those sent to her, how often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were unwilling! Behold, your house is being left to you desolate. For I say to 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)
Those religious leaders were the men who condemned the Messiah to death in an illegal trial before the Sanhedrin, because He threatened everything they held dear. I want to be very clear about this point, though: The Messiah came to give His life for our salvation and redemption. The people who condemned Him to death didn’t understand that they were enabling Him to complete His mission. So, all of us, not just some of us, are guilty of crucifying the Messiah, because He died for all of us.
That said, the religious leaders in Jerusalem played a role that was similar to the role played by Judas Iscariot, the Messiah’s betrayer. This is what the Messiah said about Judas:
“He who dipped his hand with Me in the bowl is the one who will betray Me. The Son of Man is to go, just as it is written of Him, but woe to that man by whom the Son of Man is betrayed! It would have been good for that man if he had not been born.” (Matthew 26: 23-24)
I think you can say the same thing about the religious leaders in Jerusalem who condemned the Messiah to death. They saw Him as nothing more than a rabble-rouser who could attract a crowd, and for Him, attracting a crowd was easy. He forgave sins, cast out demons, healed the sick, raised the dead, gave sight to the blind, cleansed lepers, caused the lame to walk, and fed the hungry by the thousands. He performed those miracles as proof that He is who He claimed to be, Yahweh.
What rational person would not want to see miracles like those being performed? As I said, the Messiah didn’t have any trouble attracting a crowd, and the sizes of the crowds were growing. A large percentage of the people in the crowds who saw those miracles believed Him, meaning they believed that He is Yahweh. Because of the things the Messiah said about them, that frightened the religious leaders in Jerusalem. With each passing day, they were more determined to eliminate Him.
Interestingly, the Oral Law doesn’t deny that the Messiah did those things. How could it? There were thousands of eyewitnesses. So, the religious leaders attributed those miracles to Satan. The irony is breathtaking. Yahweh was right there with them in Person. He was doing things that only Yahweh can do and saying things that Yahweh said, but the men who were supposed to represent Him before the people rejected Him. When Pontius Pilate presented the Messiah to the crowd, they led them in this chant: “Crucify Him! Crucify Him! Crucify Him!”
This is what the Messiah told the religious leaders in Jerusalem:
“If you were blind, you would not be guilty of sin; but now that you claim you can see, your guilt remains.” (John 9: 41)
“Your guilt remains.” Those three words are terrifying. The Messiah died to redeem them. All they needed to do was have faith in Him to do for them something that they could not do for themselves. They ended up rejecting their own salvation. That’s a decision they will regret for eternity.
Nothing in us endears us to Yahweh except faith in Him as our Elohim, Savior, and Redeemer and obedience to the leading of His Spirit. There is no savior besides Yahweh. (Isaiah 43: 11) His shed blood paid the price for our sins and redeemed us. That’s why believers rejoice when they sing “What Can Wash Away My Sin (Nothing but the Blood of Jesus)”. Below are the lyrics to the first verse of the song:
What can wash away my sin
Nothing but the blood of Jesus
What can make me whole again
Nothing but the blood of Jesus
Oh precious is the flow, that makes me white as snow
No other fount I know
Nothing but the blood of Jesus
Jewish religious leaders did commit blasphemy by reducing Yahweh’s Name to nothing. In their minds, they elevated themselves to Yahweh’s position, and in the Oral Law, they forbade anyone except themselves from saying Yahweh’s Name. They thought they were righteous enough to say it, but others weren’t up to their level. Over time, that prohibition prevented most believers from knowing the Messiah’s real Name. It’s not Jesus. It’s Yahweh. (See Jeremiah 23: 5-6.) This is how that verse should read:
What can wash away my sin
Nothing but the blood of Yahweh
What can make me whole again
Nothing but the blood of Yahweh
Oh precious is the flow, that makes me white as snow
No other fount I know
Nothing but the blood of Yahweh
Maimonides wrote The Guide for the Perplexed. He knew the Tanach (the Old Testament) and the Oral Law. Like most religious Jews today, Maimonides gave precedence to the Oral Law. Since the Oral Law contradicts Yahweh’s Law in many obvious and important ways, anyone who knows Yahweh and reads The Guide for the Perplexed will inevitably conclude that Maimonides was perplexed and confused.
Most religious Jews would rather talk about the things Maimonides said than the things Yahweh said. Even so, they love to recite the Shema:
“Hear, O Israel: the LORD (or Hashem or Adonai) is our God, the LORD (or Hashem or Adonai) is one!” (Deuteronomy 6: 4)
Because of the prohibition in the Oral Law against saying Yahweh’s Name, they refuse to recite what Moses actually wrote in the Torah:
“Hear, O Israel: Yahweh is our Elohim, Yahweh is one!” (Deuteronomy 6: 4)
In their recitation of the Shema, religious Jews reveal their preference for the Oral Law over the Torah. It’s as plain as day. Anyone should be able to see it, but most of them can’t. Watch the video below. Some religious Jews are coming around to the truth.
Religious Jews will look at you and tell you with a straight face that they study the Torah. Nonsense. They may read the Torah, but most of them study the Oral Law; and they reject things in the Torah that don’t line up with the Oral Law. Moses Maimonides played an important part in their deception, because he bought into the notion that the Oral Law supersedes the Torah.
That’s called “rejecting Yahweh”. Religious Jews may not see it that way, but that’s how Yahweh sees it.
The Messiah was addressing that very problem when He said,
“You examine the Scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life. It is those very Scriptures that testify about Me, and yet you are unwilling to come to Me so that you may have life. I do not receive glory from people; but I know you, that you do not have the love of Elohim in yourselves. I have come in My Father’s Name [Yahweh], and you do not receive Me. If another comes in his own name, you will receive him. How can you believe, when you accept glory from one another and you do not seek the glory that is from the one and only Elohim? Do not think that I will accuse you before the Father. The one who accuses you is Moses, in whom you have put your hope. But if you believed Moses, you would believe Me, because he wrote about Me. But if you do not believe his writings, how will you believe My words?” (John 5: 39-47)
Yahweh wants all of us to know Him, but most of the time, He refuses to reveal Himself to us if we reject the things He told us or show no interest in knowing what He told us. The man in the video below is an exception. He came to know Yahweh personally, even though he had been brought up as an Orthodox Jew.
According to Paul, the day is coming when all of Yahweh’s faithful followers will know Him fully, not just personally. This is how Paul explained it:
“For now, we see in a mirror dimly, but then Face-to-face; now I know in part, but then I will know fully just as I also have been fully known.” (1 Corinthians 13: 12)
At this point, we can only imagine what “knowing Yahweh fully” means. The looks on people’s faces when Yahweh reveals Himself to them fully must be amazing. I can almost hear them saying, “Wow! Amazing! HalleluYah!”
Before Paul had a personal encounter with Yahweh on the road to Damascus (see Acts 9), He was a prominent Pharisee and a protégé of Gamaliel, one of the leading Jewish scholars of the 1st century AD. Paul was going to Damascus to round up Jewish believers in the Messiah (Yahweh) and bring them back to Jerusalem for trials before the Sanhedrin.
After that personal encounter with Yahweh, Paul became the most influential ambassador for Yahweh among the Gentiles, but it took Paul 3 years to overcome the damage done to him by his religious Jewish teachers. They had piled on him lots of useless baggage from the Oral Law, and it blurred his view of reality. After he unloaded that baggage, he could see. Only then could he represent Yahweh effectively.
Interestingly, Yahweh sent Paul to Mount Sinai and taught him the truth there. It’s the same place where He gave the Torah to Moses, not Moses Maimonides.
Paul had his Mount Sinai experience at the real Mount Sinai. I had one, too, but I got mine in the United States. Every Child of Yahweh has had or will have a Mount Sinai experience. If you haven’t had a Mount Sinai experience, you need to ask Yahweh to give you one.
Here’s a hint: In all likelihood, it will begin when you start believing what Yahweh said and rejecting things He didn’t say. For religious people, that will be very difficult, because they love the trappings of religion more than they love Yahweh. It will be especially difficult for religious Jews, because they hold the Oral Law in such high esteem. The Oral Law did not come from Yahweh. It is man-made law.
There may be comfort in religion and the traditions associated with it, but religion and traditions won’t endear you to Yahweh. As I said before, faithfulness and obedience to the leading of Yahweh’s Spirit will.
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Herbert Opalek from Newlife Church on Vimeo.
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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
