“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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Yahweh Speaks Through His Word
I can’t explain why this is so. I just know that it’s true: Yahweh speaks through His word.
I think Yahweh honors our effort to understand His word and our time spent in His word. That’s the only explanation I have that makes sense to me. All I have to do is read His word. Yahweh takes care of the rest.
When I was 7-years-old, my mother and father gave me a Bible for Christmas. It was December 1957. We lived in McRae, Georgia. I started reading the Bible in Luke. I don’t remember why I started there. Maybe it was because it was Christmas, and Luke’s gospel contains the best narrative about the Messiah’s birth. But that’s just a guess.
This is something I know: Yahweh spoke to me while I was reading, and in less than a year, I was saved. I know that, too.
While I was reading, it was as though the opening of Luke 2 became a part of me. That’s where the Messiah’s birth is presented. I made no effort to memorize that portion of the chapter, but to this day, I can still recite it without difficulty. Yahweh spoke to me through His word and inscribed this verse on my heart:
“For today in the city of David [Bethlehem or in Hebrew, Beit Lechem] there has been born for you a Savior, who is Christ the Lord.” (Luke 2: 11)
Beit Lechem means “House of Bread”. The Messiah is the Bread of Life. There are mysteries all over the Bible that are waiting to be revealed. All you have to do is read it.
Katie and I were married in 1972, and my grandmother and grandfather gave us a family Bible as a wedding gift. Shortly after we were married, I was reading that Bible. I can still remember lying in bed one night reading Matthew’s description of the Messiah’s Sermon on the Mount. Matthew 6: 21 stood out in my mind and came alive in my heart. This is what that verse says,
“For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.” (Matthew 6: 21)
I didn’t know it at that time, but I was about to become a partner with a very successful businessman in Athens, Georgia where we lived. His name was Billy. He had no sons. One evening, Billy told Katie and me that I was going to be his son and that he was going do for me the things he would have done for his son if he had one. That included making me rich.
I was taken by surprise and didn’t respond, but I remember thinking, I can never be your son. I appreciated what Billy had done for me and was going to do for me, but he was not and could not be my father. I knew that.
Billy did exactly what he said he would do. First, he helped me get a loan to buy 3 houses without having to put up one cent as a downpayment. I was 23 at the time. Katie and I lived in half of one of the houses and rented out the other half and the other 2 houses. The rental income was enough to pay the mortgage and all the other expenses, and it left us with several hundred dollars of profit each month. At 23, I was earning money; I owned property; and I was living mortgage free.
A couple of years later, I became a partner with Billy and his father and brother in a successful business that his father had started when he was young. It had been in operation in Athens for several decades. I was in my 20s living mortgage free, and I was a partner in a thriving business.
Billy also introduced me to all of his friends. They were some of the leading businessmen, doctors, and lawyers in Athens. They met together monthly as a group in an old farmhouse for a T-bone steak dinner at a 1,200-acre farm that Billy and his brother owned. They called it “Po Boys Country Club”. Many prominent business people and professional people in Athens yearned to be a part of that group, but they were never invited to Po Boys. I was in my 20s, and I was an accepted member of the group.
Billy was an attorney. He owned many businesses and lots of real estate in and around Athens. One day Billy told me that he was going to sell me 10% of a restaurant he owned. I knew that I didn’t want to be a partner in that business, so I turned him down.
Billy said, “Neil, you will make more than enough from your share of the profits to pay for it and still have plenty of money left over.”
I still didn’t want to be a partner in that business, and I told him why. It had nothing to do with money. I could tell by Billy’s expression that he didn’t understand. It had to do with Matthew 6: 21, the verse Yahweh etched on my heart a few weeks after Billy and I started working together:
“For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.”
By then, I realized that Billy’s whole life revolved around making money and getting rich. He had become a master at both, and I was becoming like him. That I could not abide. I also knew that if I continued to work with Billy, I would become like him and do irreversible damage to myself in the process. I cut the cord between us and started working on a Ph.D. degree.
I talked with Billy many times after that. He never understood why I got out of a situation that was destined to make me very rich at a very young age. I think he was angry with me, but he never said he was. It didn’t matter, though. I had to do what I had to do.
My first daughter, Melanie, was born while Billy and I were working together. I looked at my baby daughter, and I knew that I had to teach her Yahweh’s principles of living. While I worked on my Ph.D., I also studied the Bible.
One day I was reading Bible, and Yahweh spoke to me. He told me exactly what I would do for Him. It had to do with what I had just read in the Bible. I can’t tell you what it is, but I can tell you this: My life since then has revolved around becoming the person Yahweh created me to be, so I can do the things Yahweh created me to do.
It all started when I was a young boy reading the Bible. Yahweh spoke to me through His word, and He has been doing it ever since. Yahweh speaks to me in other ways, too. The better I know Him, the better I am able to recognize His voice. Over the years, I have learned that Yahweh enjoys talking with me. My goal is to learn to hear His voice when He wants to speak. In the days ahead, that will become imperative.
It reminds me of the time when I was writing His Name is Yahweh. I knew that I was supposed to write the book, and I wanted to get started. But Yahweh wouldn’t let me start. Before He would let me write the book, He wanted me to understand what an honor it was to have been chosen to write it. See The Trilogy for details.
That reminds me of something else I have learned. It’s Yahweh, not my way. Yahweh’s timing is crucial. His timing must become my timing. The only way that can happen is if I am listening for His voice and hearing it. Thankfully, He has assumed responsibility for making that happen. If He left it up to me, I am positive that I would fail miserably and do great harm to myself in the process.
The other day, I was listening to J. Vernon McGee on Thru the Bible. He said that when he started preaching, he tried to copy things successful preachers were doing, but he soon realized that all he needed to do was preach the word. Yahweh’s Spirit takes it from there. That resonated with me, because that’s what Yahweh did in my life. Simply reading Yahweh’s word or listening to it is all I had to do. Yahweh did the rest.
“For the word of Elohim is alive and powerful. It is sharper than the sharpest two-edged sword, cutting between soul and spirit, between joint and marrow. It exposes our innermost thoughts and desires.” (Hebrews 4: 12)
When Paul wrote that letter, there was no New Testament. He was referring to the Old Testament or the Tanach.
You can download an app for Thru the Bible for free. I have downloaded it on my iPhones and iPods. It’s a program that takes you through the entire Bible in 5 years. I have read the Bible through many times in many versions, but hearing McGee talk about the Bible from his perspective is very interesting and enlightening.
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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
