Watch: Parasha Devarim 2022: Faith as a Mustard Seed!
Devarim (Deuteronomy) 1:1-3:22, Yeshayahu (Isaiah) 1, Marqaus (Mark) 14
We have so much to talk about in “Parasha Devarim”, so can we talk? We have some super important things to say and many of them are hard to understand; especially because it seems like so many of us have become hard of hearing. So, I think the thing that we need to talk about most is (and forgive me), the thing which is lacking the most, among both the House of Ephraim and the House of Judah in the dispersion, and I do not want to be the one to sit in the judgment seat nor do I want to like to play the role of Job’s friends, but the question is, do we see real strong faith in Yahweh today like the kind we see in Scripture?
I am not talking about the basic kind of faith that says “Yeah, of course, I believe there is an Elohim”, “Of course, do not be silly, that is why we are watching your program right?”, “I mean give me a break, right, that is why we are reading His book. Come on!”
We are not talking about that kind of faith. We are not talking about the beginner’s level of faith that says, “Yes, we know there is an Elohim; Yes, we know He called us out of Egypt; yes, we know we are supposed to be keeping the Commandments but…”
So instead, what we need to talk about is that mature kind of faith that Yahweh wants us to have. We need to talk about that kind of faith that pleases Elohim, and we are talking about the kind of faith that our ancestors did not have.
Forgive me again, but does it seem to anyone else that a lot of people in our movement, seem to take their eternal salvation for granted? They are not working it out in fear and trembling, they are just playing straight up, flat out, taking it for granted because they say they “believe”, even though they do not obey.
Yochanan (John) 3:16
16 “For Elohim so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.”
In the Nazarene Israel study, we talk about this. We talk about how in Yochanan (John) chapter 3 and in verse 16; one of the most famous passages ever, Yochanan Hamatbil (John the Baptist), tells us that whoever believes on the Son, has eternal life and no question (no doubt) about it.
Yochanan (John) 3:36
36 “He who believes in the Son has everlasting life; and he who does not believe the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of Elohim abides on him.”
Now watch, 20 verses later in Yochanan chapter 3 and verse 36, Yochanan tells us that, “[Although] he who believes in the Son [yes] he has eternal life, [but unless he obeys the Son], he shall not see that life. But the wrath of Elohim [remains upon] him”, even though he “believes” in Yeshua.
That is something for us all to stop and think about and I think this is the very point that so many of us Ephramites and Jews in the dispersion are missing.
Again, in the Nazarene Israel study, we show that there is a big difference between the Western Greco-Roman concept of faith which requires thought (we think we believe) versus the Hebrew concept of faith which requires obedience. In the Hebrew concept, if there is no obedience to that which is heard, then there is no faith. What that means to us is that, if Yeshua says to do something and we do not do it (like organize, tithe, fulfill the Great Commission, and build Him the Kingdom), then no matter what we might like to think about our level of faith and our level of obedience, He does not think we believe. He is not going to change His mind for just us, that is the thing.
I think a lot of us think, “Well, we believe on Yeshua, so He is going to change His mind for us right?”. No, that is not what He says; He says the exact opposite.
We are going to see something closely related here in this parasha, and again, we are talking about fine distinctions (very, very important!). And this fine distinction, well you know, people are people, our forefathers in Israel are stubborn, stiff-necked and Devarim (Deuteronomy) is basically a history book, right? Okay, so it is a history book so what is happening?
Well, Moshe (Moses) is getting old so what is he doing? Well, he is speaking to the nation to prepare them for when he is going to die, he is going to pass the mantle on to Joshua. He is speaking to the next generation that is going to continue on beyond him. Does it seem to anyone else like Moshe’s big concern seems to be that before he dies, he has to help the next generation grasp why Yahweh rejected their fathers so that they will not make the same mistakes? They are in danger of making the same mistakes (living beings reproduce after their own kinds). Are we good so far?
Okay, well the point is, in this parasha, if we will listen to what is really being said here; the real reason Yahweh rejected our forefathers is because their faith in Him was weak. They were not exercising their faith. They were not practicing their faith. They were not practicing trusting Yahweh and behaving accordingly. The really sad part about this is, our forefathers had no reason to be that way because Yahweh’s track record with us was spotless. Yahweh showed our forefathers again, and again, and again that He was going to be reliable, even if we were not.
Still, our forefathers did not believe that if they would just do what He said, that He is trying to set them up for success. If they will just do what He says, He is going to be there for us, He is going to protect us, He is going to provide for us, and He is going to help us bring us the victory. That is the relationship. He is trying to develop with us. He wants us to succeed, but if we say we want to enter into that relationship and then we do not do the things He says, He says He is going to destroy us from the face of the Earth and not in a nice way. That is the deal, but we are going to see that again in next week’s parasha also. Moshe is trying to drive the point home.
We may be like our forefathers because living beings reproduce after their own kinds. So, just like our forefathers, we may think about our own faith as being adequate to the task, even if we are not doing the things that Elohim says, but if we will think about that just for a moment, what sense does that make? Does that make any sense at all?
What we are going to see in this parasha is that for whatever reason, our ancestors did not truly trust Him. They did not truly have faith in Him. They did not show the fruit of their trust by their actions because the fruit of faith is obedience. As Hebrews chapter 11 says, when we have faith, we do something for Him. When we have trust and faith, we are going to help Him build His Kingdom.
Again, the big problem is that Yahweh takes offense if He offers us His Son’s blood and we do not choose to trust Him. His Son makes that great sacrifice and we do not choose to obey Him with an overcoming kind of trust and an overcoming kind of obedience. He takes offense! He considers it that we are trampling on the blood of His Son. Join us and let us talk all about these fine points in this parasha so that we can avoid making the same mistakes as our forefathers.
B’reisheet (Genesis) is a book that is all about beginnings. We talk about this in more detail in our study on Torah Government.
B’reisheet (Genesis) 46:3
3 “So He said, “I am Elohim, the Elohim of your father; do not fear to go down to Egypt, for I will make of you a great nation there.”
In B’reisheet chapter 46, we see Yahweh leading our ancestors down into Egypt where they prepare to become a nation by first becoming slaves. Then, 430 years later, Yahweh would send Moshe to draw our ancestors out of Egypt so we could begin to form our own separate nation, complete with our own government and our own separated priesthood.
Shemote (Exodus) 13:12
12 “That you shall set apart to Yahweh all that open the womb, that is, every firstborn that comes from an animal which you have; the males shall be Yahweh’s.”
Shemote (Exodus) chapter 13 and verse 12 shows us that this was the Priesthood of the First born.
Shemote (Exodus) 19:5
5 “Now therefore, if you will indeed obey My voice and keep My covenant, then you shall be a special treasure to Me above all people; for all the earth is Mine.”
Then, in Shemote chapter 19 and verse 5, the very first thing Yahweh commanded His new Priesthood of the Firstborn (and the rest of the nation for that matter, all of us) was to hear and obey His voice. We are going to listen for His voice and we are going to do what He says (not our own voices) because that is effectively the same thing as listening to Satan’s voice. Satan tricks us. That was the problem all the way back in the Garden. We felt that we could not rely on Yahweh, so now we can do our own thing and there was not going to be any punishment for that. If you want to know more about that, please check our study called “Satan Attacks Us Through Our Minds”; you can find it in Nazarene Scripture Studies, Volume Four.
Our ancestors were certifiably meshugar (senseless). Let us consider the situation for the moment. Yahweh sprung us from prison and He told us that, even though we were slave waifs’ down there in Egypt, He told us that if we would just hear His voice and just do what He tells us to do (that is all), He would transform us and make us into a Kingdom of priests and a set-apart nation. It is like what? Are you kidding me? Let us see if we understand this. Let us see if we have this straight, okay?
Yahweh is going to spring us from prison, and He is going to do all that for us? We are going to become the bride of the Son of the King of the universe? Are you kidding me? And all we have to do, (where is the catch?) all we have to do is just listen for His voice 24-7 and do what He says 24-7? That is it? That is all? And if we will just do what He says with diligence and do it eagerly, He is going to set us up for success. He wants to train us to become His Son’s bride and all we have to do is just listen, be loyal and faithful, and trust Him? It boggles the mind, are you kidding? That is it?
At the same time, do we realize how high His standards are? Do we realize His standard is perfection? Do we realize that He is not looking for the kind of run-of-the-mill lukewarm kind of faith that our forefathers showed. Do we realize that He is not looking for that lukewarm vomitus kind of faith that most of us in Ephraim and Judah in the dispersion have? Do we understand that His standards are perfection and that He is looking for a transcendent, overcoming kind of obedience? One that focuses on Him exclusively and does not pay attention to the wind and the waves.
The reason why Yahweh is looking for an overcoming kind of bride for His Son is that He wants to find someone who loves His Son more than our own life, but that is just it. That is the trick right there. That is the catch. How is Yahweh going to know that we love Him more than our own lives unless we are willing to do the things He says to do here in this life? How does He know that we love Him more than our own lives unless we lay down our lives in order to serve Him?
Yochanan (John) 14:15
15 “If you love Me, keep My commandments.”
Yeshua says very plainly; He says “if you love Me, [then] keep My commandments”. And considering that we have already seen how Yeshua is the one who went before us in the wilderness. He was the messenger that was sent ahead of us. He is the one that gave us the Torah at Mount Sinai. He is the one saying, “If you love Me, [then] keep My commandments”. But what does it say about us if we know what His commandments are, and we do not do them? Does that not qualify as rebellion and is that not as the sin of witchcraft? In other words, it is worthy of death.
Let us think about things from Yahweh’s point of view. What they say in business is that “the best indicator of future performance is past performance”. The way we did things in the past is probably how we are going to do them again in the future unless we make a heartfelt change. That being the case (and it seems to be the case), how is Yahweh going to know that we love Him? How is Yahweh going to know that we will obey Him if we do not obey Him now? How does Yahweh know that we have trust and faith in Him unless we show trust and faith in Him in this life? That is everything to Him. He wants to know where our heart is.
There is an old saying, and that is, that “Yahweh does not answer our prayers, Yahweh answers our faith”. Yahweh answers our trust. In other words, if we show the fruit of faith, He is going to be there for us. But if we do not show the fruit of faith? Well, we do not have to trust Him? I mean you know our forefathers did not trust Him. Obviously, clearly in this parasha, Moshe is covering that, he is giving a rundown of all the things where our forefathers did not have faith, where our forefathers did not trust Him.
Our forefathers fell away very quickly in the sin of the golden calf. The Firstborn Priesthood did not even last two months. This really shows a lot about our faith. First, we cannot see Yahweh, but we can see Moshe. Once Moshe is gone, now we are dealing with an invisible Elohim and now we have an invisible Moshe.
“Oh, oh, so now we are required to walk by faith instead of walking now by sight? Because if we walk by sight, we can see Moshe, but now Moshe is gone so we cannot walk by sight. Now we have to walk by faith and could not make it two months after all the miracles we saw in Egypt? Now we cannot see Moshe so what do we do? We need something visible to worship do we not? So what do we do? We set up an idol to worship!”
Our forefathers set up a golden calf and as long as we are here, we spot the correlation between the worship of a visible calf and the worship of a visible cross (which is the sign of the sun god Tamus) which we are told to avoid in Ezekiel chapter eight. Or can we spot the correlation with the hexagram which is the star of the false god Remphan. It is also called the star of the false god Kiyyun. Or can we see how visible objects of worship come into play with a menorah Dagon fish with a hexagram? That corresponds both to the Dagon fish and to the hexagram and do not try and tell us that it is a star of David, it is not a star of David. You do not see that term in Scripture.
I spent a long time looking for truth in all the wrong places, I know a hexagram when I see one. It is like when someone takes a look at the cross, they say, “Well that is not a cross, that is a something else”. You know a cross when you see one and you know a hexagram when you see one, give us a break.
For all those who want to know more on that subject, we have a study on “Forbidden Images” in Nazarene Scripture Studies, Volume One. I recommend checking that study out. It explains what is wrong with looking for a physical, visible object of worship to represent an invisible Elohim. It is all a big test, and you can read more about it in that study.
After the sin of the golden calf, Yahweh then decommissioned the Firstborn Priesthood and then He established and commissioned the Levitical Priesthood to take its place. After that, our people spent about a year at Mount Sinai building the Tabernacle and basically getting our act together as a nation, as a people, and as the armies of living Elohim.
Devarim (Deuteronomy) 1:2
2 “It is eleven days’ journey from Horeb by way of Mount Seir to Kadesh Barnea.”
To catch up with our forefathers’ history, Devarim (Deuteronomy) chapter 1 and verse 2 tells us it takes only about 11 days to go from Mount Sinai (Horeb) to Kadesh Barnea. What that means is, is that if our forefathers had just showed faith (if they had listened and then done what He said), they could have arrived at the Promised Land in about 11 days.
Of course, our forefathers did not trust Yahweh to take care of their needs. They did not trust Yahweh to provide for them even though they had already seen Him bring judgment on all the false gods of Egypt. Can we just imagine for a moment; can we imagine Him parting the Yam Suph (Reed Sea)? Can we imagine Paro’s (Pharoah’s) army drowning in the waters? Then every day we had manna to eat, we had water in the wilderness, and He gave us a victory in battle over our enemies, but it did not seem to matter. Did It not seem like no matter how much Yahweh did for us and how many times we did not want to trust Him? We did not want to have faith in Him, and we did not want to practice that kind of strong overcoming faith in Him knowing that He is the scriptwriter, and we are just like pixels on the screen; therefore, He can change the computer program. He can deliver us from any situation, or not because He controls absolutely everything and we do not.
Devarim (Deuteronomy) 1:3
3 “Now it came to pass in the fortieth year, in the eleventh month, on the first day of the month, that Moses spoke to the children of Israel according to all that Yahweh had given him as commandments to them,”
Even though our forefathers could have gone to the land of Israel in 11 days, verse 3 tells us that it was not until the fortieth year on the eleventh month on the first day of the month. This is when Moshe began to speak and address the second generation. They had not known of Egypt; they had not known of all those things.
All they knew were the Commandments that Yahweh had given, so now Moshe is recounting our history to help them understand why they need to be different than their forefathers. Why they could not do the same things as their forefathers did and still hope to be pleasing to Yahweh.
Devarim (Deuteronomy) 1:6
6 “Yahweh our Elohim spoke to us in Horeb, saying: ‘You have dwelt long enough at this mountain.”
In verse 6, Moshe is telling us how Yahweh spoke to our people in Horeb (Sinai) after the Tabernacle was finished saying that we dwelt enough at Horeb. We dwelt there long enough. It has been a year so now it is time to take this show on the road and begin the conquest of the land of Canaan.
Well, we did some of the things that armies need to do. We accepted leaders over thousands, over hundreds, over fifties, and over tens, all right. That did not seem to represent a real ego challenge to us, and our forefathers did good in this. It is essential to choose the correct leadership.
This is also reflected in First Timothy chapter 3 where Shaliach Shaul (Apostle Paul) tells us what the qualifications are for assembly leadership under the Melchizedekian Order.
Timotheus Aleph (I Timothy) 3:2-3
2 “A bishop then must be blameless, the husband of one wife, temperate, sober-minded, of good behavior, hospitable, able to teach;
3 not given to wine, not violent, not greedy for money, but gentle, not quarrelsome, not covetous;”
We see more on this in Titus chapter 1 and verse 5 which tells us that the separated Melchizedekian Priests are supposed to be the ones to appoint the congregational Elders. Congregational Elders do not self-appoint. Congregation Elders can self-identify but they do not self-appoint. That is the job of the separated priesthood according to Scripture.
Titus 1:5
5 “For this reason I left you in Crete, that you should set in order the things that are lacking, and appoint elders in every city as I commanded you”
Our forefathers seemed to have accepted leadership and order in the Midian all right, and they seemed to also have accepted leadership and organization in the first century all right, but today does It not seem like dispersed Ephraim has a big problem with leadership and congregational discipline? “We do not want any (the Ephraimites), We do not think we need any and the reason why, is because we are a rebellious house”.
Titus 1 and verse 5 is pretty clear. There is not a lot of confusion here: Appoint Elders in every city as I have commanded you. That is the role of the priesthood but today we have all kinds of Messianic ministries preaching against the very same things the Renewed Covenant commands us to do. That is just a simple fact so what does that say about our faith? We have many more ministers preaching against what Scripture says to do, or ignoring what Scripture says to do instead of preaching and teaching what Scripture says to do. What does that say about our faith, brothers and sisters?
Does it not seem to suggest that we think we are as at least important as Yahweh Elohim because do we not think we get to be the ones to pick and choose which part of our King’s orders we are going to obey and which parts we are going to disobey? Oh, and we are still expecting a reward? What kind of reward are we going to get if we are in disobedience? Is disobedience not as the sin of witchcraft? What kind of reward do we expect to get by picking and choosing which of His Commandments we feel we are going to obey instead of just submitting wholeheartedly to His program and putting our life in a basket and bringing it to Him and placing it on his altar?
In contrast, our brother Judah does not generally seem to have a big problem accepting leadership or congregational discipline. It just seems I can pick on brother Judah a bit because I usually pick on Ephraim. Does it not seem like brother Judah’s problem is that they have a hard time submitting to clean leadership and clean congregational discipline?
Even the Messianic ones cannot seem to figure out that the term rabbi does not exist in the Tanach and Yeshua says do not be called rabbi because we only have one Rabbi. It is pretty clear, so when Scripture is clear like this, why are there such problems with such large percentages of people using forbidden images and forbidden terms? Does all of this come from hearing and obeying Yahweh’s voice? Does this come from hearing and obeying Yeshua’s voice?
If we are hearing and obeying Elohim’s voice, are we not supposed to be doing the things that Elohim’s voice says to do? Are we not supposed to be doing the same things that Scripture tells us to do? And if we are not, then how is that hearing and obeying His voice? How is that obedience unto Elohim? For the Orthodox, we can understand why they would call themselves rabbi and that is a whole separate story (we cover that in the Nazarene Israel study), but for a Messianic to call himself rabbi? Come on…
There is an old joke about the rabbis and the Pesach (the rabbis anyway) so there are these four rabbis, and they are all arguing about what shape of an oven the Pesach must be cooked in (in the coming Millennial Kingdom). There are three rabbis ganging up on the one lone rabbi.
The one lone rabbi claims that the Pesach must be cooked in a round oven (I forget his reasons why in the joke) but the three say “No, no, it needs to be cooked in a square one (very important)!” So they are arguing and arguing, and they are going back and forth.
Finally, the one rabbi, he just drops to his knees, he looks to the heavens, and he just prays with all his heart and says “Elohim!” (Actually, he means to say Elokim, because they think you cannot pronounce Yahweh’s name. You cannot even say the word Elohim because Gentiles like us might learn how to pronounce Yahweh’s name, so they have to hide it from everybody. Which again is not what Yahweh says to do!)
But he drops to his knees and prays with all of his heart; “Elohim, please! They say it is a square oven, please show them that the Pesach must be cooked in a round oven. Please, please show them.”
All of a sudden, a bolt of lightning comes out of the sky and hits a tree, sets it on fire, knocks it over, birds scatter, the clouds part, and a giant booming voice comes out of the heavens, “He is right. it is a round oven. Now stop arguing with him!”
The one rabbi, he says, “Thank you so much!” Then he looks up and he sees the other three rabbis standing there with their hands folded across their chest and he is like “He is incredible!” He is like “What? How could? Did you not hear? Did you not hear Elohim? He said it is a round oven!”
And the three rabbi’s just stand there saying, “So what? It is still three against two.”
And that is how the rabbis think. Because the rabbis believe that they were given the authority to establish a new Torah for each generation based upon the majority rule of the rabbis. There are other Talmud quotes we could get into in other times, but faith is not rocket science. Faith is basic, basic, basic, basic. Faith is something that anyone can do regardless of. You do not need a college degree; you do not even need to finish high school. Finish high school, finish your schooling. Get schooling if you can, but it is basic.
Faith is the simplest thing, we just need to sit down and count the cost and cultivate our soil and realize that Yahweh is much, much bigger, and much, much more powerful than we can possibly be. He is promising us eternal things. He is promising us eternal rewards if we will submit to Him and obey Him. If we do not obey him, it means certain death (and not in a nice way) even when we say we believe in Yeshua.
Even when we claim the John 3:16 prayer, because we are claiming it in a Greco-Roman way. We are claiming to believe on Yeshua because we “think” Yeshua is the Messiah. Instead of coming at the Hebrew perspective where we are “obeying” the Messiah because we know He is the Messiah. And does that not seem like that is what so many of Ephraim and dispersed Judah just do not seem to understand?
Perhaps they do not want to understand. How many of us feel like ignorance is going to give us an out? How many just feel like ignorance is going to give us an excuse in the Day of Judgment? “We did not know; we were just reading your book because we believe on you. But we did not know what you said.”
There is something about trusting Yahweh under obedience that there is no parallel; there is no substitute for it. Does it not seem like that is just what the majority of us just do not want to do? We say we believe He exists, but our forefathers did not trust Him to the point of obedience, that is the whole point. Therefore, their faith was immature, and Yahweh is not coming for an immature bride for His Son. He wants a mature bride that is spotless, blemishless, and without wrinkle.
Devarim (Deuteronomy) 1:19
19 “So we departed from Horeb, and went through all that great and terrible wilderness which you saw on the way to the mountains of the Amorites, as Yahweh our Elohim had commanded us. Then we came to Kadesh Barnea.”
Verse 19 tells us that we departed from Horeb and went through all the great and terrible wilderness on the way to the mountains of the Amorites, then we came to Kadesh Barnea.
Devarim (Deuteronomy) 1:21
21 “Look, Yahweh your Elohim has set the land before you; go up and possess it, as Yahweh Elohim of your fathers has spoken to you; do not fear or be discouraged.”
In verse 21, Moshe told our forefathers to go up and take the land which Yahweh had set before them and not to fear and not to be discouraged. Because not only had Yahweh commanded them to do it, but Yahweh is also going to be with them. And the battle belongs to Him, so does anyone else really have anything to say about it? Anything at all? And if not, what is our fear? Are we afraid to die knowing Elohim is on the far side?
Our ancestors made a smart move; they said to send spies first to search out the land and to bring back word about what is the best way to go up and conquer the land. We knew that Yahweh was commanding us to do this just like Yeshua commands us to do the Great Commission for Him. Our forefathers knew that this was what Yahweh wanted and that He would be with us. He would deliver us. He would take care of us just like we know Yeshua wants us to build Him a Kingdom according to all that He commands. Then in the Torah our spies brought back a bad report saying “no, there are giants in the land and there is no possible way that we could win (not even with Yahweh on our side).”
Devarim (Deuteronomy) 1:26
26 “Nevertheless you would not go up, but rebelled against the command of Yahweh your Elohim.”
In verse 26. Because of the lack of faith, our forefathers would not go up. Modern day parallel, it is literally an army refusing to go into battle. It is literally a death penalty offense in a human army even today. So then, how much more so with Yahweh? Let us not focus on the death penalty offense, rather let us just ask ourselves why? Why did our forefathers not trust Yahweh steadfastly, even after all they had seen? They had seen miracle, after miracle, after miracle. Yahweh had been faithful to be there just like He is faithful to preserve us today. So why did our forefathers not trust Him? Why did our forefathers not obey Him? Why did they not have real faith in Him?
In Luqa (Luke) chapter 17 starting in verse 5, the apostles said to the Master Yeshua, increase our faith.
Luqa (Luke) 17:5-10
5 “And the apostles said to the Master, “Increase our faith.”
6 “So the Master said, “If you have faith as a mustard seed, you can say to this mulberry tree, ‘Be pulled up by the roots and be planted in the sea,’ and it would obey you.”
7 “And which of you, having a servant plowing or tending sheep, will say to him when he has come in from the field, ‘Come at once and sit down to eat’?”
8 “But will he not rather say to him, ‘Prepare something for my supper, and gird yourself and serve me till I have eaten and drunk, and afterward you will eat and drink’?
9 Does he thank that servant because he did the things that were commanded him? I think not.
10 So likewise you, when you have done all those things which you are commanded [in the Torah and in the Renewed Covenant], say, ‘We are unprofitable servants. We have done what was our duty to do [Meaning all the things that we are commanded to do in Scripture].’ ”
To me at least, the real lesson here is humility. For one reason or another, our forefathers seemed that they wanted to be thanked for the things that were commanded of them. They expected that there should be something special in order for them to obey the Commandments and that just simply obeying Yahweh was not a reward enough. Why is that? Because they did not love Him. And also just plain straight up rebellion. It is like they did not want an Elohim to have to report to. They wanted all the blessings of Yahweh, but they did not want Yahweh because they did not want to have to obey. Is this not a game a lot of us play with Yahweh? We want the blessings, but we do not want Him because we do not want to be obedient to Him.
In that game, it is like wanting a retirement check from your employer, but we do not want to put in the work. We do not want to obey Him. How is it going to work for us in the business world? We would not think of giving an attitude like that to our boss at work but yet somehow, we will give it to Yahweh? We know that if we disobey our boss, we are going to get fired. We are going to get canned but yet we will disobey Yahweh? We refuse to obey His words and refuse to obey His Commandments. What sense does that make?
In verse 27, our ancestors showed where their humility was at. Get these words; these are bone chilling. It says that our forefathers complained in their tents. These are our forefathers saying, “Ohhh, it is because Yahweh hates us that He has brought us out of the land of Egypt to deliver us into the hand of the Amorites, to destroy us! Ohhh.”
Devarim (Deuteronomy) 1:27
27 “and you complained in your tents, and said, ‘Because Yahweh hates us, He has brought us out of the land of Egypt to deliver us into the hand of the Amorites, to destroy us.”
Really? Really? If Yahweh hated us, why did He have to bring us into the desert for when He could have just left us in Egypt? It is a lot less work, it is easy enough because to have to bring us all the way in the middle of the desert just to kill us? It does not make sense, but our forefathers took up their drama and said “how can we go up? Yeah. Yeah. It is because our brothers discouraged our hearts. Yeah. Yeah. That is the ticket. Yeah. Yeah, our brothers despised.
They were saying, “The people are greater and taller than we are! Ohhh! And their cities are great and fortified up to the heavens. Ohhhh! And moreover, there are people there who are way too big and way too strong for us (even with Yahweh on our side)!”
Really? You mean like Yahweh’s arm is too short? You mean like He cannot deliver us? He is the great computer programmer, and we are just pixels on the screen. He cannot change the program to deliver us? I would be wailing too if that was the case, but it is not.
Moshe said, “Look, grow up, get humble”. He says, “Do not be terrified and do not be afraid of them. Look, it is Yahweh your Elohim, He is the one who brought judgment on all the false gods of Egypt. He is the one who is going to go before you. He is the one who is going to take care of you. He himself will fight for you according to all He did before you in Egypt, before your very eyes. You know all those miracles you saw in Egypt? You know all the judgment that brought all the plagues? He is going to do those for us again, we just have to have faith and listen and do what He says. That is it! Oh, and do not expect thanks for doing the things that He says.”
That is a humility issue. Because He is our Master, and we are His servants. He is our owner, and we are His slaves.
We owe Him our obedience and we do not expect a reward for it. We do it out of love for Him because we want to please Him, and we want to serve Him. Did we not see in the wilderness how Yahweh our Elohim carried us as a man carries his son? In every place we went and, in every battle, until we came here? No, our ancestors did not pay attention to that part.
Devarim (Deuteronomy) 1:32
32 “Yet, for all that, you did not believe Yahweh your Elohim,”
Verse 32. Then Moshe says, “And yet for all that, everything you have seen in Egypt until now, for all that, still you do not believe? You do not believe Yahweh unto the point of humble, willing obedience (to do everything He says). So, we do not believe. Our faith is not stable. We are not supporting Yahweh. Our faith is flippity floppity!”
How many of us today have this weak kind of flippity floppity faith? We have faith when times are good and when things are not going well, we are crying out to Yahweh, and we do not want to obey. We do not want to… What is more than that? We are wondering why we do not get the blessings in our life when we are not obeying Yahweh’s Commandments? What is with this mindset that we have brothers?
We do not want to obey all of Yahweh’s Commandments. We do not want to help Him get His Kingdom. We do not want to fulfill the Great Commission. We do not want to tithe. We do not want to have congregational discipline. It is a whole bunch of stuff we just do not want to do yet we are expecting our King’s favor even though we are in disobedience which is as the sin of witchcraft.
How many of us have this immature flippity floppity kind of faith that is not really stable or strong? Let us remember the way Yahweh looks at things. If our faith is not reliable. If our faith is not strong. Yahweh considers that it does not even exist because why is it weak? Is it weak because we do not exercise our faith? We do not take care to make it stronger? We think we are already the Shimshon (Samson) of faith, so we do not need to exercise? Is that what we think?
Let us take a closer look at how Moshe is using this word “believe”. Let us dive in but let us remember that this same word “believe” is also often translated into English as “faith” and sometimes as “trust”. It is the same concept because we believe Yahweh exists right? Why else are we watching the video right? Why else we are reading His book right?
Our forefathers believed Yahweh enough to leave Egypt, right? They believed Yahweh enough at the foot of Mount Sinai to say all that Yahweh has said we will do and be obedient. They believed in Him enough to make that vow, that promise right or else why did we make it?
The thing we need to remember here, is that faith (we may believe we have faith) that does not lead to obedience, is not true faith in biblical terms. In other words, Yahweh does not reckon it to us as faith so if we think we are saved just because we “believe on Yeshua” or “believe on Jesus”; yet we are not doing what He wants us to do? We are not helping Him to get his Kingdom? Then, are we not really just fooling ourselves? As we show in the Nazarene Israel study, faith that does not lead to obedience is not reckoned to us as Faith. It is reckoned to us as rebellion.
So let us dive in; what is with this word “belief” here then? As we look it up in Strong’s Hebrew concordance, (because we like that) we see that it is Old Testament or Hebrew number H539. It is aman related to amein. We see it is a primitive root to “build up” or “to support”
H539 aman אָמַן; A primitive root; properly, to build up or support; to foster as a parent or nurse; figuratively to render (or be) firm or faithful, to trust or believe, to be permanent or quiet; morally to be true or certain; once (Isa. 30:21; interchangeable with ‘aman) to go to the right hand — hence, assurance, believe, bring up, establish, + fail, be faithful (of long continuance, stedfast, sure, surely, trusty, verified), nurse, (-ing father), (put), trust, turn to the right.
Hmm, okay, how is that related to faith? How is that related to belief? How does that relate to trust? Well, what it says, is when we amein or aman, it means we stabilize something. We are supporting something. We are building something up like Yeshua’s Kingdom.
A good example is found in Shemote (Exodus) chapter 17. This is when Israel has just left Egypt and they are fighting against Amalek.
Shemote (Exodus) 17:11-12
11 “And so it was, when Moses held up his hand, that Israel prevailed; and when he let down his hand, Amalek prevailed.”
12 “But Moses’ hands became heavy [he was doing this for a long time]; so they took a stone and put it under him, and he sat on it. And Aaron and Hur supported his hands, one on one side, and the other on the other side; and his hands were steady [or “emunah”] until the going down of the sun.”
The word steady is a related word; let us look it up. It is Strong’s Hebrew 530. Emunah referring to the stability; referring to the support. It is a feminine of Hebrew 529. Literally firmness, figuratively security. The moral understanding would be fidelity but it is also translated as: faith, faithful, faithfully, faithfulness, faithful man. It refers to stability versus something that is steady, something true, or truly, truth. It means something is stable. It means something is supporting. It means something can be relied upon. That is what it means.
H530 emunah אֱמוּנָה; Feminine of H529; literally firmness; figuratively security; moral fidelity: – faith (-ful, -ly, -ness, [man]), set office, stability, steady, truly, truth, verily.
The point is, if we have “emunah” of a stable kind then we can build up Yahweh. We can build up Yeshua’s Kingdom. We can support Yeshua’s Kingdom and it will be stable. We will be stable about it just like a good bride supports and builds up her husband.
Brothers, do we want a bride that is not being stable for us? Do we want a bride who is not supporting/not helping us? Then what about us with Yahweh? You know that old saying “your woman can either make you or break you”? Well, we are not going to break Yahweh and we are not going to break Yeshua, but if we do not support Him, if we do not help Him get His Kingdom, is He going to be pleased with us? How is that going to make Him look among the gentile pagan nations? This word means to make or to render something firm or faithful (like Yeshua’s Kingdom). It means to trust or believe in a permanent and in a quiet way. It means that we are solid. we are stable. we are in His corner. We are backing Him up. Our King wants a Kingdom? We are there supporting it. It gives us some synonyms: assurance, steadfast, sure, surely, trusty, verified.
That is what was missing from our forefathers’ performance in the wilderness. Yahweh’s performance was good but was our performance stable? Were we supporting our husbands’ goals? Were we supporting His mission or was that kind of faithfulness absent from our forefathers’ performance (both on the receiving and the giving end) We did not have any stability of support for Yahweh. Our forefathers did not feel assured that Yahweh was going to be there for them. They did not feel that they could trust Him. They felt that Yahweh hated them and had brought them into the wilderness to kill them. What kind of trust is that?
Let us look at it in another way. Can Yahweh trust us to provide Him with stable support to the mission that He has going on? Can Yeshua trust us to be doing (faithfully) the Great Commission while He is gone? He says, when the Master is delayed and He is gone a long time, the servants begin to party, beat the other servants, and have a good time. What is going to happen when that Master returns? What we need to understand in this parasha is that faith, belief, and trust are all related concepts in scripture. Support and stability are things that need to be exercised constantly. These are things we need to be, (throughout our day) exercising these things or when can we afford not to be practicing our faith?
We are coming into the End Times and things are going to get pretty bad here so as we explain in Revelation and the End Times, Babylon is working on a One World government and a One World religion.
In Scripture, governments are described as mountains so in Matthew chapter 17 and verse 20, Yeshua tells us that ‘if we have unbelief, we cannot cast out demons. By this He means partial belief/partial faith. That means that our faith is not strong enough and therefore, it is as if it does not exist.
Mattityahu (Matthew) 17:20
20 “So Yeshua said to them, “Because of your unbelief; for assuredly, I say to you, if you have faith as a mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move; and nothing will be impossible for you.”
We get to be this way because we are not exercising our faith constantly. Yeshua tells us that if we have faith as a mustard seed (begins very small and grows very big), we can say to this great mountain Babylon to move from here to there and it will move. Nothing will be impossible for us and we understand the spiritual implications of this in the context of the End Times (we talk about that more in our study on Revelation and the End Times).
There is a lot more we could say here, but we need to close this. The point is that we need to have faith in order to please Yahweh because whatever is not of faith, is of sin. What that means is, whatever is not of trust (complete transcendent overcoming trust) in Yahweh, is of our flesh. If we do not behave in a stable supporting way toward our Husband (helping Him to get the things that He wants), that also is counted as unbelief. That will not work in the coming judgment. That is the wrong way to go, so Yeshua’s advice is really the very best here.
So when our Master Yahweh gives us something to do for Him (either hearing His voice or reading it in His word, still small voice), if we would just take faith (even as small as a mustard seed but start there) and exercise that faith, our faith will get bigger and stronger. It is something that we do every day and if we are diligent to do everything (the still small voice asks of us to do), we will serve Him until He is satisfied. Until He has eaten His fill and we do not expect a reward. Rather, we say no, no, no, no, we are unprofitable servants. We did not do anything worthy of a reward. We are only doing that which is our duty to do, just like it was our forefathers’ duty to take the land of Israel because that is where Yahweh sent them, and to trust Him to deliver them.
It is our duty to help Yeshua fulfill His Great Commission. It is our duty to further our Husband’s Kingdom. It is just simple. It is something that when you love your spouse, you help them get the things that they want. If you are a bride and you love your husband, you help him get the kingdom that he so richly deserves, and we do not expect a reward for it. We do not expect anything special for it just like our forefathers should not have expected anything special to go into the land of Canaan.
Obedience to Yahweh was its own reward. They would get to occupy the land of Canaan, that was the reward. We should not expect a special reward. The irony is that when we do not expect a reward for doing good, that is when He wants to give us one. Again, can we see how this applies to us in these End Times?
Father Yahweh, please help us to understand. Please make us stable, steadfast supports for You and Your Son’s work. Please help us to exercise our faith daily so it might become stronger (to have real faith) so it might serve You in these End Times. Please help us to not expect a reward for doing all the things that you command us to do. Please help us to humble ourselves and to realize that this is our duty as obedient, humble servants. In Yeshua’s name, Amein.