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1 Corinthians 10:14
… flee from idolatry. IDOL SOUP RECIPE: You will need: 1 freshly worshipped golden calf; 1 angry prophet; a large rock; a big stick; a pestle and mortar; 1 blazing open-flame fire; a generous supply of water. Remove idol from its elevated platform; meanwhile, heat open fire to full strength. Handling roughly, toss idol into open flames. Allow image to thoroughly melt. Wait till gold has assumed a shapeless mass. Poke with stick to make sure it is completely melted before extinguishing fire. Allow gold to cool. Once cold, crush gold with big rock into medium size chunks. Thoroughly grind gold chunks with pestle and mortar until they reach a powder-like consistency. Spread powder over surface of the water. Serve cold. Serves 603,550. (Courtesy of First Fruits of Zion Ministries). In the incident of the golden calf, God treated the Israelites like the woman suspected of adultery (emphasis on ‘suspected’). Here is the passage about it, And if the spirit of jealousy comes over him (the husband) … the man shall bring his wife to the priest … And the priest shall take holy water … and take some of the dust that is on the floor of the tabernacle and put it into the water. … And when he has made her drink the water, then, if she has defiled herself … the water that brings the curse shall enter into her and cause bitter pain, … But if the woman has not defiled herself and is clean, then she shall be free and shall conceive children (Num. 5:14-28). In the last part of the section the Hebrew says, "she shall bear seed". I believe that Hashem is knowledgeable of human biology and that he knows that women do not bear seed. We also find the mention of a woman bearing seed in I will put enmity between … your offspring and her offspring (Hebrew text for offspring: seed) (Gen. 3:15), so this is not the first time that the Tanach תנך conceives the idea of the ‘seed’ of the woman. Both these references about women bearing seed are formidable Messianic expressions. The first one speaks of the final demise of the devil by the only woman (Miriam) to ever conceive seed without the agency of a man (Mat. 1:18—20), while the other speaks of the future destiny of Israel. How does that work? The woman in question is merely suspected of adultery; she has not been caught in the act. If she had been, she would be stoned right away, but she is only suspected of adultery and that probably because of uncomely behavior. She shall then be put to the bitter water test; if she really is guilty she should become deadly sick and a curse to her people. Israel as a nation has been put through the bitter waters tests of Sinai, and of exile, but in the end has come out victorious. Looking at the full story, we see Israel again, the Israel of the believers, in the woman of Revelation 12 bearing seed from among the gentiles as a sign of her restoration. Sometimes the Father allows us to go though bitter times. If our heart is pure towards him, these passing moments of our lives only enhance our station. Bitter times are coming to test all those that live upon the earth (Rev. 3:10). As in Horeb, these bitter times will also take the shape of an idolatrous image (Rev. 13:14). May we keep our heart pure from the world, that we may be found guiltless and bear ‘seed’ unto him.
1 Comment
1 Corinthians 8:4
… "an idol has no real existence,"… When Israel made the Golden Calf, they were not transferring their worship of Hashem to that of another deity. In their mind, they were still worshipping Adonai, albeit in a syncretized version. A literal translation of what Moses says in Exodus 32:4 reads: "this is your God Israel who brought you out of Egypt". They thought they could worship Adonai by the medium of something familiar, in this case the calf. Contrary to the claimed deities of the day, being the Creator of all things, the God of Abraham did not want to be represented through the mere medium of one His creations. Let's look at idolatry in religion today. While the Catholic and Eastern Orthodox Church are a mixed bowl of ancient Jewish Messianism and their respective pagan cultures, Western Protestantism seems to have has adopted a form of religion that is very reminiscent to Hellenic ascetism and transcendentalism, along with an anti-Biblical materialism philosophy that over glorifies independence, wealth, and prosperity over the virtues of generosity, humility, and a submissive spirit. There is also a form idolatry that empowers words of affirmation, astral bodies, and geometric shapes, through fear and acknowledgment. Hashem indeed created all languages, geometry, and the astral bodies, all in order to glorify Him (Revelations 4:11); that is why the enemy is intent on high-jacking creation for his own purposes. Witches today center their worship around new moons, and call some of their feast days ‘Sabbaths’. Does it mean that we should stop obeying God’s commandment to sanctify the new moon and remember the Sabbath just because the devil perverted these things (Numbers 29:6; Exodus 20:8)? Should we stop recognizing God’s Holy Days just because pagans also have special days (Colossians 2:16)? In the Bible God used a brazen snake on a pole to heal His people. They were told if they just gaze at it they will live. Several hundred years later, a Judean King Josiah had to destroy it because people had made it an object of worship (Numbers 21:8; 2 Kings 18:4). As a French-born naturalized American, as long as I am on American soil the laws of France cannot affect me. In the same manner, when we renounce allegiance to the enemy, as long as we remain on spiritual God’s territory, none of the devil’s trinkets have power over us. Idols, astral bodies, and geometric shapes only have the power we allot them through fear or ignorance. Judaism teaches that when we use an element of creation for the glory of God we capture it from the hands of the enemy to the glory of God. Wood can make an idol, but also an Ark to house a Torah scroll. Metal can make money, the love of which is the source of all evil, but it also can be fashioned into a head piece to crown the King of Kings. Mathematics, Geometry, physics and astronomy are all related as sciences proving God’s ownership of creation. It is high time we recapture God’s creation and give it back to him, along with our own hearts, minds, souls, and spIrits. John 14:8
"Adoni, show us the Father,” The Children of Israel blew it. Impatient for the return of Moses they make themselves a god of gold. They did not transfer their loyalty to an idol of gold. Unfamiliar with the idea of an unseen god with no image or temple, they concretized the unseen One who had qualified Himself by taking them out of Egypt into the similitude of a calf. Hashem seems to have an issue with identity theft. Israel played the harlot during her betrothal so God calls off the wedding. The first covenant made at Sinai is already broken. Israel, the bride is technically allegeable to the death penalty. Justice is an invariable concept. When justice is not paid, we give way to injustice and God cannot be found to be unjust. Justice has to be given its due but here where Moses found a legal loophole: it doesn’t matter by whom it is paid. In this case, Moses negotiates with Hashem. Moses drives a hard bargain. Knowing that the Father wants to destroy Israel but that he also himself found favor in the sight of God, Moses places himself on the side of Israel. He stops talking in 'I', ‘You’, and ‘them’ terms, but uses ‘we’, and ‘You”. Therefore if God kills Israel, He has to also kill Moses. Moses saves the day by identifying himself with Israel, by putting his own life on the line alongside Israel. As a result, by the righteousness of one, the whole nation is saved. This is a very important concept foreshadowing Messiah’s mission. Having heard Moses’ pleas, Hashem rewards his sacrificial stand and shows His True compassionate nature by renewing the broken covenant. It will be the same covenant but renewed, not a new covenants such, this 'renewed covenant' (brit Chadasha) carries the same terms as the first one. Hashem does so because of His own character and desire. In the third chapter of the Book of Exodus, as the Almighty Creator of the Universe reveals His identity to Moses,. He uses the words “HEHIYEH ASHER HEHIYEH”, or “I Will Be That I Will Be” (Exodus 3), which means something to the essence of “I Am the Eternal Existential Being and I keep Covenant Forever’. In Exodus thirty-four, Hashem continues revealing His identity. He does so using a list of thirteen attributes. These attributes represent the Father’s compassionate nature and are a central motif in Jewish liturgies. Because Hashem is forgiving and compassionate, there will be a wedding in Horeb after all. It is so funny that so many people think that divine grace and forgiveness is something our Master Yeshua brought, and that it didn’t exist before. Yeshua’s grace was only a reflection of the Father’s never-changing willingness to atone and forgive. Yeshua came to show and represent the Father's eternal comapssion to us. Do we forget that it is actually God who so loved the world that He gave His only Son that whosoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life (John 3:16)? 1 Corinthians 8:4
… "an idol has no real existence,"… When Israel made the Golden Calf, they were not transferring their worship of God to the worship of another deity. In their mind, they were still worshipping the Lord, albeit in a synchretized form (Exodus 32:4: the Hebrew says: this is your God who brought you out of Egypt). They just associated their Almighty God with the image of something familiar, in this case the calf, one of the gods of Egypt, which happened to also be prevalent in Canaan. This is what made the God of Abraham different from any of the claimed deities of the day, being the Creator of all things, He did not want to be represented through the mere medium of one His creations. Religion today is guilty of very much the same sin. As Catholicism and the Eastern Orthodox Church are a mixed bowl of ancient Jewish Messianism with their respective pagan cultures, Protestantism has adopted a form of religion that is very reminiscent to Hellenist ascetism, transcendentalism, along with an anti-Biblical capitalistic philosophy that glorifies independence, wealth and prosperity. There is also a form idolatry that glorifies words, astral bodies and geometric shapes, giving them power through acknowledgment. God created all languages, geometry, and the astral bodies, all in order to glorify Him (Revelations 4:11). That is why the enemy is intent on high-jacking creation for his own purposes. Witches today center their worship around new moons, and call some of their feast days ‘Sabbaths’. Does it mean that we should stop obeying God’s commandment to sanctify the new moon and remember the Sabbath just because the devil perverted these things (Numbers 29;6; Exodus 20:8)? Should we stop recognizing God’s Holy Days just because pagans also had special days (Colossians 2:16)? In the Bible God used a brazen snake on a pole to heal His people. They were told if they just gaze at it they will live. Several hundred years later, a Judean King Josiah had to destroy it because people had made it an object of worship (Numbers 21:8; 2 Kings 18:4). As a French-born naturalized American, as long as I am on American soil the laws of France cannot affect me. In the same manner, having renounced allegiance to the enemy, as long as we remain on spiritual God’s territory, none of the devil’s trinkets have power over us. Idols, astral bodies, and geometric shapes only have the power we allot them through fear or ignorance. Judaism teaches that when we use an element of creation for the glory of God we capture it from the hands of the enemy. Wood can make an idol, but also an Ark to house a Torah scroll. Metal can make money, the love of which is the source of all evil, but it also can be fashioned into a head piece to crown the King of Kings. Mathematics, Geometry, physics and astronomy are all related as sciences proving God’s ownership of creation. It is high time we recapture God’s creation and give it back to him, along with our own hearts, minds, souls, and sprits. Matthew 26:41
“The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak." It is so easy for us to look at the Children of Israel making a Golden Calf in the desert with criticism. “How could they”, we say. “After all God did for them; after witnessing the power of His Great Mighty Hand, how could they so easily transfer their loyalties?” What we have to realize is that in their minds, they were probably not transferring their loyalties. They were just reacting to what they knew, to the culture around them, to their training. Yes, these people were Hebrews, but they were Hebrews who had lived a long time in Egypt, among idol-worshippers. The whole world around them was an idol-worshipping world. On top of it, they were joined by a ‘mixed multitude’, a large amount of non-Hebrews who having seen the power of the God of Israel in Egypt and decided to throw their lot with Him (Exodus 12;38). We are creatures of habit you and I. We do not realize how much we respond to life by habit just following a natural reaction course. Don’t we often as we drive take the habitual road and miss where we are going? That is why the Master said, ‘The Spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak”. The Spirit and the mind may understand something, but the flesh automatically reverts to the ‘old ways’. It does so because it provides the security of familiar surroundings. A person my change religion, but in ways unknowns even to her will continue to relate to God in the ways she has always been taught. The physical elements, the names, the days, the building, the clothing, even the language may be different, but the spirit in that person, the way they relate to God, to worship and their relationship with Him may remain unchanged. We can blame the Children of Israel for their sin, but following the Master’s teaching of trying to remove the log in our eyes before trying to remove the speck in someone else’s, we must take a hard look at ourselves (Matthew 7:3). How many people from the world come to God and bring with them worldly concepts of business, politics, and lifestyles? How many also, as they grow to a fuller a understanding of the Jewish Messiah bring with them much baggage from their former misunderstanding? Very often we criticize our former leaders and teachers only to turn around and recreate the same thing they did, only around ourselves.. We may change the outside look, but the spirit, or the inside remains the same. We generally can’t see it ourselves, but we need the ‘mirror’ of someone else uninvolved and outside of the picture to reveal it to us. It is like someone involved in a non-violent, oppressive, abusive relationship; they don’t realize it until they come out and have a taste of freedom. It is a breath of fresh air from the outside that helps us realize that the place we live in stinks. May we, as we daily walk with the Master, discover all the ‘Golden Calf’ areas of our lives. May we learn to shed from us the former culture of the world and put on the ‘New man’ He has for us. Luke 21:19
By your endurance you will gain your lives. The episode of the golden calf finds a parallel in the days of the Kings of Israel. In the ninth century B.C.E. Ahab marries the Tyrian princess Jezebel who reintroduces devotion to Baal worship. Before long Israel is deep in apostasy and God sends Elijah the prophet to minister to the wayward Northern Kingdom. Elijah’s efforts culminate to the test on Mt Carmel where again we have as in the golden calf incident, Israel worshipping a false god in a wild dancing party (Exodus 32; 1 Kings 18). The events on Mt. Carmel ended a three year drought. Rabbinic historians say that the drought only lasted fourteen months; why then did both Yeshua and James mention that it lasted three and half year (Luke 4:25; James 5:17)? Joseph Fitzmyer explains that the drought lasted fourteen months straddling over a three and half years period, and that this duration of the drought paralleled the length of the period of distress in apocalyptic literature (Daniel 7:25; Revelations 12:6). In both the golden calf and the Mt Carmel episode we have an impatient people turning to a wild idolatrous party. In the one they wait for Moses to return with the Torah, in the other they wait for the rain (the Hebrew words for ‘rain’ and ‘Torah’ are of the same etymological family). Will it be the same at the end of time? Hear these Words of warning from the Master, For as were the days of Noah, so will be the coming of the Son of Man. For as in those days before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day when Noah entered the ark, and they were unaware until the flood came and swept them all away, so will be the coming of the Son of Man (Matthew 24:37-39). Blessed is that servant whom his master will find so doing when he comes. Truly, I say to you, he will set him over all his possessions. But if that wicked servant says to himself, 'My master is delayed,' and begins to beat his fellow servants and eats and drinks with drunkards, the master of that servant will come on a day when he does not expect him and at an hour he does not know and will cut him in pieces and put him with the hypocrites. In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth (Matthew 24:46-51). These last 2,000 years of waiting for the return of the Master may seem long, but not as long as to those from whom the Gospel has been withheld. We have the assurance that, After two days he will revive us; on the third day he will raise us up, that we may live before him (Hosea 6:2) (a day is as thousand years to the Lord (Psalms 90:4; 2 Peter 3:8)). May we patiently wait for Him, each day doing our best to follow in His footsteps and shining the light of His Torah to all around us. May he find us and ours doing so at his return. May it be soon, even in our days! John 14:8
"Adoni, show us the Father,” The Children of Israel blew it. Impatient for the return of Moses they make themselves a god of gold. It is not that they transferred their loyalty to an idol, it is that being unfamiliar with the idea of an unseen god with no image or temple, they concretized the unseen One who had qualified Himself as He who took them out of Egypt into the similitude of a calf. The Father seems to have an issue with identity theft. Israel played the harlot during her betrothal. God called off the wedding. The first covenant made at Sinai is now broken. Israel, the bride is technically allegeable to the death penalty. Justice is an invariable concept. When justice is not paid, we give way to injustice and God cannot be found to be unjust. Justice has to be given its due but it doesn’t really matter by whom. In this case, Moses negotiates with the Father. Moses drives a hard bargain. Knowing that the Father wants to destroy Israel but that he also himself found favor in the sight of God, Moses places himself on the side of Israel. He stops talking in “I ‘, ‘You’, and ‘them’, but uses ‘we’ and ‘You”. If God kills Israel, He has to also kill Moses. Basically Moses wins the day by identifying himself with Israel, therefore putting his own life on the line. By the righteousness of one, the whole nation was saved, a very important concept foreshadowing Messiah’s mission. Having heard Moses’ pleas, the Father will now show His True nature. He will renew the broken covenant. It will be the same covenant, renewed, not a new covenant. It carries the same terms of the first one. God will do so because of His own character and desire. In the third chapter of the Book of Exodus, the Almighty Creator of the Universe starts revealing His identity to Moses. He uses the words “HEHIYEH ASHER HEHIYEH”, or “I Will Be That I Will Be” (Exodus 3), something to the essence of “I Am the Eternal Existential Being and I keep Covenant Forever’. In Exodus thirty-four, the Father continues revealing His identity. He does so using a list of thirteen attributes. These attributes represent the Father’s compassionate nature and are a central motif in Jewish liturgies. Because God is forgiving and compassionate, there will be a wedding in Horeb after all. It is so funny that so many people think that grace and forgiveness is something initiated by Yeshua, and that it didn’t exist before. Yeshua’s grace was only a reflection of the Father’s willingness to atone and forgive. Yeshua came to show and represent the Father to us. Do we forget that it is actually God who so loved the world that He gave His only Son that whosoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life (John 3:16)? |
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