The Creation Gospel Podcast

The Day of the LORD Understanding the Chosen For believers in Yeshua who observe the Shabbat, we are reminded frequently…make that every week…that most of the world has not chosen to honor the Seventh Day as His chosen day. For many, they’ve simply not been taught about it. For others, they’ve been taught incorrectly. For others, they know, and they don’t choose to honor it. It’s a matter of choice. Our choices reflect both what we 1) understand and/or 2) prefer In the internet age, we are harassed multiple times per day to “rate” a product or a service. With a greedy disregard for the value of a purchaser’s time, the vendor expects to take a minute, five minutes, or even longer, for the purchaser to fill out surveys and questionnaires on preferences in order to help the seller adjust products and selling techniques to make more money. Shouldn’t they be paying us? I don’t work for free in my secular job, only in ministry. You probably don’t either. There is rarely an offer of more than a trinket of thanks in return for our valuable time, but sometimes we give it to them because we are flattered that someone would want to know what we think or we have an opportunity to vent even though a real human being is not likely to see or care what we write. In that sense, the business takes our money, takes uncompensated time, and then largely ignores the specific concern and buries it in a mass of number data. What a deal! The process depends upon what we choose. Why did we choose that product? That company? That day? That salesperson? Now here’s the question: Because we chose that particular product from that particular company on that particular day from that particular salesperson, does it mean we HATED every other choice? Of course not. We simply did our shopping and research (hopefully), and we preferred one over the others. Choice. We found the right thing for us personally. Unfortunately, many approach Shabbat and the Word with a similar mindset. They see it as a personal choice of what best suits them rather than a process of learning what their Creator has chosen and mirroring His choices. Esau is a great example of one who knew what to do, yet chose differently. This is why Esau, Edom, “The Red One” represents the untamed appetites of the soul: appetite, emotion, desire, and intellect. It is a tremendous life force designed by the Creator, yet in its design, the spirit of a man was chosen to rule over it. It doesn’t mean Elohim hates the soul in an emotional sense: quite the contrary! He loves us so much that He sent His Son to save our rowdy souls. The spirit of a man comes from above, from Elohim Himself. He wants that Spirit (Ruach HaKodesh) to rule over the soul. He CHOSE that modality. • The oracle of the word of the LORD to Israel through Malachi. “I have loved you,” says the LORD. But you say, “How have You loved us?” “Was not Esau Jacob’s brother?” declares the LORD. “Yet I have loved Jacob; but I have hated Esau, and I have made his mountains a desolation and appointed his inheritance for the jackals of the wilderness.” (Mal 1:1-3) It can be confusing when reading Scripture to understand being “chosen.” In context, it can simply mean preferring one over the other, not hating the one who was not chosen. Because we associate hate with an extreme emotion, we lose the grasp that what is chosen is loved in the sense of preference and precedence in certain matters, and what is hated is what is ranked beneath it in certain mattters. In our culture, we rarely use “hate” if the feeling of loathing and disgust is not attached to it. Herein lies the problem. The human experience is only a parable of reality, which is found in our Creator. Our experience of emotion, desire, and intellect only mirrors His, but His is perfect. When we see love and hate only as strong emotions, then we can miss the nuances of Scripture where He is teaching us the importance of good choices based on His preferences instead of ours. He’s not offering us a survey to find out which of the commandments we prefer or even if we prefer to do them at all. He’s observing us. The times in Scripture when people felt rejected, they also felt unloved, so they acted in reprehensible ways. Kain killed Abel. Joseph’s brothers sold him into slavery. King Saul tried to kill David, and so on. Their story is our story. The problem is that when Adonai expresses a preference for those who do His will instead of their own, we miss the issue, just like Kain. Kain knew what to do in order to have his sacrifice respected. That’s all he had to do. Choose and do what Elohim preferred. Here is another example of the choosing-lesson: “He also rejected the tent of Joseph, and did not choose the tribe of Ephraim, but chose the tribe of Judah, Mount Zion which He loved.” (Ps 78:67-68) Joseph/Ephraim were not rejected as people, only their territory as the resting place of Adonai’s glory. Instead, the Judah/Benjamin territory was already chosen as The Place of the

This week we continue with "Living a Double Life" To review: The challenge is that many of the commandments are given as nos, or the “you shall nots.” At least half of life is managing the nos, the boundaries, and the good fences that preserve our lives. If life is at least half no, then fostering a great relationship with the no commandments is the key. We can discipline ourselves to engage the nos with as much enthusiasm as the yeses, which really, is what makes a disciple. Just like Yeshua told Peter, we are transformed from a person who always wants to be in charge to one who is willing to be led of the Ruach HaKodesh in every circumstance, even down to the time and way we die. Some disciples discipline the nos faster, and some not so fast. It is important, though, for if we cannot engage the simple commandments of yes and no, then how will we hear the more subtle still, small, voice of the Ruach HaKodesh is our daily dilemmas that don’t come with a chapter and verse attached to them? This week, let’s look at another “commandment principle” of life: the possibility of living a double life. It starts with the first commandment given at Mount Sinai in Exodus 20:1-5: Then God spoke all these words, saying, ‘I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery. You shall have no other gods before Me. You shall not make for yourself an idol, or any likeness of what is in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the water under the earth. You shall not worship them or serve them…’ The commandment is not to put another created entity as an “elohim” in front of Elohim, the only Creator. The idea is that there is nothing else created that could possibly be Elohim. By definition, Elohim is the Creator of all things, and a created elohim (judge, appointed ruler) is not. It is merely another created thing originating from Elohim. All other things go behind Him. He is the first, and there is no second to compare to Him. Sometimes a glance at a more literal Hebrew helps. “You shall have no other gods before Me” is: לֹא יִהְיֶה־לְךָ אֱלֹהִים אֲחֵרִים עַל־פָּנָיַ׃ or You will not be to yourself another god on My face. When a human being fabricates an image from wood, stone, or other substance, or attributes the Ruach Elohim to an existing created substance such as a tree, water, cloud, etc., then the human has put a “face” on Elohim. The urge is so strong that this is the first commandment, a “yes” paired with a “no.” Yes, He is Elohim, and no, do not tamper with Him by fabricating an image to put a face on Him, for it will be inaccurate and a product of human imagination. A philosopher once said that "imagination is man's most God-like characteristic." We can also say that based on the primacy of the first commandment, imagination is man's most god-like characteristic, his primary place of vulnerability to idols. The moment we put a face on Elohim, we become susceptible to idolatry, looking to that object for intervention on our behalf: success, health, sustenance, good, peace, prosperity, comfort, joy, etc. For instance, rather than partner with Elohim for our life-path of prosperity, prerequisite to putting His Kingdom first, we forge our own ideas about how much wealth we need and when we need it without regard for our spiritual discipline and agreement to put Elohim first in all things. In ancient times, people sought out gods of prosperity, fertility, strength, war, and so on. Rather than partner with Elohim, “who teaches my hands to war,” (Ps 18:34) they consulted principalities and powers and made war. Because the worship of these entities requires the imagination, effort, time, and faith of the human being, the powers of the entity reflect the human who turns to it, not the true created ability assigned to that power by Elohim for it to manage its particular realm, whether in the heavens above or earth below. Are there other powerful spiritual beings and human organizations in our universe? Yes. Are they the Creator and worthy of our time, attention, and resources? NO! These entities are not ours to petition or order around. In selecting the attributes of certain entities, we put a human, animal, or other physical face on Elohim. While He is often hidden from human beings, He does not need a mask of our choosing. We desperately need to believe that so that we don’t live a double life, claiming to worship Elohim while putting our trust in other created entities. That is done today not so much by worshiping an object, but by putting faith in the leopard’s spots. Remember our lessons on the beast kingdoms? The leopard was Greece. The spots were its organizations: medicine, art, philosophy, education, drama, military, government, politics, sports, music, etc. The Romans took those organizations and expanded them, and even when the Roman Empire fell, those systems are disseminated all over the world to influence and control human beings. Now human beings are conditioned to

Living a Double Life Last week in the Shabbat livestream, we looked at the human relationship to two types of commandments, the “Yes,” or you shall commandments, and the “No,” or you shall not commandments. In general, human beings like to hear yeses instead of nos. The challenge is that many of the commandments are given as nos, or the “you shall nots.” At least half of life is managing the nos, the boundaries, and the good fences that preserve our lives. If life is at least half no, then fostering a great relationship with the no commandments is the key. We can discipline ourselves to engage the nos with as much enthusiasm as the yeses, which really, is what makes a disciple. Just like Yeshua told Peter, we are transformed from a person who always wants to be in charge to one who is willing to be led of the Ruach HaKodesh in every circumstance, even down to the time and way we die. Some disciples discipline the nos faster, and some not so fast. It is important, though, for if we cannot engage the simple commandments of yes and no, then how will we hear the more subtle still, small, voice of the Ruach HaKodesh is our daily dilemmas that don’t come with a chapter and verse attached to them? This week, let’s look at another “commandment principle” of life: the possibility of living a double life. It starts with the first commandment given at Mount Sinai in Exodus 20:1-5: Then God spoke all these words, saying, ‘I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery. You shall have no other gods before Me. You shall not make for yourself an idol, or any likeness of what is in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the water under the earth. You shall not worship them or serve them…’ The commandment is not to put another created entity as an “elohim” in front of Elohim, the only Creator. The idea is that there is nothing else created that could possibly be Elohim. By definition, Elohim is the Creator of all things, and a created elohim (judge, appointed ruler) is not. It is merely another created thing originating from Elohim. All other things go behind Him. He is the first, and there is no second to compare to Him. Sometimes a glance at a more literal Hebrew helps. “You shall have no other gods before Me” is: לֹא יִהְיֶה־לְךָ אֱלֹהִים אֲחֵרִים עַל־פָּנָיַ׃ or You will not be to yourself another god on My face. When a human being fabricates an image from wood, stone, or other substance, or attributes the Ruach Elohim to an existing created substance such as a tree, water, cloud, etc., then the human has put a “face” on Elohim. The urge is so strong that this is the first commandment, a “yes” paired with a “no.” Yes, He is Elohim, and no, do not tamper with Him by fabricating an image to put a face on Him, for it will be inaccurate and a product of human imagination. A philosopher once said that "imagination is man's most God-like characteristic." We can also say that based on the primacy of the first commandment, imagination is man's most god-like characteristic, his primary place of vulnerability to idols. The moment we put a face on Elohim, we become susceptible to idolatry, looking to that object for intervention on our behalf: success, health, sustenance, good, peace, prosperity, comfort, joy, etc. For instance, rather than partner with Elohim for our life-path of prosperity, prerequisite to putting His Kingdom first, we forge our own ideas about how much wealth we need and when we need it without regard for our spiritual discipline and agreement to put Elohim first in all things. In ancient times, people sought out gods of prosperity, fertility, strength, war, and so on. Rather than partner with Elohim, “who teaches my hands to war,” (Ps 18:34) they consulted principalities and powers and made war. Because the worship of these entities requires the imagination, effort, time, and faith of the human being, the powers of the entity reflect the human who turns to it, not the true created ability assigned to that power by Elohim for it to manage its particular realm, whether in the heavens above or earth below. Are there other powerful spiritual beings and human organizations in our universe? Yes. Are they the Creator and worthy of our time, attention, and resources? NO! These entities are not ours to petition or order around. In selecting the attributes of certain entities, we put a human, animal, or other physical face on Elohim. While He is often hidden from human beings, He does not need a mask of our choosing. We desperately need to believe that so that we don’t live a double life, claiming to worship Elohim while putting our trust in other created entities. That is done today not so much by worshiping an object, but by putting faith in the leopard’s spots. Remember our lessons on the beast kingdoms? The leopard was Greece. The spots were its organizations: medicine, art, philosophy, education, drama, military, government, politics, sports, music, etc. The Romans