Isaiah 66:1-2, 5, 22-24 Thus says YHWH:
“Heaven is my throne,
and the earth is my footstool;
what is the house that you would build for me,
and what is the place of my rest?
2 All these things my hand has made,
and so all these things came to be,
declares YHWH.
But this is the one to whom I will look:
he who is humble and contrite in spirit
and trembles at my word.
5 Hear the word of YHWH,
you who tremble at his word:
“Your brothers who hate you
and cast you out for my name’s sake
have said, ‘Let YHWH be glorified,
that we may see your joy’;
but it is they who shall be put to shame.
22 “For as the new heavens and the new earth
that I make
shall remain before me, says YHWH,
so shall your offspring and your name remain.
23 From new moon to new moon,
and from Sabbath to Sabbath,
all flesh shall come to worship before me,
declares YHWH.
24 “And they shall go out and look on the dead bodies of the men who have rebelled against me. For their worm shall not die, their fire shall not be quenched, and they shall be an abhorrence to all flesh.”
Those scriptures are from this week’s Torah Portions called, “Re’eh” meaning “See” because of the first verse of this weeks readings that come from Deuteronomy 11:26-28
26 “See, I am setting before you today a blessing and a curse: 27 the blessing, if you obey the commandments of YHWH your Elohim, which I command you today, 28 and the curse, if you do not obey the commandments of YHWH your Elohim, but turn aside from the way that I am commanding you today, to go after other gods that you have not known.
There have been many dispensations of how God deals with man since the Biblical account of the Garden of Eden until now. They go by different names depending who is presenting them and they may even have a different number of divisions. Those differences have a common thread that runs throughout them. From the beginning, throughout Biblical history, and even today, God has required the same thing from every dispensation now matter how He dealt with them. They were required to “listen” to what God told them. An important prayer of the Jewish people is called the “Shema” which means to “Hear.”
It too is named this because it is the first word in the verse that starts the prayer.
Deuteronomy 6:4 Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one!
Hear – H8085 – To hear intelligently often with implication of {attention} {obedience}
The ability to Hear from God is essential to obey God beyond what is in His written Word. As Paul wrote in Romans, it’s those that are “lead by the Spirit of God that are the Sons of God.”
Another scripture from this week’s Torah Portion is from John where Jesus tells His disciples that after He is gone, the Holy Spirit will “Help them”
John 16:7-11,13 7 Nevertheless, I tell you the truth: it is to your advantage that I go away, for if I do not go away, the Helper will not come to you. But if I go, I will send him to you. 8 And when he comes, he will convict the world concerning sin and righteousness and judgment: 9 concerning sin, because they do not believe in me; 10 concerning righteousness, because I go to the Father, and you will see me no longer; 11 concerning judgment, because the ruler of this world is judged.
13 When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth, for he will not speak on his own authority, but whatever he hears he will speak, and he will declare to you the things that are to come.
The Torah Portions I read and listen to are from a Messianic Hebrew ministry, meaning they believe Jesus is the Son of God, the Holy and Anointed One, God who took on flesh. They incorporate readings from the New Testament that are related to the ones from the Old Testament “All” Jewish people read each week all over the world.
There can be multiple threads that run through them like “Hearing” from God’s Word and the need to “Hear” fresh rhema from the Holy Spirit for the needs of daily life. For this week some of the “common threads and points emphasized were, “trembling at God’s revealed Word,” “Worshiping God at the place He Chooses,” and a “reverence for the blood that Life Flows Through.” Hebrews tells us that without the “shedding of Blood” there’re would be NO Remission of Sin. It’s the “Scarlet Thread” that courses throughout the Bible.
In just the readings from Deuteronomy, God tells Israel 16 (sixteen) times, (from Deut. 12:5 – Deut. 16:16,) that they must worship Him at the place He “Chooses” and not just anywhere they want. In the reading from Isaiah it says,
Isaiah 66:13 As one whom his mother comforts, so I will comfort you; you shall be comforted in Jerusalem.
In the new millennium, everyone will be required to worship God in Jerusalem for the Feast of Tabernacles or else God will withhold rain from them. Hearing, Listening , Obeying God will continue in that dispensation also,
Zechariah 14:16-17 And it shall come to pass that everyone who is left of all the nations which came against Jerusalem shall go up from year to year to worship the King, the Lord of hosts, and to keep the Feast of Tabernacles. 17 And it shall be that whichever of the families of the earth do not come up to Jerusalem to worship the King, the Lord of hosts, on them there will be no rain.
Four times in the readings of Deuteronomy God repeats and reminds Israel how the blood of every animal is to be reverenced. Not only those offered to God is to be respected and what is to be done with it, Deut. 12:16, Deut. 12:23-24, Deut. 12:27, Deut. 15:23
Deut. 12:16 Only you shall not eat the blood; you shall pour it out on the earth like water.
Deut.12:23-24 Only be sure that you do not eat the blood, for the blood is the life, and you shall not eat the life with the flesh. 24 You shall not eat it; you shall pour it out on the earth like water.
Deut. 12:27 and offer your burnt offerings, the flesh and the blood, on the altar of YHWH your Elohim. The blood of your sacrifices shall be poured out on the altar of YHWH your Elohim, but the flesh you may eat.
Deut. 15:23 Only you shall not eat its blood; you shall pour it out on the ground like water.
God has a Holy Reverence for the Blood of ALL creatures. When Cain killed Abel, God said this,
Genesis 4:10 And he said, What hast thou done? the voice of thy brother’s blood crieth unto me from the ground.
Jesus said this about the Blood,
Matthew 23:34-35 Therefore, indeed, I send you prophets, wise men, and scribes: some of them you will kill and crucify, and some of them you will scourge in your synagogues and persecute from city to city, that on you may come all the righteous blood shed on the earth, from the blood of righteous Abel to the blood of Zechariah, son of Berechiah, whom you murdered between the temple and the altar.
I read and listen to these Torah Portions many times during the week until Sunday when a new set of readings start for the next week. So it was really hard to miss the thing that God chooses where and how He wants to be worshipped. A phrase found later in the Book of Judges is found in this week’s readings to emphasize the point.
Deut. 12:8 “You shall not do according to all that we are doing here today, everyone doing whatever is right in his own eyes,
God has a protocol for how He wants things done by us. We are told we should Thank God for the blessings He provides for us. We are told that we should be “Grateful” to God for all He has provide, for His Protection and the Blood Jesus shed to buy our Salvation.
We can be “Grateful from our Heart” when it’s a Heartfelt emotion. God knows the “True Intents of our Hearts” whether we say or express them or not. One person may express flamboyant gratefulness and another may be quite like a mouse, unnoticeable gratefulness but very deeply heartfelt. Who are we to judge another person’s heart? Only God can do that.
Now I’d like to tie in a theme of this week’s Torah Portion to a “Real Life Event” that happened two years ago in 2017 during the week these scriptures were read. In 2017, they were for the week of August 13 – August 19.
https://www.119ministries.com/resources/torah-portion/t47-reeh/
About 2 years prior to that in mid 2015, my mother in law was taken to the hospital with severe breathing problems. They put a ventilator in her throat to help her breath and did some x-rays and tests to find the problem. What they found was a large cancerous tumor in her lung that was blocking her airway. After a few days the cancer doctor said he would come in and let us know what could be done. My wife and I spent most of that day at the hospital with the rest of the family waiting to hear what the doctor would say. About 6pm he still hadn’t shown up, we were tired and figured he wouldn’t show up that day so we decided to stop by Popeye’s to get a bite to eat and go home and return the next day.
Popeye’s was only 2 minutes from the hospital and just as we pulled up my wife got a call from her sister. The cancer doctor had come in just after we walked out. He told my mother in law and the family that there was nothing they could do for her. The cancer was too far advanced for chemo treatments. He told them he could give them a day or so to prepare themselves but that he would have to remove the ventilator tube that allowed her to breath at some point. He indicated that she would probably pass away from lack of oxygen soon after that.
On hearing that news my wife totally broke down crying uncontrollably in the car. I decided to get a box of fried chicken to eat later at home because we hadn’t eaten all day and we went home, about a half hour drive. After we got home I talked my wife into trying to eat something and she agreed. We had just began to eat when the phone rang again, it was my wife’s sister. She said that after the cancer doctor left, a short time later a radiologist came in to talk to them. The radiologist said that if they wanted, she could try to do some radiation treatments to shrink the tumor.
When my wife told me this news, the best way I can explain what happened is, it was like God dropped this enormous amount of “HOPE” in me. I began telling my wife who was still crying, “There’s HOPE, There’s HOPE, God Can Do Something, There’s HOPE!!!”
This Enormous Gift of HOPE God Dropped in me caused me to pray very fervently for my mother in laws healing. Every day I was on my knees lifting my mother in law up to God in prayer for her healing. About that time I was trying to draw as close to God as a human could. I would ask God to show me anything in my heart that would hinder Him from Hearing and Answering my Prayers. I wanted God to reveal the hidden things in my heart that were displeasing to Him.
About this same time we had just started going to Faith Cathedral in New Iberia where Bishop Drew ministers. He didn’t even know my name or anything about me at this time. One Wednesday night at the end of the service his altar call was to come up for prayer for any need you might have. So I went up for prayer.
When I stood before Bishop Drew I told him, “I am asking God to reveal any and everything in my heart that is not pleasing to Him. I want to draw as near to God as is possible. I want to know that when I pray for my children or anyone that He will hear me.” Bishop Drew replied, “ God has shown me that you are praying for an elderly woman. God says He’s heard your prayers and that He is going to heal her.” I said, “That’s my mother in law, she was diagnosed with severe lung cancer.”
When I returned to my seat to go home I told my wife what had just happened. She got on the phone and called her mom and her sisters. We told everybody what had happened at church.
My wife would go with her mom to the cancer doctor. After the word from Bishop Drew, every time the cancer doctor would say, “I don’t understand. Just be glad you got to spend this holiday with your family.” The radiation had shrunk the tumor enough for my mother in law to breath with an oxygen tube. This went on for about a year and a half. Each time the cancer doctor would say, “I don’t understand, just be glad you’ve had this time and spent these holidays with your family.”
My wife would always tell the doctor what Bishop Drew had said. The doctor couldn’t understand why the cancer stopped growing. My mother in law’s skin had change from ashen grey to the color of healthy skin. She had gained weight and was feeling really well and had a good appetite.
After the year and a half passed the doctor had a new report, the cancer had started growing again. My mother in law was still feeling good though. She was doing so good the cancer doctor decided to try chemo but the chemo wasn’t working. The radiologist said, “ we can try the radiation again this time. The dose of radiation I gave you the first time was an unusually large dose. I thought it might kill you but you were going to die anyway so I tried it. This time we are catching it early, I have good hope for you, the odds are in your favor this time.”
The radiation didn’t stop the tumor and cancer this time. As the next few months passed by the doctors gave up and put my mother in law on hospice. During this time she continued to look and feel good though. After the doctors gave up my wife and her sister began to dread the thought of watching their mother die a slow prolonged and probably painful death from cancer. They had watched their grandfather, my mother in law’s dad pass away from lung cancer that way not long before I met my wife.
As what happens sometimes, I get ahead one week of the Torah Portions and listen and read them a week earlier than I should. For the week before August 13, 2017 I had been listening to the portion I described earlier titled “See.”
That Saturday night, August 12, 2017, when I first laid in bed waiting for my wife to finish getting ready for bed, suddenly I had a burden to pray differently for my mother in law. I began to intercede for her asking God to have Mercy on her, to forgive her of all her sins. To forgive her for what I believed to be a lack of expressing a heartfelt gratefulness to God for what He had done for her in extending her life the way He had done. She would never come to church with us after many invitations on my part. It’s not that she didn’t believe in God or anything like that. She was a Catholic and had gone to church most of her life. Maybe that’s why she couldn’t bring herself to come to our church even after seeing what God had done for her. She told me she enjoyed and looked forward to the text messages I’d send every day about God’s Word and what I thought God was teaching me.
Sunday morning August 13th, my wife and I went to church at Faith Cathedral, it was just a typical Sunday service with nothing out of the ordinary happening. On our drive home we decided to stop by her parents house to visit with them. It’s not our usual routine but that was the plan we made after getting on the road. About halfway there, my wife’s sister in law called her. She asked where we were and told my wife we needed to get there right away. She didn’t want to tell my wife why, just that we needed to get there right away and that they had called an ambulance.
In about 5 minutes we arrived there. My mother in law was laying on the floor and my sister in law was doing CPR on her. My sister in law told us that they had gone over to eat Sunday lunch with them. That my mother in law had eaten well, enjoying the food her daughter had cooked. She said after my mother in law had eaten lunch, she had gone sit in a recliner and they were talking. She was in good spirits. My sister in law said, all of a sudden, my mother in law coughed. When she coughed, she leaned over the side of the recliner and a large blood clot came out her mouth that was followed by an enormous amount of blood that fell on the floor next to the recliner she was sitting in. My sister in law said, “she just passed out when she coughed and never moved after that.”
I was standing behind a snack bar listening and looking at the scene happening before my eyes. Then my eyes were drawn to a large puddle of blood laying on the brick floor next to the recliner. Knowing it had to be cleaned up by someone, I got a roll of paper towels and something to put it in. I got on my knees and began to gather up the blood that had already began to clot up.
There was SO Much Blood, it seemed like ALL her blood had come out and was in the hugh puddle on the floor. My mind was tuned out to what was going on around me then. Instead I could hear the scriptures I had listened to many times and read that week concerning what God said about blood.
Deut. 12:16 Only you shall not eat the blood; you shall pour it out on the earth like water.
Deut. 12:23-24 Only be sure that you do not eat the blood, for the blood is the life, and you shall not eat the life with the flesh. 24 You shall not eat it; you shall pour it out on the earth like water.
Deut. 12:27 and offer your burnt offerings, the flesh and the blood, on the altar of YHWH your Elohim. The blood of your sacrifices shall be poured out on the altar of YHWH your Elohim, but the flesh you may eat.
Deut. 15:23 Only you shall not eat its blood; you shall pour it out on the ground like water.
Looking back I believe it was God ordained that we were NOT in the hospital room to HEAR the bad report from the cancer doctor.
Romans 10:16-17 But they have not all obeyed the gospel. For Isaiah says, “Lord, who has believed our report?” 17 So then faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.
Doubt and unbelief can come from listening to bad reports too!!!
I believe God protected me from “doubt and unbelief.” In my heart of hearts, I will forever believe that God dropped an ENORMOUS Deposit of HOPE in my “Born Again Spirit” where “He Chooses” to abide in me, that day we came back from the hospital when we heard the terrible news. I’ll forever believe God heard my prayers for Him to heal my mother in law and confirmed it through Bishop Drew who at that point didn’t even know my name or anything about me. And I will forever believe God’s Holy Spirit moved me to intercede for my mother in law that Saturday night before she passed away in a peaceful death Sunday about noon. She never had a chance to realize what happened. Suddenly she lost consciousness to this life and became conscious to an Eternal Life. The family was spared watching her die a protracted, painful death.
Psalm 116:15 Precious in the sight of the Lord Is the death of His saints.
Some people might say it was just a coincidence that the scriptures that I listened to and read a week early were about “pouring the blood out on the ground like water and the Holy Spirit being our Helper.” I don’t believe in coincidences, in my opinion they don’t exist. If God knows when every sparrow falls to the ground in death or even the number of a hair that falls to the ground from off my head, then there is NOTHING in the world that goes Unnoticed by God, NOTHING.
I believe God either allows or ordains EVERY Event that occurs in this world. ALWAYS Has and ALWAYS will.
If you’ve followed my blog much, maybe you’ve read where I’ve said, “there are a few prayers I’ve prayed in my life that makes me very cautious on how and what I pray.” The prayer I prayed that Saturday night is one of those 3.
There ARE scriptures in God’s Word that have literally made me TREMBLE in fear, for days. I think about just a fruit, an apple that God said, “Don’t eat it. The day you eat it you will die.” But they ate a simple fruit anyway in unbelief and died spiritually that day. It wasn’t the apple that brought death. It was NOT Believing What God Said!!!
You might be thinking “perfect love casts out fear” and it does. But Perfect Love and Reverence for the Great, Powerful, Almighty, All Knowing, All Seeing, All Perceiving, HOLY, HOLY, HOLY God I serve with all my heart, HONORS God with this kind of FEAR. A Fear that believes “God Does Not Change.” A Fear that believes God still Hates the things He said He’s Always Hated. That the things He declared abominable are STILL Abominations to Him today. A Reverential Fear of God and a Belief that He meant the things He wrote in His Word, The Bible, is NOT a bad things to Fear.
In God’s Word, I’ve read about men and women He used in great ways to accomplish His desires on Earth in a Righteous Way. I’ve also read that these same people later fell away from God into GREAT Sin, never revealing that they Repented and it makes me wonder where they will spend eternity. I Fear that at some point in life that could happen to me so I cling to God, His Word and Yeshua Jesus with ALL my life.
This week God quicken and confirmed this scripture to me and I cherish it deeply.
Isaiah 50:4-5 “The Lord God has given Me
The tongue of the learned,
That I should know how to speak
A word in season to him who is weary.
He awakens Me morning by morning,
He awakens My ear
To hear as the learned.
5 The Lord God has opened My ear;
And I was not rebellious,
Nor did I turn away.
There has been NO Greater Need In Any Dispensation of God’s dealing with man since creation until now than to Hear His Voice.
John 10:16, 24-28 16 And other sheep I have which are not of this fold; them also I must bring, and they will hear My voice; and there will be one flock and one shepherd.
24 Then the Jews surrounded Him and said to Him, “How long do You keep us in doubt? If You are the Christ, tell us plainly.”
25 Jesus answered them, “I told you, and you do not believe. The works that I do in My Father’s name, they bear witness of Me. 26 But you do not believe, because you are not of My sheep, as I said to you. 27 My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me. 28 And I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; neither shall anyone snatch them out of My hand.
It’s said Solomon was the wisest man who ever lived. I guess he was for some point in his life but he too is a prime example of someone used mightily by God and who God heard clearly from God but late in life totally turned from God. (1 Kings 11) But of Solomon it says this,
2 Chronicles 1: 7-12 On that night God appeared to Solomon, and said to him, “Ask! What shall I give you?”
8 And Solomon said to God: “You have shown great mercy to David my father, and have made me king in his place. 9 Now, O Lord God, let Your promise to David my father be established, for You have made me king over a people like the dust of the earth in multitude. 10 Now give me wisdom and knowledge, that I may go out and come in before this people; for who can judge this great people of Yours?”
11 Then God said to Solomon: “Because this was in your heart, and you have not asked riches or wealth or honor or the life of your enemies, nor have you asked long life—but have asked wisdom and knowledge for yourself, that you may judge My people over whom I have made you king— 12 wisdom and knowledge are granted to you; and I will give you riches and wealth and honor, such as none of the kings have had who were before you, nor shall any after you have the like.”
The Wisest Man who ever lived asked to be able to Hear From God. Have you?
Today’s 3 Bible verses I read every day,
” Your word I have hidden in my heart, that I might not sin against You!” (Psalms 119:11 NKJV) #Bible https://www.mydailybible.org/dv/nkjv/2019-08-30.htm
“Judge not, that you be not judged. For with what judgment you judge, you will be judged; and with the measure you use, it will be measured back to you. Matthew 7:1-2 NKJV https://bible.com/bible/114/mat.7.1-2.nkjv
Zephaniah 3:17 KJV The Lord thy God in the midst of thee is mighty; he will save, he will rejoice over thee with joy; he will rest in his love, he will joy over thee with singing. https://tbibl.es/8zMr
In The Word 