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What does it mean to “walk straight”?:
“Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you tithe mint and dill and cumin, and have neglected the weightier provisions of the law: justice and mercy and faithfulness; but these are the things you should have done without neglecting the others.” (Matt. 23:23; cf. Mic. 6:8)
God’s mercy is His incredible goodwill, kindness and mercy to us. The Torah that He gave us teaches goodwill.
When God called you towards His Son, did He have to convince you of the truth or did you already know it. Some of us take longer to convince than others. Some have to be persuaded, some already know it. One thing we have to be persuaded of is judgment. Once we know the truth, we still have to grow in grace and knowledge.
After we understand His truth, we have to understand God’s justice. Once we have a grasp of God’s justice, we have to come to understand and experience His trust and how to trust Him. We can’t teach others to trust God until we understand how to trust Him ourselves. It can take a long time to explain and teach people how to understand God.
When Yeshua died on the cross for our sins, justice was brought upon Yeshua, because of God’s judgement of our sin.
The most important matters of the Torah are not the numbers of animal sacrificed in the different feasts, or how to tithe herbs, but God’s justice/judgement, mercy and trustworthiness.
God had mercy upon you by taking His son’s life. That’s heavy but it’s true.
“You have heard that the ancients were told, ‘You shall not commit murder’ and ‘Whoever commits murder shall be liable to the court.’ But I say to you that everyone who is angry with his brother shall be guilty before the court; and whoever says to his brother, ‘You good-for-nothing,’ shall be guilty before the supreme court; and whoever says, ‘You fool,’ shall be guilty enough to go into the fiery hell.” (Matt. 5:21)
Apostle Matthew quoted Isaiah on Yeshua’s ministry:
“Behold, my servant whom I have chosen; My beloved in whom my soul is well-pleased; I will put my spirit upon him, and He shall proclaim justice to the Gentiles. He will not quarrel, nor cry out; nor will anyone hear His voice in the streets. A battered reed He will not break off, and a smoldering wick He will not put out, until He leads justice to victory and in His name the Gentiles will hope.” (Matt. 12:18-21; cf. Isa. 42:1-4 LXX)
Isaiah prophesied that the Gentiles will trust Yeshua because of His judgement. We trust what we believe in. We are being called to being a part of the mercy, judgement and trust that Yeshua wants to teach the world about. He is not out to destroy. God didn’t send Yeshua to die because He wanted the world to be destroyed. He send Yeshua because He loved the world and wants to take back what is rightfully His.
“And I saw another angel flying in midheaven, having an eternal gospel to preach to those who live on the earth, and to every nation and tribe and tongue and people; and he said with a loud voice, “Fear God, and give Him glory, because the hour of His judgment has come; worship Him who made the heaven and the earth and sea and springs of waters.” (Rev. 14:6-7)
Yeshua took away the judgement off of all mankind. The reason the millennial reign will take 1,000 years because it will take a long time to help people understand His truth. Even with Satan and his angels bound up and out of the way, it will still be difficult to convince some to grasp and take hold of the truth.
The Torah gives us the complete meaning of justice, mercy and trust:
“The LORD said, ‘Shall I hide from Abraham what I am about to do, since Abraham will surely become a great and mighty nation, and in him all the nations of the earth will be blessed? For I have chosen him, so that he may command his children and his household after him to keep the way of the LORD by doing righteousness and justice, so that the LORD may bring upon Abraham what He has spoken about him.'” (Gen. 18:17-18)
Teaching those around us about judgement, mercy and trust in God takes repetition. It’s not just a one time teaching. We need the Sabbath and the Holy Days so we repeatedly remember the Creator of Heaven and Earth. We need the lessons to be repeated multiple times, over our lifetime to grasp God’s truth.
We are given two choices: Yeshua’s death or our own. We don’t fully understand this when we think on a human level. When David’s first son with Bathsheba was born gravely ill, David prayed that God would take his life instead of the child but God refused and the child died. David had begged God to spare the child’s life but when the child died, David accepted the judgement and he returned to his kingly duties. It is a lesson of God giving His son to die for our sins.
In the Kingdom of God, people will have to learn what is right and wrong with experience, just as we did.
What is the conclusion?:
“But the saints of the Highest One will receive the kingdom and possess the kingdom forever, for all ages to come.” (Dan. 7:18)
The saints will teach and enact judgement. The world has great promise in the future when the Messiah reigns as king and His saints who reign with Him. In the Kingdom, the saints will be working.
If you never trust anyone, no one can ever trust you. Trust comes from repeated experience. God is training us to be trustworthy, to tell the truth, to learn God’s law and how to live. God is going to entrust the saints with such a great mission that we can’t fully fathom it.
Recorded on the second day of Sukkot 2013 in Occidental, Calif. Speaker: Richard. Summary: Tammy.