Author: Daniel

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Appointments With God Tabernacles

Tabernacles: Why the LORD wants us to remember challenges of journey to the Kingdom

Every sukkah (or tabernacle) is different

None of us would want to experience on purpose what ancient Israel did in the 40 years of wilderness travel between Egypt. For those of us living 4,000 years later, we can’t presume we would have acted better than they did. Considering how spoiled and comfortable we are with modern conveniences and dwellings, we probably would have complained even more about God’s “inadequate” hospitality in the wilderness.

Human nature doesn’t change. Only God can change human nature.

That’s where the annual celebration of Sukkot (Tabernacles or Booths) comes in. Each sukkah (booth) looks different, even if the same person builds it. Taken as a personal lesson, each our sukkot (plural) has a different calling, a different reason for being. Let’s explore further these lessons from the words of God and the Word Who tabernacled with us (John 1:14).

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Appointments With God Atonement

Yom Kippur: Messiah reveals righteousness above the Torah

Yom Kippur: Messiah reveals righteousness above the Torah

Yom Kippur (Day of Atonement) is unique among the appointed times of the LORD. It’s the only holy day in which the people do very little, while one man, the high priest, does everything. Messiah Yeshua (Christ Jesus), our high priest, sacrificed Himself for us and carried our sins away too, as the symbols of Yom Kippur memorialize. All the people are asked to do is humble themselves, do no work and bring an offering to the Tabernacle/Temple.

Without a Temple, what can we bring to God? It’s not about following the Torah to the letter with a physically perfect abstinence from food and water, but as Yeshua taught us, it’s about caring for those around us as we want them to care for us.  The Torah is a covenant of life, not of death.

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Appointments With God Trumpets

Who fears God’s voice? Meaning of trumpets in Revelation, Torah and Prophets

3 angels with trumpets

“Everyone who is of the truth hears My voice” (John 18:38 NASB). The Day of Blowing Trumpets (Yom Teruah, aka Rosh haShanah) is an appointed time that comes every year, but it’s also a prophecy of a future appointed event. Are you ready? These 10 Days of Awe between Yom Teruah and Yom Kippur (Day of Atonement) were given to us as a reminder to prepare our hearts to welcome God’s voice and the coming of God’s Anointed, Yeshua the Messiah (Jesus the Christ), rather than run from them in fear of judgment.

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Discussions Torah

Deuteronomy 16:18–21:9: Judge shopping and other travesties of justice the LORD hates

Yeshua the Messiah (Jesus the Christ) said, “I can do nothing on My own initiative. As I hear, I judge; and My judgment is just, because I do not seek My own will, but the will of Him who sent Me” (John 5:30 NASB). But how do we learn the will of the Father by which Yeshua judges?

As Yeshua lived by “every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God” (Matt. 4:4; Luke 4:4; Deut. 8:3), so can we. The Torah passage שֹׁפְטִים Shoftim (“judges,” Deut. 16:18–21:9) is all about how judges and officers of justice should conduct themselves. 

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Apostolic Writings Discussions Prophets and Writings Torah

Deuteronomy 7–11: Having a Messiah-like heart for God’s words

Yeshua the Messiah (Jesus the Christ) gave three answers to HaSatan (the devil) after His 40 days in the wilderness. What was Yeshua trying to say with, “Man should not live by bread alone but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God” (Matthew 4:4)? In His refutations of HaSatan while being tempted, Yeshua quoted heavily from the Torah reading עקב Ekev/Eikev (“consequence,” Deuteronomy 7:12–11:25.

What did Yeshua want His disciples to learn from this account, recorded in Matthew 4:1–11? Anytime Yeshua cited scripture, He seemed to referred to the entire context of that verse, not merely the verse itself. Yeshua’s apostles taught in the same manner. They cited a reference, expecting their disciples to go to scripture and read it in context.

When Yeshua confronted HaSatan, He pulled from much of Ekev, not just the small snippets He quoted.

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Discussions Prophets and Writings Torah

Deuteronomy 1–3; Isaiah 1: Why crowdsourcing your morality is a fail

In the Torah reading דברים Devarim (“words,” Deut. 1:1–3:22), Moses started giving a more complete record of what happened during the entire 38 years in the wilderness.

The Israelites didn’t have the same degree of bravery as their cousins (Edom, Ammon and Moab). They didn’t follow God’s direct instructions and suffered as a consequence. Their leaders became rotten; they ignored Torah, and the people suffered as a consequence.

This is why God hits the reset button from time to time (e.g., the Flood, first-born of Egypt, Day of the LORD), and sets aside a remnant to carry His truth into the world. A remnant is more teachable than a mob.

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Discussions Torah

Numbers 25:10–30:1: Righteousness apart from the law

What is righteousness apart from the law? graphic with open book and scales

When one is said to be “above the law,” that’s taken to mean the person flouts authority, in the sense second-century Roman jurist Ulpian meant when he wrote that sovereigns aren’t bound by laws.

There are plenty of scofflaws and tyrants recorded in the Bible. But an undercurrent in Heaven’s testimony from beginning to end is that true followers of the Creator are those who have so much trust (i.e., faith) in the instructions they’ve internalized that their actions follow the “spirit of the Law,” rather than the “letter of the Law.”

That’s what we see in the shocking actions recounted in Torah reading פינחס Pinchas (“Phinehas,” Numbers 25:10-30:1).