Message 9-10-16 Shoftim-Judges Deuteronomy 16:18-21:9 Isaiah 51:12-52:12 Yochanan 4:19-26 Introduction The prophet looms large in this portion, and the book of Deuteronomy seeks to strengthen the authority and scope of the prophets. Alone of all Biblical authorities, the prophet s basis is a quotation from God, rather than Moses own words. The prophet is the heir to Moses himself. Deuteronomy 18:15-22 15 "The LORD your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among you, from your brothers-- it is to him you shall listen-- 16 just as you desired of the LORD your God at Horeb on the day of the assembly, when you said, 'Let me not hear again the voice of the LORD my God or see this great fire any more, lest I die.' 17 And the LORD said to me, 'They are right in what they have spoken. 18 I will raise up for them a prophet like you from among their brothers. And I will put my words in his mouth, and he shall speak to them all that I command him. 19 And whoever will not listen to my words that he shall speak in my name, I myself will require it of him. 20 But the prophet who presumes to speak a word in my name that I have not commanded him to speak, or who speaks in the name of other gods, that same prophet shall die.' 21 And if you say in your heart, 'How may we know the word that the LORD has not spoken?'-- 22 when a prophet speaks in the name of the LORD, if the word does not come to pass or come true, that is a word that the LORD has not spoken; the prophet has spoken it presumptuously. You need not be afraid of him. (ESV) As you can see from this passage from Deuteronomy, the reason we have prophets is because of what the Children of Israel did at Mount Sinai when the Lord had called all Israel to gather before Him so He could speak to them. The end result was the Children of Israel told Moses to hear what the Lord had to say and then share it with them. Moses makes it very clear to Israel that the Almighty will raise up a prophet like him to bring the word of the Lord to them instead of hearing directly from the Holy One. What this tells us is because of the way we act and behave, the Lord has placed an intermediary between us and Him instead of what He had desired from the garden when He walked in the cool of the day with Adam and Chavah. Then again, perhaps there was an intermediary already in the garden because the Father is described as being Spirit, something or someone we cannot, at this point in time, see because we would be struck down if we looked upon the face of the Holy One. We know this to be true because of Moses 1
encounter with the Lord when he asked to look upon Him, and the Lord told Moses he could look upon His back but not His face because if he did he would die. It was meant that we should have had a special relationship with the Almighty, but we always seem to find a way to mess it up. Jeremiah 28:8 The prophets who preceded you and me from ancient times prophesied war, famine, and pestilence against many countries and great kingdoms. 9 As for the prophet who prophesies peace, when the word of that prophet comes to pass, then it will be known that the LORD has truly sent the prophet." (ESV) Notice what Jeremiah says. The prophets told of war, famine, and pestilence against countries and kingdoms. They were messengers of the Almighty telling the people what they did not want to hear. Jeremiah was one prophet who the people really did not want to hear from because he confronted them with the reality of who they were and how they were acting, and they needed to get their act together before it was too late. However, as with most people, they did not listen, and they paid the price. Israel is a microcosm (a community, place, or situation regarded as encapsulating in miniature the characteristic qualities or features of something much larger) of the greater world around it because in Israel we see man s struggle with trying to understand, to do what the Lord wanted them to do, and their own desires to follow the ways of the world around them. The Almighty s people do not want to follow His instructions which we find in the Torah. We cannot follow the Torah in our own power but only through faith in the redemption promised to us through Messiah Yeshua. Some believe that in His death, everything was accomplished that had been promised, but the redemptive process was in His death and His resurrection because without both parts we would have nothing, so to focus solely on only one part of what Yeshua did would limit ourselves to the greater blessing of what Yeshua did brings to us. What He did not only opened the door to salvation and eternal life, but He paved the way for us to be reconciled to the Father. He is the conduit between mankind and the Almighty. It was always meant to be this way, but the ultimate plan is to bring us back to the relationship the Almighty had with us in the garden where we can walk and talk to Him as a Father and His children. Isaiah 52:4-6 4 For thus says the Lord GOD: "My people went down at the first into Egypt to sojourn there, and the Assyrian oppressed them for nothing. 5 Now therefore what have I here," declares the LORD, "seeing that my people are taken away for nothing? Their rulers wail," declares the LORD, "and continually all the day my name is despised. 6 Therefore my people shall know my name. Therefore, in that day they shall know that it is I who speak; here I am." (ESV) Once again a prophet shares the heart of the Lord with His people, but they do not listen, and yet even in the words of despair and punishment, there is hope as it is with most of the prophets. They bring a word of correction to try to bring the people back into a relationship with their Creator, but the people decide that God takes second place in their lives, and maybe even lower. In Isaiah s words, there is a promise of hope that the day 2
will come when the people will no longer despise His name, but they come to know His name and realize it is the Holy One who speaks, and He is there for them as he has always been. Ezekiel 36:20 But when they came to the nations, wherever they came, they profaned my holy name, in that people said of them, 'These are the people of the LORD, and yet they had to go out of his land.' 21 But I had concern for my holy name, which the house of Israel had profaned among the nations to which they came. 22 "Therefore say to the house of Israel, thus says the Lord GOD: It is not for your sake, O house of Israel, that I am about to act, but for the sake of my holy name, which you have profaned among the nations to which you came. 23 And I will vindicate the holiness of my great name, which has been profaned among the nations, and which you have profaned among them. And the nations will know that I am the LORD, declares the Lord GOD, when through you I vindicate my holiness before their eyes. (ESV) Israel serves a greater purpose as the people the Lord called out of the world to be His people, His special treasure. It will be through them He will vindicate His holiness, the eyes of the nations will see the truth, some will repent, but others will not. We hear people proclaiming death, doom, and all sorts of apocalyptic visions with no hope in sight, and what is happening in the world seems to validate their thinking, but here is another way to look at what is happening; the world is heading towards the confrontation the Almighty has planned from the very beginning because He already knew what mankind was going to do and the road they would choose to travel. Throughout the Bible we see some bright spots when a man or woman chooses to follow the path the Holy One laid out for them. This gives us hope because these people chose the Almighty against all odds to the contrary. It is the Messiah who will lead us out of the mess where we find ourselves. It is not any one man or woman who will bring us hope since the hope man brings is temporary because the Messiah is not in it, nor is He mentioned at all in the way the Bible describes Him, and not in the way the religions that embrace Him. Yeshua has been reinvented, and many times not in a way that brings hope to mankind. In the darkness that is enveloping the world, there is a light that shines in that darkness. The hope for mankind has been promised and has already come once to us to show us the way to redemption. Yochanan 4:19-26 19 The woman said to him, "Sir, I perceive that you are a prophet. 20 Our fathers worshiped on this mountain, but you say that in Jerusalem is the place where people ought to worship." 21 Yeshua said to her, "Woman, believe me, the hour is coming when neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem will you worship the Father. 22 You worship what you do not know; we worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews. 23 But the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father is seeking such people to worship him. 24 God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth." 25 The woman said to him, "I know that Messiah is coming (he who is called Messiah). When he comes, he will tell us all things." 26 Yeshua said to her, "I who speak to you am he." (ESV) 3
This woman was a Samaritan, a people the Jewish people shunned because they were a result of the mixing of the remnant of Ephraim left behind after the Assyrian captivity who intermarried with the people the Assyrians brought in to replace those from Israel who had been exiled from the land. In Messiah s encounter with this woman, we see that no one should be shunned because of who they are since through the redemptive power of the Messiah, there is hope for all mankind. The Samaritans believed that Jerusalem was not the place that the Lord had chosen for the Temple but instead Mount Gerizim, and their Bible focused on the Torah. Yeshua told the woman that she worshipped what she does not understand, and that the day was coming when it would not make any difference where the Father would be worshipped. Notice how Yeshua does not want the worship directed to Him. He knows all worship belongs to His Father. He shares with her that salvation comes from Judah because He comes from Judah to bring a message of hope to a world that sorely needs it as it always has, and even more so in our day and time. The Samaritan woman tells Yeshua she knows the Messiah is coming, and Yeshua says to her He is the Messiah to which she has been looking. He gives her a direct answer that He does not share with others because He knew what was in her heart, and that she longed for that special relationship with the Father that we all desire. Yeshua tells her that to worship the Father, one must do it in spirit and in truth. Why because we connect to God through our spirits, which are the part of us that each one of us has in them from the very beginning. Call it what you like, but I believe a piece of the Almighty is built in to each one of us. It is that part of us that drives us to seek out the Holy One, but because we are spirit and flesh, there is a struggle going on within all of us as to what path we should take. Daniel 9:25 Know therefore and understand that from the going out of the word to restore and build Jerusalem to the coming of an anointed one, a prince, there shall be seven weeks. Then for sixty-two weeks it shall be built again with squares and moat, but in a troubled time. (Dan 9:25 ESV) Who is the anointed one to which Daniel is speaking? Who is the prince which he is referring? For me, I believe he is talking about Yeshua because He is the prince who is the only begotten Son of the Father. In that position, He is the only rightful heir to all the Father has because He was the only one who was faithful unto death. In that death, Yeshua showed us His faith because He had given up who He was to be like you and me, and in doing that, He had surrendered everything He was in being a part of the Godhead. He showed us that man can walk the road which the Lord calls us. The road is one forged in faith in Messiah and Torah that guides us. You cannot separate one from the other, and when you try, you see the result when you look around you at what is happening. In the end, the Father will win because that is the way it was always meant to be. Torah Man says, God has given us two ears, two eyes, and one tongue, to the end that we should hear and see more than we speak. 4
Blessings in Messiah Yeshua, Mordecai Silver Rabbi, Etz Chayim-Tree of Life Messianic Congregation, Las Cruces, NM. If you are not learning Torah, we invite you to attend JSI University, an accredited Distance Learning Institute for Yeshua based Judaic Studies of Higher Education. Drop us a line at student.support@jsi-edu.org and request a Prospectus and visit our website at www.jsi-edu.org and check us out. You can earn an approved degree or take the courses to help you grow in your understanding. For more information go to www.jsi-edu.org or email us 5