Parasha Shemini 5784 (2024) reading:

Vayiqra (Leviticus) 9:1-11:47
Shemuel Bet (2 Samuel) 6-7, Yeshayahu 65-66
Ma’asei (Acts) 10-11, Romim (Romans) 14

Additional mentions:
Vayiqra (Leviticus) 19:2, 20:7, 22-26
Ma’asei (Acts) 15, 21
Kepha Aleph (1 Peter) 1:15

Fair Use: Pro-Israel Content, Academic Content, Autistic Content:
The following text is a written version and may differ slightly from the video dialogue.

Shalom and welcome to Nazarene Israel. My name is Norman Willis, and this is our Two-House midrash for Parasha Shemini for 5784.

Announcement: upcoming rabbinic new year

And just a heads up. Talmudic Rabbinic Judah will change their calendar year to 5785 in ‘their’ upcoming seventh month. We do not understand that.

In contrast, we are going to change the Hebrew year with the barley harvest at the end of winter, when the winter starts to give away to summer, like Yahweh says to do in Shemote 12:2, where He says that when the barley comes ripe after winter (and before summer), that is when the year starts. That is to be the first month of our year!

Shemote (Exodus) 12:2
2 “This month shall be your beginning of months; it shall be the first month of the year to you.”

So in about a month everyone will think that we are out of sync with the Talmudists, when the reality is, the Talmudists are out of sync with Yahweh and His word. (And that is a scary place to be!)

Please pray sincerely for the Orthodox Sanhedrin, that they might come to realize that no created being has the authority to overrule the creator. (That is how Esav thinks!)

Rather, if we in the houses of Judah and Joseph claim to be His servants, then we need to serve Him according to His words (and not our own words)!

(It is kind of basic, but both houses seem to have a death grip on ignorance right now, each in their own separate ways. So, please pray sincerely for our brothers and sisters in Judah to wake up to his errors, and please pray also for Joseph. Thank you!)

The process of returning

I am excited about the documentaries coming up, and I am also excited about the parashiot, Because the parashiot give us an opportunity to help people stitch things together week by week. So, it is a different approach, and it gives a different kind of perspective.

Step one: the stick of Joseph

But one of the things that we need to remember week by week is that we are trying to help Yeshua get the kingdom that His Father sent Him to get us to build for Him in His absence. And the very first thing that we have to do with that is to form the stick of Joseph (which is in the hand of Ephraim, like Yehzeqel 37:16 also says).

Yehzeqel (Ezekiel) 37:16
16 “As for you, son of man, take a stick for yourself and write on it: ‘For Judah and for the children of Israel, his companions.’ Then take another stick and write on it, ‘For Joseph, the stick of Ephraim, and for all the house of Israel, his companions.’”

Step two: Judah and Joseph join

Once we form the stick of Joseph according to Ma’asei (Acts) chapter 15 and the rest of the rules of the Renewed Covenant, then we can join together with our brothers in the house of Judah (but not before).

Step 3: Mashiach Nagid’s Millennial reign

And once we get things together with our brothers and sisters in the house of Judah, then we can be used to establish Mashiach Nagid’s Jewish Millennial reign (and not before).

Step 4: Bring in Cousin Ishmael

And once we form Yeshua HaMashiach’s Jewish Millennial reign, then we can help bring interested Ishmaelites into the Covenant.

But we in Ephraim cannot go home, and we cannot do any of that, until we form the stick of Joseph by obeying the five rules for forming the stick of Joseph that are found in Ma’asei (Acts) chapter 15.

And what we are going to see is that these rules are rules that apply to the sanctity of the Sabbath table, and the sanctuary environment that we are supposed to be reestablishing in the synagogues.

Now, all of that has been lost! And it is our job to pick it up again, and to make it a reality in these end times, so that we can join together with our brothers in Judah, and go home.

So, we are going to talk today about some of the things that go into Ma’asei (Acts) chapter 15, and the five rules we have to learn to abide by, so we can go home and be reunited with our brothers in Judah.

Acts 15

We do not have enough time to cover everything in Ma’asei 15 here. But briefly, Ma’asei 15:16 tells us that the returning gentile Ephraimite converts are to be used to rebuild the Tabernacle of David, which has fallen down.

Ma’asei (Acts) 15:16
16 ‘AFTER THIS I WILL RETURN AND WILL REBUILD THE TABERNACLE OF DAVID, WHICH HAS FALLEN DOWN; I WILL REBUILD ITS RUINS, AND I WILL SET IT UP;’

And verse 17 says that the reason for this is so that the rest of mankind (or “the rest of Adam”, [or you could also vowel-point it differently and you could say “the rest of Edom“], it works both ways) may seek Yahweh, even all of the returning gentile Ephraimites who are coming out of Esav’s house, and who are now once again called by Yahweh’s name.

Ma’asei (Acts) 15:17
17 ‘SO THAT THE REST OF MANKIND [‘ADAM’, or ‘EDOM’] MAY SEEK YAHWEH, EVEN ALL THE GENTILES WHO ARE CALLED BY MY NAME, SAYS YAHWEH WHO DOES ALL THESE THINGS.’

And this is a quote from Amos 9:11-12, where it is vowel-pointed as Edom (or the belief spirit of Rome, meaning Mystery Babylon). It works both ways.

Amos 9:11-12
11 “On that day I will raise up The tabernacle of David, which has fallen down, and repair its damages; I will raise up its ruins, and rebuild it as in the days of old;
12 That they may possess the remnant of Edom, and all the gentiles who are called by my name,” says Yahweh who does this thing.

And this is how we are to build the stick of Joseph, in the hand of Ephraim. And sadly, we just lost a whole bunch more people with Pink Horse spirits who do not want to know. But we are very hopeful for those of you who still remain, and our prayer is for 10% to remain, and to get it, that there might be repentance from Esav’s house unto life.

And the big difference is humility. The big difference is a lack of self-focus. The big difference is a lack of self-indulgence.

The right focus

We must realize that this life is not about us. This life is about us helping Him get what He wants for His son, Mashiach Nagid.

And we pray that you will become part of the 10% who realize that it is not about us living our saved lives for our own benefit. But rather, that our saved lives are all about Him. Because we were created to serve Him.

And all the problems in the Garden and later always come when we decide that we get to decide for ourselves. And that we should focus on pleasing ourselves. But when Yahweh calls us, and puts His Son’s Spirit in us, that is a tremendous gift that is not for us to spend on ourselves. That is a tremendous gift for us to spend on Him.

Avoid the rabbinical yoke

And that is why in verse 19, Yaakov HaTzaddik (James the Just) ruled that they should not make any rules troubling those returning gentile Ephraimites who are returning their loyalties to Elohim, by bothering them with a yoke of Talmud and rabbinic enactments and decrees.

Ma’asei (Acts) 15:19
19 Therefore I judge that we should not trouble those from among the Gentiles who are turning to Elohim,

(Because what is the point of obeying the words of men who have a deceptive spirit, and who are making up their own rules, when we are supposed to be hearing and obeying Elohim’s voice?)

And it is like the One-house Messianic Jewish organizations forgot to read this chapter. The MJAA, the UMJC, and the M.O.U.S.E. did not get the memo. Because they claim to believe on the biggest anti-Talmudic rabbi ever (meaning Yeshua), but they ignore what Yeshua says, and they keep looking to the Talmud as a co-source of authority! When Yeshua was all about overthrowing the Talmud and the emerging Rabbinical Order, and replacing it with a radical throwback to the Order of Melchi-Tzedek!

But rather than tell them to follow the traditions and teachings of men in the Talmud, tell them to focus on hearing the voice of the Spirit, and on obeying Elohim’s words in the written Torah of Moshe.

Ma’asei (Acts) 15:20
20 but that we write to them to abstain from things polluted by idols, from sexual immorality, from things strangled, and from blood.

Five entry-level rules

But in order to show their sincerity, they will have to abstain from the four (actually five) things that will get you cut off from the nation.

1. Abstain from things that are polluted by idols (meaning idolatry, which is spiritual sexual immorality).

2. Abstain from sexual immorality.

3. Abstain from strangled meats. [In context, we will see that it still had to be clean animals. (This thing with the pigs is for the pigs.)

4. Abstain from blood. [In context, we must be careful not only to not consume blood, but to also abide by the rules for blood regarding female menstruation, and other matters of blood.]

5. And the fifth thing is that you must enter in. You must submit to the assembly leadership, (because that is just what it is).

It is an all-volunteer army, not a club. It is a benevolent dictatorship–and the only thing to do is to choose to serve Yeshua and His people by this paradigm, however we can.

(But Yeshua is the one who gave it to us, so it is not up to us to change it. Either we enter in, or we do not.)

And the reason that the returning gentile Ephraimites should do this is so that they will not be defiling the sanctuary space, or the fellowship table.

This is going to be hard for Joseph to understand. But as we are going to see, there is a commanded requirement for everyone who participates in the sanctuary environment, and with regards to the fellowship table to set themselves apart from the way of the world. And we are going to see Elohim command these things this week.

And verse 21 tells us that the reason for this is so that returning Joseph could go into the synagogues where Moshe has been preached throughout many generations in every city since ancient times.

Ma’asei (Acts) 15:21
21 “For Moshe has had throughout many generations those who preach him in every city, being read in the synagogues every Sabbath.”

And again, we believe that this passage was given prior to the imposition of the Birkhat HaMinim, or the daily Orthodox Jewish death curse that they say over all believers in Yeshua three times each weekday.

“The Birkat haMinim (Hebrew: ברכת המינים “Blessing on the heretics”) is a curse on heretics which forms part of the Jewish rabbinical liturgy. It is the twelfth in the series of eighteen benedictions (Shemoneh Esreh) that constitute the core of prayer service in the statutory daily ‘standing prayer’ of religious Jews.”
[Wikipedia, Birkat haMinim]

(And with more than 2 million Orthodox Jews, they have said more than 36 million death prayers over all of us just this last week alone.) So, we cannot go into the synagogues like it says here, but we can make our own assemblies and start there.

And if anyone has questions on this, we do a thorough rundown on this whole thing in the Nazarene Israel study. And Elohim willing, we hope to talk about this more in the Abraham Accord series.

But the point is that these are four (or you could say five) prerequisites for entering the sanctuary environment.

Ma’asei (Acts) 15:20
20 “but that we write to them to abstain from things polluted by idols, from sexual immorality, from things strangled, and from blood.”

And as we are going to see, if we do not agree to obey these four (or five) rules, we are not supposed to even enter the sanctuary environment.

And we just lost a whole bunch more subscribers and viewers this last week. But our hopes and our prayers are with you, that you will want to be part of the future 10% that wants to save their lives by doing things the way Scripture says, and thereby please Yahweh Elohim and His Son Yeshua.

Torah portion

We have a lot for both houses this week. Let us begin with our Torah portion in Vayiqra (Leviticus) 9:4.

Strange (foreign) worship

In context, what is happening in Vayiqra 9:4 is that Aharon is making some offerings so that Yahweh will appear.

Vayiqra 9:4
4 “also a bull and a ram as peace offerings, to sacrifice before Yahweh, and a grain offering mixed with oil; for today Yahweh will appear to you.'”

So, they do what Yahweh says. And then in verse 24, fire came out from before Yahweh and consumed the burnt offering and the fat that was on the altar. And when all the people saw it, they shouted, and fell on their faces.

Vayiqra 9:24
24 and fire came out from before Yahweh and consumed the burnt offering and the fat on the altar. When all the people saw it, they shouted and fell on their faces.

So, that was good. We did what Elohim said, so Elohim appeared to us. But what happens if we do not do what Elohim said? Does He still appear to us? Or if we want to do things our own way, does He still appear to us?

And this is something especially for the tribe of Levi, and the rabbis. But it also speaks to everyone in the Messianic movement, no matter whether Messianic Jewish, or Messianic Josephite, or whoever… But it definitely pertains to the southern kingdom, because this passage deals with the sins of the sons of Aharon.

And what we see is that in chapter 10:1, right after Yahweh appeared successfully due to our obedience, now Aharon’s sons Nadab and Avihu decided they were going to do their own thing. And We can see the roots of the Talmud right here.

Vayiqra (Leviticus) 10:1-2
1 Then Nadav and Avihu, the sons of Aharon, each took his incense censer and put fire in it, put incense on it, and offered profane [strange, foreign] fire before Yahweh, which He had not commanded them.
2 So fire went out from Yahweh and devoured them, and they died before Yahweh.
[H2114: (זוּר) strange, foreign, profane]

What this means is that if we are going to break Elohim’s commandments, or we are going to make up our own commandments, there is going to be a cost! There is going to be a penalty paid!

Verse 3. And Moshe said to Aharon, “Do you know why this just happened? This is the punishment from Elohim for making up our own form of worship rather than doing things the way that He said.“

Vayiqra (Leviticus) 10:3a
3a And Moshe said to Aharon, “This is what Yahweh spoke, saying: ‘By those who come near Me I must be regarded as set-apart; and before all the people I must be glorified.’…

“It does not matter that you are a Levite, and that you are the high priest! If you mess up, or your sons mess up, there is still going to be a price to be paid! Because it is essential for mankind to fear Me in truth! Or else we are never going to be able to establish a single kingdom of man submitted to Me and My Spirit, so that the world can live together in peace, and I can have the kingdom for My Son that I always wanted!“

Vayiqra (Leviticus) 10:3b
3b So Aharon held his peace.

I do not know what to tell the Sanhedrin (not that they are listening) except to quit making up stuff in the Talmud, and go back to Elohim’s word in the Tanach!

And I do not know what to tell Joseph except for the exact same thing. If we are going to make up our own worship, rather than obey the worship that was commanded to us by Mashiach Nagid, (Messiah the Director, Messiah the Prince), then what do we think we are doing?

And I can think of a number of Messianic pastors and Messianic rabbis (and I cannot help it). Your faces come up before me and I pray for you, because if you do not change, eventually you are going to get hammered from upon high.

Because it is not okay, and it is not a small thing to break Elohim’s words! (And if you cannot understand that, then I do not know how to help you.)

Even Aharon had to accept the death of his two sons, because they did not set Yahweh apart.

So, then we come to verse eight. And right after this incident, Yahweh spoke to Aharon saying that when he goes into the Tabernacle of Meeting, he should not drink wine or intoxicating drink, also not his sons, lest he die.

And that this is a perpetual statute forever throughout all of our generations, so that we may distinguish between what is set apart and propane, and between what is clean and unclean.

Vayiqra (Leviticus) 10:8-9
8 Then Yahweh spoke to Aharon, saying:
9 “Do not drink wine or intoxicating drink, you, nor your sons with you, when you go into the tabernacle of meeting, lest you die. It shall be a statute forever throughout your generations,”

We come to Yeshayahu 28:1, and we see that Ephraim is spiritually drunk all the time, because he thinks he gets to make up his own worship, just like our own two sons Nadav and Avihu thought they could make up their own worship.

Yeshayahu 28:1
1 “Woe to the crown of pride, to the [spiritual] drunkards of Ephraim, whose glorious beauty is a fading flower which is at the head of the verdant valleys, to those who are overcome with [spiritual] wine.”

And in Isaiah chapter 28:3, it is like we just do not get it.

Yeshayahu 28:3
3 The crown of pride, the drunkards of Ephraim, will be trampled underfoot;

If we approach Yahweh with pride, thinking that we can do what we want, we will be trampled underfoot.

You are what you eat!

We have a lot of material to cover, so let us jump to Vayiqra (or Leviticus) 11. And in this chapter, Yahweh spoke to Moshe and Aharon, saying to them that they should tell us (the children of Israel) that there are certain animals that we may eat among all the animals that are on the Earth.

Vayiqra (Leviticus) 11:1-2
1 Now Yahweh spoke to Moshe and Aharon, saying to them,
2 “Speak to the children of Israel, saying, ‘These are the animals which you may eat among all the animals that are on the earth:”

We do a drash on this in Scripture Studies Volume Five. We have a study by the same name, “You Are What You Eat“, so you can find it easier. And we also have a study on “The Torah Diet”.

And we do not have time to unpack it here, but what we see is that Elohim cares a great deal about what we eat. And He cares a great deal about the company we keep around our dining room table, because you end up like those you hang out with. So, if you hang out with leaven, the whole lump ends up being leavened! And that is no good!

What happens is that Yahweh gave us permission in Israel to consume only certain kinds of clean animals. And there are thousands, and thousands, and thousands of types of animals, but we cannot list all their names here because you would have to add a huge appendix.

So, what Elohim does is He gives us an algorithm (or a formula) that tells us which ones we can, and which ones we cannot eat. And that way if we find some new animal that no one knows about yet, or if we do not know what it is called, still we can take a look.

Verse three, Yahweh says that among the animals (or the mammals), whatever divides the hoof (meaning that it has cloven hooves) AND it chews the cud, we may eat it.

Vayiqra (Leviticus) 11:3
3 “Among the animals [mammals], whatever divides the hoof, having cloven hooves and chewing the cud—that you may eat.”

Why chewing the cud?

One of the things we need to understand is that there are spiritual values to everything in this chapter. This will sound really weird to westerners (and not as weird to easterners), but there is spiritual significance to everything that we eat.

Chewing the cud is also called ‘rumination’. And rumination is another word for ‘meditation’. So, when you chew the cud, basically you are burping some of the food that you ate back up, and you chew on it some more. You ruminate on it some more! You meditate on it some more!

When you hear the teaching, are you thinking about it later as you are coming home from work? Are you talking about it with your friends, because you want to understand how it applies to you and your family? That is called rumination.

So, any kind of an animal that ruminates, or meditates, (or chews its cud), AND it has a cloven hoof (or a divided hoof), you can eat it.

Why cloven hooves?

And I tend to think about a divided hoof in the same way that I tend to think about dividing between the set-apart, and the profane. Between the clean, and the unclean.

Meaning sheep need to stay set-apart from the wolves. And sheep need to stay set apart from the bears. If you are a sheep, do not hang out with wolves and bears. (It is so simple.)

Are you a picky eater?

Another neat thing you will see about clean animals is that they all eat clean. They sniff their food very carefully, before they eat it. And if something smells bad, they are not going to eat it! They are very picky eaters!

Verse four tells us that even if they ruminate, but they do not have a cloven hoof, you do not eat it.

Vayiqra (Leviticus) 11:4
4 Nevertheless these you shall not eat among those that chew the cud or those that have cloven hooves: the camel, because it chews the cud but does not have cloven hooves, is unclean to you;

For example, the camel will ruminate, and chew the cud, but it does not have a cloven hoof. And the rabbit and the hare are also prohibited, because yes they chew the cud, but they do not have cloven hooves (like sheep).

Avoid the red-horse pig!

Then in verse seven you start to get into the pig. And the pig is a big problem in the house of Esav, and the red horse.

And likewise, the pig is also a big problem for the house of Joseph, because we still have the vast majority of us who are tainted pink because of holdover Esavite attitudes and doctrines.

Vayiqra (Leviticus) 11:7
7 and the swine, though it divides the hoof, having cloven hooves, yet does not chew the cud, is unclean to you.

One problem with the pig is like verse seven says, it has a split hoof, meaning the hooves are cloven, but it does not chew the cud. Meaning, it does not ‘ruminate’!

So rather than listening to a teaching, and thinking about it, and “burping it up” to consider matters again and a little more deeply each time, it just swallows everything straight down.

“We do not learn Tanach in our schools because it is very deep, and things can be misinterpreted. So, they do not teach us Tanach. We learn Talmud, we learn what we call “Oral Law”. So, if I want to go into Yeshayahu, what you call “Isaiah”, I would go to my Rabbi and I would ask him to teach it to me, like everything I do not understand and ask him to teach to me. But things I was not taught in school because I was told that it is deep to understand, I for sure would not just read texts…”
[Orthodox Jews REACT to Messianic Jews Sharing ISAIAH 53, So Be It, 1:24-1:30]

And what about the last time you talked with a Baptist preacher, (or an ex-Baptist preacher turned Messianic pastor)? And he insists that you must interpret everything exactly the way he interprets it, or you are going to hell, even though he cannot back up his arguments with Scripture?

When you get into “church environment” and the pastor claims that he has all knowledge, and he does not have to conform to what the Bible says, because he has “a special understanding from Elohim” or something like that, then you are dealing with demons, and you need to get away! You need to set yourself apart!

Verse eight. Not only are we not supposed to eat their flesh, but we are not even supposed to touch their carcasses.

Vayiqra (Leviticus) 11:8
8 Their flesh you shall not eat, and their carcasses you shall not touch. They are unclean to you.

(And I know a lot of people with pig skin jackets that must get rid of them, because even their carcass is supposed to be an abomination to us, that we do not touch.)

Verse nine tells us that everything that lives in the water, we can eat whatever has fins AND scales.

Vayiqra (Leviticus) 11:9
9 Their flesh you shall not eat, and their carcasses you shall not touch. They are unclean to you.

(I do not know, but maybe if you have fins and scales you are capable of direction, as opposed to just drifting aimlessly, like a jellyfish? I do not know.) But if it has both fins and scales, we may eat it.

Vayiqra (Leviticus) 11:10-11
10 But all in the seas or in the rivers that do not have fins and scales, all that move in the water or any living thing which is in the water, they are an abomination to you.
11 They shall be an abomination to you; you shall not eat their flesh, but you shall regard their carcasses as an abomination.

And I do not know how many times he has to say it, but whatever lives in the water, if it does not have fins or scales, that is supposed to be an abomination to us.

Vayiqra (Leviticus) 11:12
12 Whatever in the water does not have fins or scales—that shall be an abomination to you.

And if you go to Jerusalem and you go to the temple Institute, they have this beautiful display about how they use the Murex Trunculus sea snail to die their tassels, or tzitzit.

Basically, they take the mucus and (I forget) but if you crush it in the morning you get purple, and if you crush it in the afternoon, you get blue, or something like that.

So, the rabbis are dying their tzitzit in unclean sea snail snot, when sea snail snot is supposed to be an abomination to us, because we are not supposed to touch sea snails.

It is like those pig skin jackets. They may look nice, and feel comfortable, but they are not clean! If you are going to dye your tassels with sea snail snot, you might as well soak them in pig fat, because both of them are abominations, and we are told to abominate them. (As in, do you want to become a snail?)

Predatory prohibition

Notice so far that we are never told to eat any carnivores. We are told we can eat sheep, or goats, or cows, or deer, or the hart, but none of these are predators. This means we are not supposed to predate on other people!

And this explains a lot about the birds. Because if we come to verse 13, we are told to regard as an abomination all of the predatory birds, or the raptors.

Vayiqra (Leviticus) 11:13
13 ‘And these you shall regard as an abomination among the birds; they shall not be eaten, they are an abomination: the eagle, the vulture, the buzzard,’

We are told to abominate the eagle, the vulture, the buzzard, and all kinds of birds that eat other animals (especially higher order animals). And not only the raptors, but we also are supposed to avoid flying insects.

(And the world has a big push on right now, to get people to eat bugs. And given that fact, moving to someplace where you have food security is a good idea! (Hint, hint!))

[Iron Man, Jolie and other celebrities promote eating Schwab’s bugs]

The only real exception to the rule here is the locust, the cricket, and the grasshopper, and that is because they also eat clean grains. They do not eat other animals. They do not even eat other bugs. They only eat plants.

(And people ask about turkeys, and ducks, and chickens, and yes, they eat bugs, but they do not eat other birds.)

This is a big message to the house of Zera, because we are not supposed to be predating on anyone else! (And Zera absolutely predates on other people!)

“For the apostates [meaning anyone who has left Orthodox Judaism, such as Yeshua (or Jesus), and everyone who follows Him] let there be no hope! And uproot the kingdom of arrogance speedily and in our days! May the Nazarenes and [all] the [other] sectarians [or the other “minim”] perish, as in a moment!  Let them be blotted out of the Book of Life, and not be written together with the righteous! You are praised, O Adonai, who subdues the arrogant!”
[Wikipedia, Jerusalem Talmud-Birkat haMinim]

We are not supposed to be pronouncing death curses over our brothers and sisters in Joseph! It is not sheep-like behavior!

Reptilian and creepy things

I do not know, do Verse 29 and verse 30 tell us that He does not want us to become lounge lizards? Or at least, not reptiles? No creepers?

Vayiqra (Leviticus) 11:29-30
29 ‘These also shall be unclean to you among the creeping things that creep on the earth: the mole, the mouse, and the large lizard after its kind;
30 the gecko, the monitor lizard, the sand reptile, the sand lizard, and the chameleon.’

Verse 41 tells us we are to abominate things that creep.
And verse 42 says if it crawls on its belly and goes on all fours, or if it has a lot of feet, (like a centipede or a Millipede or a spider), you do not eat it. It is an abomination.

Vayiqra (Leviticus) 11:41-42
41 ‘And every creeping thing that creeps on the earth shall be an abomination. It shall not be eaten.
42 Whatever crawls on its belly, whatever goes on all fours, or whatever has many feet among all creeping things that creep on the earth—these you shall not eat, for they are an abomination.’

GMOs, unclean splicing, and rabbinical ‘Kosher’

So now we need to talk about genetically modified foods, where they go to splice in fish and spider genetics, and things like that, into the foods that Yahweh made for human consumption.

And they tried to splice flounder genetics into tomatoes, so they could withstand cold weather better, but that project got shelved, because it did not really work.

But that does not mean they have stopped trying! And they have successfully spliced spider jeans into goat genetics! And now the spider-goats give off a milk that has a spider filament in it, that is one of the strongest and most flexible substances known to man!

We should not drink that milk! And we should not eat that meat!

But the rabbis are arguing amongst themselves if genetically modified meats and foods can be Kosher. Because the goats still chew the cud and have a cloven hoof, even though they give off milk that does not qualify as clean, because it is tainted with spider genetics.

We do not have any problem hybridizing one tomato with the next one, so long as both of them are untainted. And we do not have an issue hybridizing one kind of goat with the next kind of goat, so long as they are still both 100% goats, the way Elohim made them (and not modified by man).

But do not try to tell us it is kosher or biblically clean when it has unclean ingredients! It is like the concept of “Kosher candy”, or “Kosher junk food!”

And if it is not healthy food, then what is it? Unhealthy food? Un-health food? Sickness food? How is that loving Yahweh, is to pollute the body He gave you to serve Him with?

Verse 39 tells us not to eat roadkill. And we are not to eat any animal which dies of itself.

Vayiqra (Leviticus) 11:39
39 ‘And if any animal which you may eat dies, he who touches its carcass shall be unclean until evening.’

Why does it matter?

And hopefully you read the Torah portion already, but let us take a look at the reasons why Yahweh commands these things.

Vayiqra (Leviticus) 11:44
44 For I am Yahweh your Elohim. You shall therefore consecrate yourselves, and you shall be set-apart; for I am set-apart. Neither shall you defile yourselves with any creeping thing that creeps on the earth.

He says that He is “Yahweh our Elohim”. And as we read through Scripture, we find that that is what He always says when He wants to emphasize, “I mean it!”

He wants us to set ourselves apart from the way most people eat, and to be set-apart from the customs of the world, because He is set-apart.

And if we will think about it for just a little bit, if we want to go to Heaven (where He is), then do we not need to become like Him? Or how are we going to marry Yeshua, and then He cannot take us to His Father’s dining table, because we eat pigs, and snakes, and strange tomatoes, and we wear goat-spider-silk clothing that has weird and unclean energy patterns to it?

In verse 45, he tells us again. He is Yahweh who spun us from prison in the land of Egypt, to be our Proverbs 31 war bridal candidate.

Vayiqra (Leviticus) 11:45
45 For I am Yahweh who brings you up out of the land of Egypt, to be your Elohim. You shall therefore be set-apart, for I am set-apart.

And the reason He pulled off the raid was because the booty that He wanted was us paying attention to Him, and learning what our future Husband wants. (But then we do not do that!)

Do we get the idea that Yahweh wants us to eat sheep, and goats, and cows, because He does not want us to be a predator, but peaceful towards our brothers and sisters? Because this is how we can reestablish a single-family of man that listens to Him, and then organizes as a family so we can steward the creation He gave us?
Do we get the idea that, even though eating some meat can be healthy for us, after the flood we become what we eat? So, we need to eat clean? And we will see that we also need to associate clean?

Haftarah

We will come back to this later. But for right now, let us jump to our Haftarah prophetic portion, starting in Shemuel Bet chapter 6.

Fear unto obedience

In Shemuel Bet 6:5, the Ark of the Covenant had been captured by the Philistines. And so now King David was going to bring it up to Jerusalem, to put it in the Tabernacle of David while his son King Solomon built the first temple.

Shemuel Bet (2 Samuel) 6:5
5 Then David and all the house of Israel played music before Yahweh on all kinds of instruments of fir wood, on harps, on stringed instruments, on tambourines, on sistrums, and on cymbals.

And then in verse 6, when they came to the threshing floor of Nachon, the oxen stumbled, so Uzzah went to put out his hand, to steady the Ark of Elohim, perhaps so that it would not fall.

Shemuel Bet (2 Samuel) 6:6
6 And when they came to Nachon’s threshing floor, Uzzah put out his hand to the ark of Elohim and took hold of it, for the oxen stumbled.

Notice that even though he had a positive intention, he got killed because he was not following Elohim’s instructions! And even with what we guess would be a positive intent, there was still a death to be paid for failing to follow Elohim’s instructions, just like we saw with Nadav and Avihu.

And then we have rabbis teaching the Talmud. And we have Messianics and Ephraimites who have no real idea what the Renewed Covenant truly says, because they do not really care!

They will protest that they love Yahweh with all of their heart, mind, soul, and strength! They just do not care to find out what Yahweh said to do, so they can discipline themselves to do it, to save their own lives!

It is like, how do you get the attention of people who are afraid to talk with Yahweh at the Mountain, so they tell Moshe to go talk with Yahweh, (because they are too afraid!), but they do not want to obey what Moshe said? (What do you do with that?)

And then in Shemuel Bet 6:14, King David danced before Yahweh with all of his might. And he was wearing a linen ephod, because although King David was not a Levite, he was nonetheless a king, and also a priest of the Order of Kings and Priests (or Melchi-Tzedek).

Shemuel Bet (2 Samuel) 6:14
14 Then David danced before Yahweh with all his might; and David was wearing a linen ephod.

And this is the same order of Melchi-Tzedek the apostles found themselves a part of in Ma’asei 15:16, where they realize that their job was to set the Tabernacle of David back up. So that the rest of lost and fallen humanity might seek Yahweh, even all the returning gentile Ephraimites who are called by Yahweh’s name.

Ma’asei (Acts) 15:16
16 ‘AFTER THIS I WILL RETURN AND WILL REBUILD THE TABERNACLE OF DAVID, WHICH HAS FALLEN DOWN; I WILL REBUILD ITS RUINS, AND I WILL SET IT UP;

King David was Jewish. And our job in the house of Joseph is to graft back into the nation through the Jewish Messiah that Daniel 9:26 tells us was cut off (but not for Himself) just before the end of the second temple era.

Daniel 9:26
26 “And after the sixty-two weeks Messiah shall be cut off, but not for Himself; and the people of the prince who is to come shall destroy the city and the sanctuary. The end of it shall be with a flood, and till the end of the war desolations are determined.”

And this is how we build the stick of Joseph is to follow the instructions of Mashiach Nagid, Messiah the Teller, Mashiach the One who would help us to restore first the house of Joseph, and then reunite it with the house of Judah according to Yehezqel 37:16.

Yehezqel (Ezekiel) 37:16
16 “As for you, son of man, take a stick for yourself and write on it: ‘For Judah and for the children of Israel, his companions.’ Then take another stick and write on it, ‘For Joseph, the stick of Ephraim, and for all the house of Israel, his companions.’

And then once that is done, we can help the remnant of Ishmael come in.

(And we in the house of Joseph are in an ideal position to help the house of Esav convert, because we also read the Renewed Covenant.)

All we need to do is to imitate what our Nazarene Jewish forerunners were doing to set the Tabernacle of David back up, before everything deviated into the Great Falling Away into Esav’s Torahless and prophecy-less house in Rome! And obeying Ma’asei (Acts) 15 is the first step toward going back home to the land!

But let us continue.

Avoid Red-Horse doctrine like the plague it is!

If we come to Yeshayahu (Isaiah) 65:1, we see that the context is the house of Joseph, and specifically Ephraim in the end-times. (Meaning, now.)

Yahweh says that He was sought by those who did not ask for Him, (because we were after King Jeroboam)! Yahweh says He was found by those who did not seek Him, (because we did not want to lay down our lives in the world)!

And He said “Here I am! Here I am!” to the house of Joseph, because we did not even know His name!

Yeshayahu (Isaiah) 65:1
1 “I was sought by those who did not ask for Me; I was found by those who did not seek Me. I said, ‘Here I am, here I am,’ To a nation that was not called by My name.”

First, we walked off into idolatry to be mixed with all the peoples of the world, and then now we are being called back out of the world (at least for the future 10% who will do it).

Yeshayahu (Isaiah) 65:2
2 “I have stretched out My hands all day long to a rebellious people [and that is like a Dictionary definition for the house of Ephraim!], who walk in a way that is not good, according to their own thoughts;”

And that is what is happening when people are not getting with Mashiach Nagid’s fivefold unity program. Instead of trusting Elohim, and actually doing what Scripture says to do, instead we decide we want to do whatever seems good and right in our own eyes.

But what do we do? We provoke Him to anger continually to His face by not doing what His Son died for us to do, and yet we claim His Son’s name!

Yeshayahu (Isaiah) 65:3
3 “A people who provoke Me to anger continually to My face; who sacrifice in gardens, and burn incense on altars of brick;”

Verse 4 says that we sit among graves, and spend the night in the tombs.

Yeshayahu (Isaiah) 65:4a
4a “Who sit among the graves, and spend the night in the tombs;”

And here is an article about the Pink-Horse Charismatic church, where they practice what they call “grave sucking”, which is where they go into the graveyard and allegedly “suck up the good spirits” of the Christians. (And they defend it!)

[Grave sucking and gold dust: I spent 10 years at Bethel. Here’s the truth behind the wild rumours]

[What is grave soaking/ grave sucking /mantle grabbing?]

Verse 4 continues that they eat swine’s flesh.

Yeshayahu (Isaiah) 65:4b
4b …“who eat swine’s flesh, and the broth of abominable things is in their vessels;”

Bacon! Roast pig for Christmas and Ishtar! (I mean Easter!) Just like pigs, they do not sniff or smell their doctrine, to see if anything is unclean! Rather, they just swallow it straight down!

And verse 4 also says that the broth of abominable foods is in their vessels, because Esav teaches that the clean food laws in the Written Torah of Moshe are no more! (That is what I was taught in the Protestant Church.)

Yeshayahu (Isaiah) 65:4b
4b …“who eat swine’s flesh, and the broth of abominable things is in their vessels;”

Esav teaches that Iezeus died so you can eat whatever you want! And you can bring as much strange fire as you want, and no problems!

Whereas verse 6 tells us that Yahweh will repay everyone into their bosom if they take His name in vain like that.

Yeshayahu (Isaiah) 65:6
6 “Behold, it is written before Me: I will not keep silence, but will repay—Even repay into their bosom—”

If we are going to claim His name, but not do what He says, He has got something special for us, that He will repay into our bosoms! And it will hurt! (So, it is better to turn back!)

“They will be ashamed”

We come now to Yeshayahu 66:1, where Yahweh is trying to help us gain some perspective.

Yeshayahu (Isaiah) 66:1
1 Thus says Yahweh: “Heaven is My throne, and earth is My footstool. Where is the house that you will build Me? And where is the place of My rest?

Levi and Judah are getting ready to build a Talmudic Temple. They plan to follow the Talmud, rather than the Tanach. And just like in the days of Yirmeyahu (Jeremiah), they expect Elohim to be impressed!

But Yahweh says that Heaven is His throne, and the earth is just His footstool. So, what kind of grand, magnificent Temple do we really think we are going to build for Him, anyway? We want to make a bump on His footstool?

Yahweh always says that what He is really looking for is someone who has a poor and contrite spirit, who trembles at His word. Which means that he is scared not to do it, and so he does it! ALL of it!

Yeshayahu (Isaiah) 66:2
2 “For all those things My hand has made, and all those things exist,” says Yahweh. “But on this one will I look: on him who is poor and of a contrite spirit, and who trembles at My word.”

But look at what Yahweh says in verse 3. He says that in this coming Talmudic Temple, if you go there and honor it, it is going to be a bad thing.

If you kill a bull in the Talmudic Temple, it is as bad as if you slay a man. If you sacrifice a lamb with a priestly order intent upon replacing Yahweh’s word with words of their own, it is as if you break a dog’s neck.

Yeshayahu (Isaiah) 66:3a
3a “He who kills a bull is as if he slays a man; he who sacrifices a lamb, as if he breaks a dog’s neck;…”

And for Joseph, if you even make a grain offering in the Talmudic Temple, Yahweh says it is as if you offered swine’s blood!

Yeshayahu (Isaiah) 66:3b
3b “he who offers a grain offering, as if he offers swine’s blood; He who burns incense, as if he blesses an idol. Just as they have chosen their own ways, and their soul delights in their abominations,”

Is that a positive connotation with swine’s blood? Or a negative connotation with swine’s blood? Negative, is it not?

What does that tell us about how Yahweh is going to feel about pork in the end times? (Meaning now?)

And this is really bad for the Southern House of Judah in the land. Verse 4 tells us that Yahweh will choose Judah and Levi’s delusions, and bring their worst fears on them. Because when Yahweh called, no one heard His voice, because no one was listening!

Yeshayahu (Isaiah) 66:4
4 “So will I choose their delusions, and bring their fears on them; because, when I called, no one answered, when I spoke they did not hear; but they did evil before My eyes, and chose that in which I do not delight.”

Because they do not listen for Yahweh’s voice, or even read His words anymore. Rather, they chose what was evil in Yahweh’s eyes, by replacing His words with the Talmud, to build a Talmudic Temple.

But just like the Levites Nadav and Avihu were struck for disobeying Yahweh’s commandments, and just as Uzza was struck for disobeying Yahweh commandments, Yahweh says He is going to strike the Talmudists in His land who do their own words, rather than His words. And then He is going to give the land to those who actually do keep His word.

Yeshayahu (Isaiah) 66:5
5 Hear the word of Yahweh, you who tremble [Haredim] at His word: “Your brethren who hated you, who cast you out for My name’s sake, said, ‘Let Yahweh be glorified, that we may see your joy.’ But they shall be ashamed.”

And the word for “tremble” here in Hebrew is “Haredim”, which is ironic because that is what the Ultra-Orthodox call themselves. But they do not tremble at His word. They replace His word with the Talmud.

Really, those of us who are attempting to build Yeshua’s kingdom are those who tremble at His word. So really, Yahweh is addressing this to us. And He says that our brethren in the southern kingdom who hated us, who cast us out allegedly for His namesake, saying let “Yahweh be glorified as we pronounce the Birkhat HaMinim death curse over our brethren in the house of Joseph!” But they shall be ashamed.

Yeshayahu 66:6 says that there will be a sound of noise from the city, and a voice from the temple.

Yeshayahu (Isaiah) 66:6
6 The sound of noise from the city! A voice from the temple! The voice of Yahweh, who fully repays His enemies!

And it will be the voice of Yahweh, who will fully repay His enemies (who are attempting to set up a temple without Him)!

Judgement of fire

And now let us drop down to Yeshayahu 66:15, and also verse 16, where Yahweh talks about how He is going to judge those who disobey Him by fire.

Yeshayahu (Isaiah) 66:15-16
15 For behold, Yahweh will come with fire and with His chariots, like a whirlwind, to render His anger with fury, and His rebuke with flames of fire.
16 For by fire and by His sword Yahweh will judge all flesh; and the slain of Yahweh shall be many.

If you try to build His kingdom with fire and strength, He is going to destroy you with fire and strength of a different magnitude, because what He wants is a single family living at peace with each other. He wants a single global spiritual family “shooting double peace”!

Who is destroyed in verse number 17?

Yeshayahu (Isaiah) 66:17
17 “Those who sanctify themselves and purify themselves, to go to the gardens after an idol in the midst, eating swine’s flesh and the abomination and the mouse, shall be consumed together,” says Yahweh.

Esav’s J-man doctrines

What does that say about the importance of the clean food laws in the end-times? Have they been done away with, as Esav says?

When I was a boy in the Pink-Horse Methodist Church, they taught me that you can eat anything. Because Esav say the J-man died to set us free from eating food that His Father says is good for us so we can be set-apart like Him.

And Esav says I can be part of the bride, without obeying the bridal covenant. 😂 I mean it is no wonder there is so much double-mindedness in the house of Joseph! (Today they call it schizophrenia.) But let us look at where these selfish, self-centered misconceptions come from.

Brit Chadasha

Let us come to Ma’asei (Acts) 10:9. And for those who are not familiar with the history, up until this point, the ministry has been to Jews only, because the commandment was to go to brother Judah first, before going to the Gentiles.

Because it is only right. Judah had not forgotten Yahweh, and the concept of a Mashiach. And Ephraim had. And the original idea was that there was supposed to be a remnant of believing Nazarene Jews for the returning gentile Ephraimites to come back and attach to.

(Not how they do it in racist, tribalist One-House Talmudic-Messianic Judah. Nazarene Jews following the original halachah. HaMin HaNetzerim (The sect of the Nazarenes) with Yeshua’s Halachah, like it says in Jude verse 3.

Jude 1:3
3 Beloved, while I was very diligent to write to you concerning our common salvation, I found it necessary to write to you exhorting you to contend earnestly for the faith which was once for all delivered to the saints.

Kepha’s vision

In Ma’asei 10:9, Shimon Kepha (Peter) went up on a housetop to pray while they were waiting to eat (so there is a clean food theme.)

Ma’asei (Acts) 10:9-11
9 The next day, as they went on their journey and drew near the city, Kepha went up on the housetop to pray, about the sixth hour.
10 Then he became very hungry and wanted to eat; but while they made ready, he fell into a trance
11 and saw heaven opened and an object like a great sheet bound at the four corners, descending to him and let down to the earth.

And just to say it, this ‘sheet’ was not a second-century tallit. The tallit that we think of today had not even been invented yet. They did not have that garment in the first century. What they had instead was probably more like the ancient simlah garment, which is just a big rectangle (but we will talk about garments some other time). What we are concerned with right now is what is in this great sheet.

Ma’asei (Acts) 10:12
12 and in it were all kinds of four footed animals of the earth, wild beasts, creeping things, and birds of the air.
[Meaning, it was not a lot of clean animals. They were unclean animals.]

Ma’asei (Acts) 10:13-14
13 And a voice came to him, “Rise, Kepha. Slay and eat.”
14 But Kepha said, “Not so, Adon. I have never eaten anything common or unclean.”

(Meaning not set-apart and not according to Vayiqra 11).”

Ma’asei (Acts) 10:15
15 And a voice spoke to him again the second time, “What Elohim has cleansed, you must not call common.”

Esav stops reading right here. And Esav says, “This means Iezeus died so that you can eat anything!”

And how many Protestants are there who believe the same thing? And how many Messianics are there who believe the same thing? And how many who call themselves Ephraimites believe the same thing?

Ma’asei (Acts) 10:16
16 This was done three times. And the object was taken up into heaven again.

So, you had three witnesses, so the thing is confirmed. And the object was taken up into heaven again.

Is Kepha’s vision about clean foods?

Next it tells us that Kepha was wondering within himself what this vision which he had seen meant. And then he goes with the men to go to the house of Cornelius, who was an Italian Ephraimite, who loved the nation of Judah, and he gave alms and support to the people, (so he was not only talk).

Ma’asei (Acts) 10:17
17 Now while Kepha wondered within himself what this vision which he had seen meant, behold, the men who had been sent from Cornelius had made inquiry for Shimon’s house, and stood before the gate.

And then in verse 28, Kepha explained the vision.

Ma’asei (Acts) 10:28
28 Then he said to them, “You know how unlawful [according to Pharisaic Jewish halacha] it is for a Jewish man to keep company with or go to one of another nation [a different set of beliefs]. But Elohim has shown me that I should not call any man common or unclean.”

It does not say anything about Vayiqra (Leviticus) 11, because Vayiqra 11 pertains to food animals in the natural, not people in the spiritual.

Is it kosher in the natural? Or is it treif (unkosher)? People are always treif in the natural, meaning with regards to food. But because the context is a vision, now we are talking about the spiritual.

Maybe we have hands and feet in the natural, but hopefully we are developing little sheepy cloven hooves in the spiritual. But even if we do not have little sheepy cloven hooves in the spiritual, our forerunner Kepha was told to slay the lost gentile Ephraim in the Spirit.

And having been slain in the Spirit, perhaps a remnant of lost gentile Ephraim would return one day, by hearing Yahweh’s voice, and being careful to do everything that He ever said, because of a deepening relationship with the Vine, Yeshua HaMashiach.

Backwards bride

And what happens for most of us is that we come in through some variation (or manifestation) of the Torahless Esavite Roman doctrine, where the bride does not need to obey the wedding covenant, because it is all for her.

It is the princess process. There is no slave princess Proverbs 31 war bridal candidate status ever! And Esav says that you do not have to obey the bridal covenant! You are called! And that is how you know you have already been chosen! (Do you not know, wink, wink wink! Or is that “Oink, oink, oink”?)

And that is the thing about Esav. Esav never did value his birthright (meaning the kingship), because the kingship is hard work. It takes hard work to be king! Esav did not care!

Red-Horse Esav would rather slack and go hunting, than work hard for what is good for the whole world. And that is why we do not seek to replace the Tribe of Judah, but to graft into the tribe of Judah, as the two sticks become one, as prophesied in Yehzeqel 37:16.

Yehzeqel (Ezekiel) 37:16
16 “As for you, son of man, take a stick for yourself and write on it: ‘For Judah and for the children of Israel, his companions.’ Then take another stick and write on it, ‘For Joseph, the stick of Ephraim, and for all the house of Israel, his companions.’”

But to bring the two sticks together, first you must have two sticks! If you do not have two sticks, you cannot bring them together.

And we are told that the way to build the stick of Joseph is to obey Ma’asei (Acts) 15. And one of the key components of Ma’asei 15 is this principle of maintaining the set-apart of the dining table.

The Great Commission: to turn swine into Proverb 31 brides

Now, you may have a job out there in the world, and you may have to eat with people who have no relationship with Yahweh Elohim. But you want to shield your family from that, if you can. Or if you come in contact with them, you want to slay them in the Spirit, like Shaliach Kepha was commanded to do.

And what that means is a great big commandment toward evangelism and the Great Commission. Because we are supposed to take ‘spiritual animals’, so to speak who are unclean spiritually, (and yes, you want to shield your family and especially you or young children from negative influences), but in the adult male world, and for sisters who work outside of a set-apart community, there is a mission to do for the One who gave everything for us.

It is not just sitting around in our friends living rooms eating lunch together and having a Bible study. That is good homework, but there is a lot more to do, than just homework. There is a job to unify the entire dispersed, fragmented, atomized body on a single foundation of clean doctrine.

And praise Yahweh. This past week, we had a brother contact us, who felt moved in the Spirit to offer a service that he felt he wanted to do for Yeshua. And we are following up with him and hope to have a positive report for you sometime soon.

So, praise Yahweh for those who recognize the calling, and want to do what they can to help. Just like when the first tabernacle was being built, and the people were eager to build a house for their Elohim, so that He might dwell among them!

This is the kind of an opportunity we have with the need to stand the Tabernacle of David back up!

The kingdom is at hand (offered)

Okay now, dropping down to verse number 44, Kepha was speaking to Cornelius and his household, and they could sense that the Set-apart Spirit fell upon all those who heard the word.

Ma’asei (Acts) 10:44
44 While Kepha was still speaking these words, the Set-apart Spirit fell upon all those who heard the word.

And those of “the circumcision who believed” (which would be like One-house Messianic Jews (like the UCMJ, the MJAA, and the UMJC, etc.) were astonished, as many as had come with Kepha, because the gift of the Set-apart Spirit had been poured out on the returning Gentile Ephraimites also.

Ma’asei (Acts) 10:45
45 And those of the circumcision who believed were astonished, as many as came with Kepha, because the gift of the Set-apart Spirit had been poured out on the Gentiles also.

And we will have to unpack the Jewish racial, tribal house pride somewhere else, but this is a continuing issue that has been going on ever since Judah and Levi sold Joseph into slavery in Parasha Vayeshev.

There is an “older on the younger” evil that has been going on ever since Esav hated our mutual forefather, Jacob. And really, ever since Qayin and Hevel (Cain and Abel). The older has abused and tried to dominate the younger ever since then.

And the younger suffers in the natural, but gains more in the spiritual, as a result of the afflictions. And Levi and Judah are getting ready to have at us again over the next 30-40-50 years, but our hope in the house of Joseph is that by differentiating ourselves from Esav, it can be a witness to Judah that the prophecies in the Tanach are true!

But coming back to verse 45, the thing about receiving the gift of the Set-apart Spirit is that we must learn to put her first. We must learn to let her lead us in everything!

We must give her the steering wheel and the keys, or else that is called “quenching” the Spirit, and I believe that is the ‘unpardonable sin’. Because that is what everyone has to submit to in order to arrive at the kind of a world where everyone takes care of each other in an ordered family way, so that together we can take care of His planet, and each other.

So, if you allegedly “believe” on Him, but it does not change your life radically so that you are helping to build His kingdom, what does He want that for? (That is just a stumbling block to others.)

And that is something these other ministers offering strange fire and seeking to steady the ark had best pray deeply about! Because if you are not helping to unify them on a single foundation with the original doctrine, then the reality is, you are dividing His flock while you muddy the waters with your feet.

And you think you are doing good, but if you are not gathering together with Him, on His foundation, for which He is the chief Cornerstone, then the reality is that you are scattering His flock, by building your own flock.

Mattityahu (Matthew) 12:30
30 “He who is not with Me is against Me, and he who does not gather with Me scatters abroad.”

You are not an under Shepherd for Him, but a replacement shepherd, you are doing Esav’s work. And Yahweh does not like that!

The Great Falling Away takes root

Now, we do not have time to cover all the important themes that go on in Ma’asei chapter 11, but there are two edges to every sword.

The good thing was that the gentile Ephraimites were starting to come back and graft into the Jewish root. Out in the nations, we eat all kind of nasty food, so we get all kind of nasty spirits!

And they do not typically idolize sheep. Usually, they idolize a predator, or a carnivore. And a lot of cultures just plain eat the blood. Blood sausage. Pudding with blood. (“Ew!”) Major league nastiness!!!

How many of us have eaten pig? And how many of us used to belong to a predatorial mystery Babylonian culture that practices a substitute for the worship that the Bible commands?

But you just swallow that doctrine straight down, because you think your culture is what the Bible calls for? And you do not bother to check anything out, or ruminate, or meditate on the lessons?

But when your Orthodox, Baptist, or Messianic preacher tells you that you have to believe exactly like he does, or you are going to hell, and yet what he preaches looks different than what is written in Scripture, what do you do? Do you just “swallow” those teachings straight down?

And when Esav tells you that the dietary laws have been ‘nailed to the cross’, and now the bride does not need to keep the bridal covenant, do you test that against Scripture, and ruminate on it? Or what do you do?

Well, in Ma’asei chapter 11, things started to go the wrong way. And that is to say that in Ma’asei 11:26, we see some of the earliest signs of what would come to be called the Great Falling Away from the Israelite Torah-keeping mindset. And that is to say that we see the onset of Mystery Babylon.

And it is more than we can unpack right now at this exact moment, but when we get to the Abraham Accords mega series, we hope to unpack the various different phases of Yahweh’s great spiritual warfare campaign to bring mankind back into submission to Him (like it used to be, back in the Garden).

But men never want to do what Elohim says! We always want to do what we want! We want to chase after what looks good, or what would feel good, or what would make us feel good about ourselves, instead of remembering that sin crouches by the door, but it is our job to rule over it.

It is our job to obey the commandments of Elohim, rather than make up some false Babylonian worship that pretends to be what Elohim says to do, but is not really. We must ‘come out’ of that!

But here in verse 26, what happened is that now you have gentile Ephraimites converting to the worship in Antioch, but they are starting to use Greek terms (because they used the Greek Septuagint in the synagogues in the dispersion).

Ma’asei (Acts) 11:26
26 And when he had found him, he brought him to Antioch. So it was that for a whole year they assembled with the church and taught a great many people. And the disciples were first called Christians in Antioch.

And they spoke Greek in the Dispersion, just like you have Jews who speak English in America, or German in Russia. And this is why people incorrectly call Yeshua HaMashiach by the name, “Jesus Christ”, is because the worship jumped the language divide and the culture divide here in Antioch.

And we talk about this in more detail in the Nazarene Israel study, but this shift to non-Hebrew culture, and non-Hebrew languages brought in a lot of confusion (and of course, Mystery Babylon thrives on confusion, because Babylon means confusion). (Divide and conquer!)

And if you want to know the whole panorama on that, please check out the Nazarene Israel study, and will also get to it when we get to the Abraham Accords series.

Other misconstrued passages

Now, if we are going to talk about food, we should talk briefly about two more chapters, because we always get questions. And we will try to cover it briefly, because we are out of time.

Romim (Romans) 14: non-commanded fasting

First, let us turn to Romim (Romans) 14, which is actually talking about fasting, and abstaining from certain foods on the traditional man-made second-temple era fast days.

Romim (Romans) 14:1
1 Receive one who is weak in the faith, but not to disputes over doubtful things.

So, already we know we are discussing something doubtful. That cannot refer to the written Torah of Moshe, because that is a law code from Elohim, and there is nothing doubtful about a law code from Elohim. (The only things doubtful is if Levi and Ephraim are going to save their lives by obeying Him or not.)

Romim (Romans) 14:2a
2a “For one believes he may eat all things [on the traditional weekly days of fasting that were observed during the second-temple period],”

And what goes wrong in the gentile mind is that we imagine that the Renewed Covenant exists in a vacuum, so we do not look for the correspondence in Jewish history of the second-temple era.

So, what happens for gentiles is that we read about fasting, and we will make the mistake of thinking that Shaul is talking about Yom Kippur (or the Day of Atonement). And we get the idea that Shaul is trashing the Torah.

But one of the reasons that is wrong is that were also traditional days of fasting in the second-temple era, just like there are traditional days of fasting right now. (And that is a whole huge study that we do not have time for right now.)

If you want to research it you can check the Jewish Virtual Library, and type in ‘Jewish holidays: fasting and feast days’ and it will give you all the details.

But for example, when Yeshua gives us the parable of the Pharisee and the Tax Collector in Luqa 18:12, the tradition-oriented Pharisee (or Orthodox Jew) said that he fasted twice a week.

Luqa (Luke) 18:12
12 ‘I fast twice a week; I give tithes of all that I possess.’

Now there is nothing in the Torah that requires fasting during the week, but in the second-temple era, some people fasted one day a week, and others fasted twice a week for certain hours.

And all that Shaul is trying to say here is that the written Torah of Moshe says nothing about this. You can fast additional days. I have done it, I think many people have done it. And I have prolonged Yom Kippur fast for three days. But that is optional.

If you feel in the Spirit or if you hear in the Spirit that you are supposed to fast, then you need to, because whatever is not of faith is sin.

Romim 14:5 says that one person in the synagogue esteems one day to be a higher (more set-apart) day (because of tradition), and therefore they feel they should fast. Whereas another person does not place any of that weight on Jewish tradition, and therefore he esteems every day to be alike, because the written Torah does not make those kinds of distinctions.

Romim (Romans) 14:5
5 One person esteems one day above another; another esteems every day alike. Let each be fully convinced in his own mind.

Shaul is easily misunderstood

And there is really a lot we can say here, and we will have to tackle this in some other place, because there are a lot of questions, and a lot of objections. But the main thing is, Shaul is talking about traditional days of fasting that were observed during the second-temple era.

And I have spoken with Orthodox rabbis who ask why there are so many flavors of Christianity, and it is basically misunderstandings of Shaliach Shaul.

Kepha Bet 3:16-17 tells us that Shaul is very easy to misunderstand, and that in his day there were many people who did misunderstand him! And verse 16 tells us that this is because they were untaught, and unstable in the written Torah of Moshe (and what would later become the Tanach.)

Kepha Bet (2 Peter) 3:16-17
16 as also in all his epistles, speaking in them of these things, in which are some things hard to understand, which untaught and unstable people twist to their own destruction, as they do also the rest of the Scriptures.
17 You therefore, beloved, since you know this beforehand, beware lest you also fall from your own steadfastness, being led away with the error of the wicked;

And that is what happens when the sect of the Nazarene jumps from an action-oriented, Hebrew-language pattern, to a Greco-Roman-Babylonian thought-oriented pattern. Because now you have a lot of Ephraimites who think they are keeping written Torah of Moshe just because they are reading it, even though they are not doing anything.

(And then you also get Judah and Levi, who are very active in doing the wrong things, by replacing Elohim’s words with their own traditions and teachings.)

And we get a lot of questions about Shaliach Shaul (Paul), because Shaul had the hard job of trying to spell things out to those Ephraimites lost in the Greco-Roman-Babylonian world and it’s thought patterns. (His job was to preach to those who were lost on the far side of the Sambation River, so to speak.)

And we have a study in Nazarene Scripture Studies Volume 2, entitled “About Shaul’s Ministry“. And in that study, we talk about the many different reasons why people misunderstand Shaul. And typically, it boils back to the reason that someone taught them Red-Horse Esavite doctrine at some point, which tells us that we can do what we want, and that we are still disciples.

Qorintim Aleph 8

If we come to Qorintim Aleph 8:1 you can see very similar language where Shaul also talks about the need to abstain from food that is offered to idols.

Qorintim Aleph (1 Corinthians) 8:1
1 Now concerning things offered to idols: We know that we all have knowledge. Knowledge puffs up, but love edifies.

And if you want to get an insight into his mindset, the language is almost parallel.

On the one hand, it is nothing to eat food that has been offered to idols, because these idols are false elohim, and yes they are elohim, and yes they exist, but they were ‘created’. So, Yahweh Elohim has all the power over them.

But on the other hand, it is a horrible sin to eat food that has been sacrificed to an idol, because you can mislead your brother. You can put a stumbling block in front of your brother.
So, it is not just a question of eating clean foods in the synagogue environment, and in your home, there is also an aspect of slaying the unclean spirits in the heart, so that our lost brethren who are lost in the world repent of their evil, and turn back to Elohim through the atoning sacrifice of Messiah Yeshua.

And when they turn back, please pray with me that Elohim will help us to raise up resources so that we can have locations. So that when brother Judah wakes up from the Talmud, or when a lost Ephraimite wakes up in the house of Esav, that they have some place to come.

Orthodox Judah is busy with the Talmudic Temple, and then they are going to establish a global government in their own power and strength, and that is going to fall maybe 30 years later.

Ephraim is busy spending his Mina on himself. What we need to be doing is re-establishing the Tabernacle of David, like it says in Ma’asei 15:16-17 (quoting Amos 9).

Ma’asei (Acts) 15:16-17
16 ‘AFTER THIS I WILL RETURN AND WILL REBUILD THE TABERNACLE OF DAVID, WHICH HAS FALLEN DOWN; I WILL REBUILD ITS RUINS, AND I WILL SET IT UP;
17 SO THAT THE REST OF MANKIND MAY SEEK YAHWEH, EVEN ALL THE GENTILES WHO ARE CALLED BY MY NAME, SAYS YAHWEH WHO DOES ALL THESE THINGS.’

And people ask us all the time where they can go to assemble with us, and it hurts so much to have to say that there is an assembling place not right now, because the Proverbs 31 bridal candidates are not giving.
And it hurts to admit that most of the spiritual elders of our people have not yet decided to get involved. But the redemption is a process. And it takes generations. And when we talk about the Feast of Unleavened Bread, we will talk about the Feast of Unleavened doctrine.

In the meantime, let us all be aware that there are spiritual values to the foods that we eat. And let us remember that in Mattityahu (Matthew) 15:24, Yeshua did not say that He came for the ‘lost pigs’ of the northern house of Israel (Ephraim), but for the ‘lost sheep’, who obey the example of their Shepherd, and who keep the full written Torah of Moshe, and all of the prophecies.

Mattityahu (Matthew) 15:24
24 But He answered and said, “I was not sent except to the lost sheep [not pigs!] of the house of Israel.”

Shabbat shalom.

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