Understanding seed, fruit and trees better....
July 13, 2013 ~ Av 6, 5773
(Remember Tues is the Tish B’Av - 9th of Av)
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Torah parashah #44 for this Shabbat - D’varim / words
-please read on your own as we are not talking about that today.
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Sh’ma
- the watch word of Isra’el and our faith.
- Remember Ivrim/ Hebrews 10:24 cjb p 1504... according to Rav Mattityah Nolan - used to say.... “Do not forsake the Sh’ma together.”
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Understanding seed, fruit and trees better......
Last week we talked about seed and rain...
let’s review and then we will talk about trees....
Before we go further... a reminder that Tish B’Av is Tuesday... we are coming to the high point of the mourning period - which is the anniversaries of when horrible things happened to the Hebrews... like both temples being destroyed and being kicked out of spain in 1492.
One of the biggest things i hope you get in this is how amazing our Elohim is... words and their meanings can change.... but the one thing that people - will always have around them on this earth is seed.... is agriculture.... and while words change, that process won’t.... so YHWH speaks to us in ways that we can SEE and will never change. wow!!
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I read from Brad Scott’s book The Principle of the Seed... last week and i want to read it to you again... because this is so very important.
Scott ...writes....
“America leads the world in ...
distribution and consumption of pornography
distribution and consumptions of illegal drugs
distribution and consumption of LEGAL drugs
..... and disease
...... and health care costs
..... and psychological treatment/s
.... .. and suicides
..... ... and sex crimes
... and America leads the world in......
..... churches and
..... seminaries, and
......revivals, and
...... missionaries, and
...... gospel groups and
..... Christian rock stars and
...... purpose driven congregations.”
He goes on to say... “Remember America confesses to be 90% Christian.”
“Well, the dominate religion in this country, in concert with the media, would have us all believe that the reason we lead the world in these immoral activities is because of the 10%.
In other words, these people would have us believe that the tail is wagging the dog here:
that the immoral 10% are controlling the moral 90%.
The dominate religion in America would identify for us who the 10% are.
They would be the atheists, the agnostics, the homosexuals, the Democrats if you are Republican and the Republicans if you are a Democrat. They would include the liberal media and Hollywood, of course. Many would lay the blame entirely on the Clintons, or perhaps a few on sports and beer commercials,
but never, never, never would the “faithful” 90% be involved.
After all, judgment does NOT begin with the house of God, right?
I am going to suggest something that may shock many.
I am going to suggest that the reason our once great country leads the world in these immoral categories is
because we indeed ARE 90% Christian.
Yes, that is what i said,
but bear with me.
Here is what we are not:
We are not 90% God-fearing,
we are not 90% Bible believing, obedient followers of a Jewish Messiah.
We are however, dominantly Christian.
We have done a wonderful job of proliferating Christian doctrine and reproducing more Christians.
But ARE we teaching the Scriptures, all of the Scriptures, or are we teaching and spreading Christianity?
Is it the Scriptures that we are living by,
or is it the message of the products of our great seminaries and the early church fathers that we are reproducing.” (end quote)
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So, to summarize - a CORE problem is that
churches are teaching Christianity and not Torah.
They are teaching traditions and opinions of men and not the Word of YHWH...
and it is to the point where the people sitting in the pews don’t even get/ understand this!! ...
they are blind - they can’t see. They can not understand the WORD.
They don’t know.
We sat in pews and didn’t know- not very long ago.
I praise Yah - that i was so hungry that i continued to cry out for more understanding!
The shepherds will be accountable. They are teaching christianity - not the Word of YHWH - the Torah.
They are not teaching the difference between the holy and the profane.
**
Remember... The Word says...
There will be a famine...
(This is a big key....)
Amos 8:11 cjb p 740
“The time is coming says Adonai YHWH, when I will send famine over the land, not a famine of bread or a thirst for water, but of hearing the WORDS of YHWH.”
A famine in the land...
- the popular religion is teaching christianity - not Torah....
and we can’t figure out why we have problems!!??!!
We have got to keep our eyes focused on the WORD -
-the TORAH....
-the written WORD and the LIVING WORD - Y’SHUA....
.... == YHWH is salvation!
The popular religion of our day is teaching that we just need to LOVE.
To “love Jesus”... and that is all that goes with that....
We need to know that Biblical love is not a feeling. It is a covenant.
Remember...
the Word says...
Yochanan / John 14:15 cjb p 1350 “If you love me, you will keep my commands.”
Yochanan 14:23 “Y’shua answered him, ‘If someone loves me, he will keep my Word; and my Father will love him and we will come to him and make our home with him.’”
We started reading D’varim /Deuteronomy this week and her our Avinue /Father tells us... what it means to keep his commandments.
In D’varim / Deuteronomy 27 and 28- we will read about the blessings we will have if we keep Torah, and the curses we will have if we do not keep Torah.
Remember last week we focused on the sentence:
“The seed is our inheritance and the fruit is our responsibility.”
If you haven’t heard or read that teaching yet - go read it on the web site - it is very very important.
Romans 4:13-16 cjb p 1406
“For the promise to Avraham and his SEED that he would inherit the world did not come through legalism but through the righteousness that trust produces. 14 For if the heirs are produced by legalism, then trust is pointless and the promise worthless. 15 For what law brings is punishment, but where there is no law there is also no violation. 16 The reason the promise is based on trusting is so that it may come as YHWH’s free gift, a promise that can be relied on by all the SEED, not only those who live within the framework of the Torah, but also those with the kind of trust Avraham had - Avraham avinu /our father for all of us.”
“Inheritance” doesn’t come through the written Word/Torah it comes through the Seed... The RELATIONSHIP.
The seed is planted in the ground... covered by dirt.... and remember how we said that some people have a whole lot of extra dirt on top of them so the seed doesn’t reach the surface.... and that dirt is the religions of traditions of men and not the D’var / Word.
If it is planted in a healthy place with the right amount of ground covering it... the rains come and the seed grows....and the rains will not wash away the ground.... and you will be able to produce fruit....
We talked about what the rain is.... the TORAH.
Do you understand - the seed is our inheritance ?
Our inheritance - if we are of the seed of Avraham by blood or if we have been grafted into the cultivated olive tree... and have done teshuva and came back into covenant - thanks to Messiah Y’shua - Father’s beinyah/ plan for restoration.
The seed is our relationship with HIM.
The fruit is our responsibility... it is something that happens because of what we do and how we live - BECAUSE we love HIM.
So we keep his instructions - we Sh’ma (hear and do/ live) them... because we LOVE Him. and if we keep his mitzvoth - we will be blessed, and we will be holy just as he has called us to be.
HIS GRACE ...
His grace is that He loved us so much that despite the fact that we understood hardly anything - He didn’t give up on us. - That is GRACE.
When we had heaps of extra dirt on top of the seed in us.... HE had the love and the grace to send the rain/ Torah - and patiently wash away the extra dirt.
Praise Yah.
And so we can stand and wait patiently with Him who had the patience to wait for us.... for other seeds to have the heaps of extra dirt washed away by the rain/ Torah.
And we can know that He has called us to go into all the world and teach the Gospel - the TRUTH/ Torah.... to begin to wash the heaps of dirt away from the seeds in so many others of Isra’el.... and that, Beloved, will be good fruit. :) Amein.
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So let’s go back to talking about TREES from a couple weeks ago....
Torah starts with 2 trees, and it ends with one tree....
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So let’s talk about a story of Y’shua.... that has trees in it....
Mark 8:22-25 cjb p 1273
many theologians have given a multitude of reasons why Y’shua had to do something again with this blind man.... why he didn’t get it right the first time.
I’ve even heard taught that he didn’t heal the guy the first time - so i wouldn’t feel bad when i couldn’t heal right away - or at all!
That even “Jesus” couldn’t get it right the first time all the time.”
Really?!! wow.
I hope by now you are catching on that everything is in there for a reason and that MESSIAH Y’Shua was perfect because HE IS YHWH - so He didn’t mess up - not even to teach me something!!
But HE did do it this way to teach us a LOT of things!!
We need to see/ understand that our Father uses everything in this Word to teach us...nothing is in here - not one yod - the smallest letter of even a tittle -the flourish on fancy block letters - is without purpose!
The context of this short story of Y’shua giving sight to a blind man is...
He has just fed the 4k - a story of a multitude
- “multitude” always implies “mixed” or “seas of people”
- They are all scattered out in a field.
technically they are in the wilderness...
scattered around the wilderness....
Where is the Northern Kingdom of Isra’el right now? -
- In the wilderness not even (most of them) knowing WHO they are!!
and look at the prophecy of this feeding of the 5k....
He fed them all bread and fish (kosher no less! :) )
The prophetic point is.... that all the people, no matter who they were - all were fed the SAME FOOD.
they didn’t have a different meal for the Jews as for the gentiles...
everybody was fed the same thing.!...
and just before the feeding of the 5k...
... was Y’shua’s of condemnation of the hypocrisy of the Pharisees... in Mark 7.
So all this gives a clue about the blind man’s healing!
Think about what i just said....
“So all of this gives a clue about the blind man’s healing!”
There is Y’shua talking to the Pharisees about why His talmidim /disciples didn’t perform the traditional / ceremonial hand washing ... now remember this was a tradition of man - it did not come from Torah... it was not instructions from Avineu YHWH
So Y’shua is drawing a clear line about keeping Torah and not doing the traditions of men.....
and then he teaches the 4k - and we don’t read much of what he said there... but we do know that he fed 4k people...
with seven loaves (the number of perfection of completion.)
and “a few fish”... with seven large basketfuls left over.
The next thing we know we are in Mark 8:22-26... and Y’shua is making eyes for a man who apparently doesn’t have “eyes to see”....
Y’shua leads him out of town - “into the wilderness” so to speak...
takes the spit of the living God himself... and probably makes eyes in the dirt/ now mud...
Look at this.. first there is a physical thing... first there is a beginning....
Y’shua asked him “Do you see anything?”
To which he replied, “I see people, but they look like walking trees.”
What is the deal with this??!! - People looking like “walking trees”.
Why does the Word say this???
So Y’shua puts His hands on the blind man’s eyes...
and i believe there was a spiritual miracle working with what we would clearly call - here on earth - a natural miracle in the first place of making e yes with dirt...
first it was the natural
and then it was the spiritual.
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Yochanan 9:1-12 cjb p 1342 - is probably the same story with more detail....
man blind from birth...
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We need a side trail here....
Remember there are 4 of what the Hebrews in Y’shua’s day called “Messianic Miracles.”
The rabbis of Y’shua’s day and probably much earlier, had set up their own guidelines of identifying HaMashiach / the Messiah.
The 4 Messianic Miracles... were the things that the Messiah would do and then they would know for sure HE was the Messiah....
- Heal lepersy - this had not been done since Moshe healed Mariam in the dessert.
So Y’shua healed the 10 ... and He told them to go show the priests...
- because the priests were the only ones who could declare someone
clean.
- and because then the Levites knew there was a rabbi who had met the first criteria.
- Note that after that - there started to be more people around Him.
- Heal someone who was born blind.
- this is why Yochanan makes it a point to say that this man had been blind since birth.
- There had been healings - remember there were other rabbis doing healings and teachings at the tie of Y’shua..... but no restoration of sight for anyone who had been BORN blind.
- Casting out a dumb an deaf spirit.
- In those days - (some even today!) believed that they had to have the “spirit/ demon” tell them their name.... but a dumb and deaf spirit couldn’t be healed b/c it couldn’t talk and tell them for sure who it was
- Resurrecting someone after their being dead three days.
- The people of that day believed that the spirit of the person stayed with the dead body for three days and then left.
- There were people who had raised people from the dead - but none who had been dead more than three days....
- This is why Y’shua was in no hurry to get to Lazarus.
- Think about this with Y’shua’s death and resurrection... he had to be dead three days and rise after the 3rd 24 hour period... because other wise it was not a big deal!!!!
- Read the story of Lazarus’ healing and you will see that immediately after Lazarus’ healing - it says.... “and they plotted to kill him.”
Amazing, isn’t it???...
- He had the grace to even do exactly what MAN said the Mashiach would do!!
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Back to Mark 8: 22....
ALSO lets look at this idea of - spitting....
The Father in the beginning put his people in the garden, in a paradise type of atmosphere...and all he had to do was till the garden and take care of it - “keep it”
and had they done that - the Father would have watched over them and been with them...walking in “the cool of the evenings”....
BUT they were cast out of the garden into the ground from whence they came (B’resheet 3:19).
this is about their bodies....
their bodies did not come from soil in the garden. They were not made in the Garden.
Their bodies came from the soil outside the Garden.
So they are sent back to the soil from which He made man in the first place!!
are you getting this??
they were sent back to the soil from which He made them in the first place!
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He made them out of soil...and then
he breathed.. ...
....he took the dust of the ground - (ground is in the feminine)
and he breathed into it the breath of life
....and man became a living soul
man’s physical body - including his eyes come from the ground or the soil
so when we look at this story in
Yochanan / John 9:1- 12 cjb p 1342
-( Yochanan goes into more detail than Mark does)
He takes the clay/ ground and spit...
Brad Scott and myself believe that...
Y’shua
actually made eyes from the ground for him....
(“This was... something that nobody had probably seen before - pun intended :)” )
... and Y’shua took the blind man out of town and combined HIS spit with the ground to make eyes ....ie from the soil from whence he came....
The thing that brought man into existence from the beginning
and the reason why he is the only entity in the image of God ....
.... is because of YHWH breathing into him....
if you ever breathed onto a mirror - you see condensation... b/c in your breath there is water....
Brad Scott would propose to you that the spit would have been what was needed to combine with the clay to create brand new eyes
the spit is where the DNA is.
when you go get a DNA test - how do they collect your DNA??
- they swab your mouth...
Something else to consider is....
to spit in someone’s eyes would have been an insult -
if this is an idiom... it is insulting...so this is NOT a Hebrew idiom.
when done making the eyes - Y’shua asked the blind man if saw anything...
and he wasn’t seeing clearly -
he said he saw men as trees, walking...
he doesn’t see clearly
he sees trees walking....
some people conclude from this that the man didn’t have enough faith...
but i think the Father’s teaching us something prophetically -
He uses the town the location - HE took him out of town
and uses the concepts that he was blind, and “men as trees” -
this is all over the Tanakh.. in the writings of the prophets...
the very first time he does something physical to him... he puts the spit in the clay and makes the eye but something is not quite there...
**
Now look at this....
Y’shua came to the people over and over ...sure many were brought to him, but they didn’t have far to bring them because HE went into the wilderness... in search of the lost sheep.
Remember...
Mattityahu /Matthew 15: 24 cjb p 1243
“He said, “I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Isra’el.”
The house of Isra’el - the Northern Kingdom is dispersed into the nations / the wilderness - even in Y’shua’s day.
Remember the “woman at the well”??
In Yochanan 4 cjb p 1333 - this woman is from a town in Shomron called Sh’khem.
(Remember when those towns didn’t mean anything to us!??!! Praise Yah we get it now!!)
What do you know about Shomron and Sh’khem??
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Shomron is Samaria in English and is the capitol of the Northern Kingdom - the House of Isra’el.
Sh’khem - a town in Shomron... we know of it because... this is where
Avram /Abraham - B’resheet 12:6 cjb p 11 “passed through the land to the place called Sh’khem, to the oak of Moreh.... YHWH appeared to Avram there, and Avram built an altar to YHWH there
B’resheet 33:18-20 cjb p 37 ... in the city of Sh’khem.... “From the sons of Hamor Sh’khem’s father he bought for one hundred pieces of silver the parcel of land where he had pitched his tent. There he put up an altar, which he called El-Elohei-Yisra’el {God, the God of Isra’el}.
The book of Y’hoshua /Joshua records 2 covenant renewals carried out by Y’hoshua in 8:30-35 and in 24:1-27. Although the first does not mention Sh’khem by name it is clearly implied by its location between Mt Eival and Mt G’rizim.
Sh’khem is also the burial place of the bones of Ya’akov - B’resheet /Genesis 50: 24-26 and Y’hoshua 24:32
Sh’khem is talked about in Shof’tim /Judges 8-9 in conflict
Sh’khem is the main place in M’lakhim Alef /I Kings 12 between Rechav’am - king of Isra’el the Northern Kingdom and Yarov’am - king of Judah the Southern Kingdom
Ya’akov’s family built the well at Sh’khem .... where “the woman at the well” - story took place and my understanding it is still there today.
Obviously Sh’khem is a very important place... and is in Isra’el today...
**
Back to the “woman at the well” story...
Y’shua went to the well... He came to where that woman would be....
HE comes to us.
- our Father comes to us.
- ever since they were cast out of the Garden - YHWH comes to us.....
- and where are we??...out in the desert.. (Gen 3)
We all find ourselves in wilderness...
and the garden is guarded by a flaming sword -
so He has has to go to where man is, b/c we can’t go to Him.
We can go toward Him... but we can’t get there - to Him if he doesn’t come to us.
Yah is a spirit by nature... Yochanan /John 4 - “those who worship Him must worship Him in spirit and in truth.”
How does something that is every where at once - “come down” or “go up”??
so he has to do something in order to be able to relate to men and their circumstances
- so he takes on flesh and dwells among us...
- He came down.
- HE always comes to us.
Let’s look at this story in the big picture... the prophetic.....
Mark 8 - they bring a blind man to Him...
There are prophecies in the Tanakh -
that people will be / are BLIND....
Yirmeyahu / Jeremiah 10:21 cjb p 567
“The shepherds have become stupid, they have not consulted YWHW. This is why they have not prospered and all their flocks are scattered.”
Yirmeyahu 50:17 cjb p 630 “Isra’el is a stray lamb, driving away by lions.”
Yechezk’el /Ezekiel 12: 2 cjb p 651
“Human being you are living among a rebellious people. They have eyes that can see, but the don’t take notice; and they have ears that can hear, but the don’t pay attention; because they are a rebellious people.”
Yechezk’el 22:26 cjb p 667
“Her cohanim have done violence to my Torah, profaned my holy things, made no difference between the holy and the common, not distinguished between unclean and clean, hidden their eyes from my shabbbats, and profaned me among themselves.”
BUT....
Yesha’Yahu / Isaiah 29:18 cjb p 480
“On that day the deaf will hear the words of a book and out of gloom and darkness the eyes of the blind will see.”
Yesha’Yahu 35:5 cjb p 489
“Then the eyes of the blind will be opened, and the ears of the deaf will be unstopped”
== They will understand something they don’t understand right now...
You know in this Hebrew Roots movement that we have been in... I have come to cherish that line from Amazing Grace - even more...
“I was blind..but now i see!”
This story is used to describe Hebrews - ayin bet resh = Ivri
Ivri= Hebrew = crossed over
__one of the cousin words of Ivri is the Hebrew word for “blind”
it is = Ivar = ayin vav resh = blind
what does crossing over have to do with blindness?
Remember....the Nature of the Hebrew language is that it is connected to the natural things all around us...
Hebrew does its best to stay away from the abstract....
it has abstract - like love and compassion and mercy...but they are based on concrete things that you can see.
the idea of crossing over - Hebrew = Ivri = also used for persons who have gone to the other/ negative directions...
because all Hebrew words have a positive and a negative charge....
that is why a well known physicist calls all the atoms that make up the universe “letters”
so he understands that concept even though he is not a believer.
the idea is that atoms contain or are filled with positive and negative charges
so we can also use the word Ivri = to express someone going “to the bad side”...
The idea of “crossing over” = when you have soil/ a field that is not producing - then you cross over a body of water to land that is producing.
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what YHWH our Father does... is to go to where the people are at....
and they are usually in the bad soil.
So Y’shua “crosses over” - and goes to the multitudes “on the other side.”
-- Is this making more sense of what you read multiple times in your life??
Y’shua is referred to being like lightening going from the east to the west -
why does he go to the west?
b/c that is where the people are at
and he doesn’t expect the people to go, if you will, to the east.
He doesn’t expect the people to come to Him!
He comes into their soil and brings them back and transplants them as in Thillot /Psalm 1:3 ---into the good soil.
“They are like trees planted by streams - they bear their fruit in season....”
- “planted” = shatal = transplanted!
so hence that is what the house of Isra’el did when they were scattered...
they were transplanted into bad soil
We know - Isra’el - the northern kingdom - is scattered among the nations...
AND they are called “blind” - because they can not see.
they are “far off”
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one of the purposes of the coming of Messiah is to bring them both - Isra’el the Northern Kingdom and Judah the Southern Kingdom - together
.... so there will be one flock...
....with one shepherd...
... THE BRIDE - pure and holy....
and...
once again, through the Messiah and Torah
.....they will be able to see!!
BECAUSE they understand that......
“The seed is their inheritance, but the fruit is there responsibility.” !!
The idea of “blind” is that they “can’t understand”...
“Blind” is not just that they can’t see what is in front of their eyes...
.....the idea is that they can’t understand.
The Messiah’s death and resurrection means on a small scale: - that we can Teshuvah and be forgiven and delivered from death,
and on a bigger scale - the bridegroom died so that He could remarry the bride - so that Isra’el could come back into covenant.....
and another purpose of Y’shua’s death and resurrection.... was to bring clarity and understanding.
I Corin. 13 - we all see in a mirror darkly....
but there will be a day in which everything is restored and we will see clearly.
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So the use the word “blind” in the story of the man who was blind --- is directly related to Ivri / Hebrew...
Blind but now i see....
Now THAT is “amazing grace”!!
So are you seeing the connection here...
In the Tanakh - it talks about over and over that YHWH’s people - both houses - Isra’el and Y’huda cannot SEE....
and then there are prophecies that the blind will see and the deaf will hear...
Today -
ever since the second temple - Judaism has gotten mixed with traditions of men....
and then there is the church....
Well, they teach christianity - not the WORD of YHWH....
but the Word says...
the blind will see and the deaf will hear....
they will understand.
Because it is so important to know
that
The SEED is the inheritance - the relationship
and the Fruit is our responsibility ....
The Word says in
Mattityahu 7:15 cjb p 1231
“You will recognize them by their fruit”
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So i ask you this morning....
do you have the SEED ...
and are you keeping your responsibility so that you can see?
so when the rains of the Torah come.... is the ground washed away - or does it nourish the seed that is planted?
Do you have the Seed? -
and do you SEE enough to -- not be sitting on the couch waiting for YHWH to move you....
do you see enough to walk in your responsibility?
or do you need more of the Spirit/ the Living Word... more of Him to see people instead of people as trees?
AMEIN.
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