Yeshua’s Torah • Messianic Teaching

Automated transcript, lightly edited for readability. Scripture appears as spoken; the video is the authoritative teaching.

Do you ever find yourself searching for something bigger than you? For a community to be a part of? A place founded on truth and love? A place to worship the King of Kings, the Lord of Lords, and the Son of God? Welcome to Founded in Truth, where we're more than just a fellowship. We're a family, so welcome home. All right, Shabbat Shalom everyone. We've got everyone going to kids class here. Welcome to Founded in Truth Fellowship where the pillars of our community are Yeshua, family, and fellowship. As we wait for all the parents to come back from dropping their amazing children off at their classes, I wanted to talk to you guys about some news.

And many of you have been keeping up with it. What's going on in Hawaii. And they just passed a legislation that some actually say affects your First Amendment rights under the guise of noise control. They passed a law limiting how loud your voice can be in Hawaii. And you can even get a citation for laughing too loud. Some of us here would be broke, right? But it's okay because they just released more information on the legislation, the law. And you can still laugh. It just has to be at aloha. My wife had to leave early because of the children. I'm going to get in so much trouble. God is good, right?

We have been busy the past few weeks here at Founded in Truth. We actually set up our recording area with a green screen, which we're so excited about because we hope to begin doing a lot more teachings, not just me, but other teachers in the fellowship, a lot more shorter teachings and messages for online. We released our first Fitbit in like six months last Tuesday evening, and it was just nice to be able to record like short teachings again. So be on the lookout for that. Before we dive in today, guys, I want to share some awesome resources. If you're a Bible nerd and you love to read really dense biblical books, there are some fantastic resources out there.

The first one I want to point out is called The Meaning of the Pentateuch by John Selhammer. It is just an awesome, awesome book. He's the same author that wrote the book The Pentateuch as a Narrative. Just a really awesome, nerdy book. We also have a lighter book, which is great, which is by N.T. Wright, Tom Wright, Matthew for Everyone, and then Scott McKnight's Sermon on the Mount commentary is just incredible. He does a great job at really bringing together the intention of what Yeshua was doing at the Sermon on the Mount. So we've been revisiting the Sermon on the Mount the past few weeks, and we touched on the Beatitudes and how this is the way to the cross, if you will, the way of the cross.

This is what leads us down this narrow path that Jesus calls us to walk. And how when we find ourselves walking down this path or righteousness defined by Yeshua in his teaching, we often find ourselves appearing foolish to the world. The way of the cross is foolishness to the world around us because the kingdom of Yeshua, the kingdom of God, does not operate like the world around us. Our king does not use force and coercion to expand his reign. It does not use violence and exploitation of the weak to gain wealth and power. Instead, it only gives self-sacrificial love no matter what the cost. And that is the invitation that he offers to the world.

A new reality where God exists and God overturns the empires of this world that Paul says are being directed and puppeteered, if you will, by the principalities and the evil that exists in darkness that shackles mankind through sin. This kingdom is revolutionary in how it expands, how it topples nations, how it rules. And that's something people have issues with, even Christians, right? Sometimes we tend to love the idea of Jesus or Yeshua, but the reality is sometimes we don't really like when we are actually called to follow him. We don't like to forgive. We like to harbor offense. That's nature.

It's a human condition. It keeps us warm. We like to fantasize about ill will happening to people that we feel trespass against us or trespass against others. Sometimes we like to, as a righteous vendetta towards someone else or as a spiritual vigilante, we feel entitled to love our enemies but not also show the same love and blessing to the enemies of people that we care about. We enjoy the pride sometimes that we carry feeling better than others because we identify with our faith. We enjoy the taste of fitting into a group called Christians or messianic believers rather than actually standing apart through our actions.

It's a hard thing. to follow the king. We're supposed to love our enemies as well. That's a big deal. That sounds nice until you have to do it, right? When faced with someone who hates you, someone who wants to harm you, someone who wants to cause pain however they can in your life, you as a follower of this messianic king are called to view them as someone who you are absolutely sold out to bring forth blessing in their lives. We'll talk about that likely in an upcoming message, having cross vision, seeing the world through the lens of the cross. But that's hard, right? We don't want to see people through the lens of love all the time.

We want to be selective. We want to have the freedom and liberty to independently establish our own kingdom, but maybe a kingdom that has just Jesus spray-painted on the front of it. And that's just not something that's acceptable to Yeshua. He started a revolution, and he calls you not just to be a peasant rebel in that revolution. He calls you to be a citizen of a new type of government on earth. And the Sermon on the Mount is the manifesto of that kingdom. And here is the verse in the Sermon on the Mount that I want to focus on today. And it's Matthew chapter 5, verse 17. We are all familiar with it.

Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets. I have not come to abolish them, but to fulfill them. For truly, I tell you, until heaven and earth disappear, not the smallest letter nor the least stroke of a pen will by any means disappear from the law until everything is accomplished. Therefore, anyone who sets aside one of the least of these commands and teaches others accordingly will be called least in the kingdom of heaven. But whoever practices and teaches these commands... Yeshua states a preamble for his now lecture that he's giving. Yeshua is about to preach, and before he does, he states, don't take what I'm about to say as disobedience of Torah or the rest of the Old Testament.

He wouldn't have called it the Old Testament at that time, I guess. The Bible, right? Don't take what I'm about to say as going against the Torah and the rest of the story, the prophets, all of the rest of the story. And if you're unfamiliar with Torah is, Torah is the first five books of the Bible that contain hundreds of commandments and decrees of how Israel was supposed to live out their vocation as a light to all nations. There's also commandments in the temple and the sacrifices and quite a bit of narrative storytelling, which is kind of neat. We're gonna nerd out a little bit about that today.

Yeshua is saying, I'm not gonna take away any of that, okay? But he's about to bring some sort of fulfillment to it. He's going to teach how to actually live it out. And what does he mean by this? Well, there's a Christian scholar who I have a ton of respect for. His name is Dr. Craig Keener. He has an amazing Acts commentary, by the way, as well as one on Revelation, as well as many other books of the Bible. And he also keeps the Sabbath and encourages others to do so. It's kind of neat. People think you need to be messianic to embrace the blessing of the Sabbath rest, and you simply don't. But here he gives a neat background on this phrase in this specific section of Scripture of Yeshua teaching.

And here's what he says. He says, Yeshua opposed not the law, but an illegitimate interpretation of it that stressed regulations more than character. That's deep. And that's exactly what we see Yeshua teaching there. He says here, Yeshua is pronouncing the ethic of God's supreme will, which the Torah pointed a trajectory toward that lands and can only be found in the teaching and the following of this Yeshua, Jesus. Don't take what I'm about to say as destroying the Torah. I have come to show you how to fulfill the law. I am bringing a new, better interpretation of the Torah. I'm showing you what Torah looks like when it's actually written on your heart.

This is what it looks like when it's actually lived out in its purest form. And this was something that was common in the first century among teachers. You would have different rabbis that would have different interpretations of the Torah and they would walk around the countryside and they would be teaching with their little following ofdisciples. They would be teaching their interpretation of the Torah. This is why we have so many rabbis and teachers throughout all of Israel's history that had to interpret the Torah because Because let's be honest, when we read the Torah, it's a bit vague. When you go back in the Old Testament, you read all some of these commandments.

Most of the commandments are not very specific. They're pretty vague. A few examples are the Sabbath. How do you keep the Sabbath? The Torah really doesn't elaborate on that. It doesn't elaborate on what work is. It leaves this to us to try to define it. And of course, that gets messy very quickly. What's the context behind kindling a fire? We know there's a commandment. If you're going to keep Sabbath, You cannot kindle a fire on the Sabbath. What does that mean? Is that a light switch? Some believe it is. Can you drive your car on Shabbat? Like, I mean, lots of fires going on in that little engine.

How do you interpret that? Zitzit or zitzio, the fringes, are these little fringes that God commanded Israel to attach to the four corners of their garment. And they had to contain this solid thread, a very expensive blue thread. It's in Numbers chapter 15, 38. And the Bible says you wear them so that when you look upon them, for Israel, you shall see and remember the commandments. So these were reminders given to Israel that, to look at these things and remember what the best way to act in the situation that they're in is. It was literally the pre-Jesus WWJD bracelet, like biblically. But it's a vague commandment.

How do you fulfill it? Like there had to have been like a specific way that they wanted you to fulfill it, right? How long should the tassels be? I mean, surely there has to be a qualifying, measurable, little tassels? Those don't count, right? Got to be big? Is there a specific color blue? You could argue about that. Can you put knots in the tassels? If so, what kind of knots? What specific order? Jewish rabbis have long attempted to interpret this commandment with various ways how to tie them and even giving specific meaning to how many knots are in them. And you have different rabbis arguing that theirs is more biblical or theirs is a better interpret way to tie the fringe.

Tons of commentary on this. But in Israel throughout time with the tzitzit, the commandment actually evolved for how they kept it. It went from wearing tassels in the ancient world at the intersections of your garments, not actual corners like we call today, to being attached to actual corners and 90 degree corners. portions of the garment, until around finally about a thousand years after Yeshua, the modern day Talit was formed, the Talit Hagadol. That's when that came about. This is kind of neat. See, there was also a necessity felt in the Jewish community to help make some commandments more palatable.

Have you guys ever read a commandment and it just was like, that's not a fun commandment at all? And sometimes you're wondering like, why is this commandment even in here? Is that heresy? You're looking at a commandment. It's like, that doesn't seem very nice at all. Rabbis did this very same thing in the ancient world. In Deuteronomy 21, starting in verse 18, there is a commandment, a law of the rebellious son. If your son is rebellious, right? If your son is rebellious, you take him out to the city elders and they take him outside and then you crush his skull in with some rocks. Deuteronomy 21, verse 18.

That's a commandment in the Torah. And even in Judaism, they all agreed, like we would never keep that commandment or most of them agreed. Despite what it says in the Bible, we would never, no. Like we know there's a trajectory of God's will where we're not gonna kill our own kids when we get mad at them. And there is an awesome historical reference And I think it's a slide before this one that I'm going to get. But there's an awesome historical reference or resource that allows us to kind of time travel back into the ancient world where we have records of Jewish rabbis and scribes and sages talking about and discussing how they keep the commandments.

And this document is called the Talmud. It's made up of two different sections, one that was written down around the third or fourth century after the temple was destroyed. The temple was destroyed, so all the priests and scribes, the priestly families got together and they tried to record how they actually ran the temple in the first century during the time of Yeshua. They no longer had the temple. They knew they weren't gonna be able to rebuild it anytime soon. So they recorded how they did things in the community, in the temple, how they did the offerings. It's pretty neat. It's an invaluable resource historically.

And then about 200 or 300 years later, between the 3rd and 5th century, some rabbis came in and they basically gave commentary on the Mishnah. It's called the Gomorrah. They gave commentary. They gave their opinion. And they also wrote down when they argued about something. They canonized their arguments, which is kind of neat. But yeah, and here's what it says. This verse comes up, this specific commandment comes up in discussion. And here's part of the conversation. In Tractate Sanhedrin 71a, it says this. And here's one rabbi's explanation for this commandment. Rather, there's never been a stubborn rebellious son in Israel.

I never had any rebellious sons in Israel. We never have and we never will. Problem solved. Thank you for laughing because I thought I was like, I'm chuckling at this. And I'm like, that's totally the human thing to do in this situation, right? Rather, there has never been a stubborn or rebellious son and there never will be one in the future. Okay, well, why then was the passage relating to the stubborn or rebellious son written in the Torah? Okay, Rabbi Smarty Pants, why was the commandment in there in the first place? So that you may expound upon new understandings of the Torah and receive reward for your learning.

Talk about dancing, right? And I love that so much. And this is a document that's like literally over 1,500, 1,600 years old when they're discussing this. So Jewish rabbis struggled with this commandment and decided, you know what? Or at least the majority, there was some disagreements in there. You know what? It was not given to obey. That's our community halakha. It was given for us to struggle with the text to understand how to capture the divine wisdom God offers and to bring forth blessing and not death. And I guess I can empathize with that if I can be real. Like as a parent, would you struggle to obey this commandment?

If you nodded your head, no, I'm not going to point you out. And here's the commandment, Deuteronomy 21, 18. If someone has a stubborn or rebellious son who does not obey his father and mother and will not listen to them when they discipline him, his father and mother shall take hold of him, bring him out to the elders of the gate of the town. They shall say to the elders, this son of ours is stubborn and rebellious. He won't obey us. He's a glutton and a drunkard. Then all the men of the town are to stone him to death. You must purge evil from among you. All Israel will hear it and be afraid. Good thing there's never been a rebellious child in all of Israel, right?

Like, it's just, I love that so much. They seemed to believe, they seemed to believe that the trajectory of the Torah did not stop at the letter of the law. It went far beyond it. How many of us can be honest with this commandment? Like if your son was, most of us wouldn't either. Nope, he's not being rebellious. He's being a jerk. Nope, he's fine. There was a greater trajectory of the Torah than itself. Yeshua does not disagree with this. Yeshua does not disagree with this opinion. What does Yeshua say about the commandment of divorce found in the Torah? And I know this is basic review stuff, but it's important for us to understand the scope of the Torah and what it was always meant to do versus what people think it did.

Matthew 19, 7, very familiar situation. Why then? We've got the Pharisees, the scribes, the religious elite coming to Yeshua, and they're saying, why then, they asked, did Moses command that a man give his wife a certificate of divorce and send her away? It's Deuteronomy 24, what he's referring to. Jesus replies... You know what? Moses permitted you to divorce your wives because your hearts were hard, but it was not this way from the beginning. I tell you that anyone who divorces his wife except for sexual immorality marries another woman commits adultery. So here we go. And I'm not going down the rabbit hole of have I committed adultery because I divorced.

Technicalities don't always fit into reality, right? And the Torah actually helps us understand what Yeshua is saying here. I think we did a message called Marriage and Divorce. I went ahead and threw the link in the live stream. So if you guys go back, you can click the link. But what does Yeshua say here? Yeshua says that the Torah is not necessarily the end pure ethic of God's character and expectations. It's what he says. God's ethic is that man and woman should be united in a relationship that can only be described as divine and they will never be separated. It's just what he said. God's ethic is what took place in the beginning in the garden.

You will have one sexual partner and you will flourish in this self-giving relationship for your entire life. That's the will of God. God's hope for humanity and expectation is Jesus actually goes on to say that God didn't even put that commandment in the Torah. It was Moses. What are the commandments did Moses write? That's a heretic question for the week. Moses wrote that in there because why? Yeshua says, the master says, you know what? Moses wrote that in there because your heart sucks. Your heart is awful. You can't handle the absolute will of God's ethic for humanity. So Moses grabbed a pen and wrote this commandment in there so that the Torah could at least be palatable for the community of Israel where they were at, at the current condition of their heart.

And this does not mean the Torah is bad. Does not. But even the prophets talk about the re-giving of the Torah that would actualize the will of God. And it wouldn't be written on tablets of stone. It would be written where? Our hearts. There needed to be a heart change. And Israel, when the Torah was given, had hard hearts. is what Yeshua said. They had the same type of heart that Pharaoh had. Yeshua admits there has always been something greater than the written Torah to come that would establish and make available and show forth what God's character actually was and looked like to be lived out. That's what the author of Hebrews says in Hebrews chapter one.

Love this verse. Love this verse. Sometimes in our pursuit of studying the Bible, sometimes for some reason, We lose focus on just how great of a thing it is that Yeshua was born and walked this earth and taught the work of God. We lose focus on what the gospel and just how magnificent it was. And we lose focus on how magnificent and powerful it still is right now in our lives. And so Hebrews chapter 1, the author of Hebrews does a fantastic job. He says this in verse 1. Radiance. Let's stop there. The radiance, right? And I just can't, I think of like a fire in your fireplace and you look around and just the light that is emitting from the fire and making everything, the shadows dance, like the very glory of the fire itself, almost indistinguishable from the flames is present.

The sun is the radiance of God's glory and the exact representation of his being. The exact representation. Sustaining all things by his powerful world. God in the past has spoke through our ancestors and prophets, but now he has spoken through his son, Yeshua, Jesus. And Jesus, Yeshua, is the exact representation of his being. When we look at Yeshua and when we look at what Yeshua taught, we see the pure, crystal clear ethic of what God wants from us in this world. We have been on a trajectory towards that. And it did not come. That did not come through the prophets and the ancestors of the past, but it came through the son of the father, Yeshua.

Matt, are you saying the Torah is bad or the Torah is done away with? Are you crazy? We love the Torah here. The Torah is a blessing, just as Paul says, just as the New Testament says. No, absolutely not. But the Bible is clear. The Torah was given to ancient Israel to be a blessing, to help steer them away from how all of the other nations were doing their thing. And the Torah met them where they were at. In the Babylonian code of Hammurabi, they have a law for killing a rebellious son as well. It's very similar to Torah. The thing about the difference is all the son has to do in the Babylonian code is curse his father.

That's it. Make dad mad, stones. In the Torah, both the mother and the father must feel the offense. The Torah was and is good. Paul makes that very clear. Yeshua himself says, "...I've not come to do away with anything." But what he has come to do is bring a better revelation that Torah itself could never bring. The author of Hebrews is incredibly excited about the fact that God's kingdom in its purest form has come and so has that king. The Torah has always meant to be the launching pad for something better. Paul says that in Romans chapter 10. Paul makes that point. Romans chapter 10, verse 4. Christ is the culmination of the law, the Torah, so that there may be righteousness for everyone who believes.

Everything the Torah was, was on a trajectory towards this culminating point of Yeshua. Some of your translations, of course, say Christ is the end of the law. Older translations, the word there, of course, in Greek is telos. It means culmination or goal. The goal. The goal of the law is found in Yeshua. So Paul here, when making his argument concerning how Judeans in the first century defined their own righteousness, here Paul is explaining that the point of the Torah was not in and of itself the revelation of righteousness. It pointed to the revelation of righteousness, which is only found in Yeshua.

Paul claims that's its purpose, to point to something bigger than itself. And that's exactly what the New Testament authors were trying to portray in all of their writings. The big deal that the entire Old Testament has been pointing to, not just Torah, the entire story has arrived. It is here. That's exciting. It was exciting for the New Testament authors. That's why they just couldn't wait to write it down. It has come. He has come. The kingdom of God has come near. And guys, we love the Sabbath day here. Love it. And we absolutely love to embrace the commandments of God. Just because they're not the final form of God's ethic does not mean they're bad.

And we're giving as a blessing. And sometimes we get threatened when we read the New Testament authors and we read what they have to say about the greatness of Yeshua. But Yeshua is not taking away anything as much as he's giving us something grand. He is the exact representation of the character and being of Yahweh, despite how Yahweh has been displayed in the past. This is it, just as the author of Hebrews states. And that's something that's really cool about how the authors of the Torah wrote it down and compiled it. You know, sometimes we miss the things that the authors of the Torah, including Moses, they left little breadcrumbs along the way to kind of steer the attentive reader.

And sometimes we miss those. The first five books of the Bible, the law. And what typically we see the law as what? Well, in English, Torah is translated as law. So we see it as what? A law code. We see the entire five books of the Torah as legislation. But the thing is, The first 60 chapters of the Torah is not filled with law codes or any type of legislation given to Israel. 60 chapters, no law code. If the bigger picture, and I'm not saying the law code is not contained in there, I'm saying if the bigger picture and the point of the Torah, of the Pentateuch, is meant to imply, here is a list of commandments you need to follow in order to omit the ethic of God, shouldn't it start out that way?

Shouldn't that be like the point up front and not something you find out along the way? Star Wars. Don't stone me for comparing the literary pattern of the Torah to Star Wars. Star Wars. The first Star Wars movie is, don't you dare say episode one. Get out. A New Hope, right? That's it. A New Hope. It's the first one that was released. And what's the movie about? It's about, what, a tyrannical empire that is expanding to take over the galaxy. But there is a rebellion that fights back to prevent it, right? That's the focal point of the story. Really? Yeah. Is that really the point? Is that really the main underlying story?

What's the most famous quote from that Star Wars movie? Happens near the end after someone loses an appendage. No, I am your father. Or Mandela effect. Luke, I am your father. Right? That's the most quoted line of the movie. That was like the climactic pinnacle. That was probably more impressive and shocking. And why was that a shocking moment more so than the Death Star exploding? The story was about a rebellion of an empire, of course, but what was the underlying struggle and storyline that started in the beginning when Leia, Darth Vader, oh, I'm excited about this, Leia, Darth Vader, and Luke, these three characters are the primary characters that are introduced in the movie at the very beginning.

There's more than just a struggle with empire when it comes to Star Wars. There's a struggle with a family, and this story is about that struggle and that family. Right? Sure, a lot of battles about the empire, but the core, the core of the story is following this family and all of their struggles. What if I told you that the Torah is about commandments that were given to Israel? And I believe the rest of humanity. But there's an underlying message that is meant to be the point of it all. The first 60 chapters of Torah, for example, are not about law codes for Israel to follow. It's narrative. It's a story.

And the law codes begin to be added in as part of the story along the way. It doesn't disqualify them, but it's still part of the narrative. The Torah starts out with a story. And it's a story about creation and how mankind became violent. So God became violent and flooded the earth. And fighting violence with violence didn't work. So the people rose up and they built a tower and God scattered them. And then in chapter 12, the entire story that focused on mankind zooms in dramatically down to one person, Abram. And what was the thing about Abraham? What was the characteristic most highlighted in the Old Testament and the New Testament about Abraham?

Galatians 3, 6. So also Abraham believed God and it was credited to him as righteousness. It was his faith. He believed. He believed. And see, at crucial points in the Pentateuch, the author wants to alert the readers to the central importance of this concept of faith. Because the concept of faith doesn't just show up with Abraham. It is shotgunned and injected into all of the major themes throughout the Torah story, the Exodus story with Israel. When Abraham entered into covenant with God, it was based on his faith. Ammon, the word Ammon in Genesis 15, 6. I think we have a slide with these references.

When Moses heard the call of God and followed his command... It was because he believed. Ammon in Exodus 4.5. When Israel heard the words of God and followed Moses and Aaron, it was because they believed. Ammon in Exodus 4.31. The whole purpose of God's meeting with the people at Mount Sinai was that they might, Ammon, believe, according to Exodus 19.9. I'm gonna come down in a dense cloud so they will believe. Ammon. Also, when the Israelites refused to take the land God promised to them, They did not believe. They had non-belief. Lohei amenetim, I think is what it was, in Numbers 14, 11. Moses and Aaron could not enter the land.

Because why? According to Numbers 20, 12, they did not, amen, believe. At each crucial step along the way of Israel's history in the Torah, we are reminded that the deciding issue in their relationship with God was their faith or their lack of it. According to some biblical scholars, these beliefs, These links that pop up in the story are designed to set up a contrast between the necessity of keeping the law over and against having faith. Huh, Paul talks a lot about that, doesn't he? Actually having a sense of trust and relationship with God. Hear what I'm saying, and please, not what I'm not saying.

Such a strategy of the writers of the Torah helps us see the importance of faith to the author of the Torah. And it shows us its closeness to the theology of the prophets as well. Think about it. What was the concern of the prophets when they're calling Israel back? What was the concern? Was it that Israel was not keeping the checklist of commandments? Listen, guys, you aren't keeping the checklist correctly. God's going to punish you. His wrath, the cup is about to be poured out and you're going to drink of it. You're taking it to Babylon. Assyria is coming because you're not keeping the checklist of commandments.

No. Isaiah chapter 1. Israel was doing a bang out job. Fantastic job at keeping the list of the commandments. They were doing it. Most of them anyway. They were doing a great job at it. And it says that it made God want to vomit because despite having the checklist and doing a good job at the majority of the checklist, they were absent of the trust and the faith and the belief and the core relationship with God that he desired in the first place. The prophets could care less if Israel kept the feast of the Sabbath. They yearned to see Israel grow in their faith in God so that the world would actually be impacted by their presence.

You keep the Sabbath, Israel keeping the Sabbath. You keep the Sabbath, why aren't you taking care of the poor then? You keep Passover, great job. But isn't Passover the feast to remind you that God frees slaves? And yet you exploit weaker nations and enslave them. You treat people like dirt when God redeemed you from the dirt. You don't eat pig, Israel? Good job. You are clean. You have a clean status to go into the courts of the tabernacle and to partake in the sacrifices in the temple. That was the core message of Isaiah and Amos, by the way. What they said. There are weightier matters that God wants to see at the forefront of his people.

And those things, the things that actually matter, revolve around loving one another as a reflection of your loving God's heart. Yeshua said, if you can truly love God and love your neighbor, the Torah and the prophets, the entire story of the Hebrew Bible hangs on that. It seems the text of the Torah suggests that one of the overriding purposes of the Torah is to teach the message of faith and trust in God at the forefront. At the beginning of the Exodus account, the Israelites are crying out in oppression and God remembers his covenant with the patriarchs. Moses is called out. And the introduction of the Exodus narrative concludes in Exodus 4.31.

And here's what it said. It says, This is the Israelites. Amen. They believed. Exodus 4.1, a few verses later, Moses is concerned that Israel will not believe though. So God tells him, or earlier in the chapter, verse 1, Moses is there with the burning bush and he's struggling. He's like, there's no way Israel is going to Amman. There's no way Israel is going to believe. And he says in verse 4 here, or verse 4.1, he says, Moses answered, what if they do not believe me or listen to me in the Lord God? Didn't say the Lord didn't speak to you. Why should we follow you? And then the Lord said, what is in your hand?

About to do that thing with the snake and the thing that freaked him out. Show them this sign and they will, aman, they will believe. The focus on faith here shows it to be a divinely given sign. Faith in the divine promise of salvation is strengthened by the witness of this sign. An emphasis on faith is also found in the crucial points in other larger units of the Torah. For example, Genesis 15, 6, Exodus 19, 9, Numbers 14, 15, as well as Numbers 20, 12. In Genesis 15, we have the situation with Abraham. It's heavily tied to the pattern of faith. Genesis 15 is when Abraham is given the promise. And in Genesis 15, 6, it says Abraham believed.

The function of Genesis 15, 6 is to link the promise of the promised descendants of Abraham earlier in the chapter to the covenant guaranteed possession of the land in Genesis 15, 7 through 21. In this section, Abraham's faith is presented as a response to God's gracious assurance. The linkage of a sign with faith is identical in the theme of faith in Exodus chapter 19. In both texts, faith is directly put in the path as divinely given as a sign. Numbers chapter 14 and 11 and Numbers 20, 12 also occur at crucial points in the structure of the Torah. They answer the question of why the whole generation, along with Moses and Aaron, were not allowed to enter the land.

They weren't allowed. And the answer in both passages is the same. The lack of faith. They did not believe. They broke a commandment. No. No. No, they did not believe. In Numbers chapter 14, the Israelites followed the advice of the 10 spies and they refused to take the land. Once again, their lack of faith is characterized as a refusal to believe in the divine sign and witness that God gives. Think about it. Think about this. Did Abraham have the Torah given at Sinai? Did he? You. There's people that debate that. From the text, we don't see it. Did Abraham enter into the promised land? Abraham. Yes, he did.

Abraham entered the promised land based on his belief. Did Moses enter the promised land? He did not, but he had the Torah. He had the law, but he did not believe, and that is why he didn't enter the land. Paul capitalizes on this example in Romans 4, verse 13. When Paul giving this commentary, he said it was not through the law that Abraham and his offspring received the promise that he would be heir of the world, and the promise is in Genesis 15, but through the righteousness that comes by faith. For if those who depend on the law are heirs, faith means nothing and the promise is worthless. A nation that believes.

Man, I would love to talk about how Torah was not given all at once. Torah was given across like four or five different events based on Israel's rebellion. And it's a really nerdy conversation maybe for next week. But the Torah is a document that shows God's grace. Let me put it that way. The Torah shows God's grace because every time Israel messed up, more laws were given to try to help them steer them away from that rebellion. Every time Israel sinned in the wilderness, God gave them more laws to help guide them. But the covenant relationship that it is based on, belief, faith, allegiance, and trust is what he desired.

But Israel continues falling short. Even while under the guide of the Torah, Israel can't stop pursuing a kingdom of their own instead of the kingdom of God. And they parade the Torah around and they do the checklist in the narrative, but the world around them is not better because of it. The world around them is not blessed because of their Torah observance. That's exactly why the prophets were sent forth to warn them. It's actually made worse. The world got worse. King Solomon became an arms dealer and enslaved other nations and used slaves to build the temple of God in 1 Kings 10. It was not a better place.

When all 12 tribes were united under one king, it was not a better place for the world. It wasn't. They stopped walking by faith. They stopped walking by belief. They stopped walking by trust and allegiance in God like Abraham did. And the Torah actually emphasizes this. The ending of the Torah mentions a bit of prophecy. Do you guys know that? And Deuteronomy 28 and 29, you guys know, review the blessings and the curses. There's this long list of blessings that if you pursue a relationship with God built on trust and keep faith, The Torah and everything the Torah is pushing you towards, including the relationship that Abraham had with God based on Ammon, the belief.

You will be blessed. These are the divine blessings. And if you refuse to do that, then here are the curses. And the curses culminate, they climax, I think in verse 64 there, as Israel being exiled from the land. This is what will happen if you continue in your disobedience and your lack of belief. They will be exiled because you didn't trust the Lord. But, but, the chapter says even though this happens, God still won't stop trying to guide them and call them home one day. And Deuteronomy 30 says that God will, even though they've been kicked out of the land, they will fail. God is going to bring them back one day.

And he won't just end the exile. He's going to do something with their heart. He's going to fix the thing, the very source of their unbelief. He's going to fix the very reason why the law of divorce had to be written to even be palatable for them. He's going to fix the thing of why they couldn't meet the garden ethic that God had at the beginning. In Deuteronomy 36, here's what he says. He says, Hear what I'm saying today, guys. The commandments are a blessing, aren't they? This is wonderful. The Sabbath is an absolute blessing, right? Being told to obey our parents is probably a good thing. It says it makes you live longer.

Probably because of Deuteronomy 21. I don't know. Justice equal weights and measures. Guys, that was the launching pad. That was the trampoline that launched us toward the clear and exact representation of Yahweh. The commandments are good. Paul says this. They're a blessing, especially for weak people. But there's something greater that God wants to see before all of those things are added. He wants to see your heart believe and trust and love him. After you mess up by trying to take the Torah forward without belief and faith and allegiance and trust fully emitting from your hearts, God says, I'm going to bring you back and I'm going to do heart surgery.

Exactly what Jeremiah 31 and Ezekiel 36 talk about. I'm going to do heart surgery. Do you guys know how the Torah ends? It's in Deuteronomy 34, and we're going to read it starting at verse 10 here. And here's what it says. It says, since then, it's this climactic conclusion of the Torah. For no one has ever shown the mighty power or performed the awesome deeds that Moses did in the sight of Israel. So this part of the Torah obviously was written much, much, much, much, much later and addended in. Unless it wasn't, unless Moses was writing this down before he died, and then it doesn't really hold a lot of, since me, in about a minute.

No, this is something that was written much later across the history of Israel to remind Israel of something very specific. To remind them that the prophet likened unto Moses still has not come yet. We don't know exactly when this part was written and added in. I like to think it was very late. I like to think Babylonian exile or after when the Old Testament was compiled together in the form that we have today. All of this time has passed and the prophet promised to come that's greater than Moses still has not come. It's a messianic prophecy. It's an expectation. Since then, no prophet has ever come in the likeness unto.

The Torah begins with a story built on how God wants to commune with humanity that is founded on truth, trust, and belief. The middle of the Torah is a story of how Israel did not have the trust and belief. And the Torah ends with a reminder of the Deuteronomy 18 prophecy that God will send a prophet greater than Moses. And the entire Torah ends in Deuteronomy 34 with an expectation that prophet will come. The Torah starts with the relationship with God built on belief, not works. And the Torah ends with a coming expectation of the one that will cultivate that relationship on belief and trust with God.

And that's just awesome. That's the beauty of the Bible. That's the beauty of the passion that was put into the first five books of the Bible. That is the true Torah of God, a Torah that testifies of a covenant relationship. The Sermon on the Mount that Yeshua preaches is a re-giving of the Torah given by the greater Moses that reflects the pure ethic of God through his son, Yeshua. This is how our relationship with God is to be shown to the world, through humility, through through peace, through grace, through forgiveness, not through violence, not through lying, not through getting revenge under the guise of justice.

A relationship with God built on belief and faith knows not to objectify another human being in their mind for lust. A relationship built on belief and trust loves someone who hates them. A relationship built on belief and faith would lay down their life even for and through their enemy to be a witness of God's grace toward them. A relationship built on belief and faith doesn't harbor anger in your heart and allow it to manifest in pseudo-murder. That's what the pure ethic of God looks like when it's presented by the exact representation of Yahweh, Yeshua. Galatians 6.2 says this. Paul takes it a step further.

He says, "...carry each other's burdens." And in this way, you will fulfill the law of Christ. This is the Torah of Yeshua. Now that a new greater Moses has come to inaugurate the greater Passover and enact the greater exodus from slavery to sin through his death and resurrection. Now that the greater Moses is here, he is calling Israel to be Israel now that he's here. The king is here, be the kingdom. Israel was the people that God intended to shine his light through in the Bible. to make them the light bearers in the world of darkness. Not just show up one higher than evil. We can show up evil just a little bit.

No, become the people that would stop evil in its tracks by absorbing the offense and by giving grace in return, reciprocating God's grace given to us. What's that based on? Our belief, our aman, our faith and our faithfulness to our king. Yeshua was not intending to abandon the law and the prophets. He was not intending to abandon Israel's entire story of the Hebrew Bible through the prophets, the commandments, the promises, everything. All of these things, instead, he proclaims are coming true through him. And now that he has arrived, a new way has opened up for Israel. And through that, through this new way, all the world is invited in.

What was the trajectory that the seed of Abraham would produce? A blessing for just Israel. Paul has an argument where he's recapping the blessing. And he says, hey guys, you want to know why it says that through Abraham's seed, you know, all nations will be blessed? Why it's not plural? Seeds, because there's only one seed that's going to bring that blessing. And it's not Israel. And it's not Judea. and it's not the Northern Kingdom, and it's not you necessarily, all that blessing, the seed of Abraham is Yeshua. He is the embodiment of who Israel is. And in Galatians 3.29, he says, and you know what?

If you find yourself in the faith, in the belief, in the commitment and allegiance of Yeshua, you are Abraham's seed. You will be the recipients of blessing. Whoever blesses you will be blessed. You will be the portal of blessing because you are Abraham's seed through Yeshua. He is the one that fulfills that role. A few weeks ago, we spoke about this verse and how Yeshua calls us to be the salt of the earth, the fertilizer, right? And the light to the world. We are to model him in that. He was the salt of the earth. He was the fertilizer for new life. He was the light of the hill, right? right? The city on the hill that shines forth, he was the light that was set up on the hill, crucified for all the world to see.

He was that light, becoming a beacon of hope and of new life for everyone, drawing people to worship the Father, embodying the way of self-giving love, which is the deepest fulfillment of the entire Torah and the prophets. If the reading and implementation of the Torah does not line up with the ethic of God displayed through the Torah teaching of Yeshua. It is not the trajectory of the ethic of God. Worship team, you guys can come up as we conclude. So guys, I don't know where you're at today, but I do wanna tell you, God wants your heart before he wants your obedience. That's echoed through all the prophets.

He wants your heart before he wants your obedience. And sometimes we don't want new life offered through belief in God's covenant commitment and love. Sometimes we don't want that level of commitment with God. Sometimes we don't want new life Because sometimes we don't want to trust Yeshua. Sometimes. And if that's you today, I want to tell you that whatever is holding you back from making that commitment fully realized in your life, it fails in comparison of the embrace of God you can experience today. You can experience true life. And not just by going through the motions day after day. True life.

That life is given through Yeshua. Through the Torah of Yeshua. Commandments are great. We are most definitely pro-law here today. We are pro-Torah, and that's exactly why I'm preaching this message today. Because being pro-Torah means putting your belief where your mouth is, and putting actual belief where your obedience is. Yeshua is not calling us back to Sinai. He's calling us back to the faith of Abraham. He's calling us back to the garden. In the beginning was God's pure ethic that he wanted to dwell in the hearts of man. That's what he says. Where our hearts yearn to bring forth the blessings of God by faith.

Yeshua wants us to be with him in the garden. where the true ethic of God exists, undefiled by the hardening of our hearts. And so please stand as we conclude worship and how appropriate. Guys, if there's something you've chosen to hold back from fully committing to God in your trust and in your belief and in your allegiance, you can leave that here today. You can leave that here today. If there are parts of your heart that you have enslaved yourself to, we know them, anger, bitterness, unforgiveness, you can be freed of that today. You can leave that here today. That's what the words of Yeshua say.

You can repent and you can lay that down. If you find yourself just like Israel, at the bottom of the mountain, scared of what God has to offer, you don't have to be afraid and you don't have to find yourself far off like Israel did. You can be brought near. None of that can begin, however, without aman, belief, allegiance, earnest commitment, and trust. Will you trust God today? Will you embrace the heart of God in your life? Guys, we have a prayer team on either side of the room. And if you feel you need prayer for anything going on in your life, that could be stress, it could be anxiety, it could be fear, it could be hopelessness.

You may be in a situation right now or a scenario in your life that you just aren't so sure that you're supposed to be in. If that's you today, I want to invite you to come up during worship and have one of our prayer team to petition on your behalf and walk before the Father with you. What an amazing blessing to have people that care that much available to you. Alvino Marquino, our Father, our King Father, we thank you. We thank you for your scriptures. We thank you for the journey and the examples today. that you give to us to guide us to your heart. God, we thank you for the Torah that you gave to Israel and the blessings that flow out of it.

But God, we thank you most. We thank you most for Yeshua and the spirit that he has given to us that circumcises our hearts, that takes the hard heart of stone and removes it and gives us a beating heart of life that pumps for your kingdom. That all of our obedience moving forward from this point would be founded on one thing, and that is our belief. That is our earnest love for you and our commitment and our trust and allegiance to you. That we would be reminded of what you truly desire from us. Continue to conform us to the image of your son, Yeshua. That we may be the ambassadors of your kingdom on earth.

We thank you, Father. In the name of Yeshua, we pray as a community. Amen. And I hope you enjoyed this message. Founded in Truth exists to build a community that bears the image of God and lives the redeemed life only Yeshua gives. If this message impacted you or if this ministry has been a blessing to you, we invite you to take part in making sure the message of Yeshua and the truth of God's word continues to reach others. To make sure this happens, you can donate through our online giving portal at foundinatruth.com slash give or by texting any amount to 704-275-0752. Don't forget to like and subscribe for new content every single week.

And we thank you for your continued support. And we look forward to seeing you next time. Shalom.