Gateway To Freedom Torah Notes
Eikev / Ekev
Deuteronomy 7:12-11:25
Haftorah
Isa. 49:14-51:3
B’rit Chadashah
Rom. 8:31-39
Introduction:
Again and again Moses reiterates that YHVH promises His love, mercy, blessings, material abundance, and many children. He’ll also give them victories over their enemies and keep sickness and disease from them if only Israel will be obedient to His laws, statutes and commandments. Israel did not continue in YHVH’s covenant and suffered the consequences of being driven out of the land. However, even when Judah was brought back from Babylon, apostasy soon crept back in until Messiah came to show them their law was not YHVH’s Torah. YHVH’s Torah is not just a set of instructions, but a reflection of His righteousness, His holiness and His character as a loving Father. It is this Torah which abides in the heart of the righteous man (Jer 31:33) by the leading of the Holy Spirit through relationship with the Father and the son. Without this intimacy with G_d, the Word is twisted by the mind of man. It was so twisted by the time Yeshua came to earth that He repeatedly challenged the religious leaders’ interpretations and obedience to the Torah.
If the Israelites of old enjoyed a way to divine health and prosperity through faith in the old covenant, shouldn’t that be available to us under the better covenant in Messiah, Yeshua? What then have we been told to believe in, if we continue to be sick and down trodden throughout the generations of believers? Doesn’t that suggest that we have also ignored the conditions of our new covenant in Christ? Would that indicate that just maybe the church lost something (i.e. the Torah)?
Deu 7:12-16 The promises for keeping the covenant.
Deu 7:16, 17 How shall YHVH conquer your enemies if you don’t believe? How can you believe if you don’t know Him whom you worship? You shall not fear but remember the greatness of your God. This is the same walk of faith with which we are challenged today. If we don’t believe in the workings and character of G_d, how can He, who framed the worlds by faith through His word (Heb 11:3), act on our behalf? Do we walk by faith or by sight (i.e. logic, intellect, fact). If we are not looking to G_d in an intimate relationship of knowing, then we are walking by the flesh. Do not we know that self is a prescription for disaster? The key - - “remember” YHVH’s past accomplishments in your life – and believe. Bring to memory and prayer/praise the intimate times of recognizing Abba’s love and movements on your behalf.
Deu 7:21 Thou shalt not be affrighted at them. Isn’t it interesting that this is a command? YHVH commands us in order to teach us that fear is diametrically opposed to faith. As I have written in “Overcoming The Fear Within,” fear leads to disobedience which causes the loss of blessing. Faith leads to obedience and blessing. As we put our eyes on the potential disaster which lies ahead we become fearful, but as we trust in G_d’s promises and remember His miracles, our faith can come forth. Fear does not bring forth righteousness. For therein is the righteousness of God revealed from faith to faith: as it is written, The just shall live by faith. (Romans 1:17) When we walk trusting in G_d, His righteousness (not our own) is revealed in us growing with every believing, trusting, faith led experience.
Deu 7:26 What you associate with/accept in your house, is what you become – whether it be a person or an accursed thing. Then, you can also become cursed, “lest thou be a cursed thing as it is:”
Deu 8:1-3 Obey and live, remember, testings to be humbled, showed His sovereignty so that you might fear and trust in the Word. The word afflict/anah (Strong’s H6031) literally means to become low, depressed, put down or stoop (e.g. Ps. 55:19; 88:7; 90:15; 119:71, 75). While we may not like the thought of being put low, it is then that the humbled and contrite human spirit is finally willing to submit to G_d. Thus, as verse 6 says, Father chastens us so that we might learn His righteous ways. Then, when we are “afflicted”/ anah, and can’t do anything in of our own self, “Wait on the LORD: be of good courage, and he shall strengthen thine heart: wait, I say, on the LORD. (Psalms 27:14)
Deu 8:7-9 Isn’t it amazing how a prideful heart doesn’t want to believe that G_d’s “coincidences” - and trials are just “coincidences” – even when we have been repeatedly exposed to the proof and truth to the contrary. For the critical times ahead, we must walk in humility to acquire the faith to go forward spiritually—to trust in YHVH’s leading. Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord, and he shall lift you up. (James 4:10)
Deu 8:11 This is a repeated warning about materialism and blessing causing us to forget G_d’s miracles and abandoning the fear of the Lord and His Torah. There are two levels of fearing Elohim. The higher of the two is the sense of awe and reverence, and that is what Moses calls for here. The second fear, and the lesser of the two, is the fear of physical punishment because of disobedience. Both can keep us on the path, but the first leads to faith while the lesser leads to self justification.
Deu 9:4 - 6 It is not Israel’s (nor our) righteousness that YHVH will lead them into the promise land and defeat the enemies, but He will do this because of the enemies’ wickedness and YHVH’s promises to Israel’s fathers. In this we must learn the character of G_d and humbly pray for His judgment and justice in our times of testings. Because of the blood of Christ, Abba will always rule in our favor because of the righteousness of His Son within us and His promises/plan of salvation.
Let me reiterate that a little differently. Yes, obedience does bring the blessings of G_d (and disobedience, the curse) [Deu 11:26]. And the blessings/remembrances of the hope in our G_d bring faith, but our blessings are not because of our righteousness – it is because of YHVH’s righteousness. Let us never get caught under a spirit of pride and presume that the less intelligent, educated or experienced are in a lesser position before G_d. It is he who has taken what he has received and walks in the faith/belief/trust and fear of G_d (he who “remembers”) who moves the mountain (Mat 21:21). (YHVH also says that we will be abased before men in proportion to measure we abide in His Torah. Mal 2:9)
As we look at the United States have we “remembered” our history, G_d’s blessings and continued in the fear of the Lord shown by our forefathers? Or, have we walked in the way of Israel once she inherited her Promise Land? Israel became prideful, self sufficient, and forgot His laws, statues and commandments in favor of perverted humanistic logic and rationalizations. If you can see the direct parallel, pray that G_d awakens us by His Spirit unto repentance to come back to Him before His judgment is upon us.
Deu 9:7- 10:13 Remember and forget not - a review of all the sins and YHVH’s great goodness. .. keep the commandments of the LORD, and his statutes, which I command thee this day for thy good? The people knew only YHVH’s acts, but Moses knew G_d’s ways through his intimacy with his creator, who called him friend. Through, Yeshua, we are reconciled to the Father so that we also can know Abba’s ways, and the intimacy of the love that He gives to his children. Abba says, “ask me” – “you have not because you ask not.”
Deu 10:16 Circumcise … the …heart. Did you think heart circumcision was a New Testament apostolic origination? Be not stiff-necked, but be always willing to yield to the wishes of our Heavenly Father.
Deu 11:1-7 Once again the chapter begins with the charge: Therefore thou shalt love the LORD thy God, and keep his charge, and his statutes, and his judgments, and his commandments, always. You have seen the ways of G_d – you have experienced the ways of G_d. Every believer has, in measure, “seen” the ways of G_d (so that our faith might be built up) and yet many have turned aside to their own imaginations and fallen from His favor – often without realizing it. As our enemy gradually draws us away by varied deceptions, we don’t recognize the extent of our predicament and loss until nearly all is gone.
Deu 11:18-25 The importance of G_ds commands: Lay up these words in your heart, in your soul, on your hands ,between your eyes, on your doorposts, teach and speak morning and night. Has the busyness of life hindered you from following these instructions so that G_d is not first in your life? Has that same busyness kept you from the intimate times of communion, study, praise and worship you once enjoyed? If you must answer “yes” then can you expect the fullness of Him in your life? We must have both the Word and the intimacy of relationship to come into the maturity to which G_d is calling us.
Haftorah
Isa. 49:14-51:3
Isa. 49:14 Israel has been forsaken (14), but not forgotten (15), and will be redeemed when the wasters depart. (17).
Isa. 49:22 The nations which Israel birthed by faith shall come unto to the standard of the Lord, and bow down before Judah.
Question: Did YHVH Divorce Both the House of Israel (Ephraim) & the House of Judah?
YHVH Divorced the House of Israel
Jeremiah 3:8, “And I saw, when for all the causes whereby backsliding Israel committed adultery I had put her away, and given her a bill of divorce; yet her treacherous sister Judah feared not, but went and played the harlot also.”
Hosea 1:9 “Then said Elohim, ‘Call his name Loammi: for you are not my people, and I will not be your Elohim.’”
Hosea 2:2 “Plead with your mother, plead: for she is not my wife, neither am I her husband: let her therefore put away her whoredoms out of her sight, and her adulteries from between her breasts.”
Israel Marries Her Foreign Lovers
While there is no place in Scripture that specifically states that the House of Israel married any of her foreign lovers, the House of Judah, on the other hand, did marry “the daughter of a strange Elohim. Judah hath dealt treacherously, and an abomination is committed in Israel and in Jerusalem; for Judah hath profaned the holiness of the LORD which he loved, and hath married the daughter of a strange god. (Malachi 2:11)
Summary: Will we remember and believe in faith YHVH’s covenant?
But the mercy of the LORD is from everlasting to everlasting upon them that fear him, and his righteousness unto children's children; To such as keep his covenant, and to those that remember his commandments to do them. The LORD hath prepared his throne in the heavens; and his kingdom ruleth over all. (Psalms 103:17-19)
B’rit Chadashah
Rom. 8:31-39
Rom. 8:31 If God be for us, who can be (stand) against us?
Rom 8:38-39 For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, Nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
“Remember” and Believe It!
Shabbat Shalom,
Randy
Gateway To Freedom