All right we're gonna do something a
little bit different today. Normally I preach a line on line exposition of
the Scripture, but we've had a number of requests through YouTube and social
media for me to talk about how a Sunday mega-church pastor came to the truth of
Torah. Seems to be on everybody's mind. How did that happen?
And so today I'm gonna just share a little bit from my heart, my testimony
how the Almighty has led me into this wonderful truth of Torah, and how this
congregation has transitioned from a Sunday church that you know was tracking
along with a Roman calendar and the Roman holidays and keeping the Roman
sabbath of the first day of the week, it's not the real Sabbath, but the Christian
sabbath. How we transitioned into being followers of Yeshua who walk in His ways.
And so I do want to give you some Scripture as we begin this time together.
I want to start with Revelation chapter 12 beginning with verse 10 it says: and I
heard a loud voice saying in the heaven now have come the deliverance and the
power and the reign of our Elohim and the authority of His Messiah for the
accuser of the brothers, who accused them before our Elohim day and night, has been
thrown down. And they, the believers, overcame him because of the blood of the
Lamb (Can you say amen?), and because of the word of their witness - your bible may say
the word of their testimony. And they did not love their lives to the
death and so there is devil defeating power in the word of your testimony. Your
testimony is the good news of the gospel according to you. In other words, what the
Almighty has done in your life, what Elohim has done to bring you through.
Amen? And when you share your testimony you're sharing the good news according
to you - what's happened in your life what the almighty has done through Yeshua. And
no one can tell your testimony as good as you can. And so telling your testimony
is very important. We just finished up 52 weeks of consecutive outreaches. And many
in our congregation printed out their testimonies on our 'my story' cards and
went all over this Metroplex passing out their testimony. What are they doing?
Overcoming the enemy by the word of their testimony. And so some even went on
and recorded their testimony and we put it all over social media. And so every
time somebody clicks play on that video that's you telling your testimony, that's
you overcoming the enemy, that's the good news according to you being spread
around the world and that's a beautiful beautiful thing. So that's what we're
going to do today. We're going to talk about what Yeshua has done in my life
and in this congregation's life. Also Psalm 26 beginning with verse 6 says, "I
washed my hands in innocence; and I walk around your slaughter place your altar
oh YAH to raise a voice of thanksgiving," You know thanksgiving has a voice and we
ought to all be thankful for what He's done in our lives. That's why we tell our
testimony. "To raise a voice of thanksgiving and to declare all Your
wonders." And so people ask me all the time, they want to know what Damascus
road encounter did you have? What special transformative event transpired in your
life to lead you from being a Sunday mega-church pastor to being someone who
follows in the ways of Yeshua and who loves Torah? And my answer to
that is: there's really not one specific event that transpired, but a whole host
of events that have taken place over about two decades. And when I think about
it I think about how the Almighty leads us. How he takes us
on a journey. See, we're not where we want to be but thank YAH we're not where we
used to be. We need to keep moving. Amen? We need to keep following His leadership.
And when I look back on my life I see a number of events that transpired that
led me to this place where I am today. Loving Yeshua with all my heart, walking
in His ways, embracing Torah, having my life being defined by all of Scripture,
not just a little sliver in the back of the book but the entire Bible. Amen? A
number of events that transpired. And I see the Almighty's hand. What He'll do is
He'll allow you to experience a lot of things. And it's those experiences in
your life that make you. See to make the ministry, the man or the woman must first
be made. And so when I think about all the things that I've experienced in my
past, 30 years in the ministry by the way, not one thing was wasted. Not one
experience that I went through was wasted.
Nothing was quote "bad." He used it all to develop who I am now. I have a very
unique perspective. I was able to serve under a man with tremendous influence in
the body of Christ. This man was able to build one of the largest, if not the
largest, independent charismatic congregations in America, if not the
world. And I served there for over a decade. I learned a lot there. And I
walked with a lot of men of great influence. So I learned a lot of things.
And I was able to minister before tens of thousands of people. That's what's
very unique about my perspective and the platform the Almighty has given me now.
Because people know who I am through my association with other ministers and
other congregations. So I have 5,000 friends on Facebook and more than one
page. And we have an opportunity because people wonder what ever happened
to G. Steven Simons. They called me Pastor Gary. Whatever happened to Pastor
Gary? What's he doing now? So they go on my Facebook page and it's all about
Yeshua and Torah. People want to know what's going on with this guy, you know.
Has he fallen off the planet? What's he doing now? Right? So they go to my YouTube
page and they see all of our sermons. We produce sermons every week and they go
all around the world, over a hundred and sixty nations of the world. And so the
platform the almighty has given me is a very unique platform. And most of my
ministry friends, I have scores of ministry friends they're all still in
Sunday church, and and they wonder from time to time whatever happened to Pastor
Gary. And so it's my prayer that they allow that, you know, enquiring mind to
get the best of them and come seek out what happened to Pastor Gary and also
come across the truth of Torah. Amen? So I'm gonna talk about some of the events
that are on that journey that's led me here. And I want to start with the
most recent event and then I want to rewind about 20 years. Okay? So the most
recent event is that I had the great joy and opportunity to take a special group
of people to the land of Israel, Eretz Israel, just recently a few weeks ago. And the greatest joy of that was that I was able
to take my daughter Christiana. She's my oldest. She'd never been to Israel. And it
was a beautiful thing to be able to walk in the footsteps of Yeshua with her and
for her to experience the land. Now when she reads the Bible she'll never have to
use her imagination about what it looks like because she's been there. Amen? And
she's got these big beautiful vivid pictures of what the land of the Bible
looks like. It was a wonderful experience. And I had several others of my extended
family who were with me and we had a tremendous time and a tremendous
opportunity to speak to some significant Orthodox Jews while we were there and
opened up a dialogue. It was a beautiful thing. We are an anomaly to the Orthodox.
we wear Tzitzits and we keep the dietary commandments. We we worship on
Shabbat and we keep the biblical feasts. You know and they're
just looking at us and wondering "What kind of animal are you?". And I had one
brother tell me, one Orthodox Jew tell me "You're welcome at my Shabbos table
anytime." Now that's a that's a huge compliment. Amen? And so the Almighty is
up to something. There's dialogue that's being generated between those of us who
love Yeshua but who also love Torah and the Orthodox Jews who have been taught
all their life that Yeshua is not the Messiah. And so we're just so thrilled to
have that opportunity. One of the things that transpired on that trip - and I like
to take all of the groups that I take to Israel to Yad Vashem, which is the
Holocaust Memorial Museum in Jerusalem. And I've been there several times. And it
is such a powerful emotional impactful experience. You need to be prepared when
you walk through that museum to be impacted to the core of your being and
feel all sorts of emotions. And I felt that way every time I've gone. The
Almighty has has touched me in a unique way each time I go. This time it was it
was very special and and actually it didn't come through me it came through
my daughter. So we went through the whole tour and we got to one of the very last
stages in the museum which is this big room where they commemorate all of the
people who perished in the Holocaust and it's just walls just lined with names of
people who perished, you know, over six million Jews have perished in the
Holocaust. And a thought came to Christian, and I believe that it was
spirit-led. And that thought was, "I need to do a search on the Yad Vashem
database and find out if there were any Simons' that perished in the
Holocaust. Now you know that's my last name, Simons (S-i-m-o-n-s). I had never
thought that thought, but she did. And so she went on the database and did a
search of Simons' - Jewish people named Simons who perished in the
Holocaust. And to our surprise and dismay and sadness of heart we found out
763 Simons', Jewish people with the last name Simons, perished in the
Holocaust. Now all throughout the 30 years of my ministry I've had people
come up to me, Jewish people, who were in different ministry opportunities. They
would come up to me afterward and they would say, "You know Simons is a Jewish
name." And I said, "No, I didn't know that." But they would always say, "Yeah, Simons
is a Jewish name." So I don't know if there's an ethnic connection. What I do
know is that in Yeshua I'm definitely connected. Amen? When I
believed upon Yeshua my heart was circumcised and according to the Torah
of the Pesach or the Torah of the Passover: if the Ger, the the non-Jewish
person, wants to connect with the people and partake of the Passover - if he's
willing to be circumcised and all the males in his household circumcise the
scripture says he can draw near and he could partake of the Passover. And then the people of Israel are to consider that man and his family as native-born in the
land. And so Shaul or the Apostle Paul uses that terminology specifically when
he talks about our relationship to the people of Israel, to believing Israel.
When we as non-jews, ethnically, believe upon Yeshua our hearts are
circumcised and we can draw near and enjoy the benefits of our Passover Lamb,
Yeshua. And we're considered like native-born. You see there are no
second-class citizens in Yeshua. Amen? The one new man - we're going to talk about that a little bit today - the one new man is believing Jew and believing non-Jew
worshiping together as one. And so I'm not certain that there is an ethnic
connection but I know that there is a very deep spiritual connection. We may
search it out the find out if there is an ethnic
connection but we know that we are soundly connected spiritually through
Yeshua. There is only one root to the name Simons. If you do the research on
the name itself, the name Simons only goes to one root, and that root is the
Hebrew name Shim'on. Shim'on comes from the Hebrew word Shema. Now, you know the Shema, we quote it every Shabbat as we start our gathering - Sh'ma Yisra'eil YAH Eloheinu YAH echad. Alright. Shema means to hear with your heart and obey. And so
it's interesting that Shim'on - the English equivalent is Simeon you might find that
in in your Bible. Simeon was one of the twelve sons of Israel, one of the twelve
tribes, Simeon. And Simeon was an island in the midst of Yehuda, in the
midst of Judah. If you look at all of the land allotments of the twelve tribes
Simeon is down in the south and it's an island surrounded by Judah. Ultimately
Simeon is kind of lost in the scripture. And the reason is that those of the
tribe of Simeon were assimilated into Judah. And so whenever the scripture
talks about Judah it also includes Simeon or Shim'on. So you may not think
that's all that important, but to me when I think about why I am where I am I
can't consider these things haphazardly. Because for me Gidon - Gary, Shim'on -
Simons - Gidon means a mighty warrior and Shimon means to hear and to obey. And if
you if you were going to take phrases that define what I've been through in
my life it would be those two. In Hebrew every name means something. It would be
those two - a mighty warrior waging war against the opposition, maybe against
traditions of men and false religion and the like. And then to hear and to obey. To
be willing to hear with the heart and obey. So the first time I traveled to
Israel was a very powerful time in my life, very impactful. I was invited by
Richard Booker. I don't know if you're familiar with Richard Booker, he's a
relatively well-known Christian author who writes a lot about the Jewishness of
Jesus and the Jewish roots of the Christian belief. And he is from Houston
and I was living in Houston. He invited me to go with him to Israel. Well I was
excited to go because I hadn't been there before. And there was always a lot
of a lot of excitement, you know, from the very beginning. Once we realized that we
were going to go we had several meetings. There was a lot of excitement. We were
really thrilled. So when the the tires touched down on the runway at the
airport - you know there's the big shout and the clapping of the hands and all
the rejoicing. If you've ever been you know that happens. My experience went
beyond that. This was before Ben-Gurion renovated and before they had the
jetways, you know, the walkways from the plane to the airport. Back in those days,
this is 20 years ago, they would have a truck that had a set of stairs mounted
to it and the truck would drive up to the plane and, you know, set that platform
right there by the door. Then they'd open up the doors and all the people would
step out onto that stairway and then come down and then they would walk from
the tarmac to the airport. So yeah I'm excited about being there but when I
reached the bottom step and step down onto the tarmac something very
supernatural happens in me I'm overwhelmed with a sense of being home.
I don't know if you've ever felt that way before. Maybe you've gone away from
home for a long time and you make it back home
and you feel like you're home. I had never been to Israel but I felt like I
was home. I felt like I was deeply connected to the Land of Israel and I was very emotional I dropped down on my knees I kissed the tarmac, it
was just one of those moments. I spent the rest of my time in Israel trying to
figure out how is going to convince my wife to move to Israel and to take our
young family, all these little kids to Israel to live there. Well, obviously, I
was unsuccessful at that and I have not lived in Israel even though I've gone
many times, but my life's not over. I may get there after all and I know, in Yeshua, I'm gonna get there. Amen? We know the scripture says He's gonna split open
the eastern sky with a shout in the voice of an archangel and the mighty
shofar blasts of YAH and the dead and Messiah are gonna rise first and we who
are alive and remain are gonna get caught up to meet the Master in the air
and so shall we always be with the Master. Now, I know the Christian Church
teaches that that's kind of a get-out-of-jail-free card it's kind of a
an escape mechanism you know where all the believers go away and hide out while
you know the Great Tribulation takes place but but in reality that's the
gathering of the bride. We're going to always be with Him. Where is He going to
go when He comes back? He's going to Yerushalayim. He's going to establish His
Millennial Kingdom. So where's His bride going to go? We're gonna go to Yerushalayim as well and be with Him we'll always be with Him from that point
forward. Amen? So we will make it. Hallelujah! Praise YAH. So that trip really impacted my life deeply, so much so that when I got back I
began to study everything I could get my hands on about Jewish roots of the
Christian belief, about the Jewishness of Jesus, everything that I could find
everything that I could read. Now this was back before, you know, the internet
was a big deal. You actually, if you wanted information, you had to read
something like a book... novel idea, huh? Yeah. So I collected all the information
that I could and started studying about the Jewish roots of the Christian faith.
Now you know I'm using Christian terminology because that was the context
of my life at that time. I even asked a local rabbi to come to my home and teach
me Hebrew during that time so once a week a rabbi was coming into my home and
teaching me Hebrew out of the Siddur or the Jewish prayer book. I'm still very
much within the context of a Sunday Church ministry, apart of a very large
independent charismatic congregation but my heart was being stirred to discover
more of the Hebraic context of our belief and so I was going after that
with with everything that was within me so much so that my wife and I both
agreed that we would start celebrating weekly Erev Shabbat celebrations in our
home. Okay, what is that, Erev Shabbat? That's Friday night. So Friday night
we would have like a little Shabbat celebration in our home. And I
would go out on Friday and I would buy the challah at you know the local kosher
bakery, and my wife would prepare a meal. And we'd light the candles. And we would
speak blessings over the children. And we would eat the challah and enjoy a meal
together. And we would sing Shabbat shalom and Shalom Aleichem. That's
all the Hebrew I knew at that time is in those songs and we we sang those songs
and the children, little tiny children, Christiana was there, she's the oldest,
they would dance around the table singing shabbat shalom. Now, you may think
in the context that we live in that that's not unusual, but I was a
Sunday Christian pastor in a charismatic church being led by the Spirit into all
of these wonderful experiences. So to say there was some kind of Damascus Road
encounter for me that changed everything is just not true. What we see is a
journey that the Almighty took me on and He was teaching me and allowing me to
experience certain things along the way to prepare me for the ministry that I'm
in right now. So I was over the bible school in this large church down in
Houston and I assigned all the teachers and all of their courses every
semester. And I was a teacher in the Bible school too, so I started teaching
on subjects like the Jewish roots and Christ revealed in the festivals and all
of that. So I was actually teaching a lot of what I'm teaching now, I was teaching
in its earliest stages back in the ministry in Houston and Sunday church.
And there was a great interest actually in the in the subjects that I was
teaching at the time and my classes were well attended, the Almighty was
really up to some powerful things. I started taking groups of people to
Israel from that congregation. As a matter of fact, several who are here
today went on those trips with me and that was a blessing. So in that
context, and you need to understand that I was just really hungry and
longing for more, the thought came to my mind that I would like to experience
what an Orthodox synagogue experience was. I'd like to go to an Orthodox
synagogue and see what that was about. Because I'm reading in the
scripture that Yeshua was in the synagogue every Sabbath. So if Yeshua was in the synagogue, then I wanted to go experience the synagogue. Well, I
was a Sunday Christian Church pastor but I went to the Orthodox synagogue and, of
course, I didn't have a kippah so they they provided one for me, you know, the
little hat. And I went in with my friend and we sat down we just wanted to
see what went on in an Orthodox synagogue setting.
Well, before the gathering began, there was an attendant, a Jewish man, that came
over to me and invited me to participate in the service. And he said
to me, we often like to invite our guests to participate in the service. And so, all
the bells and the whistles and the alarms went off because I didn't want to
be pretentious. I didn't want to be up there if I wasn't supposed to be there.
But the more I hesitated, the more the attendant tried to persuade me. He
insisted that I participate so I looked at my friend like, "Should I do
this?" and my friend gave me the nod and said "this is God" is what was said, so I agreed. And so, my role that day in that synagogue service, in an Orthodox
synagogue service, was to go on the platform to go to the ark, the ark is the
place where they stored the scrolls to take the Torah scroll from the ark and
to lay it upon the Bema, which is the big desk where someone who was designated to
read the Torah portion that they would read it in Hebrew. So I took the Torah
scroll, the first time my hands had ever touched a Torah scroll, and I laid it on
the beam, opened it up, laid it out and another man stepped up behind me then
and read the Torah portion in Hebrew. So that was a very powerful and wonderful
experience for me and it reminds me of Luke chapter 4. I'm gonna read a few
verses here, starting with verse 16, it says, "And He came to Nazareth where He
had been brought up and according to His practice," this is speaking of Yeshua, "He
went into the congregation of the synagogue on the Sabbath day and stood
up to read and the scroll of the prophet Yeshayahu was handed to Him," So somebody handed Him the scroll. "And having unrolled the scroll He found
the place where it was written The Spirit of YAH is upon me because He has
anointed me to bring the good news to the poor He sent me to heal the
brokenhearted, to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the
blind, to send away crushed ones with a release to proclaim the acceptable year
of YAH," it says, "and having rolled up the scroll He gave it back to the attendant
and sat down and the eyes of all the congregation were fixed upon Him and He
began to say to them today this scripture has been filled in your
hearing." So, if my experience could be juxtaposed upon this experience of
Yeshua, I was the one that handed in the scroll. I was the one who took the scroll
out of the ark and laid it on the bema. And so, it means a lot to me. It's very
special to me that my very first encounter in an Orthodox synagogue had
such a special meaning to it. And then, when my father-in-law and spiritual
mentor passed away - and that was the congregation that I served that in
Houston - my father-in-law passed away, his name is John Osteen and some of you may
be familiar with him - my wife and I had it in our heart to move to the
Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex and begin our congregation. So we came with
nothing, other than a vision that the Almighty had given me while I was still
in Houston, and with a heart that was determined to serve the Almighty.
The vision the Almighty gave me, the revelation that He gave me down in
Houston, was from Proverbs 9:1 which says, "Wisdom has built her house she hewn out
her Seven Pillars." And so wisdom is a person. If you go to Proverbs 8 you'll
find out that wisdom is a person, wisdom has been personified. And then I
discovered in Colossians 2, that in Messiah are stored up all the hidden
riches of wisdom and knowledge. And then also in 1st Corinthians 1:24, it
says, "In Messiah is the power of Elohim and the wisdom of Elohim." So if wisdom is
in Messiah, Messiah personifies wisdom then wisdom and Messiah are one in
the same and wisdom has built a house on seven pillars. The seven pillars are
seven principles. So Yeshua has built His congregation of belief. He said upon this
rock I will build my congregation of belief and the gates of Sheol will not
prevail against it. And so if there are seven pillars, I considered that
principles, where can we find out these principles? Well there's more written in
the book of Acts in the first ten chapters concerning that original
congregation in Yerushalayim than anywhere else in the Bible. As a matter
of fact, that original congregation in Yerushalayim is written about more than any
other congregation. And to my great delight, as I began to study the book of
Acts from chapter 1 on, I came across seven definitive principles. When I say
definitive that's very important. Seven principles that define the
congregation of belief that Yeshua promised to build and built. He promised
to build it then He paid the price to build it by shedding His blood and then
He ascended to the right hand after His resurrection and He sent the set of part
spirit who became the project manager, who in dwelled believers and through
believers built that congregation that Yeshua promised to build. And I found
seven principles. They're extremely biblical and sound and they're
definitive. Now, the thing to keep in mind - by the way,
I wrote a book about it, "Church by God's Design" - the thing to keep
in mind is that when we came here we established our congregation on those
biblical principles. And the model church that we were building our congregation
after, was the church in Yerushalayim. Well what about the church in Yerushalayim? Well they were Jewish and they loved and kept the Torah. So
there was only one piece of the puzzle missing at that point, because you have
to have a foundation to put a pillar on. You can't put a pillar on the dirt. So
I've found the pillars but I hadn't found the foundation as of yet. Now the
pillars stand. There's not much in this book that that I would change. I could
rewrite the book and put it within the Hebraic context, and I may still do that
if the Almighty leads me to do it, but the principles stand. Now we have the
rest of the story. We have the foundation that the principles stand upon. So I went
around the world in over 20 nations and I preached these principles. And I told
pastors that if you want a book of Acts congregation then you need to implement
these seven principles in your congregation. And if you're willing to do
what that early congregation of belief did then you'll get the same results. And
that was our message as we went around the world. And so that's what we built
the previous congregation, that I served, on. We started with 16 in our
living room. And by building that ministry upon these principles, found in
the book of Acts, the Almighty blessed the work. And we grew to over a thousand
in one year. And then two to three years later we were between three and four
thousand people who had gathered around this particular vision. By the way those
people that gathered around this vision are really not too far off. They know these biblical principles they just now need to come to the foundation which
is Torah. But these are the people that I was speaking about earlier who go on my
Facebook page and check out my youtube channel they want to know what happened
to Pastor Gary. Well they're gonna find out if they'll if they'll look if
they'll search a little bit. Amen? They'll get to the whole truth. Amen?
And so we were blessed as the congregation. And some of you
maybe familiar with our story with High Point Church. We were blessed. We
grew to be a mega-church in a short period of time. We purchased a 107 acre
campus. We had a large building. It was actually four hundred twenty three
thousand square feet in three buildings under one roof.
We had multiple millions of dollars coming in and annual income. We had
tremendous international and global ministry going out. And of course I was
thinking and praising the Father through all that tremendous growth time. What
I've discovered when I'm talking to pastors is some Sunday church pastors they have seen the ministry grow to a place that when they hear the truth
they have too much to lose to accept the truth. And what I want to say to those
that might be watching my video and to this congregation and any pastor that
might be watching is that you have to prove to the Almighty that you love
truth more than the trappings of success. People say, "Why did you go through what
you went through? Why did the Almighty allow you to experience all that just to
take it all away from you?" It's the process - it's the making of the man. The
Almighty needed to know that I would love Him more than material possessions -
that I was dedicated to building the kingdom of YAH and didn't care anything
about the material world. We had all those things but those things didn't
have me. But that was a process that I had to go through. So there was a
building up so that there could be a stripping away. How could I stand before
you and challenge you to give up your Roman rooted traditions if I wasn't
willing to do the same? How could I stand before you and try to lead you on a path
to truth if I failed in that journey myself. And so what had to happen in me
was that those things that were built up had to be stripped away. And I had to be
just as joyful and thankful and willing to follow the Almighty and
to walk in His ways with those things being stripped away as I was when they
were being built up. How many of you know you don't have a whole bunch of problems
when things are very successful around you. I mean you're really really excited.
And you can talk about all the great things that are transpiring in your life
and ministry. A number of events begin to take place. And I could look at those
events and I could say, "The mortgage company did things they shouldn't have
done. This transpired and it shouldn't have happened.
This evil work transpired and and it shouldn't have happened." I could sit back
and say, "Why me?" and get angry with the Almighty. But when I take a higher view
and look down I can see the hand of the Almighty on the whole process. Those
things had to be stripped away from me. Why? Because I had to get to the place
where I didn't have anything to lose, nothing to gain, nothing to defend,
nothing that I hung my self-esteem upon. Any type of pride had to be stripped
away. When you get to the place where you have nothing to gain, nothing to lose,
nothing to defend, nothing that you're proud about, nothing that would empower a sense of arrogance about yourself, then the Almighty can use you. You're not
really all that suited for success in His kingdom until you get outside of
yourself and your own self will. Amen? And when that happens to you then you can be used. So I'll just briefly talk about the mortgage company since I brought them up.
We did have a note on our property. And we had a certain period that that note
was good for with a promise from the CEO and the executive vice president that
when we got to the end of the period, given that we were current on all our
payments, the note would be rolled over. That's a normal transaction. That's a
normal line of business. We were completely current in all of our
payments. We got to the end of the transactional period
and I was expecting the rollover, to extend the loan out even
further so that we can continue to make the payments.That's normal
procedure. They then said, they would not give us the rollover unless we were
willing to bring them 1 million dollars cash. Well I said, "No I'm not doing that."
And they found out right away that I don't give in to pressure. We're gonna do
it right or we're not going to do it. That's just the way that I am and
people that know me know that about me. So they started asking for things. They
wanted us to sell the gas wells that we had on the property and give them the
money for the sell of the gas wells. And that would be all that
they would need to fulfill their promise for the rollover. So we did that. We sold
the gas wells, we gave them the money and they didn't rollover the note. So, I'm
searching the scripture because I want to do what the Almighty wants me to do,
that's what I'm concerned about. And so, I found a passage in Luke chapter 6,
beginning with verse 28, where Yeshua said, "Bless those cursing you, and pray
for those insulting you, and to him who hits you on one cheek, offer the other
also, and from him who takes away your outer garment, do not withhold the inner
garment either." And another passage like that, Matthew chapter 5. Starting with
verse 38, Yeshua said, "You heard that it was said an eye for an eye and a tooth
for a tooth, but I say to you, do not resist the wicked but whoever slaps you
on the right cheek, turn the other to him also and he who wishes to sue you to
take away your inner garment let him have your outer garment as well." That
spoke to me. Now, I realize, that for the common person, that may not make a lot of
sense to them. But I have to stand in judgment concerning myself, and how I
behaved, and what I did in my life in the stewardship that I participated in my life. And when I realized that they had a legal
right to call the note, because they had promised to roll it over, with verbal
promises. And they were not keeping their promise. And that they were just trying
to get as much money out of us as they could, I had had enough. And I went to the
scripture to find out what to do. And this is what I felt the Spirit said
for me to do, if they're trying to sue you for your outer garment then give
them your inner garment as well. When I got to that place where I was not going
to be used anymore. The fact is, I could have fought in court. But it would have
taken years and it would have been hundreds of thousands of tithe dollars,
if not millions of tithe dollars, to fight. Could have been fought? Could have been
won? Possibly. But it would have taken years and a lot of tithe dollars. That it
came to my heart, that we started with nothing, but a vision and the Almighty
promising that he'd be with us and that we could start over with the same thing.
That none of the trappings of this world, none of the material kingdom meant
anything to me. And I took my lead from these verses, I told my attorney, "Take the
keys to the property. Go to the mortgage company, and give them the keys. And we're
gonna walk." And my attorney took the keys of the property, 107 acres 423 thousand
square feet all of that, all the stuff that was in the building, and dropped it
on the mortgage company's attorney's desk, and said, "The pastor says, you just
have the building." They didn't know what to do with that. They'd never had anybody
that operated like that. That lived according to the Bible in that way. And
so, they pushed the keys back and said, "We can't take the building." They
went ahead and went through with the foreclosure. But as far as our heart was
concerned, we had given it to them and walked away. And I told the congregation, if
this thing works out a certain way, and we need to walk, we're going
walk. And I said, be prepared if the sea parts then we're marching. The men's
ministry - Steve, bring me that place if you would? - the men's ministry of High
Point gave me this staff. Now, I've used it over the past several years at
Passover. It has a Hebrew Scripture written around it. I said, if the sea
parts, if the Almighty wants us to leave we're leaving.
And that last gathering that we had at High Point, I had my family on the stage
behind me. I had this staff in my hand and I lifted up the staff over
the congregation, I said, the sea is parted. We're leaving. We had printed all
of these t-shirts that said 'We Are The Church.' Not this stuff. Not this building.
Not any of the trappings of success, that some people might consider successful. We
are. The people are the Church. So, we passed out about 2,000 shirts. And I said,
now all the reporters are out there and they're looking for a sad story. They're
looking for somebody to cry and talk about how this is such a horrible thing.
I said, "All we're doing is walking with the Almighty and He's going to lead us
to something better. And so, if you'd like to put on that shirt, put on that shirt."
2,000 people put on shirts. And I took that staff with my family behind me, we
marched down that platform, we went through the middle of the congregation
and went out. And all the congregation followed behind us, and they faced those
reporters with smiles and happy reports and shirts that said 'we are the church.'
And we left. So we started meeting at other venues:
large concert halls, hotels and the like. And we still had a large group of people
going with us. It was wonderful that the Almighty blessed us with that on this
journey. It was January of 2015 that I was reading in Ephesians 2 about the one
new man. And I want to read a little bit of that just so you guys can get the
context of what I'm talking about. So, we're still leading our congregation.
We're meeting in concert venues and hotels and sometimes it's a different
place every, you know, every other week or so. And this is what the Almighty spoke
to me while I was reading Ephesians 2, starting with verse 11, "Therefore
remember that you once Nations in the flesh, who are called 'the uncircumcision'
by what is called 'the circumcision.' So the Jews called the non-Jews 'the
uncircumcision' ... made in the flesh by hands," look at verse 12, "that at that time
you were without Messiah, excluded from the citizenship of Israel and strangers
from the covenants of promise, having no expectation and without Elohim in the
world." So that's the condition of the Gentiles without Messiah. "But now," it says
in verse 13, "But now, in Messiah Yeshua, you who once were far off," speaking of
the Gentiles, "have been brought near by the blood of Messiah," This is the
verse that I was alluding to in the beginning of this message. "... been brought
near by the blood of Messiah. For He is our peace who has made both
one," So, who's this talking about? Both
believing Jew and believing non-Jew. "... become one in Messiah, and having broken
down the partition of the barrier, having abolished in his flesh," In Messiah's flesh. "... the enmity," between those two parties, "... the Torah of the commands in dogma that this
is speaking of the man-made religious rules that had kept the Jewish people
from having fellowship with the Gentiles. So the Jews were
to be a light to the Gentiles but the oral tradition said that the Jews were
were not to go into the home of a Gentile and have a meal with the Gentile. So
there was no fellowship between the Jew and the Gentile. So in Messiah, these oral
rules and regulations, these oral laws that kept the two parties from
fellowshipping, came down so that they could become one. It says, "So as to create
in himself," in Yeshua, "... one renewed man" Your Bible may say 'one new man'. "... from the
two, thus making peace and to completely restore to favor both of them," both
believing Jew and believing non-Jew, "... unto Elohim in one body through the
stake having destroyed the enmity by it. And having come, He brought as good news
peace to those who were afar off," All right, so that's talking about the
Gentiles. "... and peace to those near the Jews." And that's just a quote of Isaiah
57 verse 19. "Because through him we both have access to the Father by one Spirit.
So then you are no longer strangers and foreigners," speaking to the non-Jewish
believers, "... but fellow citizens of the set apart ones and members of the
household of Elohim." So, as I read that, I got into a dialogue with the Spirit. Just in my thought life, didn't hear anything in my ears. It's just all inside.
And I heard the question, have you experienced this one new man in your
life or ministry? Where both believing Jew and believing non-Jew are worshiping
together in unity, in the same place, on the same day believing, the same things,
doing the same things, have you experienced that? And my answer was no, I
have not experienced that. Because my experience was that believing Jews
observed the Bible seventh day Sabbath. And believing non-Jews kept Sunday the
first day of the week. That believing Jews kept the Bible feast that
are written about in Leviticus 23. The Almighty has given us celebrations that
He wants us to celebrate. They're appointed times and they're rehearsals and
they all speak of Yeshua. Without knowing that, that is a richness of truth
that we're missing out on. Because there's no scripture anywhere that says we're to keep Roman holidays. It's just not there. As a matter of fact,
Yeshua telling His disciples at the last Passover meal that He took, He held up
the cup and He says, you know, He blesses the cup and they all drink. He says, "I'm
not going to drink again of this cup. What cup? The Passover cup. "... until I drink
it anew with You in my kingdom." So what do we know about the Passover in the
kingdom" We're going to celebrate it. And then we find out in Zechariah, that
we're going to keep the feasts of Sukkot. In the Millennial Kingdom? The question
is; okay, so people can get their brain around, so we're going to celebrate the
Passover and Sukkot in the Millennial Kingdom. Fine, but what about all the
Roman holidays? Well, I'm still asking if anyone has found a verse that says, we're
gonna keep the Roman holidays in the Millennial Kingdom. The question is, is
Yeshua coming back for a Roman bride? Is He coming back for a foreign bride? Or is He coming back for a bride who knows and walks in His ways? 1 John 2:6
says, "If you say you abide in Him, you must also walk even as, or just as, He
walked." The question is, did Yeshua ever keep a Roman holiday? Did He ever go to
Synagogue on Sunday, like in, that's the Sabbath? I'm sure He was there often
times throughout the week, but I'm saying as if that was the Sabbath. Know if
you're gonna walk in His ways then you're gonna keep the Bible Sabbath that
He kept. You're gonna celebrate the feasts that He kept. We're supposed to walk with Him. We're
not supposed to try to convince Him to walk with us. It's like, I'm not walking
in your ways but I believe in you so come walk with me. Well, you know, that's
not how it works. He said, "Follow me."
Did He not, when He called His disciples? "... Follow me. Follow me in my ways.." And then,
what about the Torah? Believing Jews love the Torah, but believing non-Jews have
believed the lie about the Torah being abolished. And yet, what does Yeshua
teach in Matthew chapter 5 starting with verse 17? He said, "Do not think.
Don't let this thought even cross your mind that I've come to destroy the Torah
or the prophets. I have not come to destroy, but to fulfill."
Now don't get hung up over that word. Get into the original and find out what that
means. That means to fill it up. To exalt it to it's deeper spiritual application.
If you don't believe that then keep reading the sermon. Because it goes on
and He quotes two of the Ten Commandments.
He says, "You've heard that you're not supposed to murder, but I say, if you have
anger in your heart toward your brother," - basically says you've already murdered
him - So, is that abolishing the commandment? Is
that lowering the standard? No, it's raising the standard from the act of the
hand to the attitude of the heart. Now you can murder somebody by your
hatred toward them... and you will be judged for that murder.
So that's filling up the command, that's not abolishing. Now, what about
adultery? You've heard that you're not supposed to commit adultery. I say, that
the man who lust in his heart has already committed adultery. Now is that
lowering the standard, abolishing the standard or is that raising the standard?
Again, it goes beyond the action of the hand. It goes into the attitude of
the heart. And you will be judged as an adulterer if you lust over people. That's
not making it easier. What He's doing by filling it up, He's requiring that we be
filled with the set-apart spirit. Because only by being filled with a set apart
spirit, do we obtain the want to obey. A lot of people in religion don't want to
obey, they just don't. They want to do what's right in their own eyes. They
wanted to find their own religious experience. It's not about the religion
that you define, it's about the relationship that His word defines. He
wants a pure form of worship as defined by His Word which is His Torah. So, some
would say, well you've proven that we ought to be keeping the ten words of the
Ten Commandments. Yeah, but He goes on and He quotes four more Torah commandments
that are not part of the top ten. And what does He do with those? Fills them up.
Exalts them to their deeper spiritual application. So, what is He teaching us?
He's saying, "Don't even let it cross your mind that I've come to abolish the Torah
of the prophets. I have not come to get you off the hook and let you live a
lawless life. I have come to provide the Spirit, whereby, you can fulfill the
commandments and please the Father." He'll give you the want to obey and the power
to obey and that comes by the spirit. And so, I saw this huge wall of division. Have
you ever noticed, in your Bible most English Bibles, where do they put all the
references? Where they put all the maps? Usually right in the middle between
what's called the Old Testament and the New Testament. Why? Because they want you
to think that everything, - this is my left, everybody pick up your left hand -
everything left of Matthew. Where does that take you, if you go left of Matthew?
Into what's called the old, you might as well say, the old decrepit Testament that
doesn't apply anymore. It's the largest portion of the Bible.
Right? Everything left of Matthew has been abolished, that's what religion
teaches. And that we're just supposed to live out
of this little sliver in the back of the book, I call it the sliver mentality. The
reality is, if you don't have a good understanding of the Torah and the
prophets, when you get into what's called the New Testament, you come across some
things that you don't understand. You don't have a foundation in the Torah. You
end up doing what? Making stuff up. And that's what religion has done over two
thousand years, made up a whole bunch of stuff. That they can't back it,
scripturally, they just make it up. And then it's passed down.
Why do you celebrate Christmas? Cuz' Mama and Daddy did, and grandmama and
granddaddy did, and great grandmama and great granddaddy did. So we do. Well, let's
keep Jesus as the reason for the season. Why do you have to keep saying that?
Because the world loves its own. The scripture says, Yeshua said that the
world loves its own. Have you noticed that people that are not even Christians
love Christmas? Because it was never commanded by the Almighty to be
celebrated. It's a Roman holiday. Now some of you say, well you know what, I came here
today and I expected to be lifted up and now you're smacking my Christmas around. Welcome to the journey. Alright. You don't think there was a time
when my Christmas got smacked around? you don't think there was a time when my
Easter got smacked around? Welcome to the journey. So when you're challenged by the
spirit, because the next question to me was, what are you willing to do to see
this dynamic, - which is in the scripture, it's actually definitive of Yeshua's
body, that believing Jew and believing non-Jew would worship together with a
pure form of worship that's defined by the Torah in all of Scripture - what are
you willing to do? And my answer to that was, I'm willing to do whatever it takes.
I want to find the truth, I want to get to the truth. And people that know me,
that really know me, they've been with me for a long time know that I'm a true
seeker. They don't always like the truth that I bring, sometimes, because it's very
challenging. It could be challenging to the core. But realize that if I'm
bringing it to you, it's already challenged me. And so what did I do? I
started with the Sabbath. I took the seventh-day Sabbath. I wasn't
sure that I had the right position which was the Christian Sabbath on Sunday, so I
took the Bible seventh-day Sabbath and I studied the Sabbath. So I got up in the
morning on the Bible seventh-day Sabbath, which is Saturday, and I studied all day,
the Sabbath. I looked at every scripture I could find on the Sabbath. And this was
not a one day study, this was not even a one week or one month study. This study
went on for months. When I got to the end of the study,
I never thought again that the Bible Sabbath had been Christianized and it's
now Sunday. Because the truth is the truth. I discovered that the Bible
Sabbath had never been changed, it is the seventh-day Sabbath. And why
would I make excuses for the largest most descriptive command of the 10. Have you
ever just analyzed the 10 commandments? And look at the ones that are longer,
there's more details, more specifics, more words. You know which one the longest one
is? The fourth commandment. You know what the fourth commandment is? The Sabbath
commandment. And it's the one that religion gives the greatest latitude to!
Let's just make it whatever we want to make it. We've made it into a
principle. Many of my Christian pastor friends will get up, in all sincerity, and
they'll teach that the Sabbath is a principle. In other words, the Almighty
wants you to rest. Rest is good! So pick a day any day, whatever day works for you!
And you know you destroy the prophetic picture that the Sabbath paints in the
Bible, if you move it. Because the seventh-day Sabbath speaks of the
Millennial Kingdom. 6,000 years of human labor and then you get to the Millennial
Kingdom which is a thousand years of Shalom, of peace. The scripture says, a day
to YAH is like a thousand years and a thousand years is like a day. If you move it
to Sunday or put it on Wednesday or any other day, you've completely destroyed
the prophetic picture that's in the scripture. So, I started encouraging the
congregation to observe the seventh-day Sabbath at home with their family. Now we
went for about a year, continuing to meet on Sunday.
Why? Because I learned a long time ago you can't reach the ears by lopping off
the head. You got to give people time to learn. And so, we kept meeting on Sunday
but I kept encouraging our people to observe the Sabbath, the seventh day
Sabbath, at home with their families every week. And then we started calling
our Sunday service, our post Shabbat gathering. Then we started teaching on
the feast. And what we did, we taught on the feast
and then we started celebrating the feasts. And that first year that we
celebrated the feast, I'm sure there was a huge mixture of both Bible feasts and
Roman holidays. Because I didn't go after everybody's Roman holidays before I was
able to teach them about the feasts and show them how awesome the feasts are. And
then once they discovered how awesome the feasts are, who wants to go back to
the Roman holidays? Right? And that was the transition in our body. Listen, there
were people, there were sincere people, Hebrew roots people, Messianic people and
they would come catch me after a gathering and they would chew on me
about meeting on Sunday. And they would chew on me about the dietary laws. You
know, teach these people to stop eating pork! And I'm thinking, well, there's a
reason why I'm the shepherd and you're not. You want me to teach them about the
Sabbath and the feast while I'm yanking the bacon out of their mouth? Really,
let's use a little common sense here. So, we taught the Sabbath, we taught the
feasts, we taught that the Torah had not been abolished. And then as you know,
we taught on the dietary instructions. I had a whole series called, 'To Eat or Not
To Eat'. That's the big question. Isn't that right? Hallelujah. And so... over
time, we made the transition. I needed a time in my life - I'm gonna wind this up
right here - that I could say, I made a clean break from the Roman rooted
traditions of men and religiosity in the pagan ways that we find in the
religion called Christianity. That I died to those things, and I came alive to the
truth of Torah and in all of Scripture. On Passover Day 2015, I went out to a
local lake, it was somewhere around 3 p.m. About the same time that Yeshua
gave up His spirit on the tree on Passover Day
I was going under the water. And that was the day that I could say that I made a
clean break from all of the traditions of men and the religiosity and the pagan
practices in religion. I came up out of that water a new man. And it's
important that you have a day like that. We taught in one of our Sukkot's a couple
of years ago that we have to get to the place where we we burn our ships in the
harbor. If you know a little bit about history, you know there was a conquistador that came over and one of the ships and it got over here on this side in the
new world. And they wanted to have a mutiny. And they wanted to get back on
the ship and go back. So what did this captain of this vessel order? He ordered
that the ship be burned in the harbor so there's no going back and I believe that
everybody needs to have a moment like that. Where you burn your ship in the
harbor. You recognize what's truth. You're willing to walk in the truth. Again,
you're not trying to convince Yeshua to walk with you. You want to walk
with Him. You want to find out what He loved, what He believed. What He said. What
He did and do those things. walking the culture that He walked in.
Because He's not coming back for a foreign bride, He's coming back for one who
understands His ways. And so, I had a clean break on Passover Day of 2015. And
I just want to close by saying by following the leadership and the wisdom
of the Spirit, and by loving truth above tradition and religion, this congregation
has made the transition to being lovers of Yeshua who are willing to walk in His
ways, keep the Bible Sabbath and keep the feast and the dietary instructions
and lived by the Torah. And it's not too hard to do. You know the Torah says that
that obedience to the Torah is not to hard to do. It's not too hard to do when your filled with the Spirit. And we're letting our light so shine. Yeshua said let your
light so shine that men and women would see your good works. What's he talking
about when he says good works? Good works are defined by obedience to the Torah.
Obedience to the Torah, that's your good works. You don't get to define what a
good work is. I don't either. But if we'll live a life of obedience to
the Torah then we're letting our light so shine. Men and women will see that
example of Yeshua in us, and have a desire to glorify our Father who's in
the heavens.
