Well are you ready to get into YAH's word today?
I am as well. I want you to open your bibles with me if you will the 2nd Kings, we're going to
start with chapter 22 and verse 8 in just a moment, and I've entitled this message today "Returning
to the Torah and the Appointed times of YAH". Returning to the Torah and the appointed times
of YAH. It is a tremendous honor and blessing for me to be a part of what Abba YAH is doing by
His Spirit in the earth today and if you are sensitive to the Spirit, you are able to
observe an interesting dynamic that's taking place not just here in the Dallas-Fort Worth
Metroplex or not just here in the United States but worldwide and that is the Spirit of Abba YAH,
speaking to the hearts of people. They're coming out of Egypt, they're coming out of the slavery
of sin but they're also coming out of Babylon. They're coming out of the slavery to religion
religion that's all mixed up religion that has all types of influence of of paganism and and
Roman holidays and pagan ways and all of that and people are beginning to realize that there is
a pure form of worship that's defined by the Torah and that is the form of worship that Abba YAH
wants His children to worship Him with and so we're a part of that, you are a part of that and
it may be a dynamic that's taking place in your life and at times it may have felt like you
were all alone in it but I want to encourage you - you are not alone in this. This is a movement
of Abba YAH by His Spirit across this world. This is a movement of the bride preparing herself
for the coming of the bridegroom and I say that because I know this to be a fact and you do
as well. He's not coming back for a foreign bride. He's not going to marry a bride who
is foreign to His ways - He said follow me, He didn't say I will follow you, you just tell
me what I need to do, He said you follow me, you follow me in my ways. So He obeyed the Torah
perfectly and He told His disciples, His followers do it my way, follow in my footsteps, follow my
example and so we have been duped in a lot of ways over the past 2000 years as it relates to religion
and the ways of man and the traditions of men and there's been a lot of false religion, there's
been a lot of paganism mixed in people who have sincere hearts but you can be sincere and
sincerely deceived and what's wonderful is that we're not just pounding away at people who
are in religion, we're shining our lights. Yeshua said, let your light so shine that men
and women would see your good works. What are your good works? Obedience to the Torah. The Torah
defines what good work is, we don't. Religion does what's right in it's own eyes. Religion is happy
to do something that's convenient and something that's comfortable, something that goes along
with culture that doesn't challenge culture. How many of you know when you decided that
you were going to walk with Yeshua in His Torah lifestyle you had to make a commitment
that you were going to go contrary to culture, that you're not here to be shaped by
culture, you're here to shape culture? So we let our light so shine, our obedience to
the Torah is letting our light shine because the scripture says that the command
is a lamp and the Torah is light so we let our light, the light of obedience to the
Torah, shine so that men and women would see our good works as defined by Torah and have a desire
to show esteem great esteem to our heavenly Father. Hallelujah. And so your obedience is
not just - people say, well you know what, you're teaching people to obey the bible, you
know what are you just making them law-keepers. You know what we say? If you're not a law- keeper
what are you a law-breaker. That's right. We know that Yeshua kept the Torah perfectly
and said follow me, He's the Righteous One. We also know there's one called the anti-messiah
who is the lawless one. There's two camps I see, which camp do you want to be in? The camp of
obedience or the camp of disobedience? So it makes sense it is no doubt the mystery of lawlessness
in effect that we have a whole system of religion that teaches people to be lawless in the
Name of the one who led a perfectly lawful life, the one who said follow me. And yet,
religion says don't do that, don't obey the bible, don't obey the Torah, Yeshua came to
abolish the Torah, that's utter nonsense. He came to equip us, to be capable ,
to be able to obey the Torah because Abba YAH promised Avraham that
through Avraham and his Seed, the Mashiach, all the nations
of the world would be blessed and what is the greatest blessing of them
all? It's to be able to receive the Spirit of Abba YAH, the indwelling Set-apart Spirit. If you
have the Set-apart Spirit, your bible may say holy, holy means set apart, if you have the Set-apart Spirit living in you what's
going to happen to you? Not a trick question. You're going to be set-apart. What sets you apart?
Your desire to and the power to obey the bible. That's what sets you apart, the fact that you
obey the bible. When you started obeying the bible did it make you popular with all your
family? Did it make you popular with all your friends? Did they give you the best seat in the
Sunday church when you started obeying the bible? No, it sets you apart. It'll set you apart
from your family but let your light shine. You know I had that issue with my family and it's
been a number of years of dealing with that but fortunately, now almost all my children work in
the ministry. Hallelujah. I'm glad I didn't give up. So don't give up. I know that's going to encourage
somebody here that's going through it right now. It'll set you apart from
friends, it'll set you apart from your "church", that congregation
that you used to fellowship with. And so I'm just thankful for what I'm seeing
because what I'm seeing is very encouraging and as Brandon mentioned, Abba YAH has blessed us
to be on the cutting edge of this message going out worldwide and we're seeing thousands of people.
You know, we can speak to a congregation of 50, 60, 100 people record these messages send them
out around the world and within a matter of hours ten-thousand viewers will hear the message - well
that's like having a congregation of ten- thousand and fifty. That's the wonders of technology. So
let me get to the scriptures, but I wanted you to see today I'm going to share two examples of
when people return to the Torah, they also return to the appointed times of YAH. One of the very
first things that happened when people start getting the truth, when they start seeing the light
is they start observing the weekly Sabbath and the weekly Sabbath is the first festival or feast
mentioned in Leviticus 23. It's a weekly feast and then once they start observing the weekly
Sabbath, then they start observing the annual Sabbath, the High Sabbath, the feasts. We asked last
night and we asked in our Yom Teruah broadcast and our Yom Kippurim broadcast how many of you are
celebrating this feast for the very first time - and this is what encourages me because there were
a few. There were many, many, many, many people. Now how many of you have been in this long enough to
know that maybe way back when you started out it didn't seem like there were very many but I
want you to know there are many coming into this truth now because it is a work of Abba YAH by
His Spirit worldwide. Many people are beginning to celebrate the feasts, it's one of the first
things that happens when the light is turned on in the heart of someone who's seeking the truth.
So go with me to 2nd Kings chapter 22, we're going to start with verse 8 and it says, "And the Hilkiah high priest said to Shaphan the scribe, "I have found the book of the Torah in the house of
YAH." And Hilkiah gave the book to Shaphan and he read it." Now this is a remarkable statement
to me because in that day, they had a temple and in that day, they had a priesthood and
in that day, they were offering sacrifices and in that day, the temple was busy with all sorts
of religious activity, stuff was going on all the time and you would have thought that it was based
on the Torah but somehow they lost the Torah in the house of YAH. They lost track of the
Torah and all of that religious busyness had nothing really to do with the Torah because we're
going to discover here in a moment that they had infused their religious activity with all sorts
of abominations and worship of false deities and paganism and you know, I'm not here, we don't
pound away at people but we do pound away it at bad doctrine, false doctrine and dynamics that
need to be pointed out. Now a lot of times when we see these dynamics in the scripture
in what's called the "Old Testament", you know when you see these examples people in religion
today will get an attitude about those people in those days and say, "Can you believe that?" and
not even see they're doing the exact same thing. What do we see in religion today? We see people
oftentimes who are sincere and they have what I call the sliver mentality, they're living out
of that little sliver in the back of the book but the problem is, if you don't have a good solid
foundation in the Torah when you read those verses in the writings of the emissaries you come across
something that you don't understand, what do you do? You end up making stuff up and that's what they've
done, and so if you don't have a foundation in the Torah you begin to include a lot of stuff,
you start doing what's right in your own eyes, you start adding cultural things, traditions of
men. See, people want to get onto the Yehudim and say, look at all those traditions, they have
all those traditions, they should have been doing those traditions, they should be following
the commandments of YAH, and Yeshua got onto them about all those traditions. Well I want
to say, well what about all your traditions? What about all the traditions of religion? See,
that's what's going on in this movement of Abba YAH by His Spirit is that we're coming to knowledge
of the truth and and we are shaking off all of the heavy burdens hard to bear, the traditions of
men, the paganism of religion that's been added over millennia, we're getting rid of that stuff
and you know, I used to think it takes about five years - you know, when I was on that track, about
five years, it takes about five years to get all that stuff out of you because you can be sincere
and wanting to shake all that stuff off but you have a tendency to carry some of that stuff around
with you for a while and now that I've been in it a little bit longer than five years, I've extended
that out to about 10 years. It takes about 10 years because just when you think you get it
all cleaned up then something pops up, you thought where did that come from? Well you were
conditioned by religion all the early part of your life until you came to the truth and you got to
root that stuff out. We have to root that stuff out but this is the high priest, folks,
and the king, the sovereign, Josiah, the way we say in
English, he gave a directive to make some changes to do some work in the house
of YAH and so they're there with carpenters and stone masons and all that, what are they doing?
They're going through the rooms and they're dusting off stuff and they're making
plans to do this and that with this area of of the temple the Set-apart Place and the high
priest comes across a scroll, he finds the Torah. How amazing is that? How can you have all that
religion going on day in and day out and you think you're right? You think you're doing what's right
in the eyes of Abba YAH and yet, you lost the Torah. You lost the Word of the living EL. How
do you know what you're doing is right? You think it is because of cultural acceptance.
You think it's right and so I think it's amazing that the high priest found the Torah. Where
did he find it? He found it in the house. When people who are in modern religion
start waking up, what do they find? They find the Torah, where do they find it?
In their bibles! It's been there all along and it's amazing when you start saying, let's obey
the bible - don't tell me to obey the bible why that's been abolished - well that's convenient isn't
it? To say it's been abolished. The Torah was given to give people what? Life and blessing. You don't
want life and blessing? What do you want? Religion? What's your religion going to provide for you? And so the attitude needs to change but
it is changing, it is changing. So the high priest found the Torah and gave the Torah to
Shaphan and the scribe and he read it. That was a smart move, and then look at verse 10. "And Shaphan the
scribe informed the sovereign, went to the king, saying, Hilkiah the priest has given me a book,""
He's trying to ease him into it, you know he's not saying this is
the word of the living EL. Yeah, yeah he found a book and I read it and
I think you ought to read read it sovereign. "and Shaphan read it before the sovereign and
it came to be when the sovereign heard the words of the book of the Torah that he
tore his garments." It brought conviction. It brought conviction. He rent his
heart, he even rent his garments. It changed him, and you know what? It had the same
impact on me when Yeshua said, man shall not live by bread alone but by every word that proceeds out
of the mouth of YAH, every word. Now that was before the writings of the emissaries so every word
means all of the original Hebrew scriptures. Do you think Yeshua is going to come up with a
new revelation and you know write it in a scroll and drop it on the earth and somebody's going to
find it and say oh, we have a letter from Yeshua and Yeshua is letting us know that now that
you know He's died and buried and raised and ascended to the Father, now that He's there then
you don't really have to live by every word that proceeds from the mouth of YAH, just that little
sliver in the back of the book? By the way, the sliver in the back of the book, that's spiritual
commentary on what's already been written, folks. That's nothing new. People will read
Sha'ul's writings like the book of Romans and they'll say Sha'ul use the
book of Romans 2 abolish the Torah and they have no clue how many times Sha'ul,
that's the Apostle Paul, actually uses the Torah , quotes the Torah, quotes the Tanakh. In every
teaching of, every teaching he uses the Torah or some dynamic that he has found in the Tanakh
as a basis even when he taught salvation by favor through belief, did you know he quoted the Torah? He
used the Torah as a foundation for that teaching so for Sha'ul to abolish the Torah what's he doing?
Abolishing the very foundation, the authority that he has as a teacher of the Word of Elohim. He
didn't do it, Yeshua didn't do it none of the emissaries, did it? It's not abolished today,
that is the mystery of lawlessness. Think about it, really think about it. That itself is the mystery
of lawlessness, that a religion and people in that religion who think they're right, who think they're
pleasing the Master, they're promoting lawlessness. They're teaching people to be disobedient. Think about it, are they sincere?
Many of them are very sincere. They think, you're wrong for being obedient. How twisted is that? How perverted is that? It says
the great falling away must come first and then the man of lawlessness, the anti-messiah, will be revealed. What do you think
that's going to look like? It's going to look very religious, it's
going to look very right in the eyes of most because in religion they're
doing what's right in their own eyes. We already see it. Denominations, whole
denominations are being split over cultural, moral, social issues. Whole denominations
split over whether or not they should embrace homosexuality, whether or not they ought to
ordain homosexual priests and ministers, the whole issue of abortion is dividing what's
supposed to be the congregation of belief and what's the dividing line? Whether we
obey the bible or we don't whether we obey the bible or we go along with culture. And for many
denominations they're going along with culture and what is that? The great falling away. Some
people teach that's talking about the rapture. We know about Yeshua coming to gather up His
followers, it doesn't say anything about going off to heaven and hanging out there while trouble
happens on the earth and then He comes back and gets us. It says, when we're gathered to Him, we're
going to meet Him in the clouds and what? So shall we always be with the Master. Whatever He's
going to do we're going to do with Him. We're going to be with Him. He's going to Yerushalayim,
He's going to destroy the enemies of Elohim and and the people of Elohim and He's going to set
up His Kingdom. We're going to be with Him. Why are you wanting an easy way out of something? He's
going to protect you, He's going to keep you safe during the times of Jacob's trouble, during the
tribulation period. You say, well you know we're not designated for His wrath. I believe that, I
agree with you, but we also have the the wrath of the evil one, the devil. He's going to be doing
some stuff here too, he's going to be attacking Elohim's people but we have the victory,
don't we? They overcame him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony
and they lived like they weren't concerned about even losing their lives. You think we're going
to get there? The bride is making herself ready, isn't that right? We're going to get there.
Hallelujah. And so the great falling away is this falling away of people who say
they believe they've lost the Torah, they haven't bothered to look in their own bible
to find it, they have been deceived by religion that it's abolished, they want to criticize people
who want to be obedient. Have you ever thought about this, think about the mystery of lawlessnes.
This is so perverted and so twisted. The mystery of lawlessness. This is
what has been working behind the scenes - that you can come to a place
where you want to be obedient and they think you're in a cult, that being obedient is what makes up
being in a cult, is that not twisted? Do you have you ever seen that in the
scripture anywhere, that people who obeyed Elohim that Elohim said, oh don't obey
me, if you do that you're going to be in a cult - but isn't that what religion says today? I think about that a lot i think
about the mystery of lawlessness and how the deception is going to take place and
it's going to twist people's minds so much so that when you do right they think you're doing wrong.
They're going to call bittersweet and sweet bitter evil good and good evil. It's
going to be completely backwards, that's the mystery of lawlessness and that's
what's going to fuel this great falling away before the anti-messiah is revealed. He is
the lawless one and he's going to rise up in an environment that's safe for him to
operate in and that's an environment of lawlessness to where the people who want to
obey are the bad guys, they're the ones to be persecuted, they're the ones who have crazy beliefs
that go beyond the framework of culture. Aren't you glad we have Abba YAH fighting our battles for
us? Hallelujah. All right. Let's go to chapter 23 of 2nd Kings the second verse. "And the sovereign
went up to the house of YAH with all the men of Yehudah and all the inhabitants of Yerushalayim
with him," This is after the Torah was read to him. He was convicted, he tore his garments he
rent his heart, he was ready to make a change. "So he went up to the house of YAH with all
the men of Yehudah and all the inhabitants of Yerushalayim with him and the priests and the
prophets and all the people both small and great and he read in their hearing," This is a good
sovereign, he's actually reading the Torah to them. "and he read in their hearing all the words of the
book of the covenant which had been found in the house of YAH and the sovereign stood by the column
and made a covenant before YAH to follow YAH and to guard His commands and His witnesses and
His laws with all his heart and with all his being to establish the words of this
covenant that were written in this book." So he made a covenant, he made a pact before Abba YAH
with all the people that he would follow YAH. We're going to find out why he did that when he
starts making reforms, when he starts purging the house of YAH and all the stuff that was in it, how
did you get all that stuff in there? How did you get all that paganism in there? How did you have
all that worship of false deities in the Set- apart Place? How did that happen? It happened because
you let religion run wild and you lost the Torah. You lost the foundation of all scripture, you
lost the very commandments of Elohim. So he made this covenant to follow YAH, to guard His commands
and His witnesses and His laws with all his heart and all his being to establish the words
of this covenant that were written in this book - and isn't that what we did when we came to
the truth? I mean, we were just determined we were going to follow YAH, we were going to walk in
Yeshua's Torah lifestyle no matter who it joined us together with or separated us from, isn't that
right? We were going to live out this lifestyle even if we were ostracized, even if we were driven
out of our Sunday church, even if we lost friends - same type of dynamic here. A covenant
was made to obey YAH no matter what. "and all the people stood to the covenant," In
other words, they said yes and amen. "then the sovereign commanded Hilkiah, the high
priest and the priest of the second order and the door-keepers to bring out of the
Hekal, the temple, of YAH all the objects that were made for Ba'al," What are
objects made for all doing in the house of YAH? Why are they there? You lost the Torah.
It was in the house the whole time. You didn't even bother to look for it, you lost it.
So why is religion today so filled with pagan ways? Why do we celebrate Easter
bunnies and painted eggs on easter? Why do we get so involved in all these
fertility practices on Easter? Why do we drag in a tree at Christmas time and decorate
it in the same way the prophet said don't go cut a tree out of the forest and drag
it into your house and decorate it with gold and silver. If you go to India today and I've been
all over India, I've been over a lot of Asia, you'll drive down the street going to wherever
you're going to be ministering, I've done this many times and there'll be this huge tree that looks
like it's got to be well over 100 years old right on the side of the road decorated with gold and
silver, and red yarn, and gold yarn, and blue yarn and what's underneath it? Gifts. All kinds of gifts
and they're offering up gifts to this false deity that they believe lives in this tree. It's tree
worship. How did tree worship get into Christmas? When they say it's supposed to be a
celebration of the birth of Yeshua how come they're dragging a tree in the house? Now when I say that I'm not pointing a
finger at everybody else and not having to look at myself, I did that for years. Even came up with
all kinds of reasons why a tree was a good thing. You know? Abba YAH gives us gifts, we give
each other gifts, it's a good thing. Yeshua died on a tree, it's a good thing. You know?
You let your imagination run, you're gonna think of all kinds of reasons why you ought to drag a tree
in, decorate it with silver and gold and ribbons and all that and put a bunch of gifts under
it - that's what happens when you lose the Torah. That's what religion will do without
the foundation, it starts making stuff up. Now I believe I'm preaching
to people that would agree with everything I just got through
saying, but if not, bless your heart. We're coming out of all that stuff, a pure
form of worship as defined by the Torah. Let me ask you this, did Yeshua ever
engage with Easter bunnies and Easter baskets and painted eggs? Did He ever do that?
Then why are you doing it? Are you following Him when you do that? Did He ever go out into
the forest and cut down a tree and drag it into the house and decorate it with gold and silver and
ribbons and put presents under, did He ever do that? Then why are you doing it something happened
there was a departure from the Torah? So the sovereign made this covenant.
And then he told the priests, the high priest and the priest of
the second order, the door-keepers to bring out of the Hekal of YAH all the objects
that were made for Ba'al and for Asherah and for all the hosts of the heavens," So you had
Ba'al worship, you had Asherah worship, you had sun, moon, stars worship in the Set-apart Place,
why? They lost the Torah. "and he burned them outside Jerusalem in the fields of Kidron and took
their ashes to Beyth El. And he put down the black- robed priests they had a whole order of priests
whom the sovereigns of Yehudah had appointed to burn incense on the high places in the
cities of Yehudah and in the places all around Yerushalayim," We're talking about incense
offered to false deities, the high places. Abba YAH always despised those high places. You would see in a bit
written in the Kings and the chronicles about about a king and and it would say some good
things about this king and you're thinking oh with all the bad news about all these bad kings
a little bit of good news about a good king is nice - you get to the very end of all the good news
about this particular king who's doing it right and what's the last sentence in the biography
but he did not tear down the high places. So you know Abba took offense
to that, you can be way good and still allow a little bit of compromise in and
there's a big "but" at the end of your biography. I don't want that. I want Him to say good things
and I want Him to end with something good not "but" he kept on with the Easter
eggs, he kept on with the Christmas tree, he kept on with the Roman holidays. All right so, this is talking about doing
away with this black-robed priesthood and these priests were burning
incense on the high places and burned incense to Ba'al and to the sun
and to the moon and to the constellations and to all the hosts of the heavens and he brought
out the Asherah from the house of YAH to the Wadi Kidron outside Jerusalem and burned it at the Wadi Kidron and ground it to ashes and threw its ashes on the burial sites of the sons of the people and
broke down the houses of the male cult prostitutes," You say, that could never happen in modern
religion. Oh, just give it a little time, just give it a little time. Religion is
ordaining priests who carry on abominations and once that's made okay in the eyes of
culture and of course homosexuality has been sanctioned by even the United States government,
homosexual marriage. You say, well this offends me brother. Well, then good, you need to hear this
message. You need to know the truth. What do you think is next? You think they're going to just
stop with homosexuality? Where are they going next? You don't think religion over time
isn't going to adopt all these things? We're talking about male cult prostitutes,
notice, that were in the house of YAH. The great falling away, Sha'ul knew about it. Where the women wove tapestries for the Asherah
and he, the king, brought all the priests from the cities of Yehudah and defiled the high
places where the priests had burned incense from Geba to Be'ersheba, and broke
down the high places at the gates which are at the entrance of the gate of Yehoshua
the governor of the city which were to the left of the city gate." And I could go on and on, there's
a whole lot there. You should read it over. He defiled Topheth, which is in the valley
of the Son of Hinnom," And he stopped all this offering of the children to this false deity
called Molech. They were burning their newborns. You say, well that could never happen
now, you haven't been paying attention. I don't watch television. I got rid of my tv
a long time ago, but I do pick up a little news every now and then - have you noticed
what's been going on in this country lately? You don't think these things are possible? And how many children are we offering
up to Molech every year in this country? We may not be burning them on an altar but they
are being murdered. The place that should be the safest for an unborn child is the mother's womb
and yet, you're fortunate if you make it out alive. All right. So you can
read through all of that some tremendous reforms by the sovereign but notice, when the people come
back to Torah. Look at verse 21, when the people come back to Torah,
when they begin to see the light of Torah what happens? It says, "And the sovereign
commanded all the people saying prepare the Pesah to YAH your Elohim," The Passover. So one of the
first things that happens when you when you come to Torah is you want to celebrate the
Passover, you want to celebrate the feasts. You don't know everything, I didn't know
everything. I still don't know everything. But one of the first things that
happened when the light comes on is that you want to start keeping the Sabbath, you
know what I did when I first thought - oh, I might have had this wrong about the Sabbath -
I took the Sabbath to study the Sabbath and I got up in the morning, I started studying
every verse in the bible about the Sabbath and I was so interested in knowing the truth
about the Sabbath that I went all day studying the scripture and when the sun went down, I felt
like that was the shortest time I'd ever spent and it wasn't just a week-long study, it was
for several months I studied the Sabbath and then I realized after months of studying
the Sabbath, on the Sabbath, I was already keeping the Sabbath by studying the Sabbath and I just
continued on observing the Sabbath. It's one of the things that happens early on, the Sabbath and
the feasts. So they go through this reform and this purging of the temple and the land
and the first thing they want to do is prepare the Passover to YAH your Elohim. As it is written in
this book of the covenant, that's verse 21, verse 22. "For such a Pesah had not been prepared since
the days of the rulers who ruled Israel nor in all the days of the sovereigns of
Israel and the sovereigns of Yehudah but in the 18th year of sovereign Yoshiyahu this Pesah, this
Passover, was prepared before YAH in Yerushalayim." And they had this wonderful feast, it was
greater than any Passover, any previous Passover and they did it in such purity of heart. "and
also," Verse 24 "Yoshiyahu put away those who consulted mediums," We have a lot of that these
days and spiritists. "and the household mighty ones and the idols," Got rid of the idolatry. "and all
the abominations that were seen in the land of Yehudah and in Yerushalayim in order to establish
the words of the Torah," Doing it to establish the Torah. "which were written in the book that Hilkiah the priest found in the house of YAH," Finding the book starts a whole lot of wonderful things
happening in a person's life, isn't that right? "and before him there was no sovereign like him,
Yoshiyahu, who turned back to YAH with all his heart and with all his being and with all his might,"
isn't that what we say when we quote the Shema? "according to all the Torah of Mosheh and after
him none rose up like him." Not until Yeshua, there was none like him. It goes on to say, "However YAH
did not turn from the fierceness of His great wrath with which His wrath burned
against Yehudah because of all the provocations with which Menashsheh had provoked Him. YAH said,
even Yehudah I shall remove from my presence as I have removed Israel and I shall reject the
city Yerushalayim which I have chosen and the house which I said my name is there." It says, the
rest of the acts of Yoshiyahu you can find written in the book of the annals of the sovereigns
of Yehudah. So YAH being true to His word, He throws Yehudah out of the
land too, He had sent Israel away and He sends Yehudah off to Babylon they're there
for 70 years and then they're allowed to return. And I wanted just to take a moment, go with me
over to Nehemiah chapter eight, we'll pick up with verse one. We're just going to read a few
verses here, Nehemiah chapter eight beginning with verse one. "And when the seventh new moon came,"
What is the seventh new moon? The seventh month. "the children of Israel were in their cities,"
They had returned to the land. "and all the people gathered together as one man in the open space
that was in front of the watergate. And they spoke to Ezra the scribe to bring the book of the Torah
of Mosheh," They wanted to get back to the Torah. They had been in Babylon, they'd been in
exile and they wanted to get back to the Torah, they wanted to live by the Torah. It was
another returning to the Torah, how about that? "And they spoke to Ezra the scribe to bring the
book of the Torah of Mosheh which YAH had commanded Israel and Ezra the priest brought the Torah
before the assembly of both men and women and all who could hear with understanding," Children
that were who were old enough to understand. "on the first day of the seventh new moon." What
day is that? Yeah, Yom Teruah. It's a feast day. Yom being, the day of. Teruah, being soundings.
It's a rehearsal of Yeshua's second coming and so they're asking for the
Torah to be read on Yom Teruah. "And he read from it in the open space in front
of the water gate from morning until midday before the men and women and
those who could understand. And the ears of all the people listened
to the book of the Torah." Look at verse 5. "And Ezra opened the book and the sight of all
the people for he was above all the people," He was up on a platform. "and when he opened it,"
This is important. "all the people stood up." A reverence of respect of the Torah, we need to get
back to our reverence and a respect of the Torah because religion has diminished it and abolished
it. In the days that we're living in, it's time for us to get back to respecting it. We rise, we stand, we hear, we listen, we pay attention. It is Abba YAH speaking
to us through His set-apart written Word. "And Ezra blessed YAH the great Elohim then all the
people answered amen, while lifting up their hands and they bowed their heads and worshipped
YAH with faces to the ground. And they read in the book of the Torah of Elohim translating to give
the sins." In other words, they were teaching it. "And caused them to understand the reading and
Nehemiah who was the governor and Ezra the priest, the scribe, the Lewites, who taught
the people said to all the people, "This day is set-apart to YAH your Elohim." Because it's a feast day, it's a high Sabbath, it's Yom Teruah. ""Do not mourn or weep," For all the people wept
when they heard the words of the Torah, they were convicted, they were cut to the heart
the same way that sovereign Yoshiyahu was. He rent his garments, that's a sign of
rending your heart of teshuvah, turning back to the Master in obedience and the people were
mourning and weeping because of the words they were hearing and because they knew the conviction
that was so strong in their heart concerning how they had disobeyed and they had been sent
away into exile for 70 years because of their disobedience. Show me one verse in the bible
that says that disobedience produces blessing. Show me one verse in the bible that
says that obedience produces curses. You won't find it. I'll tell you in
advance, if you do the study, it's not there. So don't listen to religion, it's
part of the mystery of lawlessness when religion tells you that being obedient
is part of the curse. If you start obeying the Torah then you're under the curse of the
Torah, they don't even know what they're saying. The curse of the Torah is the curse
that comes on you when you disobey the Torah. "For all the people wept when they heard the
words of the Torah. Then he said to them, "Go, eat the fat, drink the sweet and send portions to
those for whom none is prepared for this day is set apart to our Master." It's set apart because
it's a a feast day of YAH. "Do not be sad for the joy of YAH is your strength and the Lewites
were silencing all the people saying, "Hush for the day is set apart, do not be sad," and all the people
went to eat and to drink and to send portions and to make a great rejoicing because they
understood the words that were made known to them. And on the second day, the heads of the fathers'
houses of all the people with the priests and the Lewites were gathered to Ezra the scribe in order to
study the words of the Torah." So the first day they just listened to it, now they want to study it. They
want to go deeper, they want to go deeper. Verse 14 "And they found written in the Torah which YAH had
commanded by Mosheh that the children of Israel should dwell in booths," So you come back to the
Torah and what's one of the first things that happens to you, you want to keep the Sabbath
and you want to start keeping the feasts and across the board. I'm sure that there are
other ways that it happens for people, but that was my experience. I want to keep the Sabbath
and I want to start keeping the feasts. All right. Verse 14 "And they found written in the
Torah which YAH had commanded by Mosheh that the children of Israel should dwell
in booths in the festival of the seventh new moon," That's the feast of Sukkot. "and that
they should announce and proclaim in all their cities and in Jerusalem saying, "Go out to the
mountain and bring olive branches branches of oil trees and myrtle branches and palm branches
and branches of leafy trees to make booths as it is written."" Well here in Texas, we're not
finding olive branches too often and some of these other branches are not available, so you know we're
getting crepe myrtle branches and oak branches and leafy trees for sure, right? "So the people went
out and brought them and made themselves booths each one on the roof of his house and in their
courtyards and in the courtyards of the House of Elohim and in the open spaces of the watergate and
in the open space of the gate of Ephrayim. And the entire assembly of those who had come back from
the captivity made booths that sat under the booths for since the days of Yeshua, Son of Nun," That's
Joshua. "until that day the children of Israel had not done so." So they hadn't kept the feast of
Sukkot from the time of Joshua until that day and it took exile for 70 years to get their
attention to do what? Get back to the Torah and when they got back to the Torah then their hearts
swelled with a desire to keep the feast of YAH and they went out and they did what the
commandments say and they sat in their booths and it says that from the
time of Joshua until that day they had not kept Sukkot but they were
now and there was very great rejoicing. That's what happens when you obey, there's very
great rejoicing. I didn't get up this morning and go, oh man, I have to obey the bible
today. My joy comes when I obey the bible, is that true for you? "And day by day from the
first day until the last day, he read from the book of the Torah of Elohim and they performed
the festival seven days and on the eighth day there was an assembly according to the right-ruling." We're part of a movement, not of man but of Abba YAH's Spirit. It's something He's
doing in the earth today. We may be few here today, although this is a wonderful group of
people, but by technology we speak to thousands and we're seeing thousands with open
ears and opened eyes and soft hearts who are seeing the light of Torah, not having
to, you know, twist their arms and try to argue over the whole thing but just wanting to
know the truth and they're coming out of religion, they're coming out of Babylon. Some of them never
had any religion, they're coming out of Egypt. But they want the truth and they're
receiving the power of Abba YAH's Spirit to be able to move forward even though they're
ostracized by their families, by their friends, by their original Sunday congregations and
just like we saw with Yoshiyahu and Nehemiah, they make covenants to follow YAH in His ways
and when they do that, they have great rejoicing and they walk in His blessing. It is the bride
preparing herself. You are apart of that movement. Now the bride is preparing herself and when Yeshua
comes for His bride, He's not coming back for a foreign bride. He's not coming back for those who
are walking in pagan ways. You don't get to dress yourself in pure white linen if you are defiled
in pagan ways and if you want to fight, and some do, they want to fight to protect their tree worship,
they want to fight to protect their Easter bunnies and their painted eggs, and they will resist you
and they'll call you a law-keeper. You're obedient to the bible. We just keep letting our light shine
so that men and women would see our good works. You don't get to decide what good works are, neither do
I. What are your good works? Obedience to the Torah. They see you obeying the Torah, they see you
walking in blessing, they see you rejoicing, filled with joy, and that makes them want to
esteem greatly your Father who's in the heavenlies.
