Gifts from YHWH

The Finding Emet radio program aims to help people understand and live the truth of the Bible from a Hebrew perspective. The program features the teaching ministry of Brother Daniel Rendleman of Emet Ministries. The website, www.emetministries.com, offers additional audio lessons, teaching articles, a free online Bible search program, and the option to submit prayer requests. CD copies of teachings are available for free by request. The program discusses the importance of marriage and shares a story about a couple who have been married for 48 years. The Feast of Pentecost, also known as Shavuot, is compared to a wedding ceremony, and it is referred to as the anniversary of the giving of the Torah. The Torah is described as a gift from Yahweh and not just a collection of laws. Hello, and welcome to the Finding Emet radio program. Emet is the Hebrew word for truth. This program will help you understand and live the truth of the Bible from a Hebrew perspective. The Finding Emet radio program features the teaching ministry of Brother Daniel Rendleman of Emet Ministries. Prepare your heart to receive the Emet, the truth of the scriptures. More audio lessons and teaching articles are available at the www.emetministries.com website. Please visit our site to find all things spiritual, including a free online Bible search program, or submit your prayer request. That's www.emetministries.com or www.findemet.com. CD copies of this teaching are available for free by submitting a request at the website. Let's welcome our teacher, Daniel Rendleman, as he helps us find the Emet. Well, shalom everybody. Boy, it's great to be here, and thank you for those kind words. I'll pay you later. My beautiful wife back there, she survived and has made it. We have five children, Eenie, Meenie, Minie, Moe, and No-Moe. That's their names. Twelve years we've been married, together 15 years. It's been great. It's been really great, so I'll praise Yahweh for my beautiful wife. When we got married, we decided we're going to make it real simple. Because you don't want to get into issues. I've got some friends here tonight, and they're getting married, what, next year? Is that right? Donna and Jeffrey? Alright, I want to give you some advice, because here's what we did. We said that I would make all the major decisions, and she would make all the minor decisions. That's a good idea, isn't it? Wouldn't you agree? We've been married in 12 years, and we've never needed to make a major decision. Not a single one! I don't get it, but that's kind of how that goes. We're looking forward, though, to many more years. Right, April? Yes. I hope so. As long as I keep that in mind, we'll make it. I ran into a couple weeks ago at my job, and they were just precious. I was at a food court. I go around to different stores and towns, and they were at a food court over in Sumter Mall. They were just so sweet, and I just went over and spoke to them. I said, you know, your love is just precious. I said, this is so nice. We began talking, and the whole time, the older man just kept calling his wife Honey and Sweetie and Pumpkin. It was just really nice, because I get called other names. I mean, no, no, no. Honey and Sweetie and Pumpkin and all of that. I just thought it was so nice. The woman got up and took the tray. You know how you do at the mall. You take the tray. She went to take the tray, and I said, let me ask you. You've been married how long? He said, 48 years. That's amazing. You know, I'm not 48, you know, as you can tell. But I said, how in the world is it that after 48 years you've been married, you probably knew each other for 50 or 55, you still call her Honey and Sweetie and Pumpkin? So great. He just kind of shrugged his head, and he said, well, he looked away. He looked hesitant to tell me. He said, I forgot her name 10 years ago. I don't know. So Honey, you know what's going on, right? Whew. It's a special time, right? Marriage is a good thing. Right? Marriage is a good thing. It's a wonderful thing. And as we come together tonight, Shavuot, or Feast of Pentecost, Feast of Weeks, whatever you want to call it, it's this time of celebrating what others are doing. Can I use this? Oh, okay. It's mobile. So anyway, we celebrate what Abba has done, and the rabbis tell us that it's like a wedding ceremony. That's what Shavuot is like. It's like a wedding ceremony, and I think there are some correlations we'll look at. But it's called the Feast of Weeks, as you've heard Brother Craig and Rabbi Joe talk about what that is. It's one of the seven festivals, Leviticus 23, that we read about. So if you're wondering why in the world is he waving the bread and the sheaves and all that kind of stuff, go to Leviticus 23, read it yourself, because I'm not going to do it for you. Okay? We can read, we can learn, and we can do that. So it's been seven weeks since Passover, and it's a special time. So while I'm talking tonight, I'm going to use the name Yahweh, as we're familiar with. If not, then go read, what is it, Bruce Almighty, and you see Yahoo or something like that. Actually, the name, if you're reading your Bible and it's in King James Version, L-O-R-D, all capital letters. The translators are telling you it's that sacred tetragrammaton, that four-lettered Hebrew name, Yahweh. You can also use Yeshua or Yahoshua, which is the name of the Savior, because He wasn't called Jesus 2,000 years ago. Sorry, because English was not around, nor was Southern, that's what I speak. I may need a translator later, but English was not around. So if He wasn't called Jesus, then I like to call Him by His true name, if that's all right with you. You might have heard of Mel Gibson's movie, The Passion of the Christ. So if you're wondering who I'm talking about, that's who it is. That make sense? We're good? I think it's important to use and recognize that. As we use it, we can explain to people about the Hebrew Roots Movement and what we're doing. But this feast day has been called something called Matan HaTorah. Say that with me, Matan? Matan HaTorah. Now, Matan is a good word. It means gift or giving. Who likes to receive gifts? Show of hands. You liar in the back row. Come on, we all like to receive gifts, don't we? Thank you. Thank you very much. We all like to receive gifts. I don't know about you, but spiritual gifts are really good too. And I've been told that my spiritual gift is reception. That people like to give me things. That's okay. I'll take it. I'll take it. There's better give than receive, right? So Matan HaTorah would be the giving of what? HaTorah. HaTorah. Ha is a word for the. A prefix. It's usually just the Hebrew letter He. So you have Yeshua HaMoshiach. Ha is for the. So Matan HaTorah, the giving of the Torah. So it's recognized that this is the time. And if you go to Leviticus 19, you can see this. I said Leviticus, didn't I? Exodus 19. And in Exodus 19, it kind of gives us an idea. It says, verse 1, it says, In the third month, when the children of Israel were gone forth out of the land of Egypt. And I'm talking about the third month of March, but the third month when they left Egypt. So when did they leave Egypt? That would be Aviv, right? We've heard it called Nisan. That was the first month. So it's the third month. So that means there's got to be about, what, 40, 50 days. Do you follow me? And if you read in Exodus 19, you will see that something very special happened here. Yahweh said, prepare for the third day because I'm going to give you Torah. I'm going to give you instructions. I'm going to give you life. Get ready. And then in chapter 20, what do we see? The 10 words known as the 10 commandments. Not the 10 suggestions. The 10 commandments, right? We have an 11th commandment in our home. Thou shalt not whine. That is important. But Yahweh gave the 10 commandments as we read in Exodus chapter 20. And you begin to see that in Exodus chapter 19 and go through there. So we see that this happened when? The third month. In the third month this was given. Now, the rabbis have said this is like a wedding ceremony. I'm not going to go into all the details there. But you know what's great about weddings? Okay. What's great about weddings? Everything. Celebration. Honeymoon. Thank you, brother. Dancing. Singing. You know what I like about it? The anniversary. Isn't that nice? Every year you get to go back around and say, wow. We've been married, as I said, 12 years. And that's what's so great about anniversary. So if the giving of Torah was like a wedding ceremony, what would that make tonight? The anniversary. So turn to your neighbor and say, happy anniversary. Happy anniversary. All right. Happy anniversary. Because that's what it's like. Tonight is the anniversary of Matan HaTorah, the giving of Torah. And let me tell you, Abba, that's our Father, has a gift for you tonight. He's got a gift for you tonight. And it's just what you need. And it's not wrapped under a Christmas tree. It is coming from the Father, and it's just what you need. Matan HaTorah. This is the giving, the anniversary of the giving of the Torah. Now, before you gloss over this, because I know we've got food back there and we're getting hungry, think for a minute about the Law of Moses. What do you know about the Law of Moses? Think about it for a minute. Hold it here. And then throw it away. How much Torah do you know? How much do you know about it? Take the definition you have of it, that instruction, that understanding. I don't care how religious you are. If you cut your teeth on the Baptist pew, that's all right. But I want you to think about what you think about the Law of Moses for a minute, and ignore it. Because I want to give you a one-word definition of the Law, or of the Torah, that describes it. And I'm telling you tonight, Pastor Hattie, it will change your life if you get this. Are you ready? Say, I'm ready. I'm ready. The absolute best understanding of Torah is gift. The gift. Get out of your mind it's a bunch of laws. It's a bunch of do's. It's a bunch of don'ts. It's a bunch of teachings. It's a bunch of instructions. It's a bunch of, oh, I'm watching you. Get it out. Because we've got to understand and know that it is a gift. And it says, given by the very finger of Yahweh. A gift. Now, anything like a gift, we can receive it, or we can reject it. Now, like Hallmark, guess what Yahweh does? He sends the very best. He doesn't go to the Walmart aisle and pick out a card. He sends the very best. But isn't that opposite of how many people think about the Torah, about the law? Now, I'm not going to pick on our Christian brothers and sisters. However, many view it as a collection of stories and principles. But not really viewed to be kept as instructions for living. I mean, isn't that right? I mean, most Christian pastors will say that the law is a schoolmaster that brings you to Christ. That's part of it. Many Jewish people consider the Torah a burdensome way of living they learned in Hebrew school, and then they go on. Both of those ideas are wrong. And let me tell you something. Our friends in the Baptist and the Pentecostal churches are very sincere in their faith. But when it comes to the law, when it comes to the Torah, you can be sincere, and you can be sincerely wrong. Does that make sense? It tells us in Deuteronomy 10.9, I'll read it to you. It says, Yahweh gave me two stone tablets inscribed by the finger of Yahweh. And on them were the commandments Yahweh proclaimed you on the mountain. So these ten commandments were there. So what is it? It's a gift. If you see it as a gift first, Deborah, if you see it as a gift first, then obedience will have meaning. But if you see it as a burden, here's God up here, you better not eat that pig. I'm watching you. Don't even go there. I see you. We can't do that, because then it doesn't have meaning. We've got to view it as a gift that He's given us. Now get this as well. Many people think the more Torah they do, the more Yahweh is pleased with them. The more the Father is happy with them. And we've been guilty of kind of teaching that. What do we say? Well, if you obey, you'll be blessed. If you disobey, you'll be cursed. Let me tell you something tonight. My friends from Greenville, Spartanburg area, raise your hand. Thank you all for coming. Raise your hand. There you go. Thank you all for coming. That's a long way. Yahweh loves us so much. And He cannot love you any more tomorrow than He does today. And there's nothing in this world that you can do to make Him love you more. You can keep the 613 commandments perfectly, and He still loves you the same He does right now. We cannot earn His love. It's unconditional. He accepts us as we come to Him through His Son. It's so key. That it was not given for us just to please Yahweh. Do you know what the rabbis tell us? They're rabbis. It's just a bunch of people. But you know what they say? They say that the Torah was not given for Yahweh. It was given for us. Doesn't that make sense? I'll listen to a hobo if he knows what he's talking about. I'm not talking about you, Joe. Okay, I promise. The Torah is a gift. Yet even a beautiful, wonderful anniversary gift can be abused or forgotten, right? A couple years ago, I got a great gift. On Father's Day, it said, you know, World's Greatest Dad. And it was a t-shirt that the kids had made for me, and they had their fingerprints on it. Now, for poor kids, it took front and back. Anyway, it had their fingerprints. And I'm like, wow, my wife helped me make it. I was just amazed. Do you remember this, dear? I was amazed. I don't know what I was more amazed at. That they didn't get paint on the ceiling, and they just got it on the shirt, but they did it, right? It's a beautiful gift. And I said, wow, this is so thoughtful. You took the time. You didn't just buy me another tie. You get ties for Father's Day? Oy. So I took it, and I said, this is so great. And I put it on a hanger. And I put it in my closet. And I've never taken it out. Not once. Do you know why? Oh, this gift's too important. It's too special to wear. If I wash it, some of the fingerprints might come off. I'll just put it over here on the shelf, and I'll look at it when I go to my closet, and I'll think about it every once in a while. But I don't want to wear it every day. Because if I wear it every day, I might mess it up. Now, did I use that gift properly? No. Did she give it to me to fill up my closet? I've got, like, leather vests in there from, like, the 1970s. I wasn't even alive then, okay? I don't know where they came from. They came with a house, I guess. But we treat the Torah the same way. I'm just going to be real with you all tonight. Because, you know, what you see is what you get. We treat the law, the Word, the same way. Sometimes we kind of put it on that shelf, and it's nice, but it's not real practical. Sometimes we're too scared to do it because we might look too Jewish. Or people say, oh, the law has passed away with Judaism. It's too harsh. It's too hard. You know, we put it over there. What did Jesus say? It is finished. That's it. I don't believe that the Savior came to save me from Judaism. He came to save me from my sins. Think about that. Sometimes, guess what we do, Brother Craig? We let the rabbi or the preacher get the revelation for us and teach us. And we sit there like a sponge, and we soak it up. And we don't, you know, crack our Bible. It collects dust. I almost brought the shirt tonight to show you. It only has a layer of dust on the top. Sometimes we place it on the shelf because we're scared we might not do it right. I don't want to wear the shirt because I might mess it up. You ever been like that with a command in the Scriptures? Or am I just the only one? What about the tzitzit? Oh, my goodness. Do I wear them on the inside? Do I wear them on the outside? Do I have to have tekelet? Can I use any color blue? Do I tie it 10-5-6-5? Do I tie it 7-5-6-2? You know what I'm talking about? Does it have to be a four-quarter garment? What about a shirt that's round? For some of us, it's oval. You know, what do I do? Am I the only person who's asked those questions? And so what do we do? I'll tell you what I did for a year. I just didn't wear them. I said, you know what? I can't do it right. I'm just not going to do it. And it took a year, 365-something days, to get through my head. Kavena, or kavena. It's the Hebrew word for intention or devotion or your heart. You know what? I'm not great at speaking Hebrew. I can hardly speak English, right? But where is my intention? Where is my heart? But if I don't try, what good is that going to do me? If I say it's too hard for me to do it. Or, if I say or, we take that gift and we're like this. Yeah, love, yeah, mercy, okay. But we're going to talk about today's Torah midrash is going to be on the belly button fuzz of Moses and Joshua. We're going to go down that rabbit trail. Have you all ever done that? Never, right? So we put the gift on the shelf. And what do we do? We take mercy and love and devotion and we put it over here. The opposite is true, though, isn't it? We can use a gift. Pray, shall we? A few years ago, a dear friend of mine gave me a gift. I had been praying for it for years. It was in my mind. And I had this lifelong dream. I wanted a coffee maker that could make two cups of coffee at one time. Remember that, Donna? Sister Donna? Okay, yeah. I had this dream. I'd go to bed at night just thinking, I wish I had a two-cup coffee maker. Visions, okay. I just had it, you know. And sure enough, I got it. And it was so great. You know, it made those two portable mugs. And so it would make – I had to have both cups there or I'd have a messed up kitchen. It didn't even take a coffee filter. It was so awesome. I had a little basket. You put the coffee in it. Boom, there's two travel mugs. I drunk one at home, one on the road. It was great. It was the best thing. I used it every single day. That was a good gift. Until it finally puttered out, I don't know, about a year ago. But it was used in its right purpose. Every day, I used it. Now that's what Torah's supposed to be like. So I want to ask you tonight to accept that gift afresh and anew. Okay? Pastor Sylvia, Pastor Hattie, you know, a group from Caddo Shore. Pastor Gillyard. And what they do, for example, at Christ Central Ministry downtown Main Street, Columbia. Pastor Sylvia's the director there, and her family helps. And they minister six days a week. Not seven. Six days a week with food and clothing to the poor and needy in Columbia. I had the most awesome opportunity a few weeks ago to go and share on a Sunday morning. And I talked, and we had a great time. It was awesome. But they do it. That's called doing Torah. Now, I didn't say my Hasidic friend in Israel. I want to talk about him because he does Torah, did I? You see, it's the heart. They teach the Hebrew roots. They use the names. To homeless and needy people coming in the door. That's powerful. And it's the whole family getting together. You know, many of us are guilty to where we talk about it, but we don't always do it. Right? I mean, we're in search of our Hebrew roots. Anybody? Yes? Yes? Let me tell you something right now. Hebrew roots. You don't just learn Hebrew roots. You do them. Doesn't that make sense? Because all it's about is just learning and, you know, whatever. What does it say in Micah? What does Yahweh require of you? Do justly, love mercy, walk humbly with him. The book of James says, This is pure and undefiled religion in the sight of Yahweh. Visit the orphans and the widows and keep yourself unstained by the world. Is Torah obedience in there? Is wearing the tzitzit and blowing the shofar and keeping Shabbat? That's all part of it. It's all part of a gift. The other thing you can do with a gift is you can abuse it. Do you know anybody that's abused Torah? You know, the Torah scroll is not meant to be a weapon. Do you know anybody that uses the King James Version like that? Man, you just said something. They hit you upside the head with it. Last year, I bought myself a gift. You ever do that? Come on now, Pastor Gilliard. You just go out to the stores. I'm going to buy myself something nice. I had wanted, I decided that I was going to start doing something I don't normally do, which is yard work. I guess my faith stopped because I'd been praying for a goat to appear, and it never did. So our grass had gotten so tall that we sent the kids out to play in the backyard, and all we saw was the grass waving in the wind. We didn't even see them. True story. So I finally said, okay, I'm going to go buy a lawnmower. I'm a manly man, power tool. My wife just laughed because that's not me. Okay, power tool for me is the toaster. All right? So guess what? I go buy this lawnmower, big, green, Asian. So I go spend a couple hundred dollars at Walmart. I don't know what you're going to buy. And I bring it home, and I'm so excited. I put the gas in it. I go to the backyard, and I'm running with it. And I do the backyard, and I do the front yard. I have to go do the backyard again. And I come up to the front yard, and I'm like, look. And I call everybody out. And seriously, I call everybody out to the porch. Look at me. I'm cutting the grass. All of a sudden, this black smoke started coming out of the engine. It started puttering. True story. It started. I tried to look at my wife, and all I saw was a smog in the air. I had that wonderful gift. It was a great gift. I didn't know it had to have oil. Oil! Who the fuck? That lawnmower lasted one season. One day, actually about three hours, we flushed it out. We prayed over it. We anointed it with oil. It's resurrected for a couple of mows, and it's dead. And it reminds me in my yard that, you know, we can get a gift, but we sure can't abuse it. You know, not using it right. We thrust, and I'm just saying we because I'm one of them, kind of thrust our personal convictions on people. You know, you might be looking at me right now and saying, oh, what does he think? He's got that weird hat on. What's going on with him? You know, we're all in different places, right? And we're learning, and we're going forward. And so we shouldn't beat people up. Because we've been hurt by people who condemned us. Have you? I have. I'm not ten foot tall or bulletproof. I've been hurt by people who have said, oh, you don't homeschool your children? Are you the devil? I'm not kidding you. They thought we were that bad. And our movement has been split so many times over anything. Calendars and names and theologies and personalities and one wife, three wives, a hundred wives. I ain't even going there. I got one, and I can't handle that one. I'll tell you that. Oh, hey, baby. The Torah was given for our freedom, y'all. James chapter 1, verse 25, the book of God code, my favorite book. It says, whosoever look into the perfect law of liberty and continues therein shall not be a forgetful hearer, but a doer of the work. But you've got to look into the perfect law of liberty. If you don't look, what good does it do you? And it doesn't say whosoever looks into the law, that binding bunch of commandments that are going to make you stand out from a crowd. It's called the law of liberty, of freedom. So we've got to accept that. Accept that. Yeshua prayed that we would be one, as you said. It also means we've got to stop, everybody say stop, the constant attacks on our Christian brothers and sisters. Romans, the book of Romans tells us that they have an inward Torah written on their hearts, and they do the works of the law and don't even know it. I will sit around all day in Midrash and discuss and fuss and fight over you about Hebrew, about the scriptures, and yet there are people like Dan and Craig and like Kato Shor and other groups out there that do Torah. I'll talk about it, but are we really doing it? Are we really sharing that love? I mean, do you really expect somebody to want to follow Torah if all you do is correct them? Eh, don't you eat that. Do you go to church on Sunday? Don't you read your Bible? It says six days shall you labor, do your work. Seven days is Shabbat. Why do you go to church on Sunday? What kind of calendar have you got? I don't even have a calendar. You don't know the alisbech, gemidol, and hayvah. What's your problem? Oh, you keep the Karaite calendar. Right? How do we expect to teach anybody Torah? You know what? I'm going to say it. Y'all might not ever have me back, but I'm going to say it. Anytime we stop talking Torah and doing it, and let them see it, and let them be drawn by the love, and then they say, tell me about this. What's that funny horn in your back seat? I thought the horn was in the front seat. Oh, let me show you. Show it to them. We've got to let the Holy Spirit be the Holy Spirit. Anybody here have a Savior complex? It's just me. Okay. I just want to get everybody saved. I want to show everybody the right way. I get sad. I got sad. Some folks were supposed to come tonight, and she said, oh, I got the sickness. I said, you got what? She said, I got the IBD. I said, what? The IBD. The what? The irritable bowel syndrome. What are you talking about? I don't know what that be. I don't know what that be, but I'm here. I said, all right, I'll pray for you. Stand behind me. I've seen so many people fall because of pride, and groups split over, you know, we focus on this outward stuff, and we forget the major stuff. Isn't that what Yeshua said? Oh, you tie this and that and this. Did you forget the weightier matters of the law? The weightier matters. Torah was given to show us what sin is. Romans chapter 7, verse 7. I have not known sin, but by the Torah. First Corinthians says, verse 10, verse 11, these things happen as examples and warnings for us. 2 Timothy 3.16 says, all Scripture is Yahweh breathed and useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting, and training in righteousness. All Scripture. When that was written by 2 Timothy, guess what? The New Testament was not. He was writing about the Old Testament, what we call the Tanakh or the Torah. So we've got to accept it. I've got something neat I want to share with you. This is called Matan HaTorah, the giving of the Torah. It's not called the day to receive the Torah. Because every day we should receive the Torah. Every day we should receive that fresh revelation. So that's one gift Abba's given us. But He's given us something else. That's just part of the story. The other part is in Acts chapter 2. When there's another promised gift, that's the what? What? Holy Spirit, Ruach HaKodesh in Hebrew. What do you know about the Holy Ghost? What do you know about the Holy Ghost? What do you know about the Holy Spirit? Take for a minute, think about it. Everything you know about the Holy Spirit. Josh, help me out. Think about it right now and then cast it aside. And I want to give you a one word definition that best describes the Holy Spirit. And nothing else will do. You know what that is? It's a gift. It's a gift. It ain't just the third person of the Trinity. It ain't just some power, some Holy Ghost goosebumps. I feel it. Right? It ain't just some emotions. It's the Holy Ghost. It ain't just speaking in tongues. It's a gift. Yeshua said in Yochanan, John chapter 14, The Counselor, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you all things, remind you of everything I've said to you. It's a gift that He sent. Guess what? Like any gift, we can accept it or we can reject it. And it's being offered to us. Remember that t-shirt on the shelf? Pharaoh did that. And his heart was hardened. Jonah did that. Guess where he ended up? Captain D's. You got that right. Belly of a whale. David did it and he sinned with Bathsheba. The Israelites did it. They wandered for 40 years. We ignore the Spirit. And guess what happens? Some people consider it dead. You know, it died out with the apostles. And that's it. Many churches themselves are dead because that's what they think. And I'm sorry. It should not be programmed out with our bullets. And sometimes we've got to let, as he said, the Spirit move. So if I go five minutes over, you know what happened. The Spirit was moving. And if I end five minutes early, you know something else was moving. Okay, I'll keep going. Let's see. Oh, man. The Baptist faith and message. Where's the Spirit? Now, listen, it's good to have a doctrinal statement and know this. But we've got to allow the ruach to minister. 1 Corinthians 4.20 says, The kingdom of Yahweh is not about talk but about power. Everybody say power. Power. That's what it's about. But we think it's about talk. Oh, Rabbi Daniel is speaking tonight. I better go hear him. Oh, this guy is speaking over here. I better drive 14 hours to go hear him. You know anybody like that? I call them prophet chasers. Right? We've seen them. We might be them. I hope not because I'll let you down. Like my wonderful t-shirt, we can ignore it. The ruach, the Spirit is supposed to convict us of sin and lead us to holiness. And that probing power is there so we don't go down the road to perdition. That's not supposed to be our way or the road we go down. Ephesians 4.30 says, Do not grieve the Holy Spirit. Stress will grieve the Holy Spirit. Stress will grieve the Holy Spirit. You know why? Because you can't focus on the power. You can't focus on the Father when you're stressed out. When you're all worried. Pain. Sin. Selfishness. These things grieve the Holy Spirit. You think of somebody grieving. Because something is dead. That's why you grieve. Did you know that? When the ruach ha-kodesh is grieved, it's because something has died in us. And many times it's that hunger we sing about. It's died. It ain't the way it used to be. The gifts can be ignored. It can also be abused. Some people operate without its power. Think about that lawnmower. What did it need? Oil. What do we need? We need a good oil. The power of the ruach. Do we really think that we can schedule revival? Ain't that just silly? Revival. That is church. From this day to that day. And we're stopping on that day. Because a preacher, he costs too much money to have come back. Right? Come on now, Pastor Hattie. We do it. We schedule revival. We're going to have revival services. Let's not be late. And then a picket. Now I'm going to hush. I'm going to hush. We can't do it. What about people operating in the flesh? In the gifts of the Spirit? How many of you have heard a word? I have a word from the Lord for you. And that person is just speaking condemnation and pain and problems. You know what I'm talking about? Or it's just a bunch of feel good. Right? All they do is they just lay their hands on you and say, Can you help me find a way to Sesame Street? Oh, yes. You can go that way. There is a way for you to go. Bert and Ernie are there to help you. I've seen it. I have seen it. I've seen it. I just got to tell you. Give me an example. And I challenge you to find it. I challenge you to find one saved, sanctified, believing person in the Bible that fell backwards in the power of the Holy Spirit. You won't find it. If they were born again, if they were spirit filled, you read about them, it says they fell forwards in their faces, on their faces in worship. And yet, what do we see? I was part of a domino one day at a church. I was the lead domino. I'm going to pray for you, brother. You're going to fall. And they're going to fall. And they're going to fall. I said, I'm standing right here. And that hand went right there and I fell. That sucker kicked me in my shin and I fell. I'm joking. I did. Remember that April? I was there. It's a true story. Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. I pushed it in the end. There's still a chalk line around where their body was. We've got to stop. Anyway, the Spirit would manifest and people would fall forward in worship. Yahweh doesn't want us going back. He wants us going forward. But what do we do? We've seen it, so we're going to do it. The gift of the Spirit has been abused. So people seek after signs and wonders and the gift of the Holy Spirit. You know, I read that book, Good Morning, Holy Spirit. I read it. Benny Hinn. I read the sequel, Tea Time with the Holy Ghost. Okay, we'll keep going. It was A-Dead. He had the whole series. A Workout with the Trinity. Pilates with Paul. It's all there. Should we really tell somebody? You go to hell if you don't speak in tongues. Because I've heard it. I've heard it. Should we really tell people that? That's what the Spirit does. When we abuse the Spirit, it brings condemnation and it brings chaos. Chaos. And we've seen chaos run rampant in the services. So the Ruach is a gift that can be used right. And guess what? Like the Torah, there's much freedom. Everybody say freedom. Freedom. I wrote an article five years ago called The Freedom of Shavuot. And it talks about how the Statue of Liberty was given to us as a symbol of freedom and how the Torah is a symbol of freedom. I thought it was, you know, not bad, right? I thought it was a good example. I got three emails that said, you sinner, you heathen, you pagan. How dare you compare the Statue of Liberty, a pagan symbol, to the Torah. Given by the French. Research it. Some French god. And I just wanted it. I was... I just couldn't believe it. And you know what that is? That's abusing the gift. That's abusing the Spirit and the Word. And we've all been guilty. So we've got to accept it. 1 Peter 4.10 Each one should use whatever gift he has received to serve others. The Spirit is given to serve, not to, ooh, I can speak in tongues. I can speak in tongues more than you can. It's to serve others. Now think about this. In Acts chapter 8, there were people who were born again, but they had not received the gift of the Spirit yet. See, He's offering it. Do we accept it? 1 Corinthians 12.7 To each one. Everybody say each one. To each one, the manifestation of the Spirit is given for the common good. This shall be our... We've got to receive it. The Spirit and the letter. They go together. Love and marriage. Love and marriage. Fit together like a... Alright. Like peanut butter and jelly. They go together. They complete each other. And they are never, never, never in opposition. They're never in opposition. But guess what happens? Too many groups, they take one Pentecost, and they stay there. It's all about the Holy Ghost. It's all about the Holy Spirit. It's all about the Torah. Nothing but the Torah. Give me the law. And they die, and they wither away. Let me tell you something. The letter kills, but the Spirit gives life, is what the Word says. We must decide to accept the Torah and the Spirit as one gift. I'm going to say something radical. You ready? We've got to decide to accept the Torah and the Spirit as one gift. One gift. And then choose not to seek either one. I don't know about you, but there have been times in my life where I just said, oh, Spirit, Spirit, Spirit. There have been times, Torah, Torah, Torah. All I'm doing is I'm seeking Torah, I'm seeking knowledge, I'm seeking Spirit, I'm seeking power. When we focus on the gifts, we go wrong. We need to focus on the giver. James 1.17 says, Every generous act of giving and every perfect gift is from the Father above, in which there is no shadow or shifting. But we do get wrapped up in that. We get so focused on it, we just, we set up camp at Torah. And I don't know about you, but when I first learned about Torah, I felt like I'd been robbed from my Hebrew heritage. So I had to learn and learn and learn and learn and learn and learn and learn. And as I learned so much of the letter of the law, guess what happened? I pushed out the Spirit of the law. Don't make that mistake. Please learn from me. Okay, I'm 30, so I'm old enough to teach you something. So please learn from me. My wife says I'm old enough to be crucified too. John chapter 1 says, The Word became flesh and dwelt among us. That's the Torah, right? And then in Acts chapter 10, verse 38, what does it say? Yahweh anointed Yeshua from Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and He went around healing all who were sick. Every single one of them. Because the power of Yahweh was with Him at casting out devils. He balanced it out. But when you take one separately, you are in trouble. You see that pendulum? We have ministries that do that, don't they? Torah, Spirit, Torah, Spirit. Balance. Yahweh hates unequal weights and measures. Think for a minute about sodium. You just take a bunch of sodium, it's poisonous. You will die. Take a bunch of chloride, what's going to happen? You're going to die. But when you mix sodium, the Spirit, and chloride, the letter together, what do you have? Salt. What are we called to be? The salt of the earth. And what good is it when you lose its saltiness? You ever wonder about that? Salt loses its saltiness when it's just sodium or chloride. When it's just the letter or the Spirit. It's got to be both. Or we're going to be poisoned. We're called to be the salt of the earth. Condemnation, legalism, burdens. It happens when you focus on the law. Chaos, constant searching, burden carrying happens when you focus on the Spirit. I know somebody that all they do is they just get up in the morning and they study. All day long. Then they go to the tanning bed, their computer screen, and they tan in front of their computer screen all day long. Then they have a toy study, then they go to bed. And guess what they do the next day? The same thing. He never leaves his home. He stays there and he does it. And he's alienated everyone in his family. 2 Corinthians 3.6 says the letter kills but the Spirit gives life. Knowledge puffs up but what does love do? It edifies. Knowledge is good but if that's all we got we're in trouble. Finishing up, the Talmud teaches us that this is interesting. I'll quote it here. Rabbi Yochanan said in Talmud Bavli that the temple was destroyed because people followed the law of Torah. He explained that they followed the law of Torah but not the spirit of the law. They did not practice beyond the letter of the law and therefore the temple was destroyed. The temple was destroyed because all they did was focus on the little details. Did you know it says in 1 Timothy 1 that the goal of the commandment is love? The goal of the Torah is love. Yeshua spoke to that woman at the well and what did she say? He said, those who worship must worship in spirit and in truth. He didn't just say spirit. He didn't just say truth. He said Ruach Vahmet spirit and truth. It takes both. It's not just enough to know Torah. We've got to act in a proper way and let the spirit move through us. Kavanah. I mentioned it earlier. It means devotion. It means intention. What's our true purpose of learning to know Torah? If it's so Yahweh loves us more, sorry, no good. If it's so, you know, we can make it to heaven, Brother Craig will counsel with you later because you've got a long recipe. Torah is the way we live after we are born again. How about the Ruach? Let me ask you this as we finish up. Because we can come here and dance and see the dancers and sing and have a great time and then kind of go on our way. We can laugh and we can listen to a teaching or snore through it whatever it happens to be but how is your relationship with Almighty right now? Let's just start. What's your personal one-on-one relationship like? Right now. Everybody. I'm not asking you how much Torah you know or how fast you can pray and whatever because I believe both are valid. I'm not asking you how much of the Hebrew you know or if you're here every time the doors are open. What is your personal relationship? How close are you? That's what matters this Shavuot. Yahweh has this gift and for some of us it's the Torah. We need to accept it. We need to take it. We need to learn it. We need to seek the Giver and open ourselves up to it. Some of us it's the Ruach. It's the Spirit. And we need that empowerment. And if we're honest we can think back to a time in our life to where we were closer than we are right now. Tonight is a special night. A night of power. A night of restoration. A rabbi friend of mine gathered with a group in Hilton Head tonight for what's called Tikkun Leil Shavuot. They met at 7.30 and they'll finish at 7.30 in the morning. And all night long they're reading from the Torah portions and discussing and midrashing and this and that and I said boy this is a great idea. I told him yesterday. I said are you leaving room for the Spirit? I said I know you're going to read from every Torah portion but where's the Spirit? Where's the relationship? I want to ask you today how close are you? And what stops you from doing that? How close are you? And what's stopping you? I want to give you a few ideas to increase your confidence. Number one we'll have a prayer in a minute and I want to ask you to pour out your heart in prayer. Tell them how you feel and release the grudges. Release the problems. Then read and meditate tomorrow on one verse of Scripture. Not the whole Torah portion but just take one. What does Abba have to say to you from that? How about serve others? Get out of your comfort zone. Commit ten minutes to prayer today. Then do eleven on Tuesday and twelve on Thursday of next week. And thirteen speak in faith. I'll finish with this verse from Jeremiah 29-11. We've all heard it. It's a beautiful verse. It says I know the thoughts about you says Yahweh plans to prosper you and not harm you to give you a good hope in the end. You hear that a lot during graduation times. You need to hear that on Shavuot. Yahweh says I've got plans for you to give you a good hope. We've got to read it in context. The next three verses. For I know the plans I have for you says Yahweh for I know the plans I have for you says Yahweh plans to prosper you and not harm you plans to give you hope in the future. Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me and I will listen. You will seek me and find me when you seek me with your whole heart. I will be found by you declares Yahweh. Listen. And I will bring you back from your captivity. I will gather you from the nations and the places that I've banished you. And I will bring you back to the place which I carried you into exile. That's the plan He has for us. We think it's just some personal thing. It is, but it's also a national thing. And it's going to be done by the Spirit and the letter. Pray with me now. Father, we pour out our heart to You and we acknowledge that we're not as close as we once were. We have ignored the Spirit. We have ignored the letter. We have abused the Spirit. We have abused the letter. Father, help us to use it, to learn it, and to share it. That a proper gift is not just enjoyed by one, but by many. Father, we come before You right now in just a few moments of silent prayer, seeking and asking repentance. We confess our sins to You and we ask You to forgive us. Draw us closer to You this moment. We cry out to You, Abba. Bring us out of the muck and mire. Set our feet on a solid rock. May we be like those there in Acts chapter 2. Waiting and receiving the gift that You have for us. Like those in Exodus 19 receiving the gift of Torah. A fresh word. A fresh revelation. Closeness in You, Abba. Father, we know that You have led us astray and we confess and we come before You. We, like sheep, have been led astray, so we approach You now on Your feast day. May we always see the ruach and the Torah as Your gifts to us. Father, we thank You for Yeshua who gave His life for us. Father, may we seek You, not knowledge, not power, but our relationship first and foremost. For as the deer panted for the water, our soul longs after You. May this be so in Yeshua's name a wonderful name our Master. Hashem Yeshua we pray. Amen and Amen. or read an article on various subjects. The website is www.findemet.com That's www.findemet.com CD copies of this teaching are available for free by submitting a request at the website. Or write to us at EMET Ministries 1310 Trent Street, Newberry, SC 29108 That's EMET Ministries 1310 Trent Street, Newberry, SC 29108 Thank you again for listening to Finding EMET with Daniel Rendleman. May you find the EMET and may the EMET may the truth set you free.