The Light of Yahweh?

February 4, 2007

Good Morning:

Today in our Gospel reading from Mathew 1, we learned how Yeshua (Jesus) called his disciples to him to be fishers of men. These men in many ways were common men but in other ways they were extraordinary men. Looking at what we are told about these men in the Bible we learn that they were not overly religious, they were not priests or rabbis, they didn’t have much education. By the standards of the day they were not very socially or politically connected at all. So what was it that they had that made them worthy of Yeshua calling them to preach his message to the twelve tribes of Israel scatter around the world?

Let us look to our reading from Hosea 1 this morning to understand what these men possessed. In verse 11 we learned of Yahweh’s (God’s) plan. He is going to call the children of Judah and the rest of the children of Israel together and they shall appoint themselves one head. This is exactly what happened when Yeshua called his disciples to him. Many people think that all of his dispels including Paul (Saul) were Judahites or children of Judah but they weren’t. They represented both the tribe of Judah and the other tribes of Israel, just as Yahweh had proclaimed through his prophet Hosea. Paul for example was of the tribe of Benjamin and wasn’t even from the land of kingdom of Judah or the Kingdom of Judea, he was born in what is now modern day Turkey. When remember to the time when the people cried to the Prophet Samuel to anoint them a king, we are reminded at how the people of Israel rejected Yahweh as their king on this earth. There was a breach made at that point between the seed of man and the seed of Yahweh (God). We learned to day that God had rejected the people of Israel as being his people, subjects of his kingdom. They were cast away to the corners of the whole earth. Yet they were not destroyed or wiped out they were just dispersed. See what it says, “…the number of the children of Israel was as the sand of the sea…”, so these people were to multiply until their numbers were not countable. Not just because it was a big number, no because they were scattered across the whole planet and lost in the tides of migrations, just as the grains of sand are lost in the currents of the sea. Still there not easily identified. Now let me explain something the Bible is speaking of all the descendents of Israel who is Jacob, not just those that came from his son Judah. Now don’t Judahites and Israelites confused with the people we call Jewish/Judeans today, who are the Pharisees of Yeshua’s time, no the bible is speaking of Jacob’s descendents through all his children.

Paul was a Pharisee and a Judean/Jew but he was a Benjamite a descendent of Jacob through his son Benjamin not Judah. Remember that descendents of Judah are called Judahites not Judean/Jews. The kingdom of Judah was of the descendents of Judah, the Kingdom of Judea, which existed in Yeshua’s (Jesus’) time was a separate much later Kingdom that was formed from the land of the Edomites and the Moabites and former lands of Israel including land that belonged to the tribe of Judah. Yet the Assyrians had already carried off the people of the tribes of Israel including Judea before the kingdom of Judea was formed.

In order for God’s word to be performed as he spoke it all of the tribes of Israel had to appoint themselves one head. Thus we have twelve apostles, each representing a different tribe of Israel each recognizing Yeshua as their head, their Messiah, and their King. God spoke against the sins of the people of the Kingdom of Israel and the Kingdom of Judah. He utterly destroyed both kingdoms and the people were carried off just as was prophesied. Yet, Yeshua is a God of his word and he kept his promise to reunite his chosen people under a single leader and he fulfilled that promise with the birth of Yeshua. See what Yeshua was saying to the people of Galilee “…the kingdom of God has drawn nigh…”. He was the materialization of Yahweh’s kingdom on earth and he proclaimed his coming as God promised not to the Judeans/Pharisees but to the remnants the children of Jacob who had been pushed out of their lands when the kingdom of Judea was founded and had found refuge in the land of Galilee. So where are these people today?

God’s chosen people are all around us. They don’t carry a label saying I am a Benjamite, or a Levi, or a Judahite, or an Israelite. No they are recognized in a much different fashion. They are recognized as Yeshua tells us in Matthew 5:16 “so let your light shine before men, that they may see your good works, and may glorify your Father who is in the heavens.” That is how we know who God’s (Yahweh’s) chosen people are by their works here on earth. Yahweh’s his light shines from within in his own children but not from the children of darkness. When you look for God’ children look to what they do, not to what they say they are. Forget the labels, because they mean nothing. Look to the light that shines through the real people of God (Yahweh). You will see they are all around you, clerks in stores, people on the street, volunteers in hospitals, places you don’t think you will find them helping the poor, the sick, the lost, the sinners. Look in the mirror and you too can see the light of salvation, the light of Yahweh (God).

Amen.