Well, I finally made some time to sit down and re-type up the sermon I lost to a crashed flash drive early this year. It was my penultimate sermon at Beth Yeshua, but here it finally is. And I have an MP3 file here, so you can listen to it!
Shabbat Shalom.
So, we’ve been studying the parables of Yeshua in recent weeks and we began with the Parable of the Talents, in which we learned that the L-RD wants us to regard all the wealth He gives us in this world as belonging to Him, using it to spread the work of His kingdom, rather than on our own temporary comfort in this life. Then, in the Parable of the Great Debt, we came face-to-face with the responsibility we have to forgive others in the same way God has forgiven us, and we explored how, while that seems easy in concept, it’s not so easy when to comes to forgiving some of the gravest sins.
And then, last week, in the Parable of the Weeds, we discussed the problem presented by the presence of evil in the world; about why it exists, how it came to be, and how to remain forgiving, even to the unrepentant. We talked about how, when it comes to the unrepentant, while we must forgive them, it’s not to be a brainless forgiveness, and that in the case of the unrepentant only, it is best to forgive from a distance, because the preservation of life comes before all the rules of Torah.
So, what more is there to learn from Yeshua’s parables? Plenty. The parable I’d like to look at today is one of Yeshua’s less-explored parables, and it was suggested to me by someone here at Beth Yeshua. And I believe not only does it hold an important teaching for us, but it also ties in nicely with the themes of the recent parables we’ve been exploring.
It’s called the Parable of the Widow and the Unjust Judge, so let’s read it now so we all have a common frame of reference. It begins in:
LUKE 18:1-5
Then Yeshua told his disciples a parable to show them that they should always pray and not give up. He said: “In a certain town there was a judge who neither feared God nor cared about men. And there was a widow in that town who kept coming to him with the plea, ‘Grant me justice against my adversary.’ For some time he refused. But finally he said to himself, ‘Even though I don’t fear God or care about men, yet because this widow keeps bothering me, I will see that she gets justice, so that she won’t eventually wear me out with her coming!”
Now, some people can find this parable confusing, primarily because they draw too close a parallel between the unjust judge and the L-RD. While the principle Yeshua is teaching about draws such a parallel, it’s not meant to be a close parallel.
Why do I say this? Well, because the judge in this parable is unjust to begin with. Is the L-RD Himself unjust? Of course not. God Himself is the arbiter of all justice; He is the source of justice and He brings justice to everyone, doesn’t he?
So we have to be careful of letting out picture of God begin to reflect the picture of this unjust judge too closely, for the L-RD is not like him. The text has Yeshua describing this judge as not fearing God nor caring about his fellow man. Does this remind us of anything? It calls to mind for me:
MATTHEW 22:35-40
One of them, an expert in the law, tested him with this question: “Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?” Yeshua replied: “’Love the L-RD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.”
So, we know Yeshua teaches these two commandments sum up the entire Torah: to fear God and to care about your neighbor. That’s it; that’s the Messiah’s summary of the entire Torah. So if we’re being told that this judge neither feared the L-RD nor cared about his neighbor, what are we really being told about him? That this ruler is far from… what? He’s far from the Torah, isn’t he? About as far from Torah as he can get! This is why he’s labeled an unjust ruler! Because he is ruling according to his own petty concerns and self-interests and decisions between right and wrong, rather than ruling based on the Torah of God. He is a portrait of the Torah-less world!
So who or what does that remind you of? Remember last week, when we studied the Parable of the Weeds? In that parable, we learned that the wheat represents those of us who are in Yeshua, part of the kingdom of the L-RD, who obey the Torah and follow its instruction; yet we are intertwined with the weeds – those who are children of darkness, sons of the Adversary of the L-RD, workers of evil and injustice. And we read that Yeshua taught that evil cannot be purged until the time of the harvest – that final Yom Kippur, the Day of Judgment – when the good crops will be separated from the weeds, and the weeds will be burned up, while the wheat will be brought into the master’s storehouse.
So we saw that we are in a world filled with both children of God and children of the Adversary. The children of the Adversary are without Torah; and we know that while we must forgive them when they do evil against us, that it would also be unwise to trust them when they are unrepentant, giving them an opportunity to do evil to us again.
That raised the question of how do we interact with those who are children of the Adversary. I mean, it’s not like any of us have a scorecard, is it? We can’t walk down the street, or even a church aisle, and say, “righteous,” “righteous,” “unrighteous.” Can we? Of course not.
And the sad truth is that the world we are in is usually ruled by those who are Torah-less. So one of the very real questions about getting through this life is, how can we find justice in a world ruled by the unjust? This parable gives us a clue: persistence, it appears, pays off. The unjust ruler of this parable doesn’t rule justly because he fears the L-RD and agrees with the woman who was wronged; he rules in her favor because she never gives up, never surrenders, never ceases in insisting that he rule rightly on the matter. He does what is right, basically, just to get her off his case!
So how does Yeshua interpret this parable? Let’s read on:
LUKE 18:6-8
And the Lord said, “Listen to what the unjust judge says. And will not God bring about justice for his chosen ones, who cry out to him day and night? Will he keep putting them off? I tell you, he will see that they get justice, and quickly. However, when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on the earth?”
Now this is where we can easily slip into misunderstanding. This is where the connection is made between the nature of God and the nature of the unjust judge. But what is Yeshua really saying here? He’s saying that if even an unjust judge will render a just verdict through the persistence of a widow, how much more will the L-RD, who desires justice and to do what is right, answer the righteous requests of those who bring their concerns to Him?
Of course, that’s not that hard. It’s relatively easy to understand. But it does raise a question, which the person who suggested this parable asked: “So, is this parable teaching us that if we merely bug God enough, He’ll give us whatever we want, like some genie in a magic lamp? Is God no better than us, changing His mind simply because He’s being pestered about something and wants to get someone off His back?”
As I’ve taught often the last few weeks, Scripture reveals Scripture. If you want to understand one verse or passage, study everything around it and eventually the meaning will become clear. Right? So let’s start setting this parable in context to gain our best response to this question.
First and foremost, we ought to understand the word “persistence.” You know, in the NIV, some form of the word “persist” appears only ten times; in only one of these is the word given a positive connotation. In one other appearance, it results in the same effect Yeshua describes in the parable.
We find this positive mention in:
ROMANS 2:7
To those who by persistence in doing good seek glory, honor and immortality, he will give eternal life.
And we find the instance in which the effect of persistence is the same as Yeshua describes in this parable, in:
II KINGS 2:16-17
“Look,” they said, “we your servants have fifty able men. Let them go and look for your master. Perhaps the Spirit of the L-RD has picked him up and set him down on some mountain or in some valley.” “No,” Elisha replied, “do not send them.” But they persisted until he was too ashamed to refuse. So he said, “Send them.” And they send fifty men, who searched for three days but did not find him.
Now, this last instance here is not entirely positive. Remember, Elisha the prophet is right to tell his men not to go looking for his master, Elijah. Why? Because Elisha himself saw Elijah taken up to heaven. He knew they were not going to find Elijah, but he finally gives into their demand to search because they simply won’t let it rest.
Now, the other eight instances in which some form of the word “persistence” is used, it is always negative in connotation, referring to how people persist in their sin or their disobedience to the L-RD.
So I thought it might be handy to look at the Hebrew and Greek words that are translated as “persist,” but what I found is there is not a precise word in Hebrew or Greek that is always reliably translated that way. In fact, I found at least two different Greek words and two different Hebrew words that are translated as “persist,” but also that these words are not reliably translated that way. They are the Greek words epimeno (ep-ee-men’-o) and hupomone (hoop-om-on-ay’), as well as the Hebrew words patsar (paw-tsar’) and yalak (yaw-lak’).
So persist as we understand it in English is used to translate more than one Biblical word. So I began to look for parallel concepts to persistence, ideas that captured the meaning of persistence, even if it was not translated that way.
Suddenly, I found more positive references to the concept of never giving up, of persistence, than I found when looking for that precise English word. We find one such example in:
PSALM 72:1, 15B
Endow the king with your justice, O God, the royal son with your righteousness … May people ever (persistently) pray for him and bless him all day long.
We also find this in:
II CHRONICLES 6:14
He said: “O L-RD, God of Israel, there is no God like you in heaven or on earth – you who keep your covenant of love with your servants who continue (persist) wholeheartedly in your way.
So persist means to continue, to so something without ceasing to do it, to never give up. This agrees with what Luke tells us was the purpose of Yeshua’s parable, which was, “to show them that they should always pray and not give up.”
So, to get back to our question: Does this mean that if we pray without ceasing, that God can and will actually change His mind? There is no quick answer to this; to understand what Yeshua is teaching us better, we must first understand the nature of prayer itself.
So, what is prayer, really? Well, is it simply taking time to communicate with God. To, as Moses did in the Tent of Meeting, come face-to-face with our Maker. That is ideally what prayer is meant to be. As believers, in fact, we are commanded to pray, as Yeshua Himself teaches in:
LUKE 6:27-28
“But I tell you who hear me: Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you.”
James, the brother of Yeshua, teaches us further about the benefits and purposes of prayer in:
JAMES 5:13-18
Is any one of you in trouble? He should pray. Is anyone happy? Let him sing songs of praise. Is any one of you sick? He should call the elders of the church to pray over him and anoint him with oil in the name of the L-RD. And the prayer offered in faith will make the sick person well; the L-RD will raise him up. If he has sinned, he will be forgiven. Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous man is powerful and effective. Elijah was a man just like us. He prayed earnestly that it would not rain, and it did not rain on the land for three and a half years. Again he prayed, and the heavens gave rain, and the earth produced its crops.
What James teaches us here is loaded with important concepts on an effective prayer life, but it’s easy to miss the important details. We all love to hear that prayer is powerful and effective, but too often we read right past one of the most important words in the passage. What does James actually teach? He teaches that, “The prayer of a righteous man is powerful and effective.”
A righteous man. Not just anyone, not even just any believer. But the prayer of the righteous is powerful and effective. And you see, that’s where many of us can trip up. That’s why so many who are believers in this country feel like they have ineffective prayer lives, or complain about God not answering their prayers. Because it is the prayers of the righteous that will be answered, not the prayers of just anyone.
So can you, for example, ignore the Torah commands of God and expect your prayers to be answered? Can you persist in habitual sin and expect God to grant your request? Can you lead a life of casual, only-when-it’s-convenient faith, come home from, say, a night of hard drinking, and pray to the L-RD for some blessing and expect Him to listen and respond affirmatively?
No.
God is not an emergency parachute for when you’re in a tight spot and need to save your butt, only to neglect Him at all other times. God desires to have a relationship with us, a give-and-take relationship, and part of being able to speak with Him as Moses did in the Tent of Meeting – face-to-face – is that we must live at least to the minimum standards set down for us in the Torah; furthermore, we should live to a standard far above that, striving to walk as Yeshua walked, in obedience to the L-RD, obeying everything that was commanded of Him.
Does this mean the L-RD never listens and responds to the prayers of the unrighteous? Not at all! He hears the prayers of repentance offered up by those lost in their sin all the time! But think about it! That repentance needs to come first, just to clear the table!
If you have a relative who, the only time they gave you the time of day was when they needed something, and the rest of the time they were out bad-mouthing you and ruining your reputation, and even when they asked for your something they wouldn’t apologize for how they’ve wronged you – how long would you keep giving them what they ask for?
You see, the kind of righteousness James is talking about here isn’t some unreachable, impossible standard; as he wrote, “Elijah was a man just like us.” So was Moses, for that matter, as we discussed in last week’s Torah commentary. But both men were humble enough to know they were unworthy, in and of themselves. They relied on God’s truth to create their righteousness and they obeyed His commands in gratitude. They agreed with God and relied on Him and that became their righteousness.
That’s a righteousness that doesn’t come from ignoring whatever commands you don’t like or don’t fit what you do; it’s a righteousness that clears the table and allows you to speak with God as Moses did, as Yeshua did. That’s when God starts listening: when you’re not fighting with Him anymore over what the truth is. That’s when the prayer of the righteous becomes powerful and effective, because you become echad with the maker of the universe! Not one person, but of one mind and one spirit with Him, not struggling against Him anymore.
Yeshua instructs us on some more mistakes to guard against when we pray. We read this in:
MATTHEW 6:5-8
“And when you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen by men. I tell you the truth, they have received their reward in full. But when you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father, who is unseen. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you. And when you pray, do not keep on babbling like pagans, for they think they will be heard because of their many words. Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask Him.
And Yeshua didn’t just tell others one thing and do something else Himself. He modeled this in His own walk with His Father, as we read in, for example:
MATTHEW 14:23
After he had dismissed them, he went up on a mountainside by himself to pray. When evening came, he was there alone,
So now we have a basic understanding of how to pray effectively. So the question becomes, let’s assume we’re doing all this right. Let’s assume we’re relying on His righteousness and not fighting with God over the truth; we’re repenting of our sin, we’re face-to-face with God, and we’re talking with Him. Can we, even at this point, change the mind of the creator of the universe? Can we, simply by badgering Him, get whatever we ask?
Let’s first take a look at the prayer live of someone who only had the appearance of righteousness; who went through all the right steps and claimed to have the ear of the L-RD. Let’s see what Balak found out about prayer, as we read in:
NUMBERS 23:19-20
God is not a man, that he should lie, nor a son of man, that he should change his mind. Does he speak and then not act? Does he promise and not fulfill? I have received a command to bless; he has blessed, and I cannot change it.
A similar statement is expressed in I Samuel 15:29. This testimony about God and His nature is true! God doesn’t lie. He always is truthful and all truth comes from Him. Balak performs all the right steps, does everything the Hebrews do, and yet he could not curse the Jewish people; he could not move the L-RD to cease from blessing the descendants of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, and in this prophecy, Balak is testifying to that fact; man cannot change the mind of God in a way that makes God break His promises. The L-RD will never promise, then fail to fulfill because someone else prays for Him not to.
Yet it’s important to remember Balak is not a righteous man; as he’s testifying to the L-RD’s goodness to Balaam, Balak is there trying to curse Israel against the L-RD’s wishes. The L-RD allows Balak to do this, but He does not answer Balaam’s prayer.
Why?
Because part of the prayer of the righteous being powerful and effective is that the righteous never pray for the L-RD to do something outside of His own will. The righteous never pray for the L-RD to violate His own promises.
So, even a man like Balak, who has the appearance of righteousness, can pray and yet the L-RD will not make those prayers either powerful or effective; because the prayers are not righteous.
But is that the end of the subject? Is the L-RD never swayed? Well, let’s remember this episode from:
GENESIS 18:22-26
The men turned away and went toward Sodom, but Abraham remained standing before the L-RD. Then Abraham approached Him and said: “Will you sweep away the righteous with the wicked? What if there are fifty righteous people in the city? Will you really sweep it away and not spare the place for the sake of the fifty righteous people in it? Far be it from You to do such a thing – to kill the righteous with the wicked, treating the righteous and the wicked alike. Far be it from you! Will not the Judge of all the earth do right?” The L-RD said, “If I find fifty righteous people in the city of Sodom, I will spare the whole place for their sake.”
Now, we should all remember how the rest of this story goes. Abraham is bold in his prayer life with the L-RD and keeps asking Him for His mercy for forty, for thirty, for twenty and then for ten righteous left in the city. Why did Abraham stop at ten? Because that comprises a minyan – the minimum number of people required to start a congregation.
Did the end result change? No. Sodom and Gomorrah fell, but only because there could not be found even ten righteous who were willing to turn from their sin, repent and follow the L-RD and His commands.
Yet if they had found ten righteous, would the city have been spared? You bet; and it would have been spared because of Abraham’s prayer life, his communication with the L-RD. The prayer of the righteous is powerful and effective. And we know this is true because there are times when the L-RD, in the wilderness, wishes to slay the children of Israel for their unrighteousness, and it was the prayer life of Moses, praying a righteous prayer for the L-RD to protect His name among the Gentiles, that caused the L-RD not to slay the children of Israel and instead offer them a path to forgiveness.
You see, God never repents because God never sins where He has to repent. But can the prayer of the righteous move God to change? In some ways, yes. We read an example of this in:
JONAH 4:3
He prayed to the L-RD, “O L-RD, is this not what I said when I was still at home? That is why I was so quick to flee to Tarshish. I knew that you are a gracious and compassionate God, slow to anger and abounding in love, a God who relents from sending calamity.
This is where the prayers of the righteous can have an impact. When we pray for God to relent from judgment, to show mercy to the unrighteous, to give time for repentance. Not when we pray outside of the will of God, or for the L-RD to violate His will or His nature, but when we pray for the L-RD to be who He is, to live up to His name and show His greatness.
That’s when the L-RD moves. That’s when the prayer of the righteous is powerful and effective, because we’re remaining in the L-RD and His will. That’s the kind of prayer life we should want. The kind of walk with the L-RD we should want. That’s when Messiah Yeshua reigns and gives us the ability to forgive, even to forgive the unrepentant and yet stay safe. That’s when we rest in Him.
Shabbat Shalom.
My 2010 B’har-B’chukotai Commentary
May 12th, 2010 by Craig Hansen
This opportunity to do a Torah commentary came up suddenly. Right through mid-week before the Shabbat, another fine Messianic Rabbi In Training (MRIT) was scheduled to do this one; he even had it written. But then he fell under the weather and needed a quick replacement. The rabbi called me Thursday night, during my men’s Torah study, to ask if I could fill in and assure me I could just use last years’ if I needed to. I told him I could probably do better than that.
I got the call around 8:30 PM Thuesday night. I didn’t get home and settled in front of my keyboard until two hours later. By 1 AM, I was done. Good thing we stayed on-topic in our Torah study; the portion was fresh in my mind and all I really needed to do was transfer some of what we had discussed into commentary form. It may not be exciting, but this is what I came up with. Or listen to it!
Shabbat Shalom.
This week, we have a double portion for our weekly reading. It includes B’har, a Hebrew word that means, “On the mount,” as well as the portion known as “B’chukotai,” a Hebrew word that means, “In my statutes.” This double portion covers Leviticus chapter 25 through Leviticus chapter 27, and brings to an end our time in Leviticus for this Torah year.
This week’s reading covers the concept of giving even the land the people of Israel will enter, the land God has promised to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, a Sabbath rest.
Now, when many people look at this passage, they comment on how marvelous it is, how it shows God’s wisdom that modern agricultural science bears out the idea of giving the land a rest from producing crops is such a good idea; they cite the science of crop stress, soil enrichments and all these wonderful facts about farming that confirm that God knew what he was talking about in this passage.
Well, I’m not here to talk to you about how wonderful it is that God knew all this. Of course He knew it! He’s God! I’m here today to mention how sad it is that it took us well over 3,000 years of the science of man, from the time of the Exodus to figure out that God was right all along!
Of course, I think it’s also important to dig deeper than that. You see, God’s not just some cosmic farmer handing down crop management tips from his heavenly Monsanto office. God is going well beyond general truths here; he’s laying down some very special promises to the people of Israel, and they are conditional promises, based on the obedience or disobedience the people of Israel display in response to the L-RD’s commands.
You see, this is not merely about agriculture here. This is actually a teaching the L-RD is giving about how completely He wants us to observe His Sabbaths. You see, it’s not just enough for us to observe it as believers. He wants His Sabbaths to be observed by all of creation, a point he makes clear here by pointing out that even the Promised Land itself should rest; not only on the seventh day of the week, when we are to do no regular work, but in the seventh year, when we are to rest the land for an entire year.
Now, some people might read this and say, OK, we get the point. Observing the Sabbath is a good idea. Got it. But do we really have to observe a year of not working the land once every seventh year? I mean, c’mon, that would ruin the economy, people would starve.
No, they wouldn’t. God’s promises for both the seventh year Sabbath for the land, as well as the fiftieth-year Jubilee, show two important things: first, God will provide; and second, these really are special promises for His people as they enter the Promised Land, and not just good general agricultural principals that would work anywhere in the world. We read one of these promises in:
Now that’s a promise that definitely will not work just anywhere! I mean, go ahead and try it if you want to; find some secular farmers who don’t observe the L-RD’s commands and have them work the land six out of every seventh year, being sure not to work the land at all in the seventh year, but in no other way honoring God or observing His commands. I can almost guarantee you that their sixth-year crop will NOT be a triple harvest.
Remember, God’s promising to offer His people this triple harvest in the sixth year, before they actually observe the seventh-year agricultural Sabbath. The promise and provision will be obvious, giving His people confidence to indeed follow through with their obedience. The point is, these are special promises by the L-RD to His people, not just some guidebook to farming in Israel.
Yet there will still be doubters, people who say, “C’mon, I mean, we’re talking about dirt here. We’re supposed to let dirt rest? God can’t be serious, can He?”
Well, let’s take a look at just how serious God is about this command. We find this in:
So, what God is saying here is that while His people are certainly free to either obey His command for the agricultural Sabbath, or to disobey, there will be a penalty if they ignore this command: God will scatter his people among the surrounding nations, lay waste to all that was built there, and the land will lay desolate until all of the agricultural Sabbath years and Jubilee years they failed to observe have been fulfilled. I’d say this passage at least suggests that the L-RD takes this command many people read past quite seriously.
The parashah goes on from here to establish rules for observing the fiftieth-year Jubilee, in which those who sold property are allowed to return to it, those who are in bondage are allowed to go free, and those who are in debt are forgiven their financial burdens.
Once we enter chapter 26, however, the theme changes to the topic of obedience versus disobedience, and here is where we delve into the part of this week’s teaching that focuses on the life application aspect of these commands. Why is that important?
Well, how many here are farmers? Not many? OK, how many of you raising your hands are actually farmers in the land of Israel. Boom. Nobody left. Right?
You see, while agricultural commands are the topic, what applies to us all is our willingness to either agree with God, that His rules and instructions are right and just, and follow through with that by obeying Him – or to disagree with Him and walk in rebellion and disobedience.
We have that choice, all of us. We are free to do either and God will not step in and prevent it. However, there is a cost to disobedience, even for believers. Not just for the Jewish believers who looked forward to the promised Messiah, but for all of us looking back on the fulfillment of that Messianic promise in Messiah Yeshua.
Leviticus 26 makes it very clear where God stands. First, Hhe promises to reward the children of Israel richly if they obey Him. But then, He also outlines the penalties that will befall them, the correction they will suffer if they disobey. We read this in:
The passage then continues on to outline all the levels of punishment that the L-RD will dole out to Israel if they continue to walk in disobedience. As Rob observed in our men’s group Torah study this week, there’s an interesting parallel between these punishments, and the plagues the L-RD sent upon Egypt when Pharoah refused to fear and obey God in allowing Moses and the Israelites to leave for three days to worship God in the desert, and bury Joseph’s bones outside of the land of Egypt as he had requested.
The similarity is that God doesn’t correct or rebuke or punish all at once; it comes in waves, and between each wave, God offers a chance for repentance and a return to obedience. As each opportunity for repentance passes, the next wave of punishment gets a little more severe. Each time, this comes not because God loves dishing out punishment to His people, but as an attempt to wake them up to their rebellion and offer them a chance to return to the path of obedience.
We read this in:
So you see, between each wave of punishment, God inserts and if-then statement. If you continue to disobey, here’s the next thing I’m going to have to do, and it’s harsher and more severe than the last.
What’s the solution? We read this in:
If we confess, if we repent, if our uncircumcised hearts are humbled, if we pay for our sins, then the L-RD will remember his covenant with us and return us to right standing before Him. Now, some people believe this is all done away with; that repentance comes one time when we surrender our lives to Yeshua, and then is completely unnecessary because we’re forgiven. But that’s not so.
For as long as there is an ability to rebel against God, for as long as we are able to choose disobedience over obedience, there is a need for repentance, humbling, and payment for sins. It is important to remember that simply saying, “I’m sorry,” isn’t true repentance. It involves turning away from the disobedience. It involves making restitution to those we’ve wronged. Those are all things we are capable of, but in our rebellion, sometimes refuse to do.
Fortunately, the one thing we can’t do on our own – to pay our owner for his loss as a result of our rebellion – and our owner is the L-RD – is a price that has already been paid for us, by the Messiah Yeshua.
May we never treat the price He paid in our place, for our disobedience, as though it came from a dollar store.
Shabbat Shalom.
Tags: 2010 commentary, B'chukotai, B'har
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