MessianicMusings.com

If you’re here looking for the best acne treatment, click that link. But if you’re here looking for part two of my three-part Torah commentary on Va Yelekh, you’ve come to the right spot!

Read on! Or listen to it!

As many of you may know, my mother passed away at the end of August. My wife and I went down to visit as much as we could toward the end of my mother’s life. We knew her time was near and we took advantage of each visit to talk and say the things we felt we needed to share, or to ask, or to talk about with her, in her final days.

As is the case in many families, Mom was the glue that held the rest of us together as a family. And I had the chance to sit with her alone and talk about Dad and my sister and the concerns I had about both of them, once Mom was gone. My wife had opportunities for similar talks of her own with Mom.

Now, Mom may have called our Messiah Jesus, but she walked with Yeshua. As she faced the end of her days, she relied on Him more and more. And the more she relied on Him, the less she worried.

The way Mom regarded our concerns over Dad and my sister was, “Well, Dad’s going to do what Dad’s going to do. Paulette’s doing to do what Paulette’s doing to do.”

I think what Mom meant is, ultimately, we can’t control the actions of others, even those we love. We can’t force people to make better choices. We can pray, we can encourage, we can do all we can; but at some point we have to let go and realize the results are not in our hands … the rest is between them and the L-RD.

All of this has given me a new perspective on this passage on the final days of Moshe. Where once I saw Adonai as almost being mean for telling Moshe that these Isra’elites would go astray and worship false gods, rather than staying true to Adonai and his commands, I now see it as an act of intimate honesty between God and Moshe.

More importantly, I don’t think the news came as any big shock to Moshe. He had journeyed most of his life with them. He knew them as a parent knows a child. They had strayed before, and I’m sure it did not surprise him when Adonai told Moshe that they would stray again.

Remember, Moshe was witness to how quickly the children of Isra’el turned to the worship of the golden calf while he was with Adonai receiving the Ten Commands. As it is written in:

Exodus 32:19-22 (CJB)

“But the moment Moshe got near the camp, when he saw the calf and the dancing, his own anger blazed up. He threw down the tablets he had been holding and shattered them at the base of the mountain. Seizing the calf they had made, he melted it in the fire and ground it to powder, which he scattered on the water. Then he made the people of Isra’el drink it. Moshe said to Aharon, “What did these people do to you to make you lead them into such 9a terrible sin? Aharon replied, “My lord shouldn’t be so angry. You know what these people are like, that they are determined to do evil.”

Notice the phrasing of Aharon to Moshe: You know what these people are like. That’s important to understand. Moshe knew what these people were like. How could he not, after leading them for so many years?

I also think it’s very important to understand here that the Isra’elites here are not unusually sinful. If they were, Adonai would never have selected them to be his elect. This is not a special condemnation of the descendants of Abraham, Issac and Jacob, as some Christian churches teach. This is a statement of fact about human nature, about what we are like apart from Messiah Yeshua, when we are ruled by the flesh and not by the Ruach haKodesh, when we are under the reign of the Old Adam, under the power of the Adversary of Adonai.

As I pointed out in my last commentary, apart from Messiah, we are all selfish at heart. Not inherently good, not inherently evil – inherently selfish. We, like the Isra’elites, are impatient when it comes to waiting on Adonai. In fact, I think we today are worse at it. We seek the gratification of the now, rather than the reward of the not yet.

Parents recognize this truth. Offer any grumpy, hungry young child a choice between a candy bar now, or a wonderful steak dinner in a half-hour at home, and most kids will want the candy bar RIGHT NOW! And then, of course, when a half hour goes by, they’ll also be asking about that steak dinner you promised them, forgetting that it was a choice. Right?

Remember those multiple choice tests we used to get when we were in school? Every once in a while, you’d get three answers, A, B, and C that all sounded pretty good. But then you’d get choice D – All of the above. And the temptation to answer All of the above was so great, because it felt like at least you were covering all your bases – even though it was sometimes the wrong response.

We’re no different from the Isra’elites. In fact I doubt we’d endure half of what they endured. We are the All of the Above generation. We want freedom and salvation, but we also want the comfort of what we’re familiar with in our own personal Egypts. We want it all! We don’t want to make a choice!

This is not about just one generation of Isra’elites! This is all of us! This is where we are and what we’re like, apart from Yeshua.