TORAH: THE FIRST CENTURY CALLED OUT ONES

Acts chapter 21










Today we are walking in: Torah: The First Century Called Out Ones










Genesis 12:2

And I will make of thee a great nation, H1471 and I will bless thee, and make thy name great; and thou shalt be a blessing:










NATION










Today we look to the word-NATION- H1471 gowy--nation, people; of descendants of Abraham; of Israel











The Torah testifies...............




Genesis 15:14

And also that nation, H1471 whom they shall serve, will I judge: and afterward shall they come out with great substance.




Genesis 17:5

Neither shall thy name any more be called Abram, but thy name shall be Abraham; for a father of many nations H1471 have I made thee.




Genesis 18:18

Seeing that Abraham shall surely become a great and mighty nation, H1471 and all the nations H1471 of the earth shall be blessed in him?









The prophets proclaim..................



Isaiah 2:2

And it shall come to pass in the last days, that the mountain of the LORD'S house shall be established in the top of the mountains, and shall be exalted above the hills; and all nations H1471 shall flow unto it.




Isaiah 25:7

And he will destroy in this mountain the face of the covering cast over all people, and the vail that is spread over all nations. H1471




Jeremiah 3:17

At that time they shall call Jerusalem the throne of the LORD; and all the nations H1471 shall be gathered unto it, to the name of the LORD, to Jerusalem: neither shall they walk any more after the imagination of their evil heart.










The writings bear witness...........................



Psalm 9:17

The wicked shall be turned into hell, and all the nations H1471 that forget God.




Psalm 9:20

Put them in fear, O LORD: that the nations H1471 may know themselves to be but men. Selah.




Psalm 22:28

For the kingdom is the LORD'S: and he is the governor among the nations. H1471






Torah: The First Century Church




"And when they heard it, they glorified the Most High. And they said to him, "You see, brother, how many myriad of Hebrews there are who have believed, and they are all zealous for the Law"1 (Acts 21:20)




Do the events in Acts Chapter 21 occur before or after Acts 2:38 and the Day of Pentecost (Shavuot in Hebrew)? So in other words, in Acts 21 they already had the infilling of the Holy Spirit, they were speaking in tongues, they were on fire for Yah, they loved the Most High, and yes... they were zealous for the Torah! Can you imagine that? The Holy Spirit led the first century Church to the Torah.




Again, you are not in pursuit of Yah; Yah is in pursuit of you. In fact, countless born again, Spirit-filled Christians around the world are becoming immersed in and returning to the Hebrew roots of the Christian faith. These believers, often to their own amazement, find themselves drawn to their Hebrew roots today, at times even unaware that Yah prophesied this great restoration of Torah, the Hebrew letters and language of the Bible, and the Hebrew culture and lifestyle of Jesus—the full counsel of the Holy Spirit.




What I'm saying is the Holy Ghost brought you to what nourishes you in the Spirit of Yah.

And when you do the things that nourish the Spirit of Yah, you rekindle your fire for Yah. The Torah is Yah's orchestration tool that enables you to control your mind and thoughts, or better yet, for the Most High to control who you are, and how you are living as His child.




"Remember the Sabbath Day, to keep it holy."?

(Exodus 20:8)




The Sabbath Day? The Sabbath has been around since the seventh day of Creation. If Yah (Jesus) is truly the same yesterday, today, and forever (Hebrews 13:8), then exactly when and how did the Sabbath Day become a negotiable matter? When you read the Ten Commandments which say, "You shall not murder," then as believers, is it proper to negotiate and say, "We're now under grace in the New Testament, and no longer under the law, so we can freely murder!" Is that negotiable? Heaven forbid! The Commandment against murder is not negoti-able! So what about the rest of the Command-ments, are they negotiable?




As you return to the Hebrew roots of the Christian faith, you will begin to "Remember the Sabbath Day... " and find yourself sanc-tifying, or setting this specific period of time apart. From sundown Friday night to sundown Saturday night you will begin to celebrate the Sabbath. Now you can still worship on Sun-day, that's not an issue. You can also worship on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thurs-day, and Friday. But you must understand that the foremost appointed time - the Yah-given, Holy Ghost power-driven, Order of Melchizedek anointing, comes on the Sabbath, in Yah's preordained time! When you synchronize your life according to Yah's appointed times (Moadim), the Feasts and the Sabbath now draw you. Remember, "The Sabbath was made for man, man was not made for the Sabbath" (Mark 2:27).




Yah ordained specific times throughout the year that you are instructed to enter into His timing. When you do, you are not subject to time, time is subject to you! Written in the Torah is the promise that Yah will literally add time to your life. How does He add time to your life? While everybody else is growing older on Saturday-washing their cars, having garage sales, etc.—you're absorbing life in the Presence of Yah where He causes gain and increase in your life. So on the Sabbath, you begin stepping into Yah's timeless eternity, and that eternity is adding life to yours.




The first century believers accepted Jesus as their Savior and Messiah. They had also accepted Jesus' lifestyle of Torah within the context of the Hebrew culture and customs. These were the people in the upper room in Acts 2:38. These were the ones who received the infilling of the Holy Spirit. Those who were speaking in tongues were already in the Spirit when the Holy Ghost fell. They believed in Yahusha, risen from the dead, and they were zealous for the Torah. If these early disciples were participating in the customs, the culture, and the context of Torah, what should you and I be doing?




The Trouble with "Gentiles"




As I mentioned, I don't like using the word Gentile because Biblically speaking, the word "Gentile" means "pagan, confused, and without Yah" (Ephesians 2). When referring to non-Hebrew-ish believers, I prefer to use the word "Nations." When we talk about believers around the world returning to the Hebrew roots of the Christian faith—the Torah—we're confirming the Biblical prophecies about the nations returning to their Hebrew roots.




In Genesis 22:17 Yah confirms by covenant that He will multiply the seed of Abraham as the stars of the heavens and the sand upon the seashore, and Yah empowers that seed to possess the gates of their enemies. Not surprisingly, Abraham's very name means "father of a multitude of nations."




In the New Testament period, many among this multitude of nations believed in Jesus as their Most High and Savior. The question soon arose about their responsibility to the Torah, just as it does today. In other words, once we come to believe in the Messiah, what parts of the Torah should we observe?




"Then all the multitude kept silent and listened to Barnabas and Paul declaring how many miracles and wonders Yah had worked through them among the Gentiles.

And after they had become silent, James answered, saying, "Men and brethren, listen to me: Simon has declared how Yah at the first visited the Gentiles to take out of them a people for His name. And with this the words of the prophets agree, just as it is written: 'After this I will return And will rebuild the tabernacle of David, which has fallen down; I will rebuild its ruins, and I will set it up; so that the rest of mankind may seek the Most High, even all the Gentiles who are called by My name, says the Most High who does all these things!' "Known to Yah from eternity are all His works. Therefore I judge that we should not trouble those from among the Gentiles who are turning to Yah, but that we write to them to abstain from things polluted by idols, from sexual immorality, from things strangled, and from blood. For Moses has had throughout many generations those who preach him in every city, being read in the synagogues every Sabbath." (Acts 15:12-21)




The first century Church was faced with a very similar problem as we encounter today. As the Holy Spirit is leading believers from the nations into an understanding of the Hebrew roots of the Christian faith, how do we begin to teach the Torah to those who were not raised as Hebrews, and have very little, if any, familiarity with the Torah and its 613 Principles? The Council in Acts decided to begin with four primary instructions. They began by teaching new believers the foundational beliefs and practices called, "the four corners of the Torah."




The Acts Council further reasoned that since

"Moses has had throughout many generations those who preach him in every city, being read in the synagogues every Sabbath," these converts from the nations would continue to be taught the Torah as they attended weekly services in the synagogue! The unforeseen circumstance of the Council's decision is that believers, then and now, failed to remain in the synagogues and developed an identity as "Christians" which separated them from their Hebrew heritage, masked the Hebrew face of the Messiah, and estranged them from the relevance and application of the Torah Principles for their daily lives.




The Four Corners of the Torah




1. Abstain from things polluted by idols.




As a first century believer, and even today, I would have to ask myself, "If I'm instructed to abstain from idols, what is an idol?" I have to search the Scriptures (the Torah) to discover what Yah calls idolatry.




2. Abstain from sexual immorality.




The typical professional counselor today says as long as it doesn't offend you or your partner, most anything is sexually permissible. What they don't realize is that when you participate in sexual activities that Yah calls immoral, you enter the Realm of Death. To truly abstain from sexual immorality, you have to refer back to the Torah in the Book of Leviticus Chapters 13 and 15 to discover what sexual immorality is in Yah's eyes.




3. Abstain from things strangled.




"Abstain from things that are strangled?" This is referring to the dietary laws, and what is Biblically considered proper (kosher) food. Being scattered among the nations, many of us ate almost anything: pickled pig's feet, chitlins, lobster, shrimp, etc. Yet how many of us were taught the dietary instructions given by the One Who created us? How differently would we think and feel if we ate only the things that Yah calls food in the Torah?




4. Abstain from blood.




"Abstain from blood. We're supposed to abstain from blood?" How many with German ancestry have eaten blood sausage, or head cheese (ground pig's brains and pig's blood)? From its instructions about the lifeblood of animals (Deuteronomy 12:23), the blood of purity (Le-viticus 12:4), and all the way to the caution of never making common the shed blood of our Most High (Hebrews 10:29), the Bible is filled with teachings about the handling or mishandling of blood. Yet this distinction between life and death is largely untaught and mostly unknown to believers today.




Everyone that comes into the Torah by the Holy Spirit is like a brand new child—it's as if you've been born again, again! And when a child begins learning how to walk, someone steps with the child encouraging and exhorting,

"Come on, you can do it!" As the child takes the first few tentative steps, they may say, "That's great, you're doing it!" Soon the child reaches a little further, and takes another few steps. The child may grab hold of a table or a similar object so they can keep going, and continue to walk,with growing steadiness and steadfastness, step-by-step along the way.




So how do I encourage people as they return to their Hebrew roots? What is the discipleship process I use to teach the nations how to walk? Do I just bring everybody in one room and say, "Listen, tomorrow morning at nine o'clock we'll be wrapping tefillin and davening. I want to make sure you know how to read the blessing on your Tallit before you put it on. By the way, your sex life will change effective tomorrow! When your wife is having her monthly cycle, you will not have relations with her; you'll sleep in separate beds, and I expect your diet to be ko-sher-certified by the end of the week!" Is that approach likely to work with most people? Is that what you would want? Or do you want to be able to step in slowly, methodically, like a child learning to walk?




The first century believers were no different. The Council in Acts knew that these believers needed the first important steps-the four corners of the Torah-and then as they worshipped Yah in the synagogues on the Sabbath, they would learn the rest of the Torah and understand how it pointed to Yahusha. Again, the purpose was not Salvation-they were already believers! The purpose was Redemption-the redeemed lifestyle of Torah that would enable them to relate to their already Torah-observant Hebrew brothers and sisters. After almost 2,000 years the same questions are being discussed as believers are returning to the Hebrew roots of the Christian faith, and once again asking, "What is the Torah: Law or Grace?"