El Shaddai Ministries

Pastor Mark Biltz: What we're going to be doing now is digging deeper into the Gospels, even into the New Testament, and we're going to begin with Matthew chapter 11, verses 1 through 3.

It says, "And it came to pass, Yeshua had made an end of Sav, commanding his 12 disciples, he departed there to teach and to preach in the cities of his disciples. And then it says, when John had heard in the prison the works of the Messiah, he sends two of his disciples and said unto the Messiah, are you he that should come, or do we look for another?"

So, here's John. He's in prison and he's waiting to be released because he's about to get his head chopped off. He's asking, "Are you the one that should come, or do we look for another?" Now, many people think, why would he ask that when he's the cousin and he's the one who announced, "Here's the lamb of God," and all this? Does anyone have an answer why he would have sent his disciples to ask Yeshua when he grew up with him as a cousin? Does anybody have an answer? I know John would. What?

Guest (Male): Exactly. The Jews have always believed there would be two Messiahs. We see one Messiah and two comings. They always saw two Messiahs and one coming.

Pastor Mark Biltz: I'm going to explain that. Now, why in the world would they think there would be two Messiahs? Well, we have to put our hats on from 2000 years ago. Hindsight is 20/20, but we have to put on our yarmulkes from 2000 years ago and look at this verse. Zechariah 9, verse 9, it says, "Rejoice greatly, oh daughter of Zion. Shout, oh daughter of Jerusalem. Behold, your king is coming to you. He is just and having salvation. He is very humble and he's riding on a donkey and upon a colt, the foal of a donkey."

So, they saw the Messiah coming very humbly on a donkey. But wait, there's more. Look at Daniel 7:13 and 14. "I saw in the night visions, and behold, one like the son of man coming with the clouds of heaven, and he came to the ancient of days, and they brought him near before him. And there was given him dominion and glory and a kingdom that all people, nations, and languages would serve him. His dominion is an everlasting dominion, which will not pass away, and his kingdom that which shall not be destroyed."

They also see the Messiah coming with the clouds, the son of man. And so they go, "Gee, does he come on a donkey, or does he come with the clouds?" They said there had to be two. There had to be one because of Isaiah 53, a suffering servant that will die for the nation, and then right after that comes the conquering king who establishes the kingdom.

It makes total sense to me. When you think about it, if you were here 2000 years ago and you had these two verses, you would think there would be two also. So, what John is asking him, "Are you the suffering servant, or are you the conquering king? Are you the one that's coming, and do we look for another? Are you going to somehow serve both roles, or do we look for another?" So, that's what John was asking him. That's real important to understand what their thinking was, but I also want to justify why they thought that way. It would make sense to me as well if I saw these two verses and I'm trying to understand them, just like today. There's a lot of New Testament verses we try to figure out, and we don't know because they can feel contradictory.

Well, here's something I need to mention. How many of you know they didn't have printing presses 2000 years ago? Only a very wealthy family would have possessed even a single scroll of one of the books of the Bible. The Torah took a year for one person to write, a whole year for one person to write one scroll. So, if you wanted the Book of Jeremiah, or if you wanted the Book of Obadiah, or whatever, you'd have to pay a priest to scribe it. Not anyone could do it. You couldn't write your own. It wouldn't be any good. You had to have someone who was authorized to write the scroll, and it cost a lot of money.

The only time they would hear is typically at the end of every year they come together and they would read only certain portions. They wouldn't read the whole Torah. So, a lot of people back then had never even heard it, let alone read it. So, what do we find? Instead, what would happen is an entire community would have a Torah scroll or have the different books. And whole communities would pool their money together to produce copies of the scriptures.

And then these community scrolls would be kept in the local synagogue. They were neither convenient to access and they weren't necessarily portable either. So, the primary education of Jewish children was the word-for-word memorization of the scripture. They memorized it. That's what they would do. Beginning at age five, Jewish children would begin to memorize. They'd be five years old and the memorization of large passages of scripture, even the entire books, resulted in a highly developed mode of communication for religious Jews.

The scriptures were set to music as well. I've been to Shiloh and I've been to the schools and the kids are all singing the Hebrew of the books. It's all set to music. They were able to reference a particular passage or prophecy by citing only a few keywords. If I were to say to you, "For God so loved..." you just go ahead and finish it. I only have to quote a few words and you know the rest of it. Or I could just give the reference. How many of you know John 3:16? All of you know it, right? This is so important for us to realize that they had much of the Bible memorized.

Now, I'm going to tell you a little joke to make a point. There was this guy, he's new to prison, and he goes in prison, he's behind the bars, and he hears someone yell out, "42!" and everybody cracks up laughing. He goes, "What in the world?" Someone else yells out, "18!" and everybody in the whole prison just starts cracking up laughing. He goes, "What in the world is going on?" So he asks his roommate and the roommate says, "Well, we know all the jokes, so we just assigned them numbers and we say a number and everyone remembers the joke and they all laugh."

He goes, "Well, let me try that." And he goes, "Eight!" Nobody laughs. "Man, I must have picked a bad joke. Let me try another one. 36!" Nobody laughs. He looks at his friend, "What's going on?" He goes, "Boss, some people don't know how to tell a good joke."

But my point is all the people in Messiah's day with only a few words knew what Messiah was talking about. He didn't have to quote the whole thing. They had it memorized. And remember, it wasn't a Gideon Bible back then. He wasn't quoting any of the New Testament.

Let's see. So, when Yeshua tells John's disciples to report to him, "The blind receive their sight, the lame walk, those who have leprosy are cured, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the good news is preached to the poor," he's actually citing at least two important passages about the coming of the Kingdom of Heaven from the book of Isaiah. John would have known those passages. Just by saying those few words, John could recall what they were.

Let me give you one of them. It's Isaiah 35, verses 3 through 6. "Strengthen the weak hands, confirm the feeble knees, say to them that are of a fearful heart..." Guess what? That's John. He's of a fearful heart. He's about to get his head chopped off. He's in prison. "Be strong, don't fear, behold, your God will come with vengeance, even God with a recompense. He will come and save you." Boy, if I was John, I'd be saying, "Woohoo!"

"Then the eyes of the blind will be opened, the ears of the deaf will be unstopped, the lame man will leap as a heart, the tongue of the dumb will sing, in the wilderness shall waters break out and streams in the desert." Well, look at Isaiah 61, verse 1 and 2. "The spirit of the Lord God is upon me because the Lord has anointed me to preach good tidings to the meek. He sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of prison to them who are bound." Where is John? He is bound. This is a verse he knew very well.

And so he's thinking, "Yay, I'm out of here." And then it says, "to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord and the day of vengeance of our God to comfort all that mourn." And here's John saying, "Well, what about me?" How many times is our prayer not, "God, when are you going to help them?" it's always, "What is it going to help me?" God wants us to be more concerned about the them, not about the us or me. Well, in one sense metaphorically, Yeshua fulfilled all those things. He died, yes, he got his head chopped off, but guess what? The doors were opened for him. He was set free from this mortal body. So, we always have to realize sometimes God answers our prayer, but in a different way than we thought he would.

In Genesis 38:27 through 29, it says, "It came to pass in the time of her travail, behold, twins were in her womb. And it came to pass when she travailed, that one put out his hand and the midwife took and bound upon his hand a scarlet thread, saying, this one came out first. And then it came to pass as he drew back his hand, the other brother came out and she says, how have you broken forth? This breach be upon you. Therefore his name was called Perez." And what does Perez mean? Breach. So, he's named after, "because this breach came forth, we're going to call you breach." That's what happened.

But let's watch as this unfolds. In Ruth 4:18 through 22, "Here are the generations of Mr. Breach. Breach begat Hezron, begat Ram, begat Amminadab, begat Nahshon, who begat Salmon, and Salmon begat Boaz, and Boaz, Obed, Jesse, and Jesse begat David." Now, most of you are familiar with all of the inside teaching to this, I believe. It's amazing because the letter 'Vav' is missing in the word "generations." The first time generations is mentioned, the Vav is there as a letter. The next 70 times in the Bible, it's misspelled intentionally. Now, in English, we don't intentionally misspell it because we think it's a mistake, but God purposely did it that way.

The Vav is a connection. After Adam sinned, the connection was broken between heaven and earth. But the Vav returns and is spelled correctly here when it talks about the generation of the one who caused the breach. We know back then Adam caused the breach. Well, here the guy named Breach is the one who ends up in his ancestry bringing forth King David, and that is why the Vav is back in the word generations.

Here's the thing. When you think of John the Baptist, Yochanan the Immerser, we're going back to the Gospels. I want to bring this out. Here in Malachi chapter 3, verse 1, God is saying, "Behold, I will send my messenger and he will clear the way before..." who? Right there it tells you God is the one coming. And he's going to have a messenger clear the way before he comes. John was the one who cleared the way before God came.

And look at Malachi 4:3 through 6. In these last days, God said, "You are going to tread down the wicked." Everyone's afraid of the devil. I'm not afraid of the devil. It says we're going to tread him down, "for they will be ashes under the soles of your feet in the day that I do this," says the Lord of Hosts. And the whole key is to remember the Torah, "which I commanded to him in Horeb for all of Israel with the statutes and the judgments." And then it says, "Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord."

Now, let's think about this for a minute. John the Baptist is not Elijah. He came in the spirit of Elijah. And when Yeshua quoted Isaiah 61, he stopped before he said the great and terrible day. He stopped right before then because this was his first coming. That applies to his second coming. And then it says the purpose of Elijah is to turn the heart of the fathers toward their children and the heart of the children to their fathers, "lest I come and smite the earth with a curse."

Well, that was happening back in his time as John operated in the spirit of Elijah. But what's important for us to realize is that's what's supposed to be happening now. Do you know the biggest problem in society today is a lack of fathers? It really is. They're not there for their kids. We have to, as fathers, we have to be there for the kids. Too often the fathers get focused on what they're doing—their job, their careers, what's going on—they don't have time for the kids, and the kids all need a father. They come from broken families. But God is going to do something huge where he's going to turn the hearts of the fathers toward the children, in which case the children's heart will be turned back toward the fathers. So important. That is just so important today.

But concerning John, look what it says in Luke 1:17, talking about John. "He will go before his face in the spirit and power of Elijah, turning the hearts of the fathers to their children and wrongdoers to the way of righteousness, to make ready a people whose hearts have been turned to the Lord." So, this is referring to Malachi, but it's not Elijah. It's John who's operating in the spirit of Elijah.

Now, here's another one. Look at Matthew 11, verse 12. It says from the days of Yochanan the Immerser, or John the Baptist, until now, look at this, "The Kingdom of Heaven is suffering violence, and the violent are taking it by force." Now, how many of you ever wondered, what in the world does that mean? As a matter of fact, the word for violence is Hamas. What in the world? It says that the Kingdom of Heaven is suffering from Hamas, and Hamas is going to take it by force. Does that even make sense?

There is an ancient rabbinic interpretation that helps us completely understand this verse. This is why you have to know how to eat the meat and throw out the bones. There's a lot of good meat there. Well, listen to this. Look at Micah chapter 2, verse 12. That's the key to interpreting this verse. It says, "I will surely gather all of you, oh Jacob. I will surely gather the remnant of Israel. I will put them together like the sheep of Bozrah, like the flock in the midst of their fold."

So, what we have here is the picture of a shepherd penning up his sheep for the night. He's pinning them all up for the night and it's in cramped quarters. They can hardly move. They're like a hundred people in an elevator. No room. Well, look at the next verse. "They shall be in commotion because of men, and then it's Perez, the breaker has come up before them. They have broken up and have passed through the gate and have gone out of it, and their king will pass before them and the Lord at the head of them."

So, this is the word Perez, Poratz. There's a breaker that is going to come to allow the king to go at the head of them. So, what is happening, the following morning, the sheep begin to push and shove, trying to get out after being pinned up all night in cramped quarters, literally breaking through, finally bursting out into the open spaces after the shepherd.

Now, the rabbis, their interpretation of this verse was that the breachmaker would be Elijah, who would prepare the way for the king who was the coming Messiah. So, here's how you explain that verse, Matthew 11:12. Go back to Luke chapter 16, verse 16 and 17. It says, "The law and the prophets continued until who came? John. And from that time..." and he's the one who's supposed to be preparing the way for the Messiah. It says, "From that time, the good news of the Kingdom of God has been spreading, and all people have been forcing their way into it. But it is easier for earth and sky to pass away than for one smallest detail of the law to fall to the ground."

Let me explain. Two simultaneous things are happening at the same time. The Kingdom of Heaven is bursting forth into the world when Messiah came. Individuals are now finding their liberty and their freedom. John the Baptist, as a type of Elijah, was the Perez or the breachmaker who broke open the way, and the King Messiah Yeshua is now following, leading the sheep through the gates.

So, when it says, instead of reading it as, "the days of John the Baptist until now the Kingdom of Heaven is suffering violence and the violent are taking by force..." this is why English is so bad and the lack of understanding. Here's how it should be. From the days of John the Baptist until now, the Kingdom of Heaven is now breaking out, and those breaking out are breaking out into the Kingdom of Heaven.

So, it's like, "Wow, Messiah's here." John prepared the way. Messiah's here. And now all of God's people are breaking out of these cramped quarters into the freedom of the open space. So, it's not violence. It's breaking out. It's a total misunderstanding. Yeshua is not sanctioning violence as a means of advancing his kingdom. The simple meaning is ever since John began his ministry, people have been pouring into the kingdom. Yeshua's listeners would have been familiar with the terminology and they probably would have understood that the Perez was a messianic reference. Does anybody not follow me?

So, the whole thing about the kingdom suffering violence really means the kingdom is breaking out. This is why, again, Danny and I are working on a new Bible to help people understand. And then look at Matthew chapter 11 and this is verse 28 through 30. Do you remember earlier I talked about finding rest for your souls? I'll read it again here. But look at Matthew 11:28 through 30. Yeshua says, "Come unto me, all you that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn of me, for I am meek and lowly in heart, and you shall find what? Rest."

Like I always said, there's nothing new in the New Testament. Everything is quoting the Tanakh and then giving meaning to it if we know how to connect the dots. This comes from Jeremiah chapter 6, verse 16. It says, "Thus saith the Lord, stand in the ways and see, and ask for the old paths because that's where the good way is, and walk there, and you shall find rest for your souls." But they said, "We don't want to walk that way."

And so God is telling us how to find rest is by putting on the yoke of the kingdom. But what happens? Yeshua is using similar language to criticize the Pharisees and the teachers of the Torah in his day who made the practical observance of Torah difficult by adding layers of fences, additional legislation and minutiae to the commandments of God.

Basically, what they would want to do, just like if you have something you don't want the kids or the dog or cat to break, you put a something around it to protect it. They want to protect the commandments. This is the problem that Adam had. If you remember, I don't know how many of you knew this, Eve wasn't created when the commandment gave not to eat of the tree of knowledge of good and evil. Not even created. She didn't exist. That's right. She didn't exist.

And so God gave Adam the commandment, and then he says, "I need to find a helpmate for you." And so then he brings all the lions and tigers and bears, oh my. And it says none of them was a proper helpmate. So then God brings to Adam, Eve. So Eve never heard the commandment. And what was the commandment? Not to eat of the tree. But what did Adam do? He added, "Don't you even touch it." By putting the fence around the commandment "don't eat" and saying, "Don't even touch it," which wasn't what God said, he put a fence around the commandment by saying, "I'm going to guard this commandment by adding don't even touch it or you'll die."

Eve never—that's all Eve heard. So, Eve when she goes up and touches it and she looks at Adam and she didn't die, she said, "You lying to me. You may be lying to me about eating it as well." And so what happens when we put commandments—that's why it says in Deuteronomy 4 as well as in Revelation 22, don't add or subtract to God's commandments. But that's been manmade traditions for the last 2000 years. We've added all these fences, and then we put a fence around the fence to protect the fence, and then we put a fence around the fence that's around the fence to protect it, and then we put another fence around that fence around that fence around that fence to protect it. That's what's happened in Judaism, but it's also what's happened in Christianity. But we've been adding and subtracting from the word of God, and so therefore that's where a lot of the problem is.

Now, let's see. The cumulative result of centuries of manmade tradition has derived laws that were a heavy yoke that made practical observance of the Torah difficult, just like in having to keep the Sabbath. The Bible doesn't tell you exactly how to keep the Sabbath. Now, the Orthodox Jews derive like 70-some things you're not supposed to do based on how they interpret the scripture or whatever. But Yeshua offers a simpler approach that prioritizes compassion towards one's fellow and the alleviation of human suffering.

That's the way he looks at it. That's why it says, "Hey, if the person's donkey falls in the ditch and he's got a heavy load, don't worry about the Sabbath. Go help the poor donkey or go help the neighbor." But they have it to the point where, and they always look at ways to dodge it, like they're not even supposed to turn on lights. So what do they do? They have the neighbor come and turn on their lights. I mean, but there's a lot of things that they do to get around it.

I think one of them is they have to walk on the Sabbath. They can't drive on the Sabbath because that's lighting a fire, a spark in your engine. So what do I see most people do? All the Chabad people will drive 40 miles to the synagogue, park two blocks from the synagogue, and then they'll get out and walk the two blocks. You know, but anyway, they made keeping the Sabbath such a hardship. It's like, "Golly."

I had someone very famous who I won't mention call me and they said, "Pastor Mark, I have a swimming pool in my backyard and I'm in an argument with my wife whether I can swim on the Sabbath. She said I shouldn't swim on the Sabbath and I think I should swim on the Sabbath. Is that breaking the Sabbath?" So, the first thing I said is, "No way I'm jumping in the middle of between you and your wife. I'm not stupid."

I said, "But here is a principle. The Bible says the Sabbath is to be a day set apart. If you swim every day of the week, don't swim on the Sabbath. If you don't swim during the week, swim on the Sabbath. It's about setting it apart." You follow me? So to me, we need to realize the whole purpose of the Sabbath is to find rest with God, build a relationship like mother and daughter, father and son. It's a type of the millennial reign when we're here with the Messiah. Don't get caught up in the minutiae of legalism in keeping the Sabbath. That's not what it's about.

And I think for some people it may be different than other people. I don't think there's one standard that fits all. I mean, for some people, they want to know if their kids could play soccer on the Sabbath. I'm serious, these are some of the different things. For some people that would be horrible, but for other people, it's not a problem at all. Well, guess what? I am no one's Holy Spirit. You ask the Holy Spirit. That's just it. I am not here to control anybody, I'm not here to manipulate anybody, I'm just here to tell you listen to the Holy Spirit, see what he says. But I know the main thing is have fun, be with family, and if playing soccer you're having fun and being with family and you're thanking God, you can still play soccer. Great, I don't have a problem with that. But it's again, I am not anybody's Holy Spirit.

Okay, now let's look at this. For example, in Matthew 12:1 and 2, it says, "At that time, Yeshua went on the Sabbath day through a field of corn, and his disciples were hungry and they began to pluck the ears of corn and to eat. But when the Pharisees saw it, they said unto him, Behold, your disciples do that which is not lawful to do upon the Sabbath day." That's not true. And just so you know, there were seven different groups of Pharisees and they all had seven different opinions. So this is only speaking of one group of the seven types of Pharisees.

A lot of them encouraged them to do that. But if you go back and look at what the Torah says, the Torah literally says if you're going through a field, you can go ahead and take all you want and eat it, but you can't put any in your pockets. You can't bring a basket in and rip your neighbor off of stealing all of his food. That's called stealing. But if you're walking through, grab a couple of grapes. God doesn't care. So again, we have to go back and look at what the Torah says.

And as a matter of fact, this is in the Talmud in Yoma 85b. It says that the saving of human life always supersedes the Sabbath laws. And that's what the Pharisees thought. Well, let's go to Matthew 12:3. Yeshua says, "Haven't you read what even King David did when he was hungry and those that were with him? He entered into the very temple and he ate the showbread, which wasn't lawful for him to eat, neither for them which were with him, but only for the priests." God didn't care. They were trying to survive. They were in a battle.

Matthew 12:5 through 8, he says, "Or have you not read in the Torah how on Sabbath days the priests in the temple profane the Sabbath and are blameless? But I'm telling you that in this place is one greater than the temple, and if you had known what that means, I will have mercy and not sacrifice, you would not have condemned the guiltless. For the son of man is Lord even of the Sabbath day." What does that mean? That means he's the Lord of the Sabbath day. He's not going to change it from Saturday to Sunday. He is the Lord of the Sabbath. He's the boss. He's the one who instituted it.

Now, Yeshua's argument is based upon a rabbinic principle known as Kal Vachomer, from the light to the heavy. If it was permissible for David and his men to eat what was ordinarily forbidden on the Sabbath day because they were hungry, how much more so is it permissible for the son of David and his men? Likewise, if it is permissible for the priests ministering in the temple to bake and eat the bread of the presence on the Sabbath day, how much more so is it permissible for those ministering to one who is greater than the temple, the Messiah, to satisfy their hunger on the Sabbath day?

But now I want to close with this idea of the finger of God and the commandments. Let's go to Matthew. I'm going to bring up—here is Moses with the Ten Commandments written by the finger of God. Listen to Matthew 12 and this is verse 22 through 28. It says, "Then was brought to Yeshua one who was possessed with a devil, blind, dumb, and he healed him, in so much that the blind and the dumb both spoke and saw. And all the people were amazed and said, Is not this the son of David?"

Now, what were they saying when they were proclaiming him as the son of David? He's the Messiah! Because his dad was supposedly Joseph and they all knew that. And so when they say "Is this not the son of David?" they're saying, "Isn't this the Messiah?" And then when the Pharisees heard it, they were very upset and they said, "This fellow does not cast out devils but by the prince of the devils, Beelzebub."

And Jesus knew their thoughts and he said to them, "Every kingdom divided against itself will be brought to desolation, kind of like the United States right now. And every city or house divided against itself will not stand. If Satan is casting out Satan, he's divided against himself. How shall then his kingdom stand? And if I by Beelzebub am casting out devils, by whom do your children cast them out? Therefore they will be your judges." And then he says, "If I cast out devils by what? The spirit of God, then the Kingdom of God is come to you."

So, here he says, "If I'm casting out devils by the spirit of God and you're saying the spirit of God is a devil, you're in deep trouble." But let's look at how Luke translates this situation. In Luke 11:20, "But if I with the finger of God cast out devils, no doubt the Kingdom of God is come upon you." So, what do we see here? The spirit of God refers to the finger of God. You following me?

But now look at Exodus 31:18. Back at the time of the Ten Commandments. "And he gave to Moses, when he had made an end of communing with him upon Mount Sinai, the two tablets of testimony, tables of stone written with what? The finger of God." That means the Ten Commandments were written by the spirit of God.

So, we can't look at the laws of God and the spirit of God as the spirit of God is getting away of the law of God when the spirit of God is the one who wrote the laws of God. So many people see the spirit of God and the law as opposite. Christians today say, "Well, I go by the spirit." Well, guess what? The spirit is the one who wrote the commandments. So, you have to have a different understanding of what's going on here, and I hope that helps. With that, let's stand.