Holy Scriptures and Israel

Gideon Levytam: Shalom. Holy Scriptures and Israel is a ministry designed to share with the Jewish people the good news of the Lord Jesus Yeshua the Messiah, and to instruct Christians on the Jewish roots of their faith. And now, teaching God's word from a Hebrew Messianic perspective, here is Gideon Levytam.

Gideon Levytam: The study of 1 John chapter 2. Three words. Propitiation. The Messiah has once suffered for sins. Substitution, the just for the unjust. Reconciliation that he might bring us to God. Now that he satisfied God, a sinner can be brought to God and be reconciled with God and become part of a family, the Mishpacha eternally saved.

Gideon Levytam: Have a paraclete in heaven and have a paraclete within us. The paraclete in heaven is Yeshua the Messiah, who is before the Father. The paraclete on Earth is Ruach HaKodesh, the Holy Spirit of God, who are aiding us here in this world as we walk here with Yeshua the Messiah here upon the face of this world. And so, what a precious truth it is for us to understand that Yeshua the Messiah satisfied entirely the holy God and who became now our Father.

Gideon Levytam: And one more point before we going to move to the next verses. The reason that we read today from Exodus chapter 25 about the mercy seat, that Aaron and Moses were called to build among our people Israel when the tabernacle, the Mishkan was built some 3500 years ago, there was a mercy seat. What was the purpose of the mercy seat?

Gideon Levytam: The mercy seat was right above the ark of the Covenant. It was like the lid upon the ark. There were two cherubim standing facing each other, and their wings hovering above the Kaporet, the mercy seat, and there to which Aaron had to come every year on the Day of Atonement, Yom Kippurim, to bring blood.

Gideon Levytam: When he would bring the blood, he will sprinkle it between the mercy seat, on top of the mercy seat, before the mercy seat, in order to propitiate the God of Israel, to satisfy his holiness, because the blood of the animal made it possible now for a person to be accepted with God because God had been totally propitiated, totally satisfied with the work of the sacrifice.

Gideon Levytam: Well, we know that all these sacrifices pointed to Yeshua, to Jesus, our Messiah and our Lord. And so, brothers and sisters, I hope I was clear on this verses 1 and 2, Yeshua the Messiah, he's our advocate with the Father, the one that represent us as this paraclete in the presence of the Father. For every sin that we have committed, he would say to the Father, Father, for these sins, I have already paid the price. I have died for those sins already, and therefore we can say that when we confess our sins, he is faithful and just towards the Lord, to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

Gideon Levytam: So now, back to 1 John, chapter 2 and verses 3 to 11. If we are now, as children, are going to enjoy fellowship with God, the Father now, we are in a need of having an obedient life. Now, you know, we know very well that obedience, it's something that is hard for us to learn.

Gideon Levytam: Oftentimes, those of us who raised children know very well. We never need to train our children to disobey, right? You never said to your child, please, I want you to learn a little bit to disobey me. You always have to train the children to obey. They are not always obeying. And when there is disobedience, practical fellowship is broken, not fellowship as in our union.

Gideon Levytam: No, that is never broken because they are still our children, but nevertheless, look of the importance of obedience to the Father. Verses 3 and 4, the children are called to walk in light. And walking in light is walking in obedience to God's Word. And so he says in verse 3, he says, 'hereby we know that we know him, if we keep his commandment.'

Gideon Levytam: He that saith, 'I know him' and keepeth not his commandments, is a liar and the truth is not in him. So keeping the commandments of the Lord, what the Lord have commanded us in Scripture, is in obedience to God. In other words, notice how he is saying in verse 3 and 4, 'He that saith, I know him and keepeth not his commandments, is a liar and the truth is not in him.'

Gideon Levytam: In other words, how do we know the Father? Not only to know about the Father, but to know the Father. You know, how do we know each other? You know, we perhaps know about each other more than we really know each other personally, close enough. You know, somebody said to me, Brother Gideon, if you're going to know me, you will not like me anymore. Why?

Gideon Levytam: Because if you know more about me, you'll find out my failure, my shortcoming, my sins, because I'm not perfect. I may be giving an appearance that I'm pretty good and okay, but in reality, I'm not. And the truth of the matter is this really, the more we will know God, our Father, it will help us to seek to be more like him, to be more in fellowship with him.

Gideon Levytam: And the more we know Yeshua, our Messiah, the more we have an intimate relationship with him, it rubs upon our shoulder and we are somehow walking in light, walking in a way that is pleasing to God. And so he says in verse 3, 'hereby we do know that we know him' in a real fellowship with him, 'if we keep his commandments'.

Gideon Levytam: And we can go through the various commandments that Yeshua the Messiah had given his disciples when he was teaching them in the upper room, doing his walk with them here in this world. So, to know him is to have fellowship with him and to enjoy, to spend time with him. And then he said, 'He that saith that he know him and do not keep his commandments', really, he's lying, 'and the truth is not in him'.

Gideon Levytam: In other words, by saying, 'Oh, yes, I know Yeshua. I know Jesus. I know Yeshua the Messiah', but if we are violating consistently on an ongoing basis, violating his commandments, it's really show that we really do not know intimately the Father or intimately the Son, the Messiah. By the way, do you know that the first disciples in Acts 11 were called Meshihim, translated to the Greek Christos or Christ or Christians, but in the Hebrew is Meshihim, followers of the Messiah.

Gideon Levytam: How do you think they called the Meshihim, Christians in the beginning? Because they spent time with the Lord. The more they spent time with the Lord, they say, 'Oh, those are that belong to Yeshua, to the Messiah. They are followers of the Messiah'. They became a testimony to Yeshua the Messiah by virtue of the fact that they knew him spending time with him.

Gideon Levytam: When we don't spend time with the Lord, when we don't have fellowship with him, we really don't know him. How do we know the Lord more and more in our lives? Well, we read the Bible, we read the Scripture, we take time to pray, to speak with him, and we spend time to submit to him, obeying him, keeping his commandments, seeking to submit to what he commanded us as believers in Yeshua the Messiah.

Gideon Levytam: Then you notice, and I'm continuing here, in verse 5, 'obedience to God's word is a proof that the love of God is perfected in us'. It says in verse 5, 'Whosoever keepeth his word, in him verily the love of God perfected. Hereby know that we are in him'. Now notice the difference, brothers and sisters, in verse 3 and 4, it says, 'if we keep his commandment'.

Gideon Levytam: But in verse 5, it says, 'if we keep his word'. What is the difference between commandment and word? There is a difference between those two, even though the commandments are part of his word, but yet there is a distinctiveness between commandments and word. What is the difference? A commandment is when we are being told, I want you to do this, I want you to get up in the morning, I want you to go to the office to the work, and I want you to do this and this and that.

Gideon Levytam: This is a commandment. But the word is far more than just a commandment. The word of God is to know the heart of God, the heart of Christ, the heart of the Messiah. That we don't even need to be told, but just to go because we know that that is the will of God in our lives. Somebody said this like this, there are three motives to obedience.

Gideon Levytam: One of them is we have to do something. Secondly, is we need to do something. But thirdly, is we want to do something. For example, if you were a slave under the Romans, you would have to do the work that your boss or your master have told you because you are a slave. Secondly, if you would have been simply an employee, like today, many of us are employees, we know that we need to do what our employer tells us to do.

Gideon Levytam: If we are not going to do what our employers tell us to do, we will get fired and we will not get paid. So, we don't have to, but we need to because we are getting reimbursed for that. But the third thought is we want to do this, it's not more an employee, or no more a slave, but it's a child want to do the will of the Father out of the abundance of his heart.

Gideon Levytam: God the Father does not need to command us. He doesn't need even to force us. He knows that his child out of a response of love to the Father will want to do the bidding of his Father. Like a child, again, is a great example at home, that he sees his father come from work. We talked about it the other day. And he knows that his father told him to do certain things before he left the house.

Gideon Levytam: But now, when he had done it, he obeyed the commandment of his Father, when his Father told him what to do. But if his Father left and went to work and he didn't tell him what to do, but he knew what would please the Father. And out of submissiveness to his Father, he went and he done those things without even to be told.

Gideon Levytam: That's the obedience, not necessarily to the commandment, but to the word, to know the heart of the Father. You know, brothers and sisters, this is so important for us. We don't want to be motivated to obey God because we have to. We don't want to be motivated to obey God because we need to. Oh, I'm a Christian. I need to do that.

Gideon Levytam: But we want to be motivated to obedience because we want to. Why? We love him because he first loved us. We respond to him because he reached us first. Out of the love for our Lord Yeshua the Messiah, we will seek to please him even if he didn't give us a specific command. You know, somebody said it like this. You know, sometimes people come to me and says, what's wrong with going to the bar and going to all these places and doing all these things?

Gideon Levytam: He says, what's wrong? You know, it's nothing wrong with it. Well, that's the wrong question to ask. The question to ask is what's right? What would please God the Father? What will give him joy to his heart? And you see, this is different between obedience because I have to, obedience because I need to, but it is obedience because I want to obey my Father.

Gideon Levytam: And you know, we find ourselves most of the time, not in the last one into I want to. Many times or most of the time we need to, well, we have to, you know. And we haven't many times arrived to the appreciation of who Yeshua is and to say, listen, I want to obey God, my Father. I want to obey Yeshua the Messiah, not because I have to, not because I need to, but because I want to have fellowship with my Messiah and my Father.

Gideon Levytam: That's what he's really saying here in verse 5, 'He that keepeth his word, in him verily the love of God is perfected. Hereby know we that we are in him'. In other words, the love of God is being perfected in the life of the believer, being matured and developed because I'm submitting to God not out of necessity, not out of need, but out of simply submissiveness to the Lord.

Gideon Levytam: And, brothers and sisters, may the Lord help us with this so we can grow in appreciation of who he is and what he have done for us. And so now he's continuing on in verse 6, he says, 'He that saith'. How many times he used that word, 'He that saith'. 'He that saith' verse 4. 'He that saith' verse 6. 'He that saith' verse 9. It's mentioned again and again in this passage we are here today.

Gideon Levytam: Verse 6, he said, 'He that saith, that he abideth in him, ought himself also to walk even as he walk'. To say that you are abide, being close to the Lord, well, it's got to change us. It's got to change the behavior, the conduct. Well, if we are saying that we are abiding in him, we are close to him, we are near him, well, it says in verse 6, 'we are to walk even as he walk'.

Gideon Levytam: In other words, the standard is rising. You might say this is stage number three. Stage number one or level number one, obedience to his commandments. Level number two is obedience to his word. Level number three is walking even as he walk. In other words, really having a fellowship with the Lord and submissiveness out of the desire of the heart to obey and to live for the Lord.

Gideon Levytam: So John is now speaking to the children of God and he's encouraging them with the need of obedience. Do you know how sin entered into this world? Simply by disobedience of one man by the name of Adam, who was the federal head of the whole human race. He plunged the whole human race into sin by disobedience, eating of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, and by disobedience, sin have entered into the world.

Gideon Levytam: So let's just quickly move on and conclude with this portion. Verses 7 to 11 is the final point here in this message for today. Verses 7 and 8, believers in this age have a new commandment in additional to what they have already heard in the past. It says in verse 7 and 8, 'brethren, achim, I write no new commandment unto you, but an old commandment which ye had from the beginning'.

Gideon Levytam: The old commandment is the word which you have heard from the beginning. But then he add in verse 8, 'Again', he's saying, 'a new commandment I write unto you, which thing is true in him', this is in Yeshua, 'and in you, because the darkness is past, and the true light is now shineth'. So, we have the old commandment, you might say, which God had given and instructed us historically in the past.

Gideon Levytam: But we also have that new commandment. Now in the Greek, the word for new, it has more than one meaning. There are two words, and I'm going to just read it from my text here. The word for new can be new in time, and the word new can be new in quality. That's a two-way in which the Greeks represent the word new. The one that is new in time is Neos, N E O S.

Gideon Levytam: The one that is new in quality is Kairos, K A I N O S, Kairos. Two different Greek words. One of them has to do with time, another one has to do with quality. Now, we have heard in time past the commandments of the Lord. That is already have been said to us in verse 7. 'I don't write a new commandment. I'm writing to you an old commandment which you have heard from the beginning'.

Gideon Levytam: From the beginning here has to do with from the time of the incarnation. That's how the whole book is beginning. That which was from the beginning, speaking about the Messiah entering into this world, and he gave commandments to his own people. But he's adding here something that is very interesting, because after the death and the burial and resurrection of the Messiah, we received the Holy Spirit of God to indwell the believer.

Gideon Levytam: And so the indwelling of the believer by the Holy Spirit of God enable us to obey in a unique way, much more than just what we have heard in the past, but also in quality. That means that we are able with the aid and the help of the Spirit of God to submit to the Lord with the help of the Holy Spirit of God, in a new way, in a quality way.

Gideon Levytam: You see, before the Spirit of God came to this world, men could not obey because the Holy Spirit of God was not indwelling the believer. But once the Spirit of God came, and he is indwelling every believer now, he is aiding, he's helping us to be obedient in a higher quality that we could or men could obey prior to the coming of the Spirit of God to be indwelling all those that believe in Yeshua the Messiah.

Gideon Levytam: So verses 7 and 8, we have the old commandment, but we also have the new commandment. To obey those commandments enable us because the Holy Spirit of God is indwelling a believer in Yeshua the Messiah. And here, what does the Holy Spirit of God enable us to do? Verses 9, 10, and 11, look what he is enabling us to do. A believer who is in fellowship with God, he will love the brethren.

Gideon Levytam: And that's why he says in verse 9, 'He that saith he is in the light, and he hateth his brother, he is in darkness even until now'. You see, if a person say, 'Well, I am in light, in the light'. And yet I hate my brothers or my sisters. Really, what happened is that the person is really not in the light. He's not in the light, but actually, he's in the darkness.

Gideon Levytam: He cannot see clearly because hating the children of God, the believers, really is not that which is coming from the Spirit of God. So he's saying here, 'hating a brother is really being in darkness'. So we have to be very careful. We might don't agree with a brother or don't maybe appreciate what a brother or sister have done to us or what we have done to them, and they might not appreciate what we have done to them.

Gideon Levytam: But to come to a point of hatred, that we only show that we are really not in the light, not walking in a way that is in a right fellowship with the Lord. That is darkness. Hatred is darkness. The first hatred that we see in Scripture is again going back to Cain and Abel, and from men that Cain hated his own brother because what Abel had done, really caused him to be jealous over him, and he hated him and he ended up killing him and murdering his own brother.

Gideon Levytam: So hating a brother is being in darkness. We have to check ourselves all the time if we have this hatred towards others. And again, you notice he's talking to brothers, to believers. He's not talking about the world here. He's talking about the Mishpacha, the family of God. Then secondly, in verse 10, 'Loving a brother is abiding in the light'. 'He that loveth his brother', the word for love is the Greek word agapeo, 'He that loveth his brother abideth in the light'.

Gideon Levytam: And as it says here, 'and there is none occasion of stumbling in him'. In other words, when we are close to the Lord and abiding in light, recognizing our weaknesses and our failures and our sins and confessing it before the Father, and then we are abiding in this light, then what happen, we turn around and instead of hating someone because we didn't get our own way, we began to love the brethren.

Gideon Levytam: And the loving of the brethren, this Greek word agapeo, unconditional. Not dependent all upon the performance of my brother or my sister. Simply, just as God loved the world, he's enabling us to love our brothers and sisters unconditionally, not dependent upon their performance, simply to love them in a way that is unconditional. For God so loved the world, unconditionally, not dependent upon the performance of the person who received that love.

Gideon Levytam: And finally, brothers and sisters, verse 11, 'He that hateth his brother, and he walketh in darkness, and he knoweth not whither he goeth, because the darkness hath blinded his eyes'. When we are away from the Lord and not enjoying fellowship with the Father and his Son, and ending up beginning to act in the flesh and hating brothers and sisters who perhaps had some wrong dealing with me, then actually the Bible does say that we do walk in darkness, and really, as it says here at the end, 'we do not know the way that we walk'.

Gideon Levytam: It says, 'and knoweth not whither he goeth because the darkness has blinded his eyes'. And so the lesson for us, beloved brothers, today is twofold. Number one, Yeshua is our advocate. He's there the one that representing us before the Father, saying for these sins, I have died. In turn, when we are being spoken by the Spirit of God, the Spirit of God then, the other Comforter, speak to us.

Gideon Levytam: He's aiding us to confess our sins and our wrongdoing. And when we confess and repent before the Lord, we know that those sins have been dealt with. And in turn, it changes our lives and we walk close to the Lord, in the light, in fellowship with him. And then instead of hating, we end up loving. Instead of desiring something against another, we desire the benefit of another.

Gideon Levytam: And we build the people of God, and we build the family of God, and we grow together, and we become a testimony for the Lord Yeshua the Messiah in a poor world with so much hatred and animosity and killing and murdering and and all the sadness that is existing here in this world, for us as believers who are in fellowship with the Father, we can make a change even in our own little circle for the glory of God and for the blessing of the people of God.

Gideon Levytam: You have been listening to the Holy Scriptures and Israel with Gideon Levytam. Gideon teaches God's word from a Hebrew Messianic perspective. For more information about this ministry, write to Holy Scriptures and Israel, Box 1411, Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ontario, L0S 1J0. Or visit our website at HolyScripturesandIsrael.com. You are also invited to Gideon's weekly Bible teaching on Fridays at 11:00 a.m. and 7:00 p.m. and Saturdays at 1:00 p.m. at Willowdale Christian Assembly Hall, 28 Martin Ross Avenue in Toronto. Holy Scriptures and Israel is made possible by your prayers and financial support. If you would like to support the program, visit HolyScripturesandIsrael.com. God bless you. Shalom, shalom.