Parsha Ki Tetsei 2023

Ki Teitzei (When you go out..)

TORAH : DEUTERONOMY 21:10-25:19|

PROPHETS : ISAIAH 54:1-10|

GOSPEL : MATTHEW 24:29-42

Matthew 5:31–32; 19:3–12; 22:23–32

Mark 10:2–12; 12:18–27

Luke 20:27–38

1 Corinthians 9:4–18

Galatians 3:9–14

1 Timothy 5:17–18

Torah: Righteous Rulings (Mishpatim) - Paralleled with Exodus 20-24

Words of Correction and Encouragement!!!

On a Battlefield, probability-wise, how likely are you to capture all of the enemies in the Battle? Maybe 10 Percent if you’re victorious and well versed in the Art of War.

The Battlefield is our life, and our enemy is our Evil Inclination (Flesh) - Romans 8:7 “Because the mind of the flesh is hostile to God: It does not submit to God’s law, nor can it do so.” The Flesh refuses to submit to Gods Laws which are Spiritual, so our job is to fight it and Master it (Cain was upset that God accepted Abel's sacrifice instead of his, so God told him in Genesis 4:7, “If you do well will I not accept you? But if you do not do well, sin is crouching at the door. And its desire is for you (Evil Inclination), but you must rule over it.” ). This means that we can have control over our Flesh. Just like God said, “When you go out to War..” This means that we have to take initiative and even do a preemptive strike against the Flesh before it can cause us to Sin… (Commentary - If your enemy plans to kill you, wake up earlier and kill them first) That is why we pray as soon as we wake up. “Shema Yisrael” and “Elohai Neshama”. This way, we already caused damage to our Evil Inclination and it has less power against us. “The weapons of our warfare aren’t physical, but Spiritual”

Time and Time again, I deal with believers who have strayed off the path… and what I have discovered is a similar pattern that keeps recurring which drives them away from church.... Condemnation… a Zealous believer or leaders want to help a person who sinned, and they jump right into public rebuke and in front of everyone, they completely tear down into the person in order to “Destroy the Sin” that they did… not even realizing that their action doesn’t even go against the Word of God, but rather their Church Traditions...

And often times, we end up scaring off believers because we don’t follow a proper procedure to correction.... 1 Timothy 5:19-21 “19 Do not accept an accusation against an elder except on the evidence of two or three witnesses. 20 Reprove those who sin in the presence of all, in order that the rest also may experience fear. 21 I testify solemnly before God and Christ Jesus and the elect angels that you observe these things without prejudice, doing nothing according to partiality.” … Last week, we already spoke about correcting a brother who sins against you, so this falls into the same category. Both the Old and New Testament command us to not have any prejudice when we’re dealing with a biblical case, and sometimes we don’t consider the consequences of our judgments that we think put a person back on the right path… Imagine you are a believer who struggles with swearing/profanity… and you’re going to Church often, and one day the entire leadership pulls you aside and without warning, begins to yell at your for swearing/profanity… It’s embarrassing, and if you’re new to the Faith, it’s something that would push you away from ever wanting to return to Church… and Unfortunately a lot of believers who I’ve talked to that have stepped away from the Faith because of situations like this… And it’s not because they don’t want to serve God, but rather because the method of correction was not done with Wisdom and Compassion… Question: Do we ever put ourselves into the other persons shoes who we are trying to Correct?? Most of the times, our unjust Judgment comes from the fact that we don’t consider how we would want to be treated if someone was trying to correct us for what we did… Deuteronomy 25:1-4 commands 40 lashes “in the presence of the judges”… Why? So that the one who is carrying out the ruling could see their pain, and would think to himself, “is this action worthy of such a punishment?”… It helps the Judge put themselves into the shoes of the guilty party… in order that they should show Compassion in the presence of Righteous Judgment...

The Torah gives us practical steps on how we Deal with Sin.. It does NOT command us to try and Destroy Sin all in one Day!!! Even the opening verses that we read say, “When you go out to War, and the Lord delivers them into your hands, and you take Some of them Captive”… our Sanctification is a process, not an overnight transformation… If we are dealing with a Sin, we take things one step at a time… we capture one Sin, and then we move on to the Next… And if there’s a fellow believer who is on the same path as we are, and they’re still trailing behind on dealing with a Sin, don’t be hasty to condemn them!! “A Wise man finds a way to unite people while a Fool seeks only to divide”. Question: What are some ways that we should effectively engage in Warfare in our days? (Going out into the World and making disciples and ministering to the people)

Deuteronomy 23:9 “If you go out to encamp against your enemies, then you shall guard against doing anything evil.” Verse 10 then starts off by addressing a Seminal Emission/Nocturnal Emission. And just for the sake of time, A Nocturnal Emission is a result of a Spiritual Uncleanness that needs to be resolved. There’s some sort of open door that is allowing a Spirit of Lust to affect you physically.

Verse 12 helps keep things very simple for Us… I’m going to read the verse very carefully, and I want you guys to think about how this is applied in our Walk and Ministering to people… Deuteronomy 23:12-14 “12 “And there shall be for you a designated place outside the camp; and you shall go there to relieve yourself, 13 and a digging tool shall be included in addition to your other utensils for yourself; and then when you relieve yourself outside the camp you shall dig with it, and then you shall turn, and you shall cover your excrement. 14 For Yahweh your God is walking about in the midst of your camp to deliver you and to hand your enemies over to you before you, and so let your camp be holy, so that he shall not see in it anything indecent, and he shall turn away from going with you.”

- There’s a saying, “All is fair in Love and War”.... anything goes when you’re dealing with these two situations… But I say, “Do not think that because you are at War, that it means that now Everything Goes!!!”

Someone might think, “How can i win this person over who goes to the Bar every night?” what do you guys think: Will you win the person over by getting hammered and wasted with that person, or by interacting with them at the bar without acting like them?

1 Corinthians 9:19-23 is a perfect parallel to this… We think that because we are in a wicked World that this means that we can follow what everyone else is doing in order to win them over, but the Torah says the opposite… Even though Israel was going to War where there's death, people are only bathing once a month if they’re lucky, God is still telling them, “You are not Animals… bury your Crap”. in the same way, just because we are in environments where people are acting on their physical impulses, that does not mean that we act like them… Rather, we stand as a righteous example in the midst of the depravity, but are still able to maintain a way to communicate with the people we are ministering to… that’s what it means that “to the Jew, I acted as a Jew”. Never Compromise on your Beliefs for the sake of Fellowship. And this is also very important… Speak up about your walk of life when you get the chance… (Ex: why aren’t you buying 5 gallons of beer? Because I don’t drink to get drunk. I used to be like that, but the more I drew closer to God, that stuff doesn’t interest me anymore. etc.). That will work much better than standing in the middle of the Bar, holding a sign that says “Drinking is from the Devil! Don’t End up in Hell”… do you understand what I’m saying?

- No Believer will want to commit a sin when they are talking about God… but the question is: Do we talk about God? “Our friends are going to Judge us! They’ll think we are religious freaks!” - When we stay silent, we allow the Enemy to beat us down… How often do we hear someone criticizing God or Yeshua or a fellow believer, and we remain silent, but then later we think to ourselves.. “Wow, I should have said something”… Basically at that moment, it’s like we were standing in the middle of a battlefield, and the enemies are shooting at you and your allies, but you don’t have a weapon… Our Words are our weapons!! It’s referred to as a double edged sword. With it we can speak Life and Blessings, or God forbid, Death and Curses… Follow the Example of Yeshua.. When He was tempted in the Wilderness, Satan came up to Him to Tempt Him… How did Yeshua react? Did He sit quietly and think of a response to Satan? NO! He said “IT IS WRITTEN...” and then He would Quote the Scripture.. Those are our Weapons…

The Haftarah gives comfort to those who feel afraid about speaking up...

Isaiah 54:4 (LEB)

4 You must not fear, for you will not be ashamed,

and you must not be confounded, for you will not feel abashed,

for you will forget the shame of your youth,

and you will no longer remember the disgrace of your widowhood.

In our Haftarah in Isaiah 54:2-3 it says,

Isaiah 54:2–3 (LEB)

2 “Enlarge the site of your tent,

and let them stretch out the tent curtains of your dwelling place.

You must not spare; make your tent cords long

and strengthen your pegs,

3 for you will spread out to the right and to the left.

And your descendants will be heir to the nations,

and they will inhabit desolate towns.

Our job is to unify and connect people together with fellow believers, so that when they are in the company of God fearers, it’ll influence them in a positive way, and they may turn from their wicked Ways, and become a vital Asset in the War against Sin...

Practical Torah!!!

Question: How do we find the right spouse for ourselves? By following the Biblical Art of War, DUH!!

Deuteronomy 21:10–14 LEB

10 “When you go out for battle against your enemies, and Yahweh your God gives them into your hand, and you lead the captives away, 11 and you see among the captives a woman beautiful in appearance, and you become attached to her and you want to take her as a wife, 12 then you shall bring her into your household, and she shall shave her head, and she shall trim her nails. 13 And she shall remove the clothing of her captivity from her, and she shall remain in your house, and she shall mourn her father and her mother a full month, and after this you may have sex with her, and you may marry her, and she may become your wife. 14 And then if you do not take delight in her, then you shall let her go to do whatever she wants, but you shall not treat her as a slave, since you have dishonored her.

So you go to Battle… Ministering to the World who doesn’t know God… and in the Midst of that Battle, you meet a beautiful woman… Externally, but you don’t really know what her lifestyle is like, or what her goals and ambitions are, or what drives her, or what she does in her free time… all you know is that shes Beautiful… so what do we do to figure out if she’s yours or not?

You bring her into your household, (Meeting the Parents, visiting your Congregation, Etc.)

“She must Shave her head and trim her nails” - Remove anything that attracted you to her externally and look at her true face and character… [how she acts when no one is around, (Common Ex: how she treats a waitress, etc.)]

“She shall remove the clothing of her captivity” - Ancient days of siege, the women would purposely dress up in their best garments, in order to help them be picked as a potential wife… So God is saying, “See how they look in pajamas, or clothing that is old and covered in Cheetos dust and boogers”

“And she shall mourn her father and mother for a whole Month” - Especially if she’s from a different walk of life, Give her time to understand that she will be part of a God fearing Household and Family, and that her life will be different. It might end up removing her from being connected with her Family because she may not see them as often, or their schedules may not line up anymore. So help her understand that and be ready for that...

Only after all of these basic criteria are met, then you know that it is truly Love and that they should get married and have lots of Babies

Don’t Marry for Love… that should be the Result of a Marriage, not a Precursor to it. Love is a Feeling, and Marriage is a Holy Union and Duty/Responsibility...

Deeper understanding of the Gospel on basis of Torah!!!

Laws of Divorce - Deuteronomy 24

Messianic Believers who don’t recognize Yeshua as God in the Flesh - Dilemma - The House of Israel got divorced in Jeremiah 3, and according to Deuteronomy 24, The First Husband cannot remarry the woman he divorced if she has gone off and married someone else… (House of Israel ‘married’ the false gods of this World)… so Therefore, God cannot remarry the House of Israel by this Torah Law… Unless one of them dies...

Yeshua is also comparable to the Sandal in the Levirate Marriage - The Widow of the Older Brother who didn’t have a child, and the younger Brother who refused to make a son for his brother gets his sandal removed and Spat on… Why? Because like that Sandal, the Soul of the brother would have lived on through the offspring of the Levirate Marriage. but Because the younger brother refused to make a Vessel (Sandal - Human Body) for his Brother, he is disgraced…