What has Yeshua done for you?

0:00 So let's come back to Luke because we are gonna finish the book of Luke today. This is the last message on the book of Luke. Well, right now, uh, I've had a, I actually have had a fantastic time delving into the book of Luke. I don't know about you guys or all y'all, I dunno about all y'all. But Luke has been, it's been, it is been a, a, a ride and a very fun one. We are finishing out chapter 24 today, but before we do, I want to make a couple notes.

0:46 I've mentioned this a few times along the way, and if you've been on in the Wednesday night classes, I'm, you've heard it mentioned way more than a few times, but Luke, as an author, opens what we call story arcs he'll. And, and he'll open it and he doesn't necessarily close it immediately. He'll leave it open for a while, and then we'll, we'll keep reading and we'll move on in the story, and then something will trigger us and we'll realize what he's doing is he's just closed one of those story arcs, but it's 10 chapters later. I'm telling you this because we have multiple instances of that in the passage that we're covering today, where Luke has opened the arc at some point earlier,

1:34 and he's now, as the book is coming to a close, he's closing that story arc. And yet I also want to point out one more thing. He doesn't just close a story arc. He opens a new one. And why, why do I say that? Because it's, there is some, the, some, uh, common views today among, uh, among academics, among, uh, people who study the books, uh, in particular Luke and Acts that actually Luke and Acts were written as a single volume. What that means is, is they were written intentionally to be together or side by

2:21 side. And what we, what you'll notice in, and we'll get to it in a few minutes, but what Luke ends with acts begins with, and it's the ascension of Yeshua, and it's the ascension upon which everything in the book of Luke leads up to, and the, and everything in the book of Acts follows both linearly, but also it's from that, that moment that we see, uh, some things which I will bring out in my message today. So I just want, I wanted you to have that ahead of time to think about it. It's, it's interesting because I told the staff this week in our staff meeting that I'm,

3:07 I'm already in the book of acts like I'm, I don't know how y'all, I'm a nerd and I mean that in all senses of the term because I kind of geeked out a couple weeks ago and I bought a a, an ax commentary, and the first volume is about that thick. So it must be, Sean, how many, how many pages do you think that thing is? Five or six? What? A hundred. I I think it's gotta be more than that. My Luke one was 600, 700. This thing must be a thousand or 1200 pages. And that gets me through Acts chapter two.

3:54 So I'm telling you this because I'm in, like, I'm, I'm ready to hit acts because I've got, I love reading y'all. I don't know if you do. I know most people don't love reading anymore. They like watching things, but I love reading. And there's something about when you get a new book and you open it and you can hear the spine crinkle and the pages begin to stick together just a little bit. And the, and it has that smell. Does anybody know what I'm talking about? It is like, it's an amazing thing. I'm telling you all this because I'm excited for the book of Acts, but also as I've been prepping for the book of Acts, a couple things have come to my attention that I probably wasn't necessarily, uh, aware of or I hadn't remembered when we started Luke.

4:40 And one of one of those is, if you notice when you look at the New Testament, I'm kind of giving you a little bit of an overview here. Uh, if you look at the New Testament, if you look at Matthew and you look at Luke and you look at acts, they're all relatively similar in length. And so there are some, uh, commentators who believe that that length is not just because they chose to be 26 or 28 chapters, but it's because the common length of the scroll at that time was in between 30 and 40, uh, whatever, whatever sheets or links that they had. And it, it got to be the, the largest scroll that you could manage easily.

5:27 And so that is what partially dictated the length. And actually, if you look at Acts and Luke, and, and now I'm getting into some super technicalities, but if you get, if you look at different, there, I, there, I recognize there are some different textual variants, but they are within about 500 words of each other, Luke and Ax, which basically means when you end one, you're halfway through the total volume. And, uh, it, it's just, there's some interesting stuff that's just, I'm, I'm really enjoying and now I'm starting to prep for a book of acts, but I don't wanna get too far ahead because we gotta finish Luke first. So let's talk about Luke as a reminder. Luke, we started out on this journey.

6:12 We talked about Luke as the author. Uh, and, and, and about halfway through that journey, I, I started to change my verbiage. Um, I, it's not that I don't believe Luke is the author, but I believe that Luke is what we would call the scribe. And and why do I believe that? Because I believe I, I take a, what, what I think is called a more conservative stance. And I believe that the scripture, including the Book of Luke and the book of Acts, which we'll start is breathed out by the Holy Spirit. So therefore the author would be God himself, and Luke is the one who's scribing. Now, there are, there are nuances that we, uh, uh,

6:58 that we notice because of Luke as a scribe and also because of the time period, but it doesn't change the authorship being from God. So we talk about Luke as the scribe. We talk about the purpose of the book. By the way, the purpose of the book purpose is the opening arc that Luke sets. And you'll see it comes to a close in the, in, in, in this final section, the opening arc being from Luke chapter one verses three and four, therefore your Excellency, he's addressing Theophilus. In fact, let me just before I get into, I know we're gonna get into this with acts as well. Um, I also take the position that Theophilus is a particular person,

7:46 not necessarily a general audience. It doesn't mean that we can't take what Luke writes to Theophilus and derive principles from it that can apply to us. It just means we have to consider everything that Luke wrote and to whom he wrote it and to whom the original hearers would have been. And what that does is it helps us understand that setting and then take from that applications that we can apply in our own life. Therefore, your excellency, he's addressing Theophilus. Since I have carefully investigated all these things from the beginning, it seemed good to me that I too should write you an accurate and ordered narrative so that you might know how well-founded or how for

8:33 sure are the things about which you have been taught. I know I have said this so many weeks, but is my opinion that Theophilus seems to be from this text already a follower of Yeshua, but maybe he's entered into a time or a season of doubt. Maybe he's had struggles, we don't know. But for whatever reason, Luke is writing to him to encourage him and, and let him know everything that he's already been taught is true and well-founded and for sure, for certain, if you will. And that is what Luke is doing, is he's writing this to encourage Theophilus. And throughout the book of Luke,

9:20 he's addressing the coming kingdom of heaven through a, through, through, through couple lenses. Number one, the kingdom coming down, but number two, through the king's subjects. That would be everyone on earth at the time. And and I, and if you want to roll that forward, that would be today. Also the King's subjects bringing themselves into alignment with the king's way of life. And what that is, is we see these examples of, uh, the broken hearted. We see the examples of the broken in spirit, the broken in limb. We see their, their limbs grow back. We see their eyes made to see, we see the deaf, uh, being,

10:08 uh, able to hear. And these are just instances of, or, or should I say, manifestations of the kingdom of God making itself present here. But the kingdom of God is here, but it's not yet full. Up until this point, we've seen Luke travel from the Galilee and up to Jerusalem. We've seen him celebrate a Seder. We, we witnessed his suffering, his death and his resurrection. And now we have witnessed his appearance to those who were his followers. We've witnessed that over the, the, the first part of 24.

10:58 And now what we're about to do is witness him appearing to the 11. I do want to point out, at least in my mind why it says 11. 'cause how many, how many tall maddi did Dehua have? Y'all can answer 12. But there's one that's noticeably missing because what we, we see the reasoning why in the book of Matthew, but he's gone, bought a plot of land and hung himself because of what he did, because of his betrayal to the Lord that would

11:43 be Judah or, or more commonly known as Judas. So we come here to Luke chapter 24, we're gonna cover verses 36 through 52, and I'm gonna read the whole part, and then we're gonna come back and look at it section by section starting in verse 36. While they were speaking of these things, Yeshua himself stood in the midst of them and said, Shalom left them. But they were startled and terrified thinking that they were seeing a ghost. Then he said to them, why are you so shaken? And why do doubts arise in your heart? Look at my hands and my feet. It is, I myself touch me and see for his spirit doesn't have

12:30 flesh and bones as you see, I have. And when he had said, and when he had said this, he showed them his hands and his feet. But while they were still in disbelief due to the, due to joy and wonder, he said to them, do you have anything to eat here? And they gave him a piece of broiled fish and he took it and ate it in their presence. Then he said to them, these are my words, which I spoke to you while I was still with you. Everything written concerning me and the tour of Moses and the prophets and the Psalms must be fulfilled. Then he opened their minds to understand the scriptures. And he said to them, so does written that the Messiah is to suffer and to rise from the dead on the third day. And that repentance for the removal of sins is to be proclaimed in his name to

13:17 all nations beginning from Jerusalem. You are to witnesses of these things. And behold, I am sending the promise of my father upon you, but you are to stay in the city until you are clothed with power from on high. Then Yeshua led them out as far as Bethany, and he lifted up his hands and blessed them. And while blessing them, he departed from them and was taken up into heaven. After worshiping him, they returned to Jerusalem with great joy, and they were continually in the temple praising God. We're gonna start here with verses 36 through 43, and, and it says, it says, while they were speaking of these things, so I'm gonna stop, and I recommend that you do this.

14:05 Anytime you read the scripture while they were thinking of these things, we should stop and go. That means that there's something that happened immediately before that they're, they're thinking about and we should go back and look at it. So what's the context? Well, the context is this, Yeshua has appeared to two of his followers. We know one of them is named Cleopas, uh, and they were walking on the road to Emmaus. And while they're walking on the road to Emmaus, he appears to them and he begins to walk alongside them. And as he's walking with them, he walks them through the Torah and explained everything that pointed to him. Now, I mean that both literally and figuratively you sometimes

14:53 it really helps to be doing something. And what you notice is the disciples at this point are walking Yeshua walks with them physically and walks them through the Torah and all of the scriptures that point to him, their eyes were not permitted to recognize him until they were breaking bread together. Well, let me just pause for a moment and disappoint some of you. They weren't breaking bread, they were breaking matza as his Passover. It's disappointing to me because

15:41 I can't stand matza. It's like one of the worst things in my life. I'm like, Lord, do we really have to have a week of this? Can we have one day we will remember, we'll suffer, we'll agonize, but can we have just be off the rest? Because matza, I just, I can't stand the taste. The gluten-free is okay, but so he's there walking with them. Their, their eyes are not permitted to, to recognize him until they're breaking bread together. I just want you to think about that. Yeshua, Yeshua grabs the matza and he does a blessing. He offers a baka and he says,

16:27 and he breaks the bread and their eyes were opened and they recognized him, and then he disappeared from them. Now, we talked about this on Wednesday night. We had a great discussion, but I just want you to think about what was the last time when the disciples ate with Yeshua, Passover? And one of the last things that he did is he held up the bread and said, this is my body. And he blessed it. He, he blessed the Lord broke the bread, and he says, such is my, my body's broken before for you, so on and so forth.

17:12 We know the context. It's not until the moment where food, food, it's not the moment until food is present and they're literally breaking bread together, that their eyes are opened and they recognize Yeshua. These two followers were so excited that they left Emmaus and they hurried. However that works. They hurried back to Jerusalem so that they could share about their visitation from Yeshua with the 11 and all of the others who are gathered with the 11. I just want you to know, if you haven't realized it, it's not just the 11 who are, who are together.

17:58 There's a whole group of people together. The 11 may be the central focal point, but there's a group with the 11, and they're always mentioned. They hurry back and they share this with the 11. And what's fascinating is this is the first time that he's referred to as the Lord since his resurrection, he's referred to as the Lord. In fact, it's the first time since Peter's denial of knowing Yeshua that

18:44 he's referred to as the Lord in the text. There are multiple indications in the text that his disciples and his followers were beginning to lose faith or, or perhaps doubt what he was there to do. And so you can imagine when, when now they hear, they hear this testimony, and the testimony is the Lord is risen. Indeed, it's in verse 34 that I'm still in the pretext to our text. The Lord is risen indeed, it's the first time the Lord is used to describe Yeshua. So while they were speaking of these things,

19:29 Yeshua stood in the midst of them and greeted them to me. This is evoking images of Passover, the imagery of Passover when the, the children of of Israel are in the midst of Egypt and the Lord comes down and inserts himself into history, into the midst of Egypt. The Lord went and he delivered his people. He drew them out from Egypt. The fire and the cloud went before and after the people, the cloud. Later on in the journey, the cloud comes down upon the Mishka, the tabernacle and the tabernacle dwells where In the midst

20:15 of the people, in the midst of his people. So here we have Yeshua standing in the midst of his people and greeting them. I don't know about you, but if it were me, and all of a sudden we're sitting around, maybe, maybe they're huddled in a room, still terrified the pilot or Herod or somebody is gonna come after them as rebel as as rebel leaders, they're still hidden away. And then Yeshua is there and greets them. That would terrify me,

21:02 and it certainly would startle me. They were startled and terrified and they thought that he was a ghost or a spirit. I just wanted to point out their reaction should not be seen as a failure partially because that's, that's probably a better reaction than any of us would give. But secondly, they could still be huddling down fearful of what the political leaders could do to them, but also even though they proclaim that the Lord has risen, what if they're fearful that he will remind them of their own failures over the previous several days? You imagine that if Yeshua showed up and, and looked straight at Peter and goes,

21:52 you remember those three times, and he looks at the rest of 'em. None of y'all made it to my crucifixion. You just, can you imagine being reminded by the Lord himself of our failures? I just wanna say it's not a moment where we should see the reaction to Yeshua as a failure. But he says, why are you shaking? Why do you doubt? Look at my hands and feet. Why would we look? Why would they look at his hands and his feet? Because there's scars, there's wounds from where the nails entered into his flesh. He says, look at my hands and my feet.

22:40 It's me. Touch me and see a spirit doesn't have flesh and bones like you see that I have. And he then shows him his hands and his feet. Again, you can imagine being in this situation would be very similar. They're in a state of disbelief that's turning into joy and wonder. And then he says, I'm hungry. Can somebody give me some food? And they gave him broiled fish. Now I'm gonna tell you, if he would've come here to Texas, we would've given him some barbecue, some brisket, just real good brisket. You know, I, I'm just really trying to make all of you hungry. But they're,

23:26 they're here in this state of disbelief and they give him broiled fish. I got to this text and I thought, first of all, again, maybe their taste buds are a little bit different than mine, but if I were Luke, why would I notate broiled fish? That sounds horrible to me. It does not sound very good, but maybe it is. Maybe it's his taste preference. But I thought that's a very specific thing to mention, broiled fish where it caused me. Again, this should cause all of you to go, where else have we seen fish? We can look through Luke. By the way, all of my notes are in, in you version, if, if you're looking for all of these

24:13 fish has been mentioned a couple times, uh, through Luke, primarily it's been mentioned three times prior to this. So first time is in Luke chapter five verses one through 11 when Peter went back out into the Galilee at the command of Yeshua to drop the nets and gather in more fish. And he does it, he gathers in a large number of fish. And what's the reaction that Peter has? Peter drops down in front of him and says, I am a sinner depart from before me. So we have instance one, we have instance two in Luke chapter nine, verses 10 through 17,

25:01 which is in the text, the feeding of the 5,000 men. Now I say 5,000 men. I would presume that there's probably about 10 to 15,000 people at least considering women and children maybe 20. And in that case, Yeshua does what he's offers. A baka breaks the bread, and they were all fed and satisfied by five loaves of bread and two fish. Just a couple verses later after that is one of the times where Yeshua tells his disciples exactly what they could expect the son of man to endure. Namely, he was gonna be rejected by the leaders, he would be killed.

25:50 And then on the third day raised. Now you can imagine Theophilus and the original hearers of this, there would've been readers, I, I I acknowledge that, but primarily in communities it would've been read. It would like, like what we do with the Torah. It would've been read out before the community. And so you would have people listening. What they would do from this point, if they noticed, is they would catch the fish and it would cause them to be more attentive the next time they read through the book. And you know what, they would begin to notice Yeshua saying, I'm going to be killed. I'm going to be suffering, and then I'll rise again on the third day.

26:37 Maybe they even missed it on the first time through. And then finally we see the third instance in Luke 1111, and it says, what Father, if his son asks for a fish, we'll give him a snake. Instead, this verse is in the context of them asking the Lord how to pray, and he's instructing them to ask the Lord for the ruak hakodesh and it will be given to them. So if we take this fish mentioning as a literary device used by Luke, he could be eliciting a connection to this text. The presence of Yeshua causes one to recognize their own sinful state

27:25 of being. The first mention, the reader in here is told that the son of man would endure in order to forgive our sinful state of being. The second mention, the reader here is then instructed to ask for the Ruach Hakodesh thei mention. And that's exactly how our text ends. And we'll begin in the Book of Acts. It's all of that that's being reinforced here in chapter 24. And he ate the fish in their presence, it puts to puts to rest their fear that he's at all the spirit or a ghost or whatever. He's eating

28:12 food just like everyone else. And so we come to the next set of verses then he said to them, these are my words, which I spoke to you while I was still with you. Everything written concerning me in the Torah of Moses and the prophets and the Psalms must be fulfilled. And continuing in verse 45, then he opened their minds to understand the scriptures. And he said to them, so it is written that the Messiah is to suffer and to rise from the dead on the third day. And that repentance for the removal of sins is to be proclaimed in his name to all nations beginning from Jerusalem. You are witnesses of these things. And behold, I am sending the promise of my father upon you,

28:59 but you are to stay in the city until you are clothed with power from on high. Do you see the three things that that I just mentioned with the fish all now become present in the text. He opens the scriptures to them and their expectations are changed. You see, when they walked with him and the earlier in Luke, they heard, but their expectations were different and they did not recognize what he was actually saying to them. Now, he has suffered, died and risen again. And now their expectations are totally different. So, so when he walks them through everything again,

29:44 they now have some understanding by which that they can better understand everything. He walks them through the Torah, the prophets, and the Psalms so that everything can be fulfilled. That was written about him. By the way, this is the third time in the text that this is mentioned. It's explained by the angels to the women who went to prepare his body. He already told you all of these things. It's explained to the two followers on their way to Emmaus when he walks them through the Torah. This is, I already told you all of this, but let me do it again. And now it's the third time Yeshua's walking them all now through the process

30:32 of revealing himself through the Tanah. And he, and it says, he opened their minds to understand the scriptures. What are the, the scriptures right here, by the way, are defined in this text, the scriptures of the Torah, the prophet and the Psalms, which the psalms, you can read it or you can, you can notate it as representative of the beginning book for the rest of the writings. So we have the three parts of the tanah, the Torah, the nevi, the prophets, and the vem, the prophet, the uh, the writings. All of that points to Yeshua as the Messiah

31:19 according to Dr. Bach, who's one of the, one of the scholars I have been utilizing throughout the book of Luke and verses 46 and 47 here, Luke slash Yeshua. So Yeshua as the speaker, Luke is the author, uh, or the scribe, if you will, utilizes three different Greek in Definitives to describe what the tenna had to say about Yeshua uses three different ones. And, and Dr. Bach uses that as a, as a point or two. There's, there's three different things that we can see here. Number one, the Messiah is to suffer. Yeshua said this over and over again throughout the book of Luke. His death was anticipated by scripture. We see it in Psalm one 18. We see it.

32:09 That's where it talks about Yeshua's rejection. We see it in, uh, Isaiah 53 talking about Yeshua's suffering. He alludes to it in Psalm 22. Uh, excuse me, Psalm 22, Psalm 31, 5 and Psalm 69 are all alluded to in the crucifixion account. Secondly, the Messiah was to be raised. So first he's to suffer, then he's to be raised. And we find this concept in Psalm 1610, Psalm a hundred and ten one, and Psalm 118, verses 22 through 26. By the way, all these verses are in you version if you wanna go get 'em. Third. So these two are done. The Messiah is to suffer, the Messiah is to be raised again. And third is the mission for what is yet to be accomplished.

32:57 And Dr. Bach breaks this out into five points, which I find very helpful. The disciples, number one, are called to proclaim, proclaiming the gospel is honorable and necessary. Secondly, there is a component of a call, uh, of the call to repentance. This is the concept of turning oneself from the way you are walking to a new way, changing the direction of your life. But when we come to God, we are generally walking like this and something happens along the way

33:44 where we most likely get beat down and we end up on our knees. And it's at that point, by the way, I know I, I'm saying this and I recognize this may not be everyone's story, but as humans, it usually takes us, um, dire circumstances for us to begin to change our ways. I once heard a teacher say, uh, no one will change until the pain of change is less than the pain of staying the same. Does that make sense? So this is that moment,

34:33 the pain of staying the same gets so great as we're walking in this direction that we cry out to God, just like David does throughout the Psalms. We cry out to the Lord and what the Lord does when we come to him and we begin to walk with him, we were walking this way. The change causes us to walk an entirely different direction and it manifests itself in our lives in different ways, but that all of that comes through repentance. Thirdly, the forgiveness of sins. Our debt, as we recognize here in this passage, is now is paid by Yeshua.

35:20 Fourthly, according to Dr. Bach, the authority for everything resides in the name of Yeshua. And fifth, the message is for all of the nation's beginning or starting from Jerusalem. So beginning from Jerusalem, they are to be witnesses of all of these things that have happened. It starts with the people of Jerusalem, and it will finish with the people of Jerusalem. Well, at least the beginning of the end will finish these followers of Yeshua, witness his life, his death, and his resurrection, and now they will witness and be a part of the proclamation that is going

36:08 forth into all of the nations. Now, we'll get to this in Acts, but let me just give you just, just like a hint. Along the way going into all of the nations is likely misunderstood by these earlier followers for a brief period of time. Now, let me tell you how that can be, because in 5 86, the destruction of the, of Solomon's temple sent the Jewish people into exile, uh, primarily in Babylon. And what we see with the destruction of the second temple in 70 is the

36:57 complete dispersion of the Jewish people into where all of the nations. But even at this point, at the writing of this, and, and during the lifetime of Yeshua, there were, there were Jewish people in all of the nations, and they would come up to Jerusalem and they would speak in whatever tongues they had from their own nation. So if they were from Partha, they would speak Partan. If they were from Rome, they would speak whatever. They would speak Latin. If they were from Greece, they would speak Greek. If they were from wherever, they would speak that language of where they were from. You can understand when the Lord says you'll be witnesses proclaiming this good news into all of the nations, how easy it would be.

37:45 Well, we got all the nations here, let me tell everyone here, and they'll go back and tell the, the rest of our people. So you see, it's real, it's subtle and easy to miss except when you really begin to go look at the tanah and you and you understand the depth of what is there. That God's plan was always for the nations to acknowledge him. It was never just for Israel. It was always too big of a thing, too great of a thing. God's redemptive work for just his people. And if you want more on that, I recommend you go sit in Cheryl's office sometime during the week and it'll

38:33 take a couple hours. But God's plan has always been this way, and we begin to see it and we will, we will, we will uncover depths and layers of it as we get into the Book of Acts. But they are going to be witnesses. They're gonna be a part of the proclamation about Yeshua's life, death, and resurrection going into all of the nations in encouraging the nations to turn to the God of Israel. Just as Yeshua spoke concerning his suffering, death and resurrection, he also already has spoken of the promise of power coming

39:21 from the Lord. He instructed them. By the way, do you remember the the fishes? The fishes, pointed fishes? Is that that's fishy. They pointed toward this. There's the, the, the death, the, the, the saving from sin, the acknowledgement of sin in our lives, the saving of sin to the point of asking for the rah. And so Yeshua now says he's instructing them to ask for the rah, and it would, and and he would be given to them. Yeshua then instructs his disciples to wait in the city until they are clothed in power from on high. Now, I, I want to pause here for just a minute and say, this is not just some nebulous, Hey, y'all, wait here,

40:08 I'm gonna go get some brisket going to eat. And at some point, power from on high will come. Y'all wait here. Okay? That's not what Yeshua is doing. They're there in Jerusalem for a reason. They have a purpose. There are, this is if we connect this with win Yeshua ascends on the, on day 40, if you will. Uh, then he's not asking too much of them on an indefinite timescale. Why? Because it's only 10 days until Shao and they have to be back there anyways, for Shao, at least the men do. It's scripturally commanded. They would be coming back to Jerusalem for Shao,

40:54 which occurs 50 days after Passover. In other words, 10 days after Yeshua's ascension. So he's not asking them to stay here for stay here. I'm not gonna tell you when, but at some point, power from on high will come. No, he's saying stay here. Power from on high is gonna come and you're gonna notice it. When is it gonna be notice? Well, shoveled is the, is the natural time. Why? Because power came from on high and settled on Mount Sinai when the Torah was given to our people. So it makes sense. So now we come and to verse 50, Yeshua led them out as far as Bethany, and he lifted up his hands and he blessed them. And while blessing them, he departed from them and was taken into heaven. After worshiping him,

41:43 they returned to Jerusalem with great joy. Bethany is on the other side of Mount Olivette or the, the Mount of Olives. So Yeshua is somewhere perhaps, uh, on the Mount of Olives or on the backside of the Mount of Olives. Uh, and, and he lifts up his hands and he blesses his people. Now, it's reminiscent or it, the way it sounds to me. I don't know about you, but the way it sounds to me is it sounds so much like numbers chapter six. In fact, let me just, in numbers chapter six, it says, the Lord spoke to Moses saying,

42:32 speak to Aaron and to his son, saying, thus you are to bless the children of Israel by saying to them, the Lord bless you and keep you, Adonai, make his face shine upon you and be gracious to you. Adonai turn his face toward you and grant you shalom. Now, in terms of the practice of the blessing, the rabbis deuced that the blessing should be recited by the priest while standing with hands raised. And by doing this, they will place the name of the Lord upon the people, and the Lord will bless the people.

43:18 This prayer, this blessing in numbers chapter six, is composed by the Lord himself. Now, I just want you to think about this for a moment. Yeshua could be here standing in the place of the priest as a priest according to the order of melek. And if we understand that Yeshua is the word of God, then it was the word of God. It was the word who was the author of these words saying the blessing and pronouncing the blessing upon the people.

44:08 This would be the first time since he authored the blessing that he was able to place the blessing upon the people himself. Think about that. If you, if we accept John's premise in John one, that the word was God, if the word is the Torah, and if the Torah is all five books, it includes numbers chapter six, then this is the first time since the word composed the word that he was able to place the word of blessing upon the people himself.

44:54 It's such an astounding thing to me to think about. And as he was blessing them, he was taken up into the heavens. This is reminiscent of Elijah and Enoch or Hanuk being taken up by God. With one exception. Yeshua experienced death and conquered it. Elijah and Enoch did not. He experienced suffering and death and conquered it once and for all in Yeshua is the first fruits, the first fruit of the resurrection of the dead.

45:40 And he now ascends at this point to sit upon his throne next to the Father where he makes intercession on our behalf every day. And you find that in, in other scriptures. But, and those who are witnessing this, I am, I don't know, certainly there's the 11 and there's a group around the 11 that are there. They're now on the side of a hill in a town called Bethany, who knows, it could be 500 people watching. It could be a thousand people watching, but all of them witnessed Yeshua ascending. And the text says that those who witnessed Yeshua being taken up,

46:29 worshiped him, and then they returned to Jerusalem with great joy. I wanna make a note. This is the first time that they worship Yeshua In the text, they returned to Jerusalem with great joy. This is a drastic change of attitude from the pe from the group that we're hiding out after his death in a room so that nobody could find them. And now they're going back with great joy. They are emboldened to be present in the temple and to bear witness to the miracles that happened concerning the life, death, and resurrection of Yeshua, our Messiah.

47:17 They are living joyful lives Now, so what does this mean for us? First of all, I'll ask the question that Yeshua asks, why do you doubt? What misplaced expectations do we have that we need to release? You see, because before his life suffering death and resurrection, we had certain expectations even of our own lives. But once we come,

48:02 once we come and we recognize the reality of what Yeshua did, and we recognize that Yeshua's resurrection is a guarantee of a couple different things. I was gonna, I was gonna go straight with as a guarantee that those of us who follow him will likewise follow him. But before that, just as his death served as a premonition or a foreshadowing of the death in the destruction, in the suffering of Jerusalem and the Jewish people in that time period, so also his resurrection guarantees the resurrection of the Jewish people

48:48 as a nation that will come and will praise him. We don't see it fully today, but we see the presence of a nation. We see the presence of a Jerusalem that be is, is now predominantly Jewish for the first time since 70, since just after the life of Yeshua. And it's an opportunity for us, for our people to come once again in struggle with who is Yeshua? Because Yeshua has to be welcomed in or he won't come.

49:35 And it says in Matthew that Yeshua will come again when Jerusalem calls out Emai. Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord. In other words, we welcome you back, but that is not yet so close. Ill, we can almost taste it. We can almost see it, but it's not quite here. Ironically, it's going to take, it's a very similar situation. I, I'm not saying that Rome is over Israel or whatever, but is going to take the humbling of some proud hearts,

50:27 recognize Yeshua as the Messiah, as the king of Israel, and subsequently to welcome him back into the land, welcome him back to Jerusalem, but since his resurrection was a guarantee that Jerusalem would be resurrected. So also his resurrection is a guarantee that when you and I, I, I hope I'm not about to share something that is a secret to you because it should be known to everyone, but you and I will die the moment we're born, we start to die. I, I I, I say that recognizing if Yeshua comes back,

51:14 maybe we don't die right now, but, but for any any other reason, you and I will die. And when that happens, if we follow Yeshua, then his resurrection from the dead serves as a guarantee that so will we. Why? Because God brought him as the first fruits evidencing that the rest of the harvest will be the same. So where are our misplaced expectations that we can allow to die? How can we better adopt the Lord's expectations in our own lives?

52:01 Well, lemme tell you how I, I shared it with the children earlier. We need to immerse ourselves in his word daily. When you live in the word, I mean the scriptures. When you live in the word, your expectations become his. His expectations don't become yours. Yours become his. Why? Because we change. When we dwell in the word, it brings change into us. Secondly, how do we share the good news of Yeshua with others? This came up on Wednesday night. My question is,

52:48 can we do it through the Torah of the prophets and the Psalms, or do we require the book of Luke or Romans? Because Yeshua didn't use either one of those. I'm not saying it's bad to use those, I'm just saying, can we do it? We need to allow the light of Yeshua to shine through our words and our deeds on a daily basis. And finally, his ascension was a catalyst for the pouring out of the spirit of the Lord. Do we allow the ruach or the spirit of the Lord to speak into our lives on a daily basis? See,

53:34 you have that choice to listen or to not listen. If you have children, you totally understand that your children make a choice to listen or to not listen to you. We as children of the Lord have the same choice. We can choose to listen or we can choose to not listen. At least in my family, not listening has some consequences. It may not be the case in every family, but at least in mine, there's consequences for not listening. Those consequences may be felt immediately or they may be felt 10 years down the road.

54:22 But there's always consequences for not listening. So do we allow the spirit of the Lord to speak into our lives on a daily basis? Now, I'm gonna stop here. That's the end of my message. I'm gonna stop here because it has been nearly six years since I took the senior leadership of em. This is the first full book I've ever worked through verse by verse, for this purpose. Now, we have worked through other books. We worked through Philippians and Peter and can we do something else?

55:15 What was the other one? Well, we went through acts, but it wasn't verse by verse. This is the first one I've done on a Saturday, mostly verse by verse. And so y'all, I want you to join me in something. Kazak Kazak veit Kazak Kazak Kazak veit Kazak Kazak Kazak veit haze. May the Lord bless you and keep you. May the Lord make his face shine upon you and be gracious to you. May the Lord lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace.

56:13 If in the name of our Messiah, Yeshua Shabbat Shalom.