Bechukotai – Torah with Joseph

Read the transcript below, or watch a video of the teaching by Joseph Shulam.

Shalom, my name is Joseph Shulam, and in partnership with Brad TV, we are doing, every week, the portion that is read in the synagogues around the world, the portion of the Law of Moses, and today, we are in the last portion of the Book of Leviticus that starts in Chapter 26, verse 3, and ends in Chapter 27, verse 34, the last portion.

Next week, we will be entering into the Book of Numbers.

This portion is a programmatic portion. By programmatic, it means it has important, valuable information that is not only for the generation that lived in the wilderness after the Exodus from Egypt and walked in the desert with Moses for 40 years. This portion is a part of God’s program for all the generations of this world, from the day He created the world until there will be a new heaven and a new earth.

The name of the portion is Bechukotai, which means, in English, “if you walk in My statutes, in My laws.”

You know, today, one of the most popular doctrines that is being taught around the world in evangelical churches is the doctrine of prosperity. Essentially, the doctrine of prosperity says that if you give money to the church, to the pastor, to the ministry, then you will prosper; or if you pray for the peace of Jerusalem, you will prosper. That’s not a good translation of the Hebrew, but that’s what is being taught in many of the evangelical churches.

So, if we want to know what is God’s program of prosperity, in this portion, the last two chapters of the Book of Leviticus give us the positive and the negative aspects of our behavior.

Now, there are several reasons why people suffer in this world, and we have the paradigm in the Book of Psalms; why do the wicked prosper and the righteous suffer? There is such a thing, as well, and the reasons are several. One is that, we are children of God, and as children, God sometimes tests us, and examines us; to see where we stand, to see what is our motivation for worship, what is our motivation for doing the right thing because the deed itself is less important than the motives of why we do it. We see this in the teaching of Yeshua, in Matthew 23. He says the Pharisees do X, Y, Z, but they do it for the wrong reasons. We see in Isaiah, Chapter 1, we see it in Jeremiah, Chapter 7, we see it in Amos, Chapter 11. We see it in many, many places. Hosea 6:6. You know, God prefers, more than sacrifice, grace and charity, one to another, mercy, one to another.

And so, things are more complicated than they seem. But in our chapters, things seem to be a lot more plain, at least, plainly stated by God. “So, if you walk”, I am reading from Leviticus, Chapter 26, verse 3, “If you walk in My statutes and keep My commandments, and perform them, then I will give you rain in its season, the land shall yield its produce, the trees of the field shall yield their fruits. The threshing of the wheat, of the grain, “shall last till the time of vintage, and the vintage shall last until the time of sowing; and you shall eat your bread to the full, and dwell in your land safely.” What more do you want, folks? That’s prosperity.

God will bless the agriculture, He will bless the workers, He will bless the fields. There will be so much grain that it’ll last for a long time, until the grapes are ready to be picked and make wine out of them. So, there will be prosperity in the land if we walk in God’s statutes and keep His commandments.

Now, you say, “Well, we are saved by faith, we’re saved by grace.” Folks, if you read the teaching of Jesus, in the sermon on the mountain and throughout the gospels, and His parables, and then the teaching of the apostles, especially apostle Jacob, James, in English, and the First Letter of John, doing God’s will is more important than worship.

How do we know that? We know it from Matthew 25. Jesus said there will be people who come and say, “Lord, Lord, we have worshiped you, we have cast out demons in your name,” And Yeshua will say, “Depart from me, you workers of iniquity. I don’t want to see you here.” And they will say, “Why Lord? Why Lord?” He says, “Because I was hungry, and you didn’t feed Me. I was naked, and you didn’t clothe Me. They say, “When did we do that?” He will say, “As much as you did it to one another, or to the poor of your community, you’ve done it unto Me.”

So, this idea of true prosperity is connected with obedience to God’s commands, obedience to the teaching of the apostles, obedience to the teaching of Jesus, which, I’m sad to say, dear brothers and sisters, a lot of Christians worship Jesus, but they don’t obey him. They don’t obey him as far as how the contribution is given; they’re not obeying concerning not talking behind somebody’s back. But, if you have a problem with a brother, you go to him first, before you go to the pastor, before you go to your friends, before you go to the members of the church. Yes, a lot of things that we are commanded in the New Testament, we don’t do, much less talking about the Law of Moses and the instructions of the prophets.

And so here you have, if you do God’s will, you will have rain in season, the land will yield its fruit, they will give, verse 6, “I will give peace in the land, and you shall lay down, and none will make you afraid; I will rid the land of evil beasts, and the sword will not go through your land. You will chase your enemies, and they shall fall by the sword before you. Five of you shall chase a hundred, and a hundred of you shall put ten thousand to run away from you. Your enemies shall fall by the sword before you. I will look on you favorably and make you fruitful, multiply you and confirm My covenant with you.” Wonderful promises of God, of true prosperity, prosperity that comes from God, if we obey him, if we do his will.

And I am not talking to you, dear brothers in Korea, or around the world, to keep the Jewish commandments of the law, I am talking about to keep the commandments of the New Testament, if you wish. Even that is not kept, much less talking about the Jewish things, the Israelite things, the Old Testament, the Torah things, but the principle is there.

It’s there in the letter of James, it’s there in the letter of 1 John, it’s there in the parables and the teaching of Jesus. Who is the wise man who built his house upon the rock? The one who hears the Word of God and does the Word of God. The foolish man builds his house on the sand that doesn’t stand the storm, and falls apart. He’s the guy who hears the Word of God, hears the gospel, hears the teaching of the apostles and the disciples, and the teaching of Jesus, and doesn’t do it.

Obedience is a part of God’s grace, and it’s a part of the process of our redemption. And that’s here in this portion of the Torah, 11 verses of blessings. “You shall eat the old harvest,” verse 10, “and clear out the old before of the new. I will set My Tabernacle among you, and My soul shall not abhor you.”

I will dwell with you, that’s what it means. “And I will walk among you and be your God, and you shall be My people.” Walk among you, folks. I long to hold the hands of Yeshua, the hands of Jesus, and walk with Him in the streets of Jerusalem. I would like to see it happen. “I am the Lord your God,” verse 13, “who brought you out of the land of Egypt that you shall not be their slaves anymore. I have broken the bands of your yoke, your chains, and make you walk upright.”

But that’s 11 verses of blessings, and now comes 33 verses of punishment and curses. Before I even get into them, I just want to say this. One of the things that Yeshua did for all of us, for Jews and non-Jews alike, is that He has removed the curses of the law from His disciples. That means that even if we sin, we’re still under grace. Even if we get castigated, punished, for our mistakes, for our sins, we’re still under grace, and not rejection. We’re still God’s children, still even, I would say, saved because of the coverage that we have by the grace of God and the sacrifice and the blood of the Messiah who redeems us.

But there is such a thing that if we disobey, I’m reading from verse 14, Chapter 26, of Leviticus, “But if you do not obey Me, and do not observe all these commandments, and if you despise My statutes or if your soul abhors My judgments so that you do not perform them all, My commandments, but break My covenant, I will do this to you,” verse 16, horrible things.

I don’t even want to get into it to read it. You read it for yourself. Chapter 26, start from verse 3 and continue reading, and then when you get to verse 16, pray hard, pray hard, because the 11 verses that bless us if we walk with the Lord and do His will turn into 33 verses of horrible things that happen.

Our ministry started here, in 1971, in Jerusalem. We were six Jews. Three of them were Orthodox Jews, religious Orthodox Jews, and two of them were survivors of the worst death camps in Europe, in Germany and in Eastern Europe, during the Nazi occupation. Orthodox Jews; two of them were brothers that were raised in Budapest, Hungary. They were rich, they had businesses, they had families, at least, one of them had families and even a child. They lost their families, they lost their father, their mother, some of their brothers and their sisters, in the Holocaust, and they became believers in the death camp, in Bergen-Belsen death camp, because they found the New Testament in Hungarian.

That was the only book they had to read. They read it, and the Holy Spirit touched them, and they became believers.

And one of them was called David, the other one was called Joseph. Joseph, the older brother, said, whatever these curses are, horrible things, that women will eat their own children, the flesh of their own children. He saw it happening in the German death camps. He experienced it, and he said, “Whatever God promises, if He promises good, He keeps his good, if He promises bad, curses, He keeps His curses as well.” And that’s something that is not taught among Christians; but it is taught in the New Testament, it is taught in the Book of Revelation.

There will be a judgment day, and the judge in the judgment day will not be the Father, it will be Yeshua. He will sit on the throne of judgment to judge us. Dear brothers and sisters, He will judge us. And why He and not the Father? Because if the Father was judging us, we would say, “How could you judge us? You never walked in the flesh Yourself. You never walked in our shoes. You don’t know what it is to be sick. You don’t know what it is to be tired. You don’t know what it is to be despised, and rejected, and persecuted. You don’t know what it is to try to earn your bread by the sweat of your brow.”

But Yeshua will be our judge. We can’t tell Him that, because He does know what it is to be despised and rejected, to be hungry and thirsty, to be tempted by the devil, to be crucified by the hands of men. He knows all of it. He was here, He walked here, He lived here, and we have no excuse in front of Him on the judgment day.

And remember, the judgment scene in the gospel of Matthew where His so-called disciples come to Him and said, “Lord , dear Lord,” and He says, “Depart from Me, you workers of iniquity.” They said, “But why? We worshiped you? We cast out demons in Your name, we made miracles in Your name,” and He says, “Depart from me, I know you not, you workers of iniquity. I was hungry and you didn’t feed Me. I was naked and you didn’t clothe Me. You didn’t do your job right. Go away.”

Because obedience is a part of the formula. Obedience is not what saves us, grace and faith save us. But without obedience, there is no grace. Grace only comes to people who did their best to keep God’s commandments, and failed. That’s when grace kicks in, dear brothers and sisters. It’s not something that is a free ticket to pass, to get out of jail. No, that’s not what it is. Grace is for those who tried and failed; tried to do good, and sinned. That’s when grace kicks in, and is very effective, because it’s paid for by the sacrifice and the blood of Yeshua HaMashiach.

So, you have got 33 verses of horrible, horrible, horrible things. Let me read you a little bit more of it from verse 22 of Chapter 26. “Then, if you walk contrary to Me, and are not willing to obey Me, I will bring on you seven times more plagues, according to your sins.” I believe that the coronavirus is a plague from God to wake up the world and to wake up, specially, the Western world that is supposed to be Christian, supposed to be living its life by the Word of God, by the gospel, by the good news.

So, if you walk contrary to God purposely, by design, not by mistake, He will bring seven times plague, according to your sin. “I will also send wild beasts among you, and shall rob you of your children, destroy your livestock, make you few in number, and your highways shall be desolate.” The world is experiencing something similar to this now. “And if by these things you are not reformed by Me, but walk contrary to Me, then I will also walk contrary to you, and I will punish you seven times for your sins.”

That is the God that created the world, the God that revealed Himself to Abraham, the God that took us out of the land of Egypt, the God who is the Father of all mankind. This is the one who is talking to us here in the Book of Leviticus, in the last chapters of the Book of Leviticus. Verse 26 of Chapter 26, “And when I have cut off your supply of bread, ten women shall bake your bread in one oven, and they shall bring back your bread by weight, and you shall eat and not be satisfied.”

It’s happening in some places in the world now, and always has, but God promised. And then verse 29, “You shall eat the flesh of your sons, and you shall eat the flesh of your daughters. I will destroy your worship places, cut down the incense of the altars, cast down the carcasses of lifeless forms of your idols; lay your cities waste.”

You know, when I was a child, I lived in one of the best neighborhoods in Jerusalem, and it was one house here, and another house half a kilometer away, wild fields of thorns between us, between those houses. Yes, dear brother and sisters.

And verse 33, “I will scatter you among the nations.” Look, we are still regathering the Jews that were scattered here in the 1st century, and talking about aliyah, immigration; trying to get the Jews back home according to the promises of God in the prophets.

But the most encouraging thing in this whole depressing text, that as we perish among the nations from the pogroms in Ukraine, and in Russia, and in Poland, and Eastern Europe, and the inquisition in Spain, and Portugal, and South America. From all these horrible things that happened in the history of the Jewish people, God is still God, and He still loves us. And even though we were in diaspora, He is bringing us back, and we will confess our iniquity, in verse 40, and the iniquity of our fathers, and we will confess our unfaithfulness in which they and we have walked contrary to God, verse 40. But after all these sufferings, we arrive to verse 32 of Chapter 26.

Then, when we have suffered enough, when we have paid enough for our iniquities, so that we could understand who we are and where we belong, and where our home is, and who our Father is, “Then,” God says, “I will remember My covenant with Jacob, and My covenant with Isaac, and My covenant with Abraham, And I will remember the land, and the land shall be left empty by them, and will enjoy its sabbath while it lies desolate without them. They will accept their guilt.”

That means Israel will repent, the Jewish people will repent, “because they despised My judgment and because their souls abhorred My statutes.” But not only the Jewish people, because Christians are supposed to believe the Bible from Genesis to Revelation. They’re supposed to believe the Prince of Peace; they’re supposed to believe the good news of Yeshua that died for the sins of the whole world, including the sins of the pagans and the Israelites.

“Yet all that, when they are in the land of their enemies, I will not cast them away.” “I will not reject Israel.” You’ve got that in Jeremiah 31, you’ve got that in Isaiah. “I will not reject them, nor shall I abhor them to utterly destroy them and break My covenant with them, for I am the Lord their God,” the God of Israel. “For their sake, I will remember the covenant that I made with their ancestors,” meaning “the covenant I made with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, “brought them out of the land of Egypt in the sight of the nations, that I may be their God. I am the Lord. These are My statutes and My judgments and the laws which the Lord made between Himself and the children of Israel on Mount Sinai by the hand of Moses.”

Chapter 27, which is the last chapter of the Book of Leviticus, deals with taking vows, and essentially it teaches how seriously taking a vow is. Taking a vow, if you keep it, it’s a blessing, but if you break it or forget it, it’s a terrible thing to do. Yeshua taught us to not take a vow unless it’s absolutely necessary. The apostle Paul took a vow outside of Corinth, in the port of Corinth in Cenchreae. His vow was, “I will go to Jerusalem with seven of my Gentile disciples, and with the money that I’ve collected from the churches of the Gentiles, for the Feast of Pentecost, and present these seven Gentiles as my first fruits in the kingdom of God, and bring the contribution from the Gentiles to Jerusalem.” And he did, and he paid for it. He was in jail two years in Caesarea, house arrest, and then he went to Rome, and he was martyred. Yes, vows are important.

The Book of Leviticus ends with the teaching that if we do take a vow, we must keep it. Therefore, Yeshua says, don’t take vows unless you absolutely have to.

And with this, the Book of Leviticus ends, and we’ll start next time, next week, with the Book of Numbers.

May God bless you. Keep reading. Keep reading and praying, and ask God to quicken the Word, His Word, in your soul, in your heart, and in your spirit. In the name of our Lord Yeshua, amen.