This will begin a multi-part study addressing some of the most important words our Heavenly Father ever uttered. These words are actually words that man was able to hear uttered, in the flesh. This was something that happened in ancient Israel.

After He brought them out of Egypt, and He baptized them in the Red Sea, He then began to teach them His commandments.

We are going to talk specifically about the Ten Commandments. Are We Really Keeping Them? That is a very important question for us. Other commandments are important. Feast keeping is important. Even other commands that people don’t view as important are important. Here are the big ones. The Ten Commandments.

I would venture to say that there is a percentage of people who, even among us, believe we are keeping the ten commandments, and yet there is some area that Yahweh wants to get our attention. Mainly the first commandment is one of the big challenges. The Ten Commandments are a big deal today.

I went to the barber shop 2 days ago, and there was a book on the shelf that said, The Ten Commandments, Twice Removed. I didn’t get a chance to take a look at the book because he called me over to the barber chair, so I asked, “What is that book there about, The Ten Commandments, Twice Removed? The barber said, ” I don’t know, I’ve never read it.”

So he walked over and picked it up and read the back.

It was apparently about how the Ten Commandments were removed from a courtroom in Alabama and different things that had happened and the outcry over that. I said, “What do you think about that?” And he said, “I think it is the major contributor to the ruination of our country.”

What he meant was: take the commandments out of the people’s minds and out of public places and it destroys the country.

I said, “Yeah, and probably it is a sign of the morality of the country we live in. We used to value the Ten Commandments, and now not so much.” I was going to talk further, but decided to wait until next time. We had some things we agreed on, so I got some things to talk about next time.

The Ten Commandments is a great place to start when it comes to reach other Christians with some of the truths that we consider to be valuable, such as the Sabbath day and the Name and so on. I like to start with that quite a lot actually. I just ask them, “Do you believe in keeping theTen Commandments?”

Usually they say yes, and that is a springboard to talk about the 3rd one and the 4th one.

But you know, it is a great contradiction. I saw in front of a church in town, it said, ‘The Ten Commandments are not multiple choice.’ I almost went into the church to talk to the pastor, but the door was locked. Many believe that the Commandments are important, and yet when it comes to number 4, especially, they say, ‘well I go to church on Sunday.’

There is a business here in town that has the Ten Commandments right there in the front window. Other times we’ll drive by and see the Ten Commandments right on the front lawn of somebody’s house. While I appreciate their heart in trying to lift up the importance of the Ten Commandments, the actual sign is a transgression of the 3rd Commandment.

It tells us in the 3rd Commandment, as we will see, not to bring Yahweh’s Name to vanity, to nothing, and those signs actually do that.

I want to get started with the first Command. Number One Command, and maybe this is the most Commandment in all of Scripture, besides “Love Elohim with all your heart, with all your soul, and all your mind.”

Exodus 20:3 – You shall have no other gods before Me.

As far as how to love Him, this might be the most important one. There are many elohim, many gods, many idols that people have put in the place of Elohim.

That is a question for all of us, are we truly pouting Yahweh first in our life? We saw in the chat room there was a discussion about coffee. I’ve wanted to avoid coffee. I’ll tell you why. Number one, I don’t like it. That helps a lot, doesn’t it?

The second reason I’ve never tried to like it is it just seems like it just goes in and grabs a hold of people and says, “You will have me daily. You will have me or you will be miserable.

You will not be able to get up in the morning unless you have me first. I am first every day.” There is something about that that smacks of idolatry. Anything that has a hold on us can be dangerous spiritually. We don’t want to be brought under the power of any. I think there is a Scripture about that.

1Corinthians 6:12 – All things are lawful for me, but all things are not helpful. All things are lawful for me, but I will not be brought under the power of any.

In other words we don’t want to be brought under the power of anything. We don’t want to have hold of us. I don’t care if it is coffee, or drug addictions, or cigarette addictions, if something has a hold of us, and we can’t let it go, even Internet addictions or computer addictions, or game addictions.

Whatever addictions may have hold of us, we have to set it aside and say, ‘No, only Yahweh is the One that has a hold of me.

I’m only going to be brought under His power, His jurisdiction.’ The verse after this one even talks about food. So it can be an addiction. We don’t want to be powerless to any element of the world.

If coffee has us in a position where we really feel like we can’t make it very well without it, then I think we are in a place of danger there, of putting other things in the place of Elohim. Only He should have a hold of us.

And no man, not even man. there are people in authority over us, and we willingly submit to those in authority, but nothing grips us to where we say, “If I want to let it go. I’m free to let it go under the Word of Elohim, I can let it go easily.” Besides that, the addictions of cigarettes and coffle and other substances have a way of taking the place of Elohim.

Thankfully, I’ve never been addicted to cigarettes, but those I know who are, whenever they are upset, when they’re angry, when they can’t seem to manage things, they go light one up. I think Yahweh is jealous of that. He is jealous. He wants to be the One that we turn to when we are having a rough way to go.

Also, even for children, as children we are taught to grab a little teddy bear. “Grab him and hold him tight.

You’ll feel safe with the teddy bear in your arms.” I think we ought to be teaching our children to not run to teddy bears and stuffed animals, but to turn to someone who really can help them, and that is Yahweh. Those are some ways that maybe we are putting other things, other elohim, before Yahweh.

Are we willing to put Yahweh first? Number one. Or do we find ourselves putting other things first, such as man? Man is a big time elohim that people venerate and grab hold of and follow in spite of what Yahweh says. Scripture even says:

Psalms 82:6 – I said, You [are] gods, And all of you [are] children of the Most High.

Yahushua quoted this in the book of John, where it does say that we, as human beings, are called elohim. That is a legitimate title belonging to man. Now, the translation of that title being god is a terrible thing to call a person, I mean a supreme being, that is what the word god means.

This is one reason why I believe the word God is a mistranslation of the Hebrew word elohim. Elohim is broader.

It can apply to men, to angel, to judges, to Yahweh. Just like the term master or owner or whatever could apply to many different people, the same is true of this word elohim. That is on reason I don’t like to translate that as god.

We want to make sure we are not putting man in the place of elohim because we don’t want to have any elohim before Him. It does say in Scripture that we can set up these idols, whether it be man, whether it be drugs or alcohol or whatever addictions we might have. We can set these idols up in our hearts.

Ezekiel 14:7 – For anyone of the house of Israel, or of the strangers who dwell in Israel, who separates himself from Me and sets up his idols in his heart and puts before him what causes him to stumble into iniquity, then comes to a prophet to inquire of him concerning Me, I YAHWEH will answer him by Myself.

Ezekiel 14:8 – I will set My face against that man and make him a sign and a proverb, and I will cut him off from the midst of My people. Then you shall know that I [am] YAHWEH.

Then you shall know I am He who causes to exist, the Hebrew reads. So a person can have this idol in their heart, while at the same time they want to hear the Word of Yahweh. They want to inquire of Him. They want to hear what He has to say, but they’ve got these little idols in their hearts, and they end up separating themselves from Elohim because of these idols.

In this case, in the modern version, we seek the Scriptures, we want to know His will, we study it out, but then we have these other things that are keeping us from progressing spiritually. They are stumbling blocks as the Scripture says, setting up these things that cause us stumble into iniquity.

Then we try to inquire of Yahweh, and we have these idols in our hearts.

Are there things in our life that are taking the place of what Yahweh wants to be? That is an important question we all need to ask ourselves. Are we living our lives in recognition of the fact that He is first? He is number one. Whether you want to recognize HIm as number one is your choice, but He already is number one.

Those of us who want to recognize that will, and we will live our lives as though He is.

He must be in first place. We shared last week about how the pride of man causes man to reject certain truths or certain things in the Scriptures because they think that if they were to walk in these things, to obey these things that they see maybe they should do in the Scripture, they are thinking, ‘What will people say about me?’

In that case, they are putting man in the place of Elohim.

They are more concerned about what man may say about them than they are about what Yahweh will say about them. How about us? Is there anything in our lives that we should implement, that we know we should do, things that we are avoiding, we’re putting off because we know we are going to have to go through a really hard time to try to implement it?

We’re thinking about what people will do, what people will think, what people will say, how people will react, what we will lose. We saw that in the first century:

John 12:42 – Nevertheless even among the rulers many believed in Him, but because of the Pharisees they did not confess [Him], lest they should be put out of the synagogue;

John 12:43 – for they loved the praise of men more than the praise of Elohim.

If we regard the praise of men to be more important than the praise of Elohim, then we are setting up man to be in the position of Elohim, in Yahweh’s place. We are putting man in that place that only Yahweh belongs.

We are setting up man’s will, man’s opinions, man’s ideas, man’s theologies, traditions of men to be more important than and more weighty than what Yahweh has said.

What Yahweh’s will is, what His commandments are, what His opinion is. Now today, in our society, depending on what circles you are in, you are not going to be mocked for just becoming a believer in the Messiah.

That is not nearly as common. But today, the chances are pretty high, you’re going to be laughed at, or mocked, or ridiculed or spoken evil of if you actually start keeping things like the Ten Commandments.

Or if you keep other commandments in Yahweh’s Word. If you walk around town with a set of tassles on your garment. If you walk around town, and you are a lady, and you believe that you believe you want to pray without ceasing, and you want to be instant in prayer, so you keep your head covering on, and you want to be able to pray without people knowing.

If you keep your headcovering on, people won’t even know you are praying. If you walk around town with that headcovering on, people are going to look at you and are going to think, ‘Oh, what is she trying to be, or what is she, or what is this? Is this a Muslim?’ You have to set aside your fear of men’s opinions.

Or if you are going to be one of those people who decide they are going to keep feast days or the Sabbath, people might say, ‘What are you, Jewish?’ There might be people who are who will mock you. There will be people in the church maybe that you go to that make fun of you. Your friends will speak bad about you.

Or if you start using the true Name of Yahweh instead of the Lord, God, Jesus, start using Yahweh, Elohim, Yahushua, if you start using the true, original Names as Yahweh gave them. Or if you start disregarding Christmas and Easter and don’t participate with the rest of the family in these pagan rooted celebrations.

Those are some things to think about. Are we willing to put Yahweh first?

Or are we concerned about what people will say? When we approach people with these truths that we have come to understand from the Word, everything you say to them is going to have to go through this filter. It is an unholy filter based on an unholy world view. This filter of regarding the praise of men being more important than the praise of Elohim.

If they have this high level of pride and concern about the way they appear unto men, they may find it very difficult to accept what you share, no matter how nice and kind or whatever they seem to be, no matter how true what you say might be. Let’s face it, it is not fun to be rejected by men. It is not a fun thing. It is called persecution.

Now we should leap for joy, knowing our reward is in Heaven, but most people would rather avoid anything that would cause them to be mocked or ridiculed.

What you find is many times when you share about the Torah, about the Name, about these things with a nominal believer, they would rather just kind of fall back to, ‘You know I’m saved by grace. No one can tell me I haven’t been saved.

My conversion experience is real.’ We are not trying to tell them they are not saved, but that is what they are thinking, whether you are trying to convey that or not. They think, ‘ You know, everybody at my church, they are led by the Holy Spirit. My Uncle Joe, or my Uncle Louis, or whoever it was an awesome believer, and they’ll be my reference point.’

Or, ‘I’m really impressed with John Wesley, I’m really impressed with the church fathers, and they’re the reference point by which I will determine what is right and what is wrong. So I’ll just keep what I’ve been doing. That’s how I’ve been blessed.’ And they go on about their business.

All the while putting Elohim in second place, putting their own comfort, their own ease, their own desires, their own thoughts first.

I’m not saying everybody who hears what you have to say is doing this, but there is a percentage of people. They were there in Yahushua’s day. They are still here today. There is an old saying. ‘Once in a while you’ll stumble upon truth, but most the people manage to pick themselves up and hurry along and pretend like nothing ever happened.

The truth, brothers, you can attack it, you can ignore it, you can do whatever you want, but in the end, there it is, you can’t change it. You are going to run into this with certain people. I’m not judging who, where, what, why, but recognize it. There is this wall.

There are people who will disregard what you say, and even if what you share is completely Biblical, they will disregard it because they have a motivation inside.

They have this fear of man, this fear of rejection inside. They are trusting in man rather than the Scriptures. They have the belief they can reject what is true as long as other people are rejecting it, too, and go with the flock and find safety in numbers.

As long as they believe they have their Jesus, their Messiah who saves them anyway, no matter how bad they are, then they’ll find just enough Bible verses that sound plausible enough, they will just pick themselves up and hurry along as if nothing ever happened. After all, it is easier, it’s more comfortable to cleave to the status quo.

The world is selling us things on the basis of comfort, of ease, of convenience.

We buy cell phones to make it easier to talk to anyone anywhere we want to pretty much. We buy these plush chairs to make our lives comfy, and luxury cars and luxury houses. We are conditioned by the enemy to look for ease, for comfort, for convenience. It is real easy to carry that over into our faith if we’re not careful.

It is not fun going against the grain. It is often uncomfortable. It is often uneasy.

It is often inconvenient, but our Savior loved us enough to leave the ease and comfort of the heavenlies and bear our diseases, bear our sin, bear our wickedness. and bear the weight of the entire world on His shoulders so that we could be delivered from the pit which we dug ourselves.

Is it too much to ask, that we suffer a little bit, in order to love Him in return? Who is really first in our life? That is an important question.

Are we willing to suffer for a little? Are we willing to endure a light affliction as the Scripture calls it? Are we willing to lay down our lives for Him, as He did for us?

Are we willing to regard the praises of Yahweh to be more important than the opinions of men, the opinions of our neighbors, the opinions of our relatives, the opinions of our spouse, the opinions of the church members that we value?

Are we willing to suffer at the hands of men in order to put Yahweh first and do the will of our Father in Heaven? In other words, are we willing to walk as Yahushua walked?

John 5:44 – How can you believe, who receive honor from one another, and do not seek the honor that [comes] from the only Elohim?

He is the only Elohim. There is really no other elohim. Oh, there are many who are called elohim, and that is fine. That is a legitimate title for men, but when it all comes down to it, there is one Savior, Yahweh the Father. There is one Elohim, Yahweh the Father. So whom do we put our trust in? Whose opinion are we seeking to know?

That is a heart question, brothers, that only you, and only you alone, inside your heart, and me and me alone inside my heart can answer, and only I can answerer. We can’t necessarily tell based on what others may do or say.

1Corinthians 4:5 – Therefore judge nothing before the time, until the Master comes, who will both bring to light the hidden things of darkness and reveal the counsels of the hearts. Then each one’s praise will come from Elohim.

Then the praise of Elohim is the only thing that is really going to matter. All that praise of men and all the honor that you retired with and that you died with will mean nothing. It is only the praise of Elohim that is going to count. That is what Messiah put His trust in. He was humiliated, totally humiliated. Half naked on a stick.

Spit upon, beaten, mocked, ridiculed, but He sought the praise that came from Elohim.

Are we willing to walk as He walked? Is He living in us in that area? Is His life being manifested in us in that particular area? If you say that you know Him, but you don’t keep the commandments, then you don’t really know Him.

1John 2:4 – He who says, I know Him, and does not keep His commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him.

1John 2:5 – But whoever keeps His word, truly the love of Elohim is perfected in him. By this we know that we are in Him.

1John 2:6 – He who says he abides in Him ought himself also to walk just as He walked.

So let’s walk as He walked. Let’s live as He did. He put Yahweh first. He didn’t care what men thought of Him. It doesn’t mean you have to be rude. It doesn’t mean you have to be cold and uncaring toward those who don’t see it your way, but it does mean when it comes down to it, Yahweh first.

When it comes down to it, Yahweh said it. We believe it. That settles it. We do it.

Maybe that is the most salvational command of all because there was King Saul who was rejected because he favored the praise of men more than the praise of Elohim. There was the scribes and Pharisees who were rejected for the same reason.

We can mouth that Yahweh is our Elohim all day long, but if man is really our elohim then we’re not even following the first command.

How can we call Him our Elohim and be truthful about it? We’ve got to put HIm first, brothers. We have to put Him first. So it is very possible for man to make other men his elohim. There is another way, too, where man has made himself elohim.

I’m going to show you a picture of some rocks that are all in a line. I took this back in 2009 when I was in central Israel. There are 16 rocks in an unusual order, all in a line, one right after another. I put them in this order for a reason. I wanted to show it to my family back home and ask them what they think this is. What point am I trying to make?

This has a tremendous amount of significance to the study today because this is a major area of deception in the world today. How many of you would say that these 16 rocks would be evidence that some kind of person came along and arranged those 16 rocks all in a line?

We see different rocks all around, and then there are these 16 rocks that are sort of unusual because they are lined up and touching each other.

You could ask anyone, I’d say, even the smartest scientists and college professors, and they would conclude, “Yes, this is a sign in this particular location that some kind of intelligent being, maybe an unusual animal, but more likely a human being, arranged these 16 rocks in a line.”

They might say that it is proof that some kind of intelligent person or animal came along and was present at this spot sometime in the past.

There are signs of intelligence in this particular area. This is proof that someone was here and took these rocks and arranged them. It did not occur by a random process. It had to have been intelligence. What amazes me is that probably everyone would believe that some kind of intelligent being arranged these 16 rocks in a line.

But smart scientists and smart college professors don’t believe that something astronomically more complex, something known as the human body, was created by intelligence, but they will believe that intelligence arranged these 16 rocks in a row. They believe that chaos produced the human body, that it sprang up, ironically, out of rock.

They believe that these 16 rocks were arranged by an intelligent being, but the human body which is far more complex and far more orderly than 16 rocks in a line on the back side of Israel’s desert, all happened by chance. That doesn’t make any sense. We all know it doesn’t make any sense, and if they think about it, they know it doesn’t make any sense.

2Peter 3:3 – knowing this first: that scoffers will come in the last days, walking according to their own lusts,

2Peter 3:4 – and saying, Where is the promise of His coming? For since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as [they were] from the beginning of creation.

2Peter 3:5 – For this they willfully forget: that by the word of Elohim the heavens were of old, and the earth standing out of water and in the water,

They purposefully forget. They willfully forget.

2Peter 3:6 – by which the world [that] then existed perished, being flooded with water.

He points us back to those who willfuly forget about the creation, and they also forget the flood. They want to walk according to their own lusts, their own desires. They are self-willed men who want to walk according to their own ways, their own lusts. If we were to look at the various fossils in the ground, they are actually evidence of the flood.

The silt from the masses of movement of earth from being washed away would have buried innumerable animals, both on land and in the sea. People say the fossils in the different layers are from different ages, but Mount Saint Helen’s created a miniature Grand Canyon that has different layers just like what people think the earth is made of.

So, Ironically, fossils and fossil fuels which were buried in the flood are evidence of Yahweh’s awesome power in the flood He produced on the earth. Some people turn around and say that it is evidence that Yahweh didn’t do a thing.

People who believe that we were created through the process of randomness, that we somehow created ourselves, are putting man in the place of Elohim.

As though we could somehow create ourselves from a process of random chance. See, this way man answers to no one. He can continue in his lusts and the things he wants to do, in his own mind completely autonomous, and doesn’t need to praise Yahweh for His awesome works.

They just say, “You know, the 16 rocks that is by intelligence, but the human body, and everything that moves and lives and breathes, that’s strictly random. The people say there was a big ball then a big bang. Well, where did the ball come from? And what was holding the ball? Who was holding the ball? Sounds like they dropped the ball, huh?

But when we look at the world around us, the stars of heaven, the irreducible complexity of the human body with its trillions of cells working in unison, or even something as simple as a blade of grass which lives by the process of photosynthesis, a process so complex that even modern science can’t fully understand it.

I’m sorry, but it takes less faith for me to believe that an intelligent being created all of this than to believe that blade of grass was smart enough to figure out photosynthesis or that photosynthesis, a highly intelligent way of converting sunlight to food, just happened by chance.

If I had a watch in my hand and someone asked where I got the watch, and I said, “Oh, I found it along the road.

All of a sudden all these pieces came together and constructed itself, and here I have a working watch.” Nobody would believe me, but then all these animals, all these humans, everything that is around us, people readily believe that it all happened by chance. So humanism, brothers, is a major of idolatry in our age today.

Don’t believe that secular equals no religion. Secularism is a religion. It is the religion of humanism.

Humanism is this idea that man is the center of the universe, or that man is just one of the great animals that are on the earth, a higher form of an animal and not in the image of Elohim, and therefore conduct themselves accordingly.

See, we have man glorifying himself, rather that looking at all Yahweh has done and just giving a shout of praise. I don’t know about you, but I want to make a joyful shout to Yahweh.

Psalms 100:2 – Serve YAHWEH with gladness; Come before His presence with singing.

Psalms 100:3 – Know that YAHWEH, He [is] Elohim; [It is] He [who] has made us, and not we ourselves ; [We are] His people and the sheep of His pasture.

He is the One who created us, not ourselves. We can’t make ourselves. So be thankful for that. He gave you life. He produced breath in you. Rejoice in that.

Psalms 100:4 – Enter into His gates with thanksgiving, [And] into His courts with praise. Be thankful to Him, [and] bless His name.

Psalms 100:5 – For YAHWEH [is] good; His mercy [is] everlasting, And His truth [endures] to all generations.

We need that mercy. The reason we need His mercy is because His truth also endures to all generations. That is why you need HIs mercy. You cannot live without it because His Word, His Torah, His law, His Ten Commandments endure to every generation, so every generation needs His mercy.

Those who say the law is done away with have nothing to convict them of sin. There is no need for a Savior. Why?

The law was abolished at the cross, right? So what law did you break? There is no law. But when I say this, “His Torah including the Ten commandments endures to all generations,” everyone of us looks at those Ten Commandments and say, “I’ve failed you, Father. I’ve failed You.

You are worthy of praise. I do thank You for what You have done for me.

Not only did you create me, You created every living thing there is, and this beautiful creation around me. But you also saved me. You pulled me from the pit which I dug for myself. I don’t deserve it. All I can do is thank You for your mercies and give You praise and seek to live according to Your Word.” That is what we ought to see.

When science looks at the fact that the stars are billions of light years away, they ought to say, “Wow, look at what the awesome hand of Yahweh has done.” But no, they don’t do that. They are too smart for that, too much into the wisdom of men. To prideful to give glory to Elohim.

Commandment 2

Exodus 20:4 – You shall not make for yourself a carved image, or any likeness [of anything] that [is] in heaven above, or that [is] in the earth beneath, or that [is] in the water under the earth;

Exodus 20:5 – you shall not bow down to them nor serve them. For I, YAHWEH your Elohim, [am] a jealous Elohim, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and fourth [generations] of those who hate Me,

Don’t make an idol out of creation as the evolutionists have done. Looking at the elements and saying to a rock, “You have begotten me.” Idolatry was a major problem in the ancient world. It is a major problem today, too. It is just more sophisticated and shrouded under the guise of wisdom.

Don’t confuse and say the same science that created this computer I’m using is the same science that concludes that evolution is the origin of man. That is not true. Science is observable and repeatable. You can see it. You can test it. They weren’t there. They can’t see what happened back there. they can’t repeat what happened back there.

They can only guess based on what they view as evidence through their anti Elohim glasses. In the ancient world, every nation had their little god that they worshipped, but now the god of man is himself. The very thing that Satan was trying to accomplish in the garden of Eden. “Oh, you’ll be just like Elohim, knowing good and evil.

You’ve got your own plan of what good and evil are. You’ll be just like Him.”

Yahweh predicted it. Man has own ideas of what good and evil are. They don’t submit to the commandments of Elohim. So the idolatry of the ancient world is still present when they say to a rock, “You have begotten me,” or to a tree or whatever they think they came from.

The ancient world was very hooked on sun worship, and a lot of these elements are still present in churches today.

The birth of sun gods on Dec. 25 inspired the date to be chosen for Christmas Day, the supposed birthday of the Messiah. The worship of sun gods inspired the yule log, mistletoe, and other traditions we see in the modern Christmas holiday. Besides Dec. 25 being a lie, parents lie to their children and say, “There’s a Santa Claus who is basically elohim.

He is you god and he knows when you are awake or asleep.

He knows if you’ve been good or bad.” They lie to their children and say he will come and give them gifts if they are good. That is just manipulation through the use of an idol. It is conscionable for a believer to do that. The whole holiday wreaks with the fragrance of idolatry. The same is true about Easter. A lot of people observe Easter.

Even the name of Easter is derived from a pagan goddess, Astarte, the goddess of fertility. So we’ve got these Easter rabbits. Rabbits are among the most fertile of all animals. In fact, they only have a gestation period of about 30 days, and it only takes them 6 months from birth to be mature enough to breed.

A single rabbit can produce as many as 800 offspring in one season. That includes children, grandchildren, etc.

So they’ve got these very fertile rabbits representing the fertility goddess around Easter. This is supposed to honor the Messiah? Do we honor the Messiah with festivals and traditions rooted in idolatry? No, that doesn’t honor Him. So you may not a physical idol, and you may not bow down to it.

Is it okay for a person to take the traditions and practices of those who did worship idols and try to honor Yahweh with it somehow or honor the Messiah with it?

Jeremiah 10:2 – Thus says YAHWEH: Do not learn the way of the Gentiles; Do not be dismayed at the signs of heaven, For the Gentiles are dismayed at them.

They looked at the signs in the heavens and thought, ‘The sun is going away, and it may not come back.’ So around Dec 25, when the sun started heading back to the northern hemisphere, oh, a new god was born. Don’t be dismayed at the signs of the heavens.

Jeremiah 10:3 – For the customs of the peoples [are] futile; For [one] cuts a tree from the forest, The work of the hands of the workman, with the ax.

Jeremiah 10:4 – They decorate it with silver and gold; They fasten it with nails and hammers So that it will not topple.

And you wonder where the Christmas tree came from. They have been doing that kind of thing for thousands of years. You cannot drink the cup of Yahweh and the cup of demons, and that’s what idol worship is, is demon worship. You can’t partake of Yahweh’s table and the table of demons.

So Yahweh is not honored by the remnants of pagan rooted festivals in our worship.

That is why He said the following.

Deuteronomy 12:32 – Whatever I command you, be careful to observe it; you shall not add to it nor take away from it.

I read this article by an archaeologist, probably an atheist. He had an interest in the Bible. He read the Bible, and he looked at the two major religions, Judaism and Christianity.

When he compared the Bible objectively to the 2 major faiths that came out of it, he said something to the effect that, ‘If there was one commandment in the Bible that these 2 religions most disregard, it would be the one about not adding to or taking away from His commandments.’ See, brothers, man prefers his own religion.

He prefers to form his own elohim rather than serving the true one as revealed in the Scriptures.

So they add to and they take away. That has been the case from the very beginning. Man wants his own way. He doesn’t want to submit to the way of Yahweh, to the way of the truth. He would rather follow his own carnal and self-centered desires.

He would rather create his own elohim and mould his own image of what he wants Elohim to be, that is more suitable to make him more at ease, comfortable, and convenient.

It come as no surprise to me, in light of the fact that we have Yahweh being reshaped, reformed into something He is not, that those who claim to follow the Bible have renamed Him also. Rather than calling upon His Name which is Yahweh, as the Scripture has said, they come along and replace it and put these titles in: Lord, God, Adonai. The Scripture says:

Joel 2:32 – And it shall come to pass [That] whoever calls on the name of YAHWEH Shall be saved. For in Mount Zion and in Jerusalem there shall be deliverance, As YAHWEH has said, Among the remnant whom YAHWEH calls.

No, they are going to take that Name out of there. They don’t want it. They have their own idea of what is better.

Isaiah 42:8 – I [am] YAHWEH, that [is] My name; And My glory I will not give to another, Nor My praise to carved images.

Get the idol worship and the remnants thereof out of your worship toward Him. Don’t put man ahead of Him, and quit changing His Name to something it’s not. His Name is Yahweh. Lord is not His Name. You may pronounce it differently, but you Lord is not His Name.

Man comes along and takes the Name of Yahweh out, and puts his own words in, which is adding and taking away, all to satisfy traditions of men.

This ultimately ends up violating the commandments of Yahweh, in this case the Ten Commandments because Commandment #3 says

Exodus 20:7 – You shall not take the name of YAHWEH your Elohim in vain, for YAHWEH will not hold [him] guiltless who takes His name in vain.

What’s that? There is one commandment He says, “Warning, warning, I will not hold you guiltless if you break this one.” Hello. Getting your attention? So let’s look at the 3rd commandment in the King James Bible and see if man is guilty of anything.

Exodus 20:8 – “Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy.

Exodus 20:9 – Six days you shall labor and do all your work,

The King James version takes the Name of Yahweh completely out and put in LORD in all capital letters. They want the LORD there in its place. That LORD name is what they say you don’t want to take in vain, according to the KIng James. If you were to look at this verse in the original Hebrew, you would not find the word LORD there.

You would not find the word lord or any other word there that carries such a meaning.

What you would find is the Name of Yahweh. We all hold titles of what might describe us: father, mother, friend, brother, but we also have a personal name that we use. Yahweh is no different. He has a personal Name. Yes, He is our Father.

Yes, He’s our Master. Yes, He’s the Creator, all these things, but He has a personal Name just like you and I. If someone came to you and said, “What is your name?”

Would you say, “I’m friend?” No. And neither did Yahweh. When Moshe asked Him His Name, He said, “I am Yahweh.” That is Name that is primarily used in the Scriptures. In fact, the 7th most common word in the Bible is Yahweh. That is even including words like and the. So why would translators come along and remove it?

It is not because the word Lord is how you say His Name in English.

It all started a long time ago. You can look in encyclopedias. In the Encyclopedia Britannica under the heading “Yahweh,” it says,

“Yahweh, the God of the Israelites, His Name being revealed to Moses as 4 Hebrew consonants (YHWH) called the tetragramaton, after the exile (6th century B. C.), and especially from the 3rd century B. C. on, Jews ceased to use the Name of Yahweh for 2 reasons. As Judaism became a universal religion through its proselytizing in the Greco-Roman world, the more common noun elohim, meaning “god,” tended to replace Yahweh to demonstrate the universal sovereignty of Israel’s God over all others. At the same time the divine name was increasingly regarded as too sacred to be uttered. It was thus replaced vocally in the synagogue ritual by the Hebrew word Adonai (“my Lord”), which was translated as Kyrios (“Lord”) in the Septuagint, the Greek version of the Old Testament.” The Encyclopedia Britannica under the heading “Yahweh.”

This tradition was picked up by the early church fathers, continues to this day, and few have thought to question it since. Yahweh never told us to change His inspired Word. In fact, His Name is in Scripture nearly 7000 times, and each one of those 7000 times, man goes in and puts in a different word. Either LORD or God.

Most translations will freely admit to doing this, including the NIV.

If you read the NIV introduction, they will tell you they did it.

Here is the preface for the Revised Standard Version where they try to defend themselves for doing it. “the use of any proper name for the one and only God, as though there were other gods from whom He had to be distinguished, was discontinued in Judaism before the Christian era, and is entirely inappropriate for the universal faith of the Christian Church.”

Wait a minute. Who are they to decide what we believe is appropriate or not appropriate? Their job is to translate, not to decide what we believe or what is appropriate. Who was the one who invented the idea of having a Name for our Creator? Was it not Yahweh?

Was Yahweh entirely inappropriate for putting His Name in the Scriptures 7000 times? And we think we are so wise we can correct Him.

Oh, it was discontinued in Judaism, so that makes it right. So they follow Judaism when Judaism is wrong, but they will not follow Judaism when Judaism is right. If you’re looking for something universal, brothers, that universal faith, wouldn’t it be more universal to use one Name in all languages?

Isn’t that what Yahweh wanted from the very beginning? He tells us He wanted to make His Name great among the Gentiles.

We read that in Malachi 1 verse 11. Many times Yahweh tells us to exalt His Name.

Psalms 34:3 – Oh, magnify YAHWEH with me, And let us exalt His name together.

Take His Name out of the Bible, how are you going to do that?

Psalms 105:1 – Oh, give thanks to YAHWEH! Call upon His name; Make known His deeds among the peoples!

You take His Name out of the Bible, people aren’t even going to know what His Name is to be able to do that.

Joel 2:32a –

Take the Name out of the Bible, and you can be sure peoples aren’t going to call on the Name of Yahweh because they are not going to know it exists. So they did us a tremendous disservice. The Bibles they have today are full of false statements. This is a false statement:

Isaiah 42:8 – I [am] YAHWEH, that [is] My name; And My glory I will not give to another, Nor My praise to carved images.

Isaiah 42:9 – Behold, the former things have come to pass, And new things I declare; Before they spring forth I tell you of them.

Isaiah 42:10 – Sing to YAHWEH a new song, [And] His praise from the ends of the earth, You who go down to the sea, and all that is in it, You coastlands and you inhabitants of them!

that is not true. that is not His Name. That is false. What does that have to do with the 3rd Commandment? Well, you are falsifying His name, brothers, if you do this. If you come along with Scriptures and read, “I am the Lord, that is My Name,” then you are falsifying HIs Name. we have to consider whether we have the rights to go and change the Word.

And if someone else thought they had the right to do so, then we need to go back and fix it.

The Hebrew word for vain matches up pretty well with the English word.

Dictionary definition

vain – 1. having no real substance, value, or importance; empty; void; worthless; unsatisfying. “Thy vain excuse…”

2. Destitute of forge or efficacy; effecting no purpose; fruitless; in effectual; as, vain toil; a vain attempt…

So when you look at this word vain, what greater way to bring Yahweh ‘s Name to a point where it has no real substance, no real value. It is empty. It’s void. It’s unsatisfying. They weren’t satisfied with the Name. It has no efficacy. It doesn’t really matter whether you use the Name or not, effecting no real purpose, so let’s take it right out of the Bible.

It is fruitless. It is ineffectual.

It doesn’t make any difference what you call Him. Doesn’t this all sound familiar? They bring His Name to vanity, the very thing the 3rd Commandment says not to do. What greater way could you do it than to completely remove it from the Bible? This practice is so widespread that up until recent times not very many people knew His Name was Yahweh.

So if we want to keep the Ten Commandments, we can’t join with them and replace Yahweh’s name with Yahweh’s title of our own choosing. That is not the only way to break the 3rd commandment. This is one way to do it.

As I was sharing earlier, the little signs they have in their church yards … even one church has the Ten Commandments written in stone on their entrance.

The actual Ten Commandments as written in those places and in most Bibles is a transgression of itself because Yahweh says not to bring His Name to nothing, and that commandment, as written, does the very thing ut says not to do. So His Name is important. Unlike our culture where names aren’t that big of a deal.

Well, sort of. What if I started calling you Bozo? Would that be all right?

Or if I called you Lulu instead of Louise? If I want to call you whatever I want to, it doesn’t really matter, right? Sticks and stones may break your bones, but what name I call you doesn’ t hurt. But Yahweh put the Name in there. We have no business renaming Him. Who do we think we are?

In spite of what others may think, we need to keep the Ten Commandments and restore what Yahweh put there originally.

We want our speech, the things we say, to be as the oracles of Elohim.

1Peter 4:11 – If anyone speaks, [let him speak] as the oracles of Elohim. If anyone ministers, [let him do it] as with the ability which Elohim supplies, that in all things Elohim may be glorified through Yahushua Messiah, to whom belong the glory and the dominion forever and ever. Amen.

We see that the primary term that is used when referencing our Heavenly Father is the Name Yahweh, so we’re not going to take away, we’re not going to add to. We are going to forsake the traditions of man. Just like in the first century:

Mark 7:9 – He said to them, [All too] well you reject the commandment of Elohim, that you may keep your tradition.

Some things just never change. We can’t improve on Yahweh’s already perfect Word. It is prideful to thing you can. We are going to set aside this vain tradition and fearlessly proclaim the genuine truth found in His Word, just as He inspired it. No change. Or do we think we are wiser than Him and have a better theology than He does?

7000 times Yahweh puts His Name in the Bible. 7000 times man takes it out.

Nothing wrong with that picture to you? There is something wrong with that picture to me. It is preposterous. It is a violation of the 3rd Commandment.

It makes His Name and His Word of vanity, of nothing. No real substance, use, or purpose, but if you want to look in the Scriptures, all throughout Biblical history, very consistently, the true believers called upon the Name of Yahweh.

Genesis 4:26 – And as for Seth, to him also a son was born; and he named him Enosh. Then [men] began to call on the name of YAHWEH.

Abraham called on the Name of Yahweh

Genesis 12:7 – Then YAHWEH appeared to Abram and said, To your descendants I will give this land. And there he built an altar to YAHWEH, who had appeared to him.

Genesis 12:8 – And he moved from there to the mountain east of Bethel, and he pitched his tent [with] Bethel on the west and Ai on the east; there he built an altar to YAHWEH and called on the name of YAHWEH.

So we see men around Adam’s time dong this and men around Abraham’s time doing this.

Exodus 3:15 – Moreover Elohim said to Moses, Thus you shall say to the children of Israel: `YAHWEH Elohim of your fathers, the Elohim of Abraham, the Elohim of Isaac, and the Elohim of Jacob, has sent me to you. This [is] My name forever, and this [is] My memorial to all generations.’

My memorial. We have no business changing His memorial. What if a man went up to the Vietnam Memorial in Washington, D. C. and started changing all the names on the wall? Think that man would probably end up in prison?

Yet man goes in and changes the Name of Yahweh and puts some generic title instead of the Name just puts Master or Lord or whatever, and that is okay.

Why do we value the names of men more than the Name of Elohim. It should not be. Then we see David and the men of his time period, what did they do with the Name of Yahweh?

Psalms 116:12 – What shall I render to YAHWEH [For] all His benefits toward me?

Psalms 116:13 – I will take up the cup of salvation, And call upon the name of YAHWEH.

That is what I will do. What about you? Will you do that? Halleluyah.

1Kings 18:24 – Then you call on the name of your gods, and I will call on the name of YAHWEH; and the Elohim who answers by fire, He is Elohim. So all the people answered and said, It is well spoken.

So what did the others do? They called upon the name of the lord. And Eliyah called upon the Name of Yahweh. Did you know that? If you look this word Baal up in Strong’s or in a lexicon or Bible dictionary, the word Baal means lord. And actually, it is written ha Baal, meaning the lord. They called upon the name of the lord, the Baal, and no one answered.

Eliyah said, I will call upon the Name of Yahweh, and the one who answers by fire, He is Elohim. Don’t tell me a name is not important. Don’t tell me there is not a parallel here. I’m not saying the people today are worshipping Baal, but they like those old traditions.

They try to bring them into the modern era, somehow, someway, whether it be through evolution or through idolatrous related feasts and festivals or whatever idols men create. In the case of His Name, they did the same thing. They are finding ways to give honor to the things Satan did way back when.

We want to put those things aside and forget them all together. So let’s walk in truth.

Let’s walk and keep the Name of Yahweh holy and use it and call upon it, just as Messiah did.

John 17:26 – And I have declared to them Your name, and will declare [it], that the love with which You loved Me may be in them, and I in them.

Awesome. Yahushua haMashiach. He didn’t make any bones about what He did. He did declare His Father’s Name. And in the end days, we will, too, if we want to be refined.

Zechariah 13:8 – And it shall come to pass in all the land, Says YAHWEH, [That] two-thirds in it shall be cut off [and] die, But [one]-third shall be left in it:

Zechariah 13:9 – I will bring the [one-third] through the fire, Will refine them as silver is refined, And test them as gold is tested. They will call on My name, And I will answer them. I will say, `This [is] My people’; And each one will say, `YAHWEH [is] my Elohim.’

Yes, He is, He is my Elohim. They call upon His Name. So in the end days, Yahweh identifies His purified people as those who do what? They call upon His Name. So let’s not wait for the fire of purification, brothers. Let’s get pure now. Let’s get cleansed now.

Let’s not wait til Yahweh has to forcibly show you He is Elohim and He alone is worthy of our praise and our devotion.

We need to regard the praises that come from Him to be more important than any honor we receive from man. Let’s unashamedly, unashamedly call upon the Name of Yahweh and lift it up as Yahweh’s Word has commanded.

Psalms 34:3 – Oh, magnify YAHWEH with me, And let us exalt His name together.

Scriptures tell us, brothers. They tell us to praise His Name. They tell us to honor Hs Name. They tell us to exalt His Name, to bless His Name, to pray in His Name, to call upon His Name, to fear His Name, to love His Name, to magnify His Name, to love His Name, to rejoice in His Name, to remember His Name, sing about His Name, and even walk in His Name.

Micah 4:5 – For all people walk each in the name of his god, But we will walk in the name of YAHWEH our Elohim Forever and ever.

What about that? Why don’t we do that? Go ahead walk in the names of your gods, whoever they are. We are going to walk in the Name of Yahweh forever and ever. This is a future prophecy. Why don’t we do that?

Let’s forsake the practice of walking in the Name of the Lord, which really isn’t a name at all, just a generic title that can apply to any god you want to worship.

You haven’t even identified the god you worship. Let’s forsake the practice of walking in a nameless god. Let’s embrace the practice of walking in the Name of Yahweh, our Mighty One forever and ever.

Let’s associated that Name with righteousness by walking as Messiah walked, forsaking the traditions of men that violate His commands, and cleaving to the true word of Yahweh in the Scriptures.

See, man wasn’t just satisfied with changing His Name, they also wanted to change His character and what He was really about. They wanted to change His law, too, set aside the ordinances He has commanded and create their own that are rooted in idolatrous practices. So, it is no surprise, they also wanted to change His day.

Exodus 20:8 – Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy.

As we are going to look at this next week and the other commands as well, it becomes obvious to me, man has a real hard time with these commands. With all the Ten, this is the one Yahweh told us, ” Remember.” And the other one He said He won’t hold you guiltless. “Remember.”

Ironically the one He tells us to remember is the one modern man largely forgets and disregards.

We will examine this command at length next week.

So you see, brothers, and we will see even more so in future broadcasts that while modern churches decry the removal of the Ten Commandments, and they prominently display them in their homes and in their yards and in their places of business and so on, the Ten Commandments are often misunderstood and often ignored by the very ones who hold them in honor.

These things ought not be, and it is my desire, humbly, to help and say, “Look. Look at why this is occurring because these same Ten Commandments that are being displayed in different areas, one day are also going to be standing witnesses against you if you don’t keep them the way Yahweh told us to keep them.

On the day of judgment these Ten Commandments are going to be a witness against the very ones who claim to follow them and claim to hold them in esteem. With the mouth they speak highly Elohim, but with the deeds, are we really living it?

We will continue this discussion, and we will also talk about honoring parents, something long lost and long forgotten in our generation today.

We will talk about those next week, and we’ll probably spend at least a couple more broadcasts on the Ten Commandments. Until then, brothers, let’s be sure we are seeking the praises of Yahweh rather than the praises of men. Let’s be sure we are setting aside all the left over practices from idol worship.

And let’s be that bride, that pure bride that has chosen cleanse themselves of all the idols and all these things.

And let our worship of Yahweh be pure and true and without blemish and without pretense and without hypocrisy.

Let’s allow Him, let’s allow Yahushua haMashiach to flow through us, forsaking, as He did, the traditions of men which change the Scriptures and set aside the commandments of Elohim, therefore changing our speech and changing the way we worship.

Instead let’s allow our words to be as the oracles of Yahweh. Let’s allow our conduct and character to be, also as the oracles of Yahweh. And may Yahweh guide us, and may He have mercy upon us all as we seek to do so because grace is given to the humble who seek to do His will no matter what.

Let’s put Yahweh first in everything because He alone is worthy of that position.

May Yahweh bless you and may Yahweh truly have mercy on us all.