From This Week’s Torah Portion:
“Guard to do every command which I command you today, that you might live, and shall increase, and go in, and shall possess the land of which YHWH swore to your fathers. And you shall remember that YHWH your Elohim led you all the way these forty years in the wilderness, to humble you, prove you, to know what is in your heart, whether you guard His commands or not.”
It is popular among those who refuse to keep all or most commands of Torah law (and amongst many wannabe Torah-keepers who refuse to keep certain commandments they find disagreeable) to say when asked about their rebellion, “Oh, but YHWH knows my heart!” And it is true, He does. In fact, He has this to say about it:
“The heart is crooked above all, and desperately sick – who shall know it? I, YHWH, search the heart, I try the kidneys, and give every man according to his ways, according to the fruit of his deeds.”
“The heart is crooked above all, and desperately sick...” Don’t trust it, and don’t “lean on your own understanding” when it comes between you and keeping His commandments – any of them. Just do them – every single one that is possible for you to perform. That is the only safe way to go – it is His Way.
Another popular thing to say among those who refuse to keep all of YHWH’s Torah is, “I will study it out further, then pray about it and see what He tells me to do.” But why put Him to the test? As with other scriptural figures who asked Him again regarding things He had already given His Word about, what different result would you expect? He has given us His Torah and commanded us to keep it, all of it, “forever.” That IS what He wants you to do. He “does not change.”
In response to this, most people will say, “But this has all changed under the New Covenant.” Really? His own son seemed to have a different opinion, saying not the smallest mark would pass from the Torah “until heaven and earth pass away.” Last time I checked, they hadn’t. And, if this were true that the New Covenant would nullify the Torah then why does it not say so? In fact, it says just the opposite:
“See, the days are coming,” declares YHWH, “when I shall make a New Covenant with the house of Yisra’el and with the house of Yehudah, not like the covenant I made with their fathers in the day when I strengthened their hand to bring them out of the land of Mitsrayim, My covenant which they broke, though I was a husband to them,” declares YHWH. “For this is the covenant I shall make with the house of Yisra’el after those days, declares YHWH: I shall put My Torah in their inward parts, and write it on their hearts. And I shall be their Elohim, and they shall be My people. And no longer shall they teach, each one his neighbor, and each one his brother, saying, ‘Know YHWH,’ for they shall all know Me, from the least of them to the greatest of them,” declares YHWH. “For I shall forgive their crookedness and remember their sin no more.” Thus said YHWH, who gives the sun for a light by day, and the laws of the moon and the stars for a light by night, who stirs up the sea, and its waves roar – YHWH of hosts is His Name: “If these laws vanish from before Me,” declares YHWH, “then the seed of Yisra’el shall also cease from being a nation before Me forever.” Thus said YHWH, “If the heavens above could be measured, and the foundations of the earth searched out beneath, I would also cast off all the seed of Yisra’el for all that they have done,” declares YHWH.”
Therefore, according to His own words, to know and be known by YHWH, we keep His commandments. This is how He says He “proves” us. Believe Him.