In 2. Chron 7:14, we read, “if my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and I will forgive their sin and will heal their land.”
In Deut 28:9-10, we read, “Yehovah will establish you as his holy people, as he promised you on oath, if you keep the commands of Yehovah your God and walk in obedience to him. Then all the peoples on earth will see that you are called by the name of Yehovah, and they will fear you.”
The promise we see in 2.Chron 7:14 is dependent upon Deut 28:9-10. Only those who keep the Torah are called by His name, and only those who are called by His name are guaranteed Yehovah will hear from heaven, heal their land and forgive their sins. But as we are going to see, there is also protection in His name, Yehovah’s name.
Is this not a tremendous promise? If we keep the Torah, the Bible promises us healing, answered prayer, and protection? How does the Torah offer protection?
In John 17:11, we read a prayer prayed by Yeshua (Jesus Christ), “I will remain in the world no longer, but they are still in the world, and I am coming to you. Holy Father, protect them by the power of your name, the name you gave me, so that they may be one as we are one.”
From 2.Chron 7;14, John 17:11, and Deut 28:10, we understand that those who keep Torah are one with His name, Yehovah’s name. How are they one with His name? Because when they obey the Torah, their obedience to the Torah unites them with Yehovah, just as Yeshua is united with Yehovah because He always followed the Torah. (John 17:11.) This unity with His name protects us the same way Yeshua was and is protected by His name.
Do you need protection or salvation? Call upon Yehovah Rom 10:13, and He will save and protect you. If there is such a power in calling upon His name, what would happen if His name were part of our core identity?
What exactly does 2. Chron 7:14 means when it says “who are called by my name.”? We will get back to this in a moment, but first, we need to look at a passage that seems to contradict what we just read.
In Phil 2:9-11, it seems as if Paul says the name of Jesus/Yeshua is the name above all names to which every knee shall bow and not Yehovah?
To understand Phil 2:9-11, we first have to understand what Jesus’s name was, and it was not Jesus. Do you remember what we have learned in previous chapters and books? Jesus was born in Israel to a Hebrew mother and Hebrew stepfather, who spoke Hebrew. The letter J does not exist in the Hebrew language, so His name would not have been Jesus. It would have been Yeshua.
What does Yeshua mean in Hebrew? It is a short form of Yehoshua, which means Yehovah saves.
So if we now read Phil 2:9-11 with what we now know, we get this understanding: At the name of Yehovah Yehoshua (Yehovah saves), every knee should bow, and the name of Yehoshua (Yehovah saves) is the name above all names. Do you see now how this does not contradict Phil 2:9-11, Deut 28:10, and John 17:11? The name that gives us protection, the name that is above all other names, the name we are called by is still Yehovah. But the fact that Yehovah has decided to save us through the death, burial, and resurrection of Yeshua (John 3:16) is so extraordinary, so wonderful, so magnificent it is beyond and above everything we could ever think or imagine.
Why is it so special?
As we have touched upon in previous chapters and books, the Torah’s sacrificial system could not atone for intentional sins. It could only atone for unintentional sins. But with the death, burial, and resurrection of Yeshua, deliberate sins could be atoned for the first time in human history. But as we read, in Hebrews, this is a one time offer only. If you accept His offer of forgiveness for your intentional sins and then continue in deliberate sins, you will have blasphemed Yeshua’s blood. According to the book of Hebrews, this is a grave sin that will cause you to lose your salvation forever.
Now we understand there is no contradiction between 2.Chron 7:14, Deut 28:10, John 17:11, and Phil 2:9-11.
Ok then, but what does 2. Chron 7:14 and Deut 28:10 mean?
It means what it says: if we obey the Torah, we are called by His name. But what exactly does it mean, “called by His name?” This refers back to John 17:11.
Deut 28:10 says that if we obey the Torah, everyone will see what we do and how we live our lives and therefore call us by His name. How do they call us by His name? They will see what we do and understand who we belong to, so our life will be a testimony of our faith. (James 2:10-26) This is what happened in Acts 11:26 in Antioch to the first believers. They lived their life in a way, so everyone around them called them by Yehovah’s name.
In the Bible, we see this in the Gospels, when Yeshua teaches His followers to keep the Torah. By teaching them to keep the Torah, He taught them how to be called by His Father’s name.
In Antioch, Yeshua’s believers did what He told us to do, and they kept Torah. Because they kept Torah, they were called Yehudi by their neighbors because they saw a group of people who believed Yehovah was their God, Yehovah was one God and had decided to love Him with all their heart, soul, strength, mind by being obedient to the Torah. (Deut 28:1-13)
But what about the cross? As we have touched upon in previous chapters in this book, you can not claim to be Torah obedient and reject the cross. Why? Because the temple is gone, and the Torah has not changed. The Torah still says we have to atone for our unintentional sins. Without the temple, the only way for us to atone for our unintentional sins is Yeshua’s blood.
I still do not understand what it means to be “called by His name.” Are you saying those in Antioch were called Yehovah by their neighbors?
No, not Yehovah, they called them Yehudi.
Look at what we talked about in the last chapter. In Hebrew, Yehudim and Yehudi mean a worshiper of Yehovah, one God. It has in it the first three letters of Yehovah’s name, Y E H. Look at Yeshua’s name; His name means Yehovah saves, and it starts with Y E H. Yehudim starts with Yehovah’s name Y E H and refers to someone who worships Yehovah.
This is what Deut 28:10 says, if we keep Torah, people around us will call us Yehudim and give us the name Yehudim. When they do this, they call us by His name because His name is a part of Yehudi (Deut 28:10.) This is why Yeshua says, in John 17:11, we are protected in His name. When we obey the Torah, we are given the name Yehudim which has in it Yehovah’s name. Yeshua says this protects us and keeps us protected, one with Him and His Father Yehovah. (John 14.) And this is why, in 2.Chro 7:14, it says if we are called by the name Yehudim He (Yehovah) will hear from heaven when we pray and heal our land when we seek His will.
Do you now see the importance of the name Yehudim? Do you see how the name of Yehovah is in the name Yehudim? It gives us protection (John 17:11,) guarantee of answered prayer (2.Chro 7:14) and salvation (John 3:16, Phil 2:9-11.)
Am I saying we can use the name Yehudim as a magic amulet? If we just say His name, we are guaranteed something will happen; how some Christians use the name of Jesus?
No, the Bible does not support that idea. We see the condition to be called by His name in Deut 28:10; we have to obey the Torah actively. If we do not follow the Torah, and we claim to be Yehudim, Paul warns us about impending judgment in the book of Romans. In Matt 7:21-23, Yeshua warns He will reject us if we claim to be Yehudim without following the Torah.
But why does it have to Yehudim? Why can we not just say, Christian or Jew?
We touched upon this in the last chapter and earlier on in this, but it is worth repeating. The word Christian and Jew does not exist in the original Bible; they both translate into the Hebrew word Messianic and Yehudi.
When we know the promise in John 17:11 of protection in Yehovah’s name, and we know as a historical fact, the first Christians used the name Yehudi, why then would we want to use any other name that in itself has no meaning, no protection, and no promise? In Yehudi, we find the protection of our Father’s name Yehovah, blessings, answered prayer, and our true identity.
We touched upon this in the last chapter, but it is worth repeating because it is essential to be one with Yehovah and one with the Torah in our core identity.
As humans, we know and understand the importance of a strong self-identity. What is a self-identity? It is how we answer the question, “who am I?.” Our self-identity is essential for intimacy and relationships and makes us able to assert ourselves and set boundaries with family, friends, and partners. Without self-identity, we, as humans, can’t have a relationship with someone. So if we do not have a self-identity, Yehovah can not have a relationship with us.
A human being can have several self-identities at one time; we can be a parent, a spouse, a son, a daughter, employer/employee, everything at one time. But behind all of these roles and identities, we have a central self-identity, a core self, or a core identity that governs how we act as parents, spouses, sons, daughters, employer/employee.
Your core identity is made up of the attributes that belong to you and describes you as an individual, including your ethics and morals. It is complicated, if not impossible, to have a relationship with someone who does not share our ethics and morals. How do we believe Yehovah desires to have a relationship with us if we reject the Torah? Rejecting the Torah is rejecting Yehovahs ethics and morals.
This is why it is essential to have a core identity that makes it possible and desirable for Yehovah to have a relationship with you. The question is, who gets to decide your core identity?
The one who gets to decide your core identity gets to determine if you will be called by Yehovah’s name or if you will be rejected by Yeshua when you die.
Who do you suppose benefits from the idea Christians are under grace, and the Torah does not apply to them? The devil benefits because he knows Yeshua will reject Christians who accept this idea into their core identity. (Matt 7:21-23) So if he, the devil, gets to decide your core identity, you are not saved.
What about Christians who accept into their core identity they are Yehudi? They will make an effort to live as Yehudi, in obedience to the Torah. This will protect them by Yehovah’s name and make them righteous. Their faith in the cross will be an active saving faith that will save them, and they will have no reason to worry about anything. (Matt 6:25-34.)
Do you now understand why it is so important to see yourself as Yehudi?
I have seen this in my own life how important it is to see yourself as a Yehudi. I have also seen how it connects me to Yehovah and His Spirit in ways I do not yet fully understand. But I also know, from experience, it brings with a great deal of responsibility.
Why do I say it brings with it a great deal of responsibility?
When I claim to be a Yehudi, most people dont know what I am talking about. But when I show them, from the Bible, what it means to be a Yehudi, they understand, but from that moment, they also expect me to live as a Yehudi. From that moment on, I know they observe my life to see if I am faithful to the Torah or not so they can see if what I claim to believe shows itself in how I live. (James 2:10-26, 1. John 2)
This means I do not get to decide how I want to live my life; the Torah decides how I should live my life. To some of you, this might sound like legalism but, if you read Luke 6:46, Matt 7:21-23, you will see it is not legalism. This is the lifestyle of someone who is saved, a child of Yehovah, on their way to heaven. So if you reject the Torah’s authority to decide how to live your life, you reject Yeshua as Lord, and the Bible says that means you are not saved. But if you can accept this lifestyle and allow the Torah to decide how to live your life, you are saved, and you will live as a Yehudi.
Why do I say my identity as a Yehudi connects me to Yehovah and His Spirit in ways I do not understand?
When I see myself as a Yehudi, in my core identity, I pray as a Yehudi, and I believe as a Yehudi. My identity as Yehudi connects me on a spiritual level to all other Yehudim through the ages and the covenant Yehovah made with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, who were all Yehudim.
I will try to use an analogy to explain what I am experiencing.
If you were granted citizenship in the United States of America, you would be required to renounce your allegiances to your birth nation. From that moment on, it would be necessary for you to see yourself as an American even though you were not a natural-born citizen. Seeing yourself as an American connects you to all other Americans through the ages and the promises, rights, and guarantees given by the American government to its people.
If you were granted citizenship, but this change in your identity never took place, you would always feel like an outsider who had no legal right to the benefits of being an American citizen, even though your passport said otherwise.
This happens when we see ourselves like Yehudi, pray like a Yehudi and believe like a Yehudi. And this is what Paul writes about in Romans when he teaches on how the gentiles are grafted in, and what Yehovah says in the book of Isaiah on how the gentiles grafted into His people must accept their new identity as Yehudim. This is what Ruth did in Ruth’s book when she went from being a Moabite to becoming a Yehudim.
I dont fully understand what happens, but I know when I see myself as a Yehudi, I pray much easier, I believe Yehovah hears my prayers much easier, I hear from Him much clearer.
I know from experience how seeing myself as a Yehudi also has healed me on an emotional level. It feels as if I suddenly realize something has changed for the better, and then I hear Yehovah telling me what He has just healed me of. Things and stuff I did not even know I needed healing of, but I understand why He healed me of those things when I am healed of it.
Am I saying, or making a claim, that if you see yourself as a Yehudi, all your problems will fade away?
No, not at all. I am still running a ministry where 99% of my members cannot/unwilling to support me financially. So I have to pay the ministry expenses out of my own pocket, and sometimes, that takes a toll on an already strained family budget. But I choose to do it anyway because offering free ministry is such a blessing for my family and me.
I still have many unanswered prayers, things I have prayed for a long time, and believed for. And I know, from my perspective, challenges will arise shortly that I dont know how to handle right now.
So as you can tell, even though I hold the office of an Apostle and have been in ministry for five years now, I am still a normal human being. And if you have followed my teachings for some time now, or read any of my books, you also know how I have seen Yehovah work miracles in my life because I am a Yehudi.
Even though I, like the rest of us, have all these challenges and concerns, I am not worried. I can honestly say I have peace in the storm because I know Yehovah is faithful to His word to care for, protect, provide for, deliver, and save those who call themselves by His name. (Matt 6:25-34)
Because what it all comes down to is this: Yehovah loves to answer Yehudi’s prayers and bless them because when He blesses the Yehudi, it testifies about Him and gives Him glory. So I know, even though I still have challenges and things that have the potential to provide me with concern, Yehovah will find a way and answer my prayers somehow. Why do I know? Because I am a Yehudi, and He always answers when a Yehudi prays.
I hope today’s sermon has blessed you.
If I can pray for you or prophecy to you, contact me (free of charge) on Messenger or e.mail apostleernie@outlook.com
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