Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Foreign Shabbat Shalom.
[00:00:07] Like I said, I'm actually good. Glad to see you guys here, too. I thought we were going to have an empty house a little earlier today, so it's good to have you guys with us.
[00:00:16] So I'm going to start out today with a little story back. I think it was 2020, the beginning of 2020, somewhere right around when Covid started.
[00:00:26] My oldest son, who was still living at the house at that time, he came home one day and he said, you know, I've been wanting something to start reading again. He's always been a big book reader.
[00:00:41] Just read. I can't even tell you the number of books that he's read. And he said, I was looking for something to read. And I picked up a new book that I'm going to check out. And he lifts up the book and he shows me the book, and. And my jaw just dropped because even though it's not a big deal, it was the book that got me into reading. Back when I was first married and I'd stepped out of reading, I'd not had any interest in reading. And a friend of mine introduced me to this series. You may have heard of it, called the Wheel of Time.
[00:01:16] Do not recommend the Amazon series. Stay away from that. Far away from it. But the book series is great. It's a fantasy series, 14 books. And anyway, he brought that home. And that point, we actually, me and all my boys, we started reading it together. We read through it, and so we had lots of discussions and things like that. But the point is, in this series, there is something called the dream world. It's called Tel Aran Riyadh, okay?
[00:01:49] And it is a world of dreams that you can enter and it feels and acts like. And sometimes even more than reality. Okay, pardon me, I'm going to get this frog out of my throat.
[00:02:07] And so, you know, the world that they enter into in this dream world at times sometimes can be so entangling that they lose track of reality. They can even get so lost that they never come back, which is not a good thing.
[00:02:26] So my question to you is, have you ever had a dream that felt really, really real when you woke up anybody but me? Okay, so real that you're like, is that real?
[00:02:40] Did that really happen? Is that a false memory? Is that a real memory? Or is that just something that, you know, happened in a dream, made up?
[00:02:49] I mean, several times that, you know, I woke up. I'm a. I'm a deep sleeper, and I dream a lot, and lots of times I Woke up and I'm like, where am I and what's going on and what's real, what's up, what's down, that kind of thing. And so dreams are a huge thing in my life.
[00:03:09] But there's also something called that is associated with dreams you may or may not have heard of. You've probably heard of the common word, but there's a word medical term called somnambulism. Anybody ever heard of that?
[00:03:27] Somnambulism, that is sleepwalking.
[00:03:32] Okay.
[00:03:35] Do I dare ask the question.
[00:03:37] Has anybody ever sleepwalked?
[00:03:40] I've never sleepwalked that I know of. Okay.
[00:03:43] I've had kids that are sleepwalked and at the risk. I don't want to embarrass anybody, but, you know, when my kids were very young, most people, they sleepwalk when they're young, and then they grow out of it. Right? Some people don't, though. But when my kids were young, I was actually teaching in Mississippi, and the congregation that had asked us to come in and teach, they actually, because of the size of my family with seven people, we had five kids.
[00:04:14] They got us a suite at the hotel that had interlocking doors.
[00:04:18] And so we split up the family there, let the boys sleep in the room by themselves.
[00:04:26] And in the middle of the night, we hear this, like, somebody trying to break in. It sounded like in the other room, like, what is going on? It was like, you know, 2 or 3am and just the door just kept getting jerked on and everything. And got up and looked, and sure enough, it was one of my sons. He was sleepwalking, trying to get out. And so thankfully, we. We had the little latch at the top of the door, you know, locked. Otherwise, who knows where he would be and if we would find him or not, you know, so sleepwalking can be very real. I actually work with a guy that told me that he struggled a couple years back.
[00:05:06] He slept, walk, and he was so far gone that he actually got up, cooked an entire meal, ate the entire meal, and then went back to bed and never knew it until he saw the dishes in the morning.
[00:05:22] That's some serious sleepwalking.
[00:05:25] Serious sleepwalking. Okay?
[00:05:27] And other people have recorded that happening.
[00:05:30] You know, they feel like. And they look like they're fully awake, but they're really asleep and they don't know it. And so my question this morning is, what if we are living in a dream world?
[00:05:47] What if we're mistakenly mistaking our activities, these motions, these actions for purpose, but we're not really Awake?
[00:06:02] Are we awake or are we just sleepwalking?
[00:06:06] So I'm going to tie this together with a Torah portion. So this week's Torah portion. Anybody know the name Chukkat?
[00:06:14] It shows us a generation caught between the dream world and the world of awakening.
[00:06:18] It doesn't really. But this is the analogy I'm making. Okay, so go with me.
[00:06:23] So between wondering and fulfilling their destiny.
[00:06:26] So let's take a look at this together. So the first thing we come to in the Torah portion is the red heifer, okay? Anybody who's read that knows that this. This whole thing with the red heifer in numbers, chapter 19 is just like, what in the world, Right? It's just like.
[00:06:44] This doesn't make a lick of sense. It's illogical.
[00:06:48] It's unreasonable. It's a paradox.
[00:06:52] You know why? Because it cleanses these ashes, the red heifer. They cleanse the person who is impure.
[00:06:59] But anybody who has contact with this, that is pure, it makes them impure.
[00:07:06] It's like, what in the world is going on with that?
[00:07:11] So why is this ritual in our Torah portion?
[00:07:16] Well, it actually helps us to confront a truth that we may rather avoid.
[00:07:22] And that truth is what we do or we don't do affects those around us.
[00:07:29] If you think about it, the Israelites may have thought, well, this is silly. I'm not going to do that. That's just goofy. Okay? This type of ritual in the Torah is called a choke. Have you heard of that? A choke. It's from the. We actually had the Torah portion name, okay? The word chukat, the plural is chukin, okay? It's a law in the Torah that makes absolutely no sense. I mean, we can't reason out the logic from it. Why? Because they're illogical? No, because they're supra logical.
[00:08:01] Because they're God's logic and not man's logic. If we understood God, then we would be God. That's why we don't understand these things. It's beyond our reasoning faculties. It reminds us that sense of purpose and his ways, that this purpose and his ways are far beyond our own.
[00:08:23] And if we try to understand them before we apply them, we're going to miss out and we may even suffer consequences because of it.
[00:08:31] Our Torah portion says, whoever touches a dead person and does not cleanse himself defiles the tabernacle of the Lord and his uncleanness is still on him. So our unwillingness to recognize something that doesn't make sense to us and to obey that in that context, it has dire consequences and affects those around us. It destroys something pure and holy that God has intended for the entire community. In other words, it's not enough to recognize that we have become unclean in this circumstance.
[00:09:09] We have to choose to be cleansed. Have you ever thought about that?
[00:09:15] I've never really thought about that.
[00:09:17] That person in that situation who has been come in contact with quartz contamination or some kind of uncleanness that requires the ash of the red heifer, they have to choose to be cleansed. Otherwise they're going to have consequences for that.
[00:09:34] Because these impurities affect those around us.
[00:09:43] But if they don't cleanse themselves, they're asleep to their condition and think that they're not going to affect anybody else.
[00:09:54] It's possible in our lives that sometimes we walk around in spiritual death and assume that it's normal. We have this spiritual corpse contamination, not necessarily physical, because we don't really have an opportunity to cleanse from that. Because the tabernacle or the temple is not in effect anymore. But sometimes we sleepwalk through impurity so long that we don't realize that maybe we can wake up.
[00:10:21] So the paraduma, the red heifer, it reminds us that we need to awaken.
[00:10:29] We need to maybe do teshuvah repentance, right? We need to be cleansed from these things. We acknowledge this and we desire a change in our lives.
[00:10:41] The Talmud talks about it says that sleep is 1 60th of death. Have you ever heard that?
[00:10:49] 1 60th of death. So in a way, it's like a.
[00:10:53] A slight, tiny, tiny brush with death. Okay. When we wake up in the morning, we say a prayer, we say modani. We thank the Lord for reviving us, giving back our souls. That's where this comes from. And so when this happens, we in a sense get another chance. We say, blessed are you. And we thank the Lord for the one who is great in whose we say, I've gone totally by mode. Ani lefenecha melechai vechayam sheh gazar binishmati vehemla raba emunutecha. And that last phrase, rabba emunutecha, great is your.
[00:11:36] We usually translate it as faithfulness, but it's as I've said before, great is your faith in me because you've given me another day. You believe that I have purpose and I have mission, and. And I have something to accomplish for you. And you have faith in me, and you're giving me another day for that.
[00:11:54] Okay?
[00:11:56] So when we allow spiritual impurity to Linger.
[00:12:00] We begin to normalize it.
[00:12:04] Think about that.
[00:12:06] We normalize something that should not be normalized.
[00:12:11] We've done that in our society over and over and over and over. We stop longing for holiness. We start calling complacency peace.
[00:12:24] We fall asleep with our eyes open.
[00:12:27] Sort of like Gandalf, right?
[00:12:30] So just like death requires purification, sleep requires awakening. And sometimes the line between them is thinner than we realize. So the person who refuses to purify themselves after touching death is no longer just impure. They're asleep.
[00:12:47] They're asleep to their condition. They're asleep on how they are affecting those around them. They may defile the tabernacle and we may defile our community, our surroundings. Maybe not out of malice, but out of spiritual inertia.
[00:13:05] We have no movement. We don't had that desire to move forward.
[00:13:10] So it's possible to walk around physically alive and maybe even be religious in a lot of regards, but still spiritually dead. So we're going to look at this.
[00:13:20] So the death of Miriam is the next thing we come to. There's a lot of stuff in this Torah portion that we could talk about, you know, Moses striking the rock and so forth. But the death of Miriam happens. And we look at this and what happens immediately after she dies? Who comes can tell me what.
[00:13:40] The water is cut off. The waters dry up. Okay. They've been going along in the wilderness for these 40 years. This stone has been rolling around them, giving them water. And that's Midrash. But guess what? Paul talks about it too, in First Corinthians, I believe it's chapter 10 talks about this stone that followed them in the desert, giving them water. And of course, Paul calls that Messiah.
[00:14:04] And her passing marks a transition. It's the end of something comfortable. A time that they knew they had expectations and everything was like they expected. And the beginning of a more demanding future. Because they were about to enter the promised land, they had to take on responsibility. Sometimes the Lord removes the familiar in order to wake us up.
[00:14:27] When the water source dries up in our Torah portion, the people must decide, are they going to complain or are they going to awaken? What do they choose?
[00:14:39] Complaining. Right.
[00:14:42] To enter the land, something must die. Not just a person, but an old way of thinking and living faith must be awakened. And oftentimes that's through difficulties. Okay, so here's the paradigm of the flesh. Miriam. Miriam is dead.
[00:14:57] And our water source just dried up.
[00:15:00] Our flesh says, oh, great, we're dead, we're dead.
[00:15:10] All I can think about Is the little duck on?
[00:15:13] What's that? Kung Fu Panda? We're dead.
[00:15:17] So, so very, very dead.
[00:15:23] But the paradigm, the spirit is often like Travis. And Travis is one of my inspirations here.
[00:15:32] The paradigm of the spirit says, major trials. The Promised Land must be right around the corner, right?
[00:15:40] Moses strikes the rock. The result, he gets stuck, right?
[00:15:46] There's another I'm sorry, I'm full of movie quotes today. But he gets stuck in Canaan, well, right outside the Promised Land. What I would call a dweem within a dweem.
[00:16:00] So his passage is denied.
[00:16:06] Somewhat like the Balrog. Okay, so then we have the children of Israel wanting to pass through Edom, right? And so they send a request, and they say, hey, we'll give you food and water. Let us pass along the King's Highway. All is good. We're just going to mind our own business. Just go straight. Do not pass go. Do not collect $200.
[00:16:28] You guys led us through. What did Edom say?
[00:16:32] You shall not pass.
[00:16:36] Okay, so what does Israel do? It says, okay, Mama.
[00:16:41] Okay, they skirt around.
[00:16:44] So Edom represents, often in rabbinic literature, Edom and Esav or Esau represents the carnal nature, the flesh, right?
[00:16:55] The part of us that wants to control comfort and compromise.
[00:17:00] So this right here on Israel's behalf, in a way, I mean, Edom is full, one of those people that you have to be careful with because they're relatives, you know what I mean?
[00:17:13] But in a sense, sort of a fail circumstance, okay? They didn't stand up for what they needed to do.
[00:17:24] So Edom, in this instance, it seems solid, like an obstacle that cannot be overcome. But guess what? It's still an illusion.
[00:17:32] It has no power unless we yield to it. We're talking about Edom in relationship to our flesh, right?
[00:17:39] So the moment we try to wake up and obey God, guess what happens?
[00:17:46] Our flesh rises up too.
[00:17:50] You shall not pass, right?
[00:17:52] But when the way is blocked, God always provides another way, like he did for the children of Israel.
[00:17:58] Maybe not one that we expected.
[00:18:01] Okay?
[00:18:03] So the next instance we have is another similar situation.
[00:18:10] Children of Israel, they need to pass through the land of the giants, okay? So they send message out to Sihon and Og. And by the way, I think my kids and I were talking about last night or yesterday or something like that. Tama Og, the og.
[00:18:30] Okay? So I'm sorry I had to throw that in there. The OG giant, maybe.
[00:18:35] So they send out word to them, same proposition. Let us pass through. We'll pay for the water. We'll pay for the food, you know, we won't step on the grass, but let us through.
[00:18:49] And they got the same response. Matter of fact, they got an even more firm response, didn't they?
[00:18:54] Sihon and Og, they come out and make war with the children of Israel. But guess what?
[00:19:02] Israel kicks some tail and defeats these giants, okay? And these giants aren't just military threats. They symbolize the inner giants that rise up as soon as we begin to awaken. Israel was. Was getting closer and closer to their purpose of entering that promised land. And the moment we shake off spiritual sleep, we realize there are strongholds that don't want to let us go. Strongholds like fear.
[00:19:37] This is the anxiety that keeps us from stepping out in obedience.
[00:19:40] Lust, a craving that substitutes intimacy for temporary pleasure. Envy. The inability to rejoice in somebody else's blessing because you secretly feel that God has overlooked you.
[00:19:54] Greed, the hunger for more that dulls your hunger for righteousness. Complacency, the serpent that tells you this is good enough.
[00:20:05] Bitterness is just unforgiveness dressed up as justice.
[00:20:10] Control. Refusal to surrender because you fear that what God will do if he's fully in charge. Have you felt that?
[00:20:18] I got my hand up, okay.
[00:20:21] Refusal to surrender because you fear that God will. What God will do if he really is in charge.
[00:20:28] Secret. He really is in charge.
[00:20:33] Pride. The quiet belief that you don't need to change. Or worse, that others need to change more than you.
[00:20:39] We've all felt those things. These giants don't show up when we're asleep.
[00:20:44] They show up in that twilight of awakening when those eyelids are starting to flutter. We're getting this. This. This feeling of awakening, of conscience. That's the word I'm looking for. Okay. You know, Paul has this connection in Ephesians 5. He tells us to be imitators of God, to walk in love. Have nothing to do with sexual immorality, for it is improper for God's holy people. He says, let no one deceive you with empty words. He says, walk as children of light. He says, had nothing to do with the fruitless deeds of darkness, but rather exposed them. And then he concludes with a very interesting statement, verse 14. He says, Wake up, sleeper.
[00:21:30] Rise from the dead, and Messiah will shine on you.
[00:21:36] Interesting.
[00:21:37] We talked about sleep being the taste of death.
[00:21:40] And he says, wake up, O sleeper. Rise from the dead.
[00:21:44] And then what?
[00:21:46] Messiah will shine on you? But what is the precursor?
[00:21:51] What predicates that it's our awakening?
[00:21:58] He closes with this urgent call. Be careful then how you live not as unwise, but as wise. Making the most of everything every opportunity.
[00:22:08] Do not get drunk on wine, but be filled with the spirit. So the strongholds we tolerate in secret are the very things that will keep us in spiritual coma until things change.
[00:22:22] Think about that. Let us soak in the strongholds we tolerate in our lives in secret are the things that will keep us in a spiritual coma until we awaken.
[00:22:35] And what has to happen there, there has to be teshuvah. So the spiritual principle I want you to catch is this. You'll never conquer what you are unwilling to confront. Rabbi talks a lot about this, talks about confronting your fears, your obstacles, your challenges, your, you know, your weaknesses and so forth. And so if you're never willing to conquer, to confront, you'll never be able to conquer.
[00:23:04] You'll never confront anything if you remain spiritually asleep. So Israel, their victory over these giants is somewhat prophetic. If we look at says that we were not meant to wonder continually, perpetually, but that we were meant to conquer. The giants before us are not proof that we're off course, but that we're finally waking up.
[00:23:37] Have you ever just noticed somebody in your life or whatever, that it's just like they're living life asleep, they're just on remote control, autopilot, whatever.
[00:23:52] They're in their Tesla remote control Tesla. I'm not picking. I am. No, I'm joking. Okay. They're in their remote control Tesla or whatever, they're in there, they're on autopilot, whatever it is, and they're just letting life zoom past them and they're just kicking back for the ride.
[00:24:10] Have you ever wanted to just go over and shake them and go wake up?
[00:24:17] I've never wanted to do that.
[00:24:20] That's just theory.
[00:24:25] But we all, we all need that in our lives.
[00:24:28] So let me give some examples. Maybe you're stuck in a spiritual routine without any real transformation. You show up, you participate, but really nothing's going on inside, nothing's changing, nothing's transforming, you're just doing your duty.
[00:24:43] Or maybe you're reacting to life rather than responding to God's leading and directing.
[00:24:50] Your day is led by the tyranny of the urgent, which that happens to all of us many times, but not the purpose that you were designed for.
[00:25:00] What about this? Your marriage is on autopilot. You go through the motions, but lost the connection and the relationship that could make you effective to fulfill your purpose as a couple is non existent.
[00:25:17] Or maybe you escape into the media and entertainment rather than wrestle with your Purpose. Hours pass by scrolling, binging, watching. But you haven't sat quietly in God's presence or heard his voice in days or weeks or years.
[00:25:32] You're more fluent in current trends than eternal truths. You know the latest lyrics for the songs or news headlines, but may struggle to quote a passage of scripture.
[00:25:47] Maybe comfort is your idol.
[00:25:50] You resist anything that threatens ease.
[00:25:53] If it's something God is calling you to that may be challenging.
[00:25:59] You skirt around like the children of Israel skirted around Edom.
[00:26:04] So if nothing changes, where will you be in five years?
[00:26:07] Where will you be?
[00:26:08] Will you still be dreaming?
[00:26:11] Or what do we plan to do when we're awake? You know, I've noticed that, you know, it seems like every generation, there are young people who get involved with these major causes, these protests and these, you know, I don't know what you would call them, these major campaigns for world change. You know what I mean? In every generation. But a lot of times they're misguided because these young adults, they find something that makes them feel alive, feel awake, feel like they can make a difference, right?
[00:26:49] But they don't know what truly being awake means.
[00:26:54] They have that energy that needs to be released, and maybe we can help them put it in the direction that it needs to be.
[00:27:03] So, just a reminder, Yeshua didn't come to make us cozy and comfortable, although that would be nice. He came down to this earth and gave up his life to give you life, to make you fully alive.
[00:27:19] He didn't come to confirm your dream world, but to wake you up. So I want you to ask yourself, what have I accepted as normal? And that's in reality, just spiritual slumber.
[00:27:32] What has God been trying to shake up in me, and what am I afraid to confront?
[00:27:42] Because our Torah portion for this week, Hukat, it's not just about purification, although it seems that's the thing. It's about preparation. The red heifer challenges our reality. Miriam's death challenges our stability.
[00:27:55] Edom's resistance challenges our resolve.
[00:27:59] Giants attack to actualize our true strength.
[00:28:04] But only those who are awake can walk into that promised land and inherit the promise.
[00:28:11] Paul, like we said in Ephesians 5, says, Awake, O sleeper.
[00:28:18] I'm saying, wake up. Wake up. And I'm speaking to myself as well. Wake up. Wake up. You're asleep. It's not real.
[00:28:25] Come back. Come on back.
[00:28:27] It's not real. Have you ever been so drowsy that that's really what it takes sometimes? I've been there.
[00:28:34] Because reality isn't necessarily what you're experiencing day in and day out.
[00:28:39] It's the purpose Hashem has called you to, that's true reality. And you'll never get there until you wake up and stop dreaming and start living.
[00:28:50] I'll close with this passage from Romans 13 you know the time that the hour has come for you to wake up from sleep, for salvation is nearer to us now than when we first believed. Think about that.
[00:29:02] Wake up because the time is at hand, right? The night is far gone. The day is at hand. So then let us cast off the works of darkness and put on the armor of light.
[00:29:13] Let us walk properly as in the daytime.
[00:29:17] Put on Messiah, Yeshua, our Master, and make no provision for the flesh to gratify its desires.
[00:29:27] So I challenge us all.
[00:29:30] Wake up. Wake up. Because that's what we need to do. That's where we're going to find our purpose and our identity. Shabbat Shalom I'm Darren with Shalom Macon. If you enjoyed this teaching, I want to ask you to take the next step. Start by making sure you're subscribed to our channel. Next, make sure you hit the like button on this video so that others know it's worth their time to watch.
[00:29:52] Last, head over to our website to learn more about Shalom Makin, explore other teachings and events, and if you're so inclined, contribute to the work that we're doing to further the kingdom. Thanks for watching and connecting with Shalom Macon.
