Emonah (Hebrew for Faith) is the cornerstone of DEREKH religion that underpins everything that we can do. Emonah is the PAVED PATH, The Way of the LORD, that puts people right with God, and that all of us are obliged to walk through to our destinies.

1) EMONAH IS THE FOUNDATION

In coming to DEREKH religion, we start, and end, with Emonah. With Emonah, we are Derekhs, without it we are just supporters of Derekh. Derekh Emonah brings many changes and many positive benefits to any person who acquires and internalises it.

“My brothers, how I wish with all my heart that my own people might be saved! How I pray to God for them! I can assure you that they are deeply devoted to God, but their devotion is not based on true knowledge. They have not known the way in which God puts people right with himself, and instead, they have tried to put their own way; and so they did not submit themselves to God’s Way of putting people right. For Christ has brought the law to an end, so that everybody who believes is put right with God.” (Rom 10:1-4)

Scripture here is teaching us that we can be devoted to God, and we can live without sin and still be outside of God’s grace because we don’t follow the right method, The Way of the LORD. While previously Jews had to obey the Torah, now they have just to acknowledge Isho Ha-Mashiach as the ultimate envoy of God, who was, and who still is, the Lamb of God, and the Redeemer of humankind, who stands permanently between God and humankind. God’s Facilitation, Healing, Deliverance and Eternal life in heaven are now earned by grace given to us for free by the suffering and death of Isho Ha-Mashiach at Golgotha, in Jerusalem (Isa 53:4-5)

We are in DEREKH precisely to receive God’s earthly free blessings, facilitation, protection, as well as to secure eternal life in heaven, and we earn all these not just by abandoning sin or being good people, but also by Heeding Scripture that says Isho Hamashiach is the Voice of God and a High Priest who ministers us from his seat at the right hand of the throne of God. We believe in God Almighty, but we also believe in his only Son and Chief Servant, Isho Hamashiach, Lord and Saviour, The Crown Prince of the Kingdom of Heaven, and this is what we call Emonah.

God’s approval is critically important to us, because God is our Creator and Father, and if we gain His approval, He will give us the following benefits stated by scripture; –

• Good Health
• Long life
• Divinisation (gaining permanent spiritual power)
• Protection from Witchcraft (automatic repelling of evil spirits)
• Facilitation in our economic life so that our natural talents, our divine destinies given to us by God at conception, and our efforts are properly rewarded
• Salvation and eternal life in heaven

2) WE ARE SPIRITS

The World is two worlds together; the physical world that we can see with our eyes or sense with any of our five senses, as well as the spirit world that we cannot sense. The spirit world is the original world that existed from before creation and is many times stronger than the physical world. The physical world was added later, is much weaker, and is temporary. Human beings are both spirits and physical flesh and have therefore TWO lives; the physical life of blood and fresh that is ageing and is on its way to death and extinction, as well as the spiritual life that is eternal.

As we go through life, we Emon (believe) and Heed God both for the temporary physical life as well as for the eternal spiritual life. Our Emonah (faith) dictates our blessings in the physical life as well as in the eternal spiritual life. We live both lives by the grace and facilitation of God, our Heavenly Father, to whom we remain attached throughout our excursion on earth.  As Derekhs, our most sacred duty is to walk ONLY on the Paved Path, The Way of the LORD, and only in Emonah can we do so. We must accordingly strive, and lose everything we have, if this is what it will take, to attain and retain genuine Emonah in God. Recognition and reverence of the Son is part and parcel of Derekh Emonah (Heb 8, 9, 10).

In Emonah, we SUBMIT ourselves to God and The Hamashiach, and submission means to surrender our WILL and our CONVENIENCE, to God’s purpose and commandments. We foolishly and blindly stick to the PAVED PATH, The Way of the LORD, because God favours fools over intelligent and analytical people. In Emonah, we purposely DEPEND on God to facilitate us through earthly life, and protect us from both disease and evil spirit attacks.

3) UNDERSTANDING EMONAH

Emonah (faith) is defined by scripture as follows: –

“To have faith is to be sure of the things we hope for, to be certain of things we cannot see. It was by their faith that people of ancient times won God’s approval.” (Heb 11:1-2)

“It is by faith that we understand that the universe was created by God’s word, so that what can be seen was made out of what cannot be seen.” (Heb 11:3)

“No one can please God without faith, for whoever comes to God must have faith that God exists, and that he rewards those who seek him steadfastly.” (Heb 11:6)

When we speak of DEREKH Emonah, we mean the  personal inner consciousness of accepting, believing, and being attracted to the message of the Holy Mikra (Bible), or the word of God, without evaluating them in any way. We must not add our own intellect, education, wisdom, or evaluation to them because faith is the same for a university professor and a peasant. We bow down and submit ourselves to what is written, however unlikely or illogical it may seem.

Education, science, and academic analysis are extremely valuable in human life and national progress, but it is important to know where to apply them, and where to disengage them and put them aside. In Emonah we must be children, or dull men, and accept to be guided by scripture. Faith is precisely about believing issues that have no proof at all, or are even illogical and foolish in worldly thinking. Sometimes, childishness and foolishness are the wisdom of God.

“At that time Jesus said, ‘Father, Lord of heaven and earth! I thank you because you have shown to the unlearned what you have hidden from the wise and learned. Yes, Father, this is how you wanted it to be.” (Mt 11:25)

“For God in His wisdom made it impossible for the people to know Him by means of their own wisdom. Instead by means of the so called ‘foolish’ message we preach, God decided to save those who believe.” (1 Cor 1:21)

Believing is the key word in DEREKH but we need to be tutored and sensitised on what is ‘believing’ because most of us do not believe and yet we think we do. Believing or Emonah is fellowship with God, and with Isho Hamashiach, so that you are no longer single or alone or independent, but you are spiritually and invisibly attached to these two supreme spiritual beings all the time; drawing power, guidance, and personal protection from them. In Emonah, you lose your independent will and discretion and surrender to God so that you are equipped to seek him steadfastly (Heb 11.6). Emonah then is the door to ‘Divinisation’, where human beings are transformed from biological beings to partial spiritual beings, or little gods, and living saints (Jn 1:12-13).

4) GAINING GOD’S APPROVAL

God, Yahweh, is the provider, Yahweh Yireh, and the healer, Yahweh Rapha (Exo 15:26). Our obedience to, heading of, and close partnership with, God, is therefore of immense benefit to us. We need to be faithful to God and the Hamashiach because this is what Emonah is about.

“It was by faith that people of ancient times won God’s approval”’ (Heb 11:2).

“‘Without faith we cannot please God” (Heb 11:6).

God examines our consciousness and reads what we intend, even when we don’t say or implement it. Emonah spiritualises our consciousness and boldens us to Walk on the PAVED PATH, The Way of the LORD, or DEREKH. You cannot therefore say that you Emon (believe) but you are in sin because that is a contradiction. If you Emon, you are walking with God, and God is dear to you, and you are spiritually attached to Him, so you are constantly at war with your consciousness (Ps 103:1-3) to make sure it heeds God all the time. You value God and His Son much more than anything you own, or desire, and you are prepared therefore to lose or suffer to retain this bond.

Abraham was blessed by God because of his steadfast Emonah in Him; and because of it, Abraham earned the promise of being father to many nations (Rom 4:1-16). We are further told that those who live in Emonah are the true descendants of Abraham (Gal 3:7-9) and heirs to the earthly blessings of God that Abraham was promised. This means Emonah is ranked higher than blood and genetics when we are addressing the spirit world where Derekh operates.

To believe in God we must also, simultaneously be believing in Isho Hamashiach, His key servant. Our certitude about Isho is that he is the Redeemer, Lord and Shepherd who represents us at the throne. We petition God through him because he is the grape tree, and we are the branches who depend on him for our spiritual nourishment. We wither and perish if we lose contact with him.

5) HOW TO RISE TO EMONAH

There are two routes to come to Emonah; one being the gift of God Himself, and another being the conscious effort of a human being. There are those who receive Emonah from God Himself without their own effort. They are predestined to believe and to live happy and long lives on earth, receive salvation, and be received at the gates of heaven upon their departure from the physical world. Isho himself says no one can come to him unless he is sent by his Father (Jn 6:44). Paul goes even further than that.

“We know that in all things, God works for good with all those who love him, those whom he has called according to his purpose. Those whom God had already chosen he also set apart to becomelike his own Son, so that the Son would be the first among many brothers. And so those whom God set apart, he called; and those he called, he put right with Himself, and he shared his glory with them.” (Rom 8:28-30)

“When the gentiles heard this, they were glad and praised the Lord’s message; and those who had been chosen for eternal life became believers.” (Acts 13:48)

“And because of God’s gracious gift to me, I say to every one of you: Do not think of yourself more highly than you should. Instead, be modest in your thinking, and judge yourself according to the amount of faith that God has given you.” (Rom 12:3)

“But for those whom God has called, both Jews and Gentiles, this message is Christ, who is the power of God and message of God” (1 Cor 1:24)

If Emonah comes from God as a gift of the Spirit, there is nothing that we can do to push ourselves to true Emonah and must settle just for certitude as well as good and just behaviour so that we will be considered on this count. It is repeated countless times that God is merciful and never overlooks the good deeds and holy life of anybody who genuinely tries to solicit his favour. God’s chosen people who receive Emonah from Him without any effort from them are likely very few, however, and the rest of us must cultivate and build Emonah by our own initiatives by a methodological approach. The key issue in this second route, is to remove thought, thinking, logic, theology, philosophy, evaluation, academic analysis of scripture, and believe whatever is written in the Mikra without evaluation or doubt. This is easier said than done but we all have a duty to fight to acquire a certain level of Emonah. Typically, Emonah grows in steps below; –

• Receive message of God through reading or sermons,
• Accept the message,
• Gain certitude and conviction,
• Develop inner commitment, boldness, and resolve
• Walk on the Way of the LORD by character, integrity and courage
• Become divinised, or transition into half-human, half-spirit

6) TRUSTING GOD

Our most sacred duty as Derekhs is to trust God and to entrust Him with our lives. God takes pleasure in those who trust him completely (Ps 147:11).  To trust God is to totally believe scripture so that you are guided by it. We are assured by scripture that if we trust God completely and throw to him all our problems, he will solve them for us (Ps 37.5), (Isa 43:1-2), (Ps 46:1). Our duty is to trust and put a lot of faith in Him, through the Son.

“God is our shelter and strength, always ready to help in times of trouble. So we will not be afraid, even if the earth is shaken.” (Ps 46:1-2)

“However, as the scripture says, What no one saw or heard, What no one ever thought could happen, Is the very thing God prepared for those who love him.” (1 Cor 2:9).

“but he takes pleasure in those who honour him, in those who trusts in (expects) his constant love (blessings).” (Ps 147:11)

“No one can have anything unless God gives it to him”. (Jn 3:27)

Many of us lack true Emonah in God and His Son, Isho. We come to the Synagogue every Shabbat / Sunday almost socially, not spiritually, because we don’t trust God. If we trusted Him, we would be very courageous and we would very faithfully heed all His commands. We have therefore distanced ourselves from our heavenly Father because we don’t trust Him, and we don’t know Him either. We lack the courage to come closer to Him by giving up those matters which are anathema to Him so that we can be received by Him. Many of us are playing hide and seek with God, trying to be on both sides simultaneously. We embrace Satan in relentless sin, consulting African witches and diviners for all our problems, but also attempt to occasionally come up to God, possibly on Sunday. This is not a winning spiritual strategy however, and we must decide crisply where we want to be. If we choose God, we must ascend, bolden and heed scripture, exactly as it is written. God is a loving Father and is still waiting for us to finally mature spiritually, come to Him, and stick with Him.

God is like a gold mine where you go to extract riches, and if you are running away from, or evading, a gold mine, you put your sanity and rationality into some doubt. God is GOOD all the time, now and forever.  We don’t have to read books to know God and Heed Him. We must call out to the name of our only Shepherd, The Redeemer, and Son of God, Isho Hamashiach, who stands permanently between us and God, and put ourselves on The Way of God, Derekh.

We encounter God’s powerful hand in Healing and Deliverance using the name of Isho Hamashiach. This service depends critically on firm Emonah but is available to all believers irrespective of rank or gender. AOD is served by trained and vetted male Shamashim of 30 or more years only, but any Derekh believer can receive the Holy Spirit gift of healing and deliverance. It is only Emonah that counts. What is more, a person of good Emonah cannot be attacked by witchcraft and dark forces.

Isho tells Martha, sister of Lazarus, who had died a few days earlier and had been buried. Isho went to the Tomb to bring him back to life, but Martha discouraged him that Lazarus has been dead for 4 days and his body must have decomposed, and Isho replied;

“Jesus said to her, “Didn’t I tell you that you would see God’s glory if you believed?” . They took the stone away. Jesus looked up and said, “I thank you father that you listen to me. I know that you always listen to me, but I say this for the sake of people who are here, so that they will believe that you sent me. After he had said this, he called out in a loud voice, Lazarus, come out” (Jn 11:41-42)

The key word for all Derekhs then is BELIEVE without doubt in God’s limitless power to heal, save, provide, facilitate, restore life, and perform spirit miracles, and we will receive the power of the Holy Spirit in our hands. We see here, Isho reminding Martha that Emonah is awful power in the hands of anybody because it can even raise to life a person who has died and decomposed. We get another lesson from our Good Sheperd, Isho Hamashiach below; –

J”esus answered them. “Have faith in God. I assure you that whoever tells this hill to get up and throw itself in the sea and does not doubt in his heart, but he believes what he said will happen, it will be done for him.” (Mk 11:22-24)

“Believers will be given power to perform miracles; they will drive out demons in my name; they will speak in strange tongues; if they pick up snakes or drink any poison, they will not be harmed; they will place their hands on sick people who will get healed.” (Mk 16:17-18)

This means, anybody who can raise his Emonah to the level required can command physical reality just like Isho himself did. Emonah is this powerful, and Emonah – total Emonah – is what AFRICAN DEREKH is about.  The key teaching is that we walk with God, and the Hamashiach, and trust them completely to the point of enduring pain, or risking our lives, and we will acquire and deploy spirit power as well. If we hesitate or doubt God, we lose our spirit power or divinisation which Isho Hamashiach restored to us at Golgotha (Col 2:14-15), after it was lost by Adam and Eve in Eden (Gen 3).

Apostle Peter saw Isho walking on water to come to their boat and asked for permission to do the same. He was authorised by Isho to come out of the boat and walk on water as well (Mt 14:25-30). Seconds later he saw a big wave coming his way and he was terrified, so he started to sink.

“At once Jesus reached out and grabbed hold of him and said, “How little faith you have! Why did you doubt?” (Mt 14:31)

Apostle Peter had little Emonah; how much Emonah do we, Africans, have? God saves us only through Emonah and when you doubt, hesitate, or fear physical dangers, you recant your Emonah, and you lose the protection or facilitation of God. We need to train ourselves endlessly to trust God totally, completely and permanently.

Prophet Daniel and many Israelites were captured and sent into exile in Babylonia, during the reign of King Nebuchadrezzar, Daniel, Meshack, Shadrach and Abednego decided to observe the Torah in exile by refusing to eat the spiritually unclean foods of the Babylonians. This defiance by these young Jews was Emonah at work and the God of Israel acted powerfully, to save them, as they survived death sentences for defying the King.

The first punishment for the three friends of Daniel who refused to worship a gold statue that the King had commissioned were sentenced to be burnt alive in a furnace of fire. They were thrown in a fierce furnace, but  as the fire was raging all over them, the King who was there to witness the punishment noted that there were now four, no longer three, people in the furnace.

“Suddenly, Nebuchadnezzar leapt to his feet in amazement. He asked his officials, ‘Didn’t we tie up three men and threw them into the blazing furnace? They answered, ‘Yes we did Your Majesty’, Then why do I see four men walking in the fire’ , he asked. They are not tied up and they show no sign of being burnt, and the fourth one looks like an angel.” (Dan 3:24-25)

The King was shaken by this miracle, and he ordered that the men be taken out of the furnace, and as they came out, they were totally untouched by the fire; not a single hair on their heads was burnt.

Many years later under a new king – King Darius – Daniel himself was convicted of disregarding the order of the King for praying to a god other than the god of King Darius. Daniel was sentenced to die and was thrown into a lion’s den to be eaten alive but survived overnight untouched by the lions until the next day. The King noticing that Daniel had survived untouched by lions the whole night, he ordered that he be removed from the den immediately (Dan 6).

Both these episodes prove to us that God’s saving power is limitless, and it is only the weight of our Emonah to Him that will determine our fate. The four young Jews were prepared to die painful deaths rather than submit to paganism, but they didn’t die because the Sovereign LORD, God of Israel, they so resolutely believed, came to their rescue. Many of us Africans have been abandoning Derekh faith to visit witches and bogus ‘medicine-men’ for the simplest of problems and smallest of threats.

“Then King Darius wrote to the people of all nations, races, and languages on earth: ‘Greetings, I command that throughout my empire, everyone should fear and respect the God of Daniel. He is a living God, and he will rule forever His kingdom will never be destroyed, and his power will never come to an end He saves and rescues; he performs wonders and miracles in heaven and on earth. He saved Daniel from being killed by the Lions.” (Dan 6:25-27)

Abraham was the staunchest believer of God who trusted Him completely. Notwithstanding this reality, Abraham and his wife Sarah were Childress until very old age. This forced Saharah to authorise Abraham to meet with the Egyptian maid so as to get a child out of her. After this child was born and at about 100 years of age, God gave Abraham’s wife Sarah pregnancy and she bore him a male child, Isaac (Gen 21).  When Isaac was old enough, God instructed Abraham to sacrifice Isaac on the alter.  Abraham complied and travelled to the place he was instructed to, arranged the woods, tied up his only son Isaac and placed him on the alter ready to slaughter him. It was at this juncture, when Abraham had lifted a knife to slaughter his only son for the sacrifice that God stopped Abraham and told him this was just a test of his Emonah. (Gen 22)

We can also look at another example of  Total Emonah in David who volunteered to go to war with Phillistine and to confront their war hero called Goliath.

“David said to King Saul, ‘Your Majesty,  no one should be afraid of this Philistine! I will go and fight him.‘ No, answered Saul. How could you fight him. You are just a boy, and he has been a soldier all his life.” (1 Sam 17:32-33)

On the battlefield, young David led the Israel army with just a stone and a catapult, and told Goliath, “I come against you in the name of the LORD Almighty.” (1 Sam 17:45). And he indeed killed Goliath with one stone. There is no greater lesson on total Emonah than that of risking your life in this manner, but this is the standard we are all called to rise to, and to achieve.

7) EMONAH AS SUFFERING

As we just learnt from the last section, to come to true Emonah we must be stone washed by passing through bouts or periods of great uncertainties, suffering, and spiritual war that arises out of our Derekh Emunah and we must remain steadfast in these hostile, even dangerous, circumstances. Those who served God, including Isho himself, went through a period of suffering. Apostle Paul and several others went through several periods of suffering and persecution from unbelieving Jews and Gentiles.

“For you have been given the privilege of serving Christ, not only by believing in him, but also by suffering for him.” (Phil 1:29)

This means, Emonah will not be limited to certitude in religious truths, but will involve also, an overt war of wilful personal sacrifice or, sometimes, of tolerance to events that are not of our making but have befallen us. These sufferings may include victimisation because of our faith, social or political persecution, incurable disease, accidents, poverty, loss of key relatives, and poor economic achievement. We must learn not to disintegrate in the way of looking for sinful shortcuts like consulting witches and astrologers. We must not be friends with thieves and murderers to get money or to survive. We must not join or remain in evil or murderous governments to earn our income or retain high office. We must have spiritual courage to stand with ethics and justice. In case of a personal problem, we must go directly to the Healing and Deliverance service at our local Synagogue and immerse ourselves in remorseful prayer, to thank God for the little blessings we still have, and to plead to Him to see pity on us, and add that His will on us be done.

Suffering also includes desisting from sin, because significant sin repels us from the grace of God. To say we Emon, is to say we strive very, very hard, to stay clear of sin and this involves self-denial of thrill and pleasures of life, forgiving people who have hurt us, and being of help to those around us who needs brotherly help. In Emonah we can periodically lapse into sin, but we immediately notice and genuinely regret and atone so that sinful incidents sadden us, and we fast and ask for forgiveness. And God is ready to forgive anybody who genuinely repents and regrets.

Another aspect of suffering is our relentlessness and steadfastness in seeking God. Many of us Africans will realise, through introspection and self-evaluation, that we need to greatly upscale ourselves, even fight a war with our inner consciousness, to come to true Emonah. We need to regularly reaffirm our commitment to God and our Emonah because he deserves it. (Ps 103:1-3)

AFRICAN ORTHODOX DEREKH is going to teach EMONAH like never before, because this is the only door to God the Father, and Isho the Son of God.

SHALOM ALEKHEM