The concept of atonement for both Jews and Christians has major flaws that promote unhealthy, even very damaging, spiritual lifestyles. Usually on Yom Kippur, I talk about forgiveness of sins in a more general way as I also walk you through prayers to atone and ask for God’s healing. If you want to go through prayer and petition for your sins and afflictions, please go over the last Yom Kippur service here... My prayers go before you if you go through prayer that was recorded before, but if you want personal and more directed prayer and counsel, then please feel free to contact me.

On this Yom Kippur or Day of Atonement, I will begin to talk in detail about what the people, their leaders, and teachers have wrong about the atonement of sins, as well as what sort of sins that commonly result in the inevitable outcome of living in sins – curses, judgment, or bad afflictions; the consequences of sin. The Christians among you may think this discussion is pointless, because you know Christ forgives all sins and the New Covenant negates all of their penalties. However, that is an incomplete understanding of God’s atonement that does not understand the difference between eternal and temporal atonement.

The New Covenant is all about eternal forgiveness for sins, but it does NOT negate the penalties of sin in this life. That is a simple fact that many Christians forget, overlook, or plainly reject because of bad teachings even though the New Testament is full of teaching about the continued penalties of sins for Christians (for more about the New Covenant and how sin affects eternal salvation, see The True Gospel and Imposters). It is not eternal atonement I will be talking about here, but temporal atonement, which is still very important for the well-being of every Christian and their loved ones.

And for the Jew, temporal atonement is equally important. Yom Kippur is their most sacred of holidays because it is a powerful time of year when the sins of the people are cleansed and the Lord forgives, sometimes in very powerful ways, giving real miracles of healing and release of afflictions because of the prayers of Yom Kippur. And do note, that even though the ways of the Torah or Old Law of Moses that are REQUIRED for the people’s atonement cannot be fulfilled anymore, God still acts in Yom Kippur to atone and forgive the people. This is very important to understand, because it is no longer the Law or Torah that cleanses the people, because it remains unfulfilled without the High Priest and sprinkling of the blood of the sacrifice on the ark of the covenant.

No, it is through God’s lovingkindness and open ears that He grants petitions to cleanse and heal the people on Yom Kippur. It is no longer Judaism that atones the Jew, but God Himself. It is God’s mercy that Judaism benefits from, and it is the same mercy God grants to anyone else, no matter your faith or lack of faith. You need not be Jew nor Christian to receive God’s mercy. You simply need to believe in God and sincerely ask for His help. Such is the care and lovingkindness of El Elyon, God Most High, for all His children.

But equally for all the children of God, whether Jew or Christian or Muslim, Buddhist, Hindu, any other sect, atheist, or no religion at all, everyone is subject to God’s laws for mankind and the penalties for violating them; sin will have serious consequences in your lives now, no matter who you are or what your faith is. And of important note to believers, serious consequences continue to hold true EVEN if you are granted God’s forgiveness from prayers of repentance, atonement, and deliverance, like most Christians, Jews, and Muslims commonly do.

So unlike the most popular teachers, who only tell you the grace of Christ or the cleansing of Yom Kippur releases all your guilt for sin so you don’t have to worry about it anymore, I will give you the best picture of atonement and sin that addresses issues most other teachers fail in; that is, they portray sin as inconsequential because God “always” forgives and blesses, and so they teach the people that sin is simply negated and the people have no accountability (I addressed this specifically in Word for Yom Teruah/Rosh Hashanah and the High Holidays 2024). How untrue and deadly these poisonous false teachings are!

For the Jew, these false beliefs are even more deadly, because God said, "Cursed is the one who does not fulfill the words of this Law [the Torah] by doing them” (Devarim/Deuteronomy 27:26). And so Judaism MUST fulfill ALL the Torah as God gave or be cursed. That is because God made it a sin for followers of Torah, which is everyone in Judaism, to be cursed if they do not follow ALL the Law as He originally gave it (Devarim/Deuteronomy 28:15). That's because God also said about Torah, "You shall not add to [Torah] neither shall you subtract from it," making it a sin to change Torah (Devarim/Deuteronomy 4:2). Jews will argue that their sages were and are still authorized to change Torah, however, that is not true.

Only the truly anointed of El Elyon are authorized to change Torah, and when God broke the power of the kohanim (Jewish priests) for Torah when the last of the prophets of old were gone, there were no more authorized priests to change Torah. The very last prophets recorded in the Tanakh (Old Testament Bible) were the last whom had authority to change Torah. All the Jewish sages since were only authorized to be judges of Torah so they could continue to administer to Judaism. So when Judaism misinterprets Torah and lives by unauthorized "Torah" that does not fulfil true Torah, as has been happening for millennia, they live under compounded sins and curse upon curse, even though they are still God's blessed and chosen people (for more about how Judaism continues in sin, see The significance of Israel under attack, Do not give in to overcompensation, Withholding Redemption and Denying Accountability, Daughter Israel, Make Right Your Ways, A word of genocide and ethnic cleansing to Israel, and God's Offering for All In Judaism).

All the bad things happening to people and communities of faith shows that God surely holds you and the people accountable for what you do wrong. He will judge ALL sin (Colossians 3:25; Romans 2:5-16; Ephesians 6:5-8; Ezekiel/Yechezkel 33:12-20; Jeremiah/Yirmiyahu 17:10, 21:14, 25:14, 32:19; Numbers/Bamidbar 14:18; Nahum/Nachum 1:3; Proverbs/Mishlei 24:12; Hosea/Hoshea 7:2; also Hebrews 12:4-11; 1 Thessalonians 4:6; Ezekiel/Yechezkel 3:20), and most of the time, those judgments include serious penalties because most sin is not trivial nor does it warrant complete dismissal. God will judge righteously, and people of God should be conscious that He holds His own even more accountable than the nonbeliever; the Lord will judge His people and it is a terrifying thing to fall into the hands of El Hai, the living God (Hebrews 10:19-31; Psalm/Tehillim 135:14; Isaiah/Yeshayahu 3:13-15; also Isaiah/Yeshayahu 27:11; Tehillim 7:9).

Furthermore, because false and bad teachings are so commonplace, it ends up leading the people to sin over and over again because of sin they don’t know about or don’t acknowledge. The simple fact that sin continues on even though God is gracious to forgive sins that you don’t know you do, the continual cycle of sinning will still bring judgments and can make you sin more because the negative effects of sin include being shackled to fall to more temptations and more serious sins.

Because sin is so widespread and its effects continue to increase, even among devout believing communities, I try to bring you out of the cycle of sin that is so common - atone but sin again, so atone again and maybe God will keep listening and helping, but then continue in the same sins, but more likely God will refuse to hear or help anymore. It is often because of sin that God will refuse to hear your prayers (Isaiah/Yeshayahu 1:15-17; 1 Peter 3:7). This is what I’ve seen happen to the peoples of God of all faiths over and over again.

You need to think of atonement or forgiveness for sin, not as a cleanse all and “get out of jail free” card, but as God forgiving one who sincerely regrets doing wrong. The difference is, God forgives you when you are sorry, as a loving father should do, but He must also give penalty for what you’ve done. That almost always means you do NOT get a “get out of jail free” card. In fact, the definition of atonement is reparation or to make amends for a wrong^[1.1]. For most sins, making amends does not simply involve saying, “I’m sorry,” but must come with sufficient penalty. Otherwise, who would resist sinning again if there were no consequences? Rampant evil is the result, which King Solomon, the wisest of all rulers (1 Kings/Melachim I 3:12, 4:31), noted when he said, “Because the sentence for an evil deed is not executed quickly, therefore the hearts of mankind are fully set on doing evil” (Ecclesiastes/Kohelet 8:11).

Without quick and sufficient penalties for sin, its harms continue on to multiply throughout society and create even more sin. We’ve been seeing this happen for decades now as the sins of modern society multiply and spread around the world. It isn’t because God does not judge the world’s sins, but because He often delays judgment and obscures why bad things happen. It doesn’t negate the fact that real, tangible reparations for your wrongs still need to be made to truly atone for sin, even though God’s forgiveness means that you are not completely forsaken as a child.

May you always come back to God and not let sin remove you from His loving care, as I have seen happen to even the most devout believers. Don’t believe this is happening? Don’t let God’s character of being “slow to anger” and His way of hiding spiritual truths fool you to think the Bible isn’t true about how God judges ALL sin (see Myth 1 in Light Within for more about why God hides things). To counter mass complacency, I praise God He already had me give concrete proof when I talked about sexual sins (see Practical Sex Matters and Practical Romance Matters), gun violence (see Who’s Fault Was The Massacre In Uvalde, Texas?), and God’s Alarm.

And there is even more proof in the downward spirals of worse and worse happening to people in societies around the world. Cancers, debilitating illnesses, and chemical addictions are more common and afflict younger and younger generations^{[1.2, 1.3, 1.4, 1.18, 1.19]}, infertility in both men and women are much more common, increasing 80% to 84%^{[1.5, 1.6]}, depression and suicide have been increasing, and in fact, suicide is a leading cause of death among both the young and old^{[1.13, 1.14, 1.15, 1.16, 1.17]}, homelessness and hunger are increasing, especially among children^{[1.7, 1.8, 1.9]}, more children suffer from harm, like gun violence and abuse, and more have disabilities, like chronic illnesses and autism^{[1.20, 1.21]}, more households, even among the wealthy are falling behind in paying bills^{[1.10, 1.11, 1.12]}. The woes upon you, your families and communities are many more than I mentioned, but I can guarantee you that nearly every major affliction everyone suffers from is being caused by the sins they, their family, and community members do.

Researchers look for scientific, environmental, and medical reasons for serious negative trends in society, and sometimes they find a link to chemical use, behavior, or diet and suggest remedies which may, or more often, do not help. However, if you pay any attention to harmful trends in society then you have to concede things keep getting worse, not better. The world is looking in and blaming all the wrong things as I’ve said many times before. The ineffectiveness of science to treat these problems stems from only understanding a part of the picture and omitting the true root cause of chronic afflictions – the sins of society, which unfortunately, do affect the innocent, like our children who’ve done nothing wrong themselves to deserve severe judgments.

I’ve made this spiritual reality apparent for many years in discussions about sexual sins and many other things (for more about generational curses, see Light Within and About Aching Prosperity). What you, your leaders, and community members do, both spiritual and secular, can seriously harm your children and loved ones. This was made painfully apparent in talks about gun violence (see Who’s Fault Was The Massacre In Uvalde, Texas?) and other disasters (see God’s Alarm and Annunciation Church Shooting, and Another Affirmation to Take Warnings Seriously - Kerr County Texas Floods), so when I talk about what people commonly do wrong, may you take your involvement in sins that you may consider trivial or not really sin much more seriously. What decades of ministry has taught me is that the issues and sins the Lord has led me to talk about are not trivial at all, but are why you, your loved ones, and your communities are suffering more and more.

Sins related to issues of integrity are some of the most common because many of the problems I talk about here are often overlooked as sins. People think they are minor and inconsequential, like the “harmless white lie,” or they don’t think they’re sin at all, such as in plagiarism or not giving proper credit to original authors, and streaming, copying, or sharing media in inappropriate ways. However, just because you or most of society thinks something is OK, may very well not be, but instead is a form of stealing or dishonest gain.

Stealing is obviously a sin, as it is one of the Ten Commandments, but dishonest gain is something people often overlook and fail to see as sin even though God gives many examples that He hates dishonest gain (Jeremiah/Yirmiyahu 22:13-17; Habakkuk/Chavakuk 2:6; Psalm/Tehillim 119:36; Proverbs/Mishlei 20:23, 21:6; Ezekiel/Yechezkel 22:13-14; 1 Timothy 3:8; Titus 1:7, 1:10-11; 1 Peter 5:2). Also, in the modern age of copyrights, licensing, and intellectual property, there are many ways to steal that are not obvious.