ANSWER:  Bagad

DEFINITION: to act treacherously, deceitfully, deal treacherously, faithlessly, deceitfully; offend.

PRONUNCIATION: bar-gahd 

Bagad is slippery dealing, double-dealing, deceit and sham. Business today is full of slippery salesmen, double dealers, deceitful advertisements, sales pitches, lying claims (Prov 11.3,6). 

We do not overcome sin by pretending that sin no longer exists. It does exist and the sad sequels of sin abound in our society in which we live. None of us can escape its effects. Sin can rear its ugly head unexpectedly within the security of our own Messianic homes and, because we are subject in this flesh to a certain naivety, can almost send us at times completely mad. 

The prophet Amos tells us, “Hate the evil, and love the good” (Amos 5.15). In this often ignored passage of Scripture God gives us a vital key to overcoming. We are literally commanded to hate — loathe — our sins. One of the reasons we fail to grasp that we are in a war against sin is that we seem to love it. Lust (illegal desire) is pleasant, appealing, enjoyable, and we hate to give up, to surrender, our strongly downward pulling desires (Eph 2.3) even though these desires hurt us terribly. 

God hates sin in all its forms (Prov 6.16). We ought to ask for help from God to hate sin as He does. Yet such a request is often at the very back of our mind. We’re not making a value judgment when we say it’s not often at the forefront of our daily requests. 

Repent (2 Cor 7.10). Godly sorrow works a monumental change. We must become more concerned about God than about ourselves. 

Really, the answer to sin is very simple. 

“Stop” (1 Pet 4.1,2). 

We have to create right habits to drive out bad habits (Rom 12.21). The Torah habituates the flesh. “Be not overcome of [the habit of] evil, but overcome evil with [the habit of] good.” 

I believe God has had enough of sin and very shortly He will intervene in human history to bring it to a conclusive end! God is fed up with sin. Look at the bloodied tree of Golgoleth! Have the courage to see Messiah as our New Torah crucified because of sin. 

What did it take to expose the heart of sin? To reveal the natural human heart as essentially loveless, malevolent, indecent? It took the bloodied sacrifice of the Son of God’s Love for a humanity that rejected Him. The world, of course, has always been in love with love. It chatters incessantly about the “ideal” of love. But the world has never aligned (Torah) with Love. John, the apostle of the New and Expansive Torah, went so far as to suggest forthrightly to the followers of Yeshua that they had no idea of what love really was, apart from the revelation of the Messiah. He rejected the idea that they chose of themselves to love God. “Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us, and sent His Son” (1 Jn 4.10).

Messiah came 2000 years ago heralding the coming Messianic New World Order which will one day fill the earth and under a New (Renewed) Covenant will empower humanity by His Spirit to align with Deity. At this time Yeshua has dealt [legally] with sin, but nevertheless is purging sin out of His people [moral], as the “firstfruits” of His harvest. He wants us all to have satisfying, productive, successful lives in alignment with God the Father. But all too often we miss the mark – sin -and “reap what we sow,” in the form of unhappiness. 

We need to identify the pitfalls of sin (call it by any other name — its still sin) for they can be (by God’s Grace) successfully avoided, and we can emerge triumphantly as “more than conquerors through Him that saves us.” 

We may say we have no sin, and in a legal sense (and by virtue of being in Messiah by Grace) this is certainly true. But if we who are living in this present evil and corrupt society think we are not negatively affecting others, in both our views, actions and lifestyle, we are most assuredly kidding ourselves. 

I do not imply by any of this that we should develop any sort of “sin consciousness.” Far from it, as Paul wrote, and so I proclaim — even to unconverted Jews: “Let THIS mind be in you which was in Yeshua haMashiach.” 

Only by enthusiastically aligning so intimately with Him can the freedom of Deity be expressed authentically from the human heart.