Yes: God's Answer to Our Questions (Revised Edition)

By Kay Mortimer

Does God have one answer to any question you pose? Does He even care?  
Author Rev. Kay Mortimer shows how He does. The answer is: Y-E-S.  
Life throws tough questions at us. Some of the answers make the difference between a healthy, happy life and a miserable existence.  
In this easy read, you will discover how the Bible contains an affirmative answer, YES, to the needs and questions you face.  
Journey through the pages of the Holy Bible and discover how God speaks "yes" to us in bold and encouraging ways.  
Whether you're a long-time Bible student or new to its pages, this encouraging book can open your eyes to understand the affirmative and loving God Who inspired its every word. Let God's affirmation from the pages of Scripture bring you peace through this inspiring message.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Abundant Vine Christian Publishing
• Release date: May 5, 2017
• ISBN: 9781546451433

Kay Mortimer

Rev. Kay Mortimer is an Ordained Minister whose greatest passion is in the study and teaching of God’s Word. She serves her local church as a Bible study teacher, intercessor and altar minister. She also assists in various church programs and outreaches. Kay also writes church drama scripts, many of which she has been blessed to direct and bring to production for the glory of God. These are currently under development and will be made available for churches to perform. Kay writes articles and other books, as well as Bible study materials and devotions. She also has a current radio ministry, audio podcasts, and Youtube videos. Visit www.kaymortimer.com for more details and links to her other ministry offerings. Kay is an active Enrolled Agent with a Bachelor’s Degree in Accounting and had her own tax practice for twenty-four years of her thirty-year career in accounting and tax. She specialized in church and nonprofit accounting and taxes, as well as payroll, bookkeeping, and income tax preparation for small businesses and individuals. She also writes and teaches on a variety of tax and accounting matters. Whether in her professional work or in her Christian ministry work, Kay hopes to be used of the Lord to reach people for His glory and for their edification and growth as disciples of Jesus Christ.

Book preview

Section One:

Yes Explained

Chapter One

YES

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Yes:  A word of affirmation. A word of comfort. A pleasing answer.

A child asks, May I have a piece of candy now?

Yes pleases the ear.

Will you marry me?

Yes brings joy to the groom-to-be.

Do you love me?

Yes soothes the doubting heart.

Are we there yet?

Parents long to answer yes to the restless child who’s posed the question a hundred times over the three-hundred-mile trip.

Don’t we love to hear it?  We ask questions that need answers. Answers can be affirmative (Yes), negative (No), conditional (Maybe), or time-sensitive (Later).

Our grandchildren ask, Can we go to the store? They want the affirmative answer.

A friend asks, Would you like to go to lunch?  You say, Yes. You pick a place and enjoy a meal together.

Yes means lots of things at times, but in its basic essence, it’s an affirmative answer to some question. It’s an answer that settles a question in a positive way. It makes an absolute end to the questioning of the moment.

God has answers in His Word for us, namely one:   Y-E-S.

In fact, the entire Bible, from Genesis to Revelation, reveals the heart of a God who cries out Yes to the questions we pose.

Although questions like we mentioned earlier aren’t earth-shattering or life-changing, others do determine destinies. Others do guide life’s pathways, either down roads leading to blessings or trouble. Basic questions burst from the heart of you and me every day, or at different stages of our lives.

Is there a purpose for my life? 

Is there hope for me, in spite of my past? 

Does God love me?

Would God forgive me?

Can I be healed?

Is there freedom from this addiction for me?

Even though I’m all alone now, is there comfort in my grief?

Some of the answers to these carve the paths of our lives and set us on a course for good or bad depending on the answers we receive, or the answers we believe we receive.

The great news of the gospel of Jesus Christ is that the answers to all of these, and more, is YES.  The answer is given to us in the Cross: Y-E-S.

Chapter Two

The Yes Defined

As a student of the Bible for over forty years, and through the in-depth study into its original languages, the author of this book has learned that the Hebrew language is a pictorial language. Many scholarly works abound that expand our understanding of Scripture, including further insights in the original languages of the Bible.

In my pursuit of deeper knowledge of biblical meaning, the author consults a variety of these scholarly works, such as Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance of the Bible, Theological Wordbook of the Old Testament, and Brown-Driver-Briggs. Over the last several years, my interest has been piqued in learning more of our Jewish Roots of the Christian faith, which launched me into a deeper digging into the original Hebrew language of the Old Testament.

I heard a phrase decades ago:  The Old Testament is the New Testament concealed, and the New Testament is the Old Testament revealed.  I do not know who the author is, but I believe this word was inspired. Truth resides in this saying. I believe Christians are just beginning to tap into the deep well of rich treasure that’s been there all along, but we were unaware – until recently.

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Word Pictures

In the original Hebrew language, word pictures are associated with the letters of the alphabet and the corresponding words that incorporate those letters. Although fascinating, becoming familiar with these word pictures significantly deepens my understanding of the original meanings and connotations in the author’s minds when the books contained in Scripture were penned.

From this study and relevant research, amazing discoveries abound. One such discovery is the Hebrew word picture understanding for the simple word yes.

In Frank T. Seekins’ book, Hebrew Word Pictures, he defines yes as to open your hand to life or activity.¹  It is the Hebrew word ken, made from two basic Hebrew letters, kaf and noon.  Kaf carries the idea from the word pictures of allowing or opening. Noon comprises the concept of a fish darting through water, connoting life or activity.

From these, we see the affirmative pictures of an open hand allowing and welcoming life or activity to us. From Strong’s Concordance, and other references, we see the meaning of this same word is thus or it was so.  In these scholarly works, we understand not only the affirmation it signifies, but also a degree of certainty and fixity.

In The Ancient Hebrew Lexicon of the Bible, Jeff Benner describes it as the firmness of a situation.²  The scholarly work, Theological Wordbook of the Old Testament, Vol. I, supports these ideas as well, when it states, "to bring something into being with the consequence that its existence is a certainty."³  The Editors further note that the idea of this word carries not only something that is brought into being, but the fixity of its firm, established, and certain state.

All of these carry the idea of the firmness of opening and accomplishing whatever the matter is that’s being addressed. It is done. It is certain. It