Moses said, ‘The Lord God will raise up for you a prophet like me from your brothers. You will listen to him in everything that he says to you. And it will be that every soul who does not listen to that prophet will be destroyed utterly from the people.’
Acts 3:22–23 (LEB)
There are people in Christianity who believe the only prophecy anyone needs to be concerned with is the pretribulation rapture. Before any of the evil comes upon the world, prophesied all through scripture, they will be whisked away to spend eternity with Jesus is an ethereal place they call heaven, in this belief system. Many of these people also think they are “eternally secure”, meaning if they sincerely “accept Jesus” once in their life, then they have a ticket on the rapture bus.
If you happen to be one of these people, using scripture, please tell me if the pretribulation rapture is a resurrection, where one will get their new physical body like the Messiah, or is it a rapture of some non-material part of a person that will reunite with their physical body at a future resurrection? If it is a resurrection, is it the first resurrection spoken about in scripture? If it is a rapture of some non-material part of us it sounds more like Egyptian mythology than anything biblical.
Acts 3:16–24 (LEB)
17 And now, brothers, I know that you acted in ignorance, just as your rulers did also. 18 But the things which God foretold through the mouth of all the prophets, that his Christ would suffer, he has fulfilled in this way. 19 Therefore repent and turn back, so that your sins may be blotted out, 20 so that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord, and he may send the Christ appointed for you—Jesus, 21 whom heaven must receive until the times of the restoration of all things, about which God spoke through the mouth of his holy prophets from earliest times. 22 Moses said, ‘The Lord God will raise up for you a prophet like me from your brothers. You will listen to him in everything that he says to you. 23 And it will be that every soul who does not listen to that prophet will be destroyed utterly from the people.’ 24 And indeed, all the prophets from Samuel and all those who followed him have spoken about and proclaimed these days.
Is our duty as Christians to “accept Jesus” and move on with life? Let’s just “ask him into our heart”. No where in scripture do we find anyone saying the way to have eternal life is either to “accept Jesus” or “ask him into our heart”. We see Peter in the book of Acts quoting Moses from Deuteronomy 18, which says anyone who does not listen to Jesus, or Yeshua in Hebrew, will be destroyed. This word “listen” means much more than to simply hear.
When an English speaking person hears the word “listen” it could simply mean the act of hearing. “Okay I heard what Jesus said, I’m good. Bring on the rapture bus”. When Moses or Peter were speaking, the word they were using means to listen, hear, understand and obey. The word translated to “listen” in Greek is ἀκούω (akouo). In Hebrew it is שמע(shema).
Deuteronomy 18:18–19 (LEB)
18 I will raise up a prophet for them from among their countrymen like you, and I will place my words into his mouth, and he shall speak to them everything that I command him. 19 And then the man that will not listen to my words that he shall speak in my name, I will hold accountable.
We could easily say, “anyone who does not listen, understand and obey will be destroyed”. This is prophecy no one wants to fulfill, yet many are doing just that through ignorance. Unfortunately, the pastors and teachers, whose job is to warn the people, fell asleep at the wheel years ago, also fulfilling prophecy.
Jeremiah 23:30–32 (LEB)
30 “Therefore look, I am against the prophets,” declares Yahweh, “who steal my words each one from his neighbor. 31 Look, I am against the prophets,” declares Yahweh, “who take their tongues and declare as prophets, ‘Yahweh declares.’ 32 Look, I am against those who prophesy dreams of lies,” declares Yahweh, “and tell them, and they caused my people to err through their lies, and in their recklessness, when I myself have not sent them nor commanded them, so they profit not this people at all,” declares Yahweh.
The prophets from “Samuel and all those who followed” did the work. We don’t need to listen to made up fairy tales from preachers tickling the ears of their congregations. They just need to proclaim what has already been told by the prophets.
1 Timothy 6:3–5 (LEB)
3 If anyone teaches other doctrine and does not devote himself to the sound words of our Lord Jesus Christ and the teaching that is in accordance with godliness, 4 he is conceited, understanding nothing, but having a morbid interest concerning controversies and disputes about words, from which come envy, strife, slanders, evil suspicions, 5 constant wrangling by people of depraved mind and deprived of the truth, who consider godliness to be a means of gain.
What are the “sound words of our Lord Jesus Christ and the teaching that is in accordance with godliness”? First of all, we do not need to continue in the Greek language. “Lord Jesus Christ” is “Kurios Iesous Christos”. “Christ” is not the last name of Jesus. It is a Greek word meaning anointed one and messenger (Messiah). “Kurios”, translated, “Lord”, means master, lord or Yahweh. The name “Jesus” is a combination of Greek, Latin and English, which should be either “Joshua” in English, Yeshua or Yahusha in Hebrew. Most people like to be called by their proper name. Let’s look at the sound words of Master Yeshua the Messiah.
Mark 7:6–13 (LEB)
6 So he said to them, “Isaiah prophesied correctly about you hypocrites, as it is written, ‘This people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far, far away from me. 7 And they worship me in vain, teaching as doctrines the commandments of men.’ 8 Abandoning the commandment of God, you hold fast to the tradition of men.” 9 And he said to them, “You splendidly ignore the commandment of God so that you can keep your tradition. 10 For Moses said, ‘Honor your father and your mother,’ and, ‘The one who speaks evil of father or mother must certainly die.’ 11 But you say, ‘If a man says to his father or to his mother, “Whatever benefit you would have received from me is corban” (that is, a gift to God), 12 you no longer permit him to do anything for his father or his mother, 13 thus making void the word of God by your tradition that you have handed down, and you do many similar things such as this.”
Here we see Yeshua upbraiding the religious leaders for ignoring the commandments of God and replacing them with their own traditions. He calls this vain worship. What would be examples of traditions of men replacing commandments of God today? Ignoring the Sabbath and changing the special day to the day of the sun, encouraging people to work on the Sabbath and worship on Sunday as decreed by the Council of Laodecia in 347 CE. Replacing the festivals of God with pagan blended substitutes such as Christmas and Easter, using symbols of witchcraft to supposedly celebrate something for God. These are two that come to mind. Yeshua calls this vain worship and it is not good.
Yeshua also told us the two greatest commandments. He made it easy for us by summing up the Torah in two commands. This is the doctrine of Yeshua. Leviticus 19 and Deuteronomy chapter six.
Mark 12:28–31 (LEB)
28 And one of the scribes came up and heard them debating. When he saw that he answered them well, he asked him, “Which commandment is the most important of all?” 29 Jesus answered, “The most important is, ‘Listen, Israel! The Lord our God, the Lord is one. 30 And you shall love the Lord your God from your whole heart and from your whole soul and from your whole mind and from your whole strength.’ 31 The second is this: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these.”
Yeshua always backed up what he said with scripture from the Torah (law), prophets and writings. This should be a big clue for where to find truth. So many have abandoned the source of God’s truth.
Deuteronomy 6:4–6 (LEB)
4 “Hear, Israel, Yahweh our God, Yahweh is unique. 5 And you shall love Yahweh your God with all of your heart and with all of your soul and with all of your might. 6 And these words that I am commanding you today shall be on your heart.
The words He was commanding were the ten commandments in the previous chapter, and they are all about loving God and loving one’s neighbor. Love has to be defined by God, not man. If man defines love we get a twisted version. We love God by keeping His commandments and Leviticus tells us how to love our neighbor.
Leviticus 19:17–19 (LEB)
17 “ ‘You shall not hate your brother in your heart; you shall surely rebuke your fellow citizen, so that you do not incur sin along with him. 18 You shall not seek vengeance, and you shall not harbor a grudge against your fellow citizens; and you shall love your neighbor like yourself; I am Yahweh.
An important way to love one’s neighbor is to warn them about sin. Take this entire blog site as me loving you by warning about sin. People who do not love their neighbor say things such as is written: Jeremiah 23:17 (LEB) “They are continually saying to those who disregard the word of Yahweh, ‘Peace it will be to you,’ and to each one who walks in the stubbornness of his heart they say, ‘Calamity will not come upon you.’”.
The pretribulation rapture doctrine is explained well in Jeremiah 23. “Don’t worry about anything Yeshua said, the rapture is about to happen”. Yeshua always taught the ten commandments. I do not know how anyone can say otherwise.
Luke 18:18–20 (LEB)
18 And a certain ruler asked him, saying, “Good Teacher, by doing what will I inherit eternal life?” 19 And Jesus said to him, “Why do you call me good? No one is good except God alone. 20 You know the commandments: ‘Do not commit adultery, do not murder, do not steal, do not give false testimony, honor your father and mother.’ ”
The commandments have something to do with eternal life according to Messiah Yeshua. This makes sense because the Bible is full of verses about what happens to those who willfully break or ignore the commandments. It never ends well for those people.
John 12:46–50 (LEB)
46 I have come as a light into the world, in order that everyone who believes in me will not remain in the darkness. 47 And if anyone hears my words and does not observe them, I will not judge him. For I have not come to judge the world, but to save the world. 48 The one who rejects me and does not accept my words has one who judges him; the word that I have spoken will judge him on the last day. 49 For I have not spoken from myself, but the Father himself who sent me has commanded me what I should say and what I should speak. 50 And I know that his commandment is eternal life. So the things that I say, just as the Father said to me, thus I say.”
Keeping the commandments is how we show our love for the Creator and the Messiah. This is another teaching of Yeshua we must listen to and obey.
John 14:15 (LEB)
15 “If you love me, you will keep my commandments.
A common statement is that there are only nine commandments repeated in the New Testament, therefore the Sabbath is no longer important because it wasn’t re-commanded. This is a ridiculous argument and shows that a people really can justify anything. It will all come crashing down though when Messiah returns. As far as there being only nine commandments, Yeshua tells us to follow all the commandments.
Matthew 5:17–19 (LEB)
17 “Do not think that I have come to destroy the law or the prophets. I have not come to destroy them but to fulfill them. 18 For truly I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not one tiny letter or one stroke of a letter will pass away from the law until all takes place. 19 Therefore whoever abolishes one of the least of these commandments and teaches people to do so will be called least in the kingdom of heaven, but whoever keeps them and teaches them, this person will be called great in the kingdom of heaven.
Last time I checked, the Earth is still here. “Whoever abolishes the least of these commandments” means the Sabbath commandment still stands. It is not punishment. Only a fool would think having a day of rest once a week is a bad thing. It is the way the kingdom of God operates. What does it mean to be least in the kingdom? I don’t want to find out. What if it is Isaiah 66? They are still in the kingdom because people are going out after worshiping on the Sabbath and seeing them. It sounds like zombies burning.
Isaiah 66:23–24 (LEB)
23 And this shall happen: From new moon to new moon and from Sabbath to Sabbath all flesh shall come to bow in worship before me,” says Yahweh. 24 “And they shall go out and look at the corpses of the people who have rebelled against me, for their worm shall not die, and their fire shall not be quenched, and they shall be an abhorrence to all flesh.”
Anyone that teaches there are only nine commandments, or that the law was “nailed to the cross” should consider what happens to “whoever” causes someone who believes Yeshua to sin. It is one thing to believe an error, but it is worse to cause other people to be in error as well.
Mark 9:42–48 (LEB)
42 “And whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it is better for him if instead a large millstone is placed around his neck and he is thrown into the sea. 43 And if your hand causes you to sin, cut it off! It is better for you to enter into life crippled than, having two hands, to go into hell—into the unquenchable fire! 45 And if your foot causes you to sin, cut it off! It is better for you to enter into life lame than, having two feet, to be thrown into hell! 47 And if your eye causes you to sin, tear it out! It is better for you to enter into the kingdom of God with one eye than, having two eyes, to be thrown into hell, 48 ‘where their worm does not die and the fire is not extinguished.’
Yeshua came teaching justice and mercy, yet while scolding the religious leaders for neglecting justice and mercy, he told them they still shouldn’t neglect the less weightier matters of the law.
Matthew 23:23 (LEB)
23 “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees—hypocrites!—because you pay a tenth of mint and dill and cumin, and neglect the more important matters of the law—justice and mercy and faithfulness! It was necessary to do these things while not neglecting those.
Paul described the current church landscape to Timothy just over 1900 years ago. Leaving the sound teachings of Messiah Yeshua and godliness, people have accumulated teachers that eagerly tell them not to worry about all the commandments Yeshua said to keep, because those were for someone else. “Get ready for the rapture instead! Oh and make sure to leave something in the offering plate before you go”. Prophecy is being fulfilled right in front of us, and it is not good.
2 Timothy 4:3–4 (LEB)
3 For there will be a time when they will not put up with sound teaching, but in accordance with their own desires, they will accumulate for themselves teachers, because they have an insatiable curiosity, 4 and they will turn away from the hearing of the truth, but will turn to myths.
The one seated on the throne leaves us with some hard, cold facts about the kingdom of God in the closing verses of Revelation. This is the exact same information that is throughout scripture. Sorry, you have been deceived.
Revelation 21:5–8 (LEB)
5 And the one seated on the throne said, “Behold, I am making all things new!” And he said, “Write, because these words are faithful and true.” 6 And he said to me, “It is done! I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end. To the one who is thirsty I will give water from the spring of the water of life freely. 7 The one who conquers will inherit these things, and I will be his God and he will be my son. 8 But as for the cowards and unbelievers and detestable persons and murderers and sexually immoral people and sorcerers and idolaters and all liars, their share is in the lake that burns with fire and sulphur, which is the second death.
Featured photo is by Annie Spratt on Unsplash.
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