Choosing Your Sins Carefully in 2025

And I brought them out from the land of Egypt, and I brought them to the desert,  and I gave my statutes to them, and my regulations I made known to them, which, if a person does them, then he will live by them. And also my Sabbaths I gave to them to be a sign between me and between them so they would know that I, Yahweh, am the one sanctifying them.

Ezekiel 20:10–14 (LEB)

There are so many people today that enjoy pointing out other people’s life choices without ever self reflecting on their own. The old saying is when one points a finger, three fingers are pointing back. When it comes to the instructions God gave us, through ancient Israel and Moses, it is serious business.

The instructions of God have been framed by the modern church as outdated, irrelevant “law” that no one is able to keep, and the reason Jesus had to come and save us from his genocidal father god. This is completely false and a first century heresy called Marcionism. It is framed a little differently in modern theology, but essentially it is the same message.

Actually, Jesus came to offer the same benefits to the world as were offered to ancient Israel. Due to the dispersion of the Northern kingdom, the world became the “lost sheep of the house of Israel” that can now come back similarly to the prodigal son in the parable Jesus told about the younger and older brother. This was referring to Ephraim and Judah.

There are issues that have divided churches since the first century. The Church of England broke away from the Roman Catholic church due to the King of England wanting to get a divorce. This is why the king is still the head of the Anglican Church and why there is an Episcopal Church in the United States. Just as the English wanted to separate from Rome over marriage, the American “rebels” wanted to separate due to the Revolutionary War. The Anglican church became the Episcopalian Church in the United States.

Slavery was a church divider in nineteenth century America, and today it is same-sex marriage that divides churches. There is always that one show stopper that people will not tolerate and cut ties with their fellow church members. What if I said this was all pointless?

Today, church leaders have made convenient boxes for Old Testament sins. There are “moral laws” and “ceremonial laws” now so we can pick and choose our sins depending on what category they are found in. No where in scripture do we find these distinctions. Other leaders, such as mega-church pastor Andy Stanley, say to “unhitch” from the Old Testament all together.

John 12:47–50 (LEB): 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.”

Jesus said, “His commandment is eternal life,” referring to the Father. Jesus only said what the Father said to him. We have a lot of what the Father said through His Word. He told us what would bring blessings and curses, what was an abomination, meaning what defiles a person, and God never says that later on in the future we will call some of these things moral law and others ceremonial law. He does talk about future gods that will try to make His commands void.

Deuteronomy 28:64 (LEB): ⁶⁴ And Yahweh shall scatter you among all the nations from one end of the earth up to the other end of the earth, and there you shall serve other gods that you have not known nor your ancestors, gods of wood and stone.

The instructions we cannot follow today are the ones involving the Holy land, the temple, and the Levitical priestly system because those things do not currently exist. We could argue that the land is still Holy, but it certainly is not a safe space, and it seemingly is being governed by rogue actors not at all reflecting the love of the God they claim to represent.

The reason why I claim all this fighting over the definition of sin is irrelevant because most everyone involved is missing the whole point. The same group of people that will fight against same-sex marriage will serve bacon at their Easter sunrise service, or tell us that the Sabbath day is no longer important to God, or that it has changed to a different day. The same God that said ” a man should not lay with another man” also said the pig was not food. Both will abominate a person, meaning it will defile the person. I do not really know what that means, but personally, I am choosing to not be defiled in the eyes of my God. I won’t tell anyone else what to do other than point out the warnings.

These instructions from God are just that: instructions. God showed us through ancient Israel and Moses how to have a successful life on the earth He created. Do these things and don’t do these other things, etc., and you will have life. It is the blessings and curses of Leviticus chapter 26.

Leviticus 26:1–2 (LEB): 26 “ ‘You shall not make for yourselves idols and divine images, and you shall not raise up stone pillars for yourselves, and you shall not put a sculptured stone in your land in order to worship before it, because I am Yahweh your God. ² “ ‘You shall keep my Sabbaths, and you shall revere my sanctuary; I am Yahweh.

Do what He says! Don’t make excuses over one thing and not the other. Or, don’t do what He says. That is an option too. I can respect someone who does not believe any of this or has a completely different religion. However, let’s not point out one thing we don’t like as sin, then make a framework of religion that condones the things we want to do that are sometimes worse than the things we are condemning.

A grossly overlooked book in Christian churches is the book of Isaiah. We like the part about “by his stripes we are healed” or “we shall mount up like eagles”, but what about Isaiah chapter sixty-six? This is a post Messianic world, and I do not know where Christians picture themselves in this world. It hasn’t happened yet, and dispensationalism theology is a lie.

Isaiah 66:15–17 (LEB): ¹⁵ For look! Yahweh will come in fire, and his chariots like the storm wind, to give back his anger in wrath, and his rebuke in flames of fire. ¹⁶ For Yahweh enters into judgment on all flesh with fire and his sword, and those slain by Yahweh shall be many. ¹⁷ Those who sanctify themselves and those who cleanse themselves to go into the gardens after the one in the middle, eating the flesh of swine and detestable things and rodents together shall come to an end!” declares Yahweh.

Those “eating the flesh of swine and detestable things and rodents shall come to an end”. This is talking about the second coming of Jesus. It sounds like a church picnic where people are eating barbequed hotdogs (more than likely, a mixture of swine and rodent meat). There is no “rapture” to allow an escape. The rapture is your payment or indulgence for the tithes you pay to hear ear tickling messages that say something similar to this:

Jeremiah 23:16 (LEB): ¹⁶ Thus says Yahweh of hosts: “You must not listen to the words of the prophets who prophesy to you. They are deluding you with visions of their mind, They do not speak from the mouth of Yahweh. ¹⁷ 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.’

Jeremiah is speaking to the modern church because this is exactly what they are doing. They pick and choose their sins and frame a theology that reinforces it. Please remember this the next time you are pointing fingers at the things God gets extremely mad about such as profaning the Sabbaths, idolatry with gods of other cultures and religions along with eating swine. The future example is His destruction of those “in the gardens with the one in the middle and eating the flesh of swine and rodents”.