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. And they worship me in vain, teaching as doctrines the commandments of men.’ Abandoning the commandment of God, you hold fast to the tradition of men.”

Mark 7:6-8

The best way I have a heard a cult be defined is that it is a belief system that one disagrees with. Of course, there are some extreme situations such as Jim Jones and the Jonestown massacre, but with all the religions in the world today, up to 50,000 denominations in Christianity alone, what is considered a cult? The following is from Britannica.com:

Jim Jones, by name of James Warren Jones, (born May 13, 1931, Crete, near Lynn, Indiana, U.S.—died November 18, 1978, Jonestown, Guyana), American cult leader who promised his followers a utopia in the jungles of South America after proclaiming himself messiah of the Peoples Temple, a San Francisco-based evangelist group. He ultimately led his followers into a mass suicide, which left more than 900 dead and came to be known as the Jonestown Massacre (November 18, 1978).

As a young child, Jones became a regular churchgoer, and, after graduating from Butler University, he decided to enter the ministry. In the 1950s and ’60s in Indianapolis, Indiana, Jones gained a reputation as a charismatic churchman who claimed to have psychic powers such as the ability to foretell the future and miraculously heal those who were sick. He was a vocal proponent of racial integration, a position that ran afoul of some church elders. In 1955 he established the Wings of Deliverance, a Pentecostal church that eventually became known as the Peoples Temple. During this time he was noted for his work with the homeless, and in the early 1960s he served as director of Indianapolis’s Human Rights Commission. Fearing a nuclear war, Jones relocated his church to northern California in 1965, first settling near Ukiah and then in San Francisco in 1971.

Jim Jones started a Pentecostal church that eventually saw 900 people commit suicide. How is this possible?

Mark 7:1–8 (LEB)

7 And the Pharisees and some of the scribes who had come from Jerusalem gathered to him. ² And they saw that some of his disciples were eating their bread with unclean—that is, unwashed—hands. ³ (For the Pharisees and all the Jews do not eat unless they wash their hands ritually, thus holding fast to the traditions of the elders. ⁴ And when they come from the marketplace, they do not eat unless they wash. And there are many other traditions which they have received and hold fast to—for example, the washing of cups and pitchers and bronze kettles and dining couches.) ⁵ And the Pharisees and the scribes asked him, “Why do your disciples not live according to the tradition of the elders, but eat their bread with unclean hands?” 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.”

Yeshua told the Pharisees that abandoning the commandment of God and teaching the commandments of men is vain worship. Would this not be how a cult forms? How far away from the commandment of God is mass suicide? When do we leave the non-cult realm and enter the cult realm? How many commandments do we have to ignore and how many traditions do we have to add before our worship is in vain? When do we go from serving Yahuah, the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, to serving a god of our imagination?

Here are some examples to look for in cultist behaviors that someone shared on a Facebook group to which I belong:

• A charismatic leader: Cults always follow a charismatic leader, living or dead, whose teachings are considered of the highest importance. This leader may be considered a genius, or may be considered a religious figure like a messiah or prophet.
• Ideological purity: Members are strongly discouraged from questioning the cult’s doctrine and any doubts are met with shame or punishment.
• Conformity and control: Cult leaders often exercise an extreme degree of control over members’ lives, including dictating what they can wear and eat and what kinds of relationships they can have. Conformity is also enforced by group members who police one another.
• Mind-altering practices: Sleep deprivation, chanting, meditation, and drugs are often used to break down individuals’ defenses and make them more susceptible to cult ideology.
• Isolation and love-bombing: It is common for people in cults to be encouraged to cut contact with outsiders, including close family members. Within the cult, new members are often subjected to love-bombing, a practice where new initiates are showered with love and praise to bring them deeper into the cult and foster a sense of belonging.
• Us-vs-them mentality: Cult members are often encouraged to see the cult as superior to life on the outside and to feel that those outside the cult lack understanding or insight.
• Apocalyptic thinking: Preparation for a supposed apocalypse or cataclysmic event is a major characteristic of many cults, especially cult religions to the point that it demands and changes your life to their purposes.
• Time and energy: Followers are expected to dedicate huge amounts of time and energy (and often money) to the cult to the exclusion of their own lives, interests, jobs, and families.

Some of these cult characteristics are found in most religious sects, so it is not extremely helpful; however, the degree to which they are enforced may be an indicator. If one is not allowed to ask questions such as, “Why does the bible say the Sabbath is the seventh day and to remember it, yet we encourage working on the Sabbath?”, is that a cult? How about the question, “Why do we use trees and eggs for our most important holy days that are merely copies of holy days of the nation’s gods, when the Creator, Yahuah, says not to worship Him with these things?”. Those questions would not be entertained in Christianity because the answers would indicate they come from tradition, not scripture, and are actually contrary to scripture. Consider the Jehovah Witness brand of Christianity. They know not to celebrate pagan feast days in the name of Yahuah, but they believe the Messiah was the angel Michael. So, most evangelical denominations call them a cult, yet these same groups that call the Jehovah Witnesses a cult, go against the words of the Creator in an equal error. Does that not make them a cult also?

Deuteronomy 12:29–32 (LEB)

²⁹ “When Yahweh your God has cut off the nations whom you are about to go to, to dispossess them before you, and you have dispossessed them, and you live in their land, ³⁰ take care so that you are not ensnared _⌊into imitating them_⌋ after their being destroyed from before you, and so that you not enquire concerning their gods, saying, ‘How did these nations serve their gods, and thus I myself want to do also.’ ³¹ You must not do so toward Yahweh your God, because of every detestable thing they have done for their gods Yahweh hates, for even their sons and their daughters they would burn in the fire to their gods. ³² All of the things that I am commanding you, you must diligently observe; you shall not add to it, and you shall not take away from it.”

Maybe we need to stop following man made, religious rules and start doing what the Creator told us. “All of the things that I am commanding you, you must diligently observe; you shall not add to it, and you shall not take away from it.“

The first thing that will come to mind to those steeped in the “cult” of dispensationalism is: “But that was for the Jews, we are gentile Christians”. Sorry, there is no such thing as a gentile Christian. One is either a gentile, meaning from the nations and at enmity with God, or a grafted in believer into the covenants. Yeshua, called Jesus today, quoted the verse in Deuteronomy that tells us all how to live.

Matthew 4:4 (LEB)

⁴ But he answered and said, “It is written, ‘Man will not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes out of the mouth of God.’ ”

Every word that comes out of the word of God includes the following: Exodus 20:8 (LEB) “Remember the day of the Sabbath, to consecrate it.” and Isaiah 24:4–6 (LEB) “The earth dries up, it withers; the world languishes, it withers. The elevated of the people of the earth languish,  and the earth is defiled beneath its inhabitants. For they have transgressed laws; they have passed by statutes; they have broken the everlasting covenant. Therefore a curse devours the earth, and the inhabitants in it suffer for their guilt. Therefore the inhabitants of the earth burn, and few men are left.”

“For they have transgressed laws; they have passed by statutes; they have broken the everlasting covenant.” This includes the whole earth, not just one nationality. Yeshua tells us eternal life is found in the commandments of God.

John 12:48–50 (LEB)

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.”

“His commandment is eternal life“. I thought Jesus gave us eternal life? Am I in a cult? No, He conquered sin and death, which is a different mission than we have. He is the word of God in flesh and is one with the Father’s commandments or word. If Yeshua told us to do something different than what the Father’s words say, then that would be a cult because He is the word of God. They have to agree or everything falls apart. For example, Yeshua never told anyone to work on the Sabbath, so that came from somewhere else. Satan is a Hebrew word meaning adversary or accuser. Are you an adversary to God by hating His commandments? Are you satanic?

Many people like to memorize and quote John 3:16, but don’t stop there! The one that practices the truth comes to the light.

John 3:16–21 (LEB)

¹⁶ For in this way God loved the world, so that he gave his one and only Son, in order that everyone who believes in him will not perish, but will have eternal life. ¹⁷ For God did not send his Son into the world in order that he should judge the world, but in order that the world should be saved through him. ¹⁸ The one who believes in him is not judged, but the one who does not believe has already been judged, because he has not believed in the name of the one and only Son of God. ¹⁹ And this is the judgment: that the light has come into the world, and people loved the darkness rather than the light, because their deeds were evil. ²⁰ For everyone who practices evil hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his deeds be exposed. ²¹ But the one who practices the truth comes to the light, in order that his deeds may be revealed, that they are done in God.

What is this “practicing the truth” the Messiah is speaking about?

Psalm 119:43 (LEB)

⁴³ And do not snatch the word of truth utterly from my mouth, for I hope in your ordinances.

Psalm 119:142 (LEB)

¹⁴² Your righteousness is an everlasting righteousness, and your law is truth.

Psalm 119:151 (LEB)

¹⁵¹ You are near, O Yahweh, and all your commands are truth.

Psalm 119:160 (LEB)

¹⁶⁰ The whole of your word is truth, and your every righteous judgment endures forever.

Psalm 43:3 (LEB)

³ Send your light and your truth; they shall lead me. They shall bring me to your holy mountain and to your dwelling places.

John 14:6–7 (LEB)

⁶ Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. ⁷ If you had known me, you would have known my Father also. From now on you know him and have seen him.”

The law, commands, words, ordinances and Yeshua are all equal with “the truth”. Therefore anything that is different than the law, commands, words, ordinances or Yeshua is a lie, deceit and error.

To conclude, it appears the definition of a cult should be anything that adds or takes away from the word of God. Deuteronomy chapters 12 and 13 spell it out for us. Once a person starts adding to God’s instructions, it becomes vain worship. When things are taken away, it becomes lawlessness. If God said to rest on the seventh day and not to work, no one can change that. If your religion has a bunch of rules that are not in the scriptures, they were added and are satanic by definition of the word pronounced sa-tan in Hebrew. Another term that fits is “the spirit of error”. The only two options are deceit and truth. The only way to know the Spirit of truth is to do what God instructs us to do.

1 John 3:4–10 (LEB)

⁴ Everyone who practices sin also practices lawlessness, and sin is lawlessness. ⁵ And you know that that one was revealed in order that he might take away sins, and in him there is no sin. ⁶ Everyone who resides in him does not sin. Everyone who sins has neither seen him nor known him. ⁷ Little children, let no one deceive you: the one who practices righteousness is righteous, just as that one is righteous. ⁸ The one who practices sin is of the devil, because the devil has been sinning from the beginning. For this reason the Son of God was revealed: in order to destroy the works of the devil. ⁹ Everyone who is fathered by God does not practice sin, because his seed resides in him, and he is not able to sin, because he has been fathered by God. ¹⁰ By this the children of God and the children of the devil are evident: everyone who does not practice righteousness is not of God, namely, the one who does not love his brother.

If you are going to be part of a cult, make it one where the charismatic leader is Yeshua, the rules that cannot be questioned come from God’s word, keeping the commandments of God is superior to the ways of the nations, and also be sure to love Yahuah your God with all of your actions, heart, mind and inner being. The world will experience a cataclysmic event where the Creator will judge everyone by His word that He gave us before hand. Repent and believe the gospel, or suffer and burn when Yahuah “comes out of His place to punish the iniquity of the inhabitants of the earth against him”.

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On that day many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and expel demons in your name, and perform many miracles in your name?’ And then I will say to them plainly, ‘I never knew you. Depart from me, you who practice lawlessness!’

Matthew 7:22–23 (LEB)

How can this be? People casting out demons and performing miracles are not even known to Yeshua, the Son of the living God? This should cause alarm bells to sound for the evangelical denominations in Christianity.

I was raised in the Pentecostal church, so I understand how much emphasis is placed on these sorts of gifts. Are they really “gifts” though? One thinking they are at the top of their game in Christianity are going to be shot down and not allowed into the kingdom, even after performing these great acts.

Ezekiel 3:17–21 (LEB)

¹⁷ “Son of man, I have appointed you as a watchman for the house of Israel. When you hear a word from my mouth, then you must warn them from me. ¹⁸ When I say to the wicked, ‘Surely you will die,’ and you do not warn him and you do not speak to warn the wicked from his wicked way so that he may live, that wicked person will die because of his guilt, and from your hand I will seek his blood. ¹⁹ And you, if you do warn the wicked and he does not turn from his wickedness and from his wicked way, on account of his guilt he will die, and you yourself will have saved your life. ²⁰ And when the righteous turns from his righteousness and does injustice, and I place a stumbling block before him, he will die, for you did not warn him. Because of his sin he will die, and his righteousness that he did will not be remembered, and his blood I shall seek from your hand. ²¹ And if you warn him, the righteous, not to sin, and the righteous does not sin, surely he will live, for he heeded a warning. And you will have saved your life.”

Ezekiel was told to go to the dispersed of the House of Israel. Ezekiel 3:11 (LEB) “And come, go to the exiles, to the children of your people, and you must speak to them, and say to them, ‘Thus says the Lord Yahweh!’ whether they listen or whether they fail to listen.” The Northern kingdom of Israel is still in the dispersion. James writes to the twelve tribes in the dispersion. Who is really back in the land?

James 1:1 (LEB)

1 James, a slave of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ, to the twelve tribes in the dispersion. Greetings!

When Ezekiel is called and taken to the exiles, it is a similar mission as Yeshua and the apostles.

Matthew 15:24 (LEB)

²⁴ But he answered and said, “I was not sent except to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.”

It is true that the Apostles performed signs and wonders, but they also kept the commandments of God, upbraided people for sin and told them to repent. Simon the magician was a good example of this. He thought the gifts of the Holy Spirit were for sale. It is similar to the question asked of faith healers: “Why not go to a children’s hospital and heal everyone there?”. It is a legitimate question. I can think of one of these types of ministries when I was younger, going to their meetings and actually knowing people who were healed. Yet, thirty years later they admit they were fraudulent and scamming money. Hopefully this leader has repented. The point is that signs and wonders do not trump lawlessness, which is breaking the commandments of God.

Acts 8:18–25 (LEB)

¹⁸ Now Simon, when he saw that the Spirit was given through the laying on of the apostles’ hands, offered them money, ¹⁹ saying, “Give to me also this power, so that whomever I place my hands on may receive the Holy Spirit!” ²⁰ But Peter said to him, “May your silver be destroyed along with you, because you thought you could acquire the gift of God by means of money! ²¹ You have no part or share in this matter, because your heart is not right before God. ²² Therefore repent of this wickedness of yours, and ask the Lord if perhaps the intent of your heart may be forgiven you!” ²³ For I see you are in a state of bitter envy and bound by unrighteousness.” ²⁴ But Simon answered and said, “You pray to the Lord for me so that nothing of what you have said will come upon me.” ²⁵ So when they had solemnly testified and spoken the word of the Lord, they turned back toward Jerusalem, and were proclaiming the good news to many villages of the Samaritans.

Yeshua indicates doing great miracles, prophesying and casting out demons by the authority of His name does not give one an automatic ticket to the Kingdom of God. Add to this list any other great things someone thinks they are doing, such as never missing a meeting at their religious institution, never consuming alcohol, tobacco, etc. These things pale in comparison to prophesying, casting out demons and performing miracles, yet people hang their salvation on them.

Matthew 7:21–23 (LEB)

²¹ “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter into the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. ²² On that day many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and expel demons in your name, and perform many miracles in your name?’ ²³ And then I will say to them plainly, ‘I never knew you. Depart from me, you who practice lawlessness!’

Lawlessness is the opposite of doing the will of the Father. The will of the Father was given audibly to the twelve tribes of Israel at Mount Herob by the “words”, now referred to as the ten commandments. When the people could not bare the thunder, fire, smoke and lightning of Yahuah speaking to them directly, He gave Moses the rest of the instructions of His will to tell the people, and told them there would be another like Moses who would teach the people in the future. This was referring to Yeshua. Here is the list of the twelve tribes that the Word was given to:

Numbers 1:1–16 (LEB)

1 Yahweh spoke to Moses in the desert of Sinai, in the tent of assembly, on the first of the month, in the second year after they came out of the land of Egypt, saying, ² “Take a census of the entire community of the Israelites according to their clans and their families, according to the number of names, every male individually ³ from twenty years old and above, everyone in Israel who is able to go to war. You and Aaron must muster them for their wars. ⁴ A man from each tribe will be with you, each man the head of his family. ⁵ And these are the names of the men who will assist you: from Reuben, Elizur son of Shedeur; ⁶ from Simeon, Shelumiel son of Zurishaddai; ⁷ from Judah, Nahshon son of Amminadab; ⁸ from Issachar, Nethanel son of Zuar; ⁹ from Zebulun, Eliab son of Helon. ¹⁰ From the descendants of Joseph: from Ephraim, Elishama son of Ammihud; from Manasseh, Gamaliel son of Pedahzur. ¹¹ From Benjamin, Abidan son of Gideoni; ¹² from Dan, Ahiezer son of Ammishaddai; ¹³ from Asher, Pagiel son of Ocran; ¹⁴ from Gad, Eliasaph son of Deuel; ¹⁵ and from Naphtali, Ahira son of Enan.” ¹⁶ These are the ones summoned from the community, the leaders of their ancestors’ tribes; they are the heads of Israel’s clans.

1. Reuben
2. Simeon
3. Levi; descendants Moses and Aaron the Levitical priests
4. Judah; descendants David, Messiah and southern kingdom. The “Jews”
5. Issachar
6. Zebulun
7. Joseph; descendants Ephraim and Manasseh often referring to the whole of the northern kingdom
8. Benjamin; the apostle Paul
9. Dan
10. Asher
11. Gad
12. Naphtali

These tribes were all scattered to the remote parts of the world for not doing the Father’s will. However, prophecy states throughout scripture that they will start doing the Father’s will again and be gathered in the future. Here is the Father’s will, in part, that He spoke to His people in an audible voice:

Exodus 20:2–21 (LEB)

² “I am Yahweh, your God, who brought you out from the land of Egypt, from the house of slaves. ³ “There shall be for you no other gods before me. ⁴ “You shall not make for yourself a divine image with any form that is in the heavens above or that is in the earth below or that is in the water below the earth. ⁵ You will not bow down to them, and you will not serve them, because I am Yahweh your God, a jealous God, punishing the guilt of the parents on the children on the third and on the fourth generations of those hating me, ⁶ and showing loyal love to thousands of generations of those loving me and of those keeping my commandments. ⁷ “You shall not misuse the name of Yahweh your God, because Yahweh will not leave unpunished anyone who misuses his name. ⁸ “Remember the day of the Sabbath, to consecrate it. ⁹ Six days you will work, and you will do all your work. ¹⁰ But the seventh day is a Sabbath for Yahweh your God; you will not do any work—you or your son or your daughter, your male slave or your female slave, or your animal, or your alien who is in your gates—¹¹ because in six days Yahweh made the heavens and the earth, the sea and all that is in them, and on the seventh day he rested. Therefore Yahweh blessed the seventh day and consecrated it. ¹² “Honor your father and your mother, so that your days can be long on the land that Yahweh your God is giving you. ¹³ “You shall not murder. ¹⁴ “You shall not commit adultery. ¹⁵ “You shall not steal. ¹⁶ “You shall not testify against your neighbor with a false witness. ¹⁷ “You shall not covet the house of your neighbor; you will not covet the wife of your neighbor or his male servant or his female servant or his ox or his donkey or anything that is your neighbor’s.”¹⁸ And all the people were seeing the thunder and the lightning and the sound of the ram’s horn and the mountain smoking, and the people saw, and they trembled, and they stood at a distance. ¹⁹ And they said to Moses, “You speak with us, and we will listen, but let not God speak with us, lest we die.” ²⁰ And Moses said to the people, “Do not be afraid. God has come to test you so that his fear will be before you so that you do not sin.” ²¹ And the people stood at a distance, and Moses approached the very thick cloud where God was.

The only signs and wonders here were performed by the Creator speaking to His people telling them what His will is for them to do. Their scattering for disobedience to His will seeded the whole Earth, which means anyone reading this is likely a descendant of one of these tribes genetically. What if you are not a direct descendant and want to be part of His people doing His will? Yahuah made provisions for this.

Numbers 15:15–16 (LEB)

¹⁵ For the assembly, there will be one decree for you and for the alien who dwells among you; it is an eternal decree for all your generations. You as well as the alien will be before Yahweh. ¹⁶ There will be one law and one stipulation for you and for the alien dwelling among you.’ ”

Paul puts this in “New Testament” terms for us.

Galatians 3:23–29 (LEB)

²³ But before faith came, we were detained under the law, imprisoned until the coming faith was revealed. ²⁴ So then, the law became our guardian until Christ, in order that we could be justified by faith. ²⁵ But after faith has come, we are no longer under a guardian. ²⁶ For you are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus, ²⁷ for as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ. ²⁸ There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. ²⁹ And if you are Christ’s, then you are descendants of Abraham, heirs according to the promise.

Many like to use the words of Paul to teach people that they no longer need to do the will of the Father. Some will use these verses in Galatians saying the law imprisoned us and was just a guardian and now it is “nailed to the cross”. The law did imprison us before Christ because we were all guilty of breaking it with no hope of redemption, but does that empower us to intentionally break the law now? That is, intentionally snub our noses at the will of the Father? Should we be shamelessly profaning His Sabbaths, eating what He told us not to eat, and engaging ourselves in sexual immorality or idolatry? When you are under a guardian do you disregard what you were taught by the guardian when you become of age? Maybe if everyone knew what Paul was referring to here with this term “guardian”, it would be clearer. “Guardian” or “tutor” is Strong’s G4084.

παιδεύω G4084 (paideuō), bring up, instruct, train, educate; παιδεία G4082 (paideia), upbringing, training, instruction, discipline; παιδευτής G4083 (paideutēs), instructor, teacher; παιδαγωγός G4080 (paidagōgos), custodian, guide, the man, usually a slave, whose task it was to conduct boys and youths to and from school and superintend their conduct generally.

CL The underlying root is pais, → child, boy. paideuō thus lit. means to be together with a child (the verbal ending ō-eu denotes a state); hence, to bring up, educate, instruct, teach, accustom. Derived from this is the noun paideia, which is found as early as the 6th cent. B.C. in the sense of education, and which connotes the process of education, development of culture, which the Sophists of the 5th cent. declared to be the chief aim of their work. Later the word was extended to cover adult education as well, and used generally of scientific training. Other derivatives are paidagōgos, one in charge of boys, custodian, tutor (usually referring to slaves), and paideutēs, teacher, educator.

D. Fürst, “Παιδεύω,” ed. Lothar Coenen, Erich Beyreuther, and Hans Bietenhard, New International Dictionary of New Testament Theology (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Publishing House, 1986), 775.

The Creator’s instruction are given for us to know how to live a successful life on Earth.

1 Timothy 1:8–11 (LEB)

⁸ But we know that the law is good, if anyone makes use of it lawfully, ⁹ knowing this, that the law is not given for a righteous person but for the lawless and rebellious, for the ungodly and sinners, for the unholy and totally worldly, for the one who kills his father and the one who kills his mother, for murderers, ¹⁰ sexually immoral people, homosexuals, kidnappers, liars, perjurers, and whatever else is opposed to sound teaching, ¹¹ according to the glorious gospel of the blessed God that I was entrusted with.

The law is for the law breakers; therefore, those who do the will of the Father have no need to be concerned with the law because they will not be found breaking it. Paul assumes you have learned the will of the Father and have been tutored by His word, understanding the greater concepts of the law and living in the Spirit. This does not mean we are to ignore the law or continually, purposefully break God’s laws because we think it is for the “Jews” due to ignorance of scripture. “Depart from me, you who practice lawlessness!“

Paul teaches Timothy how to “be trained in righteousness”. It is studying the scriptures, which at that time were the Torah, writings and prophets. Today we call this collection of writings the “Old Testament”, as if it is old and not still applicable to our lives. This is part of the great deception.

2 Timothy 3:12–17 (LEB)

¹² And indeed, all those who want to live in a godly manner in Christ Jesus will be persecuted. ¹³ But evil people and imposters will progress to the worse, deceiving and being deceived. ¹⁴ But you continue in the things which you have learned and are convinced of, because you know from whom you learned them, ¹⁵ and that from childhood you have known the holy writings that are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. ¹⁶ All scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness, ¹⁷ in order that the person of God may be competent, equipped for every good work.

Please do not rely on your signs and wonders for a mark of being a child of God. Do not listen to fables and deceivers trying to tell us Yahuah doesn’t care about His instructions anymore. They are deluded. Cast out demons, prophesy, heal the sick in His name, but most importantly, do the will of the Father: justice, mercy, taking care of the orphans and widows, honoring His special days, such as Sabbaths, fleeing from the idolatry of the nations. No one wants to hear. “I never knew you. Depart from me, you who practice lawlessness!”, then be thrown into the lake of fire. It is one thing to know Yeshua, but it is another thing to be known by Yeshua.

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.”

Repent and believe the gospel!

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Therefore everyone who hears these words of mine and does them will be like a wise man who built his house on the rock. And the rain came down and the rivers came and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it did not collapse, because its foundation was laid on the rock.

Matthew 7:24–25 (LEB)

How many people are building on sand? We understand what that means in the material world, and most people understand the value of a good foundation. What was our Messiah telling us when he said whoever did not listen to His words was similar to a person building a house on sand?

Matthew 7:24–27 (LEB)

²⁴ “Therefore everyone who hears these words of mine and does them will be like a wise man who built his house on the rock. ²⁵ And the rain came down and the rivers came and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it did not collapse, because its foundation was laid on the rock. ²⁶ And everyone who hears these words of mine and does not do them will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand. ²⁷ And the rain came down and the rivers came and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it collapsed, and its fall was great.”

When we see the word “therefore” we must understand that it is the conclusion of the sum of what has been stated previously. Whoever does the words of Yeshua is the one who built on a firm foundation, which is the rock. False prophets will surely cause one to build on sand, such as false hope and actions contrary to the Word of God.

Matthew 7:15–20 (LEB)

¹⁵ “Beware of false prophets who come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inside are ravenous wolves. ¹⁶ You will recognize them by their fruits: they do not gather grapes from thorn bushes or figs from thistles, do they? ¹⁷ In the same way, every good tree produces good fruit, but a bad tree produces bad fruit. ¹⁸ A good tree is not able to produce bad fruit, nor a bad tree to produce good fruit. ¹⁹ Every tree that does not produce good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. ²⁰ As a result, you will recognize them by their fruits.

This is not new information, but just a restatement from Moses, who was relaying the words of Yahuah. Yeshua, or Yahusha, came in the name of His Father Yahuah, only doing what He saw the Father do and only saying what He heard the Father say.

Deuteronomy 13:1–5 (LEB)

“If a prophet stands up in your midst or a dreamer of dreams and he gives to you a sign or wonder, ² and the sign or the wonder comes about that he spoke to you, saying, ‘Let us go after other gods (those whom you have not known), and let us serve them,’ ³ you must not listen to the words of that prophet or to that dreamer, for Yahweh your God is testing you to know whether you love Yahweh your God with all of your heart and with all of your inner self. ⁴ You shall go after Yahweh your God, and him you shall revere, and his commandment you shall keep, and to his voice you shall listen, and him you shall serve, and to him you shall hold fast. ⁵ But that prophet or the dreamer of that dream shall be executed, for he spoke falsely about Yahweh your God, the one bringing you out from the land of Egypt and the one redeeming you from the house of slavery, in order to seduce you from the way that Yahweh your God commanded you to go in it; so in this way you shall purge the evil from your midst.

“Every tree that does not produce good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire” is very similar to “so in this way you shall purge the evil from your midst“. These prophets will lead us astray if we do not study the narrow path and rebuke those who tell us things contrary to scripture.

Deuteronomy 10:12–20 (LEB)

¹² And now, Israel, what is Yahweh your God asking from you, except to revere Yahweh your God, to go in all his ways and to love him and to serve Yahweh your God with all your heart and with all your soul, ¹³ to keep the commandments of Yahweh and his statutes that I am commanding you today for your own good. ¹⁴ Look! For to Yahweh your God belong heaven and the highest heavens, the earth and all that is in it. ¹⁵ Yet to your ancestors Yahweh was very attached, so as to love them, and so he chose their offspring after them, namely you, from all the peoples, as it is today. ¹⁶ So you shall circumcise the foreskin of your heart, and do not be stubborn. ¹⁷ For Yahweh your God, he is God of the gods and Lord of the lords, the great and mighty God, the awesome one who is not partial, and he does not take bribes. ¹⁸ And he executes justice for the orphan and widow, and he is one who loves the alien, to give to them food and clothing. ¹⁹ And you shall love the alien, for you were aliens in the land of Egypt. ²⁰ Yahweh your God, you shall revere him, you shall serve him, and to him you shall cling, and by his name you shall swear.

In the latter days, the priests, pastors and prophets will lead many astray with fables and false gods. People are longing to hear the truth, but instead they receive lies.

Jeremiah 23:16–22 (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.’ ¹⁸ For who has stood in the council of Yahweh, that he has seen and heard his word? Who has listened attentively to his word and heard it? ¹⁹ Look, the storm of Yahweh has gone forth in wrath, even a whirling tempest. It will whirl upon the head of the wicked. ²⁰ The anger of Yahweh will not turn back until his doing and until his keeping the plans of his mind. In latter days you will look closely at it with understanding. ²¹ I have not sent the prophets, yet they ran. I have not spoken to them, yet they prophesied. ²² But if they had stood in my council, then they would have proclaimed my words to my people, and they would have caused them to turn from their evil way, and from the evil of their deeds.

I think of these words of Jeremiah when I read about people dreaming of a pre-tribulation rapture. This whole idea of a seven year tribulation with a group of people, being whisked away before anything bad happens sounds a lot like “‘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.’ “. Remember, “In latter days you will look closely at it with understanding“. People ignore scripture and will argue the rapture doctrine for hours if one engages them, yet most of the scripture they use is referring to the resurrection after the seventh trumpet. The Old Testament prophets say nothing about any event where a group of people called the church, who mostly disregard the commandments of God, are going to be delivered from the bad times that are coming to the Earth. Dispensational theology, the father of the pre-tribulation rapture, actually maintains that the the prophets of Yahuah did not see the rejection of the Messiah and the formation of the church. This was a parenthesis God had to insert into His plan gone wrong. “They are deluding you with visions of their mind“. This is ridiculous when one reads scripture, yet I had someone tell me I needed the Holy Spirit to show it to me because it cannot be found just by reading scripture.

Amos 3:7 (LEB)

⁷ Surely my Lord does not do anything unless he has revealed his secret to his servants the prophets.

Building on the sand of false doctrine will cause a person to be delusional and not see the plainly written words of scripture.

Matthew 7:21–23 (LEB)

²¹ “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter into the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. ²² On that day many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and expel demons in your name, and perform many miracles in your name?’ ²³ And then I will say to them plainly, ‘I never knew you. Depart from me, you who practice lawlessness!’

Yeshua will not know people who think they are doing all the good stuff while waiting for the rapture. How can this be? It is prophecy that says they will listen to prophets who Yahuah did not send and they will break His everlasting covenant. This is essentially the ten commandments, but one must learn “the will of my Father who is in heaven“. So, Yeshua tells us to listen to Him, then He says the ones He will know are the ones who does His Father’s will. The Father’s will is, “to keep the commandments of Yahweh and his statutes that I am commanding you today for your own good“. It is not hard to figure out if one doesn’t listen to the false prophets. What is really going to happen on Earth is prophesied by Isaiah.

Isaiah 24:1–6 (LEB)

24 Look! Yahweh is about to lay the earth waste and is about to devastate it, and he will twist her surface, and he will scatter her inhabitants. ² And it shall be as with the people, so with the priest; as with the slave, so with his master; as with the female slave, so with her mistress; as with the buyer, so with the seller; as with the lender, so with the borrower; as with the creditor, so with the one to whom he lends. ³ The earth shall be utterly laid waste, and it shall be utterly plundered, for Yahweh has spoken this word. ⁴ The earth dries up, it withers; the world languishes, it withers. The elevated of the people of the earth languish, ⁵ and the earth is defiled beneath its inhabitants. For they have transgressed laws; they have passed by statutes; they have broken the everlasting covenant. ⁶ Therefore a curse devours the earth, and the inhabitants in it suffer for their guilt. Therefore the inhabitants of the earth burn, and few men are left.

We shouldn’t be longing for the day of the Lord by wanting “Jesus to come back”. This is wishing for the “rapture”.

Amos 5:18–20 (LEB)

¹⁸ Alas, those who desire the day of Yahweh, why is this for you the day of Yahweh? It will be darkness and not light! ¹⁹ It will be as if a man fled from a lion and a bear met him; or he went into the house and leaned his hand against the wall and a snake bit him. ²⁰ Is not the day of Yahweh darkness and not light, and pitch dark with no brightness in it?

Peter gives us a similar scenario. This is where the sea washes away the rapture sandcastle.

2 Peter 3:10–13 (LEB)

¹⁰ But the day of the Lord will come like a thief, in which the heavens will disappear with a rushing noise, and the celestial bodies will be destroyed by being burned up, and the earth and the deeds done on it will be disclosed. ¹¹ Because all these things are being destroyed in this way, what sort of people must you be in holy behavior and godliness, ¹² while waiting for and hastening the coming of the day of God, because of which the heavens will be destroyed by being burned up and the celestial bodies will melt as they are consumed by heat! ¹³ But according to his promise, we are waiting for new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness resides.

Even in the book of Enoch we see more of what happens when “Jesus comes back”. He doesn’t return with raptured church people to execute His judgement.

Enoch 1:3-9

3. Concerning the elect I said, and took up my parable concerning them:
   The Holy Great One will come forth from His dwelling,
4. And the eternal God will tread upon the earth, (even) on Mount Sinai,
   ⌈And appear from His camp⌉
   And appear in the strength of His might from the heaven of heavens.
5. And all shall be smitten with fear
   And the Watchers shall quake,
   And great fear and trembling shall seize them unto the ends of the earth.
6. And the high mountains shall be shaken,
   And the high hills shall be made low,
   And shall melt like wax before the flame
7. And the earth shall be ⌈wholly⌉ rent in sunder,
   And all that is upon the earth shall perish,
   And there shall be a judgement upon all (men).
8. But with the righteous He will make peace. And will protect the elect,
   And mercy shall be upon them. And they shall all belong to God, And
   they shall be prospered, And they shall ⌈all⌉ be blessed. ⌈And He will help
   them all⌉, And light shall appear unto them, ⌈And He will make peace
   with them⌉.
   21
9. And behold! He cometh with ten thousands of ⌈His⌉ holy ones To
   execute judgement upon all, And to destroy ⌈all⌉ the ungodly: And to
   convict all flesh Of all the works ⌈of their ungodliness⌉ which they have
   ungodly committed, And of all the hard things which ungodly
   sinners ⌈have spoken⌉ against Him.

Building on sand is the same as not listening to our Messiah, and not doing the will of the Father. The will of the Father, Yahuah, is revealed to us through scripture. Keep His commandments and statutes, do justice and mercy, feed the hungry, take care of the foreigner, the widow and the orphan, sit down on the Sabbaths.

Deuteronomy 32:1–5 (LEB)

“Give ear, O heavens, and I will speak, and let the earth hear the words of my mouth. ² May my teaching trickle like the dew, my words like rain showers on tender grass, and like spring showers on new growth. ³ For I will proclaim the name of Yahweh; ascribe greatness to our God! ⁴ The Rock, his work is perfect, for all his ways are just; he is a faithful God, and without injustice; righteous and upright is he. ⁵ They have behaved corruptly toward him; they are not his children; this is their flaw, a generation crooked and perverse.

Be sure to build on the Rock Moses told us about and not the sands of the false prophets, pastors and priests. Repent and believe the gospel!

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 Come to me, all of you who labor and are burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke on you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy to carry and my burden is light.”

Matthew 11:28–30 (LEB)

Yeshua spoke to the people in parables so that those interested would take time to ponder and understand the message. Many times the parables flew over everyone’s head and they were not fully understood. The parable of the wedding celebration is an interesting story that I have not heard spoken about very much.

Matthew 22:1–7 (LEB)

22 And continuing, Jesus spoke to them again in parables, saying, ² “The kingdom of heaven may be compared to a man—a king—who gave a wedding celebration for his son. ³ And he sent his slaves to summon those who had been invited to the wedding celebration, and they did not want to come. ⁴ Again he sent other slaves, saying, ‘Tell those who have been invited, “Behold, I have prepared my dinner; my oxen and fattened cattle have been slaughtered, and everything is ready. Come to the wedding celebration!” ’ ⁵ But they paid no attention and went away—this one to his own field, that one to his business. ⁶ And the others, seizing his slaves, mistreated them and killed them. ⁷ And the king was angry and sent his troops and destroyed those murderers and burned their city.

Anyone who has read the Old Testament can probably see this is talking about Israel, who continually ignored Yahuah and mistreated or killed the prophets that He sent to them. Both the House of Israel and the House of Judah were destroyed and dispersed with only a remnant of Judah coming back from Babylon. Yahuah then sent His servants out to the highways and byways to open the invitation to everyone, which is bringing the good news, or gospel, to the nations so that they can come near to God now.

Matthew 22:8–10 (LEB)

⁸ Then he said to his slaves, ‘The wedding celebration is ready, but those who had been invited were not worthy. ⁹ Therefore, go out to the places where the roads exit the city and invite to the wedding celebration as many people as you find.’ ¹⁰ And those slaves went out into the roads and gathered everyone whom they found, both evil and good, and the wedding celebration was filled with dinner guests.

The original guests were scattered due to their disobedience. This is corporate disobedience and punishment. When we read to the end, there is one of the new found guests who does not have a wedding garment. This can be anything from disobedience for not wearing the provided wedding garment to being found naked at the resurrection.

Matthew 22:11–14 (LEB)

¹¹ But when the king came in to see the dinner guests, he saw a man there not dressed in wedding clothes. ¹² And he said to him, ‘Friend, how did you come in here, not having wedding clothes?’ But he could say nothing. ¹³ Then the king said to the servants, ‘Tie him up hand and foot and throw him into the outer darkness. In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth!’ ¹⁴ For many are called but few are chosen.”

This idea about being excited, as the king was to have his friends come to his son’s wedding, is quite a sad story when analyzed. Imagine having an exciting event that you can’t wait to tell your family and friends about, only to be ignored and belittled even to the point that the people beat your servants. Yeshua was trying to tell Jerusalem that they would be destroyed for their actions. They were destroyed in 70 CE, and have never fully recovered.

When I began to really study scripture and follow the church into the first five centuries, it became clear to me how much influence from foreign gods and philosophy became introduced into Christianity. I realized that sometime during the apostle’s lifetime the church left the truth of scripture for myths and abandoned the instructions of God. Paul prophesies this in the book of Acts to the Ephesians.

Acts 20:25–31 (LEB)

²⁵ “And now behold, I know that all of you, among whom I went about proclaiming the kingdom, will see my face no more. ²⁶ Therefore I testify to you on this very day that I am guiltless of the blood of all of you, ²⁷ for I did not shrink from proclaiming to you the whole purpose of God. ²⁸ Be on guard for yourselves and for all the flock among which the Holy Spirit has appointed you as overseers, to shepherd the church of God which he obtained through the blood of his own Son. ²⁹ I know that after my departure fierce wolves will come in among you, not sparing the flock. ³⁰ And from among you yourselves men will arise, speaking perversions of the truth in order to draw away the disciples after them. ³¹ Therefore be on the alert, remembering that night and day for three years I did not stop warning each one of you with tears.

A few years later we see church father Ignatius fulfilling prophecy with his letter to the Ephesians.

CHAPTER VI.–HAVE RESPECT TO THE BISHOP AS TO CHRIST HIMSELF.

Now the more any one sees the bishop keeping silence, the more ought he to revere him. For we ought to receive every one whom the Master of the house sends to be over His household, as we would do Him that sent him. It is manifest, therefore, that we should look upon the bishop even as we would upon the Lord Himself. And indeed Onesimus himself greatly commends your good order in God, that ye all live according to the truth, and that no sect has any dwelling-place among you. Nor, indeed, do ye hearken to any one rather than to Jesus Christ speaking in truth.

Early on, church fathers began to depart from the truth elevating “bishops” to the level of God. There are two versions of the letter Ignatius wrote to the Magnesians. Which one is accurate is anyone’s guess, but they leave two different impressions. The first version of the letter would make one believe Ignatius was eliminating the Sabbath and changing it to the “Lord’s Day”.

If, therefore, those who were brought up in the ancient order of things have come to the possession of a new hope, no longer observing the Sabbath, but living in the observance of the Lord’s Day, on which also our life has sprung up again by Him and by His death — whom some deny, by which mystery we have obtained faith, and therefore endure, that we may be found the disciples of Jesus Christ, our only Master — how shall we be able to live apart from Him, whose disciples the prophets themselves in the Spirit did wait for Him as their Teacher? And therefore He whom they rightly waited for, being come, raised them from the dead.

The first version of this letter causes Ignatius to be in the false prophet category as per Deuteronomy 13. The second version is a little better, but still adding and taking away from God’s word. It appears that Ignatius wants us to “keep the Sabbath after a spiritual manner, rejoicing in meditation on the law“, and “And after the observance of the Sabbath, let every friend of Christ keep the Lord’s Day as a festival“. I am simply pointing out the fork in the road very early in Christianity.

If, therefore, those who were brought up in the ancient order of things have come to the possession of a new hope, no longer observing the Sabbath, but living in the observance of the Lord’s Day, on which also our life has sprung up again by Him and by His death — whom some deny, by which mystery we have obtained faith, and therefore endure, that we may be found the disciples of Jesus Christ, our only Master — how shall we be able to live apart from Him, whose disciples the prophets themselves in the Spirit did wait for Him as their Teacher? And therefore He whom they rightly waited for, being come, raised them from the dead.
If, then, those who were conversant with the ancient Scriptures came to newness of hope, expecting the coming of Christ, as the Lord teaches us when He says, “If ye had believed Moses, ye would have believed Me, for he wrote of Me;” and again, “Your father Abraham rejoiced to see My day, and he saw it, and was glad; for before Abraham was, I am;” how shall we be able to live without Him? The prophets were His servants, and foresaw Him by the Spirit, and waited for Him as their Teacher, and expected Him as their Lord and Saviour, saying, “He will come and save us.” Let us therefore no longer keep the Sabbath after the Jewish manner, and rejoice in days of idleness; for “he that does not work, let him not eat.” For say the [holy] oracles, “In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat thy bread.” But let every one of you keep the Sabbath after a spiritual manner, rejoicing in meditation on the law, not in relaxation of the body, admiring the workmanship of God, and not eating things prepared the day before, nor using lukewarm drinks, and walking within a prescribed space, nor finding delight in dancing and plaudits which have no sense in them. And after the observance of the Sabbath, let every friend of Christ keep the Lord’s Day as a festival, the resurrection-day, the queen and chief of all the days of the week. Looking forward to this, the prophet declared, “To the end, for the eighth day,” on which our life both sprang up again, and the victory over death was obtained in Christ, whom the children of perdition, the enemies of the Saviour, deny, “whose god is their belly, who mind earthly things,” who are “lovers of pleasure, and not lovers of God, having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof.” These make merchandise of Christ, corrupting His word, and giving up Jesus to sale: they are corrupters of women, and covetous of other men’s possessions, swallowing up wealth insatiably; from whom may ye be delivered by the mercy of God through our Lord Jesus Christ!

Yahuah makes it clear the Sabbath is very important, and Yeshua shows us the way it is to be kept. This idea of the “Lord’s Day” is no where in scripture, so I cannot say where it came from other than tradition. Observing the first day as a festival to the Lord does not sound like a bad idea, but all one has to do is read about Jeroboam to see how badly it can turn out. After the “Lord’s Day”, the church continued to make feast days and festivals the same as the nations around them, supposedly to honor Yahuah. The problem is this is the very thing Yahuah said not to do and is the sin of Jeroboam. The point is that these early church fathers started introducing ideas that Yeshua, the apostles and certainly the Torah and prophets never mentioned. This is a huge red flag.

Once I saw the departure happening from the truth in ancient literature, I realized that Christianity has morphed into something that was never intended. Now it is common for Christians to believe the instructions of God, Torah, were a curse that was nailed to the cross. This is absurdity. Even Ignatius is telling us to use the Sabbath to study the law! “But let every one of you keep the Sabbath after a spiritual manner, rejoicing in meditation on the law“.

I began to share some of these discoveries with Christian friends and family thinking they would be at least interested in what I was learning. Once I realized that the Creator’s instructions were for our benefit, all the meaning that I had glossed over in scripture my whole life began to come alive. Things like the Sabbath being still important and looking at how Yeshua taught the “Old Testament” and how it applies in our life. However, I feel like the King whose friends and family were not interested and had other things to do. Even now, when we have completely changed direction and left the antinomian environment of the “church”, there does not appear to be a spark of interest in finding out why someone who was heavily involved in Christian churches for many, many years would leave and start a home church reading Torah portions on the Sabbath. Even the Jehovah’s Witnesses are not interested when I talk about following the instructions of Yahuah.

Deuteronomy 13:1–4 (LEB)

“If a prophet stands up in your midst or a dreamer of dreams and he gives to you a sign or wonder, ² and the sign or the wonder comes about that he spoke to you, saying, ‘Let us go after other gods (those whom you have not known), and let us serve them,’ ³ you must not listen to the words of that prophet or to that dreamer, for Yahweh your God is testing you to know whether you love Yahweh your God with all of your heart and with all of your inner self. ⁴ You shall go after Yahweh your God, and him you shall revere, and his commandment you shall keep, and to his voice you shall listen, and him you shall serve, and to him you shall hold fast.

When we were attending organized religious institutions, I never really found your average Christian that was very interested in scripture. It was more about church attendance and church events than the things of God. Many say the best cure for Christianity is to start reading the Bible, maybe this is true. The Apostle John shows us how the church was taking a wild turn in his day. There were leaders who wanted nothing to do with the apostle.

3 John 9–11 (LEB)

⁹ I wrote something to the church, but Diotrephes, who wants to be first among them, does not acknowledge us. ¹⁰ Therefore, if I come, I will call attention to the deeds he is doing, disparaging us with evil words. And not being content with these, he does not receive the brothers himself, and he hinders those wanting to do so and throws them out of the church. ¹¹ Dear friend, do not imitate what is evil, but what is good. The one who does good is of God; the one who does evil has not seen God.

These blog posts are a good outlet for me and I appreciate everyone who reads them, comments and looks for discussion. The world of social media has given me some new friends and can be compared to the highways and byways. There certainly is a diversity of beliefs in the Christian world on social media. However, it is amazing, and a confirmation to me, to see people from all walks of Christianity, who actually take the time to study scripture, independently come to the same conclusions as I have. There is quite a movement among believers to come back to God and follow His instructions rather than the traditions of men.

Matthew 11:28–30 (LEB)

²⁸ Come to me, all of you who labor and are burdened, and I will give you rest. ²⁹ Take my yoke on you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. ³⁰ For my yoke is easy to carry and my burden is light.”

Our flesh cannot keep the law of God, but through the Spirit we are able to and should. We were bound to the penalty of the law through sin, “Romans 7:6 (LEB) But now we have been released from the law, because we have died to that by which we were bound, so that we may serve in newness of the Spirit and not in oldness of the letter of the law. Paul explained how to keep the law very well for anyone who takes time to understand the law.

Romans 7:11–12 (LEB)

¹¹ For sin, seizing the opportunity through the commandment, deceived me and through it killed me. ¹² So then, the law is holy, and the commandment is holy and righteous and good.

Peter warns us that those who do not do their homework will be lead away by lawless people teaching Paul. This is the absolute truth, and the apathy for the things of God among Christians today is stunning. This is how Christians can believe the Holy instructions of the Creator are evil and had to be “nailed to the cross”. It is shameful that this is taught and more people do not call out this heresy. It is a cancer that is rotting away Christianity.

2 Peter 3:14–17 (LEB)

¹⁴ Therefore, dear friends, because you are waiting for these things, make every effort to be found at peace, spotless and unblemished in him. ¹⁵ And regard the patience of our Lord as salvation, just as also our dear brother Paul wrote to you, according to the wisdom that was given to him, ¹⁶ as he does also in all his letters, speaking in them about these things, in which there are some things hard to understand, which the ignorant and unstable distort to their own destruction, as they also do the rest of the scriptures. ¹⁷ Therefore, dear friends, because you know this beforehand, guard yourselves so that you do not lose your own safe position because you have been led away by the error of lawless persons.¹⁸ But grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. To him be the glory, both now and to the day of eternity. Amen.

Yahuah is going to bring justice to this earth, and those who hate His instructions will not fare very well. It doesn’t matter if you attend some form of organized religion, or think you are doing great things. The scales will be balanced. The god that is often preached about today is not Yahuah of the Bible. The god that says we no longer need to be concerned about commandments is a myth and deception created by man’s desire to do its own will and ignore the “everlasting covenant”.

Isaiah 24:1–6 (LEB)

24 Look! Yahweh is about to lay the earth waste and is about to devastate it, and he will twist her surface, and he will scatter her inhabitants. ² And it shall be as with the people, so with the priest; as with the slave, so with his master; as with the female slave, so with her mistress; as with the buyer, so with the seller; as with the lender, so with the borrower; as with the creditor, so with the one to whom he lends. ³ The earth shall be utterly laid waste, and it shall be utterly plundered, for Yahweh has spoken this word. ⁴ The earth dries up, it withers; the world languishes, it withers. The elevated of the people of the earth languish, ⁵ and the earth is defiled beneath its inhabitants. For they have transgressed laws; they have passed by statutes; they have broken the everlasting covenant. ⁶ Therefore a curse devours the earth, and the inhabitants in it suffer for their guilt. Therefore the inhabitants of the earth burn, and few men are left.

The “everlasting covenant” is the language used with Noah, and throughout scripture talking of those who keep the covenant, or do what He says.

Genesis 9:16–17 (LEB)

¹⁶ The bow shall be in the clouds, and I will see it, so as to remember the everlasting covenant between God and between every living creature, with all flesh that is upon the earth.” ¹⁷ And God said to Noah, “This is the sign of the covenant which I am establishing between me and all flesh that is upon the earth.”

Are you keeping the everlasting covenant that Yeshua preached, or do you have a covenant with an imaginary god that says the covenant was “nailed to the cross”? Yeshua started His ministry by quoting Isaiah 61. There are two sides to every covenant and a covenant is an agreement between two parties, not just one party promising to do or not do something.

Isaiah 61:8–11 (LEB)

⁸ For I, Yahweh, love justice, hate robbery and injustice, and I will faithfully give their reward, and I will make an everlasting covenant with them. ⁹ And their descendants will be known among the nations, and their offspring in the midst of the peoples. All those who see them shall recognize them, that they are descendants whom Yahweh has blessed. ¹⁰ I will rejoice greatly in Yahweh; my being shall shout in exultation in my God. For he has clothed me with garments of salvation, he has covered me with the robe of righteousness, as a bridegroom adorns himself with a head wrap like a priest, and as a bride adorns herself with her jewelry. ¹¹ For as the earth produces its sprout, and as a garden makes its plants sprout, so the Lord Yahweh will make righteousness sprout, and praise before all the nations.

The yoke is easy and the burden is light, meaning there is still a yoke and burden; however, don’t let religion make it hard and burdensome. There are at least two ways to look at every scripture in the New Testament. If a person tries to understand the New Testament without studying the Torah, Prophets and Writings, that person will be led astray to lawlessness very easily. Just take a look around and see for yourself. Repent and believe the gospel!

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Grass withers; the flower withers,

but the word of our God will stand forever.

Isaiah 40:8 (LEB)

If I were a song writer I would write a country song with the title of this blog post. When I was younger I was obsessed with mowing the lawn. It could be that one of my first jobs was to mow, at times, sixty hours a week, on a college campus where I worked. There is satisfaction seeing a nicely mowed lawn, but to what end?

Ecclesiastes 1:2–9 (LEB)

² “Vanity of vanities!” says the Teacher, “Vanity of vanities! All is vanity!” ³ What does a person gain in all his toil with which he toils under the sun? ⁴ A generation goes, and a generation comes, but the earth stands forever. ⁵ The sun rises, and the sun goes down; to its place it hurries, and there it rises again. ⁶ The wind goes to the south and goes around to the north; around and around it goes, and on its circuit the wind returns. ⁷ All the streams flow to the sea, but the sea is never full; to the place where the streams flow, there they continue to flow. ⁸ All things toil continuously; no one can ever finish describing this. The eye is never satisfied with seeing, and the ear is never filled with hearing. ⁹ What has been—it is what will be; what has been done—it is what will be done; there is nothing new under the sun.

One day I had the intention to cut all the grass in the ditches in front of our house, which could easily be a four hour job. My daughter asked if we could go fishing, and I told her we couldn’t because I need to mow the ditches. All she said to me is “Why?”. It was a deeper question than she ever realized, we went fishing, and I scarcely cut the grass in the ditches any more.

The point is that we have a very short time on this earth. Do we want to spend a large amount of our time doing meaningless work, or should we look at things differently? Solomon found that all toil is profitless and repetitious, and later he realized the most important duty in life.

Ecclesiastes 12:13–14 (LEB)

¹³ Now that all has been heard, here is the final conclusion: Fear God and obey his commandments, for this is the whole duty of man. ¹⁴ For God will bring every deed into judgment, including every secret thing, whether good or evil.

Solomon was quoting Deuteronomy. It was the duty of every king of Israel to write their own copy of the Torah. Solomon was very aware of the commandments of Yahuah, even though he broke many later in life.

Deuteronomy 5:29 (LEB)

²⁹ If only they had such a mind’; that is, to fear me and to keep all my commandments at all times, so that it will go well for them and for their children forever.

Solomon mingled himself with traditions of foreign gods much like the church does today. The result of this great sin was that it angered Yahuah and He split Solomon’s kingdom. What do you suppose will happen with those who do the same things today? The holidays the church celebrates are all rooted in the traditions of these same gods that became the stumbling block of Solomon. Each generation becomes more wicked than the last.

1 Kings 11:4–8 (LEB)

⁴ It happened at the time of Solomon’s old age that his wives guided his heart after other gods, and his heart was not fully with Yahweh his God as the heart of David his father had been. ⁵ Solomon went after Ashtoreth the god of the Sidonians and after Milcom the abhorrence of the Ammonites. ⁶ So Solomon did evil in the eyes of Yahweh and did not fully follow after Yahweh as David his father. ⁷ At that time, Solomon built a high place for Chemosh, the abomination of Moab, on the mountain which faces Jerusalem and for Molech, the abomination of the Ammonites. ⁸ Thus he did for all of his foreign wives, offering incense and sacrificing to their gods.

Solomon did not keep “my covenant and my ordinances which I have commanded you”, therefore the kingdom went to ruin. This is what happens to our lives when we live in disobedience to the covenants of God.

1 Kings 11:9–11 (LEB)

⁹ Yahweh was angry with Solomon, for he had turned his heart from Yahweh, the God of Israel who had appeared to him twice. ¹⁰ And he had commanded him concerning this matter not to go after other gods, but he did not keep that which Yahweh commanded. ¹¹ So Yahweh said to Solomon, “Because this was with you, and you did not keep my covenant and my ordinances which I have commanded you, I will certainly tear the kingdom from you, and I will give it to your servant.

I am not implying cutting grass is an evil thing to do. I am only using it as an example to point out how meaningless it is in the scope of eternity. We have work that is necessary to function in daily life, but don’t get caught in the trap of being obsessed with these time consuming jobs that are so insignificant when we look at “the whole duty of man”.

Matthew 16:26–27 (LEB)

²⁶ For what will a person be benefited if he gains the whole world but forfeits his life? Or what will a person give in exchange for his life? ²⁷ For the Son of Man is going to come in the glory of his Father with his angels, and at that time he will reward each one according to what he has done.

The parable of the sower uses the analogy of farming to bring a very important point across to the listeners. Yeshua relates much of His teaching to agriculture. It is a timeless occupation that brings one closer to the ways of God. Producing food for people to eat is more noble than maintaining a lawn, in my opinion.

Mark 4:3–9 (LEB)

³ “Listen! Behold, the sower went out to sow. ⁴ And it happened that while he was sowing, some seed fell on the side of the path, and the birds came and devoured it. ⁵ And other seed fell on the rocky ground where it did not have much soil, and it sprang up at once, because it did not have any depth of soil. ⁶ And when the sun rose it was scorched, and because it did not have enough root, it withered. ⁷ And other seed fell among the thorn plants, and the thorn plants came up and choked it, and it did not produce grain. ⁸ And other seed fell on the good soil, and produced grain, coming up and increasing, and it bore a crop—one thirty and one sixty and one a hundred times as much. ⁹ And he said, “Whoever has ears to hear, let him hear!”

Yeshua gave us these parables so “Whoever has ears to hear, let him hear!”. This parable should be self explanatory to those who study God’s word; however, many may not be able to relate the word of God to seeds being planted in various places.

Isaiah 6:9–10 (LEB)

⁹ And he said, “Go and say to this people, ‘Keep on listening and do not comprehend! And keep on looking and do not understand!’ ¹⁰ Make the heart of this people insensitive, and make its ears unresponsive, and shut its eyes so that it may not look with its eyes and listen with its ears and comprehend with its mind and turn back, and it may be healed for him.”

Yahuah will eventually blind people to the truth if they continually disregard His instructions. These people invent their own self righteousness. In the following passage of the letter to the Romans, Paul is speaking to those who knew the requirements of God, but ignored them. Specifically, this is the scattered northern kingdom, also called the House of Israel, who left Yahuah to worship other gods and was cut off, and it applies to those in the Christian world as well.

Romans 1:27–32 (LEB)

²⁸ And just as they did not see fit to recognize God, God gave them over to a debased mind, to do the things that are not proper, ²⁹ being filled with all unrighteousness, wickedness, greediness, malice, full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, malevolence. They are gossipers, ³⁰ slanderers, haters of God, insolent, arrogant, boasters, contrivers of evil, disobedient to parents, ³¹ senseless, faithless, unfeeling, unmerciful, ³² who, although they know the requirements of God, that those who do such things are worthy of death, not only do they do the same things, but also they approve of those who do them.

Yeshua, commonly transliterated to “Jesus”, explains the parable of the sower to His followers.

Mark 4:13–20 (LEB)

¹³ And he said to them, “Do you not understand this parable? And how will you understand all the parables? ¹⁴ The sower sows the word. ¹⁵ And these are the ones beside the path where the word is sown, and whenever they hear it, immediately Satan comes and takes away the word that was sown in them. ¹⁶ And these are like the ones sown on the rocky ground, who whenever they hear the word immediately receive it with joy. ¹⁷ And they have no root in themselves, but are temporary. Then when affliction or persecution comes because of the word, immediately they fall away. ¹⁸ And others are the ones sown among the thorn plants—these are the ones who hear the word, ¹⁹ and the cares of the world and the deceitfulness of wealth and the desires for other things come in and choke the word and it becomes unproductive. ²⁰ And those are the ones sown on the good soil, who hear the word and receive it* and bear fruit—one thirty and one sixty and one a hundred times as much.”

It is very important to study God’s words and apply them in our lives. We can be easily distracted and deceived to follow a false gospel, ignoring the things Yeshua told us to do while we think we are actually doing them. “And the cares of the world and the deceitfulness of wealth and the desires for other things come in and choke the word and it becomes unproductive.” If we are not careful to continually have our mind fixed on the things of God, what we know will escape us. This is similar to our minds being given to a strong delusion or a “debased mind”.

Mark 4:23–25 (LEB)

²³ If anyone has ears to hear, let him hear!” ²⁴ And he said to them, “Take care what you hear! With the measure by which you measure out, it will be measured out to you, and will be added to you. ²⁵ For whoever has, more will be given to him, and whoever does not have, even what he has will be taken away from him.”

Take time out of your busy mowing schedule to get closer to the living God, Yahuah; learn what He says then do it. Sections of tall grass produce clover, daisies and flowers that you may have never before noticed. When one follows the instructions of God, nature will cooperate. Learn to also cooperate with nature instead of fighting against it.

Conforming to the ways of the world and not taking time to learn God’s ways will lead to destruction. The Sabbath day is a great gift Yahuah gave to us so we could forget about our toiling and lawn mowing, and focus on resting our souls, spending time meditating on our purpose and His words. Repent and believe the gospel!

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Can a human make for himself gods? Yet they are not gods!” “Therefore look, I am about to let them know, this time I am going to let them know my power and my might, and they will know that my name is Yahweh.”

Jeremiah 16:20–21 (LEB)

There are many gods that we see in 2022. Unfortunately, most of these gods only exist in the minds of the people who have created them, and do not resemble the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, whom introduced himself as Yahuah. The Creator God told us what His name will be forever. The English equivalent of God’s name is YHWH, from Hebrew, יהוה. The Lexham English version of the Bible transliterates these Hebrew letters to the name “Yahweh”, where most translations substitute the name with “LORD”. I use “Yahuah” simply to show another variation of the transliterated English name.

Exodus 3:15 (LEB)

¹⁵ And God said again to Moses, “So you must say to the Israelites, ‘Yahweh, the God of your ancestors, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, has sent me to you. This is my name forever, and this is my remembrance from generation to generation.’

One way of creating a new god is for an organization to conduct a survey in a city or town to find out what people like and dislike about attending church, and what would make them want to come to church or stay away. The organization is able to use this information to determine what type of god to present with the help of committees and computer models, then boom, a mega church is born. The “seeker friendly” gospel is customized, and a new god gets created. If each person is then allowed to imagine “what it means to them”, then everyone can have their own god that thinks and acts just like themselves. This is a great concept because no one’s feelings ever get hurt, the church explodes with growth and leadership makes a lot of money. What could go wrong?

Jeremiah 23:16–22 (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.’ ¹⁸ For who has stood in the council of Yahweh, that he has seen and heard his word? Who has listened attentively to his word and heard it? ¹⁹ Look, the storm of Yahweh has gone forth in wrath, even a whirling tempest. It will whirl upon the head of the wicked. ²⁰The anger of Yahweh will not turn back until his doing and until his keeping the plans of his mind. In latter days you will look closely at it with understanding. ²¹ I have not sent the prophets, yet they ran. I have not spoken to them, yet they prophesied. ²² But if they had stood in my council, then they would have proclaimed my words to my people, and they would have caused them to turn from their evil way, and from the evil of their deeds.

The inventors of the “seeker friendly” movement may think they have developed something new, but it is from an old playbook. All one has to do is understand the history of the church to see this. So, what are some telltale signs that one believes in an imaginary god? Yahuah gave us His words and told us exactly what He expects from His people. I once read that people trained to spot counterfeit money do not study what counterfeits look like, they study every detail of the real thing so they can then spot fake currency easier.

In the early days of the church, people were also worshiping many different gods with different attributes. Paul found a unique way to introduce Yahuah to the people of Areopagus, even citing one of their poets, Aratus.

Acts 17:22–31 (LEB)

²² So Paul stood there in the middle of the Areopagus and said, “Men of Athens, I see you are very religious in every respect. ²³ For as I was passing through and observing carefully your objects of worship, I even found an altar on which was inscribed, ‘To an unknown God.’ Therefore what you worship without knowing it, this I proclaim to you—²⁴ the God who made the world and all the things in it. This one, being Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in temples made by human hands, ²⁵ nor is he served by human hands as if he needed anything, because he himself gives to everyone life and breath and everything. ²⁶ And he made from one man every nation of humanity to live on all the face of the earth, determining their fixed times and the fixed boundaries of their habitation, ²⁷ to search for God, if perhaps indeed they might feel around for him and find him. And indeed he is not far away from each one of us, ²⁸ for in him we live and move and exist, as even some of your own poets have said: ‘For we also are his offspring.’ ²⁹ Therefore, because we are offspring of God, we ought not to think the divine being is like gold or silver or stone, an image formed by human skill and thought. ³⁰ Therefore although God has overlooked the times of ignorance, he now commands all people everywhere to repent, ³¹ because he has set a day on which he is going to judge the world in righteousness by the man who he has appointed, having provided proof to everyone by raising him from the dead.”

Notice how Paul describes Yeshua (Jesus) to these people as, “the man who he has appointed, having provided proof to everyone by raising him from the dead“. Paul does not introduce Yeshua as a new god who eliminated Yahuah’s instructions, or the start of a brand new religion. He states, “although God has overlooked the times of ignorance, he now commands all people everywhere to repent“. He is telling them to repent which means to stop sinning and start following the Creator’s instructions. Why? “Because he has set a day on which he is going to judge the world in righteousness“.

Unfortunately, as the Gentiles, otherwise known as people from the nations, started to take over the leadership roles blending the attributes of their former gods with Yahuah. Terms such as “New” and “Old” testaments were coined, and as proclaimed by Peter, people would twist the words of Paul leading to lawlessness. Over 2000 years later, thousands of gods have been created in Christianity. How do we know this? Here is an example.

Deuteronomy 12:29–31 (LEB)

²⁹ “When Yahweh your God has cut off the nations whom you are about to go to, to dispossess them before you, and you have dispossessed them, and you live in their land, ³⁰ take care so that you are not ensnared into imitating them after their being destroyed from before you, and so that you not enquire concerning their gods, saying, ‘How did these nations serve their gods, and thus I myself want to do also.’ ³¹ You must not do so toward Yahweh your God, because of every detestable thing they have done for their gods Yahweh hates, for even their sons and their daughters they would burn in the fire to their gods.

If one uses symbols, days and traditions used by other cultures’ gods to worship their god, then it is a different god then Yahuah they are worshiping. It really is that simple. How about images?

Deuteronomy 4:15–20 (LEB)

¹⁵ “So you must be very careful for yourselves, because you did not see any form on the day Yahweh spoke to you at Horeb from the midst of the fire, ¹⁶ so that you do not ruin yourselves and make for yourselves a divine image in a form of any image, a replica of male or female, ¹⁷ a replica of any animal that is upon the earth, a replica of any winged bird that flies in the air, ¹⁸ a replica of any creeping thing on the ground, a replica of any fish that is in the water below the earth. ¹⁹ And do this so that you do not lift your eyes toward heaven and observe the sun and the moon and the stars, all the host of the heaven, and be led astray and bow down to them and serve them, things that Yahweh your God has allotted to all of the peoples under all of the heaven. ²⁰ But Yahweh has taken you and brought you out from the furnace of iron, from Egypt, to be a people of inheritance to him, as it is this day.

If one uses an image of a male or female, it is a different god. If we are going to become one of Yahuah’s people, we must be adopted into His family and take on His traditions, not some other god’s traditions.

Romans 12:1 (LEB)

12 Therefore I exhort you, brothers, through the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God, which is your reasonable service.

We must be holy and pleasing to God. Paul is speaking of Yahuah in this verse, not any other god. He says this right after explaining how the gentiles are grafted into the green olive tree, being sharers of the root.

Luke 6:43–46 (LEB)

⁴³ “For there is no good tree that produces bad fruit, nor on the other hand a bad tree that produces good fruit, ⁴⁴ for each tree is known by its own fruit. For figs are not gathered from thorn plants, nor are grapes harvested from thorn bushes. ⁴⁵ The good person out of the good treasury of his heart brings forth good, and the evil person out of his evil treasury brings forth evil. For out of the abundance of the heart his mouth speaks. ⁴⁶ “And why do you call me ‘Lord, Lord,’ and do not do what I tell you?

Yeshua did not present a different god than Yahuah, nor did he “nail Yahuah’s laws to the cross”. There may have been a god that is said to have done that, but it was not Yeshua. He tells us that He only does what he sees the Father doing and He only says what the Father says.

John 5:16–20 (LEB)

¹⁶ And on account of this the Jews began to persecute Jesus, because he was doing these things on the Sabbath. ¹⁷ But he answered them, “My Father is working until now, and I am working.” ¹⁸ So on account of this the Jews were seeking even more to kill him, because he not only was breaking the Sabbath, but also was calling God his own Father, thus making himself equal with God. ¹⁹ So Jesus answered and said to them, “Truly, truly I say to you, the Son can do nothing from himself except what he sees the Father doing. For whatever that one does, these things also the Son does likewise. ²⁰ For the Father loves the Son and shows him everything that he himself is doing. And greater works than these he will show him, so that you will be astonished.

Yeshua healed on the Sabbath, but the god of the Pharisees did not allow healing on the Sabbath. The God of Yeshua does not forbid healing on the sabbath. In fact he tells us it is lawful to do good on the sabbath.

Matthew 12:9–12 (LEB)

⁹ And going on from there he came into their synagogue. ¹⁰ And behold, there was a man who had a withered hand, and they asked him, saying, “Is it permitted to heal on the Sabbath?” in order that they could accuse him. ¹¹ But he said to them, “What man will there be among you who will have one sheep and if this one fell into a pit on the Sabbath, will not take hold of it and lift it out? ¹² Then to what degree is a man worth more than a sheep? So then, it is permitted to do good on the Sabbath.”

Healing on the Sabbath was never discussed in the Torah as far as I know. It was only in the burdensome laws of the Talmuds that this came into affect. Yeshua set the record straight that one, it is lawful to heal and do good on the Sabbath, and two, that the Sabbaths still matter. This would have been a good time for Yeshua to say He was doing away with the Sabbath if it were true. He never did any such thing, but simply corrected the error in the way people were keeping the Sabbath. The Sabbath day is very important to Yahuah according to scripture. A good identifier of any god that is being spoken about is what is done with the Sabbath. Isaiah shows us the heart of Yahuah concerning the Sabbath.

Isaiah 56:1–8 (LEB)

56 Thus says Yahweh: “Observe justice and do righteousness, for my salvation is close to coming, and my justice to being revealed. ² Happy is the man who does this, and the son of humankind who keeps hold of it, who keeps the Sabbath so as not to profane it, and who keeps his hand from doing any evil.” ³ And do not let the foreigner who joins himself to Yahweh say, “Surely Yahweh will separate me from his people.” And do not let the eunuch say, “Look! I am a dry tree!” ⁴ For thus says Yahweh, “To the eunuchs who keep my Sabbaths, and choose that in which I delight, and who keep hold of my covenant. ⁵ And I will give them a monument and a name in my house and within my walls, better than sons and daughters; I will give him an everlasting name that shall not be cut off. ⁶ And the foreigners who join themselves to Yahweh to serve him and to love the name of Yahweh, to become his servants, every one who keeps the Sabbath, so as not to profane it, and those who keep hold of my covenant, ⁷ I will bring them to my holy mountain; I will make them merry in my house of prayer. their burnt offerings and their sacrifices will be accepted on my altar, for my house shall be called a house of prayer for all peoples,” ⁸ declares the Lord Yahweh, who gathers the scattered ones of Israel (still I will gather to him, to his gathered ones).

The opposite of “profane” is to sanctify or set-apart. If someone teaches that their god wants the Sabbath to be profaned and a different day be made special, then that god is not Yahuah. We have a couple of examples of the wrong god based on the Sabbath alone in church history. The first is from the council of Laodicea in 343 CE, and the second is from the Westminster Confessions in 1647:

Canon XXIX Council of Laodicea 343 CE

Christians must not judaize by resting on the Sabbath, but must work on that day, rather honouring the Lord’s Day; and, if they can, resting then as Christians. But if any shall be found to be judaizers, let them be anathema from Christ.

Westminster Confessions 1647 CE

“VII. As it is the law of nature, that, in general, a due proportion of time be set apart for the worship of God; so, in His Word, by a positive, moral, and perpetual commandment binding all men in all ages, He has particularly appointed one day in seven, for a Sabbath, to be kept holy unto him: which, from the beginning of the world to the resurrection of Christ, was the last day of the week: and, from the resurrection of Christ, was changed into the first day of the week, which, in Scripture, is called the Lord’s Day, and is to be continued to the end of the world, as the Christian Sabbath.
VIII. This Sabbath is then kept holy unto the Lord, when men, after a due preparing of their hearts, and ordering of their common affairs beforehand, do not only observe an holy rest, all the day, from their own works, words, and thoughts about their worldly employments and recreations, but also are taken up, the whole time, in the public and private exercises of His worship, and in the duties of necessity and mercy.”

There are gods who regard the first day of the week, but not Yahuah. “Christians must not judaize by resting on the Sabbath, but must work on that day“. This is clearly a law for Christians, who supposedly are not “under the law”. This law tells Christians they must specifically break the law of the Creator for this other unknown god! If anyone thinks this is not still the case today, bring up the subject of the Sabbath to any pastor or leader in a Christian church. Sorry, it’s the wrong god. Yahuah never changed the day! Christians are simply given bad laws to follow as were the Israelites for breaking the commandments of Yahuah.

Ezekiel 20:13–26 (LEB)

¹³ “But in the desert the house of Israel rebelled against me; they did not walk in my statutes, and they rejected my regulations, which, if a person does them, he will live by them, and they greatly profaned my Sabbaths, and I decided to pour out my rage on them in the desert to destroy them, ¹⁴ and I acted for the sake of my name, that it not be profaned before the eyes of the nations before whom I brought them out. ¹⁵ And also I myself swore to them in the desert not to bring them into the land that I had given to them, flowing with milk and honey—it is the most beautiful of all of the lands— ¹⁶ because they despised my judgments, and they did not walk in my statutes, and my Sabbaths they profaned, for their heart was going after their idols. ¹⁷ But my eye took pity on them by not destroying them, and I did not completely destroy them in the desert. ¹⁸ “And I said to their children in the desert, ‘You must not go in the statutes of your parents; you must not keep their regulations, and you must not make yourself unclean with their idols. ¹⁹ I, Yahweh, am your God, so go in my statutes and keep my regulations and do them. ²⁰ And treat my Sabbaths as holy, and they will be a sign between me and between you that you may know that I, Yahweh, am your God.’ ²¹ But the children rebelled against me; they did not walk in my statutes, and they did not observe my regulations, which if a person does them, then he will live by them. My Sabbaths they desecrated, and I decided to pour out my rage on them, to finish my anger against them in the desert. ²² But I withheld my hand, and I acted for the sake of my name not to be profaned before the eyes of the nations before whom I had brought them out before their eyes. ²³ What is more, I swore to them in the desert to scatter them among the nations and to disperse them in the lands, ²⁴ because they did not do my regulations, and my statutes they despised, and my Sabbaths they profaned, and their eyes were after the idols of their ancestors. ²⁵ And in turn I gave to them rules that were not good and regulations by which they will not live. ²⁶ And I defiled them through their gifts in sacrificing all of the first offspring of the womb, in order that I will cause them to be stunned, so that they will know that I am Yahweh.

Some of the descendants of these tribes are still living by, “rules that were not good and regulations by which they will not live“, along side of people with their made up gods in all of the religions we have today. Changing the Sabbath is a trick, because once you understand its blessing, you will mourn for the ones you missed in your life.

Anyone who reads my blog posts on a regular basis must be tired of these same subjects coming up week after week. John 8:32, “and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”. I have to keep presenting it. I pray that someone, somewhere, will learn these things scripture speaks about over and over, from reading theses blog posts.

One more clue to distinguish Yahuah from a fake god is the use of stone pillars. These are obelisks found around the world as a marker to show which god someone is serving. Many of the people who install these pillars are giving us an esoteric message about their god, and it is definitely not Yahuah!

Deuteronomy 16:21–22 (LEB)

22 And you shall not set up for yourselves a stone pillar, a thing that Yahweh your God hates

There is a story behind these obelisks that we may not even know completely as to why Yahuah hates them so much. It was important enough to make it into His Torah though.

Do you hate prophecy? The fact that the church would turn to false gods is all through prophecy. This is not replacement theology. If we are people of the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, we are spiritual descendants of Abraham, grafted into the covenants of promise.

Galatians 3:27–29 (LEB)

28 There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. 29 And if you are Christ’s, then you are descendants of Abraham, heirs according to the promise.

Moses prophesied this very thing would happen in the latter days.

Deuteronomy 4:26–31 (LEB)

27 And Yahweh will scatter you among the peoples, and you will be left few in number among the nations to where Yahweh will lead you. 28 And you will there serve gods made by human hands, of wood and stone, gods that cannot see and cannot hear and cannot eat and cannot smell. 29 But from there you shall seek Yahweh your God and will find him, if you seek him with all your heart and with all your soul. 30 In your distress when all these things have found you in the latter days, then you will return to Yahweh your God, and you will listen to his voice. 31 For Yahweh your God is a compassionate God; he will not abandon you, and he will not destroy you, and he will not forget the covenant of your ancestors that he swore to them.

We have made new gods as prophesied by Moses. Ones our ancestors did not know. Ones that tell us to work on the Sabbath and rest on a different day, celebrate the winter solstice with Santa, use obelisks as identifiers for gods that say, “Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the law” and “Love is the law, love under will”.

Deuteronomy 32:17 (LEB)

17 They sacrificed to the demons, not God, to gods whom they had not known, new gods who came from recent times; their ancestors had not known them.

Making a new god is easy, but following Yahuah requires some work. Repent and learn the ways of the true God, Yahuah, and the fake ones will be easy to pick out.

Photo by Mateus Campos Felipe on Unsplash. It is Saint Peter at the Vatican, formerly Jupiter or Zeus.

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But I say, live by the Spirit, and you will never carry out the desire of the flesh.

Galatians 5:16 (LEB)

The apostle Paul does a great job of condensing the commandments of God found in the first five books of the Bible for those who are not familiar with them. Paul uses terms such as “in the flesh” and “in the spirit” to distinguish between keeping the commandments and breaking them. He knew that without the help of the Spirit of grace working in our lives, no one would be able to resist sin, which is living a life of breaking God’s commandments. Someone living in the Spirit will not tolerate sin, and not do the things the Father said not to do.

Galatians 5:16–21 (LEB)

¹⁶ But I say, live by the Spirit, and you will never carry out the desire of the flesh. ¹⁷ For the flesh desires against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh, for these are in opposition to one another, so that whatever you want, you may not do these things. ¹⁸ But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law. ¹⁹ Now the deeds of the flesh are evident, which are sexual immorality, impurity, licentiousness, ²⁰ idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, outbursts of anger, selfish ambition, dissension, factions, ²¹ envy, drunkenness, carousing, and things like these, things which I am telling you in advance, just as I said before, that the ones who practice such things will not inherit the kingdom of God.

If we are being led by the Spirit, Paul tells us that we will not be found doing these things in the list he provides. Those who do these things are “under the law”, and not being obedient to the Spirit, but to the flesh. The ones living this way will not be part of the kingdom of God. In today’s theological terms it means they will be going to hell.

This is not a new set of commandments or a different play book, and we are going to go through each one to explain what it is talking about to the best of our ability. Sexual immorality is first on Paul’s list. This was not a mystery at one time in history. Thankfully, Yahuah gave Moses exact instructions defining sexual immorality.

Leviticus 18:1–25 (LEB)

18 Then Yahweh spoke to Moses, saying, ² “Speak to the Israelites, and say to them, ‘I am Yahweh your God. ³ You must not carry out the practices of the land of Egypt, in which you lived, and you must not carry out the practices of the land of Canaan, to which I am bringing you; and you must not follow their statutes. ⁴ You must carry out my regulations, and you must observe my statutes by following them; I am Yahweh your God. ⁵ And you shall observe my statutes and my regulations by which the person doing them shall live; I am Yahweh. ⁶ “ ‘None of you shall approach anyone who is his close relative to expose nakedness; I am Yahweh. ⁷ You must not expose your father’s nakedness or your mother’s nakedness—she is your mother; you must not expose her nakedness. ⁸ You must not expose the nakedness of your father’s wife—it is your father’s nakedness. ⁹ As for your sister’s nakedness, whether your father’s daughter or your mother’s daughter, whether born at home or born abroad, you must not expose their nakedness. ¹⁰ As for the nakedness of your son’s daughter or your daughter’s daughter, you must not expose their nakedness, because they are your nakedness. ¹¹ As for the nakedness of the daughter of your father’s wife, she is your sister, a relative of your father; you must not expose her nakedness. ¹² You must not expose the nakedness of your father’s sister; she is your father’s close relative. ¹³ You must not expose the nakedness of your mother’s sister, because she is your mother’s close relative. ¹⁴ You must not expose the nakedness of your father’s brother; you must not have sex with his wife—she is your aunt. ¹⁵ You must not expose your daughter-in-law’s nakedness; she is your son’s wife; you must not expose her nakedness. ¹⁶ You must not expose the nakedness of your brother’s wife; she is your brother’s nakedness. ¹⁷ You must not expose the nakedness of a woman and her daughter, or her son’s daughter, or her daughter’s daughter; you must not take her as wife to expose her nakedness; they are close relatives—that is wickedness. ¹⁸ And you must not take as wife a woman with her sister, to be a rival-wife, to expose her nakedness before her during her life. ¹⁹ “ ‘And you must not have sex with a woman to expose her nakedness during her menstrual uncleanness. ²⁰ And you must not have sex with your fellow citizen’s wife, becoming unclean with her. ²¹ “ ‘And you shall not give any of your offspring in order to sacrifice them to Molech, nor shall you profane the name of your God; I am Yahweh. ²² And you shall not lie with a male as lying with a woman; that is a detestable thing. ²³ And you shall not have sexual relations with any animal, becoming unclean with it; and a woman shall not stand before an animal to copulate with it—that is a perversion. ²⁴ “ ‘You must not make yourself unclean in any of these things, because the nations whom I am driving out from your presence were made unclean by all of these. ²⁵ So the land became unclean, and I have brought the punishment of its guilt upon it, and the land has vomited out its inhabitants.

Notice Yahuah did not want His people conforming to what was acceptable to the Egyptian and Canaanite societies around them. It is no different today. “You must not make yourself unclean in any of these things, because the nations whom I am driving out from your presence were made unclean by all of these.”. Sexual immorality is tied to uncleanness, impurity and licentiousness. A good example of licentiousness, combined with idolatry was the time Israel made a golden calf and “rose up to play” or “revel”.

Exodus 32:5–6 (LEB)

⁵ And Aaron saw, and he built an altar before it, and Aaron called, and he said, “A feast for Yahweh tomorrow.” ⁶ And they started early the next day, and they offered burnt offerings, and they presented fellowship offerings, and the people sat to eat and drink, and they rose up to revel.

The King James Version describes what exactly was going on at the golden calf event. It was similar to the fertility festivals of the nations around them.

Exodus 32:25 (KJV 1900)

²⁵ And when Moses saw that the people were naked; (for Aaron had made them naked unto their shame among their enemies:)

Next in Paul’s list is idolatry. Yahuah hates idolatry. Idolatry is, but not limited to, worshiping other deities, using their symbols or practices or partaking in their rituals. It is especially offensive when we worship Yahuah with the same traditions, symbols and festivals as other nations worshiped their gods.

Deuteronomy 12:30–32 (LEB)

³⁰ take care so that you are not ensnared into imitating them after their being destroyed from before you, and so that you not inquire concerning their gods, saying, ‘How did these nations serve their gods, and thus I myself want to do also.’ ³¹ You must not do so toward Yahweh your God, because of every detestable thing they have done for their gods Yahweh hates, for even their sons and their daughters they would burn in the fire to their gods. ³² All of the things that I am commanding you, you must diligently observe; you shall not add to it, and you shall not take away from it.”

I hope everyone can see that Paul was teaching that anyone who practices these things that go against the instructions of Yahuah habitually, will not inherit the kingdom of God (go to hell), just like Yeshua and the other apostles indicated. Paul did more than say “If you love God you will keep His commandments” as John said. Paul actually listed all the commandments he was referring to, which is essentially all the commandments in the law, prophets and writings. However, no one can perform sacrifices or temple duties anymore because the temple was destroyed and there are no Levitical priests. We cannot even do the feasts properly without a temple, but we can rest on Sabbaths, and many of the other commandments.

Moreover, we do not keep commandments to be justified before God, or “saved”. This is what many of the sects in Paul’s day were doing. The Circumcision party was an example of this. They maintained one had to be circumcised in order to be justified. We want to be obedient and please the Father for giving us the free gift of salvation.

Ephesians 2:8–10 (LEB)

⁸ For by grace you are saved through faith, and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God; ⁹ it is not from works, so that no one can boast. ¹⁰ For we are his creation, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, so that we may walk in them.

“Impurity” or as other translations render, “uncleanness”, is spoken about in many ways in scripture. There is the eating of unclean meat and unclean acts, but this is also a word that is tied to abomination in Hebrew.

Proverbs 6:16–19 (LEB)

¹⁶ There are six things Yahweh hates, and seven things are abominations of his soul: ¹⁷ haughty eyes, a lying tongue, and hands that shed innocent blood, ¹⁸ a devising heart, plans of deception, feet that hurry to run to evil, ¹⁹ a false witness who breathes lies and sends out discord between brothers.

“Factions” is another word on the list of things that Paul says will keep a person out of the kingdom of God. This is Strong’s G139 with one definition being “a body of men following their own tenets”. Ignoring the Sabbaths of Yahuah for another day appointed by men, along with feast days for other gods, in the name of celebrating the birth of Jesus, and his resurrection, come to mind for this one. Another definition is “dissensions arising from diversity of opinions and aims”. That sounds like 40-50,000 different sects of Christianity all having different belief systems about supposedly the same God.

Paul lists sorcery as another deal breaker, and work of the flesh that shows a person is still “under the law” and separated from the kingdom. This is witchcraft.

Deuteronomy 18:10–13 (LEB)

¹⁰ There shall not be found among you one who makes his son or his daughter go through the fire, or one who practices divination, or an interpreter of signs, or an augur, or sorcerer, ¹¹ or one who casts magic spells, or one who consults a spirit of the dead, or spiritist, or one who inquires of the dead. ¹² For everyone doing these things is detestable to Yahweh, and because of these detestable things Yahweh your God is driving them out from before you. ¹³You must be blameless before Yahweh your God.

I have mentioned it many times before; many of our Christian traditions come from witchcraft. The sorcerers, witches and satanist all know this, but Christians stay ignorant to this inconvenient truth. Here is a quote from wiccaliving.com regarding Yule. Wicca is a modern form of witchcraft.

“This is a celebration of the renewal of life, but compared to other Sabbats it is a relatively quiet, indoor holiday, as people gather within the warm shelters of their homes to be merry and give thanks. As a Yule ritual, many Wiccans decorate their altars with evergreen branches, such as cedar, pine, hemlock and spruce, as well as bright sprigs of holly, pinecones, and other festive winter flora.

Candles are paramount to this Sabbat, of course, with Yule traditions emphasizing the colors red, green, white, and gold. Images of the Sun are also appropriate. Those lucky enough to have a fireplace can burn a sacred Yule log, but you don’t need an actual hearth to brighten up your home with candles galore! Interestingly, many traditions which are generally thought of as belonging to Christmas—including the Yule log, a decorated tree, wreaths, and even caroling—are actually rooted in pre-Christian pagan traditions. So it’s quite likely that you’ve already been celebrating Yule for years, with or without your knowledge!”

The witches tell us the truth about these holidays, so why don’t our pastors and leaders warn us about them? Paul tells us we will not inherit the kingdom of God for practicing witchcraft, and the witches, who know and understand witchcraft, happily say, “many traditions which are generally thought of as belonging to Christmas—including the Yule log, a decorated tree, wreaths, and even caroling—are actually rooted in pre-Christian pagan traditions. So it’s quite likely that you’ve already been celebrating Yule for years, with or without your knowledge!”. It really is not that hard to figure out. At Christmas, an ancient polytheist, who worships Odin, would think he was in a Norse temple in most Christian churches.

We could continue by talking about enmity, strife, jealousy, outbursts of anger, selfish ambition, envy, drunkenness and carousing, but we soon would find ourselves quoting large sections of Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy.

Leviticus 19:9–16 (LEB)

⁹ “ ‘And at your reaping the harvest of your land you must not finish reaping the edge of your field, and you must not glean the remnants of your harvest. ¹⁰ And you must not glean your vineyard, and you must not gather your vineyard’s fallen grapes; you must leave them behind for the needy and for the alien; I am Yahweh your God. ¹¹ “ ‘You shall not steal, and you shall not deceive, and you shall not lie to one another; ¹² and you shall not swear falsely in my name, and so one of you profane the name of your God; I am Yahweh. ¹³ “ ‘You shall not exploit your neighbor, and you shall not rob him; a hired worker’s wage you shall not withhold overnight until morning. ¹⁴ You shall not curse the deaf, and you shall not put a stumbling block before a blind person, but you shall revere your God; I am Yahweh. ¹⁵ “ ‘You shall not do injustice in judgment; you shall not show partiality to the powerless; you shall not give preference to the powerful; you shall judge your fellow citizen with justice. ¹⁶ You shall not go about with slander among your people; you shall not endanger your neighbor’s life; I am Yahweh.

Galatians 5:22–24 (LEB)

²² But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, ²³ gentleness, self control. Against such things there is no law. ²⁴ Now those who belong to Christ  have crucified the flesh together with its feelings and its desires.

“Now those who belong to Christ  have crucified the flesh together with its feelings and its desires.“. In other words, they keep the commandments of God! Paul did not preach a lawless gospel as some like to claim. He makes it very clear that people breaking the commandments will have no place in the kingdom as is found in the rest of scripture. Peter even warned us that unstable people would twist the words of Paul to justify lawlessness.

2 Peter 3:14–18 (LEB)

¹⁴ Therefore, dear friends, because you are waiting for these things, make every effort to be found at peace, spotless and unblemished in him. ¹⁵ And regard the patience of our Lord as salvation, just as also our dear brother Paul wrote to you, according to the wisdom that was given to him, ¹⁶ as he does also in all his letters, speaking in them about these things, in which there are some things hard to understand, which the ignorant and unstable distort to their own destruction, as they also do the rest of the scriptures. ¹⁷ Therefore, dear friends, because you know this beforehand, guard yourselves so that you do not lose your own safe position because you have been led away by the error of lawless persons. ¹⁸ But grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. To him be the glory, both now and to the day of eternity. Amen.

Scripture is clear on what we must do to inherit the kingdom of God. By the influence of the Holy Spirit and faith we can stay away from the things God still hates and do what we were intended to do. Those who are obedient have no concern about being “under the law”. Being “under the law” means you are shamelessly in rebellion to the Spirit of grace and doing the things Paul told us not to do. Paul’s words were echoed by our Saviour to the apostle John:

Revelation 21:7–8 (LEB)

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.

Submit your heart to the Spirit of grace through faith in Messiah Yeshua. Repent and believe the gospel!

Photo by Jonny Gios on Unsplash.

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You shall not hate your brother in your heart, but you shall reason frankly with your neighbor, lest you incur sin because of him.

Leviticus 19:17

Do you love your neighbour? When asked to reduce all of the commandments of God to one, Jesus recited the Shema from Deuteronomy chapter six, which states that Yahweh is one, and we are to love him with all of our our heart, mind and actions. The second most important instruction is from Leviticus.

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.”

Whenever New Testament writers quote the Old Testament, we need to go read what they are referencing in context. Sadly, some may not even realize that Jesus was quoting from the Torah. The terms, New and Old Testament, are said to have been coined by Marcion, a first century heretic who wanted to distance his religion from the mean, commandment speaking God of the Old Testament. The first century followers of Jesus had only the law, prophets and writings. Here are the verses Jesus referenced as the second greatest commandment:

Leviticus 19:17–18 (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.

Not only do these verses tell us to love our neighbour as our self, but they tell us how to love our neighbour. We need not try to redefine the love that is being spoken of here. Rebuke, do not seek vengeance, nor hold a grudge are the ways we are told to love our neighbour. We are also told not to hate our brother in our heart.

Hating our brother in our heart is self explanatory, with the exception that it implies we are doing it in secret. Pretending to love your brother while secretly hating him is hypocritical and goes against the instruction of Yahweh.

Matthew 5:21–24 (LEB)

²¹ “You have heard that it was said to the people of old_, ‘Do not commit murder,’ and ‘whoever commits murder will be subject to judgment.’ ²² But I say to you that everyone who is angry at his brother will be subject to judgment, and whoever says to his brother, ‘Stupid fool!’ will be subject to the council, and whoever says, ‘Obstinate fool!’ will be subject to fiery hell. ²³ Therefore if you present your gift at the altar and there remember that your brother has something against you, ²⁴ leave your gift there before the altar and first go be reconciled to your brother, and then come and present your gift.

Rebuking our neighbours seems like an unlikely way to love them, but it is very important. The reason we “rebuke our fellow citizen” is so we do not incur sin along with them. Rebuking someone still does not sound very loving, but there are better words to describe what is being said. The word used for “rebuke” is Strong’s H3198.

H3198
יכח
yâkach
BDB Definition:
1) to prove, decide, judge, rebuke, reprove, correct, be right
1a) (Hiphil)
1a1) to decide, judge
1a2) to adjudge, appoint
1a3) to show to be right, prove
1a4) to convince, convict
1a5) to reprove, chide
1a6) to correct, rebuke
1b) (Hophal) to be chastened
1c) (Niphal) to reason, reason together
1d) (Hithpael) to argue

Correct, convince, argue, and in another translation, it says to “reason frankly”. Remember the reason to do this was so that you do not incur sin with them. This is why we continually say to repent and follow the commandments! Once a person knows the way, it is their responsibility to tell their neighbours, to shine light on darkness, and not hide it under a bushel. The English Standard Version translates it like this:

Leviticus19:17 “You shall not hate your brother in your heart, but you shall reason frankly with your neighbor, lest you incur sin because of him.

A person can incur sin by not “reasoning frankly” with their neighbour. This is one of the purposes of these blog posts. “Your pagan celebrations in the church are witchcraft to Yahweh” is an example of reasoning frankly with your neighbour. No one seems to be willing to discuss these things in person, and people mock, sabotage and ignore the message. I have heard this situation described as it being like a crowing rooster. The rooster has the crowing inside of him and has to get it out. He does not care if there is anyone to listen, or if anyone pays any attention, so long as the message gets out.

“You shall not harbor a grudge against your fellow citizens” is another important part of the instruction. It would be easy to see someone heading for destruction, warn them, be ignored or mocked, then hold a grudge against them. We cannot do this, but only hope the person will eventually understand the gravity of the situation.

Deuteronomy 4:25–31 (LEB)

²⁵ “When you have had children and grandchildren and you have grown old in the land and you act corruptly and you make a divine image of the form of anything and you do evil in the eyes of Yahweh your God, thus provoking him to anger, ²⁶ I call to witness against you today the heaven and the earth, that you will perish soon and completely from the land that you are crossing the Jordan into it to take possession of it; you will not live long on it, but you will be completely destroyed. ²⁷ And Yahweh will scatter you among the peoples, and you will be left few in number among the nations to where Yahweh will lead you. ²⁸ And you will there serve gods made by human hands, of wood and stone, gods that cannot see and cannot hear and cannot eat and cannot smell. ²⁹ But from there you shall seek Yahweh your God and will find him, if you seek him with all your heart and with all your soul. ³⁰ In your distress when all these things have found you in the latter days, then you will return to Yahweh your God, and you will listen to his voice. ³¹ For Yahweh your God is a compassionate God; he will not abandon you, and he will not destroy you, and he will not forget the covenant of your ancestors that he swore to them.

This is all very important to consider. Tribulation is coming and hopefully people will remember these warnings. These verses are not for “the Jews”, while a lawless church is raptured into another world, as dispensational theology teaches Baptists and Pentecostals.

Isaiah 59:18–21 (LEB)

¹⁸ According to deeds, so he will repay; wrath to his enemies, requital to those who are his enemies. He will repay requital to the coastlands. ¹⁹ So they shall fear the name of Yahweh from the west, and his glory from the sunrise, for he will come like a narrow stream; the wind of Yahweh drives it on. ²⁰ “And a redeemer will come to Zion, to those in Jacob who turn away from transgression,” declares Yahweh. ²¹ “And as for me, this is my covenant with them, says Yahweh: my spirit that is upon you, and my words that I have placed in your mouth shall not depart from your mouth, or from the mouths of your children, or from the mouths of your children’s children,” says Yahweh, “from now on and forever.”

The redeemer, Yeshua, called Jesus today, came and told us what to do. When He comes back we better be doing what He said.

John 14:21–26 (LEB)

²¹ The one who has my commandments and keeps them—that one is the one who loves me. And the one who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I will love him and will reveal myself to him.” ²² Judas (not Iscariot) said to him, “Lord, why is it that you are going to reveal yourself to us and not to the world?” ²³ Jesus answered and said to him, “If anyone loves me he will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and will take up residence with him. ²⁴ The one who does not love me does not keep my words, and the word that you hear is not mine, but the Father’s who sent me. ²⁵ These things I have spoken to you while residing with you. ²⁶ But the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name—that one will teach you all things, and will remind you of everything that I said to you.

Some try to teach that the commandments of Jesus are different than that of the Father, or Jesus did all the commandments, so we do not have to, nor should we try. This is just the heresy of Marcion revisiting the church to lead people into lawlessness. It is deception that must be rebuked, debated and corrected!

Luke 21:8 (LEB)

⁸ And he said, Watch out that you are not deceived! For many will come in my name, saying, ‘I am he,’ and ‘The time is near!’ Do not go after them!

This has happened in the 40,000 plus so-called Christian denominations, each with their own lawless Jesus. If your Jesus is saying something different then Yahweh, you have been deceived. Ezekiel saw the abominations in the church today, as they were in Judah.

Ezekiel 8:4–18 (LEB)

⁴ And look! There was the glory of the God of Israel like the vision that I saw in the valley. ⁵ And he said to me, “Son of man, lift up now your eyes toward the north.” And I lifted up my eyes toward the north, and, look, there was to the north of the gate of the altar this image of jealousy at the entrance. ⁶ And he said to me, “Son of man, “Do you see what they are doing—great detestable things that the house of Israel is committing here so as to drive me from my sanctuary, and yet you will see again greater detestable things.” ⁷ And he brought me to the doorway of the courtyard, and I saw, and look! A hole in the wall. ⁸ And he said to me, “Son of man, dig now through the wall.” And I dug through the wall, and look! There was a doorway. ⁹ And he said to me, “Come and see the detestable things, the evil that they are doing here. ¹⁰ And I came, and I saw, and look, all kinds of creatures and detestable beasts; and all of the idols of the house of Israel were carved on the wall all around. ¹¹ And seventy men from the elders of the house of Israel, and Jaazaniah, the son of Shaphan, was standing in the midst of them, and they were standing before them. Each one had his censer in his hand, and the fragrance of the cloud of the incense was going up. ¹² And he said to me, “Have you seen, son of man, what the elders of the house of Israel are doing in the dark, each in the inner rooms of his idol, for they are saying, ‘Yahweh is not seeing us; Yahweh has abandoned the land.’ ” ¹³ And he said to me, “Still you will see again greater detestable things that they are doing.” ¹⁴ And he brought me to the doorway of the gate of the house of Yahweh that is toward the north, and look! There were the women sitting weeping for Tammuz. ¹⁵ And he said to me, “Have you seen, son of man? Still you will see again greater detestable things than these.” ¹⁶ And he brought me to the inner courtyard of the house of Yahweh, and look, at the doorway of the temple of Yahweh, between the portico and the altar, there were about twenty-five men with their backs to the temple of Yahweh and their faces toward the east, and they were bowing down toward the east before the sun. ¹⁷ And he said to me, “Have you seen, son of man? Was it too small a thing for the house of Judah to do the detestable things that they did here? For they filled up the land with violence, and they provoked me to anger again, and look! They are putting the branch to their nose. ¹⁸ And so I will act in rage, and my eye will not take pity, and I will not have compassion, and they will cry in my ear with a loud voice, and I will not hear them.”

Once a person understands, they must start crowing like a rooster, even if no one is listening. Perhaps someone will remember these words when tribulation comes as described in Deuteronomy, and turn back to the instructions of the Creator. Repent and believe the gospel!

The featured image is by Nina Strehl on Unslpash

And when the day of Pentecost had come, they were all together in the same place.

Acts 2:1 (LEB)

The Feast of Weeks, Shavuot, or in Greek, Pentecost, is traditionally the feast day that celebrates the marriage covenant between Yahuah and His people at Mount Horeb. It is also the feast that believers gathering on that day received the breath of God, with tongues of fire, most commonly referred to as the Holy Spirit. Pentecost means fifty in the Greek language and this is where the “Pentecostal” churches derive their name. It is unfortunate that many of these churches do not celebrate this day, nor do they know the significance of “fifty” in relationship to the name Pentecostal or Pentecost.

Leviticus 23:15–16 (LEB)

¹⁵ “ ‘And you shall count for yourselves from the day after the Sabbath, from the day of your bringing the wave offering’s sheaf—there shall be seven full weeks. ¹⁶ Until the day after the seventh Sabbath you shall count fifty days; then you shall present a new grain offering for Yahweh.

I have seen some cases where churches will call the Sundays leading up to Pentecost, the seven Sundays of Easter. This is an invention of man likely to avoid appearing too “Jewish” by doing anything related to the biblical Sabbath or the biblical feast days. The Feast of Weeks leading up to the fiftieth day, are counted by the seven sabbaths from the Sabbath in the Week of Unleavened Bread, which is part of the Passover celebration. We can actually see these days referred to as the first sabbath and second sabbath in scripture, but we have to use the translations that use the Textus Receptus manuscripts, such as the King James Version.

Luke 6:1 (KJV 1900)

And it came to pass on the second sabbath after the first, that he went through the corn fields; and his disciples plucked the ears of corn, and did eat, rubbing them in their hands.

The word for the “second sabbath after the first” is Strong’s G1207, meaning the second sabbath after Passover. Most bible translations have dismissed this word and just translated it as “another sabbath”.

G1207
δευτερόπρωτος
deuteroprōtos
Thayer Definition:
1) second-first
2) the second of the first Sabbaths after the feast of the Passover

This is important because it shows us the error of some of the translations which translate “first sabbath’ to “first day of the week”. We see clearly in Acts 20:6 Paul sailed away after Unleavened Bread. Five days later they were at Troas.

Acts 20:6 (LEB)

⁶ And we sailed away from Philippi after the days of Unleavened Bread and came to them at Troas within five days, where we stayed seven days.

In Acts 20:7, we see them meeting on the first day of the week. The problem is the word “day” is not in the text, added by translators, and the word “week” is “sabbaton” in the Greek manuscripts. This should be translated the “first sabbath”. This pokes holes in the “meeting on Sunday narrative”, the church started to proclaim much later.

Acts 20:7 (LEB)

⁷ And on the first day of the week, when we had assembled to break bread, Paul began conversing with them, because he was going to leave on the next day, and he extended his message until midnight.

The word for “week” in this case is Strong’s G4521. Why would this not be translated the “first sabbath”?

G4521
σάββατον
sabbaton
Thayer Definition:
1) the seventh day of each week which was a sacred festival on which the Israelites were required to abstain from all work
1a) the institution of the sabbath, the law for keeping holy every seventh day of the week
1b) a single sabbath, sabbath day
2) seven days, a week

If we understand that Pentecost is determined by counting seven sabbaths after Passover, and the fifty days always lands on a Sunday, it will help believers, brainwashed by tradition, understand the significance of the Leviticus 23 feasts, including the sabbaths. The Creator sanctified the seventh day at creation, and there is no church leader or prophet that can twist scripture enough to unsanctify it. The opposite of “sanctify” is demonize, desecrate and pollute, which is exactly what the paganized, antisemitic churches did to the sabbaths in the beginning.

Genesis 2:1–3 (LEB)

And heaven and earth and all their array were finished. ² And on the seventh day God finished his work that he had done, and he rested on the seventh day from all his work that he had done. ³ And God blessed the seventh day, and he sanctified it, because on it he rested from all his work of creating that there was to do.

Now that we have shown that Pentecost is not an invention of the Church, and has nothing to do with Easter, but is a feast tightly woven into the fabric of the Creator, let’s look at the significance of Pentecost. It was the time of the Feast of Weeks that Yahuah made His marriage contract with His people, the twelve tribes of Israel at Mount Horeb.

Exodus 19:1–8 (LEB)

19 In the third month after the Israelites went out from the land of Egypt, on this day they came to the Sinai desert. ² They set out from Rephidim, and they came to the desert of Sinai, and they camped in the desert, and Israel camped there in front of the mountain. ³ And Moses went up to God, and Yahweh called to him from the mountain, saying, “Thus you will say to the house of Jacob and you will tell the Israelites, ⁴ ‘You yourselves have seen what I did to Egypt and how I bore you on eagles’ wings and I brought you to me. ⁵ And now if you will carefully listen to my voice and keep my covenant, you will be a treasured possession for me out of all the peoples, for all the earth is mine, ⁶ but you, you will belong to me as a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.’ These are the words that you will speak to the Israelites.” ⁷ And Moses came and called the elders of the people, and he placed before them all these words that Yahweh had commanded him. ⁸ And all the people together answered and said, “All that Yahweh has spoken we will do.” And Moses brought back the words of the people to Yahweh.

This was not the first time that a covenant was made during Shavuot. The book of Jubilees, found in the caves of Qumran with our oldest transcript of Genesis, gives us a great history of the Feast of Weeks.

The Book of Jubilees translated by R. H. Charles 6:15-19

15 And He gave to Noah and his sons a sign that there should not again
be a flood on the earth.
16. He set His bow in the cloud for a sign of the eternal covenant that
there should not again be a flood on the earth to destroy it all the days of
the earth.
17. For this reason it is ordained and written on the heavenly tables, that
they should celebrate the feast of weeks in this month once a year, to
renew the covenant every year.
18. And this whole festival was celebrated in heaven from the day of
creation till the days of Noah-twenty-six jubilees (1309-1659 A.M.) and
five weeks of years: and Noah and his sons observed it for seven jubilees
and one week of years, till the day of Noah’s death, and from the day
of Noah’s death his sons did away with (it) until the days of Abraham,
and they ate blood.
19. But Abraham observed it, and Isaac and Jacob and his children
observed it up to thy days, and in thy days the children of Israel forgot it
until ye celebrated it anew on this mountain.

The book of Jubilees is written as from angels narrating the law and history to Moses when he was on the mountain. Stephen makes reference to this in the book of Acts before he was stoned. I recommend reading the book of Jubilees because it gives a little more detail in some cases than Genesis. Most Christians will not read it because they are afraid to read any ancient texts that are not approved by the Westminster Confessions or Rabbinical Judaism.

Acts 7:53 (LEB)

⁵³ you who received the law by directions of angels and have not observed it!”

The instructions of the Creator were not first given at Mount Horeb to the “Jews”, as is falsely claimed today. God’s people were always given His instructions until they forgot them, or stopped doing them, and all twelve tribes were at Mount Horeb, not just the tribe of Judah.

Genesis 26:4–5 (LEB)

⁴ And I will multiply your descendants like the stars of heaven, and I will give to your descendants all these lands. And all nations of the earth will be blessed through your offspring, ⁵ because Abraham listened to my voice and kept my charge: my commandments, my statutes, and my laws.”

The Creator, or Heavenly Father in New Testament terms, gave us His Spirit on this feast as it is recorded in the book of Acts.

Acts 2:1–4 (LEB)

2 And when the day of Pentecost had come, they were all together in the same place. ² And suddenly a sound like a violent rushing wind came from heaven and filled the whole house where they were sitting. ³ And divided tongues like fire appeared to them and rested on each one of them. ⁴ And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other languages as the Spirit gave them ability to speak out.

This rushing wind is called Ruach in Hebrew. It is translated “spirit” from the Greek word Pnoe, which also means wind or breath. We get words such as “pneumatic” and “pneumonia” from the Greek word. Before this event, the disciples of Yeshua were hiding out and not very bold. Afterwards, they went out proclaiming the gospel.

John 16:7–15 (LEB)

⁷ But I tell you the truth, it is better for you that I go away. For if I do not go away, the Advocate will not come to you; but if I go, I will send him to you. ⁸ And when he comes, he will convict the world concerning sin and concerning righteousness and concerning judgment: ⁹ concerning sin, because they do not believe in me, ¹⁰ and concerning righteousness, because I am going away to the Father and you will see me no more, ¹¹ and concerning judgment, because the ruler of this world has been condemned. ¹² I still have many things to say to you, but you are not able to bear them now. ¹³ But when he—the Spirit of truth—comes, he will guide you into all the truth. For he will not speak from himself, but whatever he hears he will speak, and he will proclaim to you the things to come. ¹⁴ He will glorify me, because he will take from what is mine and will proclaim it to you. ¹⁵ Everything that the Father has is mine. For this reason I said that he takes from what is mine and will proclaim it to you.

Once again the Father ratifies His covenant with His people on Shavuot. This time it is not with the blood of animals as in the past, but the blood of Messiah and His Spirit. What effect does this have on those present? It emboldened them to start preaching repentance to the commandments of God and the good news that was bestowed on all of mankind, to be able to share in the covenants of promise with the House of Israel and the House of Judah.

Galatians 3:13–14 (LEB)

¹³ Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us, because it is written, “Cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree,” ¹⁴ in order that the blessing of Abraham might come to the Gentiles in Christ Jesus, so that we might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith.

It is so twisted for Christianity to teach the curse of the law is the law itself. The curse of the law happens when one breaks the law. Romans 7:12 (LEB) ^” So then, the law is holy, and the commandment is holy and righteous and good”.

Peter gives a speech after a man is healed at the time of Pentecost and everyone is wondering what is going on with people speaking in other languages and getting healed. He explains to them it is a refreshing of the covenant promised through the prophets. Yeshua did not come to start a new world religion called Christianity. He was the one called “a prophet like Moses” who would come to gather the lost sheep of the House of Israel and extend the promises to the nations. One could say the “church” started with Abraham, lost its way, then was renewed at Mount Horeb, lost its way, brought back by Yeshua and renewed. Unfortunately, the church has lost its way again just as prophesied. Yeshua will once again call His people and gather them out from where they are scattered.

Acts 3:12–26 (LEB)

¹² And when he saw it, Peter replied to the people, “Men and Israelites, why are you astonished at this? Or why are you staring at us, as if by our own power or godliness we have made him walk? ¹³ The God of Abraham and of Isaac and of Jacob, the God of our fathers, has glorified his servant Jesus, whom you handed over and denied in the presence of Pilate, after he had decided to release him. ¹⁴ But you denied the Holy and Righteous One and demanded that a man—a murderer—be granted to you. ¹⁵ And you killed the originator of life, whom God raised from the dead, of which we are witnesses! ¹⁶ And on the basis of faith in his name, his name has made this man strong, whom you see and know, and the faith that is through him has given him this perfect health in the presence of you all. 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. ²⁵ You are the sons of the prophets and of the covenant that God ordained with your fathers, saying to Abraham, ‘And in your offspring all the nations of the earth will be blessed.’ ²⁶ God, after he* had raised up his servant, sent him to you first, to bless you by turning each of you back from your wickedness!”

On Pentecost, remember that our spiritual ancestors were delivered from slavery in Egypt at this time and instructed in the perfect ways of the Creator. His Spirit was given to write these instructions on our heart and deliver us from evil and death. Repent and believe the gospel, so that your sins can be blotted out, and a refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord!

Photo by Jez Timms on Unsplash.

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And why do you call me “Lord, Lord,” and do not do what I tell you? Everyone who comes to me and listens to my words and does them—I will show you what he is like: he is like a man building a house, who dug and went down deep and laid the foundation on the rock. And when a flood came, the river burst against that house and was not able to shake it, because it had been built well.

Luke 6:46-48

Fear has been a driving force for a very long time thanks to talking heads fear mongering in the twenty-four hour news cycle, along with over the top authoritarian officials. Fear is not necessarily a bad emotion to possess, but what should cause us fear?

It amazes me how we fear things so much that we will shut ourselves into our houses, not associate with certain people, and hang on every word spewing from places like twenty-four hour news channels and government news briefs, yet when it comes to basic life giving instruction from the Creator of the universe, one will block their ears, mock and say such things as “I’m free from the burden of the law of God”. The instruction of God is not a burden, but life giving manna from heaven.

Psa 119:165 Great peace is for those who love your law, and they do not have a cause for stumbling.
Psa 119:166 I hope for your salvation, O Yahweh, and do your commands.
Psa 119:167 My soul heeds your testimonies, and I love them exceedingly.

Let’s look at some items that we should fear, and that your favourite talking head, or unfortunately, even your pastor will not warn you about.

Lev 26:14 “‘But if you do not listen to me and you do not carry out all these commands,
Lev 26:15 and if you reject my statutes and if your inner self abhors my regulations, to not carry out all my commands by your breaking my covenant,
Lev 26:16 I in turn will do this to you: then I will summon onto you horror, the wasting disease, and the fever that wastes eyes and that drains away life; and you shall sow your seed in vain, and your enemies shall eat it.
Lev 26:17 And I will set my face against you, and you shall be defeated before your enemies; and your haters shall rule over you, and you shall flee away, but there shall not be anybody who is pursuing you.
Lev 26:18 “‘And if in spite of these things you do not listen to me, then I will continue to discipline you seven times for your sins.

I was unaware how much Christians actually reject and abhor the commands and statutes of Yahuah during the forty seven years I spent in the church. Of course, it never really came up as a subject of discussion. I would have reacted negatively towards them too, because we are “free in Jesus”, or “ free in Jeeesus”, Pentecostal style. I actually did get upset at my parents for suggesting that maybe we shouldn’t be eating pork. They were ahead of me on these things, but I did not know, nor would I have understood at that time.

Let’s look at eating unclean meats as an example. As people cling to various devices to protect them from air born viruses, why are they not concerned with the viruses they are putting in their bodies from unclean meat? What about blood? I watched a chef make blood sausage on television one night and was amazed that people do this with pigs.

Lev 11:1 Then Yahweh spoke to Moses and to Aaron, saying to them,
Lev 11:2 “Speak to the Israelites, saying, ‘These are the animals that you may eat from all the animals that are on the land:
Lev 11:3 Any among the animals that has a divided hoof and has a split cleft in the hoof, such you may eat.
Lev 11:4 However, these you may not eat from those that chew the cud and from those that have a divided hoof: the camel, because it is a chewer of cud but it does not have a hoof that is divided—it is unclean for you;
Lev 11:5 and the coney, because it is a chewer of cud but it does not have a hoof that is divided—it is unclean for you;
Lev 11:6 and the hare, because it is a chewer of cud but it does not have a hoof that is divided—it is unclean for you;
Lev 11:7 and the pig, because it has a divided hoof and has a split cleft in the hoof but it does not chew cud—it is unclean for you.
Lev 11:8 You must not eat from their meat, and you must not touch their dead body—they are unclean for you.

Are these instructions burdensome, or just good instructions about what to eat? What about eating blood? For the New Testament only crowd, the Apostles told the new converts from the nations that one of the first things they should do is stop eating blood. This is an instruction from the Torah.

Act 15:19 Therefore I conclude we should not cause difficulty for those from among the Gentiles who turn to God,
Act 15:20 but we should write a letter to them to abstain from the pollution of idols and from sexual immorality and from what has been strangled and from blood.
Act 15:21 For Moses has those who proclaim him in every city from ancient generations, because he is read aloud in the synagogues on every Sabbath.”

Idols, sexual immorality and blood are top on the list for believers in Messiah coming out of the surrounding religions according to the Apostles. They ate unclean meat sacrificed to demons and had temple prostitutes. These religions were steeped in fertility rites that the modern church has also adopted. According to the apostles, the rest of the Torah will be learned, “because he [Moses] is read aloud in the synagogues on every Sabbath.” This means these are things we should fear! It also shows there was an expectation that new converts would be meeting on the Sabbath to learn about the faith.

1Co 10:14 Therefore, my dear friends, flee from idolatry.
1Co 10:15 I am speaking as to sensible people; you judge what I am saying.
1Co 10:16 The cup of blessing which we bless, is it not a participation in the blood of Christ? The bread which we break, is it not a participation in the body of Christ?
1Co 10:17 Because there is one bread, we who are many are one body, for we all share from the one bread.
1Co 10:18 Consider Israel according to the flesh: are not the ones who eat the sacrifices sharers in the altar?
1Co 10:19 Therefore, what am I saying? That food sacrificed to idols is anything, or that an idol is anything?
1Co 10:20 No, but that the things which they sacrifice, they sacrifice to demons and not to God, and I do not want you to become sharers with demons.

When we participate in festivals of other gods, such as the celebration around the winter solstice with all the greenery and candles, we “become sharers with demons”. This is exactly what Paul is speaking about as are the Apostles in Acts 15. These things have consequences that cannot be protected by personal protective equipment (PPE) or measures. The really effective PPE is worn on the inside by having a circumcised heart desiring to be obedient to the Creator.

Luk 12:4 “And I tell you, my friends, do not be afraid of those who kill the body, and after these things do not have anything more to do.
Luk 12:5 But I will show you whom you should fear: fear the one who has authority, after the killing, to throw you into hell! Yes, I tell you, fear this one!

What does it mean to “fear this one”? The fear of God is actually an idiom for keeping the commandments.

Deu 4:10 Remember the day that you stood before Yahweh your God at Horeb when Yahweh said to me, ‘Summon for me the people so that I can tell them my words, that they may learn to fear me all of the days they are alive on the earth and so that they may teach their children.’
Deu 4:11 And so you came near, and you stood under the mountain, and the mountain was burning with fire up to the heart of the heaven, dark with a very thick cloud.
Deu 4:12 And Yahweh spoke to you from the midst of the fire; you heard a sound of words, but you did not see a form—only a voice.
Deu 4:13 And he declared to you his covenant, the Ten Commandments, which he charged you to observe, and he wrote them on the two tablets of stone.

Your favorite news anchor will never tell anyone to fear Yahuah; however, this is a good use of fear. What does fearing God look like? It is keeping His commandments. There are no viruses that have the ability of causing a person to burn and there are no government mandated inoculations against the fire of an angry God.

Mal 4:1 “For look! The day is about to come, burning like an oven, and all the arrogant and every evildoer will be stubble. The coming day will consume them,” says Yahweh of hosts. “It will not leave behind for them root or branch.
Mal 4:2 But for you who revere my name, the sun of righteousness will rise, with healing in its wings, and you will go out and leap like fattened calves.
Mal 4:3 You will trample down the wicked, for they will be ashes under the soles of your feet on the day that I am going to act,” says Yahweh of hosts.
Mal 4:4 “Remember the instruction of my servant Moses, which I commanded him at Horeb to all Israel, the rules and regulations.

Why is eating pork something Yahuah told us not to do? I don’t think it matters, actually. Faith is just doing it because of the character of Yahuah. If we don’t have faith in His word we will say, “What does He know? I know better, or my pastor said I don’t have to listen to Yahuah”. One can always misquote Paul’s words or Peter’s vision to justify ignoring Yahuah.

In the end, when Messiah returns, we may find out what the big deal is concerning these things he told us not to do. These verses in Isaiah concern me, and should concern everyone eating hot dogs (the swine and mouse combo) at a church barbecue when Yeshua comes back.

Isa 66:16 For Yahweh enters into judgment on all flesh with fire and his sword, and those slain by Yahweh shall be many.
Isa 66:17 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.
Isa 66:18 “And I—their works and thoughts!—am about to come to gather all nations and tongues, and they shall come and see my glory.

Yeshua came to bring us back into covenant with the Father. He didn’t change the stipulations of the covenant. The Apostles knew what a privilege it was for the whole world to have the opportunity to commune with God through Israel, by the redeeming work of Messiah. A good use of fear would be reading these sayings by our Messiah:

Mat 7:21 “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter into the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven.
Mat 7:22 On that day many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and expel demons in your name, and perform many miracles in your name?’
Mat 7:23 And then I will say to them plainly, ‘I never knew you. Depart from me, you who practice lawlessness!’

Fear can be a debilitating emotion to overcome when it is used in the wrong application. When the world around us heaps up unnecessary fear and plays with our emotions, it can cause us to act in ways we will regret later. Healthy fear is the fear of Yahuah, who gives us the air we breath. Fear Him by doing what he told us to do! It will be an utterly dreadful day to hear, “I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.”.

The featured image is by Alexandra Gord on Unsplash.

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