“If anyone is to be taken captive, to captivity he goes; if anyone is to be slain with the sword, with the sword must he be slain. Here is a call for the endurance and faith of the saints.” Revelation 13:10

During the past two millennia, the church or the word church, has taken on many meanings. From observation, it seems the word church has grown legs and walked away with itself, often times taking with it the people of Yahweh God. The purpose of this blog post is to explore what this word church is about. We will start with Stephen’s speech in the Acts of the Apostles where he refers to the church being present with Moses at Mount Sinai, or sometimes called Horeb.

Act 7:36 He brought them out, after that he had shewed wonders and signs in the land of Egypt, and in the Red sea, and in the *wilderness forty years.
Act 7:37 This is that Moses, which said unto the children of Israel, A prophet shall the Lord your God raise up unto you of your brethren, like unto me; him shall ye hear.
Act 7:38 This is he, that was in the church in the wilderness with the angel which spake to him in the mount Sina, and with our fathers: who received the lively oracles to give unto us:
Act 7:39 To whom our fathers would not obey, but thrust him from them, and in their hearts turned back again into Egypt,

The word translated to church here is Strong’s G1577

G1577
ἐκκλησία
ekklēsia
Thayer Definition:
1) a gathering of citizens called out from their homes into some public place, an assembly
1a) an assembly of the people convened at the public place of the council for the purpose of deliberating
1b) the assembly of the Israelites
1c) any gathering or throng of men assembled by chance, tumultuously
1d) in a Christian sense
1d1) an assembly of Christians gathered for worship in a religious meeting
1d2) a company of Christian, or of those who, hoping for eternal salvation through Jesus Christ, observe their own religious rites, hold their own religious meetings, and manage their own affairs, according to regulations prescribed for the body for order’s sake
1d3) those who anywhere, in a city, village, constitute such a company and are united into one body
1d4) the whole body of Christians scattered throughout the earth
1d5) the assembly of faithful Christians already dead and received into heaven

I started with this verse, quoting from the King James Version of the Bible because it translates Strong’s G1577 to church. Other versions, such as the English Standard Version, use the word congregation for this verse in Acts, yet use church for translating Strong’s G1577 in other verses. I am pointing this out only to show the interpreter’s bias. If the assembly of the twelve tribes is referred to as the church, then it becomes problematic for dispensational doctrine. Dispensationalism is a belief system that was started in the late 19th century which makes the church have a capital C and separates it from the Israel of God. Paul is quite clear that with Yahweh God there is no separation of Yahweh’s people. Note the following two scripture passages:

Gal 3:24 So then, the law was our guardian until Christ came, in order that we might be justified by faith.
Gal 3:25 But now that faith has come, we are no longer under a guardian,
Gal 3:26 for in Christ Jesus you are all sons of God, through faith.
Gal 3:27 For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ.
Gal 3:28 There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.
Gal 3:29 And if you are Christ’s, then you are Abraham’s offspring, heirs according to promise.

Gal 6:14 But far be it from me to boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world.
Gal 6:15 For neither circumcision counts for anything, nor uncircumcision, but a new creation.
Gal 6:16 And as for all who walk by this rule, peace and mercy be upon them, and upon the Israel of God.

If we remove dispensationalism and the idea that somehow the “Church” is a separate entity from the Israel of God, or Israel in general, then we create a huge problem for people who are looking for a pre-tribulation rapture of the “Church”. We must realize that there never has been any covenant made with anything that is called the church. The new covenant was made with the House of Israel and the House of Judea. The writer of Hebrews shows this by quoting Jeremiah in the letter to the Hebrews.

Heb 8:6 But as it is, Christ has obtained a ministry that is as much more excellent than the old as the covenant he mediates is better, since it is enacted on better promises.
Heb 8:7 For if that first covenant had been faultless, there would have been no occasion to look for a second.
Heb 8:8 For he finds fault with them when he says: “Behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will establish a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah,
Heb 8:9 not like the covenant that I made with their fathers on the day when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt. For they did not continue in my covenant, and so I showed no concern for them, declares the Lord.
Heb 8:10 For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the Lord: I will put my laws into their minds, and write them on their hearts, and I will be their God, and they shall be my people.
Heb 8:11 And they shall not teach, each one his neighbor and each one his brother, saying, ‘Know the Lord,’ for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest.
Heb 8:12 For I will be merciful toward their iniquities, and I will remember their sins no more.”
Heb 8:13 In speaking of a new covenant, he makes the first one obsolete. And what is becoming obsolete and growing old is ready to vanish away.

Churches today are made up of many sects that have taken parts of scripture and focused on certain aspects of Christianity. This is church, but not necessarily the ekklesia we find Stephen talking about in Acts. I have been part of a few denominations: Roman Catholic, Pentecostal and Baptist. Pentecostal and Baptist denominations can be broken down into many sects that believe certain things unique from each other, but for this purpose I am lumping them all together. As a Baptist Deacon, I was given a book which was to show the way to be a Baptist Deacon, and after reading it, I realized I shouldn’t even be a Baptist Deacon at all. It states “A Baptist deacon and pastor must be absolutely dedicated to the will of the congregation. A deacon must believe this is true and right”. Also, “They [church member or deacon] believe putting a New Testament in the hands of a saved person and asking him to read with an eye single to the kind of church that is described in its pages will lead him to become a Baptist”. I think a pastor or deacon should be dedicated to the will of God, not the congregation, and I do not believe any church denomination best represents the New Testament church currently, although I know that there are many individual people in the world who do. A new term that has come to be, which is churchianity, describes much of the things we are seeing, much like what Paul warned Timothy about.

2Ti 3:12 Indeed, all who desire to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted,
2Ti 3:13 while evil people and impostors will go on from bad to worse, deceiving and being deceived.
2Ti 3:14 But as for you, continue in what you have learned and have firmly believed, knowing from whom you learned it
2Ti 3:15 and how from childhood you have been acquainted with the sacred writings, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus.
2Ti 3:16 All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness,
2Ti 3:17 that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.

Most of the churches I have been involved with subscribe to dispensationalism; however, until I studied for myself, I didn’t even know that was what was being taught, or that word existed. I am not sure if that is unique to me, or it is the case for everyone, because very few people in the churches I have been a part of discuss much about such topics, or for that matter, much about any beliefs they may have. I am very thankful for those who do study and discuss! I never could understand scripture in the confines of the “church” and Israel. It would seem very little scripture applies to the “church” other than describing a particular gathering. Then there are these words of Jesus in the following verse that don’t make sense if the church is its own entity.

Mat 15:24 He answered, “I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.”

Who does James address his letter to? It’s not the church.

Jas 1:1 James, a servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ, To the twelve tribes in the Dispersion: Greetings.

Maybe the confusion comes from using the word church to describe the collection or gathering of people who are part of the Israel of God, grafted in to the cultivated olive tree. James uses a description of where the people in these gatherings come from, the dispersed tribes who were grafted back in being the spiritual descendants of Abraham and those who sojourn with them.

Several years ago, after watching a series on the end times, rapture and tribulation by David Jeremiah, I realized what was being taught could not be reconciled with all of scripture. There were so many scriptures that derailed this teaching, I could no longer follow the paradigm. So, a teaching by Dr. David Jeremiah, that was teaching straight dispensationalism doctrine, is the very thing that made me realize the whole narrative does not work. That narrative being there is an entity called the church that has a different destiny from Israel, sometimes referred to as “the Jews”. As I stated earlier, without the dispensational teaching of C.I. Scofield and John Darby, the pre-tribulation rapture theory falls flat on its face as well. When carried out to the end, this system’s only logical conclusion is that there are two Gods, Yahweh and Jesus, and one is the redeemer of Israel and the other is redeemer of the “church”. Another way to put it is that there would have to be two brides, the church and Israel. This is a teaching similar to the teaching of the first century heretic, Marcion.

Moses spoke of Jesus, just as Stephen stated in Acts:

Deu 18:13 You must be blameless before Yahweh your God.
Deu 18:14 For these nations that you are about to dispossess listen to interpreters of signs and to diviners, but Yahweh your God has not allowed you to do the same.
Deu 18:15 “Yahweh your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from your midst, from your countrymen, and to him you shall listen.
Deu 18:16 This is according to all that you asked from Yahweh your God at Horeb, on the day of the assembly, saying, ‘I do not want again to hear the voice of Yahweh my God, and I do not want to see again this great fire, so that I may not die!’
Deu 18:17 And Yahweh said to me, ‘They are right in what they have said.
Deu 18:18 I will raise up a prophet for them from among their countrymen like you, and I will place my words into his mouth, and he shall speak to them everything that I command him.
Deu 18:19 And then the man that will not listen to my words that he shall speak in my name, I will hold accountable.

It was not until I realized that I was grafted into the Israel of God, through Jesus, as the spiritual child of Abraham, that the once obscure scriptures came alive. With a manmade system of dispensationalism these scriptures are taken away and hidden from the believer in Christ. Many scriptures that are intended for a follower of Jesus are put off to be for someone else. “You must do what God says to do…wait…not that, that is for someone else. You must do what I say God says to do. That’s better.” Another enlightenment is knowing God has a name, יהוה, typically shown as Yahweh or Yahuah, that was translated to the substitution LORD over 6000 times in the English translations of the Bible. Jesus’ name also is a linguistic creation from the Greek name Iesous, used for Joshua. The following is an example of scripture that exemplifies this, hidden from the person that doesn’t know Joshua is the English equivalent of Iesous, in Hebrew Yahshua, or what came to be the name Jesus. The prophet Zechariah is shown the future high priest, Joshua, who is Jesus.

Zec 3:6 And the angel of Yahweh assured Joshua, saying,
Zec 3:7 “Thus says Yahweh of hosts: ‘If you will walk in my ways, and if you will keep my requirements, then you will judge my house, and you will also guard my courtyards, and I will give to you passageways among these that are standing here.
Zec 3:8 Listen, please, O Joshua the high priest, you and your companions that are sitting before you. For the men are a sign that, look, I am going to bring my servant the Branch.
Zec 3:9 For consider, the stone that I set before Joshua, on one stone are seven eyes. Look, I am going to engrave an inscription on it,’ declares Yahweh of hosts, ‘and I will remove the guilt of that land in a single day.
Zec 3:10 On that day,’ declares Yahweh of hosts, ‘you will invite one another under the vine and under the fig tree.'”

Yahweh was showing Zachariah who was going to remove the guilt of the land in one day. It was through Joshua, the Branch. It is through Joshua, or the Germanic, Greek transliteration of Iesous, namely Jesus, that allows us to be grafted into the cultivated tree. Is this not what Yahweh told Moses?

It is through the Branch we can be grafted into the cultivated olive tree.

Rom 11:13 Now I am speaking to you Gentiles. Inasmuch then as I am an apostle to the Gentiles, I magnify my ministry
Rom 11:14 in order somehow to make my fellow Jews jealous, and thus save some of them.
Rom 11:15 For if their rejection means the reconciliation of the world, what will their acceptance mean but life from the dead?
Rom 11:16 If the dough offered as firstfruits is holy, so is the whole lump, and if the root is holy, so are the branches.
Rom 11:17 But if some of the branches were broken off, and you, although a wild olive shoot, were grafted in among the others and now share in the nourishing root of the olive tree,
Rom 11:18 do not be arrogant toward the branches. If you are, remember it is not you who support the root, but the root that supports you.
Rom 11:19 Then you will say, “Branches were broken off so that I might be grafted in.”
Rom 11:20 That is true. They were broken off because of their unbelief, but you stand fast through faith. So do not become proud, but fear.
Rom 11:21 For if God did not spare the natural branches, neither will he spare you.
Rom 11:22 Note then the kindness and the severity of God: severity toward those who have fallen, but God’s kindness to you, provided you continue in his kindness. Otherwise you too will be cut off.
Rom 11:23 And even they, if they do not continue in their unbelief, will be grafted in, for God has the power to graft them in again.
Rom 11:24 For if you were cut from what is by nature a wild olive tree, and grafted, contrary to nature, into a cultivated olive tree, how much more will these, the natural branches, be grafted back into their own olive tree.

We need to get weened off of the milk and move on to solid food so we can teach others. This idea of renting a fire suit by saying a prayer and paying a tithe is not going to pay off in the end. Especially if my hunch is correct, that we are not going to be whisked out of the world before any tribulation comes, where the tribulation will be only for the tribe of Judea, Judaens or some earthly ethnic group that is not “the church”. The writer of Hebrews is distraught at the lack of study concerning his audience of believers.

Heb 5:12 For though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you again the basic principles of the oracles of God. You need milk, not solid food,
Heb 5:13 for everyone who lives on milk is unskilled in the word of righteousness, since he is a child.
Heb 5:14 But solid food is for the mature, for those who have their powers of discernment trained by constant practice to distinguish good from evil.

1Co 2:14 The natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned.
1Co 2:15 The spiritual person judges all things, but is himself to be judged by no one.
1Co 2:16 “For who has understood the mind of the Lord so as to instruct him?” But we have the mind of Christ.
1Co 3:1 But I, brothers, could not address you as spiritual people, but as people of the flesh, as infants in Christ.
1Co 3:2 I fed you with milk, not solid food, for you were not ready for it. And even now you are not yet ready,
1Co 3:3 for you are still of the flesh. For while there is jealousy and strife among you, are you not of the flesh and behaving only in a human way?

Jew, Greek or any other tribe must be grafted into the cultivated tree through Jesus, making one people of God, who is the Israel of God. Jesus had to die to reconcile Yahweh’s divorce from Israel, stated in Jeremiah, being the perfect sacrificial lamb to take away the sin of the world, conquering the law of sin and death.

Jer 3:6 Then Yahweh said to me in the days of Josiah, the king, “Have you seen what apostate Israel has done? She has gone on every high hill and under every leafy tree and she has prostituted herself there.
Jer 3:7 And I thought, ‘After her doing all these things to me she will return,’ but she did not return. And her treacherous sister Judah saw it.
Jer 3:8 And I saw that for this very reason, that on account of apostate Israel committing adultery I divorced her and gave the letter of divorce to her. Yet her treacherous sister Judah was not afraid and she went and prostituted herself also.
Jer 3:9 And it was because of the frivolity of her fornication that she defiled the land and committed adultery with the stone and with the tree.
Jer 3:10 Yet even in all this her treacherous sister Judah did not return to me with all her heart, but only in pretense,” declares Yahweh.
Jer 3:11 Then Yahweh said to me, “Apostate Israel has proved herself more upright than treacherous Judah.
Jer 3:12 Go, and proclaim these words toward the north, and say, ‘Return, apostate Israel,’ declares Yahweh. ‘I will not cause my anger to fall on you. For I am loyal,’ declares Yahweh. ‘I will not be angry forever.

The Law of Yahweh states that once divorced, a husband cannot return to his wife. According to this, Israel could not come back to Yahweh to be reconciled. It is what Paul speaks of below that is often missed. We also don’t need a written code because it will be in our hearts and minds. If a federal law states not to rob a bank, is that the only thing preventing you from bank robbery, or is “do not steal” written in your heart so you will not think of doing it? If the answer is that you would never consider robbing a bank, then the law has no affect. Do you keep Yahweh’s sabbaths because the written code says to, or because you know in your heart you are honouring Him and simply cherish the day? If it is the latter, the law has no affect.

Rom 7:1 Or do you not know, brothers—for I am speaking to those who know the law—that the law is binding on a person only as long as he lives?
Rom 7:2 For a married woman is bound by law to her husband while he lives, but if her husband dies she is released from the law of marriage.
Rom 7:3 Accordingly, she will be called an adulteress if she lives with another man while her husband is alive. But if her husband dies, she is free from that law, and if she marries another man she is not an adulteress.
Rom 7:4 Likewise, my brothers, you also have died to the law through the body of Christ, so that you may belong to another, to him who has been raised from the dead, in order that we may bear fruit for God.
Rom 7:5 For while we were living in the flesh, our sinful passions, aroused by the law, were at work in our members to bear fruit for death.
Rom 7:6 But now we are released from the law, having died to that which held us captive, so that we serve in the new way of the Spirit and not in the old way of the written code.

Israel was divorced by Yahweh for adultery with all of its foreign gods and practices. By Yahweh’s own law, Israel could never come back. Israel was scattered among the nations and mixed to where there was no more Israel. Yahweh always had a plan to bring the House of Israel back, along with all the nations which they were dispersed into, despite the law that stated He could not. In one case this plan was revealed to Ezekiel.

Eze 37:15 And the word of Yahweh came to me, saying,
Eze 37:16 “And you, son of man, take for yourself a piece of wood, and write on it, ‘For Judah and for the Israelites his associates,’ and take another piece of wood, and write on it, ‘For Joseph, the piece of wood of Ephraim and all of the house of Israel his associates.’
Eze 37:17 And join them one to the other with respect to you as one piece of wood, so that they may become one in your hand.
Eze 37:18 When your people say to you, saying, ‘Will you not inform us as to what these actions mean for you?’
Eze 37:19 Then speak to them, ‘Thus says the Lord Yahweh: “Look! I am taking the piece of wood for Joseph that is in the hand of Ephraim and the tribes of Israel its associates, and I will put them on it, the piece of wood of Judah, and I will make them into one piece of wood, so that they be one in my hand.'”
Eze 37:20 And the pieces of wood on which you wrote will be in your hand before their eyes.
Eze 37:21 And speak to them, ‘Thus says the Lord Yahweh: “Look! I am taking the Israelites from among the nations to which they went, and I will gather them from everywhere, and I will bring them to their own soil.
Eze 37:22 And I will make them into one nation in the land on the mountains of Israel, and they will all have one king as their king, and they will not again be two nations and will not again divide into two kingdoms again.
Eze 37:23 And they will not defile themselves again with their idols and with vile idols and with all of their transgressions, and I will save them from all of their apostasy by which they sinned, and I will cleanse them and they will be for me as a people and I, I will be for them as God.
Eze 37:24 “‘”And my servant David will be king over them, and one shepherd will be for all of them, and in my regulations they will go, and my statutes they will observe, and they will do them.
Eze 37:25 And they will dwell on the land that I gave to my servant, to Jacob, in which your ancestors dwelled, and they will dwell on it, they and their children and the children of their children forever, and my servant David will be a leader for them forever.
Eze 37:26 And I will make with them a covenant of peace; an everlasting covenant it will be with them. And I will establish them, and I will cause them to increase, and I will put my sanctuary in the midst of them forever.
Eze 37:27 And my tabernacle will be with them, and I will be for them as God, and they will be to me as a nation.
Eze 37:28 And the nations will know that I, Yahweh, am consecrating Israel when my sanctuary is in the midst of them forever.”‘”

Yahweh God uses the stick or wood analogy through Ezekiel. The Hebrew word translated to wood also could be tree, which would be consistent with the other tree analogies in scripture. Does being grafted into the cultivated tree, saved from the penalty of the law, give us the license to purposely break the law of God? Peter says no, as well as the writer of Hebrews, consistent with Ezekiel 37:24; “My servant David shall be king over them, and they shall all have one shepherd. They shall walk in my rules and be careful to obey my statutes.” All these scriptures are speaking to the child of God, whether grafted in, or a natural branch, this very day. His servant David in this verse is referring to the Branch, from the root of Jesse, who is Jesus.

2Pe 2:20 For if, after they have escaped the defilements of the world through the knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, they are again entangled in them and overcome, the last state has become worse for them than the first.
2Pe 2:21 For it would have been better for them never to have known the way of righteousness than after knowing it to turn back from the holy commandment delivered to them.
2Pe 2:22 What the true proverb says has happened to them: “The dog returns to its own vomit, and the sow, after washing herself, returns to wallow in the mire.”

Both the verses in 2nd Peter above and Hebrews below nullify John Calvin’s eternal security idea, that is the “p” for preservation in T.U.L.I.P. Both passages speak of someone who once “escaped the defilement of the world” or “ have once been enlightened and tasted the heavenly gift”, and turned back “ from the holy commandment delivered to them”.

Heb 6:4 For it is impossible, in the case of those who have once been enlightened, who have tasted the heavenly gift, and have shared in the Holy Spirit,
Heb 6:5 and have tasted the goodness of the word of God and the powers of the age to come,
Heb 6:6 and then have fallen away, to restore them again to repentance, since they are crucifying once again the Son of God to their own harm and holding him up to contempt.
Heb 6:7 For land that has drunk the rain that often falls on it, and produces a crop useful to those for whose sake it is cultivated, receives a blessing from God.
Heb 6:8 But if it bears thorns and thistles, it is worthless and near to being cursed, and its end is to be burned.

The contemporary church seems to be more about the particular denomination, its unique beliefs, and buildings with their windows and doors. It is often stated “if we could only get that person to come to church” as if the act of going to a particular church building would ever change anyone’s heart. Frankly, it means nothing. People go to church for years and never have a relationship with Christ. They fool themselves by fulfilling the obligation of showing up for service, dropping some money in the plate, then getting back to their real life at 12 noon. There is no desire to live a life pleasing to Yahweh or to even discuss how that might be done. Instead of trying to fill churches, we should be making disciples, showing people the truth and way. Start with yourself and “study to show thyself approved”. Unfortunately, bringing people to church may not accomplish this, even if they lay their clothes out Saturday night and pre-plan breakfast for Sunday morning to ensure arriving to church on time. How does the real ekklesia meet?

Mat 18:18 Truly, I say to you, whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.
Mat 18:19 Again I say to you, if two of you agree on earth about anything they ask, it will be done for them by my Father in heaven.
Mat 18:20 For where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I among them.”

We are not to forsake the gathering, especially in these times we live in. Gathering together with believers does not have to happen inside of organized religion. In fact, as the apostasy continues, I predict that we are near the end of the era of the ekklesia meeting in church buildings. The writer of Hebrews states, “not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day drawing near.”

Heb 10:12 But when Christ had offered for all time a single sacrifice for sins, he sat down at the right hand of God,
Heb 10:13 waiting from that time until his enemies should be made a footstool for his feet.
Heb 10:14 For by a single offering he has perfected for all time those who are being sanctified.
Heb 10:15 And the Holy Spirit also bears witness to us; for after saying,
Heb 10:16 “This is the covenant that I will make with them after those days, declares the Lord: I will put my laws on their hearts, and write them on their minds,”
Heb 10:17 then he adds, “I will remember their sins and their lawless deeds no more.”
Heb 10:18 Where there is forgiveness of these, there is no longer any offering for sin.
Heb 10:19 Therefore, brothers, since we have confidence to enter the holy places by the blood of Jesus,
Heb 10:20 by the new and living way that he opened for us through the curtain, that is, through his flesh,
Heb 10:21 and since we have a great priest over the house of God,
Heb 10:22 let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, with our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water.
Heb 10:23 Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for he who promised is faithful.
Heb 10:24 And let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works,
Heb 10:25 not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day drawing near.
Heb 10:26 For if we go on sinning deliberately after receiving the knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins,
Heb 10:27 but a fearful expectation of judgment, and a fury of fire that will consume the adversaries.
Heb 10:28 Anyone who has set aside the law of Moses dies without mercy on the evidence of two or three witnesses.
Heb 10:29 How much worse punishment, do you think, will be deserved by the one who has trampled underfoot the Son of God, and has profaned the blood of the covenant by which he was sanctified, and has outraged the Spirit of grace?
Heb 10:30 For we know him who said, “Vengeance is mine; I will repay.” And again, “The Lord will judge his people.”
Heb 10:31 It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.

What day is drawing near? The day of Yahweh. Please see my blog, The Great Day of Yahuah.

Hebrews 10:26-27; “For if we go on sinning deliberately after receiving the knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins, but a fearful expectation of judgment, and a fury of fire that will consume the adversaries.” What can this mean but to keep the commandments? Paul tells us whom we should be gathering with. It is not those of the brethren or “church” who practice lawlessness.

1Co 5:7 Cleanse out the old leaven that you may be a new lump, as you really are unleavened. For Christ, our Passover lamb, has been sacrificed.
1Co 5:8 Let us therefore celebrate the festival, not with the old leaven, the leaven of malice and evil, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.
1Co 5:9 I wrote to you in my letter not to associate with sexually immoral people—
1Co 5:10 not at all meaning the sexually immoral of this world, or the greedy and swindlers, or idolaters, since then you would need to go out of the world.
1Co 5:11 But now I am writing to you not to associate with anyone who bears the name of brother if he is guilty of sexual immorality or greed, or is an idolater, reviler, drunkard, or swindler—not even to eat with such a one.
1Co 5:12 For what have I to do with judging outsiders? Is it not those inside the church whom you are to judge?
1Co 5:13 God judges those outside. “Purge the evil person from among you.”

The fact that there is only one people of Yahweh means that if you are one of them, than these verses apply to you:

Rev 13:4 And they worshiped the dragon, for he had given his authority to the beast, and they worshiped the beast, saying, “Who is like the beast, and who can fight against it?”
Rev 13:5 And the beast was given a mouth uttering haughty and blasphemous words, and it was allowed to exercise authority for forty-two months.
Rev 13:6 It opened its mouth to utter blasphemies against God, blaspheming his name and his dwelling, that is, those who dwell in heaven.
Rev 13:7 Also it was allowed to make war on the saints and to conquer them. And authority was given it over every tribe and people and language and nation,
Rev 13:8 and all who dwell on earth will worship it, everyone whose name has not been written before the foundation of the world in the book of life of the Lamb who was slain.
Rev 13:9 If anyone has an ear, let him hear:
Rev 13:10 If anyone is to be taken captive, to captivity he goes; if anyone is to be slain with the sword, with the sword must he be slain. Here is a call for the endurance and faith of the saints.

Rev 14:12 Here is a call for the endurance of the saints, those who keep the commandments of God and their faith in Jesus.
Rev 14:13 And I heard a voice from heaven saying, “Write this: Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord from now on.” “Blessed indeed,” says the Spirit, “that they may rest from their labors, for their deeds follow them!”

I recommend finding a group of people to gather with, especially during these times when gathering is hard to do. I am searching for people who want to meet and study the Word of God together, celebrate His feasts and learn His ways, leaving the commandments of men behind.

“Honor your father and your mother, as Yahweh your God commanded you, so that it will be good for you in the land that Yahweh your God is giving to you.” Deuteronomy 5:16

The fifth commandment that Yahweh gave the twelve tribes at Mount Horeb, in an audible voice, stated they should honour their father and mother. The writer of Deuteronomy restates all the events that took place, and everything Yahweh commanded.

Deu 5:1 And then Moses summoned all of Israel and said to them, “Hear, Israel, the rules and the regulations that I am speaking in your ears today, and you shall learn them, and you must observe them diligently.
Deu 5:2 Yahweh our God made a covenant with us at Horeb.
Deu 5:3 It was not with our ancestors that Yahweh made this covenant, but with these of us who are here alive today.
Deu 5:4 Face to face Yahweh spoke with you at the mountain from the midst of the fire.
Deu 5:5 I was standing between Yahweh and you at that time to report to you the word of Yahweh, for you were afraid because of the presence of the fire, and so you did not go up the mountain. He said,
Deu 5:6 ‘I am Yahweh your God, who brought you out from the land of Egypt, from the house of slavery.

These are the words of the covenant that Yahweh spoke to all twelve tribes at Mount Horeb:

Deu 5:7 There shall not be for you other gods besides me.
Deu 5:8 ‘You shall not make for yourself a divine image of any type of form that is in the heaven above or that is on the earth beneath or that is in the water under the earth.
Deu 5:9 ‘You shall not bow down to them, and you shall not serve them, for I, Yahweh your God, am a jealous God, punishing the guilt of fathers upon their children and upon the third and upon the fourth generation of those hating me,
Deu 5:10 but showing loyal love to thousands of those who love me and of those who keep my commandments.
Deu 5:11 ‘You shall not take up the name of Yahweh your God for a worthless purpose, for Yahweh will not leave unpunished anyone who uses his name for a worthless purpose.
Deu 5:12 ‘Observe the Sabbath day to make it holy, just as Yahweh your God has commanded you.
Deu 5:13 Six days you shall work, and you shall do all of your work,
Deu 5:14 but the seventh day is a Sabbath unto Yahweh your God; you shall not do any work, or your son, or your daughter, or your slave, or your slave woman, or your ox, or your donkey, or any of your domestic animals, or your resident alien who is in your towns, so that your slave and your slave woman may rest as you rest.
Deu 5:15 And you shall remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt, and Yahweh your God brought you out with a strong hand and with an outstretched arm; therefore, Yahweh your God commanded you to keep the Sabbath.
Deu 5:16 ‘Honor your father and your mother, as Yahweh your God commanded you, so that it will be good for you in the land that Yahweh your God is giving to you.
Deu 5:17 ‘You shall not murder.
Deu 5:18 ‘And you shall not commit adultery.
Deu 5:19 ‘And you shall not steal.
Deu 5:20 ‘And you shall not falsely bear evidence against your neighbor.
Deu 5:21 ‘And you shall not covet the wife of your neighbor, and you shall not crave the house of your neighbor, his field or his slave or his slave woman or his ox and his donkey or anything that belongs to your neighbor.’

The writer of Deuteronomy is thought to be Moses; however, his death is recorded at the end of the book. In my mind, that is a clue there were other contributors. After Yahweh’s giving of the Ten Commandments, he finishes with these words:

Deu 5:22 “These words Yahweh spoke to your whole assembly at the mountain from the midst of the fire and the very thick cloud with a loud voice, and he did not add anything, and then he wrote them on two tablets of stone and gave them to me.
Deu 5:23 And then when you heard the voice from the midst of the darkness, and as the mountain was burning with fire, and and all the heads of your tribes and your elders approached me,
Deu 5:24 you said, ‘Look, Yahweh our God has shown us his glory and his greatness, and we have heard his voice from the midst of the fire; this day we have seen that God can speak with a human being, yet he remains alive.
Deu 5:25 And so then why shall we die, for this great fire will consume us if we continue to hear the voice of Yahweh our God any longer, and so we shall die?
Deu 5:26 For who is there of all flesh who has heard the voice of the living God speaking from the midst of the fire as we have heard it and remained alive?
Deu 5:27 You go near and hear everything that Yahweh our God will say; and then you tell us all that Yahweh our God tells you, and we will listen, and we will do it.’
Deu 5:28 “And Yahweh heard the sound of your words when you spoke to me, and Yahweh said to me, ‘I have heard the sound of the words of this people that they have spoken to you; they are right with respect to all that they have spoken.
Deu 5:29 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.
Deu 5:30 Go! Say to them, “Return to your tents.”
Deu 5:31 But you stand here with me, and let me tell you all of the commandments and the rules and the regulations that you shall teach them, so that they may do them in the land that I am giving to them to take possession of it.’
Deu 5:32 “So you must be careful to do just as Yahweh your God commanded you; you shall not turn to the right or to the left.

Yahweh told Moses to send the people back to their tents and He would teach to him the rest of the commandments, rules and regulations for living a successful life. The commandment we are focusing on for the purpose of this blog is that of honouring our mother and father.

Yahweh said to honour our mother and father individually, and did not just say to honour them as parents collectively . There are many ways to keep the wording in such a way that groups the mother and father together that were not used. That implies that we should honour them individually and not just as a unit. Yahweh knows there are many unfortunate situations that separate a mother and father, but He gave no indication any situation should change honouring both the mother and father.

Jesus discusses this commandment when pointing out the error of the Pharisees.

Mat 15:1 Then Pharisees and scribes came to Jesus from Jerusalem and said,
Mat 15:2 “Why do your disciples break the tradition of the elders? For they do not wash their hands when they eat.”
Mat 15:3 He answered them, “And why do you break the commandment of God for the sake of your tradition?
Mat 15:4 For God commanded, ‘Honor your father and your mother,’ and, ‘Whoever reviles father or mother must surely die.’
Mat 15:5 But you say, ‘If anyone tells his father or his mother, “What you would have gained from me is given to God,”
Mat 15:6 he need not honor his father.’ So for the sake of your tradition you have made void the word of God.
Mat 15:7 You hypocrites! Well did Isaiah prophesy of you, when he said:
Mat 15:8 “‘This people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far from me;
Mat 15:9 in vain do they worship me, teaching as doctrines the commandments of men.’”

Many believe that Jesus was angry at the Pharisees for adhering to Yahweh’s commandments, when he was actually mad that they added to them or changed them to suit themselves. Jesus was addressing the fact that the Pharisees had changed the commandment to being able to abandon what help a person should be to their parents if they “give it to God”. It is wrong to think that people who want to keep Yahweh’s commands are being like the Pharisees. It is quite the opposite. The people who add to and change Yahweh’s commands are acting like the Pharisees, and “made void the word of God” plus “teaching as doctrines the commandments of men”. In the verses above, Jesus reminds them of the commands in the Torah to what must happen to those who revile their mother or father.

Exo 21:15 “Whoever strikes his father or his mother shall be put to death.

Exo 21:17 “Whoever curses his father or his mother shall be put to death.

The civil law that the twelve tribes maintained, was given by Yahweh, and it seems harsh. It is not what we observe today in the kingdom of this world. However, it is still the law of God and likely the law that will be used when Yahweh’s kingdom comes.

Isa 2:1 The word that Isaiah son of Amoz saw concerning Judah and Jerusalem:
Isa 2:2 And it shall happen in the future of the days the mountain of the house of Yahweh shall be established; it will be among the highest of the mountains, and it shall be raised from the hills. All of the nations shall travel to him;
Isa 2:3 many peoples shall come. And they shall say, “Come, let us go up to the mountain of Yahweh, to the house of the God of Jacob, and may he teach us part of his ways, and let us walk in his paths.” For instruction shall go out from Zion, and the word of Yahweh from Jerusalem.
Isa 2:4 He shall judge between the nations and he shall arbitrate for many peoples. They shall beat their swords into ploughshares and their spears into pruning hooks. A nation shall not lift up a sword against a nation, and they shall not learn war again.
Isa 2:5 House of Jacob, come and let us walk in the light of Yahweh.

Another observation which can be made is that there are no conditions for this commandment. Honour your father, unless he did this terrible deed or that evil thing, or honour your mother, only if she was the ideal mother, are words no where to be found in Yahweh’s instructions. Yet there are some harsh conditions placed on the children’s behaviour.

Deu 21:18 “If a man has a stubborn and rebellious son who does not listen to the voice of his father and to the voice of his mother, and they discipline him, and he does not obey them,
Deu 21:19 then his father and his mother shall take hold of him, and they shall bring him out to the elders of his city and to the gate of his town,
Deu 21:20 and they shall say to the elders of his city, ‘This our son is stubborn and rebellious; he does not obey us, and he is a glutton and a drunkard.’
Deu 21:21 Then all the men of his city shall stone him with stones and let him die; and so you shall purge the evil from your midst, and all of Israel will hear, and they will fear.

Lev 19:1 Then Yahweh spoke to Moses, saying,
Lev 19:2 “Speak to all the community of the Israelites, and say to them, ‘You must be holy, because I, Yahweh your God, am holy.
Lev 19:3 Each of you must revere your mother and your father, and you must keep my Sabbaths; I am Yahweh your God.

Today we are not going to stone our children, but there is a righteous judge to whom everyone will give an account of their deeds at the end of this age. This judge is also the same one who gave Moses the harshest of punishment for rebellious children.

Rev 20:11 Then I saw a great white throne and him who was seated on it. From his presence earth and sky fled away, and no place was found for them.
Rev 20:12 And I saw the dead, great and small, standing before the throne, and books were opened. Then another book was opened, which is the book of life. And the dead were judged by what was written in the books, according to what they had done.
Rev 20:13 And the sea gave up the dead who were in it, Death and Hades gave up the dead who were in them, and they were judged, each one of them, according to what they had done.
Rev 20:14 Then Death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire. This is the second death, the lake of fire.
Rev 20:15 And if anyone’s name was not found written in the book of life, he was thrown into the lake of fire.

Rev 21:1 Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more.
Rev 21:2 And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband.
Rev 21:3 And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God.
Rev 21:4 He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.”
Rev 21:5 And he who was seated on the throne said, “Behold, I am making all things new.” Also he said, “Write this down, for these words are trustworthy and true.”
Rev 21:6 And he said to me, “It is done! I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end. To the thirsty I will give from the spring of the water of life without payment.
Rev 21:7 The one who conquers will have this heritage, and I will be his God and he will be my son.
Rev 21:8 But as for the cowardly, the faithless, the detestable, as for murderers, the sexually immoral, sorcerers, idolaters, and all liars, their portion will be in the lake that burns with fire and sulfur, which is the second death.”

In these verses from the book of Revelation, there are some very clear things to happen in the future. “The one who conquers will have this heritage”. What are we to conquer? What is it not to conquer? It sounds like the people with the attributes in verse 21:8 definitely did not conquer. Where do these definitions for things such as sexual immorality, sorcery, idolatry and liars come from other than the instructions Yahweh gave to Moses? While we are debating whether or not Jesus would have worn a mask, we neglect His warning to the Pharisees.

Mat 23:23 “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you tithe mint and dill and cumin, and have neglected the weightier matters of the law: justice and mercy and faithfulness. These you ought to have done, without neglecting the others.
Mat 23:24 You blind guides, straining out a gnat and swallowing a camel!
Mat 23:25 “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you clean the outside of the cup and the plate, but inside they are full of greed and self-indulgence.
Mat 23:26 You blind Pharisee! First clean the inside of the cup and the plate, that the outside also may be clean.
Mat 23:27 “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you are like whitewashed tombs, which outwardly appear beautiful, but within are full of dead people’s bones and all uncleanness.
Mat 23:28 So you also outwardly appear righteous to others, but within you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness.

There is doctrine today teaching that the words of Jesus are not for the people of the modern church but for the “Jews”. I have seen the arguments on Twitter. It is nothing more than the teachings of the first century heretic, Marcion, to imply the Apostle Paul was teaching a different gospel than Jesus.

Here are a few verses from Yahweh’s instruction to live a blessed life you may have not heard lately:

Deu 18:10 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,
Deu 18:11 or one who casts magic spells, or one who consults a spirit of the dead, or spiritist, or one who inquires of the dead.
Deu 18:12 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.
Deu 18:13 You must be blameless before Yahweh your God.
Deu 18:14 For these nations that you are about to dispossess listen to interpreters of signs and to diviners, but Yahweh your God has not allowed you to do the same.

Deu 12:2 You must completely demolish all of the places there where they served their gods, that is, the nations whom you are about to dispossess, on the high mountains, and on the hills and under each leafy green tree.
Deu 12:3 And you shall break down their altars, and you shall smash their stone pillars, and their Asherah poles you must burn with fire, and the images of their gods you shall hew down, and you shall blot out their names from that place.
Deu 12:4 You shall not worship Yahweh your God like this.

Deu 25:13 “There shall not be for your use in your bag two kinds of stone weights, a large one and a small one.
Deu 25:14 There shall not be in your house for your use two kinds of measures.
Deu 25:15 Rather a full and honest weight shall be for your use; there shall be for you a full and honest measure, so that your days on the land that Yahweh your God is giving to you may be long.
Deu 25:16 For detestable to Yahweh your God is everyone who is doing such things, everyone who is acting dishonestly.

Lev 18:1 Then Yahweh spoke to Moses, saying,
Lev 18:2 “Speak to the Israelites, and say to them, ‘I am Yahweh your God.
Lev 18:3 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.
Lev 18:4 You must carry out my regulations, and you must observe my statutes by following them; I am Yahweh your God.
Lev 18:5 And you shall observe my statutes and my regulations by which the person doing them shall live; I am Yahweh.
Lev 18:6 “‘None of you shall approach anyone who is his close relative to expose nakedness; I am Yahweh.
Lev 18:7 You must not expose your father’s nakedness or your mother’s nakedness—she is your mother; you must not expose her nakedness.
Lev 18:8 You must not expose the nakedness of your father’s wife—it is your father’s nakedness.
Lev 18:9 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.
Lev 18:10 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.
Lev 18:11 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.
Lev 18:12 You must not expose the nakedness of your father’s sister; she is your father’s close relative.
Lev 18:13 You must not expose the nakedness of your mother’s sister, because she is your mother’s close relative.
Lev 18:14 You must not expose the nakedness of your father’s brother; you must not have sex with his wife—she is your aunt.
Lev 18:15 You must not expose your daughter-in-law’s nakedness; she is your son’s wife; you must not expose her nakedness.
Lev 18:16 You must not expose the nakedness of your brother’s wife; she is your brother’s nakedness.
Lev 18:17 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.
Lev 18:18 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.
Lev 18:19 “‘And you must not have sex with a woman to expose her nakedness during her menstrual uncleanness.
Lev 18:20 And you must not have sex with your fellow citizen’s wife, becoming unclean with her.
Lev 18:21 “‘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.
Lev 18:22 And you shall not lie with a male as lying with a woman; that is a detestable thing.
Lev 18:23 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.
Lev 18:24 “‘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.
Lev 18:25 So the land became unclean, and I have brought the punishment of its guilt upon it, and the land has vomited out its inhabitants.

Honouring your mother and your father, without exception, is part of conquering. It takes endurance to conquer and the Holy Spirit of Truth, through Jesus the Messiah, abiding in your heart and mind. Scripture answers scripture. What is the voice of Yahweh other than the living Word in the flesh, Jesus, otherwise known as Iesous (Greek), Yahusha (Hebrew), or Joshua (English). We are also shown what it is to conquer in the book of Revelation as it is in Exodus:

Rev 14:12 Here is a call for the endurance of the saints, those who keep the commandments of God and their faith in Jesus.

Exo 19:5 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,
Exo 19:6 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.”

Featured image taken in St. Andrews New Brunswick.

“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, 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.’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. 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.” Deuteronomy 12:29-32

The children of Israel became ensnared in a trap of idolatry. Even though they were warned over and over, they could not resist the lure of foreign gods. It could be that these gods were not really all that foreign. The people of the nations all had similar rituals from the mystery religions, and the tribes of Israel came out from Egypt where they also had similar religious systems. Also, there must have been some appeal to the foreign religions around them. Perhaps they were fun, exciting and enticing.

Deu 13:6 “If your brother, the son of your mother or your son or your daughter or your wife whom you embrace or your intimate friend in secrecy says, ‘Let us go and let us serve other gods!’ gods that you and your ancestors have not known,
Deu 13:7 from among the gods of the people who are around you, those near you or those far from you, from one end of the earth and up to the other end of the earth,
Deu 13:8 you must not give in to him, and you shall not listen to him, and your eye shall not take pity on him, and you shall not have compassion, and you shall not cover up for him.

In the book of Revelation, there a warning to the church not to hold to the teaching of Balaam. This is a warning for then and now.

Rev 2:12 “And to the angel of the church in Pergamum write: “This is what the one who has the sharp double-edged sword says:
Rev 2:13 ‘I know where you live, where the throne of Satan is. And you hold fast to my name and did not deny your faith in me, even in the days of Antipas my faithful witness, who was killed among you, where Satan lives.
Rev 2:14 But I have a few things against you: that you have there those who hold fast to the teaching of Balaam, who taught Balak to put a stumbling block before the sons of Israel, to eat food sacrificed to idols and to commit sexual immorality.
Rev 2:15 So likewise you also have those who hold fast to the teaching of the Nicolaitans.
Rev 2:16 Therefore repent! But if you do not, I am coming to you quickly, and I will make war with them with the sword from my mouth.

Balaam was instrumental with the luring of Israel to the religion of the Moabites, who worshipped Chemosh, Astarte and Molech. Their religion involved poles and pillars, human sacrifice, temple prostitution and fertility rituals. The following is from the Smith Bible Dictionary:

Che’mosh. (subduer). The national deity of the Moabites. Num 21:29; Jer 48:7; Jer 48:13; Jer 48:46. In Jdg 11:24. He also appears as the god of the Ammonites. Solomon introduced, and Josiah abolished, the worship of Chemosh at Jerusalem. 1Ki 11:7; 2Ki 23:13. Also identified with Baal-peor, Baalzebub, Mars and Saturn.

Num 25:1 When Israel dwelled in Shittim, the people began to prostitute themselves with the daughters of Moab.
Num 25:2 And they invited the people to the sacrifices of their gods, and the people ate and worshiped their gods.
Num 25:3 So Israel was joined together to Baal Peor, and Yahweh became angry with Israel.
Num 25:4 Yahweh said to Moses, “Take all the leaders of the people and kill them before the sun, so the fierce anger of Yahweh will turn from Israel.”

Chemosh or Baal-Peor, the Moabite deity, was associated with Saturn, the Roman equivalent deity. They were the same god with the same attributes, but were called different names by different people. This enables us to follow the steps of Yahweh’s people into Christianity, involving themselves with the same gods and practices. Saturn was celebrated at the winter solstice during the Saturnalia festival. Tertullian, an early church father from the third century, addressed the celebration of the Saturnalia and all its festivities and decorations.

Tertullian On Idolatry Chapter 14 from The Ante-Nicene Fathers volume 3.

But the same apostle elsewhere bids us take care to please all: “As I,” he says, “please all by all means.” (1Co 10:32-33) No doubt he used to please them by celebrating the Saturnalia and New-year’s day! [Was it so] or was it by moderation and patience? by gravity, by kindness, by integrity? In like manner, when he is saying, “I have become all things to all, that I may gain all,” (1Co 9:22) does he mean “to idolaters an idolater? “to heathens a heathen?” “to the worldly worldly?” But albeit he does not prohibit us from having our conversation with idolaters and adulterers, and the other criminals, saying, “Otherwise ye would go out from the world,” (1Co 5:10) of course he does not so slacken those reins of conversation that, since it is necessary for us both to live and to mingle with sinners, we may be able to sin with them too. Where there is the intercourse of life, which the apostle concedes, there is sinning, which no one permits. To live with heathens is lawful, to die with them is not. Let us live with all; let us be glad with them, out of community of nature, not of superstition. We are peers in soul, not in discipline; fellow-possessors of the world, not of error. But if we have no right of communion in matters of this kind with strangers, how far more wicked to celebrate them among brethren! Who can maintain or defend this? The Holy Spirit upbraids the Jews with their holy-days. “Your Sabbaths, and new moons, and ceremonies,” says He, “My soul hateth.” (Isa 1:14, etc.) By us, to whom Sabbaths are strange, and the new moons and festivals formerly beloved by God, the Saturnalia and New-year’s and Midwinter’s festivals and Matronalia are frequented – presents come and go – New-year’s gifts – games join their noise – banquets join their din! Oh better fidelity of the nations to their own sect, which claims no solemnity of the Christians for itself! Not the Lord’s day, not Pentecost, even it they had known them, would they have shared with us; for they would fear lest they should seem to be Christians. We are not apprehensive lest we seem to be heathens!

By the time of Tertullian, through Roman and anti-Semitic teachings, Christians had abandoned Yahweh’s feasts and festivals and were slowly adopting the holy days of the nations. We can deduce this by the fact that Jesus, the Apostles and the New Testament church met on he Sabbath, celebrated Yahweh’s feast days and were completely silent when it came to practicing the sun god holidays. Tertullian quotes Isaiah chapter one for justification not to keep the Sabbath or festivals, but is that really what Yahweh wanted? Does Yahweh really no longer love His festivals? Read the entire chapter, or the entire Old Testament, and it will become clear that Yahweh was tired of bull sacrifices, celebrations of holy days and festivities, while the people were committing grave sins such as idolatry, murder, and child sacrifice. Yahweh also said, “Your new moons and your appointed festivals my soul hates; they have become to me like a burden, I am not able to bear them”. Could it be they had added to Yahweh’s feast days? All Yahweh wanted was obedience. Also, it is absurd to suggest Yahweh intended for Christians to trade His feasts and festivals for those of the nations and their foreign gods.

Isa 1:2 Hear, heavens, and listen, earth, for Yahweh has spoken: “I reared children and I brought them up, but they rebelled against me.
Isa 1:3 An ox knows its owner and a donkey the manger of its master. Israel does not know; my people do not understand.
Isa 1:4 Ah, sinful nation, a people heavy with iniquity, offspring of evildoers, children who deal corruptly. They have forsaken Yahweh; they have despised the holy one of Israel. They are estranged and gone backward.
Isa 1:5 Why do you want to be beaten again? You continue in rebellion. The whole of the head is sick, and the whole of the heart is faint.
Isa 1:6 From the sole of the foot and up to the head there is no health in it; bruise and sore and bleeding wound have not been cleansed, and they have not been bound up and not softened with the oil.
Isa 1:7 Your country is desolate, your cities are burned with fire; As for your land, aliens are devouring it in your presence, and it is desolate, like devastation by foreigners.
Isa 1:8 And the daughter of Zion is left like a booth in a vineyard, like a shelter in a cucumber field, like a city that is besieged.
Isa 1:9 If Yahweh of hosts had not left us survivors, we would have been as few as Sodom, we would have become like Gomorrah.
Isa 1:10 Hear the word of Yahweh, rulers of Sodom! Listen to the teaching of our God, people of Gomorrah!
Isa 1:11 What is the abundance of your sacrifices to me? says Yahweh. I have had enough of burnt offerings of rams and the fat of fattened animals and I do not delight in the blood of bulls and ram-lambs and goats.
Isa 1:12 When you come to appear before me, who asked for this from your hand: you trampling my courts?
Isa 1:13 You must not continue to bring offerings of futility, incense—it is an abomination to me; new moon and Sabbath, the calling of a convocation—I cannot endure iniquity with solemn assembly.
Isa 1:14 Your new moons and your appointed festivals my soul hates; they have become to me like a burden, I am not able to bear them.
Isa 1:15 And when you stretch out your hands, I will hide my eyes from you; even though you make many prayers, I will not be listening. Your hands are full of blood.
Isa 1:16 Wash! Make yourselves clean! Remove the evil of your doings from before my eyes! Cease to do evil!
Isa 1:17 Learn to do good! Seek justice! Rescue the oppressed! Defend the orphan! Plead for the widow!
Isa 1:18 “Come now, and let us argue,” says Yahweh. “Even though your sins are like scarlet, they will be white like snow; even though they are red like crimson, they shall become like wool.
Isa 1:19 If you are willing and you are obedient, you shall eat the good of the land.
Isa 1:20 But if you refuse and you rebel, you shall be devoured by the sword. For the mouth of Yahweh has spoken.”

When Yahweh declares the festival days He specifically calls them His days.

Lev 23:1-2 Then Yahweh spoke to Moses, saying, “Speak to the Israelites, and say to them, ‘The festivals of Yahweh that you shall proclaim are holy assemblies; these are my appointed times.

Yahweh said He can’t bare the iniquity that they were bringing with them. Isaiah 1:13, You must not continue to bring offerings of futility, incense—it is an abomination to me; new moon and Sabbath, the calling of a convocation—I cannot endure iniquity with solemn assembly.

Also, those who do not listen to His instruction will not have their prayers heard. Instruction here is translated from Strong’s H8451 for torah.

Pro 28:9  He who turns his ear from listening to instruction, even his prayer is an abomination. 

H8451

תֹּרָה    תּוֹרָה

tôrâh    tôrâh

to-raw’, to-raw’

From H3384; a precept or statute, especially the Decalogue or Pentateuch: – law.

During Tertullian‘s time they had already abandoned Yahweh’s feast days, with the exception of Pentecost, yet they had not fully embraced the blending of the holy days and gods of other nations into Christianity. Here Tertullian talks of decorating with greenery during the Saturnalia, which has transitioned into the Christian holy day of Christmas. All the religions of the world that still celebrate the winter solstice and spring equinox know that Rome forced Christianity on those days, like ramming a square peg into a round hole. These folks bite their tongues and hold back their animosity, while Christians ignorantly celebrate on these ancient religions’ holy days, with their symbols of eggs, trees, lights and logs, trying to convince everyone these days and symbols are about God and his son Jesus. However, there is no biblical evidence for celebrating these days that belong to foreign gods, only evidence that should prevent Christians from celebrating these days. Tertullian continues talking about decorating with greenery.

But “let your works shine,” saith He; (Mat 5:16) but now all our shops and gates shine! You will now-a-days find more doors of heathens without lamps and laurel-wreaths than of Christians. What does the case seem to be with regard to that species (of ceremony) also? If it is an idol’s honour, without doubt an idol’s honour is idolatry. If it is for a man’s sake, let us again consider that all idolatry is for man’s sake; let us again consider that all idolatry is a worship done to men, since it is generally agreed even among their worshippers that aforetime the gods themselves of the nations were men; and so it makes no difference whether that superstitious homage be rendered to men of a former age or of this. Idolatry is condemned, not on account of the persons which are set up for worship, but on account of those its observances, which pertain to demons.

“Then,” do you say, “the lamps before my doors, and the laurels on my posts are an honour to God?” They are there of course, not because they are an honour to God, but to him who is honour in God’s stead by ceremonial observances of that kind, so far as is manifest, saving the religious performance, which is in secret appertaining to demons. For we ought to be sure if there are any whose notice it escapes through ignorance of this world’s literature, that there are among the Romans even gods of entrances; Cardea (Hinge-goddess), called after hinges, and Forculus (Door-god) after doors, and Limentinus (Threshold-god) after the threshold, and Janus himself (Gate-god) after the gate: and of course we know that, though names be empty and reigned, yet, when they are drawn down into superstition, demons and every unclean spirit seize them for themselves, through the bond of consecration. Otherwise demons have no name individually, but they there find a name where they find also a token.

Tertullian argues that even though it is said these symbols of foreign gods are placed in honor of Yahweh, they really are not. They are ultimately honoring the gods they belong to and demons. I am simply presenting overlooked information from an early church father here, which shows the mindset of Christianity in the third century and their slowly drifting back to these foreign religions. Tertullian was arguing that Christians shouldn’t be using symbols that other nations use to celebrate their gods, specifically the ones Christians still use today. Tertullian lost the argument. To quote occultist Aleister Crowley, “Do what thou wilt.”.

Phallic symbolism is a large part of the nations’ religions. It accompanies the fertility goddesses worship along with the use of eggs in the springtime. The legends of Nimrod and Osiris are similar and all through the worlds’ religions or mythologies there are sun gods who die a terrible death, one where their reproductive body parts cannot be found. The wife goddess then makes a representation, such as an obelisk, and somehow gets impregnated by the rays of the sun. The son that is born, December 21-25, depending on the calendar used, is supposed to be the original husband sun god resurrected. All these religions with different gods and similar mythologies come from Babylon under the rule of Nimrod and Semiramis. They continued the worship of the host of heaven and study of mystery religions after Noah’s flood. This is a huge topic, and I have only scratched the surface of studying it myself. However, I have seen enough to understand the great sin that Israel continually committed with these nations’ gods and that through Egypt, Greece and Rome, these same symbols and gods, although having new names, have come right along into Christianity with their symbolism and mysteries. Once a person sees it, it cannot be unseen. It is a difficult, lonely situation to find oneself. This is an unfortunate joke played on Christianity to adopt all of these symbols, mostly unknowingly, by those in the exoteric realm.

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The symbolism in these pictures is not accidental like the church window in the feature picture of this blog may have been. These Gothic style windows in older churches are designed after the obelisk, to put it nicely. The three obelisks in the above pictures are located at power centers of the world, Rome, Washington and London. Why are symbols of Horus and Isis so prevalent, even at the center of the Roman church? There is so much symbolism in these pictures that it would take too much to cover it all here. The obelisk and other phallic symbols of foreign gods found their way all through church architecture. If anyone thinks we are just covering history, take a look into modern phallic worship in Wicca and New Age religions. It never went anywhere simply because Christians are ignorant of these systems of religion and symbols.

Joh 4:19 The woman said to him, “Sir, I perceive that you are a prophet.
Joh 4:20 Our fathers worshiped on this mountain, but you say that in Jerusalem is the place where people ought to worship.”
Joh 4:21 Jesus said to her, “Woman, believe me, the hour is coming when neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem will you worship the Father.
Joh 4:22 You worship what you do not know; we worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews.
Joh 4:23 But the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father is seeking such people to worship him.
Joh 4:24 God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.”
Joh 4:25 The woman said to him, “I know that Messiah is coming (he who is called Christ). When he comes, he will tell us all things.”
Joh 4:26 Jesus said to her, “I who speak to you am he.”

Yahweh is seeking people to worship him in spirit and truth, not with mystery religion symbols.

The obelisk is a form of the Ashera pole. The Ashera pole was a pole or sacred tree that the twelve tribes of Israel were always trying to put in Yahweh’s temple. It is the same symbolism as the obelisk. I am hoping everyone reading this can figure out what these symbols all represent without me having to get too graphic. The warning is clear in these verses below from Deuteronomy. Has Yahweh changed, now embracing the Asherah tree and stone pillar? I seriously doubt it.

Deu 16:21 You shall not plant for yourselves an Asherah pole beside the altar of Yahweh your God that you make for yourselves.
Deu 16:22 And you shall not set up for yourselves a stone pillar, a thing that Yahweh your God hates.

Fertility rites are all part of these mystery religions still practiced today under different names. Christians unknowingly follow suit, and do not seem to care.

Rev 17:1 Then one of the seven angels who had the seven bowls came and said to me, “Come, I will show you the judgment of the great prostitute who is seated on many waters,
Rev 17:2 with whom the kings of the earth have committed sexual immorality, and with the wine of whose sexual immorality the dwellers on earth have become drunk.”
Rev 17:3 And he carried me away in the Spirit into a wilderness, and I saw a woman sitting on a scarlet beast that was full of blasphemous names, and it had seven heads and ten horns.
Rev 17:4 The woman was arrayed in purple and scarlet, and adorned with gold and jewels and pearls, holding in her hand a golden cup full of abominations and the impurities of her sexual immorality.
Rev 17:5 And on her forehead was written a name of mystery: “Babylon the great, mother of prostitutes and of earth’s abominations.”
Rev 17:6 And I saw the woman, drunk with the blood of the saints, the blood of the martyrs of Jesus. When I saw her, I marveled greatly.

Syncretism is the blending of different religions and mythologies. This is a practice that has been happening for thousands of years, and Christianity blended with the same gods and goddesses as Israel, to the point where the pagan practices are inseparable today. As of late Christianity is blending more into new age and spirituality. Syncretism is a clever word, yet Yahweh calls it idolatry, sorcery and witchcraft.

From the website readthespirit.com:

Symbols of eggs and rabbits illustrate the Pagan and Wiccan holiday of Ostara, known also for the goddess of spring by the same name. Ostara, or Eostre, is the ancient goddess of spring and dawn who presides over fertility, conception and pollination. Symbols of eggs and rabbits represent the fertility of springtime, and in centuries past, these symbols were often used in fertility rituals. The next full moon, also called Ostara, is known as a time of increased births.

Here is the definition of the word Easter from the International Standard Bible Encyclopedia:

ēs´tẽr (πάσχα, páscha, from Aramaic פסחא, paṣḥā’ and Hebrew פסח, peṣaḥ, the Passover festival): The English word comes from the Anglo-Saxon Eastre or Estera, a Teutonic goddess to whom sacrifice was offered in April, so the name was transferred to the paschal feast. The word does not properly occur in Scripture, although the King James Version has it in Act 12:4 where it stands for Passover, as it is rightly rendered in the Revised Version (British and American). There is no trace of Easter celebration in the New Testament, though some would see an intimation of it in 1Co 5:7. The Jewish Christians in the early church continued to celebrate the Passover, regarding Christ as the true paschal lamb, and this naturally passed over into a commemoration of the death and resurrection of our Lord, or an Easter feast.

It is interesting to note that a standard Easter feast traditionally contains ham. This is a clue that it is not a feast of Yahweh. Can you imagine eating pork to celebrate the death and resurrection of Yahweh incarnate? The pork tradition on Easter comes from the Tammuz mythology. He was another version of the sun god religion who was killed by a wild boar. Ham was eaten at the spring festival in his honour. The pig was the animal of choice for sacrificing to these various gods. Yahweh tells us which animals are for food and which ones are not:

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.

Swine seems to be especially offensive to Yahweh. It could be that all these nations made the swine a sacred animal to their gods.

Isa 65:2 I spread out my hands all the day to a rebellious people, who walk in a way that is not good, following their own devices;
Isa 65:3 a people who provoke me to my face continually, sacrificing in gardens and making offerings on bricks;
Isa 65:4 who sit in tombs, and spend the night in secret places; who eat pig’s flesh, and broth of tainted meat is in their vessels;
Isa 65:5 who say, “Keep to yourself, do not come near me, for I am too holy for you.” These are a smoke in my nostrils, a fire that burns all the day.
Isa 65:6 Behold, it is written before me: “I will not keep silent, but I will repay; I will indeed repay into their lap
Isa 65:7 both your iniquities and your fathers’ iniquities together, says the LORD; because they made offerings on the mountains and insulted me on the hills, I will measure into their lap payment for their former deeds.”

King Antiochus had a pig sacrificed to Zeus in Yahweh’s temple during the winter solstice at the time of the Maccabees.

1Ma 1:41 Moreover king Antiochus wrote to his whole kingdom, that all should be one people,
1Ma 1:42 And every one should leave his laws: so all the heathen agreed according to the commandment of the king.
1Ma 1:43 Yea, many also of the Israelites consented to his religion, and sacrificed unto idols, and profaned the sabbath.
1Ma 1:44 For the king had sent letters by messengers unto Jerusalem and the cities of Juda that they should follow the strange laws of the land,
1Ma 1:45 And forbid burnt offerings, and sacrifice, and drink offerings, in the temple; and that they should profane the sabbaths and festival days:
1Ma 1:46 And pollute the sanctuary and holy people:
1Ma 1:47 Set up altars, and groves, and chapels of idols, and sacrifice swine’s flesh, and unclean beasts:
1Ma 1:48 That they should also leave their children uncircumcised, and make their souls abominable with all manner of uncleanness and profanation:
1Ma 1:49 To the end they might forget the law, and change all the ordinances.
1Ma 1:50 And whosoever would not do according to the commandment of the king, he said, he should die.

A quick calendar search will put the 25th of Casleu right at the time of the winter solstice, (December 24th-January 2) in 168 BC, when this sacrifice of swine took place on the altar of Yahweh in His temple. It’s amazing that the whole world still celebrates at this time. The transition from honouring Zeus, to Saturn during Saturnalia, and then to the fictional date for the birthday of Jesus, is both very interesting and disturbing.

1Ma 1:54 Now the fifteenth day of the month Casleu, in the hundred forty and fifth year, they set up the abomination of desolation upon the altar, and builded idol altars throughout the cities of Juda on every side;
1Ma 1:55 And burnt incense at the doors of their houses, and in the streets.
1Ma 1:56 And when they had rent in pieces the books of the law which they found, they burnt them with fire.
1Ma 1:57 And whosoever was found with any the book of the testament, or if any committed to the law, the king’s commandment was, that they should put him to death.
1Ma 1:58 Thus did they by their authority unto the Israelites every month, to as many as were found in the cities.
1Ma 1:59 Now the five and twentieth day of the month they did sacrifice upon the idol altar, which was upon the altar of God.

The information below is taken from https://draugablikk.com. The wild boar was also sacrificed during the winter solstice in Scandinavian countries. It is all honoring the same gods by different names at the same Sabbats. Christianity assigning the birth of Jesus to this time with the same celebrations does not sanctify it. There are two calendars, Yahweh’s and the other one.

“The midwinter festivities of ancient Europe are often called Yule or Yuletide. Ritual celebrations were important and essential components in old times, especially in the Norse cultures because of the long dark winters in Scandinavia and Finland. The Norsemen held great feasts to venerate their ancestors, swear oaths, for fertility, and to celebrate seasonal shifts in nature.

Towards the end of the year, Vikings in western Scandinavia (and Varangians in the east) welcomed the new year through great feasting. These Yuletide celebrations hailed from a distant past, perhaps further back than the Bronze Age, and had thus been a recurring tradition since long before the Viking Age.

Interestingly, the midwinter festivities of pagan Europe lasted for twelve days. It is from this tradition we have the modern twelve days of Christmas. In other words, the rituals of our pagan ancestors still live on in parts of northern Europe, especially in Scandinavia, Iceland, and Finland.

One Yuletide ritual involved sacrificing a wild boar, described as the “sónargǫltr” in the Icelandic literature. As part of the ceremony, oaths were sworn on the sacrificed boar’s bristles (a tradition that is not entirely out of fashion, if one considers contemporary New Year’s resolutions.) Food was scarce in the winter months, and through the sacrifice of the sónargǫltr, it was hoped the seeds to be sown in any man’s farmstead’s field would provide a rich and fruitful harvest.”

Now let’s look at Samhain. This festival was turned into All Saints’s day and Halloween many years ago. It is a Celtic tradition, but we see similar traditions in other parts of the world. In North America the church celebrates trunk or treat in honour of Samhain. Here is the Encyclopedia Britannica explanation of Samhain:

Samhain, (Celtic: “End of Summer”)also spelled Samain, in ancient Celtic religion, one of the most important and sinister calendar festivals of the year. At Samhain, held on November 1, the world of the gods was believed to be made visible to humankind, and the gods played many tricks on their mortal worshippers; it was a time fraught with danger, charged with fear, and full of supernatural episodes. Sacrifices and propitiations of every kind were thought to be vital, for without them the Celts believed they could not prevail over the perils of the season or counteract the activities of the deities. Samhain was an important precursor to Halloween.

The Celts, who many say were originally Chaldeans, would carve a head out of a turnip much like in North America where a pumpkin is used. The roots of this practice are pretty dark. Jacob’s wife Rachael stole a similar type of idol from her father, a Chaldean. It wasn’t a vegetable though, it was the real thing as the book of Jasher records.

And Rachel stole her father’s images, and she took them and she concealed them upon the camel upon which she sat, and she went on. And this is the manner of the images; in taking a man who is the firstborn and slaying him and taking the hair off his head, and taking salt and salting the head and anointing it in oil, then taking a small tablet of copper or a tablet of gold and writing the name upon it, and placing the tablet under his tongue, and taking the head with the tablet under the tongue and putting it in the house, and lighting up lights before it and bowing down to it. And at the time when they bow down to it, it speaks to them in all matters that they ask of it, through the power of the name which is written in it. And some make them in the figures of men, of gold and silver, and go to them in times known to them, and the figures receive the influence of the stars, and tell them future things, and in this manner were the images which Rachel stole from her father. And Rachel stole these images which were her father’s, in order that Lavan might not know through them where Ya`aqov had gone. YASHAR (JASHER) 31:40-44 את CEPHER

Human sacrifice was common thousands of years ago, and it still goes on today in some places. The trunk or treaters in the church parking lot may not have their enemy’s first born shrunken head as an idle, but it is all related to the same Sabbat of Samhain. Why would Christians celebrate these holy days of foreign gods when they could be celebrating Yahweh’s holy days?

2Ti 4:3 For the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions,
2Ti 4:4 and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander off into myths.

These foreign gods’ feasts and festivals are still fun and enticing for the people of Yahweh today. Why is it that the entire world embraces all of these Sabbats which Christianity also embraces? Is it that the entire world has converted to Christianity on those particular days, or has Christianity simply taken these traditions from other religions and mythologies? It’s a little of both, or syncretism, and things have evolved from ancient times. Whether we are talking about Tammuz, Isis, Astarte, Eostre, Thor and his flying goats and chariot, Saturn, Woden, human sacrifice or temple prostitution, Yahweh hates it all and anything that reminds him of it.

Hos 4:1 Hear the word of Yahweh, O children of Israel, for Yahweh has an indictment against the inhabitants of the land. There is no faithfulness or loyalty, there is no knowledge of God in the land.
Hos 4:2 Swearing and lying, murdering and stealing, and adultery break out, and bloodshed follows bloodshed.
Hos 4:3 Therefore the land mourns, and all those living in it languish with the animals of the field, and the birds of the heaven, and even the fish of the sea are being swept away.
Hos 4:4 Yet, let no one contend, and let no one accuse, for with you, O priest, is my contention.
Hos 4:5 You will stumble by day, and the priest also will stumble with you at night. And I will destroy your mother;
Hos 4:6 My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge; because you have rejected knowledge, I reject you from acting as a priest for me. And since you have forgotten the law of your God, I will also forget your children.
Hos 4:7 When they became many, their sin increased against me; they changed their glory into shame.
Hos 4:8 They feed on the sin of my people, they are greedy for their iniquity.
Hos 4:9 And it will be like people, like priest; I will punish them for their ways, and I will requite them for their deeds.
Hos 4:10 They will eat and not be satisfied; they will play the whore and not multiply, because they have forsaken Yahweh to devote themselves to
Hos 4:11 whoredom. Wine and new wine take away the understanding.
Hos 4:12 My people, consult their wooden idols, and their divining rod gives them oracles; because a spirit of whoredom led them astray, and they played the whore from under their God.
Hos 4:13 On the tops of the mountains they sacrifice, and on the hills they make offerings, under oak, poplar, and terebinth, because their shade is good. Therefore your daughters play the whore, and all your daughters-in-law commit adultery.
Hos 4:14 I will not punish your daughters when they play the whore, or your daughters-in-law when they commit adultery; because they go aside with whores, and they sacrifice with temple prostitutes, a people that does not understand comes to ruin.
Hos 4:15 Even though you, O Israel, are playing the whore, do not let Judah become guilty; do not enter Gilgal, or go up to Beth-aven; and do not swear, “As Yahweh lives!”
Hos 4:16 Indeed, like a stubborn heifer, Israel is stubborn; Now Yahweh will feed them, like a lamb in broad pasture.
Hos 4:17 Ephraim is joined to idols; let him alone.
Hos 4:18 When their drinking has ended, they surely indulge in sexual orgies. They love lewdness more than their glory.
Hos 4:19 A wind has wrapped them in its wings, and they will be ashamed because of their altars.

Paul gave a warning to the Galatians not to return to their heathen ways, observing the holy days of their gods that they did before they knew Yahweh. Should we not take the same warning? I know that some try to say this is referring to the Galatians celebrating Yahweh’s feast days, but how can this be the case? People that never celebrated Yahweh’s feast cannot return to something they never did. Also, would Paul refer to Yahweh’s instructions or Torah as weak and worthless? Absolutely not!

Gal 4:8 Formerly, when you did not know God, you were enslaved to those that by nature are not gods.
Gal 4:9 But now that you have come to know God, or rather to be known by God, how can you turn back again to the weak and worthless elementary principles of the world, whose slaves you want to be once more?
Gal 4:10 You observe days and months and seasons and years!
Gal 4:11 I am afraid I may have labored over you in vain.

I suggest studying mythology, not just an internet search, but real books and research. There are places on line to read real books, but many will read a blog like mine, where I can say anything, and take it as truth, if it comforts them. After researching the gods of the nations and where they are today, read the two books of King’s in the Bible. If you are able to see the connections between Israel and the “church”, along with the myths of all the gods of antiquity, you will also see how their sabbats and holy days are the same as those celebrated by the “church”. The modern day church has adopted many of the symbols and traditions of the nations’ gods that Yahweh said He hates.

“Therefore, beloved, since you are waiting for these, be diligent to be found by him without spot or blemish, and at peace.
And count the patience of our Lord as salvation, just as our beloved brother Paul also wrote to you according to the wisdom given him,
as he does in all his letters when he speaks in them of these matters. There are some things in them that are hard to understand, which the ignorant and unstable twist to their own destruction, as they do the other Scriptures.”
You therefore, beloved, knowing this beforehand, take care that you are not carried away with the error of lawless people and lose your own stability. 2 Peter 3:14-17

There are many references to the law in the Apostle Paul’s letters to the various churches in the New Testament, but does every reference to the law refer to the law of God given to Moses and the twelve tribes at Mount Horeb? It is not possible to think that and for there to be any coherency in Paul’s writings. All of Paul’s writings should be looked at through the lenses of Peter’s warning in the opening scripture.

For starters, what is God’s law? The word law is Strong’s H8451, pronounced “torah” in Hebrew. It is simply the instruction Yahweh gave his people to live and prosper. It is more often translated as the word law, which makes it seem like a list of rites and rules in a negative connotation. This is instruction from the Creator, who knows everything about this world. Most do not view the law of gravity as an evil thing to which we are in bondage to. It is simply cause and effect. Therefore, if someone walks off a high place, that person will fall to the ground, and depending on how high it was, that person will likely die. I am suggesting God’s law or instruction is just like the law of gravity. It was not established to remove enjoyment from life, but to enhance life. Yahweh knows what makes living on Earth sustainable and enjoyable. So why all the confusion?

H8451
תּרה / תּורה
tôrâh
BDB Definition:
1) law, direction, instruction
1a) instruction, direction (human or divine)
1a1) body of prophetic teaching
1a2) instruction in Messianic age
1a3) body of priestly direction or instruction
1a4) body of legal directives
1b) law
1b1) law of the burnt offering
1b2) of special law, codes of law
1c) custom, manner
1d) the Deuteronomic or Mosaic Law

There have always been rebellious entities whose goals are to separate mankind from Yahweh. One might say that these principalities are jealous of the relationship Yahweh wants to have with his creation. The first example occurred when there was only one instruction: don’t eat the fruit on that specific tree.

Gen 3:1 Now the serpent was more crafty than any other beast of the field that the LORD God had made. He said to the woman, “Did God actually say, ‘You shall not eat of any tree in the garden’?”
Gen 3:2 And the woman said to the serpent, “We may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden,
Gen 3:3 but God said, ‘You shall not eat of the fruit of the tree that is in the midst of the garden, neither shall you touch it, lest you die.’”
Gen 3:4 But the serpent said to the woman, “You will not surely die.
Gen 3:5 For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”

The question: Did God really say…….? Did he really mean rest on the seventh day? Did he really say not to eat certain creatures, like bats and pigs, because they are unclean? Certainly we must know better today, after all, we have refrigeration and science.

It started in the beginning and spiraled into the present situation. Now, concerning Paul’s writings, we will look at the various laws that Paul speaks of, and see that much like James and John, who emphasized that faith is exhibited by works, Paul was teaching that works cannot justify and save a person, or prove one’s faith. Both are true. When a person is justified by their faith, they will want to be obedient to the deliverer of that justification. Let’s establish that Paul carried out God’s instructions and thought God’s law was a good thing.

Act 21:18 On the following day Paul went in with us to James, and all the elders were present.
Act 21:19 After greeting them, he related one by one the things that God had done among the Gentiles through his ministry.
Act 21:20 And when they heard it, they glorified God. And they said to him, “You see, brother, how many thousands there are among the Jews of those who have believed. They are all zealous for the law,
Act 21:21 and they have been told about you that you teach all the Jews who are among the Gentiles to forsake Moses, telling them not to circumcise their children or walk according to our customs.
Act 21:22 What then is to be done? They will certainly hear that you have come.
Act 21:23 Do therefore what we tell you. We have four men who are under a vow;
Act 21:24 take these men and purify yourself along with them and pay their expenses, so that they may shave their heads. Thus all will know that there is nothing in what they have been told about you, but that you yourself also live in observance of the law.

Much like today, people in the Apostles’ day thought Paul was teaching against the law of God. The leadership had Paul take what was likely a Nazarite vow to prove to the people that he also lived in observance of the law. With Acts 24:4 in mind, one has two choices: either the Apostles of Jesus Christ were deceitful, and lived one way pretending to live another, or they observed the law of God. Taking all of scripture into account, it is easy for me to believe they observed the law of God. Otherwise, the whole system is corrupt and does not make any sense.

Rom 3:21 But now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law, although the Law and the Prophets bear witness to it—
Rom 3:22 the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe. For there is no distinction:
Rom 3:23 for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,
Rom 3:24 and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus,
Rom 3:25 whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith. This was to show God’s righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins.
Rom 3:26 It was to show his righteousness at the present time, so that he might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.
Rom 3:27 Then what becomes of our boasting? It is excluded. By what kind of law? By a law of works? No, but by the law of faith.
Rom 3:28 For we hold that one is justified by faith apart from works of the law.
Rom 3:29 Or is God the God of Jews only? Is he not the God of Gentiles also? Yes, of Gentiles also,
Rom 3:30 since God is one—who will justify the circumcised by faith and the uncircumcised through faith.
Rom 3:31 Do we then overthrow the law by this faith? By no means! On the contrary, we uphold the law.

Paul explains himself in his letter to the Roman’s very well. It can become confusing if we start reading with the preconceived notion that Paul is advocating to intentionally practice breaking God’s law. That is why Peter gave the warning that people would twist Paul’s words to justify lawlessness, or the breaking of God’s law. We uphold the law by our faith. Notice Paul mentions more than one law also. This becomes important when reading all of Paul’s letters. When Paul speaks of the law, one must determine which law he is referencing by context. It is not always the law of God. In the verses above he mentions the law of faith and the law of works. Let’s look at some verses that speak of other laws Paul deals with.

Rom 8:1 There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.
Rom 8:2 For the law of the Spirit of life has set you free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death.
Rom 8:3 For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do. By sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh,
Rom 8:4 in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.
Rom 8:5 For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit set their minds on the things of the Spirit.
Rom 8:6 For to set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the Spirit is life and peace.
Rom 8:7 For the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God, for it does not submit to God’s law; indeed, it cannot.
Rom 8:8 Those who are in the flesh cannot please God.
Rom 8:9 You, however, are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if in fact the Spirit of God dwells in you. Anyone who does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to him.

In these verses Paul speaks of the law of the Spirit of life and the law of sin and death. Romans 8:2, “For the law of the Spirit of life has set you free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death.” The law of sin and death cannot be the law of God. It is the result of breaking the law of God, and without the law of the Spirit through Jesus, everyone is guilty of breaking the law of God, thus bound by the law of sin and death. Also, in verse seven, “For the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God, for it does not submit to God’s law; indeed, it cannot”. If the fleshly mind is hostile to God because it does not submit to the law of God, then those in the Spirit would submit to the law of God, therefore not being hostile to God. I don’t know how else to read that. This law of God that Paul speaks of is not some new thing.

Rom 7:22 For I delight in the law of God, in my inner being,
Rom 7:23 but I see in my members another law waging war against the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members.
Rom 7:24 Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death?
Rom 7:25 Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, I myself serve the law of God with my mind, but with my flesh I serve the law of sin.

A person cannot delight in something that brings bondage and death. Paul’s letter to the church in Rome is a good foundation to understand what Paul has to say in his other letters. One of the problems we have understanding Paul’s letters is that we are not often given the context to the things Paul is writing about. Another issue that Paul faced was the Pharisaical system that ran Judaism. They had many laws and commandments that added to the law of God, which in itself, broke the instructions Yahweh gave to Moses and the twelve tribes.

Deu 12:29 “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,
Deu 12:30 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.’
Deu 12:31 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.
Deu 12:32 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.”

Jesus also taught against adding to the law of God. He called these added rules or instructions commandments of men. It doesn’t sound like Jesus was impressed with the Pharisees rejecting the commandments of God and replacing them with the commandments of men.

Mar 7:6 And he said to them, “Well did Isaiah prophesy of you hypocrites, as it is written, “‘This people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far from me;
Mar 7:7 in vain do they worship me, teaching as doctrines the commandments of men.’
Mar 7:8 You leave the commandment of God and hold to the tradition of men.”
Mar 7:9 And he said to them, “You have a fine way of rejecting the commandment of God in order to establish your tradition!

How many rules do we have in churches today that are beyond the law of God? The Roman church under Constantine and later councils added many laws, called canons, as well as many feast days, which involved other deities at their roots, at the same time rejecting Yahweh’s instructions. They demonized anyone who still followed Yahweh’s instructions and called them Judiazers. Jesus said:

Mat 11:29 Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.
Mat 11:30 For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.”

Do not let yourself be burdened by the doctrines of men and reject the instruction of Yahweh. Psalms 119:165 , “Great peace have those who love your law; nothing can make them stumble.”

Carrying on with the writings of Paul, his letter to the Galatians is often used to argue that we can live a lawless life as Christians. Beside the fact that a person has to reject most of scripture to believe that, just a basic understanding that Paul wasn’t teaching a new and different doctrine should be enough. Also, there was no New Testament when Paul wrote his letters. He argued everything from the only scripture he had, which we call the Old Testament today. Paul tells us that all scripture “is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work”.

2Ti 3:12 Indeed, all who desire to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted,
2Ti 3:13 while evil people and impostors will go on from bad to worse, deceiving and being deceived.
2Ti 3:14 But as for you, continue in what you have learned and have firmly believed, knowing from whom you learned it
2Ti 3:15 and how from childhood you have been acquainted with the sacred writings, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus.
2Ti 3:16 All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness,
2Ti 3:17 that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.

Gal 5:1 For freedom Christ has set us free; stand firm therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery.
Gal 5:2 Look: I, Paul, say to you that if you accept circumcision, Christ will be of no advantage to you.
Gal 5:3 I testify again to every man who accepts circumcision that he is obligated to keep the whole law.
Gal 5:4 You are severed from Christ, you who would be justified by the law; you have fallen away from grace.
Gal 5:5 For through the Spirit, by faith, we ourselves eagerly wait for the hope of righteousness.
Gal 5:6 For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision counts for anything, but only faith working through love.
Gal 5:7 You were running well. Who hindered you from obeying the truth?
Gal 5:8 This persuasion is not from him who calls you.
Gal 5:9 A little leaven leavens the whole lump.
Gal 5:10 I have confidence in the Lord that you will take no other view, and the one who is troubling you will bear the penalty, whoever he is.
Gal 5:11 But if I, brothers, still preach circumcision, why am I still being persecuted? In that case the offense of the cross has been removed.
Gal 5:12 I wish those who unsettle you would emasculate themselves!
Gal 5:13 For you were called to freedom, brothers. Only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another.
Gal 5:14 For the whole law is fulfilled in one word: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”
Gal 5:15 But if you bite and devour one another, watch out that you are not consumed by one another.
Gal 5:16 But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh.
Gal 5:17 For the desires of the flesh are against the Spirit, and the desires of the Spirit are against the flesh, for these are opposed to each other, to keep you from doing the things you want to do.
Gal 5:18 But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law.
Gal 5:19 Now the works of the flesh are evident: sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality,
Gal 5:20 idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions,
Gal 5:21 envy, drunkenness, orgies, and things like these. I warn you, as I warned you before, that those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God.
Gal 5:22 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness,
Gal 5:23 gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law.
Gal 5:24 And those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.
Gal 5:25 If we live by the Spirit, let us also keep in step with the Spirit.
Gal 5:26 Let us not become conceited, provoking one another, envying one another.

In Paul’s letter to the Galatians he is addressing a few different issues, one being a group that said circumcision was necessary for salvation. The best line to summarize what he means is the following, “For the desires of the flesh are against the Spirit, and the desires of the Spirit are against the flesh, for these are opposed to each other, to keep you from doing the things you want to do. But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law”. There is no salvation in keeping the law. However, the long list of works of the flesh Paul gives are things that the law instructs us not to do. If we are living in the Spirit, we won’t do them by nature. Does that mean we should embrace witchcraft in the church? Of course not, but many churches unknowingly do. If we do sin, which is defined by Yahweh’s instructions, we can now ask for forgiveness, and are not under the law of sin and death. Ideally, we would be in a place in the Spirit where we would not go against Yahweh’s instruction by nature. The writer of Hebrews, quoting Jeremiah, tells us Yahweh will write his laws in our hearts and put them into our minds. Which laws? The same laws he gave at Mount Horeb.

Heb 8:10 For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the Lord: I will put my laws into their minds, and write them on their hearts, and I will be their God, and they shall be my people.
Heb 8:11 And they shall not teach, each one his neighbor and each one his brother, saying, ‘Know the Lord,’ for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest.
Heb 8:12 For I will be merciful toward their iniquities, and I will remember their sins no more.”

In Deuteronomy, Yahweh predicts there will be a time in the future that the children of Israel will return to him after being scattered. This prophecy was at least partly fulfilled at the time of Jesus, whereby Jesus, the Messiah, made a way for Israel to return to Him. Yahweh states, “And you will again listen to the voice of Yahweh, and you will do all his commandments that I am commanding you today”. This is referring to us, now.

Deu 30:1 “And then when all of these things come upon you, the blessing and the curse that I have set before you and you call them to mind among the nations there where Yahweh your God has scattered you,
Deu 30:2 and you return to Yahweh and you listen to his voice according to all that I am commanding you today, both you and your children, with all your heart and with all your inner self,
Deu 30:3 and Yahweh your God will restore your fortunes, and he will have compassion upon you, and he will again gather you together from all the peoples where Yahweh your God scattered you there.
Deu 30:4 “Even if you are outcasts at the end of the heavens, even from there Yahweh your God shall gather you, and from there he shall bring you back.
Deu 30:5 And Yahweh your God will bring you to the land that your ancestors had taken possession of, and he will make you successful, and he will make you more numerous than your ancestors.
Deu 30:6 “And Yahweh your God will circumcise your heart and the heart of your offspring to love Yahweh your God with all your heart and with all your inner self so that you may live.
Deu 30:7 And Yahweh your God will put all these curses on your enemies and on those who hate you, on those who harassed you.

Is Paul advocating lawlessness? Absolutely not. We are to strive for righteousness, which appears to be the opposite of lawlessness.

Rom 6:15 What then? Are we to sin because we are not under law but under grace? By no means!
Rom 6:16 Do you not know that if you present yourselves to anyone as obedient slaves, you are slaves of the one whom you obey, either of sin, which leads to death, or of obedience, which leads to righteousness?
Rom 6:17 But thanks be to God, that you who were once slaves of sin have become obedient from the heart to the standard of teaching to which you were committed,
Rom 6:18 and, having been set free from sin, have become slaves of righteousness.
Rom 6:19 I am speaking in human terms, because of your natural limitations. For just as you once presented your members as slaves to impurity and to lawlessness leading to more lawlessness, so now present your members as slaves to righteousness leading to sanctification.
Rom 6:20 For when you were slaves of sin, you were free in regard to righteousness.
Rom 6:21 But what fruit were you getting at that time from the things of which you are now ashamed? For the end of those things is death.
Rom 6:22 But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves of God, the fruit you get leads to sanctification and its end, eternal life.
Rom 6:23 For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Paul knows that the standard of teaching and righteousness is defined in Yahweh’s instructions.

Rom 7:10 The very commandment that promised life proved to be death to me.
Rom 7:11 For sin, seizing an opportunity through the commandment, deceived me and through it killed me.
Rom 7:12 So the law is holy, and the commandment is holy and righteous and good.

So what are we to do? Taking all scripture in to account, forsaking the commandments of men, I am compelled in my heart to be obedient to Yahweh’s instructions. Not for salvation, or justification, but out of love for the One who provides a means of salvation, and in order to show proper love to my neighbours.

Rom 7:7 What then shall we say? That the law is sin? By no means! Yet if it had not been for the law, I would not have known sin. For I would not have known what it is to covet if the law had not said, “You shall not covet.”

Jesus explains it quite simply:

Mat 5:17 “Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them.
Mat 5:18 For truly, I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not an iota, not a dot, will pass from the Law until all is accomplished.
Mat 5:19 Therefore whoever relaxes one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do the same will be called least in the kingdom of heaven, but whoever does them and teaches them will be called great in the kingdom of heaven.

Also, who are these who did many mighty works in the name of Jesus whom Jesus doesn’t know because they were workers of lawlessness? Who wants to be one of them? They must have thought they were doing something good for God, but clearly they were not.

Mat 7:21 “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter 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 cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name?’
Mat 7:23 And then will I declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.’

Does this mean every instruction or command given is applicable for everyone today? No. For example, there is no longer a Levitical priest system or sacrificial system. The book of Hebrews addresses that.

Heb 7:11 Now if perfection had been attainable through the Levitical priesthood (for under it the people received the law), what further need would there have been for another priest to arise after the order of Melchizedek, rather than one named after the order of Aaron?
Heb 7:12 For when there is a change in the priesthood, there is necessarily a change in the law as well.
Heb 7:13 For the one of whom these things are spoken belonged to another tribe, from which no one has ever served at the altar.
Heb 7:14 For it is evident that our Lord was descended from Judah, and in connection with that tribe Moses said nothing about priests.
Heb 7:15 This becomes even more evident when another priest arises in the likeness of Melchizedek,
Heb 7:16 who has become a priest, not on the basis of a legal requirement concerning bodily descent, but by the power of an indestructible life.
Heb 7:17 For it is witnessed of him, “You are a priest forever, after the order of Melchizedek.”
Heb 7:18 For on the one hand, a former commandment is set aside because of its weakness and uselessness
Heb 7:19 (for the law made nothing perfect); but on the other hand, a better hope is introduced, through which we draw near to God.
Heb 7:20 And it was not without an oath. For those who formerly became priests were made such without an oath,
Heb 7:21 but this one was made a priest with an oath by the one who said to him: “The Lord has sworn and will not change his mind, ‘You are a priest forever.’”
Heb 7:22 This makes Jesus the guarantor of a better covenant.
Heb 7:23 The former priests were many in number, because they were prevented by death from continuing in office,
Heb 7:24 but he holds his priesthood permanently, because he continues forever.
Heb 7:25 Consequently, he is able to save to the uttermost those who draw near to God through him, since he always lives to make intercession for them.
Heb 7:26 For it was indeed fitting that we should have such a high priest, holy, innocent, unstained, separated from sinners, and exalted above the heavens.
Heb 7:27 He has no need, like those high priests, to offer sacrifices daily, first for his own sins and then for those of the people, since he did this once for all when he offered up himself.
Heb 7:28 For the law appoints men in their weakness as high priests, but the word of the oath, which came later than the law, appoints a Son who has been made perfect forever.

We can still offer a sacrifice, but it comes from the bulls, calves or fruits of our lips.

Heb 13:15 Through him then let us continually offer up a sacrifice of praise to God, that is, the fruit of lips that acknowledge his name.

There is too much evidence for me to listen to these false teachers who are teaching against the instructions of Yahweh, saying those instructions are for someone else, or “Did God actually say, ‘You shall not eat of any tree in the garden’?”. Which commandments are you choosing to break or ignore? Are you teaching others to do the same?

Feature picture taken by Emma Vail somewhere in New Brunswick, Canada.

“Take care lest your heart be deceived, and you turn aside and serve other gods and worship them; then the anger of the LORD will be kindled against you, and he will shut up the heavens, so that there will be no rain, and the land will yield no fruit, and you will perish quickly off the good land that the LORD is giving you.” Deuteronomy 11:16-17.

The idea of deception is hard to grasp. Some say “ I will not be deceived”, or “I am not deceived”. Then there are those who wonder if they have already been deceived. What is the base line for deception? Some would say the Bible, yet there are over 40,000 denominations or sects that claim a different interpretation of the Bible. How can this be with a creator that says, “ For I, Yahweh, have not changed, and you, O children of Jacob, have not perished.”? If Yahweh God does not change, then we should be able to establish that those who say he has changed, are deceived.

Heb 13:8 Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever.

Here is an exercise for the reader: determine attributes of the Creator, clear in scripture, and look around to find examples in some of the 40,000 plus denominations that claim those attributes have changed.

Jesus gives us a warning that in the end times, that even the very elect will be deceived.

Mat 24:24 For there shall arise false Christs, and false prophets, and shall shew great signs and wonders; insomuch that, if it were possible, they shall deceive the very elect.

So who are the elect? In Paul’s letter to the Colossians, he admonishes us to “put on as the elect of God”.

Col 3:2 Set your affection on things above, not on things on the earth.
Col 3:3 For ye are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God.
Col 3:4 When Christ, who is our life, shall appear, then shall ye also appear with him in glory.
Col 3:5 Mortify therefore your members which are upon the earth; fornication, uncleanness, inordinate affection, evil concupiscence, and covetousness, which is idolatry:
Col 3:6 For which things’ sake the wrath of God cometh on the children of disobedience:
Col 3:7 In the which ye also walked some time, when ye lived in them.
Col 3:8 But now ye also put off all these; anger, wrath, malice, blasphemy, filthy communication out of your mouth.
Col 3:9 Lie not one to another, seeing that ye have put off the old man with his deeds;
Col 3:10 And have put on the new man, which is renewed in knowledge after the image of him that created him:
Col 3:11 Where there is neither Greek nor Jew, circumcision nor uncircumcision, Barbarian, Scythian, bond nor free: but Christ is all, and in all.
Col 3:12 Put on therefore, as the elect of God, holy and beloved, bowels of mercies, kindness, humbleness of mind, meekness, longsuffering;
Col 3:13 Forbearing one another, and forgiving one another, if any man have a quarrel against any: even as Christ forgave you, so also do ye.
Col 3:14 And above all these things put on charity, which is the bond of perfectness.
Col 3:15 And let the peace of God rule in your hearts, to the which also ye are called in one body; and be ye thankful.
Col 3:16 Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom; teaching and admonishing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with grace in your hearts to the Lord.
Col 3:17 And whatsoever ye do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God and the Father by him.

In these verses Paul defines the characteristics of God’s elect. It is clear that the elect exhibit these attributes in order to be considered “elect”. The word elect is also used in the book of Enoch quite frequently. The New Testament authors would be very familiar with the book of Enoch, found along with the oldest known copy of Genesis in the caves of Qumran, as well as being contained in the original Ethiopian Bible.

The elect shall possess light, joy, and peace; and they shall inherit the earth. But you, you unholy, shall be accursed. Then shall wisdom be given to the elect, all of whom shall live, and not again transgress by impiety or pride; but shall humble themselves, possessing prudence, and shall not repeat transgression. CHANOK (ENOCH) 6:9-11 את CEPHER

The elect are so because of their way of life, not because they are predestined to be such. The elect are the opposite of unholy in the verses from Enoch. This is in line with Paul’s description we looked at in Colossians, where he uses the word holy to describe the elect. Holy is Strong’s G40.

G40
ἅγιος
hagios
Thayer Definition:
1) most holy thing, a saint

I don’t find this definition particularly helpful. In this case I like to go back to the Hebrew, which can be accomplished by finding cases where New Testament writers quoted Old Testament scripture. Peter quotes the following verse from Leviticus:

Lev 11:44 For I am the LORD your God. Consecrate yourselves therefore, and be holy, for I am holy. You shall not defile yourselves with any swarming thing that crawls on the ground.
Lev 11:45 For I am the LORD who brought you up out of the land of Egypt to be your God. You shall therefore be holy, for I am holy.”
Lev 11:46 This is the law about beast and bird and every living creature that moves through the waters and every creature that swarms on the ground,

1Pe 1:14 As obedient children, do not be conformed to the passions of your former ignorance,
1Pe 1:15 but as he who called you is holy, you also be holy in all your conduct,
1Pe 1:16 since it is written, “You shall be holy, for I am holy.”

From the Ancient Hebrew dictionary we get the best definition of Strong’s H6918:

H6918
Set apart co: Prostitute ab: Special: Set apart from the rest for a special function. [from: dh – separating and joining to something]
Set apart: To set someone or something apart for a special purpose. [freq. 172] (vf: Paal, Niphal, Hiphil, Hitpael, Pual, Piel) |kjv: sanctify, hallow, dedicate, holy, prepare, consecrate, appoint, bid, purify

Set apart, consecrated, dedicated and holy can all be used to define elect ones. Many of my blogs explain living a set apart and holy life before Yahweh through the power of the Holy Spirit. As Paul states “I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me”. Philippians 4:13. A good example of one of Yahweh God’s elect or dedicated, by definition, is King Solomon.

2Ch 1:7 On that night God appeared to Solomon and said to him, “Ask what I shall give to you.”
2Ch 1:8 Then Solomon said to God, “You yourself have shown steadfast loyal love to David my father and have made me king in his place.
2Ch 1:9 Now, O Yahweh God, let your word to David my father be fulfilled, for you yourself have made me king over a people as numerous as the dust of the earth.
2Ch 1:10 Now, give to me wisdom and knowledge that I may go out and come in before this people, for who can judge this, your great people?”
2Ch 1:11 Then God said to Solomon, “Because this was with your heart and you did not ask for wealth, possessions, honor, and the lives of your enemies, and also did not ask for long life, but have asked for wisdom and knowledge that you might judge my people over whom I have made you king,
2Ch 1:12 wisdom and knowledge is given to you. And I will also give to you wealth, possessions, and honor, the like of which was not had by the kings who were before you, nor will there be the like after you.”
2Ch 1:13 So Solomon went from the high place which was at Gibeon to Jerusalem before the tent of assembly. And he reigned over Israel.

I think it is a solid case that Solomon would be considered holy, set apart and one of God’s elect. Even so, God’s warning in Deuteronomy still applies to him.

Deu 11:16 Take care so that your heart is not easily deceived, and you turn away, and you serve other gods, and you bow down to them.
Deu 11:17 And then the anger of Yahweh will be kindled against you, and he will shut up the heavens, and there shall not be rain, and so the ground will not give its produce, and you will perish quickly from the good land that Yahweh is giving to you.

I am using the Lexham English Bible translation a lot because it does not substitute the name of God, יהוה, with LORD. Compare the the King James Version in this blog’s opening quotation of the same scripture.

Solomon was an example of the elect of God, who was given wisdom and knowledge by God, yet he was deceived.

1Ki 11:1 King Solomon loved many foreign women: the daughter of Pharaoh, Moabite, Ammonite, Edomite, Sidonian, Hittite;
1Ki 11:2 from the nations which Yahweh had said to the Israelites, “You shall not marry them, and they shall not marry you. They will certainly turn your heart after other gods.” But Solomon clung to them to love.
1Ki 11:3 He had seven hundred princesses and three hundred concubines, and his wives turned his heart.
1Ki 11:4 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.
1Ki 11:5 Solomon went after Ashtoreth the god of the Sidonians and after Molech the abhorrence of the Ammonites.
1Ki 11:6 So Solomon did evil in the eyes of Yahweh and did not fully follow after Yahweh as David his father.
1Ki 11:7 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.
1Ki 11:8 Thus he did for all of his foreign wives, offering incense and sacrificing to their gods.
1Ki 11:9 Yahweh was angry with Solomon, for he had turned his heart from Yahweh, the God of Israel who had appeared to him twice.
1Ki 11:10 And he had commanded him concerning this matter not to go after other gods, but he did not keep that which Yahweh commanded.
1Ki 11:11 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.

Yahweh God doesn’t tolerate using symbols from the nations’ foreign gods to worship Him, so he certainly will not tolerate the worshipping of those gods. With someone specifically given wisdom and knowledge from God, and made king over the people of God having been deceived, how can anyone today think they are above being deceived? If a person thinks they cannot be deceived, they have already been deceived.

With the exception of atheists, most everyone believes in a capital G God. Sometimes people even think that the God of one religion is the same God of the other. For example, it is commonly thought that Christianity, Islam and Judaism share the same capital G God. This is not true. Here is a verse from the Quran 17:111, The Night Journey.

Muhammad Sarwar: Say, “It is only God who deserves all praise. He has not begotten a son and has no partner in His Kingdom. He does not need any guardian to help Him in His need. Proclaim His greatness.

Theirs is a Capital G God, even seemingly the God of Abraham, but he doesn’t have a beloved son, so he can’t be Yahweh. Also, Jesus has something interesting to say concerning a stone.

Mat 7:9  Or which one of you, if his son asks him for bread, will give him a stone? 

Stephen hits upon some information before he is stoned, exposing the Jewish leaders of his day.

Act 7:42 But God turned away and gave them over to worship the host of heaven, as it is written in the book of the prophets: “‘Did you bring to me slain beasts and sacrifices, during the forty years in the wilderness, O house of Israel?
Act 7:43 You took up the tent of Moloch and the star of your god Rephan, the images that you made to worship; and I will send you into exile beyond Babylon.’

Act 7:51 “You stiff-necked people, uncircumcised in heart and ears, you always resist the Holy Spirit. As your fathers did, so do you.
Act 7:52 Which of the prophets did your fathers not persecute? And they killed those who announced beforehand the coming of the Righteous One, whom you have now betrayed and murdered,
Act 7:53 you who received the law as delivered by angels and did not keep it.”

Jesus also exposed the Babylonian religion that became Judaism.

Mat 23:27 “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you are like whitewashed tombs, which outwardly appear beautiful, but within are full of dead people’s bones and all uncleanness.
Mat 23:28 So you also outwardly appear righteous to others, but within you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness.
Mat 23:29 “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you build the tombs of the prophets and decorate the monuments of the righteous,
Mat 23:30 saying, ‘If we had lived in the days of our fathers, we would not have taken part with them in shedding the blood of the prophets.’
Mat 23:31 Thus you witness against yourselves that you are sons of those who murdered the prophets.
Mat 23:32 Fill up, then, the measure of your fathers.
Mat 23:33 You serpents, you brood of vipers, how are you to escape being sentenced to hell?
Mat 23:34 Therefore I send you prophets and wise men and scribes, some of whom you will kill and crucify, and some you will flog in your synagogues and persecute from town to town,
Mat 23:35 so that on you may come all the righteous blood shed on earth, from the blood of righteous Abel to the blood of Zechariah the son of Barachiah, whom you murdered between the sanctuary and the altar.
Mat 23:36 Truly, I say to you, all these things will come upon this generation.

Another capital G God is described by Albert Pike in Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry.

“Forget not, therefore, to what you have devoted yourself in this Degree: defend weakness against strength, the friendless against the great, the oppressed against the oppressor! Be ever vigilant and watchful of the interests and honor of your country! and may the Grand Architect of the Universe give you that strength and wisdom which shall enable you well and faithfully to perform these high duties!”

“The true name of Satan, the Kabalists say, is that of Yahveh reversed; for Satan is not a black god, but the negation of God. The Devil is the personification of Atheism or Idolatry.

For the Initiates, this is not a Person, but a Force, created for good, but which may serve for evil. It is the instrument of Liberty or Free Will. They represent this Force, which presides over the physical generation, under the mythologic and horned form of the God PAN; thence came the he-goat of the Sabbat, brother of the Ancient Serpent, and the Light-bearer or Phosphor, of which the poets have made the false Lucifer of the legend.”

“Masonry, like all the Religions, all the Mysteries, Hermeticism and Alchemy, conceals its secrets from all except the Adepts and Sages, or the Elect, and uses false explanations and misinterpretations of its symbols to mislead those who deserve only to be misled; to conceal the Truth, which it calls Light, from them, and to draw them away from it. Truth is not for those who are unworthy or unable to receive it, or would pervert it. So God Himself incapacitates many men, by color-blindness, to distinguish colors, and leads the masses away from the highest Truth, giving them the power to attain only so much of it as it is profitable to them to know.”

Excerpt From
Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry
Albert Pike

The motto “In God We Trust” on US currency comes from this Masonic line of thinking. What God are they actually trusting in? It’s not Yahweh.

Below is a short video clip that is a good example of what we are discussing. This is not to criticize any particular ministry, but just to show things are not always as they seem. The light that is spoken of here is none other than “God”, as Albert Pike would call the Grand Architect of the Universe, the Force, but not Yahweh.

Mat 7:13  “Enter by the narrow gate. For the gate is wide and the way is easy that leads to destruction, and those who enter by it are many.
Mat 7:14  For the gate is narrow and the way is hard that leads to life, and those who find it are few.

Jesus said the wide path Rev. Schuller spoke of leads to destruction, and the only way to the father is through him.

Joh 14:6  Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.
Joh 14:7  If you had known me, you would have known my Father also. From now on you do know him and have seen him.”

Another interesting character to look at is Alice Bailey, who explains how the New Age will be ushered in using the Church as one of the conduits. Below are a couple quotes from her book, Stages in the Externalisation of the Hierarchy, written in the early 20th century.

“The three main channels through which the preparation for the new age is going on might be regarded as the Church, the Masonic Fraternity and the educational field. All of them are as yet in relatively static condition, and all are as yet failing to meet the need and to respond to the inner pressure. But in all of these three movements, disciples of the Great Ones are to be found and they are steadily gathering momentum and will before long enter upon their designated task.“

“In all these bodies there are to be found esoteric groups who are the custodians of the inner teaching and whose uniformity in aspiration and in technique is one. These inner groups consist of occult students and of those who are in direct or occasional touch with the Masters and of those whose souls are in sufficient control so that the will of the Hierarchy may be communicated and gradually filter down to the channel of the physical brain. These groups which constitute the true inner esoteric group are many, but their membership is yet small, for the fact that a student may belong to any of the outer esoteric groups so-called is no indication of his true esoteric status. When the few who are the true esoteric students of the world know the difference between etheric and astral forms, between mental clairaudience and clairvoyance and their astral counterparts, between the elementals of thought and the elementals of nature, then will the Christ and His church have a real esoteric group on the physical plane and the outer organisations receive the needed stimulation. That is why it is necessary to work with the students at this time and train them in the nature of true occultism. When we understand better the significance of time in prevision, and of force in movement, and when we comprehend more fully the laws that control the subtler bodies, and through them therefore the laws that function on the planes whereon those bodies express themselves, then will there be more intelligent and more useful work offered in cooperation with the Occult Hierarchy.“

What Alice is saying is that they are going to infiltrate the Church and other groups to twist things away from the true Messiah in order to lead the masses, unknowingly, to the false Messiah. The inner esoteric group will know the true mission, but the average, biblically lazy person, will just be going along with this leadership. In another part of her writings she estimates the mission will be accomplished around 2025. She may be right on track.

2Ti 4:3  For the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions,
2Ti 4:4  and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander off into myths.

We could go on and on discussing the deception that abounds around us. Most religions that don’t serve Yahweh and his son, Jesus, are drawing from the mystery religions of Babylon and Egypt. This includes the Kabbalah, new age, mysticism, right hand left hand magic, Luciferianism, Gnosticism and all of its subsidiaries. Unfortunately, much of this has crept into the modern Christian church in the form of new age beliefs and witchcraft, which are essentially the same.

This is the reason I prefer to declare the name of Yahweh and stay away from titles like God and Lord. I am speaking of a specific God who created everything through his living Word and is above all the other gods. He also has a name and does not need to be disguised by titles, or terms like force and Grand Architect of the Universe. These terms are hiding the fact that it is the god of this world that is being spoken of, not יהוה .

Psa 102:18 Let this be written for the next generation, so that a people yet to be created may praise Yah,
Psa 102:19 that he looked down from his holy height. Yahweh looked from heaven over the earth
Psa 102:20 to hear the groaning of the prisoner, to liberate those destined to die,
Psa 102:21 so that they may make known in Zion the name of Yahweh, and his praise in Jerusalem,
Psa 102:22 when the peoples assemble, together with kingdoms, to serve Yahweh.

So how do we ensure we are not deceived or being deceived? I suggest learning who the real capital G God is. Learn his sayings, what He likes and doesn’t like, then compare him to the god being presented. They have to be the same. For end times and determining the second coming, Jesus is clear about what that will look like:

Mat 24:21 For then there will be great tribulation, such as has not been from the beginning of the world until now, no, and never will be.
Mat 24:22 And if those days had not been cut short, no human being would be saved. But for the sake of the elect those days will be cut short.
Mat 24:23 Then if anyone says to you, ‘Look, here is the Christ!’ or ‘There he is!’ do not believe it.
Mat 24:24 For false christs and false prophets will arise and perform great signs and wonders, so as to lead astray, if possible, even the elect.
Mat 24:25 See, I have told you beforehand.
Mat 24:26 So, if they say to you, ‘Look, he is in the wilderness,’ do not go out. If they say, ‘Look, he is in the inner rooms,’ do not believe it.
Mat 24:27 For as the lightning comes from the east and shines as far as the west, so will be the coming of the Son of Man.

There won’t be any mistaking the coming of the Messiah, Jesus, when he comes to gather his elect that have not been deceived. He is going to light up the sky, and as verse 7 in chapter 1 of Revelation states, “Behold, he is coming with the clouds, and every eye will see him, even those who pierced him, and all tribes of the earth will wail on account of him. Even so. Amen. “

Then Hilkiah the high priest said to Shaphan the secretary, “I have found the scroll of the Torah in the temple of Yahweh,” and Hilkiah gave the scroll to Shaphan and he read it. 2 Kings 22:8

There were many cases of righteous kings and unrighteous kings of the kingdoms of Judah and Israel. One king would lead the people astray by building sacred poles, erecting statues of Ishtar, and even sacrificing their children to Molech. That king would die off and the next king would tear all the sacred poles down and chase away all the prophets of foreign gods, turning the people back to the creator, Yahweh. Sometimes there would be so much time that passed, the people would completely forget Yahweh God and His instructions for living a blessed life.

2Ki 22:8 Then Hilkiah the high priest said to Shaphan the secretary, “I have found the scroll of the Torah in the temple of Yahweh,” and Hilkiah gave the scroll to Shaphan and he read it.
2Ki 22:9 Shaphan the secretary came to the king and returned the king a word, and he said, “Your servant poured out the money found in the temple, and they have given it into the hand of the doers of the work appointed over the temple of Yahweh.”
2Ki 22:10 Then Shaphan the secretary informed the king saying, “Hilkiah the priest has given me a scroll.” Then Shaphan read before the king.
2Ki 22:11 When the king heard the words of the scroll of the Torah, he tore his clothes.
2Ki 22:12 Then the king commanded Hilkiah the priest, Ahikam the son of Shaphan, Acbor the son of Micaiah, Shaphan the secretary, and Asaiah the servant of the king, saying,
2Ki 22:13 “Go, inquire of Yahweh for me and for the people and for all of Judah concerning the words of this scroll that was found. For the wrath of Yahweh that is kindled against us is great because our ancestors did not listen to the words of this scroll to do according to all that is written concerning us!”

King Josiah, who started reigning at the age of eight, was a king that followed Yahweh. When they were repairing the temple, they found a Torah scroll, which would contain books of the first five books of the Bible. They dusted it off, and started reading it. This would be similar to a modern, or maybe futuristic church doing some renovations, and finding a Bible that had fallen between a couple wall partitions, and the ones finding it bringing it to the priest. Josiah asked the priest to inquire of Yahweh about the scroll that was found.

2Ki 22:14 So Hilkiah the priest, Ahikam, Acbor, Shaphan, and Asaiah went to Huldah the prophetess, the wife of Shallum the son of Tikvah the son of Harhas, the keeper of the robes. Now she was living in Jerusalem in the second district. Then they spoke to her,
2Ki 22:15 and she said to them, “Thus says Yahweh the God of Israel, ‘Say to the man who sent you to me,
2Ki 22:16 “Thus says Yahweh, ‘Look I am bringing evil to this place and upon its inhabitants, according to all of the words of that scroll that the king of Judah has read
2Ki 22:17 because they have abandoned me and they have burned incense to other gods, provoking me to anger with all of the works of their hands. My wrath shall be kindled against this place and not be quenched.'”
2Ki 22:18 And to the king of Judah who sent all of you to inquire of Yahweh, thus you shall say to him, “Thus says Yahweh the God of Israel, ‘Concerning the words that you have heard,
2Ki 22:19 because you have a responsive heart, and you humbled yourself before Yahweh when you heard how I spoke against this place and against its inhabitants to become a desolation and a curse, and you have torn your clothes and wept before my face, I have also heard, declares Yahweh.
2Ki 22:20 Therefore look, I am gathering you to your ancestors, and you shall be gathered to your tombs in peace. Your eyes will not see all of the disaster that I am bringing onto this place.’“‘” Then they reported the word to the king.

So Josiah took the words of the scroll seriously, and Yahweh spared him from the disaster that was to come to the kingdom, deferring it to a later time. The words that struck them in the scroll most likely were the blessings and curses, realizing they had taken part in the curses for not following Yahweh’s instruction. Often these instructions are looked at as mean rules that the creator wanted to punish mankind with, where they are more like the laws of physics or geometry, or cause and effect. “If you do x, expect this” etc.. Here are some of the curses. I recommend reading the whole chapter in Deuteronomy which includes the blessings for obedience as well.

Deu 28:15 “And then if you do not listen to the voice of Yahweh your God by diligently observing all of his commandments and his statutes that I am commanding you today, then all of these curses shall come upon you, and they shall overtake you:
Deu 28:16 “You shall be cursed in the city, and you shall be cursed in the field.
Deu 28:17 “Your basket shall be cursed and your kneading trough.
Deu 28:18 “The fruit of your womb shall be cursed and the fruit of your ground, the calves of your cattle and the lambs of your flock.
Deu 28:19 “You shall be cursed when you come in, and you shall be cursed when you go out.
Deu 28:20 “Yahweh will send upon you the curse, the panic, and the threat in everything that you undertake, until you are destroyed and until you perish quickly because of the evil of your deeds in that you have forsaken me.
Deu 28:21 Yahweh will cause the plague to cling to you until it consumes you from the land that you are going to, to take possession of it.
Deu 28:22 Yahweh will afflict you with the wasting diseases and with the fever and with the inflammation and with the scorching heat and with the sword and with the blight and with the mildew, and they shall pursue you until you perish.
Deu 28:23 And your heavens that are over your heads shall be like bronze, and the earth that is under you shall be like iron.
Deu 28:24 Yahweh will change the rain of your land to fine dust and to sand; from the heaven it shall come down upon you until you are destroyed.
Deu 28:25 “Yahweh shall cause you to be defeated before your enemies; on one road you shall go against them, but you will flee on seven roads before them, and you shall become a thing of horror to all of the kingdoms of the earth.
Deu 28:26 And your dead bodies shall be as food for all of the birds of the heaven and to the animals of the earth, and there shall not be anyone to frighten them away.
Deu 28:27 “Yahweh shall afflict you with the boils of Egypt and with tumors and with the scurvy and with the skin rash that cannot be healed.
Deu 28:28 Yahweh shall afflict you with madness and with blindness and with confusion of heart.
Deu 28:29 And you shall be groping at noon just as the blind person gropes in the dark, and you shall not succeed in finding your way, and you shall only be abused and robbed all the time, and there will not be anyone who will rescue you.
Deu 28:30 You shall become engaged to a woman, but another man shall sleep with her; you shall build a house, but you shall not live in it; a vineyard you shall plant, but you shall not enjoy it.
Deu 28:31 Your ox shall be slaughtered before your eyes, and you shall not eat it; your donkey shall be stolen right before you, and it shall not be returned to you; your sheep and your goats shall be given to your enemies, and there shall not be anyone who rescues you.
Deu 28:32 Your sons and your daughters shall be given to other people, and you will be looking on longingly for them all day, but you will be powerless to do anything.
Deu 28:33 A people that you do not know shall consume the harvest of your land and all your labor, and you will be only oppressed and crushed for the rest of your lives.
Deu 28:34 You shall become mad because of what your eyes shall see.
Deu 28:35 Yahweh shall strike you with grievous boils on the knees and on the upper thighs from which you will not be able to be healed, from the sole of your foot and up to your crown.
Deu 28:36 Yahweh will bring you and your king whom you set up over you to a nation that you or your ancestors have not known, and there you will serve other gods of wood and stone.
Deu 28:37 And you will become a horror and a proverb and ridicule among all the peoples where Yahweh drives you there.
Deu 28:38 “You shall carry out much seed to the field, but you shall gather little produce, for the locust shall devour it.
Deu 28:39 You shall plant vineyards and you shall dress them, but you shall not drink wine and you shall not gather grapes, for the worm shall eat it.
Deu 28:40 There shall be olive trees for you in all of your territory, but you shall not anoint yourself, for your olives shall drop off.
Deu 28:41 You shall bear sons and daughters, but they shall not be yours, for they shall go into captivity.
Deu 28:42 The cricket shall take possession of all your trees and the fruit of your ground.
Deu 28:43 The alien that is in your midst shall ascend over you, higher and higher, but you shall go down lower and lower.
Deu 28:44 He shall lend to you, but you shall not lend to him; he shall be the head, but you shall be the tail.
Deu 28:45 “And all of these curses shall come over you, and they shall pursue you, and they shall overtake you until you are destroyed, because you did not listen to the voice of Yahweh your God, by observing his commandments and his statutes that he commanded you.

King Josiah not only read the scroll, he listened, understood and did what it said. He and his kingdom were able to live in peace because of it. They even restored the Passover.

2Ki 23:21 Then the king commanded all of the people, saying, “Keep the Passover to Yahweh your God, as has been written on the scroll of this covenant.”
2Ki 23:22 For they had not kept this Passover from the days of the judges who had judged over Israel or during the days of the kings of Israel and the kings of Judah.
2Ki 23:23 But in the eighteenth year of King Josiah, this Passover was kept for Yahweh in Jerusalem.
2Ki 23:24 Moreover, the mediums and the spiritists, the household gods and the idols, and all of the abominations that were seen in the land of Judah and in Jerusalem, Josiah removed in order to establish the words of the law written on the scroll that Hilkiah the priest had found in the temple of Yahweh.

After this, Judah eventually went into captivity in Babylon, much like Israel went into captivity in Assyria. Israel never returned, (the ten tribes given to Jeroboam), but Judah returned to the land from Babylon. When they returned, we find the scribe, Ezra, in a similar situation as King Josiah, reading the Torah scroll to people who have never heard it.

Neh 8:1 All of the people gathered as one to the public square before the Water Gate. They asked Ezra the scribe to bring the book of the law of Moses that Yahweh had commanded Israel.
Neh 8:2 So Ezra the priest brought the law before the assembly for each man and woman to hear with understanding, on the first day of the seventh month.
Neh 8:3 He read from it facing the public square before the Water Gate from dawn until noon that day, opposite the men, women, and those with understanding. The ears of all the people were attentive to the book of the law.
Neh 8:4 Then Ezra the scribe stood on a wooden podium that had been made for the occasion. And beside him stood Mattithiah, Shema, Anaiah, Uriah, Hilkiah, and Maaseiah on his right. On his left was Pedaiah, Mishael, Malkijah, Hashum, Hashbaddanah, Zechariah, and Meshullam.
Neh 8:5 Ezra opened the book in the sight of all the people, because he was above all of the people. When he opened it all the people stood up.
Neh 8:6 Then Ezra blessed Yahweh the great God, and all of the people answered, “Amen! Amen!” while lifting their hands. Then they bowed down and worshiped Yahweh with their noses to the ground.
Neh 8:7 And Jeshua, Bani, Sherebiah, Jamin, Akkub, Shabbethai, Hodiah, Maaseiah, Kelita, Azariah, Jozabad, Hanan, Pelaiah, and the Levites were teaching the people from the law while the people were in their places.
Neh 8:8 So they read the book from the law of God, making it clear and giving the meaning so that they could understand the reading.
Neh 8:9 Nehemiah the governor, Ezra the priest and scribe, and the Levites who taught the people said to all of the people, “This day is holy to Yahweh your God. Do not mourn nor weep.” For all of the people wept when they heard the words of the law.

Much like Josiah restarting the observance of Passover, Ezra had the people start observing the fall feast of tabernacles or sometimes translated as booths.

Neh 8:13 On the second day the heads of the families of all the people, the priests, and the Levites gathered together to Ezra the scribe to study the words of the law.
Neh 8:14 They found written in the law, which Yahweh had commanded by the hand of Moses, that the Israelites should live in booths during the festival of the seventh month,
Neh 8:15 and that they should proclaim and give voice in all of their cities in Jerusalem, saying, “Go out to the hill and bring olive tree branches, olive oil wood branches, myrtle shrub branches, palm tree branches, and other leafy tree branches to make booths, as it is written.”
Neh 8:16 So the people went out and brought them and made booths for themselves, each on his roof, in their courtyards, in the courtyards of the house of God, in the public square of the Water Gate, and in the public square of the Gate of Ephraim.
Neh 8:17 And all of the assembly of those who returned from captivity made booths and lived in the booths because the Israelites had not done it from the days of Jeshua son of Nun until that day. And there was very great joy.
Neh 8:18 And he read from the scroll of the law of God day by day from the first day up to the last day. They celebrated the festival for seven days, and on the eighth day there was an assembly according to the rule.

One could say that this sort of thing happened again in Jesus’ day. Except instead of the people finding a scroll, Yahweh sent his living Word to the Earth. Is the Word of Yahweh in the flesh different from the written Word? It’s a valid question that needs an answer. Here are some verses to consider:

Joh 14:6 Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me.
Joh 14:7 If ye had known me, ye should have known my Father also: and from henceforth ye know him, and have seen him.

Psa 119:1 ALEPH. Blessed are the undefiled in the way, who walk in the law of the LORD.
Psa 119:2 Blessed are they that keep his testimonies, and that seek him with the whole heart.
Psa 119:3 They also do no iniquity: they walk in his ways.

Psa 119:142 Thy righteousness is an everlasting righteousness, and thy law is the truth.

Pro 6:23 For the commandment is a lamp; and the law is light; and reproofs of instruction are the way of life:

Eze 11:17 Therefore say, ‘Thus says the Lord Yahweh: “And I will assemble you from the peoples, and I will gather you from the countries to which you were scattered among them, and I will give the land of Israel to you.
Eze 11:18 And when they come there, then they will remove all of its vile idols and all of its detestable things from it.
Eze 11:19 And I will give to them one heart, and a new spirit I will give in their inner parts. And I will remove their heart of stone from their body, and I will give to them a heart of flesh,
Eze 11:20 so that they may walk in my statutes, and they will keep my regulations, and they will do them, and they will be to me a people, and I myself will be to them as God.
Eze 11:21 But to the heart of their abominations and the detestable things their heart is going. I will bring their way on their head,” declares the Lord Yahweh.'”

With this concept of Jesus being the living Word of God and writing his laws on our heart, removing the stoney heart and replacing it with a heart of flesh, would the heart of flesh contain different laws than that of the “stone” tablets on the stoney hearts? Maybe it’s not the laws that changed, but that it is no longer about keeping a set of rules, and that with our heart of flesh from Jesus, we desire to serve Yahweh so much, our way will not desire to part from the Truth or Yahweh’s desire for us to live. If that is the case, won’t we want to learn the way of Yahweh to understand the way of his Truth? From personal experience, the Spirit of Truth will direct you in His ways, but once one discovers His ways that are written down, it makes the journey so much easier. At that point a person can throw out the commandments of men, which are burdensome and often go against the Truth of Yahweh. Here are some interesting verses in Acts often overlooked in regards to how to learn the Way.

Act 15:13 After they finished speaking, James replied, “Brothers, listen to me.
Act 15:14 Simeon has related how God first visited the Gentiles, to take from them a people for his name.
Act 15:15 And with this the words of the prophets agree, just as it is written,
Act 15:16 “‘After this I will return, and I will rebuild the tent of David that has fallen; I will rebuild its ruins, and I will restore it,
Act 15:17 that the remnant of mankind may seek the Lord, and all the Gentiles who are called by my name, says the Lord, who makes these things
Act 15:18 known from of old.’
Act 15:19 Therefore my judgment is that we should not trouble those of the Gentiles who turn to God,
Act 15:20 but should write to them to abstain from the things polluted by idols, and from sexual immorality, and from what has been strangled, and from blood.
Act 15:21 For from ancient generations Moses has had in every city those who proclaim him, for he is read every Sabbath in the synagogues.”

These verses are often used to teach that all believers only need to be concerned with, “to abstain from the things polluted by idols, and from sexual immorality, and from what has been strangled, and from blood”, However, with only these instructions, can one define sexual immorality? What does it mean to be polluted by idols? Strangled and blood what? Where is the instruction not to murder? Does this mean murder was okay for the new converts? These instructions were intended for people coming out of Temples with unclean animal sacrifices, temple prostitutes and many other nasty things. The key verse often over looked is at the very end. These instructions were a starting point and the people would learn the finer points through teaching. “For from ancient generations Moses has had in every city those who proclaim him, for he is read every Sabbath in the synagogues.” It is implied here that new believers, former Gentiles, people of the nations, grafted back into the green olive tree, would seek to learn the ways of Yahweh on the Sabbath where it was being taught every Sabbath day.

How to serve Yahweh has been contentious ever since. The confusion between faith and works still abounds today. Make no mistake, I am not suggesting salvation can come through any works we do, but only in faith in the living Word, Jesus, the Messiah or Greek-Latin term Christ.

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Act 13:38 Let it be known to you therefore, brothers, that through this man forgiveness of sins is proclaimed to you,
Act 13:39 and by him everyone who believes is freed from everything from which you could not be freed by the law of Moses.
Act 13:40 Beware, therefore, lest what is said in the Prophets should come about:
Act 13:41 “‘Look, you scoffers, be astounded and perish; for I am doing a work in your days, a work that you will not believe, even if one tells it to you.’”
Act 13:42 As they went out, the people begged that these things might be told them the next Sabbath.

When Yahweh God saves you through Christ Jesus, you will want to learn what makes the Father happy, His ways, and instructions to live a successful life in Jesus. If this is not the case, then what can we say other than there is a rebellious spirit? I am suggesting that even if once a person is saved, and that person disregards Yahweh’s instruction, they will have to contend with the curses. All one has to do is take a look around to see that. Paul speaks of this situation by saying the only way to identify sin is through the law.

Rom 7:7 What then shall we say? That the law is sin? By no means! Yet if it had not been for the law, I would not have known sin. For I would not have known what it is to covet if the law had not said, “You shall not covet.”
Rom 7:8 But sin, seizing an opportunity through the commandment, produced in me all kinds of covetousness. For apart from the law, sin lies dead.
Rom 7:9 I was once alive apart from the law, but when the commandment came, sin came alive and I died.
Rom 7:10 The very commandment that promised life proved to be death to me.
Rom 7:11 For sin, seizing an opportunity through the commandment, deceived me and through it killed me.
Rom 7:12 So the law is holy, and the commandment is holy and righteous and good.

We can contrast the written Word of Yahweh to the Word that came in flesh. In Germanic English, He is called Jesus, in Greek, He is called Iesous, and in Hebrew by the name of his Father Yah, Yahusha. Joshua in English, or the eternal existing one who saves. The contrast comes from comparing how the people of God would not deny His written Word when threatened by the Greek conquerors, much like the early church would not deny the Word that came in the flesh when threatened by the Sanhedrin or Roman government. From a book ignored by the church today, yet regarded through the ages, we see what the people of Yahweh faced with the Greeks in the books of the Maccabees. From the King James Version we read of an old scribe who was being forced to eat swine’s flesh at a heathen sacrifice to their gods. The Greeks sacrificed swine to their gods, made pork part of their sacred feasts, and defiled Yahweh’s temple with it, along with temple prostitutes and all the same sort of things that James was addressing with the council in Acts chapter 15 many years later.

2Ma 6:18 Eleazar, one of the principal scribes, an aged man, and of a well favoured countenance, was constrained to open his mouth, and to eat swine’s flesh.
2Ma 6:19 But he, choosing rather to die gloriously, than to live stained with such an abomination, spit it forth, and came of his own accord to the torment,
2Ma 6:20 As it behoved them to come, that are resolute to stand out against such things, as are not lawful for love of life to be tasted.
2Ma 6:21 But they that had the charge of that wicked feast, for the old acquaintance they had with the man, taking him aside, besought him to bring flesh of his own provision, such as was lawful for him to use, and make as if he did eat of the flesh taken from the sacrifice commanded by the king;
2Ma 6:22 That in so doing he might be delivered from death, and for the old friendship with them find favour.
2Ma 6:23 But he began to consider discreetly, and as became his age, and the excellency of his ancient years, and the honour of his gray head, whereon was come, and his most honest education from a child, or rather the holy law made and given by God: therefore he answered accordingly, and willed them straightways to send him to the grave.
2Ma 6:24 For it becometh not our age, said he, in any wise to dissemble, whereby many young persons might think that Eleazar, being fourscore years old and ten, were now gone to a strange religion;
2Ma 6:25 And so they through mine hypocrisy, and desire to live a little time and a moment longer, should be deceived by me, and I get a stain to mine old age, and make it abominable.
2Ma 6:26 For though for the present time I should be delivered from the punishment of men: yet should I not escape the hand of the Almighty, neither alive, nor dead.
2Ma 6:27 Wherefore now, manfully changing this life, I will shew myself such an one as mine age requireth,
2Ma 6:28 And leave a notable example to such as be young to die willingly and courageously for the honourable and holy laws. And when he had said these words, immediately he went to the torment:
2Ma 6:29 They that led him changing the good will they bare him a little before into hatred, because the foresaid speeches proceeded, as they thought, from a desperate mind.
2Ma 6:30 But when he was ready to die with stripes, he groaned, and said, It is manifest unto the Lord, that hath the holy knowledge, that whereas I might have been delivered from death, I now endure sore pains in body by being beaten: but in soul am well content to suffer these things, because I fear him.
2Ma 6:31 And thus this man died, leaving his death for an example of a noble courage, and a memorial of virtue, not only unto young men, but unto all his nation.

Below is a small part from Eusebius’s Ecclesiastical History, which is recorded in the Nicene and Post Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 1. It is a free download on ccel.org, and I recommend reading the entire book. This small part will give some examples of what children of Yahweh had to endure in the early church. Just like the children of Yahweh of the written Word were required to deny the Word, these Christians were being forced to deny the Word that came in the flesh. I highlighted one example of someone walking in the name of the LORD blameless, to show what was being done in the pre-Roman church.

1. The country in which the arena was prepared for them was Gaul, of which Lyons and Vienne are the principal and most celebrated cities. The Rhone passes through both of them, flowing in a broad stream through the entire region.
2. The most celebrated churches in that country sent an account of the witnesses to the churches in Asia and Phrygia, relating in the following manner what was done among them.
   I will give their own words.
3. “The servants of Christ residing at Vienne and Lyons, in Gaul, to the brethren through out Asia and Phrygia, who hold the same faith and hope of redemption, peace and grace and glory from God the Father and Christ Jesus our Lord.”
4. Then, having related some other matters, they begin their account in this manner: “The greatness of the tribulation in this region, and the fury of the heathen against the saints, and the sufferings of the blessed witnesses, we cannot recount accurately, nor indeed could they possibly be recorded.
5. For with all his might the adversary fell upon us, giving us a foretaste of his unbridled activity at his future coming. He endeavored in every manner to practice and exercise his servants against the servants of God, not only shutting us out from houses and baths and markets, but forbidding any of us to be seen in any place whatever.
6. But the grace of God led the conflict against him, and delivered the weak, and set them as firm pillars, able through patience to endure all the wrath of the Evil One. And they joined battle with him, undergoing all kinds of shame and injury; and regarding their great sufferings as little, they hastened to Christ, manifesting truly that ‘the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed to us-ward.’
7. First of all, they endured nobly the injuries heaped upon them by the populace; clamors and blows and draggings and robberies and stonings and imprisonments, and all things which an infuriated mob delight in inflicting on enemies and adversaries.
8. Then, being taken to the forum by the chiliarch and the authorities of the city, they were examined in the presence of the whole multitude, and having confessed, they were imprisoned until the arrival of the governor.
9. When, afterwards, they were brought before him, and he treated us with the utmost cruelty, Vettius Epagathus, one of the brethren, and a man filled with love for God and his neighbor, interfered. His life was so consistent that, although young, he had attained a reputation equal to that of the elder Zacharias: for he ‘walked in all the commandments and ordinances of the Lord blameless,’ and was untiring in every good work for his neighbor, zealous for God and fervent in spirit. Such being his character, he could not endure the unreasonable judgment against us, but was filled with indignation, and asked to be permitted to testify in behalf of his brethren, that there is among us nothing ungodly or impious.
10. But those about the judgment seat cried out against him, for he was a man of distinction; and the governor refused to grant his just request, and merely asked if he also were a Christian. And he, confessing this with a loud voice, was himself taken into the order of the witnesses, being called the Advocate of the Christians, but having the Advocate in himself, the Spirit more abundantly than Zacharias. He showed this by the fullness of his love, being well pleased even to lay down his life in defense of the brethren. For he was and is a true disciple of Christ, ‘following the Lamb whithersoever he goeth.’
11. “Then the others were divided, and the proto-witnesses were manifestly ready, and finished their confession with all eagerness. But some appeared unprepared and untrained, weak as yet, and unable to endure so great a conflict. About ten of these proved abortions, causing us great grief and sorrow beyond measure, and impairing the zeal of the others who had not yet been seized, but who, though suffering all kinds of affliction, continued constantly with the witnesses and did not forsake them.
12. Then all of us feared greatly on account of uncertainty as to their confession; not because we dreaded the sufferings to be endured, but because we looked to the end, and were afraid that some of them might fall away.
13. But those who were worthy were seized day by day, filling up their number, so that all the zealous persons, and those through whom especially our affairs had been established, were collected together out of the two churches.
14. And some of our heathen servants also were seized, as the governor had commanded that all of us should be examined publicly. These, being ensnared by Satan, and fearing for themselves the tortures which they beheld the saints endure, and being also urged on by the soldiers, accused us falsely of Thyestean banquets and Œdipodean intercourse, and of deeds which are not only unlawful for us to speak of or to think, but which we cannot believe were ever done by men.
15. When these accusations were reported, all the people raged like wild beasts against us, so that even if any had before been moderate on account of friendship, they were now exceedingly furious and gnashed their teeth against us. And that which was spoken by our Lord was fulfilled: ‘The time will come when whosoever killeth you will think that he doeth God service.’
16. Then finally the holy witnesses endured sufferings beyond description, Satan striving earnestly that some of the slanders might be uttered by them also.
17. “But the whole wrath of the populace, and governor, and soldiers was aroused exceedingly against Sanctus, the deacon from Vienne, and Maturus, a late convert, yet a noble combatant, and against Attalus, a native of Pergamos where he had always been a pillar and foundation, and Blandina, through whom Christ showed that things which appear mean and obscure and despicable to men are with God of great glory, through love toward him manifested in power, and not boasting in appearance.
18. For while we all trembled, and her earthly mistress, who was herself also one of the witnesses, feared that on account of the weakness of her body, she would be unable to make bold confession, Blandina was filled with such power as to be delivered and raised above those who were torturing her by turns from morning till evening in every manner, so that they acknowledged that they were conquered, and could do nothing more to her. And they were astonished at her endurance, as her entire body was mangled and broken; and they testified that one of these forms of torture was sufficient to destroy life, not to speak of so many and so great sufferings.
19. But the blessed woman, like a noble athlete, renewed her strength in her confession; and her comfort and recreation and relief from the pain of her sufferings was in exclaiming, ‘I am a Christian, and there is nothing vile done by us.’
20. “But Sanctus also endured marvelously and superhumanly[1] all the outrages which he suffered. While the wicked men hoped, by the continuance and severity of his tortures to wring something from him which he ought not to say, he girded himself against them with such firmness that he would not even tell his name, or the nation or city to which he belonged, or whether he was bond or free, but answered in the Roman tongue to all their questions, ‘I am a Christian.’ He confessed this instead of name and city and race and everything besides, and the people heard from him no other word.
21. There arose therefore on the part of the governor and his tormentors a great desire to conquer him; but having nothing more that they could do to him, they finally fastened red-hot brazen plates to the most tender parts of his body.
22. And these indeed were burned, but he continued unbending and unyielding, firm in his confession, and refreshed and strengthened by the heavenly fountain of the water of life, flowing from the bowels of Christ.
23. And his body was a witness of his sufferings, being one complete wound and bruise, drawn out of shape, and altogether unlike a human form. Christ, suffering in him, manifested his glory, delivering him from his adversary, and making him an ensample for the others, showing that nothing is fearful where the love of the Father is, and nothing painful where there is the glory of Christ.
24. For when the wicked men tortured him a second time after some days, supposing that with his body swollen and inflamed to such a degree that he could not bear the touch of a hand, if they should again apply the same instruments, they would overcome him, or at least by his death under his sufferings others would be made afraid, not only did not this occur, but, contrary to all human expectation, his body arose and stood erect in the midst of the subsequent torments, and resumed its original appearance and the use of its limbs, so that, through the grace of Christ, these second sufferings became to him, not torture, but healing.
25. “But the devil, thinking that he had already consumed Biblias, who was one of those who had denied Christ, desiring to increase her condemnation through the utterance of blasphemy, brought her again to the torture, to compel her, as already feeble and weak, to report impious things concerning us.
26. But she recovered herself under the suffering, and as if awaking from a deep sleep, and reminded by the present anguish of the eternal punishment in hell, she contradicted the blasphemers. ‘How,’ she said, ‘could those eat children who do not think it lawful to taste the blood even of irrational animals?’ And thenceforward she confessed herself a Christian, and was given a place in the order of the witnesses.
27. “But as the tyrannical tortures were made by Christ of none effect through the patience of the blessed, the devil invented other contrivances,—confinement in the dark and most loathsome parts of the prison, stretching of the feet to the fifth hole in the stocks, and the other outrages which his servants are accustomed to inflict upon the prisoners when furious and filled with the devil. A great many were suffocated in prison, being chosen by the Lord for this manner of death, that he might manifest in them his glory.
28. For some, though they had been tortured so cruelly that it seemed impossible that they could live, even with the most careful nursing, yet, destitute of human attention, remained in the prison, being strengthened by the Lord, and invigorated both in body and soul; and they exhorted and encouraged the rest. But such as were young, and arrested recently, so that their bodies had not become accustomed to torture, were unable to endure the severity of their confinement, and died in prison.
29. “The blessed Pothinus, who had been entrusted with the bishopric of Lyons, was dragged to the judgment seat. He was more than ninety years of age, and very infirm, scarcely indeed able to breathe because of physical weakness; but he was strengthened by spiritual zeal through his earnest desire for martyrdom. Though his body was worn out by old age and disease, his life was preserved that Christ might triumph in it.
30. When he was brought by the soldiers to the tribunal, accompanied by the civil magistrates and a multitude who shouted against him in every manner as if he were Christ himself, he bore noble witness.
31. Being asked by the governor, Who was the God of the Christians, he replied, ‘If thou art worthy, thou shalt know.’ Then he was dragged away harshly, and received blows of every kind. Those near him struck him with their hands and feet, regardless of his age; and those at a distance hurled at him whatever they could seize; all of them thinking that they would be guilty of great wickedness and impiety if any possible abuse were omitted. For thus they thought to avenge their own deities. Scarcely able to breathe, he was cast into prison and died after two days.
32. “Then a certain great dispensation of God occurred, and the compassion of Jesus appeared beyond measure, in a manner rarely seen among the brotherhood, but not beyond the power of Christ.
33. For those who had recanted at their first arrest were imprisoned with the others, and endured terrible sufferings, so that their denial was of no profit to them even for the present. But those who confessed what they were were imprisoned as Christians, no other accusation being brought against them. But the first were treated afterwards as murderers and defiled, and were punished twice as severely as the others.
34. For the joy of martyrdom, and the hope of the promises, and love for Christ, and the Spirit of the Father supported the latter; but their consciences so greatly distressed the former that they were easily distinguishable from all the rest by their very countenances when they were led forth.
35. For the first went out rejoicing, glory and grace being blended in their faces, so that even their bonds seemed like beautiful ornaments, as those of a bride adorned with variegated golden fringes; and they were perfumed with the sweet savor of Christ, so that some supposed they had been anointed with earthly ointment. But the others were downcast and humble and dejected and filled with every kind of disgrace, and they were reproached by the heathen as ignoble and weak, bearing the accusation of murderers, and having lost the one honorable and glorious and life-giving Name. The rest, beholding this, were strengthened, and when apprehended, they confessed without hesitation, paying no attention to the persuasions of the devil.”
36. After certain other words they continue:
    “After these things, finally, their martyrdoms were divided into every form. For plaiting a crown of various colors and of all kinds of flowers, they presented it to the Father. It was proper therefore that the noble athletes, having endured a manifold strife, and conquered grandly, should receive the crown, great and incorruptible.
37. “Maturus, therefore, and Sanctus and Blandina and Attalus were led to the amphitheater to be exposed to the wild beasts, and to give to the heathen public a spectacle of cruelty, a day for fighting with wild beasts being specially appointed on account of our people.
38. Both Maturus and Sanctus passed again through every torment in the amphitheater, as if they had suffered nothing before, or rather, as if, having already conquered their antagonist in many contests, they were now striving for the crown itself. They endured again the customary running of the gauntlet and the violence of the wild beasts, and everything which the furious people called for or desired, and at last, the iron chair in which their bodies being roasted, tormented them with the fumes.
39. And not with this did the persecutors cease, but were yet more mad against them, determined to overcome their patience. But even thus they did not hear a word from Sanctus except the confession which he had uttered from the beginning.
40. These, then, after their life had continued for a long time through the great conflict, were at last sacrificed, having been made throughout that day a spectacle to the world, in place of the usual variety of combats.
41. “But Blandina was suspended on a stake, and exposed to be devoured by the wild beasts who should attack her. And because she appeared as if hanging on a cross, and because of her earnest prayers, she inspired the combatants with great zeal. For they looked on her in her conflict, and beheld with their outward eyes, in the form of their sister, him who was crucified for them, that he might persuade those who believe on him, that every one who suffers for the glory of Christ has fellowship always with the living God.
42. As none of the wild beasts at that time touched her, she was taken down from the stake, and cast again into prison. She was preserved thus for another contest, that, being victorious in more conflicts, she might make the punishment of the crooked serpent irrevocable; and, though small and weak and despised, yet clothed with Christ the mighty and conquering Athlete, she might arouse the zeal of the brethren, and, having overcome the adversary many times might receive, through her conflict, the crown incorruptible.
43. “But Attalus was called for loudly by the people, because he was a person of distinction. He entered the contest readily on account of a good conscience and his genuine practice in Christian discipline, and as he had always been a witness for the truth among us.
44. He was led around the amphitheater, a tablet being carried before him on which was written in the Roman language ‘This is Attalus the Christian,’ and the people were filled with indignation against him. But when the governor learned that he was a Roman, he commanded him to be taken back with the rest of those who were in prison concerning whom he had written to Cæsar, and whose answer he was awaiting.
45. “But the intervening time was not wasted nor fruitless to them; for by their patience the measureless compassion of Christ was manifested. For through their continued life the dead were made alive, and the witnesses showed favor to those who had failed to witness. And the virgin mother had much joy in receiving alive those whom she had brought forth as dead.
46. For through their influence many who had denied were restored, and re-begotten, and rekindled with life, and learned to confess. And being made alive and strengthened, they went to the judgment seat to be again interrogated by the governor; God, who desires not the death of the sinner, but mercifully invites to repentance, treating them with kindness.
47. For Cæsar commanded that they should be put to death, but that any who might deny should be set free.

After reading a short portion of what early believers endured, it makes the myth that believers in the end times will not suffer tribulation less believable. In order to endure that sort of torture for their faith, they had to have more than a mediocre experience with Yahweh. They too, must have found the scroll.

Featured image taken by Emma Vail in New Brunswick, Canada.

And it came to pass, when he reigned, that he smote all of the house of Jeroboam; he left not to Jeroboam any that breathed, until he had destroyed him, according unto the saying of the LORD, which he spake by his servant Ahijah the Shilonite: Because of the sins of Jeroboam which he sinned, and which he made Israel sin, by his provocation wherewith he provoked the LORD God of Israel to anger. 1 Kings 15:29-30

Jeroboam was the first king of the northern kingdom after the civil war in which Israel divided into two kingdoms. Jeroboam initially was part of Yahweh God’s plan, but he made some poor decisions which caused him to eventually be an enemy of God. There are many references to Jeroboam, even after his death. These references usually say something like this:

2Ki 15:8 In the thirty and eighth year of Azariah king of Judah did Zachariah the son of Jeroboam reign over Israel in Samaria six months.
2Ki 15:9 And he did that which was evil in the sight of the LORD, as his fathers had done: he departed not from the sins of Jeroboam the son of Nebat, who made Israel to sin.

2Ki 15:17 In the nine and thirtieth year of Azariah king of Judah began Menahem the son of Gadi to reign over Israel, and reigned ten years in Samaria.
2Ki 15:18 And he did that which was evil in the sight of the LORD: he departed not all his days from the sins of Jeroboam the son of Nebat, who made Israel to sin.

2Ki 15:23 In the fiftieth year of Azariah king of Judah Pekahiah the son of Menahem began to reign over Israel in Samaria, and reigned two years.
2Ki 15:24 And he did that which was evil in the sight of the LORD: he departed not from the sins of Jeroboam the son of Nebat, who made Israel to sin.

2Ki 15:27 In the two and fiftieth year of Azariah king of Judah Pekah the son of Remaliah began to reign over Israel in Samaria, and reigned twenty years.
2Ki 15:28 And he did that which was evil in the sight of the LORD: he departed not from the sins of Jeroboam the son of Nebat, who made Israel to sin.

There are different ways to distinguish people from one another so they are not confused with anyone else. Today, we have first and last names, addresses and numbers issued by governments to distinguish our identities. Twenty-five hundred years ago, a person’s name was often followed the name of their father, much like Jeroboam the son of Nebat. This was obviously done to set them apart from anyone with the same name, so the person could say, “I mean this certain Jeroboam”. How would you like a key identifier in your name to be recorded in scripture as Jeroboam, the son of Nebat, who made Israel to sin? This tells us what Jeroboam did was very bad in the sight of Yahweh, so bad, that the sins of the people for years to come, would be identified by what Jeroboam did.

Jeroboam started out as part of Yahweh’s plan, and Jeroboam, for the most part had good intentions. He is introduced when Solomon is still king over a united, twelve tribe kingdom.

1Ki 11:28 And the man Jeroboam was a mighty man of valour: and Solomon seeing the young man that he was industrious, he made him ruler over all the charge of the house of Joseph.

The house of Joseph referred to, is Ephraim and Manasseh, Joseph’s sons, which usually refers to the tribes of the northern kingdom. Unfortunately, some will immediately think of the LDS church with this type of terminology, but the book of Kings predates that theological system, and Joseph Smith, by more than a couple thousand years. If that holds anyone back from understanding the truth, remember that deception is mixed with a lot of truth to make it believable and deceptive at the same time. As we read on, Jeroboam is picked by Yahweh to be a leader.

1Ki 11:29 And it came to pass at that time when Jeroboam went out of Jerusalem, that the prophet Ahijah the Shilonite found him in the way; and he had clad himself with a new garment; and they two were alone in the field:
1Ki 11:30 And Ahijah caught the new garment that was on him, and rent it in twelve pieces:
1Ki 11:31 And he said to Jeroboam, Take thee ten pieces: for thus saith the LORD, the God of Israel, Behold, I will rend the kingdom out of the hand of Solomon, and will give ten tribes to thee:
1Ki 11:32 (But he shall have one tribe for my servant David’s sake, and for Jerusalem’s sake, the city which I have chosen out of all the tribes of Israel:)
1Ki 11:33 Because that they have forsaken me, and have worshipped Ashtoreth the goddess of the Zidonians, Chemosh the god of the Moabites, and Milcom the god of the children of Ammon, and have not walked in my ways, to do that which is right in mine eyes, and to keep my statutes and my judgments, as did David his father.
1Ki 11:34 Howbeit I will not take the whole kingdom out of his hand: but I will make him prince all the days of his life for David my servant’s sake, whom I chose, because he kept my commandments and my statutes:
1Ki 11:35 But I will take the kingdom out of his son’s hand, and will give it unto thee, even ten tribes.
1Ki 11:36 And unto his son will I give one tribe, that David my servant may have a light alway before me in Jerusalem, the city which I have chosen me to put my name there.
1Ki 11:37 And I will take thee, and thou shalt reign according to all that thy soul desireth, and shalt be king over Israel.
1Ki 11:38 And it shall be, if thou wilt hearken unto all that I command thee, and wilt walk in my ways, and do that is right in my sight, to keep my statutes and my commandments, as David my servant did; that I will be with thee, and build thee a sure house, as I built for David, and will give Israel unto thee.
1Ki 11:39 And I will for this afflict the seed of David, but not for ever.
1Ki 11:40 Solomon sought therefore to kill Jeroboam. And Jeroboam arose, and fled into Egypt, unto Shishak king of Egypt, and was in Egypt until the death of Solomon.
1Ki 11:41 And the rest of the acts of Solomon, and all that he did, and his wisdom, are they not written in the book of the acts of Solomon?
1Ki 11:42 And the time that Solomon reigned in Jerusalem over all Israel was forty years.
1Ki 11:43 And Solomon slept with his fathers, and was buried in the city of David his father: and Rehoboam his son reigned in his stead.

These verses have huge impact on history. Yahweh gave Jeroboam ten tribes from Solomon, because Solomon sinned by using symbols of foreign gods, setting up altars to foreign gods and did not follow Yahweh’s instructions or walk in his ways. Here is all Jeroboam had to do to be successful: “if thou wilt hearken unto all that I command thee, and wilt walk in my ways, and do that is right in my sight, to keep my statutes and my commandments, as David my servant did; that I will be with thee, and build thee a sure house, as I built for David, and will give Israel unto thee”.

Jeroboam didn’t have to be shamed forever by having the reputation of causing Israel to sin. The northern kingdom of Israel did not need to be scattered among the nations of the Earth, and Yahweh may have brought the split kingdom back together again if Jeroboam was obedient. What did Jeroboam do that was so grievous to God?

1Ki 12:25 Then Jeroboam built Shechem in mount Ephraim, and dwelt therein; and went out from thence, and built Penuel.
1Ki 12:26 And Jeroboam said in his heart, Now shall the kingdom return to the house of David:
1Ki 12:27 If this people go up to do sacrifice in the house of the LORD at Jerusalem, then shall the heart of this people turn again unto their lord, even unto Rehoboam king of Judah, and they shall kill me, and go again to Rehoboam king of Judah.
1Ki 12:28 Whereupon the king took counsel, and made two calves of gold, and said unto them, It is too much for you to go up to Jerusalem: behold thy gods, O Israel, which brought thee up out of the land of Egypt.
1Ki 12:29 And he set the one in Bethel, and the other put he in Dan.
1Ki 12:30 And this thing became a sin: for the people went to worship before the one, even unto Dan.

Jeroboam was afraid that if the people he was leader over followed Yahweh’s instructions to return to Jerusalem three times a year for the feasts of Yahweh God, they would become loyal to the king of the southern kingdom, Solomon’s son, Rehoboam, and he would lose his power. The logical thing in his mind was to make his own feast day to Yahweh, on a day Yahweh did not command, and make some golden calves to go along with it, at places Yahweh did not command, so everyone could stay close to home. Much like people today, Jeroboam did not study or know scripture, so he did not remember what happened when Aaron tried the same thing while Moses was on Mount Horeb receiving the Ten Commandments.

Exo 32:3 And all the people took off the rings of gold that were on their ears and brought it to Aaron.
Exo 32:4 And he took from their hand, and he shaped it with a tool, and he made it a cast-image bull calf, and they said, “These are your gods, Israel, who brought you up from the land of Egypt.”
Exo 32:5 And Aaron saw, and he built an altar before it, and Aaron called, and he said, “A feast for Yahweh tomorrow.”
Exo 32:6 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.

Something I never realized until a few years ago, is that in Exodus chapter 32 verse 5, Aaron and the people were using the golden calf to represent Yahweh. In verse 4, the Hebrew word there for gods is Strong’s H433, Eloheem, which can refer to Yahweh, capital G God, or simply gods. Based on verse 5, it clearly is referring to Eloheem capital G God, Yahweh, hence the confusion associated with this story. The same word is used in first Kings 12:28, which shows Jeroboam was using the calves like Aaron, to represent Yahweh.

Jeroboam makes the same mistake and sets up his phoney feast day for Yahweh out of complete ignorance of scripture and the nature of the creator of the cosmos. What does this say about our feast days, with all the symbolism of the gods of the nations described throughout scripture, and that the whole world embraces along with us? Just a question.

Jeroboam does not stop there though. It looks like idolatry with good intentions will lead to more idolatry. When a person, or group of people, justify breaking one of Yahweh’s commandments, it leads them down the path to break them all, then completely forget them. At some point down this path, one begins worshipping a different god or gods, strange gods, and is no longer worshipping Yahweh.

1Ki 12:31 And he made an house of high places, and made priests of the lowest of the people, which were not of the sons of Levi.
1Ki 12:32 And Jeroboam ordained a feast in the eighth month, on the fifteenth day of the month, like unto the feast that is in Judah, and he offered upon the altar. So did he in Bethel, sacrificing unto the calves that he had made: and he placed in Bethel the priests of the high places which he had made.
1Ki 12:33 So he offered upon the altar which he had made in Bethel the fifteenth day of the eighth month, even in the month which he had devised of his own heart; and ordained a feast unto the children of Israel: and he offered upon the altar, and burnt incense.

What was Jeroboam’s great sin that gave him the name Jeroboam, son of Nebat, the one who made Israel sin? He devised a feast day in his own heart, a holy day, that was not ordained by Yahweh in scripture, along with making an image of Yahweh and worshipping it. This lead him down the path of worshipping all the foreign gods of the nations that Yahweh specifically commanded us not to do. Here is how it ended for Jeroboam, and ultimately the prophecy came to pass and the Northern Kingdom was scattered among the nations, given over to the gods they worshipped.

1Ki 14:1 At that time, Abijah son of Jeroboam became ill.
1Ki 14:2 Jeroboam said to his wife, “Please get up and disguise yourself so that they will not know that you are the wife of Jeroboam, and go to Shiloh. Look, Ahijah the prophet is there, and he spoke concerning me before I became king over this people.
1Ki 14:3 You must take ten loaves of bread in your hand and cakes and a jar of honey, and you must go to him. He shall tell you what will happen to the boy.”
1Ki 14:4 The wife of Jeroboam did so. She got up, went to Shiloh, and came to the house of Ahijah. Now Ahijah was not able to see, for his eyes were fixed because of his old age.
1Ki 14:5 Then Yahweh said to Ahijah, “Look, the wife of Jeroboam is coming to seek a word from you about her son, for he is ill. Thus and so you shall say to her. When she comes, she will be disguising herself.”
1Ki 14:6 It happened at the moment Ahijah heard the sound of her footsteps coming through the doorway, he said, “Come in, wife of Jeroboam. Why are you making yourself unrecognizable? I have been sent a hard message for you:
1Ki 14:7 Go, tell Jeroboam, ‘Thus says Yahweh the God of Israel: “Because I raised you from the midst of the people and I made you leader over my people Israel,
1Ki 14:8 I tore the kingdom from the house of David and I gave it to you. But you were not like my servant David who kept my commandments, and who went after me with all his heart, to do only what is right in my eyes.
1Ki 14:9 But you did more evil than all who were before you. You have gone and made for yourself other gods and molten idols to provoke me, but me you have completely disregarded.
1Ki 14:10 Therefore, look, I am about to bring disaster upon the house of Jeroboam, and I will cut off males from Jeroboam, bond or free, in Israel. I will burn after the house of Jeroboam as one burns after the manure, until it is finished.
1Ki 14:11 He who dies for Jeroboam in the city, the dogs will eat. He who dies in the open field, the birds from the heavens will eat, for Yahweh has spoken it.”‘
1Ki 14:12 As for you, get up. Go to your house. When your feet enter the city, the child will die.
1Ki 14:13 All of Israel will mourn for him, and they will bury him. This one alone will come to a tomb for Jeroboam, because a good thing has been found in him by Yahweh the God of Israel in the house of Israel.
1Ki 14:14 Yahweh will raise up a king for himself over Israel who will even now cut off the house of Jeroboam this day.
1Ki 14:15 Yahweh will strike Israel as one shakes the reed plant in the water, and he will root Israel up from this good land that he gave to their ancestors. He will scatter them beyond the River because they have made their sacred poles which are provoking Yahweh.
1Ki 14:16 He will give up Israel because of the sin of Jeroboam which he sinned and which he caused Israel to sin.”
1Ki 14:17 Then the wife of Jeroboam got up, went, and came to Tirzah. As she was coming to the threshold of the house, the boy died.
1Ki 14:18 They buried him and all of Israel mourned for him, according to the word of Yahweh which he had spoken by the hand of his servant Ahijah the prophet.

If you study and do some research, it is not hard to understand the symbology of sacred poles, groves, the mystery religions, sun god worship, and mythology. It all exists today, in 2020, and we are seeing its fruits. It was also prophesied that at some point in the future, after Israel was scattered among the nations, they would wake up and realize what was going on.

Jer 16:14 Therefore look, days are coming,’ declares Yahweh, ‘and it will no longer be said, “As Yahweh lives, who led up the Israelites from the land of Egypt,”
Jer 16:15 but only “As Yahweh lives, who led up the Israelites from the land of the north, and from all the lands where he had driven them,” for I will bring them back to their ground that I gave to their ancestors.
Jer 16:16 Look, I am sending for many fishermen,’ declares Yahweh, ‘and they will fish them out, and afterward I will send for many hunters, and they will hunt them from every mountain, and from every hill, and from the clefts of the cliffs.
Jer 16:17 For my eyes are on all their ways, they are not hidden from before me, and their iniquity is not concealed from before my eyes.
Jer 16:18 And I will first doubly repay their iniquity and their sin because of their profaning my land with the dead bodies of their abhorrences, and with their abominations they have filled up my inheritance.'”
Jer 16:19 O Yahweh, my strength, and my stronghold, and my refuge in the day of distress, to you the nations will come from the ends of the earth, and they will say, “Our ancestors have inherited only lies, vanity, and there is no profit in them.
Jer 16:20 Can a human make for himself gods? Yet they are not gods!”
Jer 16:21 “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.”

Know Yahweh, יהוה by his name, and his expectations. Jesus came and explained it to the people that were alive at that time, and his words are for us as well.

Mar 7:6 He answered and said unto them, Well hath Esaias prophesied of you hypocrites, as it is written, This people honoureth me with their lips, but their heart is far from me.
Mar 7:7 Howbeit in vain do they worship me, teaching for doctrines the commandments of men.
Mar 7:8 For laying aside the commandment of God, ye hold the tradition of men, as the washing of pots and cups: and many other such like things ye do.
Mar 7:9 And he said unto them, Full well ye reject the commandment of God, that ye may keep your own tradition.

Mat 11:25 At that time Jesus answered and said, I thank thee, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent, and hast revealed them unto babes.
Mat 11:26 Even so, Father: for so it seemed good in thy sight.
Mat 11:27 All things are delivered unto me of my Father: and no man knoweth the Son, but the Father; neither knoweth any man the Father, save the Son, and he to whomsoever the Son will reveal him.
Mat 11:28 Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.
Mat 11:29 Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls.
Mat 11:30 For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.

Don’t be a Jeroboam.

Featured image taken by Emma Vail in New Brunswick, Canada.

What is more pleasing to a parent, a child who continually rebels and then apologizes, or one that is obedient? Children have to be taught what is expected of them, and they will often challenge instruction, causing the need for correction. As a parent, it is pleasing to see a child learn what is expected through teaching and correction. Sometimes children will knowingly disobey, then say they are sorry. After a while, the cycle of doing the same things wrong and apologizing becomes tiresome to a parent, and they would prefer the child to obey and not have to apologize or be continually corrected. This was the way it was with the children of Israel. Their way of apologizing for breaking Yahweh’s commandments was to sacrifice certain animals. Thankfully, after the coming of the Messiah, Jesus, that sacrificial system is not applicable to believers. However, we can offer a sacrifice of praise, thanksgiving, and ourselves as a living sacrifice.

Heb 13:15 Through him then let us continually offer up a sacrifice of praise to God, that is, the fruit of lips that acknowledge his name.

Rom 12:1 I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship.

Yahweh preferred obedience over sacrifice because if there was obedience, there was no need for sacrifice. This becomes apparent when King Saul was disobedient. The whole premise of Israel having a king was not in Yahweh’s plan. Yahweh was supposed be the King of Israel. Yet the people wanted to be like the other nations and have an earthly king over them.

1Sa 8:4 Then all the elders of Israel gathered together and came to Samuel at Ramah
1Sa 8:5 and said to him, “Behold, you are old and your sons do not walk in your ways. Now appoint for us a king to judge us like all the nations.”
1Sa 8:6 But the thing displeased Samuel when they said, “Give us a king to judge us.” And Samuel prayed to the LORD.
1Sa 8:7 And the LORD said to Samuel, “Obey the voice of the people in all that they say to you, for they have not rejected you, but they have rejected me from being king over them.
1Sa 8:8 According to all the deeds that they have done, from the day I brought them up out of Egypt even to this day, forsaking me and serving other gods, so they are also doing to you.
1Sa 8:9 Now then, obey their voice; only you shall solemnly warn them and show them the ways of the king who shall reign over them.”

Yahweh God viewed Israel’s desire to have a king as a flat out rejection of Him as King. This was not a surprise to God because He told Moses and His people this would happen. They were continually on a roller coaster of obedience and disobedience. Why do His people today think they are different from His people then? Malachi 3:6 says, “For I the LORD do not change; therefore you, O children of Jacob, are not consumed.”

Moses spoke to the people and told them they will be scattered throughout the earth for their disobedience. At some point in the future, they will also return to the ways of Yahweh and be regathered. This theme is found throughout the Old Testament.

Deu 30:1 “And when all these things come upon you, the blessing and the curse, which I have set before you, and you call them to mind among all the nations where the LORD your God has driven you,
Deu 30:2 and return to the LORD your God, you and your children, and obey his voice in all that I command you today, with all your heart and with all your soul,
Deu 30:3 then the LORD your God will restore your fortunes and have mercy on you, and he will gather you again from all the peoples where the LORD your God has scattered you.
Deu 30:4 If your outcasts are in the uttermost parts of heaven, from there the LORD your God will gather you, and from there he will take you.
Deu 30:5 And the LORD your God will bring you into the land that your fathers possessed, that you may possess it. And he will make you more prosperous and numerous than your fathers.

Israel wasn’t scattered until much later than the time of Moses, after they continually bounced back and forth between obedience and disobedience, after King Saul, David and Solomon. It was not until Assyria took the northern kingdom captive and Babylon conquered the southern kingdom, that God’s people were completely scattered. Yahweh spared a remnant from the two tribes of the southern kingdom for his servant David’s sake who eventually returned and rebuilt the temple. Yet the prophecy in Deuteronomy still has not been fulfilled. Yahweh’s people never returned to do all that he commanded as a whole. When Judah returned from Babylonian captivity they brought volumes of commandments with them they picked up in Babylon, namely the Talmud. Jesus continually was at odds with the teachings of the Talmud, which many in the church today confuse with the Torah, Yahweh God’s instruction to His people. Even in 1948, when Israel became a nation again, the Deuteronomy prophecy was not fulfilled. The closest fulfillment we have seen was at the feast of Shavuot, in Acts chapter two, where many from the tribes were gathered for the feast and thousands were saved.

Continuing with Saul, we see he foolishly breaks Yahweh’s commandment by not waiting for the priest, Samuel to sacrifice.

1Sa 13:8 He waited seven days, the time appointed by Samuel. But Samuel did not come to Gilgal, and the people were scattering from him.
1Sa 13:9 So Saul said, “Bring the burnt offering here to me, and the peace offerings.” And he offered the burnt offering.
1Sa 13:10 As soon as he had finished offering the burnt offering, behold, Samuel came. And Saul went out to meet him and greet him.
1Sa 13:11 Samuel said, “What have you done?” And Saul said, “When I saw that the people were scattering from me, and that you did not come within the days appointed, and that the Philistines had mustered at Michmash,
1Sa 13:12 I said, ‘Now the Philistines will come down against me at Gilgal, and I have not sought the favor of the LORD.’ So I forced myself, and offered the burnt offering.”
1Sa 13:13 And Samuel said to Saul, “You have done foolishly. You have not kept the command of the LORD your God, with which he commanded you. For then the LORD would have established your kingdom over Israel forever.
1Sa 13:14 But now your kingdom shall not continue. The LORD has sought out a man after his own heart, and the LORD has commanded him to be prince over his people, because you have not kept what the LORD commanded you.”

The next time Saul does not obey the words of Yahweh, Samuel has to correct him again. Yahweh prefers obedience over sacrifice, and he likens rebellion to divination and idolatry.

1Sa 15:10 The word of the LORD came to Samuel:
1Sa 15:11 “I regret that I have made Saul king, for he has turned back from following me and has not performed my commandments.” And Samuel was angry, and he cried to the LORD all night.
1Sa 15:12 And Samuel rose early to meet Saul in the morning. And it was told Samuel, “Saul came to Carmel, and behold, he set up a monument for himself and turned and passed on and went down to Gilgal.”
1Sa 15:13 And Samuel came to Saul, and Saul said to him, “Blessed be you to the LORD. I have performed the commandment of the LORD.”
1Sa 15:14 And Samuel said, “What then is this bleating of the sheep in my ears and the lowing of the oxen that I hear?”
1Sa 15:15 Saul said, “They have brought them from the Amalekites, for the people spared the best of the sheep and of the oxen to sacrifice to the LORD your God, and the rest we have devoted to destruction.”
1Sa 15:16 Then Samuel said to Saul, “Stop! I will tell you what the LORD said to me this night.” And he said to him, “Speak.”
1Sa 15:17 And Samuel said, “Though you are little in your own eyes, are you not the head of the tribes of Israel? The LORD anointed you king over Israel.
1Sa 15:18 And the LORD sent you on a mission and said, ‘Go, devote to destruction the sinners, the Amalekites, and fight against them until they are consumed.’
1Sa 15:19 Why then did you not obey the voice of the LORD? Why did you pounce on the spoil and do what was evil in the sight of the LORD?”
1Sa 15:20 And Saul said to Samuel, “I have obeyed the voice of the LORD. I have gone on the mission on which the LORD sent me. I have brought Agag the king of Amalek, and I have devoted the Amalekites to destruction.
1Sa 15:21 But the people took of the spoil, sheep and oxen, the best of the things devoted to destruction, to sacrifice to the LORD your God in Gilgal.”
1Sa 15:22 And Samuel said, “Has the LORD as great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices, as in obeying the voice of the LORD? Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, and to listen than the fat of rams.
1Sa 15:23 For rebellion is as the sin of divination, and presumption is as iniquity and idolatry. Because you have rejected the word of the LORD, he has also rejected you from being king.” Jesus says something similar, quoting Hosea 6:6.

Mat 9:13  Go and learn what this means: ‘I desire mercy, and not sacrifice.’ For I came not to call the righteous, but sinners.” 

The people of God will be gathered again. Jeremiah speaks of this gathering which will be greater than being delivered from Egypt. This clearly has not happened yet.

Jer 16:14 “Therefore, behold, the days are coming, declares the LORD, when it shall no longer be said, ‘As the LORD lives who brought up the people of Israel out of the land of Egypt,’
Jer 16:15 but ‘As the LORD lives who brought up the people of Israel out of the north country and out of all the countries where he had driven them.’ For I will bring them back to their own land that I gave to their fathers.

Another prophesy by Isaiah has also not been fully realized.

Isa 11:1 There shall come forth a shoot from the stump of Jesse, and a branch from his roots shall bear fruit.
Isa 11:2 And the Spirit of the LORD shall rest upon him, the Spirit of wisdom and understanding, the Spirit of counsel and might, the Spirit of knowledge and the fear of the LORD.
Isa 11:3 And his delight shall be in the fear of the LORD. He shall not judge by what his eyes see, or decide disputes by what his ears hear,
Isa 11:4 but with righteousness he shall judge the poor, and decide with equity for the meek of the earth; and he shall strike the earth with the rod of his mouth, and with the breath of his lips he shall kill the wicked.
Isa 11:5 Righteousness shall be the belt of his waist, and faithfulness the belt of his loins.
Isa 11:6 The wolf shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the young goat, and the calf and the lion and the fattened calf together; and a little child shall lead them.
Isa 11:7 The cow and the bear shall graze; their young shall lie down together; and the lion shall eat straw like the ox.
Isa 11:8 The nursing child shall play over the hole of the cobra, and the weaned child shall put his hand on the adder’s den.
Isa 11:9 They shall not hurt or destroy in all my holy mountain; for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the LORD as the waters cover the sea.
Isa 11:10 In that day the root of Jesse, who shall stand as a signal for the peoples—of him shall the nations inquire, and his resting place shall be glorious.
Isa 11:11 In that day the Lord will extend his hand yet a second time to recover the remnant that remains of his people, from Assyria, from Egypt, from Pathros, from Cush, from Elam, from Shinar, from Hamath, and from the coastlands of the sea.
Isa 11:12 He will raise a signal for the nations and will assemble the banished of Israel, and gather the dispersed of Judah from the four corners of the earth.
Isa 11:13 The jealousy of Ephraim shall depart, and those who harass Judah shall be cut off; Ephraim shall not be jealous of Judah, and Judah shall not harass Ephraim.
Isa 11:14 But they shall swoop down on the shoulder of the Philistines in the west, and together they shall plunder the people of the east. They shall put out their hand against Edom and Moab, and the Ammonites shall obey them.
Isa 11:15 And the LORD will utterly destroy the tongue of the Sea of Egypt, and will wave his hand over the River with his scorching breath, and strike it into seven channels, and he will lead people across in sandals.
Isa 11:16 And there will be a highway from Assyria for the remnant that remains of his people, as there was for Israel when they came up from the land of Egypt.

Many things have not happened in these verses of Isaiah. His people must return to Him and His ways, because we will see these prophesies fulfilled. If you are one of Yahweh God’s people, these things apply to you. Paul told us that there is no longer Jew or Greek, we are one in Christ. That must mean that we his people, are the ones being spoken of in the future.

Gal 3:28 There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.
Gal 3:29 And if you are Christ’s, then you are Abraham’s offspring, heirs according to promise.

Jesus speaks of this gathering Isaiah spoke of, taking place at the time of his second coming.

Mat 24:29 “Immediately after the tribulation of those days the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light, and the stars will fall from heaven, and the powers of the heavens will be shaken.
Mat 24:30 Then will appear in heaven the sign of the Son of Man, and then all the tribes of the earth will mourn, and they will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of heaven with power and great glory.
Mat 24:31 And he will send out his angels with a loud trumpet call, and they will gather his elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other.

Paul reaffirms this in his letters to the Thessalonians. How many people are under this strong delusion today? Paul said people will reject the truth, have pleasure in unrighteousness, and believe lies. Where is truth and righteousness found except in the living Word of God?

2Th 2:1 Now concerning the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and our being gathered together to him, we ask you, brothers,
2Th 2:2 not to be quickly shaken in mind or alarmed, either by a spirit or a spoken word, or a letter seeming to be from us, to the effect that the day of the Lord has come.
2Th 2:3 Let no one deceive you in any way. For that day will not come, unless the rebellion comes first, and the man of lawlessness is revealed, the son of destruction,
2Th 2:4 who opposes and exalts himself against every so-called god or object of worship, so that he takes his seat in the temple of God, proclaiming himself to be God.
2Th 2:5 Do you not remember that when I was still with you I told you these things?
2Th 2:6 And you know what is restraining him now so that he may be revealed in his time.
2Th 2:7 For the mystery of lawlessness is already at work. Only he who now restrains it will do so until he is out of the way.
2Th 2:8 And then the lawless one will be revealed, whom the Lord Jesus will kill with the breath of his mouth and bring to nothing by the appearance of his coming.
2Th 2:9 The coming of the lawless one is by the activity of Satan with all power and false signs and wonders,
2Th 2:10 and with all wicked deception for those who are perishing, because they refused to love the truth and so be saved.
2Th 2:11 Therefore God sends them a strong delusion, so that they may believe what is false,
2Th 2:12 in order that all may be condemned who did not believe the truth but had pleasure in unrighteousness.

Another verse in Deuteronomy speaks of the latter days, which is now, or sometime in the future. It is speaking to the people of God, not some future remnant of one tribe, because we are all one in Jesus now, grafted into the Commonwealth of Israel.

Deu 4:27 And the LORD will scatter you among the peoples, and you will be left few in number among the nations where the LORD will drive you.
Deu 4:28 And there you will serve gods of wood and stone, the work of human hands, that neither see, nor hear, nor eat, nor smell.
Deu 4:29 But from there you will seek the LORD your God and you will find him, if you search after him with all your heart and with all your soul.
Deu 4:30 When you are in tribulation, and all these things come upon you in the latter days, you will return to the LORD your God and obey his voice.
Deu 4:31 For the LORD your God is a merciful God. He will not leave you or destroy you or forget the covenant with your fathers that he swore to them.

Jeremiah speaks of an awakening in the future where the people of the nations will realize they have been led into sun worship idolatry, images of jealousy polluting the holy things of God, and have inherited lies. Don’t be in that group, “But from there you will seek the LORD your God and you will find him, if you search after him with all your heart and with all your soul.”

Jer 16:19 O LORD, my strength and my stronghold, my refuge in the day of trouble, to you shall the nations come from the ends of the earth and say: “Our fathers have inherited nothing but lies, worthless things in which there is no profit.
Jer 16:20 Can man make for himself gods? Such are not gods!”
Jer 16:21 “Therefore, behold, I will make them know, this once I will make them know my power and my might, and they shall know that my name is the LORD.”

Also, remember that God’s name is not “the LORD”. That is a substitution the translators used for His real name, יהוה, which I use the transliteration Yahweh, a widely accepted English representation of יהוה. Verse 21 above would be more accurate as such: “Therefore, behold, I will make them know, this once I will make them know my power and my might, and they shall know that my name is יהוה [Yahweh].”

How will the deception come? How has deception come? It has and will continue to come through the false shepherds, priests and prophets. Just as Yahweh speaks through Isaiah, “Woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkness, who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter!”

Jer 23:1 “Woe to the shepherds who destroy and scatter the sheep of my pasture!” declares the LORD.
Jer 23:2 Therefore thus says the LORD, the God of Israel, concerning the shepherds who care for my people: “You have scattered my flock and have driven them away, and you have not attended to them. Behold, I will attend to you for your evil deeds, declares the LORD.
Jer 23:3 Then I will gather the remnant of my flock out of all the countries where I have driven them, and I will bring them back to their fold, and they shall be fruitful and multiply.
Jer 23:4 I will set shepherds over them who will care for them, and they shall fear no more, nor be dismayed, neither shall any be missing, declares the LORD.
Jer 23:5 “Behold, the days are coming, declares the LORD, when I will raise up for David a righteous Branch, and he shall reign as king and deal wisely, and shall execute justice and righteousness in the land.

Jer 23:9 Concerning the prophets: My heart is broken within me; all my bones shake; I am like a drunken man, like a man overcome by wine, because of the LORD and because of his holy words.
Jer 23:10 For the land is full of adulterers; because of the curse the land mourns, and the pastures of the wilderness are dried up. Their course is evil, and their might is not right.
Jer 23:11 “Both prophet and priest are ungodly; even in my house I have found their evil, declares the LORD.
Jer 23:12 Therefore their way shall be to them like slippery paths in the darkness, into which they shall be driven and fall, for I will bring disaster upon them in the year of their punishment, declares the LORD.
Jer 23:13 In the prophets of Samaria I saw an unsavory thing: they prophesied by Baal and led my people Israel astray.
Jer 23:14 But in the prophets of Jerusalem I have seen a horrible thing: they commit adultery and walk in lies; they strengthen the hands of evildoers, so that no one turns from his evil; all of them have become like Sodom to me, and its inhabitants like Gomorrah.”
Jer 23:15 Therefore thus says the LORD of hosts concerning the prophets: “Behold, I will feed them with bitter food and give them poisoned water to drink, for from the prophets of Jerusalem ungodliness has gone out into all the land.”
Jer 23:16 Thus says the LORD of hosts: “Do not listen to the words of the prophets who prophesy to you, filling you with vain hopes. They speak visions of their own minds, not from the mouth of the LORD.
Jer 23:17 They say continually to those who despise the word of the LORD, ‘It shall be well with you’; and to everyone who stubbornly follows his own heart, they say, ‘No disaster shall come upon you.’”

Isa 5:18 Woe to those who draw iniquity with cords of falsehood, who draw sin as with cart ropes,
Isa 5:19 who say: “Let him be quick, let him speed his work that we may see it; let the counsel of the Holy One of Israel draw near, and let it come, that we may know it!”
Isa 5:20 Woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkness, who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter!
Isa 5:21 Woe to those who are wise in their own eyes, and shrewd in their own sight!
Isa 5:22 Woe to those who are heroes at drinking wine, and valiant men in mixing strong drink,
Isa 5:23 who acquit the guilty for a bribe, and deprive the innocent of his right!
Isa 5:24 Therefore, as the tongue of fire devours the stubble, and as dry grass sinks down in the flame, so their root will be as rottenness, and their blossom go up like dust; for they have rejected the law of the LORD of hosts, and have despised the word of the Holy One of Israel.

I like exposing people to writings by early church fathers because it shows what the early church was like and what they believed 100 to 300 years after Jesus and the apostles walked the Earth. The following is from the Shepherd of Hermas, which was considered canonical in the early church by some. There is some discrepancy as to who the author is, one possibility being Hermas who Paul greets in one of his letters. Some date it to a later 2nd century writing. Regardless, it has been generally ignored by the modern church. Here the discussion is about fasting, which could be likened to sacrifice. What type of fasting is more advantageous?

Shepherd of Hermas,The Pastor,Chapter 3, Part 1 : While fasting and sitting on a certain mountain, and giving thanks to the Lord for all His dealings with me, I see the Shepherd sitting down beside me, and saying, “Why have you come hither [so] early in the morning?” “Because, sir,” I answered, “I have a station. “What is a station?” he asked. “I am fasting, sir,” I replied. “What is this fasting,” he continued, “which you are observing?” “As I have been accustomed, sir,” I reply, “so I fast.” “You do not know,” he says, “how to fast unto the Lord: this useless fasting which you observe to Him is of no value.” “Why, sir,” I answered, “do you say this?” “I say to you,” he continued, “that the fasting which you think you observe is not a fasting. But I will teach you what is a full and acceptable fasting to the Lord. Listen,” he continued: “God does not desire such an empty fasting. For fasting to God in this way you will do nothing for a righteous life; but offer to God a fasting of the following kind: Do no evil in your life, and serve the Lord with a pure heart: keep His commandments, walking in His precepts, and let no evil desire arise in your heart; and believe in God. If you do these things, and fear Him, and abstain from every evil thing, you will live unto God; and if you do these things, you will keep a great fast, and one acceptable before God.”

Learn Yahweh’s commandments, his ways, sabbaths and feasts. Practice now, His yoke is easy and His burden is light. Keep the great fast.

Mat 11:25 At that time Jesus declared, “I thank you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that you have hidden these things from the wise and understanding and revealed them to little children;
Mat 11:26 yes, Father, for such was your gracious will.
Mat 11:27 All things have been handed over to me by my Father, and no one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and anyone to whom the Son chooses to reveal him.
Mat 11:28 Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.
Mat 11:29 Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.
Mat 11:30 For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.”

Featured image taken by Emma Vail at Humarock, Massachusetts.