Remove from me the noise of your songs, and I do not want to hear the melody of your harps!  But let justice roll on like the water, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream.

Amos 5:23–24 (LEB)

People have used religion to manipulate and control other people for thousands of years. Socrates was brought to trial and condemned to death for supposedly teaching his students things contrary to the gods of the popular religion of his day. His punishment was to drink a hemlock tea which causes a painful death. He believed he had the truth as a philosopher, and the people that thought he should die also thought they had the truth regarding the pantheon of gods of the third century BCE. Two groups of people thinking they both have the truth, and one group controlling and manipulating the other even to the point of determining the other must die for believing a different “truth” than them.

This makes us ask the questions, “What is truth?”, and “Where does one find ‘the truth’?”. Yeshua told the tempter that man needs to live on “every word that comes out of the mouth of God”.

Matthew 4:1–4 (LEB): 4 Then Jesus was led up into the wilderness by the Spirit to be tempted by the devil, 2 and after he had fasted forty days and forty nights, then he was hungry. 3 And the tempter approached and said to him, “If you are the Son of God, order that these stones become bread.” 4 But he answered and said, “It is written, ‘Man will not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes out of the mouth of God.’ ”

What does it mean when Christians accuse someone of “living in the flesh” or not “using their talents for God”? The implication is that in order to do these things in an acceptable manner to the accuser, one has to be performing the acts in whatever church or manner this accuser considers valid. They will then go on to say it is not for the church or for them, but it is for God. Which god are we speaking about?

This manipulation comes in forms of supposed friendships as well. “If you really loved God, you would be doing (fill in the blank)”. What these types of friends are really saying is “If you really loved God, you would do what I tell you to do!” What does the Creator of the Universe say to do? That is what I would ask.

Religion dictates many commands, and depending on which brand, there will be different commands and forms of manipulation. No one likes anyone who dares to question these beliefs, even if they are blatantly against the words of God. With so many different breeds of Christianity how do we know who is right? We all decide what we want to believe, and it is everyone’s right to do so. However, everyone with opposing views cannot all be correct. The question then becomes, “On what are you willing to base your eternal future?”. Is it what a certain preacher says, a pope, denomination, professor, parent, religious or political figure perhaps? Maybe leaning on one’s own understanding is the key to pleasing God? Doubtful.

John 12:44–50 (LEB): 44 But Jesus cried out and said, “The one who believes in me does not believe in me, but in the one who sent me, 45 and the one who sees me sees the one who sent me. 46 I have come as a light into the world, in order that everyone who believes in me will not remain in the darkness. 47 And if anyone hears my words and does not observe them, I will not judge him. For I have not come to judge the world, but to save the world. 48 The one who rejects me and does not accept my words has one who judges him; the word that I have spoken will judge him on the last day. 49 For I have not spoken from myself, but the Father himself who sent me has commanded me what I should say and what I should speak. 50 And I know that his commandment is eternal life. So the things that I say, just as the Father said to me, thus I say.”

Yeshua says he will not judge us because “the word that I have spoken will judge him on the last day“. Why would anyone want to listen to a different word than what was spoken by Yeshua? If Yeshua is not going to judge us, but we will be judged by His words, why do we not take these words seriously? Why would we listen to words by other people leading us in different directions? Why be manipulated or controlled by someone telling us they are disappointed in us for “not doing what God would want us to do”? We have the words that Yeshua told us we would be judged by. Why not follow them?

What if doing what Yeshua told us is being a good parent or spouse instead of forsaking one’s family for the work of the church? Christianity tends to equate serving God with serving the church. This is not the eklessia or the “congregation in the wilderness”, this church I am speaking about is whatever the controller or manipulator designates to be the one that is on par with doing the works of God. Yet we are given the works of God we will be judged by in His word, and they often do not look anything like we see in the thousands of Christian denominations. Most of these denominations have come to be over disagreements. Disagreements in politics, or sometimes people not getting their own way such as with King Henry the VIII creating the Church of England so he could divorce his wife.

Is living in the flesh having a job and providing for one’s family? Do we till the land and raise animals because we are fleshly? In a sense the answer is “yes” because flesh is fallen. Unfortunately, we have to live in this lot.

Genesis 3:17–19 (LEB): ¹⁷ And to Adam he said, “Because you listened to the voice of your wife and you ate from the tree from which I forbade you to eat, the ground shall be cursed on your account. In pain you shall eat from it all the days of your life. ¹⁸ And thorns and thistles shall sprout for you, and you shall eat the plants of the field. ¹⁹ By the sweat of your brow you shall eat bread, until your return to the ground. For from it you were taken; for you are dust, and to dust you shall return.”

Since we all can and do choose what we believe, there are many different opinions about what serving God looks like. The first thing we must ask ourselves is which god or God are we serving. There is a very specific God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob that has revealed His character through Israel, and told Israel that through them the whole world would be blessed. The creator told them that He would bless them, they would disobey and serve other gods, and through this process He would provide a means of salvation for the whole world.

I choose to believe this Creator God, and that He gave us enough information to prove that His means of salvation would come through Yeshua the Messiah from the tribe of Judah. Yeshua also said that he only did what he saw his father do and he only says what he hears his father say, and that His commandment is eternal life. I cannot put my eternal future in the words of pastors, popes, denominations, teachers and politicians, especially if what they are saying or presenting is something different than what the Eternal Creator God of the Universe has told us. The following is the way God told Israel to deal with those who try to lead them astray to serve other gods:

Deuteronomy 12:29–13:10 (LEB): ²⁹ “When Yahweh your God has cut off the nations whom you are about to go to to dispossess them before you, and you have dispossessed them, and you live in their land, ³⁰ take care so that you are not ensnared into imitating them after their being destroyed from before you, and so that you not enquire concerning their gods, saying, ‘How did these nations serve their gods, and thus I myself want to do also.’ ³¹ You must not do so toward Yahweh your God, because of every detestable thing they have done for their gods Yahweh hates, for even their sons and their daughters they would burn in the fire to their gods. ³² All of the things that I am commanding you, you must diligently observe; you shall not add to it, and you shall not take away from it.”

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

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, 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, 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. ⁹ But you shall certainly kill him; your hand shall be first against him to kill him and next the hand of all of the people. ¹⁰ And you shall stone him with stones and let him die, for he tried to seduce you from Yahweh your God, the one bringing you from the land of Egypt, from the house of slavery.

This is serious business. Thank goodness we are no longer stoning people that try to lead us astray from what God told us to do. This is sacrificial law where people died without mercy by two or three witnesses. There was no way to reconcile their sin with God. This is the high handed sin of wilful disobedience where the only means of salvation would come through the sacrifice of Yeshua. This does not mean we should tolerate people trying to lead us astray through control, manipulation or any other means. This simply means that there is a sacrifice for their sin now if they repent, where the only option under the law was stoning.

Matthew 7:15–23 (LEB): ¹⁵ “Beware of false prophets who come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inside are ravenous wolves. ¹⁶ You will recognize them by their fruits: they do not gather grapes from thorn bushes or figs from thistles, do they? ¹⁷ In the same way, every good tree produces good fruit, but a bad tree produces bad fruit. ¹⁸ A good tree is not able to produce bad fruit, nor a bad tree to produce good fruit. ¹⁹ Every tree that does not produce good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. ²⁰ As a result, you will recognize them by their fruits.

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

Choose which god you serve wisely. Do not try to control and manipulate people with false gods made up in your own imagination. Do not let yourself be controlled or manipulated by anyone. The false gods can easily be seen when compared to “every word that comes out of the mouth of God”. Remember:

Matthew 11:27–30 (LEB): 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 wants to reveal him. ²⁸ Come to me, all of you who labor and are burdened, and I will give you rest. ²⁹ Take my yoke on you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. ³⁰ For my yoke is easy to carry and my burden is light.”

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And not by the blood of goats and calves, but by his own blood, he entered once for all into the most holy place, obtaining eternal redemption.

Hebrews 9:12 (LEB):

There is a great contrast between the yearly resurrection of the sun god and the resurrection of the Messiah Yeshua. Unfortunately, the myths of the sun gods have been combined with the events surrounding the death and resurrection of the Saviour. Ancient Israel was guilty of sun god worship, and Ezekiel records people weeping for Tammuz and men turning towards the sun at the temple of the one true God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.

Ezekiel 8:13–16 (LEB): 13 And he said to me, “Still you will see again greater detestable things that they are doing.” 14 And he brought me to the doorway of the gate of the house of Yahweh that is toward the north, and look! There were the women sitting weeping for Tammuz. 15 And he said to me, “Have you seen, son of man? Still you will see again greater detestable things than these.” 16 And he brought me to the inner courtyard of the house of Yahweh, and look, at the doorway of the temple of Yahweh, between the portico and the altar, there were about twenty-five men with their backs to the temple of Yahweh and their faces toward the east, and they were bowing down toward the east before the sun.

From the Baker Bible Encyclopedia, we get a little more information about the resurrecting sun god Tammuz:

“Tammuz. Chief Sumerian deity whose name derived from the Sumerian dumuzi. He is the god of fertility, of vegetation and agriculture, of death and resurrection, and the patron of shepherds. The son and consort of Ashtar (Inanna), Tammuz represented the annual vegetation cycle of death during the heat of summer and the rebirth of life with the coming of the fall and spring rains, as mythically recounted in the Akkadian poem, “Inanna’s Descent into the Netherworld.” This rejuvenation of life and defeat of death was annually celebrated during the Babylonian New Year Festival. In the OT, the prophet Ezekiel sees in a vision women weeping for Tammuz at the north gate of the temple, descriptive of coming desecrations of the Lord’s house (8:14).
In subsequent cultures following the Sumerian civilization (3rd millennium bc), the Tammuz cult was carried on; it was undoubtedly embodied in the worship of Marduk of Babylon, Ashur of Assyria, Baal of Canaan, Attis of Phrygia, and Adonis of Syria (Aram) and Greece. Numerous liturgies and dirges have been found detailing Tammuz worship in ancient Mesopotamian culture. During the postexilic era, the fourth month of the Hebrew calendar was named Tammuz.”

The mother of Tammuz went by many names such as, Inanna, Ashtar, Ishtar, Eostre, Dianna and Ashera. This mother of Tammuz is the “queen of heaven” or mother goddess who birthed Tammuz. This is the counter narrative of the virgin birth of the Messiah.

Jeremiah 7:18–20 (LEB): 18 The children are gathering wood, and the fathers are kindling the fire, and the women are kneading dough to make sacrificial cakes for the queen of heaven, and they pour out libations to other gods for the sake of provoking me to anger. 19 Are they provoking me to anger? ” declares Yahweh, “Is it not themselves they hurt, for the sake of the shame of their faces?” 20 Therefore thus says the Lord Yahweh, “Look, my anger and my wrath will be poured out on this place, on the humankind, and on the animal, and on the tree of the field, and on the fruit of the ground, and it will burn and not be extinguished.”

Why are we still honouring the sun gods from the sun god cults in Christianity thousands of years after these myths were generated? As soon as egg hunts and made up celebrations are introduced it is no longer about Yeshua, the lamb that takes away the sin of the world. Yahweh hates these things so much he destroyed His temple and made the land desolate because His people were doing these abominable practices.

There is a reason why the entire world, which normally despises anything to do with the Saviour and righteousness, celebrates the spring festival of Easter. This is the same festival that has been celebrated for thousands of years honouring the ancient sun cult gods.

https://www.cnn.com/2023/04/06/politics/white-house-egg-roll-easter-bunny-suit

John 4:22–24 (LEB): 22 You worship what you do not know. We worship what we know, because salvation is from the Jews. 23 But an hour is coming—and now is here*—when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for indeed the Father seeks such people to be his worshipers. 24 God is spirit, and the ones who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.”

Paul tells us how to observe the spring feast. There are no re-resurrecting sun gods, Easter egg hunts, resurrection services, sunrise services consuming unclean animals or anything else that comes from worshipping foreign gods.

1 Corinthians 5:6–8 (LEB): 6 Your boasting is not good. Do you not know that a little leaven leavens the whole batch of dough? 7 Clean out the old leaven in order that you may be a new batch of dough, just as you are unleavened. For Christ our Passover has been sacrificed. 8 So then, let us celebrate the feast, not with the old leaven or with the leaven of wickedness and sinfulness, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.

We are all free to believe anything we want, which is a great freedom. Yahweh is looking for followers to worship in spirit and truth, fleeing from idolatry, yet we have become entangled with the gods of the world, unable to separate truth from myths.

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 And in the day of those kings, the God of heaven will set up a kingdom that will never be destroyed, and the kingdom will not be left for another nation, and it will bring an end to all these kingdoms, but it will stand forever. Inasmuch as you saw that a stone from the mountain was chiseled out but not by hands, and that it crushed the iron, the bronze, the clay, the silver and the gold, thereby the great God made known to the king what will be in the future, and the dream is certain and its explanation trustworthy.”

Daniel 2:44–45 (LEB)

The last few years have brought upon new interest to declaring “the end of the world”. There are a lot of ideas floating around on topics of the “mark of the beast”, the coming of Jesus Christ, secret raptures of the church and much more.

I read a book several years ago discussing the Roman Empire and the rise of the church into power. I cannot remember the name of the book, but the part that stood out was how people were convinced that various emperors were the “antichrist” of Revelation and that most certainly the year 1000 CE would see the return of Christ. Some believed to be in the middle of the millennium reign of Christ and the year 1000 CE would be significant in many ways. However, the year 1000 CE came and went and the only events that took place were more of the same that had been happening for hundreds of years. After 1000 CE, the church began the crusades and essentially murdering anyone that did not comply to her dogma. This is hardly a picture of “the bride of Christ”

I was raised on the doctrine of the “secret rapture” where Jesus comes like a thief in the night and takes away “the church”, leaving everyone else behind, like the popular Left Behind book series and movie. The rapture, in this scenario, was a separate event from the second coming of Christ. This narrative is still very popular today in evangelical, Christian circles. This theology, or philosophy, has Jesus returning at any minute and taking “the church” away to heaven. The “Jews” realize that they missed the coming of the Messiah and are the “saints” left on earth to deal with the wrath of the antichrist figure. At some point during the “seven year tribulation”, Jesus will come back from heaven with all of the “church” riding on horses and defeat the antichrist. There are variations of this story, but this is the gist of it.

We have been playing pin the tail on the antichrist since the first century. The latest version of the the rapture story I have been hearing has the people being raptured and also resurrected at the same time as the secret rapture. The political nation state of Israel plays a large role in the rapture and antichrist narrative. Christians have been listening to rumors and fairy tales since the first century, and still do not have a solid understanding of what is important when it comes to end times prophecy.

2 Thessalonians 2:1–4 (LEB): 2 Now we ask you, brothers, concerning the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and our assembling to him, ² that you not be easily shaken from your composure, nor be troubled either by a spirit or by a message or by a letter alleged to be from us, to the effect that the day of the Lord has arrived. ³ Do not let anyone 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, ⁴ who opposes and who exalts himself over every so-called god or object of worship, so that he sits down in the temple of God, proclaiming that he himself is God.

It is a common held belief that the temple of God which Paul indicates the man of lawlessness will inhabit will be a rebuilt temple in the political state of Israel. That temple was destroyed in 70 CE and rebuilding it, in accordance with the Torah in order that it would be acceptable for God to dwell, seems very unlikely. I suppose there is a possibility that the antichrist sitting in the temple of God could be so abominable, that God will not tolerate it, even in an illegitimate temple dedicated to Him in Israel. Another theory is that we are the temple of God and the antichrist figure will some how defile our body with his mark. Some people believe this is the Graphene Oxide supposedly contained in the Covid-19 shot, and there are many, many other theories.

2 Thessalonians 2:5–12 (LEB): ⁵ Do you not remember that while we were still with you, we were saying these things to you? ⁶ And you know that which restrains him now, so that he will be revealed in his own time. ⁷ For the mystery of lawlessness is at work already; only the one who now restrains will do so until he is out of the way, ⁸ and then the lawless one will be revealed, whom the Lord Jesus will slay with the breath of his mouth, and wipe out by the appearance of his coming, ⁹ whose coming is in accordance with the working of Satan, with all power and signs and lying wonders, ¹⁰ and with every unrighteous deception against those who are perishing, in place of which they did not accept the love of the truth, so that they would be saved. ¹¹ And because of this, God sends them a powerful delusion  so that they will believe the lie, ¹² in order that all may be condemned who did not believe the truth, but delighted in unrighteousness.

For those who say God’s laws have been rendered obsolete, which laws is the “lawless one” going to break that cause him to be lawless? Please define unrighteousness and truth for me in this doctrine. Law and truth in the Scriptures are only from the Word of God.

John 17:14–17 (LEB): ¹⁴ I have given them your word, and the world has hated them, because they are not of the world just as I am not of the world. ¹⁵ I do not ask that you take them out of the world, but that you protect them from the evil one. ¹⁶ They are not of the world, just as I am not of the world. ¹⁷ Sanctify them in the truth—your word is truth.

Psalm 119:137–152 (LEB): Tsade ¹³⁷ You are righteous, O Yahweh, and your ordinances are upright. ¹³⁸ You have ordained your testimonies in righteousness, and in exceeding faithfulness. ¹³⁹ My zeal consumes me, because my enemies have forgotten your words. ¹⁴⁰ Your word is very pure, and your servant loves it. ¹⁴¹ I am small and despised, yet I do not forget your precepts. ¹⁴² Your righteousness is an everlasting righteousness, and your law is truth. ¹⁴³ Trouble and anguish have found me; your commands delight me. ¹⁴⁴ The righteousness of your testimonies is forever; give me understanding that I may live. Qoph ¹⁴⁵ I call with my whole heart; answer me, O Yahweh. I will keep your statutes. ¹⁴⁶ I call to you. Save me, and I will heed your testimonies. ¹⁴⁷ I rise early in the dawn and cry for help; I hope in your word. ¹⁴⁸ My eyes anticipate the night watches, that I may meditate on your word. ¹⁴⁹ Hear my voice according to your loyal love; O Yahweh, preserve my life according to your justice. ¹⁵⁰ Those who pursue a wicked purpose draw near; they are far from your law. ¹⁵¹ You are near, O Yahweh, and all your commands are truth. ¹⁵² Concerning your testimonies, I knew long ago that you have established them forever.

Yeshua knew the words of God were truth because He is the Word of God personified. Rather than getting dismayed or fearful of rumors and lies as the people of Thessalonia were, we should be reading God’s word and applying it as Yeshua taught us. This is the opposite of what we see today with the church shamelessly thumbing their nose to the words of God rendering it useless by their disgusting traditions. ^” In order that all may be condemned who did not believe the truth, but delighted in unrighteousness”.

We can see the big picture of end times prophecy in the book of Daniel. It can be summarized by saying God is going to crush the earthly kingdoms and rule forever.

Daniel 2:36–45 (LEB): ³⁶ “This was the dream, and now we will tell its interpretation to the king. ³⁷ You, O king, the king of kings, to whom the God of heaven has given the kingdom, the power and the might and the glory, ³⁸ and also human beings wherever they dwell, the animals of the field and the birds of heaven—he has given into your hand and made you ruler over all of them—you are the head of gold. ³⁹ And after you another kingdom inferior to yours will arise, and another third kingdom of bronze that will rule over the whole earth. ⁴⁰ And a fourth kingdom will be strong as iron, and just as iron crushes and smashes everything, and as iron shatters all of these other metals, so it will crush and it will shatter these nations. ⁴¹ And just as you saw the feet and the toes, partly potter’s clay and partly iron, it will be a divided kingdom; and some hardness of the iron will be in it, just as you have seen the iron mixed with the wet clay. ⁴² And as the toes of the feet were partly iron and partly clay, so part of the kingdom will be strong and partly brittle. ⁴³ And in that you saw the iron was mixed with wet clay, so they will mix in marriage and they will not cling to one another, just as iron does not mix with clay. ⁴⁴ And in the day of those kings, the God of heaven will set up a kingdom that will never be destroyed, and the kingdom will not be left for another nation, and it will bring an end to all these kingdoms, but it will stand forever. ⁴⁵ Inasmuch as you saw that a stone from the mountain was chiseled out but not by hands, and that it crushed the iron, the bronze, the clay, the silver and the gold, thereby the great God made known to the king what will be in the future, and the dream is certain and its explanation trustworthy.”

Daniel interpreted king Nebuchadnezzar’s dream about the different kingdoms that would come after his. His was Babylon, the next represented the Persian Empire, then Greece and finally Rome. We are still seeing the remnants of all of these empires, and some say the mixing of clay is speaking about democracies mixing with the hard line rulerships of the old kingdoms and dictatorships. I think that the iron and clay involves the “marriage” of humans with something else, as in the days of Noah. Regardless, the take away is that God will topple the statue and crush the iron, bronze, silver, gold and clay, and be king forever. That is all we need to be concerned with. If we know who the king is and will be forever, we should be following His ordinances, decrees and laws presently in this iron, or iron mixed with clay kingdom.

Revelation 14:12 (LEB): ¹² Here is the patient endurance of the saints, those who keep the commandments of God and the faith in Jesus.

This verse in Revelation applies to everyone, not just the “Jews” who were not part of a “secret rapture” as dispensational theology teaches. The faith of Jesus, or his real name Yeshua, Joshua in English, was to follow the commandments of His Father. This word “faith” is one we have discussed before with believe and confess. It is the Greek word “pistis” and a good way to describe this word would be to use “covenant” and “agreement”.

πίστις G4411 (pistis), faith; πιστεύω G4409 (pisteuō), believe; πιστός G4412 (pistos), pass. trustworthy, faithful, act. trusting, believing; πιστόω G4413 (pistoō), rely, convince; ἀπιστία G602 (apistia), unbelief; ἀπιστέω G601 (apisteō), disbelieve; ἄπιστος G603 (apistos), unbelievable, faithless, unbelieving.

CL 1. (a) In classical Gk. literature pistis means the trust that a man may place in men or the gods (Hesiod, Works, 372; Soph., OT, 1445), credibility (Soph., OC, 611), credit in business (Dem., 36, 57), guarantee (Aesch., Frag. 394), proof (Democ., 125), or something entrusted (IG 14, 2012 A 23). Similarly, pisteuō means to trust something or someone (Hdt., 1, 24; Aesch., Pers., 800 ff.). It can refer to and confirm legendary tales (Hdt., 4, 96) and mythical ideas (Plato, Grg., 524a). In the construction pisteuō tini ti it means to entrust something or someone to someone (Xen., Mem., 4, 4, 17). With reference to people, pisteuō means to obey (Soph., OT, 625). The pass. means to enjoy trust (Xen., Anab., 7, 6, 33). The adj. pistos means trusting (Theognis, 283), trustworthy (Hom., Il., 2, 124). to piston means dependability or the faithfulness of those bound through an agreement (Aesch., Ag., 651; Xen., Anab., 2, 4, 7). The vb. pistoō has the meaning of binding someone or oneself to be faithful (Soph., OC, 650). In the pass. it means to be sure, to trust (Hom., Od., 21, 217 f.). The pistis word-group has a special colouring, where it refers to believing doxa (opinion). In such a case dependability is limited (cf. Plato, Phd., 107b).
apistia means mistrust (Theognis, 831), unreliability (Soph., OC, 611), and incredibility (Hdt., 1, 193). apisteō means to be mistrustful to disbelieve (Hom., Od., 13, 339), and particularly to be disobedient (Soph., Ant., 219, 381 f.). apistos means distrustful (Hom., Od., 14, 150), undependable (Thuc., 1, 120, 4).
(b) Originally the word-group denoted conduct that honoured an agreement or bond. It had a social orientation, and its use indicated misconduct by implication. In order to obtain a pause in battle, it was necessary to make agreements pledging fidelity (Hom., Il., 2, 124: horkia pista). Disappointed confidence led to the accusation: “There is nothing trustworthy in women” (Hom., Od., 11, 456). The critical situation revealed fidelity. Hence, experience of faithfulness and unfaithfulness belongs to the idea of faith from the beginning.
(c) The idea had religious overtones at a very early date. The gods vouch for the validity of an alliance or treaty (Hom., Il., 2, 115 ff.; note the importance of the oath). The words can also be applied directly to the divinity in cases of the trust-worthiness of an oracle. The pistis word-group plays an important part in questions of the power of the gods to save in face of threatening danger (Aesch., Sept., 211 f.), the unfathomable sovereignty of God (“He who hears the word of God and does not obey is out of his mind,” Eur., Iph. Taur., 14, 75 f.), and the power of God to direct a man’s fate against his will (Soph., OT, 1445). In such case unquestioned obedience to the will of God is required of men.

O. Michel, “Πίστις,” ed. Lothar Coenen, Erich Beyreuther, and Hans Bietenhard, New International Dictionary of New Testament Theology (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Publishing House, 1986), 593–594.

“Faith in Jesus” is much more than simply saying “I believe! Okay, now let’s get on with life”. Faith in Yeshua is keeping the commandments of God and having the faith of Yeshua. In the Greek manuscripts there is no word “in” as in “faith in Jesus”, or “of” as in “faith of Jesus”. It simply says “pistin Iesou”. This word “pistin” is described as “originally the word-group denoted conduct that honoured an agreement or bond”. Our agreement with Yeshua is the new covenant.

Luke 22:19–20 (LEB): ¹⁹ And he took bread, and after giving thanks, he broke it and gave it to them, saying, “This is my body which is given for you. Do this in remembrance of me.” ²⁰ And in the same way the cup after they had eaten, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood which is poured out for you.

The new covenant is the means by which the laws of God are written on our heart. How can the laws of God be written on our heart if the law is no longer valid? The idea that the law would become invalid goes against scripture, even if pastors and teachers claim otherwise. Hence the “powerful delusion so they would believe the lie”. Antichrist is simply one who is against the Father and the Son.

1 John 2:20–27 (LEB): ²⁰ And you have an anointing from the Holy One, and you all know. ²¹ I have not written to you because you do not know the truth, but because you do know it, and because every lie is not of the truth. ²² Who is the liar except the one who denies that Jesus is the Christ? This person is the antichrist, the one who denies the Father and the Son. ²³ Everyone who denies the Son does not have the Father either; the one who confesses the Son has the Father also. ²⁴ As for you, what you have heard from the beginning must remain in you. If what you have heard from the beginning remains in you, you also will remain in the Son and in the Father. ²⁵ And this is the promise which he himself promised us: eternal life. ²⁶ These things I have written to you concerning the ones who are trying to deceive you. ²⁷ And as for you, the anointing which you received from him remains in you, and you do not have need that anyone teach you. But as his anointing teaches you about all things, and is true and is not a lie, and just as it has taught you, you reside in him.

If one “confesses” the son it means they will have the Father too. Confessing the Son is agreeing or being in covenant with Him. Therefore the new covenant, where the laws of God will be written on our heart. This is the work of the Spirit. Are they different laws? Of course not! This is why one who confesses the son also has the Father. It is one in the same and cannot be separated.

Hebrews 8:8–10 (LEB): ⁸ For in finding fault with them he says, “Behold, days are coming, says the Lord, when I will complete a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah, ⁹ not like the covenant which I made with their fathers on the day I took hold of them by my hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt, because they did not continue in my covenant and I disregarded them, says the Lord. ¹⁰ For this is the covenant that I will decree with the house of Israel after those days, says the Lord: I am putting my laws in their minds and I will write them on their hearts, and I will be their God and they will be my people.

Some people will ask “are you a Hebrew?” because I am quoting the letter written to the Hebrews. Once we are in covenant with Yeshua, we are grafted into the commonwealth of Israel. Otherwise, we are still lost and outside of the covenants of promise. This is the good news of the gospel. Those previously cut off for breaking the covenant would be allowed to return because of Yeshua. We do this by repenting, receiving the Spirit of God through Yeshua and having the laws of God written on our hearts. Moses prophesied these very things, yet the common response to Moses is “that’s the despicable customs of the Jews”, repeating Emperor Constantine in his letter to the bishops of the Roman empire.

Deuteronomy 30:6–10 (LEB): 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. ⁷ And Yahweh your God will put all these curses on your enemies and on those who hate you, on those who harassed you. ⁸ And you will again listen to the voice of Yahweh, and you will do all his commandments that I am commanding you today. ⁹ And Yahweh your God will make you prosperous in all your undertakings, and in the fruit of your livestock and in the fruit of your ground abundantly, for Yahweh will again rejoice over you, just as he rejoiced over your ancestors. ¹⁰ He will do this if you listen to the voice of Yahweh your God by keeping his commandment and his statutes written in the scroll of this law and if you return to Yahweh your God with all your heart and with all your inner self.

The enemy knows how to defeat the men and women of God. It is by convincing them not to do what Yahweh commanded. It is the only way to victory. Going to church three times a week will not help a person who is void of the law of God in their heart. Imagining that Jesus will whisk us away in a secret rapture will not help either. Repent and believe the gospel, and be in God’s kingdom. Amos describes the future of God’s kingdom and I am ready to be gathered back to the land and plant some vineyards and gardens after the statue crumbles to the ground!

Amos 9:13–15 (LEB): ¹³ “Look, days are coming,” declares Yahweh, “when the one who plows will overtake the one who reaps, the one who treads grapes will catch up with the one who sows the seed. And the mountains will drip sweet wine and all of the hills will flow with it. ¹⁴ And I will restore the fortunes of my people Israel, and they will rebuild the desolated cities and will inhabit them. And they will plant vineyards and will drink their wine, and they will make gardens and will eat their fruit. ¹⁵ And I will plant them on their land and they will not be uprooted again from their land that I have given to them,” says Yahweh your God.

Featured photo was provided by Emma Vail Photography.

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Having destroyed the certificate of indebtedness in ordinances against us, which was hostile to us, and removed it out of the way by nailing it to the cross.

Colossians 2:14 (LEB)

I often refer to the phrase “the law of God was nailed to the cross” when comparing the words of the Creator to the modern philosophy of Christianity. Some may not be familiar with with this phrase and theology; therefore, we will attempt to address this deception and show how it has been woven into the fabric of Christianity through many different avenues.

Jeremiah 7:3–16 (LEB): ³ Thus says Yahweh of hosts, the God of Israel, “Make your ways and your deeds good and let me dwell with you in this place. ⁴ Do not trust in the deceitful words, saying, ‘The temple of Yahweh, the temple of Yahweh, they are the temple of Yahweh.’ ⁵ For if you truly make your ways and your deeds good, if you truly do justice between a man and his neighbor, ⁶ you do not oppress the alien, the orphan, and the widow, you do not shed innocent blood in this place, and you do not go after other gods to your harm, ⁷ then I will let you dwell in this place, in the land that I gave to your ancestors forever and ever. ⁸ Look, you are relying for yourselves on deceitful words without benefiting. ⁹ Will you steal? Will you murder? And will you commit adultery? And will you swear falsely? And will you make a smoke offering to the Baal? And will you go after other gods whom you have not known? ¹⁰ And then you come and you stand before me in this house, which is called by my name, and you say, ‘we are safe to go on doing all of these detestable things.’ ¹¹ Has this house, which is called by my name, become a cave of robbers in your eyes? Look, I, even I, have seen it,” declares Yahweh. ¹² “For go now to my place that was in Shiloh, where I caused my name to dwell in the beginning, and see what I did to it because of the wickedness of my people Israel. ¹³ And now, because of your doing all these things,” declares Yahweh, “and I have spoken to you over and over again, and you have not listened, and I called you, and you have not answered, ¹⁴ therefore I will do to the house that is called by my name, in which you are trusting, and to the place that I gave to you and to your ancestors what I did to Shiloh. ¹⁵ And I will cast you out of my sight just as I cast out all of your blood relatives, all of the offspring of Ephraim.” ’ ¹⁶ “And you, you must not pray for this people, and you must not lift up for them a cry of entreaty or a prayer, and you must not plead with me, for I will not hear you.

There is so much confusion when it comes to Paul and the law of God. One problem is that many people want to believe that they do not have to be obedient to God’s instructions and will not entertain any other possibilities. They are content with following this doctrine because it justifies their actions. Some really want to know, but it is very confusing because so many of Paul’s letters appear to speak against the law of God. So much so, there is a doctrine that states Paul is the only instruction that the church must adhere to which is prevalent in many evangelical denominations. The verses I most often hear to justify lawlessness come from the letter to the Colossians.

Colossians 2:13–14 (LEB): ¹³ And although you were dead in the trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, he made you alive together with him, having forgiven us all our trespasses, ¹⁴ having destroyed the certificate of indebtedness in ordinances against us, which was hostile to us, and removed it out of the way by nailing it to the cross.

People will use these verses to prove God’s law is nailed to the cross. However, if we read these verses in context, we see that Paul is talking about man made rules that were added to the law of God.

Colossians 2:8–15 (LEB): ⁸ Beware lest anyone take you captive through philosophy and empty deceit, according to human tradition, according to the elemental spirits of the world and not according to Christ, ⁹ because in him all the fullness of deity dwells bodily, ¹⁰ and you are filled in him, who is the head over every ruler and authority, ¹¹ in whom also you were circumcised with a circumcision not made by hands, by the removal of the body of the flesh, by the circumcision of Christ, ¹² having been buried with him in baptism, in which also you were raised together with him through faith in the working of God, who raised him from the dead. ¹³ And although you were dead in the trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, he made you alive together with him, having forgiven us all our trespasses, ¹⁴ having destroyed the certificate of indebtedness in ordinances against us, which was hostile to us, and removed it out of the way by nailing it to the cross. ¹⁵ When he had disarmed the rulers and the authorities, he made a display of them in public, triumphing over them by it.

“Certificate of indebtedness in ordinances against us” is talking about dogma. The word “ordinances” here is the Greek word “dogma”, which is generally thought of as man-made rules.

δόγμα
dogma, n.c., public decree; ordinance.

The Lexham Analytical Lexicon of the Septuagint (Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press, 2012).

If Paul was talking about the law of God, or Torah, he would have used the Greek word “Nomos”. I realize that this will not convince anyone who doesn’t want to have to follow the instructions of God, but dogma is not referring to Torah. One of the confusing parts concerning the law of God and what condemns us, is the high handed sins and the collective sin of humanity that there was no permanent solution for other than the offering of the high priest, Yeshua, in the heavenly tabernacle. The earthly high priest used to go into the holy of holy’s on the day of atonement in the temple to make the yearly sacrifice for God’s people. This system was not complete because the priest was just a man and the blood was only from animals. The blood Yeshua sprinkled was his own and it was an acceptable sacrifice forever for the sins and there were no other sacrifices that would suffice. This does not negate the law of God, it upholds it.

Hebrews 10:26–31 (LEB): ²⁶ For if we keep on sinning deliberately after receiving the knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins, ²⁷ but a certain fearful expectation of judgment and a fury of fire that is about to consume the adversaries. ²⁸ Anyone who rejected the law of Moses dies without mercy on the testimony of two or three witnesses. ²⁹ How much worse punishment do you think the person will be considered worthy of who treats with disdain the Son of God and who considers ordinary the blood of the covenant by which he was made holy and who insults the Spirit of grace? ³⁰ For we know the one who said, “Vengeance is mine, I will repay,” and again, “The Lord will judge his people.” ³¹ It is a terrifying thing to fall into the hands of the living God.

If one believes the whole Bible is true and one continuous flow of thought, then the only way to justify claiming Paul thinks the law of God is nailed to the cross is to say the law was for someone else. This is exactly what has been done. Why did Paul claim to keep the law then? Why did he call it good, holy and spiritual? Some would say because Paul was a Jew and the “gentiles” do not have to keep the law of God. Yet Paul tells us one is a Jew who is one inwardly.

Romans 2:28–29 (LEB): ²⁸ For the Jew is not one outwardly, nor is circumcision outwardly, in the flesh. ²⁹ But the Jew is one inwardly, and circumcision is of the heart, by the Spirit, not by the letter, whose praise is not from people but from God.

The Creator does not want anyone to be held against their will, and only wants believers who will follow him with their whole heart and mind. God is “gracious” enough to give people who are not interested in His ways a path to do whatever they want and still think they are “following God”. Through the centuries people have done this with the writings of Paul. These religious leaders can ignore the entirety of scripture and teach that God’s instructions, called Torah, can be completely disregarded now based on terms Paul used such as “nailed to the cross”. The Creator tests us to see if we are interested enough to search these matters out.

Deuteronomy 13:3–4 (LEB): ³ you must not listen to the words of that prophet or to that dreamer, for Yahweh your God is testing you to know whether you love Yahweh your God with all of your heart and with all of your inner self. ⁴ You shall go after Yahweh your God, and him you shall revere, and his commandment you shall keep, and to his voice you shall listen, and him you shall serve, and to him you shall hold fast.

Someone who believes the law of God is “nailed to the cross” will be angry reading this and experience cognitive dissonance, especially if this has been a belief system that has been held for one’s entire life. The choice then becomes to explore if what I am saying is true, or if God really did change His mind and decide to permit people to do anything they choose regarding His instructions. The one who really desires the answer is the one who loves God with all of their heart and inner self. Someone who is satisfied with picking the best canned doctrine from thousands of voices to align themselves with, may be disappointed at the final outcome.

Featured photo was provided by Emma Vail Photography.

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And he said to them, “The Sabbath was established for people, and not people for the Sabbath. So then, the Son of Man is lord even of the Sabbath.”

Mark 2:27–28 (LEB)

The Sabbath was made for man, and Jesus said he was the lord of the Sabbath. Was Jesus anticipating the day he considered himself “lord of” to be changed to a different day that is called “the Lord’s day”? Yeshua was the name of the person called “Jesus” today. Is the “Lord’s day” talking about a different “Lord”, or was Yeshua confused when he said he was the lord of the Sabbath? Are we the ones confused because the Sabbath day was changed by man from the seventh day of the week to the first day of the week sometime in the last two thousand years?

Luke 4:16 (LEB): ¹⁶ And he came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up, and according to his custom he entered into the synagogue on the day of the Sabbath and stood up to read.

Yeshua’s custom was to go to the synagogue on the Sabbath. The Sabbath never became unimportant if we look closely at the New Testament. Where did the idea that the special day of the Creator, the Sabbath, was set aside and a new day was introduced? God does not do anything unless it comes through the mouths of the prophets. Where is the prophesy that states the Sabbath would be removed or changed to a different day?

Amos 3:7 (LEB): ⁷ Surely my Lord does not do anything unless he has revealed his secret to his servants the prophets.

It is taught that Sunday became the “Lord’s day” because Yeshua supposedly rose on a Sunday, and the Holy Spirit was sent to the apostles on a Sunday at Pentecost. Yet it is arguable that Yeshua did not raise on ” Sun Day”, and that this fits better into the mythology of the resurrecting sun god. Yeshua, being put in the tomb on the evening of the feast of Unleavened Bread, likely rose three days and three nights later at the end of the Sabbath. This also ties in nicely with his claim of being the lord of the Sabbath.

Luke 24:1–3 (LEB): 24 Now on the first day of the week, at very early dawn, they came back to the tomb bringing the fragrant spices which they had prepared. ² And they found the stone had been rolled away from the tomb, ³ but when they went in, they did not find the body.

Even if Yeshua did raise from the dead on a Sunday, there is nothing to tell us that we are to change the Sabbath to Sunday. If he rose from the dead on Sunday, it is more in line with the First Fruits celebration after the week of Unleavened Bread. This is already a special day. The day of Pentecost, when the Spirit came upon those in the upper room, was the end of the counting of the weeks for Shavuot. These are prophetic days, unlike Sunday. The day of Pentecost, meaning the counting of fifty days, was already important before the Spirit was given. Giving the Spirit on this day shows the importance of Shavuot. This is also considered the time that the ten commandments were given at Mount Horeb. It makes sense that Yeshua would send the Spirit to help us keep his commandments on the same day the commandments were given at Horeb.

Acts 2:1–4 (LEB): 2 And when the day of Pentecost had come, they were all together in the same place. ² And suddenly a sound like a violent rushing wind came from heaven and filled the whole house where they were sitting. ³ And divided tongues like fire appeared to them and rested on each one of them. ⁴ And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other languages as the Spirit gave them ability to speak out.

It is not a good thing that men made the Sabbath unimportant in Christianity and exalted another day with absolutely no scriptural authority to do so. The Sabbath is a command by God established at creation. Not only is the Sabbath made irrelevant by Christians, but another day is made an important day to supposedly honor “the Lord”. We have some very good examples of these sorts of corruptions recorded in scripture. Jeroboam made a new special day to put in place of the commanded days from God.

1 Kings 12:31–32 (LEB): ³¹ Then he built the houses on the high places, and he appointed priests from all walks of life who were not from the sons of Levi. ³² Jeroboam also inaugurated a religious feast in the eighth month on the fifteenth day of the month, like the religious feast which was in Judah, and he offered sacrifices on the altar. Thus he did in Bethel, by sacrificing to the calves that he had made; and he placed in Bethel the priests of the high places which he had made.

Adding to the word of God and going after false gods did not end well for Jeroboam.

1 Kings 13:1–3 (LEB): 13 Suddenly a man of God from Judah came to Bethel, by the word of Yahweh, while Jeroboam was standing at the altar to offer incense. ² Then he proclaimed against the altar by the word of Yahweh and said, “O altar, altar, thus says Yahweh: ‘Look, a son will be born to the house of David, Josiah by name, and he shall sacrifice on you the priests of the high places who burn incense on you, and human bones shall burn on you.’ ” ³ He gave a sign on that day, saying, “This is the sign that Yahweh has predetermined: Look, this altar will be torn apart, and the ashes that are on it will be poured out.”

Yeshua also told us not to make a commandment of God void with traditions of men. This is exactly what has happened with the tradition of Sunday keeping and the forbidding of Sabbath keeping in Christianity.

Mark 7:8–9 (LEB): ⁸ Abandoning the commandment of God, you hold fast to the tradition of men.” ⁹ And he said to them, “You splendidly ignore the commandment of God so that you can keep your tradition.

We see the mention of people keeping false sabbaths in the Septuagint version of the Bible. This predates the Masoretic text of the Old Testament that we have today. The false sabbaths and the excelling in musical instruments seems to be a prophecy that applies today. We can make this connection easily if we realize the house of Israel was scattered among the nations and is separate from the house of Judah. It appears that the Sunday “false sabbath” is mentioned by the prophets after all.

https://www.biblestudytools.com/lxx/amos/6.html:

Amos 6:3 (LXX): 2 O house of Israel, pass by all , and see; and pass by thence to Ematrabba; and thence descend to Geth of the Philistines, the chief of all these kingdoms, if their coasts are greater than your coasts. 3 Ye who are approaching the evil day, who are drawing near and adopting false sabbaths; 4 who sleep upon beds of ivory, and live delicately on their couches, and eat kids out of the flocks, and sucking calves out of the midst of the stalls; 5 who excel in the sound of musical instruments; they have regarded them as abiding, not as fleeting ; 6 who drink strained wine, and anoint themselves with the best ointment; and have suffered nothing on occasion of the calamity of Joseph.

Unfortunately, Sunday is also a very important day in ancient sun god worship. Would Yeshua want us to move one of God’s most special days, the Sabbath, and share and meld it with the most special day of the sun god? I highly doubt this and would argue that the lord of “the Lord’s day” is the sun god, unbeknown to most Christians.

The following is taken from: https://www.historyandheadlines.com/march-7-321-sunday-became-christian-day-rest/

Though Sol Invictus (meaning ‘The unconquered Sun’) was indeed a pagan Roman God, and had been featured on Roman coins, Constantine coopted this pagan heritage along with the Judeo-Christian following of the 10 Commandments by granting a day to honor God and rest for man.  As the Roman Empire gradually converted to Christianity, Sunday became the natural day for the Sabbath and rest since Romans were already accustomed to Sunday as their day off.

This makes me wonder if the Lord’s day is not simply speaking about the sun god? If it is not ordained by the Creator God then it cannot be viewed as legitimate, especially if it is melded with the day of a false deity. It is really not that hard to see. The above picture is not from a pagan temple in ancient Babylon. It is from a Christian church.

The following is from: https://www.britannica.com/topic/sun-worship

During the later periods of Roman history, sun worship gained in importance and ultimately led to what has been called a “solar monotheism.” Nearly all the gods of the period were possessed of solar qualities, and both Christ and Mithra acquired the traits of solar deities. The feast of Sol Invictus (Unconquered Sun) on December 25 was celebrated with great joy, and eventually this date was taken over by the Christians as Christmas, the birthday of Christ.

The secular world knows that Christianity adopted “the Lord’s day” and other sun god type holidays such as Christmas. Why do Christians not know or care about these sorts of things and continue to accept the mythologies blended with the one true God of Israel?

John 12:48–50 (LEB): ⁴⁸ The one who rejects me and does not accept my words has one who judges him; the word that I have spoken will judge him on the last day. ⁴⁹ For I have not spoken from myself, but the Father himself who sent me has commanded me what I should say and what I should speak. ⁵⁰ And I know that his commandment is eternal life. So the things that I say, just as the Father said to me, thus I say.”

Would the Father who said “remember the Sabbath” condone forgetting the Sabbath and moving it to the day of the sun god? I doubt it so much that I am making the effort of telling the whole world by means of this blog site and my actions. The Sabbath is the most broken commandment, and easiest to justify breaking, because of all of the attacks against it by the “Church” over history. It is an instruction of God that brings peace, rest and blessing that the enemy does not want anyone to take part in and get the benefits thereof honoring the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.

Deuteronomy 12:29–32 (LEB): ²⁹ “When Yahweh your God has cut off the nations whom you are about to go to, to dispossess them before you, and you have dispossessed them, and you live in their land, ³⁰ take care so that you are not ensnared into imitating them after their being destroyed from before you, and so that you not enquire concerning their gods, saying, ‘How did these nations serve their gods, and thus I myself want to do also.’ ³¹ You must not do so toward Yahweh your God, because of every detestable thing they have done for their gods Yahweh hates, for even their sons and their daughters they would burn in the fire to their gods. ³² All of the things that I am commanding you, you must diligently observe; you shall not add to it, and you shall not take away from it.”

The only words that I have which are trustworthy, handed down to us through the Jews from God, are what we have written in scripture. We are told what days are special and what we are to do on them. An example of this is resting on the Sabbath. We are also told people will rise up and tell us not to do the instructions given to us by God and that it is God using them to test us to see if we care enough about what He said to do. They will tell us the instructions of God are evil instead of good. The New Testament writers echoed this by telling us wolves would rise up and devour the flock.

Acts 20:29–31 (LEB): ²⁹ I know that after my departure fierce wolves will come in among you, not sparing the flock. ³⁰ And from among you yourselves men will arise, speaking perversions of the truth in order to draw away the disciples after them. ³¹ Therefore be on the alert, remembering that night and day for three years I did not stop warning each one of you with tears.

Those who say Sunday was regarded early in Christianity, before Constantine, should pay attention to Paul, who said men would rise from the groups of people he was addressing in person, and pervert the truth. The perversions of the truth started in the first century, and only became worse as the Greeks and Romans took the reins of the church and blended all of their philosophy and mythology through new doctrines and traditions.

Matthew 4:2–4 (LEB): ² and after he had fasted forty days and forty nights, then he was hungry. ³ And the tempter approached and said to him, “If you are the Son of God, order that these stones become bread.” ⁴ But he answered and said, “It is written, ‘Man will not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes out of the mouth of God.’ ”

There are people who claim we are not to follow scripture alone and must adhere to traditions passed down by men through oral tradition. These are traditions of the church, or in Judaism, such things as the Talmuds. The problem is that even if there are good traditions, it has all been corrupted. To whom does one listen? Men try to control people though religion and made up traditions.

Luke 11:46 (LEB): ⁴⁶ So he said, “Woe to you also, legal experts, because you load people with burdens hard to bear, and you yourselves do not touch the burdens with one of your fingers!

Therefore, I choose to listen to Yeshua who, quoting Deuteronomy when tempted, said to live by every word that comes from the mouth of God. No such instruction as the “Lord’s day”, being the first of the week, was ever given anywhere in scripture. It is purely a tradition that ultimately comes from sun god worship, even if those promoting it have the best of intentions.

Featured photo by Jacob Bentzinger on Unsplash

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 He came to his own things, and his own people did not receive him. But as many as received him—to those who believe in his name—he gave to them authority to become children of God, who were born not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of a husband, but of God.

John 1:11–13 (LEB)

Two words that almost define the entire Christian consciousness are the words “believe” and “confess”. Both of these words have lead believers into thinking that speaking words and somehow “believing” in their minds is all that the Creator requires of them. After all, Jesus did all the hard work and now we just need to “believe” in Jesus like a child believes in the tooth fairy.

Yeshua, the Hebrew name of “Jesus”, which translates to Joshua in English, made it possible for us to come back to covenant with the Father and Creator God. Yeshua is the seed of Abraham that will bless the whole world. Without Yeshua there is no way for people to come to the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.

Romans 3:21–31 (LEB): 21 But now, apart from the law, the righteousness of God has been revealed, being testified about by the law and the prophets—22 that is, the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe. For there is no distinction, 23 for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, 24 being justified as a gift by his grace, through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus, 25 whom God made publicly available as the mercy seat through faith in his blood, for a demonstration of his righteousness, because of the passing over of previously committed sins, 26 in the forbearance of God, for the demonstration of his righteousness in the present time, so that he should be just and the one who justifies the person by faith in Jesus.
27 Therefore, where is boasting? It has been excluded. By what kind of law? Of works? No, but by a law of faith. 28 For we consider a person to be justified by faith apart from the works of the law. 29 Or is God the God of the Jews only? Is he not also the God of the Gentiles? Yes, also of the Gentiles, 30 since God is one, who will justify those who are circumcised by faith and those who are uncircumcised through faith. 31 Therefore, do we nullify the law through faith? May it never be! But we uphold the law.

It is all about believing. Also, “Therefore, do we nullify the law through faith? May it never be! But we uphold the law.” So we uphold the law by, “through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe“. This word believe seems to be very important. However, the letter to the Romans was not written in English. translators have used the word “believe” to translate a Greek word. The Greek word is “pisteuo”.

The New International Dictionary of New Testament Theology delves into this Greek word translated “believe” and gives us a better idea of the historical meaning.

With reference to people, pisteuō means to obey (Soph., OT, 625). The pass. means to enjoy trust (Xen., Anab., 7, 6, 33). The adj. pistos means trusting (Theognis, 283), trustworthy (Hom., Il., 2, 124). to piston means dependability or the faithfulness of those bound through an agreement (Aesch., Ag., 651; Xen., Anab., 2, 4, 7). The vb. pistoō has the meaning of binding someone or oneself to be faithful (Soph., OC, 650). In the pass. it means to be sure, to trust (Hom., Od., 21, 217 f.). The pistis word-group has a special colouring, where it refers to believing doxa (opinion). In such a case dependability is limited (cf. Plato, Phd., 107b).

O. Michel, “Πίστις,” ed. Lothar Coenen, Erich Beyreuther, and Hans Bietenhard, New International Dictionary of New Testament Theology (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Publishing House, 1986), 594.

With this word “pisteuo”, we see the essence of the word has to do with trust and obedience. “Binding oneself to an agreement”.

The Septuagint is a Greek translation of the Hebrew scriptures that was translated around the second century BCE. It is a translation that was common in the first century CE. We can learn how words were translated from Hebrew to Greek from this translation. It is reverse engineering through the work of people in the second century BCE, or formally, “before Christ”. This is called the Hebrew alignment of a Greek word.

The first Hebrew word that aligns with “pisteuo” is “Aman”. We see the essence of the meaning of this word is trustworthy, confirmed, reliable and trust to do a thing.

I. [אָמַן] vb. confirm, support — Qal 1. as vb. support, nourish. 2. as subst. foster-father. 3. foster-mother, nurse. 4. pillars, supporters of the door. Niph. 1. carried by a nurse. 2. made firm, sure, lasting. 3. confirmed, established, sure. 4. verified, confirmed. 5. reliable, faithful, trusty. Hiph. 1. stand firm. 2. trust, believe: (a) abs.; (b) with ל of person, trust to, believe; ל of thing; (c) with ב of person, trust in, believe in; with ב of thing; (d) with כִּי trust or believe that; (e) so with infin. (sq. ל); also trust to do a thing, almost = allow.

Richard Whitaker et al., The Abridged Brown-Driver-Briggs Hebrew-English Lexicon of the Old Testament: From A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament by Francis Brown, S.R. Driver and Charles Briggs, Based on the Lexicon of Wilhelm Gesenius (Boston; New York: Houghton, Mifflin and Company, 1906).

We often see people post on social media, “I did a thing” along with a picture of a new car, or perhaps a wedding photo indicating they “did something” special or out of the ordinary. Another Hebrew word that aligns with “pisteuo”, which is translated to the English word “believe”, is “Shema”.

שָׁמַע vb. hear — Qal 1. subj. pers. hum. (vel rei personif.): a. hear (perceive by ear), acc. rei, esp. קוֹל, (ים)דבר, etc.; acc. חָכְמָה i.e. wise sayings; any utterance or sound + (obj. om.) (cl. temp.); c. ב; c. obj. cl., כִּי; sq. orat. rect. b. acc. pers. + מְדַבֵּר hear one speaking; acc. pers. only. c. c. לֵאמֹר only, hear say = hear it said; + עַל pers. concerning; אֶל pers. id. d. hear of, concerning: (1) acc. rei; (2) less oft. acc. pers., אֶל pers., pers. om.; c. ב pers. hear exultantly of their fate. e. hear, abs., = have power to hear (c. בְּקוֹל); in si.; c. neg. of idols; fig. (spiritual power). f. hear with attention, interest, listen to; oft. abs. + (neg.) pay no attention. g. understand (language). h. specif. of hearing a (judicial) case; acc. om. בֵּין pers., of ˊי‍; c. מִשְׁפָּט. i. c. acc. pers. in polite address, hear us (me)! j. listen, give heed, abs.; hear + do; = consent, agree, grant request; c. ל pers. k. c. אֶל pers. + listen to, yield to, עַל pers.; אֶל־דִּבְרֵי etc., עַל־דִּבְרֵי etc.; very rarely acc. rei. l. לְקוֹל ˊשׁ‍ = id., obey. m. very oft., בְּקוֹל ˊשׁ‍ = obey, + ˊבְּקוֹל י‍ ˊשׁ‍ (ˊי‍’s word, etc.). n. obey, c. acc. (ים)דבר; acc. pers. o. abs. be obedient (esp. to ˊי‍). 2. ˊי‍ (God) subj.:

Richard Whitaker et al., The Abridged Brown-Driver-Briggs Hebrew-English Lexicon of the Old Testament: From A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament by Francis Brown, S.R. Driver and Charles Briggs, Based on the Lexicon of Wilhelm Gesenius (Boston; New York: Houghton, Mifflin and Company, 1906).

Both the words “believe” and “confess” convey the meaning of being in covenant and being faithful to someone. Does confessing that Jesus is Lord simply mean stating this when asked? This is something that the demons are capable of doing, so there must be something more to set apart those who claim to follow Yeshua.

Romans 10:6–10 (LEB): 6 But the righteousness from faith speaks like this: “Do not say in your heart, ‘Who will ascend into heaven?’ ” (that is, to bring Christ down), 7 or “Who will descend into the abyss?” (that is, to bring Christ up from the dead). 8 But what does it say? “The word is near to you, in your mouth and in your heart” (that is, the word of faith that we proclaim), 9 that if you confess with your mouth “Jesus is Lord” and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. 10 For with the heart one believes, resulting in righteousness, and with the mouth one confesses, resulting in salvation.

Paul is quoting Deuteronomy here. Many will look past, “For with the heart one believes, resulting in righteousness” and dumb down the word “confess” to mean to simply state a fact.

Deuteronomy 30:10–16 (LEB): 10 He will do this if you listen to the voice of Yahweh your God by keeping his commandment and his statutes written in the scroll of this law and if you return to Yahweh your God with all your heart and with all your inner self.
11 “For this commandment that I am commanding you today is not too wonderful for you, and it is not too far from you. 12 It is not in the heavens so that you might say, ‘Who will go up for us to the heavens and get it for us and cause us to hear it, so that we may do it?’ 13 And it is not beyond the sea, so that you might say, ‘Who will cross for us to the other side of the sea and take it for us and cause us to hear it, so that we may do it?’ 14 But the word is very near you, even in your mouth and in your heart, so that you may do it. 15 “See, I am setting before you today life and prosperity and death and disaster; 16 what I am commanding you today is to love Yahweh your God by going in his ways and by keeping his commandments and his statutes and his regulations, and then you will live, and you will become numerous, and Yahweh your God will bless you in the land where you are going.

The New International Dictionary of New Testament Theology gives us a great first century definition of the Greek word “homologeo”, used for the English word “confess”.

ὁμολογέω G3933 (homologeō), promise, confess, declare, praise; ἐξομολογέω G2018 (exomologeō), promise, confess, praise; ὁμολογία G3934 (homologia), confession.

CL homologeō (Soph. onwards) and homologia (Hdt. onwards) are compounds of homos, the same, similar, and legō, say, or logos, word, speech. Hence homologeō means to say the same, i.e. agree in one’s statements, and homologia means agreement, consent.
The legal connotation is dominant. A man agrees with another’s statement, concedes or confesses something (e.g. his guilt before a judge), agrees to something (e.g. another’s wish) and so promises. This agreement expresses itself in an act of commitment, promise, or confession in a court or legal contract.
The religious use of the words is probably derived primarily from their use in the language of treaties and the law-courts. The man who binds himself by an oath (homologeō) enters into a treaty relationship with the deity. This concept was then transferred from the solemn confession of wrong-doing before a court of law to the confession of sin to the deity. These concepts were used especially in the oriental cults, as may be seen from Lydian and Phrygian expiatory inscriptions. In modern Gk. the concept has come to mean sacramental confession to a priest: exomologeomai, I make my confession; exomologeō, I hear a confession.

D. Fürst, “Confess,” ed. Lothar Coenen, Erich Beyreuther, and Hans Bietenhard, New International Dictionary of New Testament Theology (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Publishing House, 1986), 344.

It should not be a surprise that being in covenant with God is the result of believing and confessing Yeshua. He is the way to the Father. The idea that believing and confessing is only lip service, defined by a church denomination, or from our imagination, is problematic.

Matthew 26:26–28 (LEB): 26 Now while they were eating Jesus took bread and, after giving thanks, he broke it, and giving it to the disciples, he said, “Take, eat, this is my body.” 27 And after taking the cup and giving thanks he gave it to them, saying, “Drink from it, all of you, 28 for this is my blood of the covenant which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins.

What is the new covenant promised through the prophet Jeremiah and delivered by Yeshua? It is only for the house of Israel and the house of Judah, so one must learn what that means. In this new covenant delivered by Yeshua, God will write His laws on our hearts. This sounds like the verses in Deuteronomy.

Deuteronomy 30:4–8 (LEB): 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. 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.
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. 7 And Yahweh your God will put all these curses on your enemies and on those who hate you, on those who harassed you. 8 And you will again listen to the voice of Yahweh, and you will do all his commandments that I am commanding you today.

For the New Testament only crowd, we are taught this in the book of Hebrews.

Hebrews 8:8–10 (LEB): ⁸ For in finding fault with them he says, “Behold, days are coming, says the Lord, when I will complete a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah, ⁹ not like the covenant which I made with their fathers on the day I took hold of them by my hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt, because they did not continue in my covenant and I disregarded them, says the Lord. ¹⁰ For this is the covenant that I will decree with the house of Israel after those days, says the Lord: I am putting my laws in their minds and I will write them on their hearts, and I will be their God and they will be my people.

Does anyone believe God has a new set of laws that He will put in people’s minds and hearts? It is apparent that the answer is “yes” based on the total disregard of God’s laws that exists in the Church today. There is only one set of laws. God gave them through Moses and Israel. He sent Yeshua to do a reset and get the people back on track, and at the same time make it clear that the whole world could be part of the covenant if they repent and “believe”.

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 and with every unrighteous deception against those who are perishing, in place of which they did not accept the love of the truth, so that they would be saved. And because of this, God sends them a powerful delusion so that they will believe the lie,  in order that all may be condemned who did not believe the truth, but delighted in unrighteousness.

2 Thessalonians 2:10–12 (LEB)

There are many people who claim to believe everything written in the Bible, but do they really? Many people have never read the entire Bible, yet make these claims of faith in every written word. Then we must also ask, is scripture limited to the sixty-six books given to us by the 1647 Westminster Confessions? This was a group of seventeenth century theologians and politicians trying to appease different political and religious sects. What about such books as first and second Esdras, Baruch, Wisdom of Solomon and Maccabees? These writings were all removed in 1647 by the Westminster Confessions.

2 Timothy 3:12–17 (LEB): ¹² And indeed, all those who want to live in a godly manner in Christ Jesus will be persecuted. ¹³ But evil people and imposters will progress to the worse, deceiving and being deceived. ¹⁴ But you continue in the things which you have learned and are convinced of, because you know from whom you learned them, ¹⁵ and that from childhood you have known the holy writings that are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. ¹⁶ All scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness, ¹⁷ in order that the person of God may be competent, equipped for every good work.

Paul didn’t have the New Testament scriptures when he wrote this, all he had was what we call the Old Testament, which included many of the omitted books I mentioned. Let’s look and see if we can say we believe everything written in scripture without the “ya but” clause.

Ezekiel 33:12–16 (LEB): ¹² “So you, son of man, say to your people that the righteousness of the righteous shall not save him in the day of his transgression, and the wickedness of the wicked will not cause him to stumble on the day of his returning from his wickedness; and the righteous will not be able to live by it on the day when he returns to his sin. ¹³ When I say to the righteous, ‘Certainly he will live,’ and he trusted in his righteousness, and he turns and he does injustice, all of his righteousness will not be remembered, and because of his injustice that he did, because of it he will die. ¹⁴ And when I say to the wicked, ‘Certainly you will die,’ but he returns from his sin and he does justice and righteousness— ¹⁵ for example, the wicked returns a pledge for a loan, he restores stolen property, he goes in the statutes of life so as not to do injustice—certainly he will live; he will not die. ¹⁶ All of his sins that he committed, they will not be remembered against him, and he did justice and righteousness; certainly he will live.

In these verses the Creator is telling us someone can undo the righteousness they have done by doing injustice, and someone can undo their unrighteousness by repenting and making things right. All of a person’s righteousness will be forgotten when they do injustice. This sounds similar to what the writer of Hebrews tells us:

Hebrews 10:26–29 (LEB): ²⁶ For if we keep on sinning deliberately after receiving the knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins, ²⁷ but a certain fearful expectation of judgment and a fury of fire that is about to consume the adversaries. ²⁸ Anyone who rejected the law of Moses dies without mercy on the testimony of two or three witnesses. ²⁹ How much worse punishment do you think the person will be considered worthy of who treats with disdain the Son of God and who considers ordinary the blood of the covenant by which he was made holy and who insults the Spirit of grace?

In other words, simply saying a prayer and returning to a life of sin does not mean one will be saved on the day of vengeance. One verse that I like to point out which is extremely hard for many people to believe is Genesis 1:1.

Genesis 1:1 (LEB): 1 In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth—

Some good verses about our weather are also found in Genesis. We can have faith that we will be able to grow our crops and enjoy the seasons until the end.

Genesis 8:21–22 (LEB): ²²As long as the earth endures, seed and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night will not cease.

If those of us wanting to follow the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob can be deceived, then from where would this deception appear? Would we be deceived by someone who does not regard the things of God at all? Perhaps, but a solidly grounded believer would have to be deceived slowly and also be lead to believe they are following what the true God says, or what the true God of their particular denomination says to do. In other words, deception, for the most part, has to come from a place that is viewed as the authority on scripture and God.

2 Corinthians 11:13–15 (LEB): ¹³ For such people are false apostles, deceitful workers, disguising themselves as apostles of Christ. ¹⁴ And no wonder, for Satan himself disguises himself as an angel of light. ¹⁵ Therefore it is not a great thing if his servants also disguise themselves as servants of righteousness, whose end will be according to their deeds.

Large amounts of deception have to come from within the “Church”. Some will say I am deceived because I believe we need to be obedient to what the Father commanded us. The definition of deception is to believe a lie, and if scripture is truth and Yeshua is truth, would the lie not be acting contrary to both? Yeshua points us to the Father’s words being truth.

John 17:16–19 (LEB): ¹⁶ They are not of the world, just as I am not of the world. ¹⁷ Sanctify them in the truth—your word is truth. ¹⁸ Just as you sent me into the world, I also have sent them into the world. ¹⁹ And for them I sanctify myself, so that they themselves also may be sanctified in the truth.

Deuteronomy 8:1–3 (LEB): “All of the commandments that I am commanding you today you must diligently observe, so that you may live and multiply, and you may go and take possession of the land that Yahweh swore to your ancestors. ² And you shall remember all of the way that Yahweh your God led you during these forty years in the desert in order to humble you and to test you to know what is in your heart, whether you would diligently keep his commandments or not. ³ And he humbled you and let you go hungry, and then he fed you with that which you did not know nor did your ancestors know, in order to make you know that not by bread alone but by all that goes out of the mouth of Yahweh humankind shall live.

The commandments of God are what we are to live by, not be “saved” by. One of the greatest deceptions is that if one obeys the commandments of God then they are trying to earn their salvation. It is such a wide spread lie, and most people happily believe this even though scripture is completely against them. Deception is making up a new way to interpret scripture, such as dispensationalism, and insisting all scripture must be read through these lenses. Deception is saying that “Jesus freed us from God’s commandments”, or “Did God really say that?”. It is not a new concept and is actually a way for God to test how much people love Him. It is much easier to believe the lie.

Genesis 3:1–5 (LEB): 3 Now the serpent was more crafty than any other wild animal which Yahweh God had made. He said to the woman, “Did God indeed say, ‘You shall not eat from any tree in the garden’?” ² The woman said to the serpent, “From the fruit of the trees of the garden we may eat, ³ but from the fruit of the tree that is in the midst of the garden, God said, ‘You shall not eat from it, nor shall you touch it, lest you die’.” ⁴ But the serpent said to the woman, “You shall not surely die. ⁵ For God knows that on the day you both eat from it, then your eyes will be opened and you both shall be like gods, knowing good and evil.”

“You shall not surely die“, now fill in the blank. “Did God really say not to ____?”, or “Did God really say to ____?”. Why was the serpent in the garden if not to test creation? These tests are everywhere.

Galatians 3:1–3 (LEB): 3 O foolish Galatians, who has bewitched you, before whose eyes Jesus Christ was publicly portrayed as having been crucified? ² I want only to learn this from you: Did you receive the Spirit by the works of the law, or by the hearing of faith? ³ Are you so foolish? Having begun by the Spirit, are you now trying to be made complete by the flesh?

Deceivers disguised as angels of light use the writings of Paul to justify lawlessness or the idea that we no longer have to be obedient to the Father. Is this God giving people a way out of being obedient so they can feel good about themselves in doing so? If Paul teaches against the commandments of God, why does Peter warn us that people will use Paul’s teachings to justify lawlessness?

2 Peter 3:14–17 (LEB): ¹⁴ Therefore, dear friends, because you are waiting for these things, make every effort to be found at peace, spotless and unblemished in him. ¹⁵ And regard the patience of our Lord as salvation, just as also our dear brother Paul wrote to you, according to the wisdom that was given to him, ¹⁶ as he does also in all his letters, speaking in them about these things, in which there are some things hard to understand, which the ignorant and unstable distort to their own destruction, as they also do the rest of the scriptures. ¹⁷ Therefore, dear friends, because you know this beforehand, guard yourselves so that you do not lose your own safe position because you have been led away by the error of lawless persons.

Peter told us what was going to happen, and it has. Unstable people distort the words of Paul into the error of lawlessness. What did Paul say about himself?

Acts 24:14–16 (LEB): ¹⁴ But I do confess this to you, that according to the Way (which they call a sect), so I worship the God of our fathers, believing all things that are in accordance with the law and that are written in the prophets, ¹⁵ having a hope in God which these men also themselves await: that there is going to be a resurrection of both the righteous and the unrighteous. ¹⁶ For this reason also I myself always do my best to have a clear conscience toward God and people.

There are those who will say that God’s commandments are only for the Jews and Paul was writing to gentiles who do not have to regard the commandments of God. This follows the deception of dispensationalism, which was fashioned in the likeness of the teachings of the heretic Marcion. Marcion taught there was a difference between the God of the Jews and the God of Jesus. Jesus supposedly came from a higher positioned God than the Creator God of the Jews in Marcion’s belief system. Dispensationalism is essentially the same teachings except it is packaged slightly different. It is all deception and talking about it probably is making people mad at this moment. Why? No one wants to think they have been tricked into believing lies, but it is prophesied throughout scripture that this will happen.

Luke 21:7–8 (LEB): ⁷ And they asked him, saying, “Teacher, when therefore will these things happen, and what will be the sign when these things are about to take place?” ⁸ And he said, Watch out that you are not deceived! For many will come in my name, saying, ‘I am he,’ and ‘The time is near!’ Do not go after them!

Paul tells us that there are those who do not love the truth so God sends them a delusion and they will believe a lie. Those who do not believe the truth will delight in unrighteousness. If we use math, we can deduce that truth equals righteousness and the lie equates to unrighteousness. The only way to define these terms is with scripture.

2 Thessalonians 2:10–12 (LEB): ¹⁰ and with every unrighteous deception against those who are perishing, in place of which they did not accept the love of the truth, so that they would be saved. ¹¹ And because of this, God sends them a powerful delusion so that they will believe the lie, ¹² in order that all may be condemned who did not believe the truth, but delighted in unrighteousness.

Here are a few scriptures to help us understand righteousness:

Deuteronomy 6:24–25 (LEB): ²⁴ And so Yahweh commanded us to observe all of these rules and to revere Yahweh our God for our benefit all the days that we live, as it is today. ²⁵ And it shall be righteousness for us if we diligently observe and do all of this commandment before Yahweh our God, as he has commanded us.’

Psalm 19:9–10 (LEB): ⁹ The fear of Yahweh is pure, enduring forever. The ordinances of Yahweh are true; they are righteous altogether, ¹⁰ more desirable than gold, even much fine gold; and sweeter than honey, even honey in the comb.

Psalm 119:7 (LEB): ⁷ I will give you thanks with an upright heart, when I learn your righteous laws.

1 Peter 4:17–18 (LEB): ¹⁷ For it is the time for the judgment to begin out from the household of God. But if it begins out from us first, what will be the outcome for those who are disobedient to the gospel of God? ¹⁸ And if the righteous are saved with difficulty, what will become of the ungodly and the sinner?

Revelation 22:10–12 (LEB): ¹⁰ And he said to me, “Do not seal up the words of the prophecy of this book, for the time is near! ¹¹ The one who does evil, let him do evil still, and the defiled, let him be defiled still, and the righteous, let him practice righteousness still, and the holy, let him be holy still.” ¹² “Behold, I am coming quickly, and my reward is with me, to repay each one according to what his deeds are!

There are at least forty thousand denominations that have come in the name of “Jesus”, all teaching slightly different doctrines. Everyone of them will say to abandon things that God told us to do. Study the scripture for yourself and do not be deceived!

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And the Pharisees and the scribes asked him, “Why do your disciples not live according to the tradition of the elders, but eat their bread with unclean hands?”
So he said to them, “Isaiah prophesied correctly about you hypocrites, as it is written, ‘This people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far, far away from me.
And they worship me in vain, teaching as doctrines the commandments of men.’

Mark 7:5–7 (LEB)

We applaud Jesus when He upbraids the Pharisees for doing various acts that made Him very angry. Why do we not realize we have followed the footsteps of the Pharisees today? What did the Pharisees do that was so bad? Modern Christianity will likely say “they made people follow that outdated Mosaic law“; but did they really?

Matthew 23:1–9 (LEB): 23 Then Jesus spoke to the crowds and to his disciples, 2 saying, “The scribes and the Pharisees sit on the seat of Moses. 3 Therefore do and observe everything that they tell you, but do not do as they do, for they tell others to do something and do not do it themselves. 4 And they tie up heavy burdens and put them on people’s shoulders, but they themselves are not willing with their finger to move them. 5 And they do all their deeds in order to be seen by people, for they make their phylacteries broad and make their tassels long. 6 And they love the place of honor at banquets and the best seats in the synagogues 7 and the greetings in the marketplaces and to be called ‘Rabbi’ by people. 8 But you are not to be called ‘Rabbi,’ because one is your teacher, and you are all brothers, 9 And do not call anyone your father on earth, for one is your heavenly Father.

Jesus, or Yeshua in His native tongue, told us to do what the Pharisees tell us. What? What does that mean? When they sat in the seat of Moses they read the Torah; therefore, giving us instructions to live by. They also had many traditions they added to the word of God and they taught people that it was necessary to follow all these traditions. Yeshua told us to do what they said when they sat on the seat of Moses reading the Torah, but not to do it the way they did. He then specifically told us not to call any man “father” or “Rabbi”. Why do messianic believers call their leaders “Rabbi” and some Christian faiths call their priests “father”? These are traditions that were happening in front of Yeshua that are carried on today. He specifically said not to do it!

Acts 3:19–23 (LEB): 19 Therefore repent and turn back, so that your sins may be blotted out, 20 so that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord, and he may send the Christ appointed for you—Jesus, 21 whom heaven must receive until the times of the restoration of all things, about which God spoke through the mouth of his holy prophets from earliest times. 22 Moses said, ‘The Lord God will raise up for you a prophet like me from your brothers. You will listen to him in everything that he says to you. 23 And it will be that every soul who does not listen to that prophet will be destroyed utterly from the people.’

There are many traditions that we have today which render the commandments of God useless. Many denominations believe that church tradition is to be taken at a higher regard than the word of God and they use verses from Paul’s instructions to Timothy to make their case. Not many Christians think about this, they only accept what they are told believing they will not be held responsible for their own actions so long as they show up for church services every Sunday.

Mark 7:8–13 (LEB): 8 Abandoning the commandment of God, you hold fast to the tradition of men.” 9 And he said to them, “You splendidly ignore the commandment of God so that you can keep your tradition. 10 For Moses said, ‘Honor your father and your mother,’ and, ‘The one who speaks evil of father or mother must certainly die.’ 11 But you say, ‘If a man says to his father or to his mother, “Whatever benefit you would have received from me is corban” (that is, a gift to God), 12 you no longer permit him to do anything for his father or his mother, 13 thus making void the word of God by your tradition that you have handed down, and you do many similar things such as this.”

Yeshua is using the example of a tradition they must have had in first century Judaism where the person would give the resources needed to take care of their elderly parents to the temple, thus releasing them from the commandment “honor your mother and father”. Yeshua picked one of the ten commandments, written by the finger of God and given to the people, to use as an example of them making the commandment void by their actions. Can we think of another one of the ten commandments that has been made void by the tradition of men teaching their own ideas as doctrine?

Hebrews 4:6–13 (LEB): ⁶ Since therefore it remains for some to enter into it, and the ones to whom the good news was proclaimed previously did not enter because of disobedience, ⁷ again he ordains a certain day, today, speaking by David after so long a time, just as had been said before, “Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts.” ⁸ For if Joshua had caused them to rest, he would not have spoken about another day after these things. ⁹ Consequently a sabbath rest remains for the people of God. ¹⁰ For the one who has entered into his rest has also himself rested from his works, just as God did from his own works. ¹¹ Therefore, let us make every effort to enter into that rest, in order that no one may fall in the same pattern of disobedience. ¹² For the word of God is living and active and sharper than any double-edged sword, and piercing as far as the division of soul and spirit, both joints and marrow, and able to judge the reflections and thoughts of the heart. ¹³ And no creature is hidden in the sight of him, but all things are naked and laid bare to the eyes of him to whom we must give our account.

The writer of Hebrews is quoting Psalms chapter ninety-five which is discussing the time when the Israelites put God to the test by being disobedient at Massah. Their punishment was that they would not enter the promised land. These verses in Hebrews and Psalms have been used to teach people we no longer have to be concerned with the commandment to rest on the Sabbath. How can verses talking about punishment for disobedience and giving an account to God for our actions be so successfully used to teach people to be disobedient? ^” Consequently a sabbath rest remains for the people of God.” It is a trick of the enemy to rob us of the Sabbath blessing and there are many accomplices to this crime.

Psalm 95:7–11 (LEB): 7 For he is our God, and we are the people of his pasture and the sheep of his hand. Today if you will hear his voice: 8 “Do not harden your heart as at Meribah, as in the day of Massah in the wilderness, 9 when your ancestors tried me. They put me to the test, even though they had seen my work. 10 For forty years I loathed that generation, and said, ‘They are a people whose heart wanders. And my ways they do not know.’ 11 Therefore I swore in my anger, ‘They shall surely not enter into my rest.’ ”

Ignoring the Sabbath and honoring Sunday instead is an example of “You splendidly ignore the commandment of God so that you can keep your tradition“, and it shows we still don’t know the Creator’s ways. No where is scripture did anyone ever say the Sabbath day was no longer a commandment or unimportant. Even if first century Christians met on the first day of the week, it does not mean they were replacing the Sabbath with a new day. Many of the references to “first day of the week” are translated wrong by inserting the word “day” when it is not in the text. In some cases it should be translated as “first Sabbath”, meaning the first Sabbath after Passover in the counting of the fifty days to Pentecost. The Sabbath is a very important day that has been made void by the traditions of men.

Another tradition, which I recently wrote about in a blog post, is hiding the name of the Father God, Yod Heh Waw Heh, Yahweh or Yahuah. The name has been hidden and substituted with titles such as “LORD”, “Hashem” (the name) and “Adonai”, and anyone trying to declare the name is belittled, ridiculed and labeled a “sacred namer”.

Psalm 22:22–23 (LEB): ²² I will tell your name to my brothers; inside the assembly I will praise you. ²³ You who revere Yahweh, praise him! Glorify him, all you seed of Jacob, and be in awe of him, all you seed of Israel

Exodus 3:16 (LEB): ¹⁶ Go and gather the elders of Israel and say to them, ‘Yahweh, the God of your ancestors, appeared to me, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, saying, “I have carefully attended to you and what has been done to you in Egypt.”

Something else I will call tradition is keeping the Sabbath Friday night. Even though this is the practice in Judaism, there is no place that commands us to start keeping the Sabbath on the sixth evening. The Day of Atonement is the only Sabbath that we are told to start on the evening of the night prior, which should be a clue that it was not done every Sabbath.

Leviticus 23:32 (LEB): ³² It is a Sabbath of complete rest for you, and you shall deny yourselves on the ninth day of the month in the evening—from evening to evening you must observe your extraordinary Sabbath.”

If the evening of the ninth day is still the ninth day, then how can it be the next day? I am not saying starting the Sabbath on the evening of the sixth day is a bad thing to do, it is just not part of the commandment. Nehemiah closed the gates to the city after dark before the Sabbath as part of his Sabbath reform when people were coming in to the city and selling on the actual Sabbath day.

Nehemiah 13:18–19 (LEB): ¹⁸ Did not your ancestors do this also, and our God brought on us all of this disaster and on this city too? Now you are adding fierce wrath on Israel by profaning the Sabbath!” ¹⁹ So when it became dark at the gates of Jerusalem before the Sabbath, I commanded that the doors be shut and said that they should not be opened until after the Sabbath. And I appointed some of my young men over the gates to prevent any goods being brought in on the day of the Sabbath.

When God gave the Israelites manna they were to gather twice as much on the sixth day so they would not have to gather on the seventh day.

Exodus 16:23–30 (LEB):²³ And he said to them, “This is what Yahweh has said. Tomorrow is a rest period, a holy Sabbath for Yahweh. Bake what you want to bake, and boil what you want to boil. Put aside all the surplus for yourselves for safekeeping until the morning.” ²⁴ And they put it aside until the morning, as Moses had commanded, and it did not make a stench, and not a maggot was in it. ²⁵ And Moses said, “Eat it today, because today is a Sabbath for Yahweh. Today you will not find it in the field. ²⁶ Six days you will gather it, but on the seventh day, the Sabbath, it will not be present on it.” ²⁷ And on the seventh day some of the people went out to gather, and they did not find any. ²⁸ And Yahweh said to Moses, “How long do you refuse to keep my commands and my laws? ²⁹ See, because Yahweh has given to you the Sabbath, therefore he is giving to you on the sixth day bread for two days. Stay, each in his location; let no one go from his place on the seventh day.” ³⁰ And the people rested on the seventh day.

It is a contentious subject, but it is clear in these verses in Exodus that it was the seventh day that they rested, not the evening of the sixth day. That is a tradition. I am not saying it is a bad tradition, it is just a tradition.

One of the most heinous traditions of men, that has become wide spread in these last days, is the tradition of forsaking all the commandments of God for a new lawless religion. This is the tradition that says to “believe in Jesus” yet does not require repentance or a change in lifestyle. It is a tradition of “other gods” where people simply “believe what they believe”.

Deuteronomy 13:1–4 (LEB): “If a prophet stands up in your midst or a dreamer of dreams and he gives to you a sign or wonder, ² and the sign or the wonder comes about that he spoke to you, saying, ‘Let us go after other gods (those whom you have not known), and let us serve them,’ ³ you must not listen to the words of that prophet or to that dreamer, for Yahweh your God is testing you to know whether you love Yahweh your God with all of your heart and with all of your inner self. ⁴ You shall go after Yahweh your God, and him you shall revere, and his commandment you shall keep, and to his voice you shall listen, and him you shall serve, and to him you shall hold fast.

Teaching that Christians do not have to do what the Father commanded is the worst case of making the commandments of God void through the traditions of men. The Father told us that He would test us to see if we really loved Him by sending boatloads of people to tell us to do things contrary to His ways. Of course they come as priests, pastors and Godly leaders because why would anyone supposedly walking as Jesus walked listen to someone who did not regard God? Yet these leaders telling people to forsake God’s ways for their traditions are not regarding God at all. “Come to church on ‘the Lord’s day’, give us your tithe, say this prayer and be saved”, they say.

Jeremiah 23:16–22 (LEB): ¹⁶ Thus says Yahweh of hosts: “You must not listen to the words of the prophets who prophesy to you. They are deluding you with visions of their mind, They do not speak from the mouth of Yahweh. ¹⁷ They are continually saying to those who disregard the word of Yahweh, ‘Peace it will be to you,’ and to each one who walks in the stubbornness of his heart they say, ‘Calamity will not come upon you.’ ¹⁸ For who has stood in the council of Yahweh, that he has seen and heard his word? Who has listened attentively to his word and heard it? ¹⁹ Look, the storm of Yahweh has gone forth in wrath, even a whirling tempest. It will whirl upon the head of the wicked. ²⁰ The anger of Yahweh will not turn back until his doing and until his keeping the plans of his mind. In latter days you will look closely at it with understanding. ²¹ I have not sent the prophets, yet they ran. I have not spoken to them, yet they prophesied. ²² But if they had stood in my council, then they would have proclaimed my words to my people, and they would have caused them to turn from their evil way, and from the evil of their deeds.

This is serious business. Do not be deluded by someone saying, “‘Peace it will be to you,’ and to each one who walks in the stubbornness of his heart they say, ‘Calamity will not come upon you.’ ” because these warnings are all through the scriptures. Once a person sees this, it cannot be unseen and people must be told. These are the people Yeshua will tell to depart and go to the outer darkness. They are building on sand by forsaking the commandments of the Rock.

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

Not all traditions are bad. It is when they are being forced on people as commandments of God that make them burdensome. Moreover, when traditions take priority over God’s commandments then the situation must change. We don’t want to be guilty of usurping the commandments of God for our man-made traditions.

Featured photo was provided by Emma Vail Photography.

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But the things which God foretold through the mouth of all the prophets, that his Christ would suffer, he has fulfilled in this way. Therefore repent and turn back, so that your sins may be blotted out, so that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord, and he may send the Christ appointed for you—Jesus,

Acts 3:18–20 (LEB)

There were twelve tribes at the base of the Mount of Horeb the day Yahuah, in an audible voice, gave them the ten commandments. Scripture says, “and he added no more”. He also gave Moses more detailed instructions, which the people agreed to in a marriage type of covenant with the Creator, Yahuah, who is represented by the four Hebrew letters Yod, Heh, Waw, Heh.

Exodus 24:4–8 (LEB): ⁴ And Moses wrote all the words of Yahweh, and he rose early in the morning, and he built an altar at the base of the mountain and set up twelve memorial stones for the twelve tribes of Israel. ⁵ And he sent young men from the Israelites, and they offered burnt offerings, and they sacrificed sacrifices as fellowship offerings to Yahweh using bulls. ⁶ And Moses took half of the blood, and he put it in bowls, and half of the blood he sprinkled on the altar. ⁷ And he took the scroll of the covenant and read it in the hearing of the people, and they said, “All that Yahweh has spoken we will do, and we will listen.” ⁸ And Moses took the blood and sprinkled it on the people, and he said, “Look, the blood of the covenant that Yahweh has made with you in accordance with all these words.”

Moses read all the words he had written down which the Father gave him, along with the ten commandments given in an audible voice, and read them to the people; “and they said, ‘All that Yahweh has spoken we will do, and we will listen‘”. There were also non-Israelites among the tribes that came out of Egypt. This entire group of people entered into a marriage type covenant with the Creator.

Exodus 12:49 (LEB): ⁴⁹ One law will be for the native and for the alien who is dwelling in your midst.”

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

It was much later in history that it became illegal for a Jew to interact with an alien. We see Peter witnessing the reset the Father did through the Messiah to return to the stipulations of the original covenant. This was the refreshing spoken about by Isaiah and again by Peter in Acts chapter three. The verses that most people in Christianity use to justify eating unclean animals were actually talking about people. God was doing something miraculous and Christians use it to justify eating a bacon, egg and cheese sandwich.

Acts 10:25–29 (LEB): ²⁵ So it happened that when Peter entered, Cornelius met him, fell at his feet, and worshiped him. ²⁶ But Peter helped him up, saying, “Get up! I myself am also a man!” ²⁷ And as he conversed with him, he went in and found many people gathered. ²⁸ And he said to them, “You know that it is forbidden for a Jewish man to associate with or to approach a foreigner. And to me God has shown that I should call no man common or unclean. ²⁹ Therefore—and without raising any objection—I came when I was sent for. So I ask for what reason you sent for me.”

What is the “fullness of the gentiles” spoken about by Paul? “Gentile” is simply a word that comes from Latin that means people from the nations. I do not claim to know what the “fullness of the gentiles” means, but I want to discuss this subject and look at some possibilities.

Romans 11:25–27 (LEB): ²⁵ For I do not want you to be ignorant, brothers, of this mystery, so that you will not be wise in your own sight, that a partial hardening has happened to Israel, until the full number of the Gentiles has come in, ²⁶ and so all Israel will be saved, just as it is written, “The deliverer will come out of Zion; he will turn away ungodliness from Jacob. ²⁷ And this is the covenant from me with them when I take away their sins.”

Judah and Benjamin were the only tribes represented by the time of the first century. There were some Levites as well. This statement is not supported by everyone because there are different views about the identity of the Jews when discussing the twelve tribes. Today, it is common for people to believe that there are Jews and non-Jews or “gentiles”. This is true in a sense because it is how the world has been shaped politically. The “Jews” are the people from the nation state of Israel in the Middle East, or who practice the religion of Judaism. This is our geopolitical reality today. In this sense, the “fullness of the gentiles” may mean anyone who is not a “Jew”, becoming a Jew inwardly as Paul describes in Romans. Romans 2:29 (LEB): ²⁹ But the Jew is one inwardly, and circumcision is of the heart, by the Spirit, not by the letter, whose praise is not from people but from God. There is; however, more to discuss.

There were twelve tribes that entered the covenant at Mount Horeb, not two or three. Where are the people representing the tribes of Asher, Ruben, Simeon, Issachar, Gad, Dan, Joseph, Zebulon, and Naphtali? Some will claim all these tribes make up the people called “Jews” today, or they were all represented on the day of Pentecost in Acts chapter two. I disagree with these arguments because there is so much scripture to lead us in other directions.

Deuteronomy 4:25–31 (LEB): ²⁵ “When you have had children and grandchildren and you have grown old in the land and you act corruptly and you make a divine image of the form of anything and you do evil in the eyes of Yahweh your God, thus provoking him to anger, ²⁶ I call to witness against you today the heaven and the earth, that you will perish soon and completely from the land that you are crossing the Jordan into it to take possession of it; you will not live long on it, but you will be completely destroyed. ²⁷ And Yahweh will scatter you among the peoples, and you will be left few in number among the nations to where Yahweh will lead you. ²⁸ And you will there serve gods made by human hands, of wood and stone, gods that cannot see and cannot hear and cannot eat and cannot smell. ²⁹ But from there you shall seek Yahweh your God and will find him, if you seek him with all your heart and with all your soul. ³⁰ In your distress when all these things have found you in the latter days, then you will return to Yahweh your God, and you will listen to his voice. ³¹ For Yahweh your God is a compassionate God; he will not abandon you, and he will not destroy you, and he will not forget the covenant of your ancestors that he swore to them.

During the reign of king Solomon, God took part of the kingdom away from Solomon because he had turned to idolatry to please his hundreds of foreign wives. Solomon retained the southern kingdom of Judah which mostly contained the tribes of Judah, Benjamin and Levi. The other tribes were in the northern kingdom which as a whole, is referred to the house of Israel, Ephraim or Joseph. Sometimes we see all the tribes of Israel referred to as the house of Jacob. It is important to know that God changed Jacob’s name to Israel.

Genesis 32:26–28 (LEB): ²⁶ Then he said, “Let me go, for dawn is breaking.” But he answered, “I will not let you go unless you bless me.” ²⁷ Then he said to him, “What is your name?” And he said, “Jacob.” ²⁸ And he said, “Your name shall no longer be called Jacob, but Israel, for you have struggled with God and with men and have prevailed.”

Genesis 35:10 (LEB): ¹⁰ And God said to him, “Your name is Jacob. Your name shall no longer be called Jacob, but Israel shall be your name.” Then his name was called Israel.

It may not be clear why Jacob’s name was changed to “Israel” while reading these words in English. The Hebrew word spelled Shin, Resh, Heh is the verb meaning to struggle. “El” means “God”. The “Yod” in Hebrew represented by the “I” in English is a prefix meaning “He”. This is where we get “he struggled with God”. Israel means “he struggled with God”. Looking at it prophetically, it does not have to be just past tense because in Hebrew, this is in the imperfect tense, meaning it is an action that has not been completed. These are just thoughts I have based on my limited knowledge of the language.

The northern kingdom completely forsook the Creator and the covenant made on Mount Horeb after the kingdom was divided. They went after strange gods and were eventually conquered by Assyria in 722 BCE. They were taken away and scattered to the four corners of the earth. They never came back to be a people again, assimilating into other nations. This prophecy was given by Moses much earlier.

Deuteronomy 32:16–21 (LEB): ¹⁶ They made him jealous with strange gods; with detestable things they provoked him. ¹⁷ They sacrificed to the demons, not God, to gods whom they had not known, new gods who came from recent times; their ancestors had not known them. ¹⁸ The rock who bore you, you neglected, and you forgot God, the one giving you birth. ¹⁹ Then Yahweh saw, and he spurned them, because of the provocation of his sons and his daughters. ²⁰ So he said, ‘I will hide my face from them; I will see what will be their end, for they are a generation of perversity, children in whom there is no faithfulness. ²¹ They annoyed me with what is not a god; they provoked me with their idols. So I will make them jealous with those not a people, with a foolish nation I will provoke them.

Who is this foolish nation by whom Yahuah is going to provoke Israel? When it says Israel, are we talking about simply “the Jews” that exist today, who are technically the only identifiable remnant of Israel that currently exists? By the dispersion that happened to Israel, scattering them into the nations for thousands of years, is it possible that the entire world has been seeded and the gentiles are now the house of Israel by default? A remnant of the southern kingdom, Judah, was able to return to the land and this is recorded in the book of Ezra.

Ezra 1:2–7 (LEB): ² “Thus says Cyrus king of Persia: Yahweh, the God of the heavens, has given me all the kingdoms of the earth. And he himself has appointed me to build a house for him in Jerusalem, which is in Judah. ³ Whoever among you who is from all of his people, may his God be with him and may he go up to Jerusalem, which is in Judah, and may he build the house of Yahweh, the God of Israel. He is the God who is in Jerusalem. ⁴ And let every survivor, from wherever he resides be assisted by the men of that place with silver and gold, with possessions and domestic animals, and with the freewill offering for the house of God which is in Jerusalem.” ⁵ So the heads of the families for Judah and Benjamin, and the priests and the Levites—to all whose spirit God had stirred—prepared to go up and build the house of Yahweh which is in Jerusalem. ⁶ And all of their neighbors helped them with objects of silver, gold, possessions, domestic animals, and with valuable gifts—besides all of the freewill offering. ⁷ And Cyrus the king brought out the objects of the house of Yahweh that Nebuchadnezzar had brought from Jerusalem and placed in the house of his gods.

“So the heads of the families for Judah and Benjamin, and the priests and the Levites—to all whose spirit God had stirred—prepared to go up and build the house of Yahweh which is in Jerusalem.” Here we are told the three tribes that went back to Jerusalem to rebuild. There is no mention of the other tribes because they were not involved. They had assimilated into Assyria hundreds of years earlier. Also, not everyone returned to Jerusalem from Babylon. All of these Israelites lost their identity, but we get some information concerning all the tribes in the book of Hosea.

Hosea 1:10–11 (LEB): ¹⁰ The number of the children of Israel will be like the sand of the sea that cannot be measured or counted; and in the place where it is said to them, “You are not my people,” it will be said to them, “Children of the living God.” ¹¹ Then the children of Judah and Israel will be gathered together, and they will appoint for themselves one head; and they will take possession of the land, for great is the day of Jezreel.

Jezreel has a meaning of “place”, but just as “Israel” means “he struggled with God” Jazreel seems to have more meaning than simply “place”. The root of Jazreel is “zera” and it means seed and offspring. Learning some basics in Hebrew and looking at these words in lexicons and software, such as Logos, can give us so much more insight than settling for what one translator gives us. Perhaps Jazreel does mean “place”, but the context is more conducive to it referring to seed and offspring.

In his letter to the Romans, Paul quotes the verses preceding these found in Hosea. I do not see a point in history where Judah and Israel came together as one people having one leader to date.

Romans 9:25–26 (LEB): ²⁵ As he also says in Hosea, “I will call those who were not my people, ‘My people,’ and those who were not loved, ‘Loved.’ ²⁶ And it will be in the place where it was said to them, ‘You are not my people,’ there they will be called ‘sons of the living God.’ ”

There are places all through scripture that discuss an event that has not happened concerning the house of Israel and the house of Judah. There has not been a house of Israel since it was captured in 722 BCE. The event where they are officially reunited with one leader will be a great time.

Isaiah 11:11–13 (LEB): ¹¹ And this shall happen on that day: The Lord will again extend his hand a second time to acquire the remnant of his people that is left,from Assyria, Egypt, Pathros, Cush, Elam, Shinar, Hamath, and the coastlands of the sea, ¹² and he will raise a signal for the nations. And he will gather the outcasts of Israel, and he will gather the scattered ones of Judah together from the four corners of the earth. ¹³ And the jealousy of Ephraim shall depart, and the enemies of Judah shall be cut off. Ephraim shall not be jealous of Judah, and Judah shall not be an enemy of Ephraim.

Yeshua made it possible for people who were formerly “cut off”, due to sin, to repent and return to the covenant. Does the fullness of the gentiles refer to the time when this stops happening? As the world turns against God’s ways more than ever before could we see the fullness of the gentiles in our lifetime? In an earlier blog post, Understanding the Law of Christ (link here), I shared an article where a church was having a “drag me to church” event. At this event, a drag queen was entertaining the congregation of this church. We see churches everywhere spiraling into complete apostasy and disregard for God’s ways. What started out as some idolatry and rebellion to God’s commandments has turned into possibly being the full number of the gentiles coming in. Perhaps this is the “foolish nation” that God is provoking others with to return to the commandments? Traditionally being “provoked by a foolish nation” was supposedly the “church” being so holy and prosperous they would provoke the “Jews” to want to accept Jesus and be saved. That narrative is falling off of the edge of the cliff when we see “drag me to church” events, not to mention the years of antisemitism the “church” practiced. I certainly have been provoked by the “church” to return to the bedrock of the Creator’s instructions for living a blessed life.

I believe once the “fullness of the gentiles” event happens we will see the resurrection and coming of the Messiah Yeshua. He will unite all of Israel. My theory currently is that by dispersing the twelve tribes into the world, the entire world was seeded, thus extending the promise of the covenant to the entire world. Yeshua made a way to reconcile people previously cut off by sin to come back into the eternal covenant. This is how the world was blessed by the seed of Abraham. Those who will repent and covenant with (confess) Yeshua will be part of this number. There will be those from Judah and Israel.

Revelation 22:12–15 (LEB): ¹² “Behold, I am coming quickly, and my reward is with me, to repay each one according to what his deeds are! ¹³ I am the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end.” ¹⁴ Blessed are the ones who wash their robes, so that their authority will be over the tree of life and they may enter into the city through the gates. ¹⁵ Outside are the dogs and the sorcerers and the sexually immoral people and the murderers and the idolaters and everyone who loves and who practices falsehood.

While many in the church are looking for a so-called secret rapture of the church, I am watching the church degrade to a point of no return with their prideful disregard of the commandments of God and His eternal covenant. I am waiting for Yeshua to return and physically establish His kingdom on earth.

Featured photo was provided by Emma Vail Photography.

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