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A Time For Truth, Part 3

The Scriptures tell us that the truth will set us free and yet, sometimes we really do not want to hear the truth. You yourself will have to decide if you really want the truth by reading this to the end. Today there is a group that is well, can I say, ultra Christian. We have seen this extreme ultra Christianity before in history, the Crusades, the Inquisitions, to name a few.  Just as truth sets us free, God also wants us to have the freedom to choose truth. That is what life is about, the freedom to choose life or choose death, to choose His free gift of salvation or reject it. We can not force our religion on anyone, beliefs are as personal as our own name. As believers we must take the great commission seriously, but that not only is to take the salvation message to people but to make disciples. Like the saying goes, “You can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make him drink.”  

Today there are so many branches or should I say, denominations that it’s hard to believe that one can divide God’s Word into so many pieces. You have to ask yourself, “Which one is the right one?” There are so many translations that the same question has to also be asked. When Yeshua told His apostles to go out and make disciples, they knew the truth, because they heard Yeshua’s teachings. They were there when Yeshua performed so many miracles that they could not all be recorded for history. His teachings were their teachings, His Words were their words. The apostles did go out and make disciples and those disciples taught the same words and spoke the same truths as the apostles, as Yeshua. Throughout history those words have been changed. In our series “The Sins of our Forefathers” we have brought the truths of those changes out into the open. We are Judeo-Christians and that means that we should have the same truth as the apostles. Yeshua and His apostles were all Jewish. They all kept Judaism. They all kept Torah. What we call old are the Hebrew Scriptures and they are not obsolete, except maybe to those who came up with the idea that they were obsolete, so that they could create a new religion called Christianity. For them to be obsolete would mean that all of Yeshua’s teachings were obsolete. The same teachings that He instructed His apostles to go out and make disciples, not converts, were all based on Judaism. This is why we put more emphasis on Paul because we consider him a Gentile, but he himself says, “I am a Jew.” When he refers to his message that message is not anti Jew. His message to the Gentiles was that they did not ceremonially need to become a Jew for salvation. He never said that they did not need to keep Torah. God’s Word is for everyone. God is One and He is not some three person God who is obsolete, nor is He a person. We have lowered God and made Him a person so that He is now on the same level as man. Throughout the ages man has taken out the Jewishness of the Bible and they have even taken out the shed blood of Messiah so that now we are saved by grace. NO, we are saved because Yeshua, the Passover Lamb has been slain and His shed blood covers us, like the doorposts in Egypt.  The death angel passed over when it saw the blood, so too, the shed blood of Yeshua covers us and when God sees us now there is peace between Him and us and the death angel passes over us. We need our foundation and our foundation is in the Hebrew Scriptures. Yeshua quoted them, the apostles quoted them and so did Paul. The early believers sat in synagogues and learned the Hebrew Scriptures. They kept the dietary laws and the Appointed Times of God. They were true followers of the Messiah, and God’s Word…there were no other words, there was no printed Bible, only the writings of the apostles.  Romans 9:1-5 says this, “I say the truth in Messiah, I lie not, my conscience also bearing me witness in the Holy Spirit,  that I have great heaviness and continual sorrow in my heart.  For I could wish that myself were accursed from Messiah for my brethren, my kinsmen according to the flesh:  who are Israelites; to whom pertaineth the adoption, and the glory, and the covenants, and the giving of the law, and the service of God, and the promises;  whose are the fathers, and of whom as concerning the flesh Messiah  came, who is over all, God blessed for ever. Amen.”

Paul wanted the Jewish  people to all accept the Messiah. He knew that they had God’s blessings in the covenants that are forever. He knew that for them to be complete, they needed the righteousness of Yeshua which comes by accepting His sacrifice on their behalf. The Jewish people are and always will be God’s chosen people. Romans 11: 13-16 says,  “But I am speaking to you who are Gentiles. Therefore insofar as I am an apostle of Gentiles, I magnify my ministry if somehow I may move my own people to jealousy and save some of them.  For if their rejection proves to be the reconciliation of the world, what will their acceptance be but life from the dead?  If the first piece of dough is holy, the lump is also; and if the root is holy, the branches are as well.”

Paul had a true heart for his people. Yes, he was Jewish and continued practicing Judaism, as he tells us in Philippians 3:4-6, “If anyone else thinks he is confident in the flesh, I have more reason:  circumcised the eighth day, of the nation of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews; as to the Law, a Pharisee;  as to zeal, a persecutor of the church; as to the righteousness which is in the Law, found blameless.”

Paul continues in Romans 11:17-24 by saying this, “But if some of the branches were broken off, and you, being a wild olive, were grafted in among them and became partaker with them of the rich root of the olive tree,  do not be arrogant toward the branches; but if you are arrogant, remember that it is not you who supports the root, but the root supports you.  You will say then, ‘Branches were broken off so that I might be grafted in.’  Quite right, they were broken off for their unbelief, but you stand by your faith. Do not be conceited, but fear;  for if God did not spare the natural branches, He will not spare you, either.  See then the kindness and severity of God: to those who fell, severity, but to you, God’s kindness, if you continue in His kindness; for otherwise you too will be cut off.  And they also, if they do not continue in their unbelief, will be grafted in; for God is able to graft them in again.  For if you were cut off from what is by nature a wild olive tree, and contrary to nature were grafted into a cultivated olive tree, how much more will these who are the natural branches be grafted into their own olive tree?”

We continue in Romans 9:6-8 as it says this, “I don’t mean that God failed to keep His promise to the Jewish people. But only some of the people of Israel are really God’s people. And only some of Abraham’s descendants are true children of Abraham. This is what God said to Abraham: ‘Your true descendants will be those who come through Isaac.’ This means that not all of Abraham’s descendants are God’s true children. Abraham’s true children are those who become God’s children because of the promise He made to Abraham.”

You see when we follow in the footsteps of Messiah, then we are the children of Abraham, then we are grafted into the vine. But walking in the footsteps of Messiah means just that, we must be as He was. We must do what He did, even crucifying our flesh, and picking up our cross. Philippians 3:7-16 says “But whatever things were gain to me, these things I have counted as loss because of  Messiah. More than that, I count all things to be loss in view of the surpassing value of knowing Messiah Yeshua my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them mere rubbish, so that I may gain Messiah,  and may be found in Him, not having a righteousness of my own derived from the Law (ceremonial laws), but that which is through faith in Messiah, the righteousness which comes from God on the basis of faith,  that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death; if somehow I may attain to the resurrection from the dead.  Not that I have already grasped it all or have already become perfect, but I press on if I may also take hold of that for which I was even taken hold of by Messiah Yeshua.  Brothers and sisters, I do not regard myself as having taken hold of it yet; but one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and reaching forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Messiah Yeshua.  Therefore, all who are mature, let’s have this attitude; and if in anything you have a different attitude, God will reveal that to you as well;  however, let’s keep living by that same standard to which we have attained. Brothers and sisters, join in following my example, and observe those who walk according to the pattern you have in us.  For many walk, of whom I often told you, and now tell you even as I weep, that they are the enemies of the cross of Messiah,  whose end is destruction, whose god is their appetite, and whose glory is in their shame, who have their minds on earthly things.”

These are not the Jewish people that Paul is speaking about. These are those who even call themselves Christians who have never let go of the world and its ways. These people who go to church, and yet, they have not crucified the flesh, let alone their appetite for everything, except denying themselves for others for the sake of the kingdom. They believe that Christians are the only ones who will be saved, because they have replaced Israel, and yet, they are the ones who have muddied themselves in the world and its ways. They are the ones who do not keep the Covenants of God. They are the ones who think that they do not need to repent, because Yeshua did it all, as if we do not have a part to play in salvation.

Philippians 2:1-16 tells us this, “Therefore if there is any encouragement in Messiah, if any consolation of love, if any fellowship of the Spirit, if any affection and compassion,  make my joy complete by being of the same mind, maintaining the same love, united in spirit, intent on one purpose. Do nothing from selfishness or empty conceit, but with humility consider one another as more important than yourselves; do not merely look out for your own personal interests, but also for the interests of others. Have this attitude in yourselves which was also in Messiah Yeshua, who, as He already existed in the form of God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped,  but emptied Himself by taking the form of a bond-servant and being born in the likeness of men.  And being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death: death on a cross. For this reason also God highly exalted Him, and bestowed on Him the name which is above every name,  so that at the name of Yeshua every knee will bow of those who are in heaven and on earth and under the earth,  and that every tongue will confess that Messiah Yeshua is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. So then, my beloved, just as you have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling;  for it is God who is at work in you, both to desire and to work for His good pleasure. Do all things without complaining or arguments;  so that you will prove yourselves to be blameless and innocent, children of God above reproach in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation, among whom you appear as lights in the world, holding firmly the word of life, so that on the day of Messiah I can take pride because I did not run in vain nor labor in vain.”

By the way, not only was Paul a Jew, but also Yeshua’s disciples, and Yeshua Himself and the early believers. God’s people are the Jews, and Israel is God’s chosen land and we, we, are those who were grafted into Israel with all of its covenants. God is one and His flock is one, and we must read and live by His Word, because it is also one. And that is the truth!