There is an alarming trend happening in the Church today concerning Israel and the growing momentum of her restoration and people coming to the faith of Christ. Everywhere, Christians are hearing the call to return to the Hebrew Roots of their faith. Messianic congregations are popping up all over the place, predominantly attended by Roots Christians, and many of them more occupied with a form of Messianic Judaism and the keeping of the Law and Jewish tradition than they are with the teachings of Jesus Christ, and the issues of salvation. One gets the sense that there is more about joining the end times bandwagon than any leading of the Holy Spirit.
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The story of Jethro in Exodus 18 closely resembles the story we find of Christ and the Samaritans in the Gospel of John. Jethro had heard what God had done in bringing the Israelites out from the bondage of Egypt. Likewise, the men of Samaria heard what the woman had told them of the Christ, and they, as did Jethro, went out to see and hear for themselves.
After Jethro heard the truth from Moses' own lips of the events that had taken place, as from one who had been there, seen it and been the agent through whom God did it, Jethro declared the LORD to be above all other gods. Likewise, the Samaritans also told the woman,
I belong to a Messianic fellowship and we observe a Seventh day or Saturday sabbath, following the custom of Jewish believers in Yeshua. But that is not why I have chosen to keep a Saturday Sabbath.
My primary reason is because God Himself instituted the Sabbath on the seventh day. Six days He worked, and on the seventh day He rested from all that He had created and made. If God established the seventh day to be a sabbath of rest, who am I to determine and establish a different day?
When it comes to investigating the Fall of Man in Adam, few take the time to consider exactly what it was that 'fell.' Both Adam and Eve ate from the forbidden tree of the knowledge of good and evil, yet most of our considerations concern Adam alone. We rarely look at Eve. The time is come to take another look at Adam and Eve and truly understand the fall. It is only through this right understanding that we will see the Jezebel spirit for what it really is.
When the rich young ruler knelt before Jesus and asked Him, "What shall I do to inherit eternal life?" Jesus told him straight out:
"...but if you will enter into life, keep the commandments. He said unto Him, Which? Jesus said, Thou shalt not murder, thou shalt not commit adultery, thou shalt not steal, thou shalt not bear false witness, honour your father and your mother: and you shall love your neighbour as yourself." - Matt. 19:17-19
The rich young ruler's reply was that he had done all those things from his youth. I doubt the same can be said for any of us. We know we have sinned and are in need of salvation or we would not have come to this place.
One of the best things you can do for your walk in the faith of Christ is to go all-in. Go all or nothing. Do not take the road of 'for the most part." And there is good reason for this. It is simply this. If you leave yourself an "out," an option to step back, a "maybe later", or "another time", the step back to the start line becomes much harder to take. It may be one step back, but it takes almost two steps forward to get back to the place you were. Then comes along another step, another choice, a choice that might not have been so difficult to make if you had embraced the previous one and not sidestepped it. And now, being much harder to accept, you have to defer and turn away again. Do this yet again, and the next thing you know, you have walked yourself right out of the will and purposes of God, and only He can restore you.
The first commandment God gave Moses, while in Egypt, two weeks before they ever left Egypt, was to establish a calendar (Ex. 12:2). He hadn't even given them the instructions for the Passover as yet. So why would God command that Israel establish a calendar before anything else related to their deliverance from Egypt? Surely, "Pack your bags; borrow from the Egyptians; prepare some food for the road; get your footwear in order and so on would have been far more appropriate concerns to be dealt with. So why a calendar? And why a lunar one?
To rightly understand the truth concerning the Number of the Beast, we need to look at its first mention in Scripture. The first mention of anything in Scripture, often refered to as the Principle of First Mention, means that the first mention often establishes the context by which we are to understand all further mentions. So let's look at where this 'mark' is first spoken of in Scripture.
We are all familiar with the story of Cain and Abel. Abel offered up a sacrifice unto God of a suckling lamb, and Cain offered up the fruits of his labours in the field and of his harvest of crops. God accepted Abel's offering, but not Cain's. Many have debated why Cain's offering was not accepted, seeing as meat (meal) offerings and first-fruit offerings were accepted offerings in the Temple.
You can learn more about God through the simple, daily tasks of life than you probably can in a seminary or bible school. There you might learn much in the way of theology, but perhaps not so much about God that comes through seeing Him in the everyday. Christ commanded us to "Learn of Him," and since all creation speaks of His glory, then one of the best places to learn of Him is through the everyday things of ordinary life.
For example, I was baking the challah for my fellowship group this morning and while I was kneading the dough, I learned something about how God kneads us into shape to be that 'broken bread and poured out wine' that serves others in the things of God.
Many people have a difficult time understanding the concept of how God can be three, yet One. Many attempts have been made to help people understand how God can be God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit, yet still be God as One. This is what the Lord showed me, and I hope it will help you to understand.
Picture an aged man sitting in His rocker on the porch of his home. His child is playing in the yard. Suddenly he hears a cry. The child has fallen and injured himself. The father rises up from his rocker, goes to the child, and stooping down, picks the child up, takes him back to the rocker, all the while speaking words of comfort and correction to the child.
Since WW2, the war that was supposed to end all wars, man has been trying to keep peace on earth. We have failed miserably. War is everywhere. If it isn’t between nation and nation, its between people and governments, between economy and economy, between families and individuals, between ideologies and isms, between body and mind, soul and spirit. The world is at war, has always been at war and will continue to be at war with itself until it comes to accept the one singular truth that unites us all.
That one singular truth is that in the sight of God we are all sinners and rebels against Him. Beneath skin colour, nationalities, cultures, traditions, languages; beneath social status, economic standing, skills, abilities and disabilities, we all have one thing in common, and it is that we are all sinners, and we are all in need of a Saviour.
We get the salvation part. We look for salvation in our relationships. We look for it in our careers. We look for it in our economic or social standing, in the promotions, the fame, the wealth or the financial security we try to accumulate. We look for it in our youth, in our children, in their futures. We look for it in healthcare, in social security nets, in economic, environmental, trade and foreign policies. We look for it in our governments and in our leaders … we are all looking for someone to save us from something we do not understand and can never seem to get a grip on. We just don’t get the Saviour part. We still believe we can save ourselves.
At some point, we are going to have to confront the foundational truth of our lives – we are our own worst enemies. The environment wouldn’t be in the state it is in if we weren’t doing to it what we do. Our economies wouldn’t be in the state they are in if it weren’t for our lusts, appetites, fears and greed. Our relationships on every level wouldn’t be in the mess they are in if we weren’t trying to force them to meet needs they were never intended to meet. We need to be saved from ourselves. We need a Saviour and we need a Saviour that can not only meet the need, but also resolve the problems we created through the wrongful ways we tried to get them met.
Jesus Christ is the only one that can do both. God created all men for communion with Him. Only He can meet that need He created in us. It is what separates us from the beasts of the field. God also knew we would all become sinners, living separated from Him, from His love, from His protection, from His goodness, from His guidance, mercy and grace. The difference between Him and all other so-called “saviours” is that He loved us enough to do something about it that actually resolved the problem.
He sent His Son Jesus Christ to die on the cross for our sins so He could forgive us and bring us back into His fold, back under His wings, back into His providential care. That His Son Jesus Christ is the only Saviour that was ever resurrected from the dead attests to the reality that God accepted His sacrifice and forgave us our sins. Our faith in His death and His resurrection as the atonement for our sins enables God to give the gift of His Holy Spirit to indwell us, to teach us, to lead us, to guide us and effectually deliver us from ourselves and the sin of self that so easily besets us; the sin that puts us in such conflict with God, with others and within ourselves.
God provided the only effectual Saviour for the condition that permeates all men. Jesus Christ effected the only means of salvation for that condition through shedding His blood for us and dying on the cross, charged as a blaspheming rebel against God, yet living and dying a holy and sinless Son of the eternal and Almighty God. And the Holy Spirit, the gift that forever keeps on giving to us, teaches us and makes the salvation that the one and only Saviour Jesus Christ died to provide for us, effectual.
The petty gods and goddesses, the idols and goals of this world will never bring you peace. They will not bring you joy, they will not bring anything but headaches and problems. And while you may be seemingly fortunate enough to never know need or be able to successfully avoid having to confront acknowledging you even have any, you will never find anyone or anything that will ever satisfy that emptiness, that ‘hole’, that missing ‘half’ that only God Himself can occupy and satisfy.
You can try. God knows we can and we will and we do. We try so hard we will kill ourselves and one another in the effort to prove Him wrong, but what do we gain in the end? What have we gained by it, but a planet quickly becoming so toxic it will soon be unfit for human occupation, by reason of environment or the toxicity of our relationships with one another.
If you want peace on earth, then you will first need to make your own peace with God. Acknowledge your rightful condition before Him as a sinner and rebel against Him and believe that Jesus Christ is the only one who can save you. Ask Him to do it. Ask Him to save you. Ask Him to give you His Holy Spirit to teach you, to guide you, to work out that salvation in you. Then let Him work in you to manifest that peace and love of God that only He can accomplish. Let Him touch the world with His love through you. Then and only then will we ever see “peace on earth.”