Olive Tree Image

Olive Tree Image
Now these things happened to them as an example, and they were written for our instruction,
upon whom the ends of the ages have come.

1 Corinthians 10:11 (NASB95)

Wednesday, February 18, 2009

Q. How did the Bible and its doctrines get perverted from their original meanings?

A To answer that question I will start from the beginning and try to give a short history and hopefully some perspective on what happened. This is by no means an attack on people or any organization, but a “post mortem” on what exactly occurred. Because we are so many centuries removed from the original intent and study the Scriptures from a western perspective, our understanding of the Bible is very off. It’s not like we can go up to Peter and Paul and ask them what happened. We have to reconstruct the events based on an understanding of history. To understand, I will try to put what happened into a Jewish setting. We know from Genesis that God created the earth as a home for man, who was created in God’s image and given dominion over the earth. Adam eventually sinned and man was lost spiritually, including his role as “ruler” over the earth. God instituted His plan to restore man and creation by providing a kinsman redeemer , a “go’el”, who would be filled with the Ruach ha Kodesh (Holy Spirit) and restore man. This redeemer would be known as the “mashiach” or messiah because he was anointed by the Holy Spirit. This messiah would come to earth about four thousand years after creation, preaching the “basar” or good news concerning man’s restoration, and be killed unjustly. But, God would accept his death, raise him from the dead and by doing so, redeem mankind. Fifty days after Yeshua’s resurrection, the Holy Spirit fell on believers at the Feast of Shavuot (Pentecost), fulfilling what was promised by the prophets. These first believers were all Jewish and they maintained a Jewish life-style in their walk with God. Their faith was centered on Yeshua and they remained active in synagogues and the Temple. In Acts 10, a Roman centurion named Cornelius was saved and the basar, or gospel, was now open to gentiles, much to the surprise of the Jewish believers. Their understanding of the Great Commision was to go into all the world and make Jews out of the gentiles who believed. As a result, major changes began to take place. These gentile believers who left paganism were known as “phoubemenoi” or Godfearers and are not really understood by most Bible scholars even today. They observed the Sabbath and biblical festivals, they ate biblically kosher and followed many Jewish customs. The Torah defined how these people were to be treated and how they were to live. Observance of these laws had nothing to do with salvation and never did. The scriptures defined their faith and practice.

Well, needless to say, many problems began to arise between Judaism of the time and these gentile believers. God raised up Rav Shaul, or the Apostle Paul, to confront these situations and to lay down guidelines so that these two groups could get along. These principles can be found in his epistles. Belief in Yeshua was everywhere in and outside of the land of Israel during the first century. But, at the same time more and more gentiles came to believe as well, and their numbers began to “outweigh” the Jewish believers. In so doing, their opinions began to affect the decisions being made in the congregations outside of Israel. So, during the next 200 years or so the faith that began to develop did not resemble the faith Paul taught and that remains true today. The epistles warned that this would happen. In A.D. 66, Paul died and at the same time Israel revolted against Rome. Jerusalem and the Temple were destroyed and congregations in the empire underwent massive changes. To support the Jewish people was seen as unpatriotic and the gentile influence began to get stronger and stronger. Anti- Jewish sentiments ran strong, not only politically but spiritually. But, Jews still became believers but pressure was building against them from several directions. First, non-believing Jews didn’t like the power they had, non-believing gentiles didn’t like anything Jewish and then believing gentiles came in with a bias towards anything Jewish anyway, much like today. In 116 A.D. another war broke out between Rome and the Jewish people and they were nearly wiped out in Alexandria, further weakening the Jewish position in spiritual matters. Then, a final war broke out in 135 A.D. where a Jewish leader named Bar Kochba was actually declared the messiah. Well, Jewish believers in Yeshua would have no part in supporting a false messiah. As a result, these Jewish believersrefused to fight and were called traitors and a bitter separation occurred between mainstream Judaism and Jewish believers. They were driven out of the synagogues for good and left on their own. Hadrian, the Roman emperor, destroyed the Jewish army and virtually the nation. Anti-Jewish sentiments were encouraged and even seen as politically correct in the empire resulting in turning the people away from anything considered Jewish. By 325 A.D. religious issues were very fractured and many views prevailed because the people had been ignoring the faith given by God as found the Scriptures. Anyone who had an opinion could get a following, but they all agreed to avoid the Jewish concepts, festivals and customs. A man named Constantine became Caesar and saw the opportunity to unite these factions into a state religion. He called a council at Nicea to discuss these issues, but did not invite one Jewish leader. Constantine said he wanted to “root out the last vestiges of Judaism” and that’s exactly what he did. Laws were passed forbidding Jews to circumcise their children, it was illegal to keep the 7th day Sabbath as found in the Scriptures. Jews were “forced” into becoming like the gentiles. Pagan festivals such as Easter, Christmas replaced the biblical ones. Sunday replaced the Sabbath and so on. Not only were the Jewish believers gone, but so were the “phoubemenoi”, or gentile believers who had joined themselves to Israel. The faith was now a different religion. Western concepts, theologies, practices replaced the faith once delivered to the saints. It was now a gentile religion. Jews had to give up keeping the Torah to be accepted in the congregations now dominated by western, gentile thought and it largely remains that way today. But, God has always had a remnant of Jewish and non-Jewish believers that have sounded a warning down through the centuries. Today, this number is growing and God by His Spirit is calling both groups out of these man-made religions back to Himself and showing them how to live and walk in faith before Him. The numbers are growing and many Christian leaders and teachers are seeing what happened and are writing books and teaching the Jewish roots again and people are responding in greater numbers to this call to “come out of her” and I am thankful to the Lord that we can play a small role in that movement in Ellis County. But, it is not a call to another religion but to a right relationship with the Lord by faith in Yeshua, and then learning to walk in the faith once delivered to the saints so long ago. We have a long way to go, but with the Lord’s help, we are on our way. I hope this answers your question and will give you a better idea of what happened. As Paul Harvey says, “Now you know the rest of the story!”

Monday, February 2, 2009

A pastor has been teaching that Jews who don’t believe in Yeshua will not be judged to eternal damnation because they are God's chosen people...

Q. A San Antonio mega-church pastor has been teaching that Jews who don’t believe in Yeshua will not be judged to eternal damnation because they are God’s chosen people-what is the truth? (Joe)

A. This teaching is called the Plural Covenant or also known as the Dual Covenant. This teaching basically says that the New Testament applies to Gentiles, including Yeshua’s atoning blood and that the Jewish people relate to God through the Old Testament or the Abrahamic Covenant. This has been around a long time and certainly the pastor isn’t the first one to teach it, but it is not true and is very destructive at its core. It tells the Jewish people they don’t need to have faith in Yeshua. Now that may make some of them feel better, but it is not what the Scriptures, Old or New Testament, teach. Yeshua was sent to Israel and they did not believe. Acts 2 is all about Jews believing in Yeshua and getting saved. The gospel was sent to the Jew first, and then the Gentile. It was sent to the Jews first because they should have known the Scriptures and the signs that Messiah had come, and they in turn were to be a light to the Gentiles and bring this truth to the nations. And so the teaching that Jews don’t need to believe in Yeshua for salvation is just not biblical and I find it hard to believe that anyone who reads the Bible could draw such a conclusion, unless there was another agenda. I know of several prominent teachers who believe this and they all have one thing in common, they need the favor of the Jewish rabbi’s to further what they believe God called them to do. Well, if you taught that these rabbis and leaders need God you aren’t going to sell many books or have any access to the leaders in Israel, so they compromise the truth in order to further what they want to do. Most of you who read this article know that there are many Scriptures that refute the teaching of the Plural Covenant but there are many who accept it because their pastor or favorite teacher believes it. But, all have sinned and have fallen short of the glory of God and there are none righteous, not one. The main concern in the first century wasn’t whether Jews needed to be saved in the name of Yeshua, but where did the Gentiles fit in to all of it. How the times have changed. Now the Gentiles are telling the Jews they don’t need Yeshua because they have the Abrahamic Covenant. But don’t you think that Yeshua and Paul understood the Abrahamic covenant, and if they did, why did they insist that the Jewish people needed to accept Yeshua to be saved?. They spent a lot of time getting this truth to Israel and those that opposed it killed them for it. Well, teachers today don’t want their ministries ”killed” because then they couldn’t lead tours to Israel, have access to political leaders, be able to finance television programs, sell books on prophecy, be invited to all the big Bible conferences and so on, so they tell the Jewish people things that won’t offend them, and the fact that Yeshua was crucified under the careful eye of Jewish religious leaders is very embarrassing, so this teaching is a perverted way of making everybody happy. It’s just wrong and if anyone teaches it they are dead wrong. In a way, it’s a satanic trick to make sure more Jews die unsaved, and I want no part of it. So, in short, this teaching is unbiblical and should be opposed if you ever are confronted by it. For more information on this, just go to the Internet and do a Google search on the Plural Covenant or Dual covenant to get more information. Thanks for the question.

What do you think about the Mayan calendar and its prediction for something very disastrous happening to the earth in 2012?

A. Quite frankly, I don’t spend much time being concerned with what the Mayans thought or their calendar, and here’s why. First, they were pagans and didn’t know God so their predictions were not being inspired by the Holy Spirit. Secondly, true prophecy is found in the Jewish prophets found in our Bibles. People need to be studying the Scriptures, not what some ancient people said who didn’t know the Lord. There is nothing in the Bible that specifically points to 2012 and we already know that date setting just isn’t God’s style. He gives signs along the way, and confirms His word, but He didn’t reveal anything through the Mayans and so I would discount their prediction, which is nothing but astrology anyway and we know we are not to listen to pagan prognosticators. But some might say that other pagan predictions came true in the past, or bring up Nostradamus or someone. To that I say this, they have to be correct 100% of the time to be considered from God, and they weren’t. A broken clock is right twice a day, too, but that doesn’t mean it works.