What can these two things possibly have in common? Our social media, that’s what.
Look at television, Twitter, FaceBook, movies, radio, Youtube, TV sitcoms…art imitates life, and the media is full of sexually sinful activities acceptable as normal (fornication, adultery, homosexuality, even necrophilia if we include dead people in love, as with the vampire movies that are so popular lately), cop shows are all over the TV listings and they show only the worst aspects of civilization, reality TV demonstrating the sickness of society: everything from hoarding to gross obesity to naked strangers in the woods, marriage at first sight (what could be more derogatory to this holy institution that that show?), etc.
The media shoves this drek and schmutz down our throats, stuffs it in our face and feeds it to us on a platter. And then! to add insult to injury, they make us sit through commercials that are little more than an insult to even the least intelligent of humankind. Now, here comes the tie-in to supply and demand: they are able to sell this stuff because the people want it. They can put anything they want in the media but if it doesn’t sell, i.e., if it isn’t popular with the audience, then the advertisers won’t endorse (meaning: pay for it) the show and it will go off the air. So, ergo, the drek we see is because that’s what we want- they supply what we demand.
And what’s the bottom line? Society is going to Sheol, in a handbasket! We are getting closer and closer to the total degradation of God’s creation. In the garden God put us in charge of the world and the animals, and what have we done to it? I don’t even have to answer that, do I? God also has given us commandments to follow in order that we become separated from this cursed world, and the vast majority of religions (remember- God doesn’t have any religion, only humans have religion) have taught their followers to ignore these commandments.
The “vast number” I am referring to, just so we understand each other, includes the Oriental religions such as Buddhism, Hinduism, also Islam (they do not follow the Torah), and just about every form of Christianity which, for the most part over the past two millennia, has taught that following the Torah is being “under the law” and after Jesus came it is not important and refers now only to the Jews.
God’s laws and His commandments, given to the Jewish people to make available as a lamp unto the world, has been rejected by the world. Basically, God said, “Here ya go- this is the way to live forever” and the world has said, “Thanks, but no thanks. We’ll make up our own rules. The Jews can keep it.”
So, let me get this straight- the Lord God Almighty, King of the Universe and Master of all there is, who created everything and is in total control of everything, who answers to nobody and whom no one can command, says to do something and we say no. And then, we expect to be accepted? Really?
Puh-leeze!!!
The good news is that the lower we sink, the worse society becomes, the more sinful and disgusting we are, the closer we get to the Acharit HaYamim, the End Days, the Final Judgement, the Lord’s Day!!
BTW…the Lord’s Day is not really the Sabbath. The Sabbath is a day for the Lord, meaning a day committed to honoring Him. The “Lord’s Day” is not a descriptive term, it is a possessive term, and throughout the Tanakh it refers to the Day of Judgement.
Therefore, in the midst of the garbage that we have to sift through every day as we read the paper, hear the news on the radio, watch the TV or the surf the Internet, remember that all this is leading to something wonderful. But also remember that we have to get through this without becoming a part of it. You can’t just walk through a cow field without stepping in something now and then, so we need to watch every step we take. We need to pray for discernment, look to the Ruach HaKodesh (Holy Spirit) for strength and guidance (it’s our spiritual GPS) and obey God’s Word- yes, I am talking about the Torah.
When we read about the stone which the builders have rejected we all think of Yeshua (Jesus), right? Well, what did John say Yeshua is? The Word that became flesh, and what is “the Word”? It’s the Torah! That is all there was when Yeshua walked the earth. That is all He taught from, and what the founding fathers of today’s “church” taught and obeyed.
Yeshua was, and is, the Living Torah, He is the rock rejected, so that means the prophecy about the world rejecting Yeshua means that the world will also reject Torah (which it has.) Now, if you have accepted Yeshua, then, by definition, you have accepted Torah! Therefore, if you say Yeshua is your Messiah, then you must follow the Torah, or you are a liar.
If you believe the Bible, if you have been brought up being told that the Old Covenant is for Jews and the New Covenant is for Christians, if you want to do as Jesus did, then understand this: Jesus said, over and over, that He did as the Father wanted Him to do, and the only instructions the Father gave to us was (and is) the Torah, so Jesus had to be following the Torah. If He didn’t do everything the Torah said to do, then (by definition of sin) He sinned! And if Jesus had sinned, He couldn’t be the sinless lamb of God, could He? And if He wasn’t blameless and without defect when He was crucified, then His sacrifice could not be accepted, and that means we have no hope, no salvation, no chance of ever being with God. And, ultimately, that would mean that God’s plan of salvation will need another Messiah.
Everything that Christianity is based on- Jesus being the Messiah, blameless and perfectly sinless so that His sacrificial death is the path to salvation- is a lie if Jesus isn’t the living Torah. And if Jesus is the living Torah, and we are to do as he did, then….well, if you haven’t figured it out by now, better stock up on sunscreen and aloe.
The Torah will not save you, mainly because no one can live totally in accordance with it. Forget about the sacrificial laws, just the moral and ceremonial laws and commandments are way beyond what any of us sinful humans can live up to. Yeshua, Jesus- He is our salvation. And that is because He did live the Torah perfectly.
But that is no excuse for ignoring Torah.
Please think about what I am saying. We cannot earn salvation, but we can earn blessings, and we earn blessings by doing as God says. No one can argue with that. That’s all I am saying: to do what God says you should do, you need to know what He says you should do! NOT what some human decreed as necessary.
There is only one place where God tells you what you should do, and it is not in the New Covenant because there is nothing ‘new’ in the New Covenant. You need to read and live according to both the Old and the New Covenants.
It is one book, we have only one God, and there is only one Messiah, Yeshua. .
I would quite agree
I’m still trying to figure all this out. I hear from some that we should follow the Torah. I hear from others that we are under grace and all of God’s promises are for us and then I am also being told that the gentiles are under a different “covenant” because what Paul taught was for the gentiles and what the apostles taught was for the Jews. And the promises other than heaven are for the Jews and not for us. Most give me scripture to back it up and most make sensible arguments. I’m sooooooo confused!
Yeshua said, “Seek and ye shall find.” I have discovered that this means, to some extent, that when we determine first what we want the bible to say, we can always find something in there to justify our desired “fact” and that is why it is so confusing.
Search my site for ‘circles of context’ and you should get some blogs regarding how to interpret the bible. You need to see each verse within the context of the paragraph, who it is written by and to whom, and also hermeneutically within the entire bible and within the cultural context, as well. And let me tell you, Shaul (Paul) is constantly misunderstood. Romans has become, for those who reject Torah as valid, a polemic against Torah, but it is, in fact, an apologetic. Same with Hebrews.
The Torah is a compilation of laws, rules, regulations, and history. It is a marriage certificate (Ketuba) between God and people, a state constitution, a penal code, and a history book. It is everything we need to know about what God wants from us.
The answer I give people who say Torah is not for Gentiles is simply this: it’s up to you what you do, but remember that you will be held accountable for what you do, whether someone else tells you to do it or you decide on your own. We all need to read the entire bible and let the Ruach (Spirit) lead us to decide how we will worship God. And if anyone decides to be a Buffet Believer (pick and choose what you want from the bible) then they will have to explain why they did that to God.
When I take out the subtle anti-Semitic intonations in the New Covenant writings, I do not see anything “new” there. Even the covenant itself that tells us about Yeshua is in the Tanakh (Jeremiah 31:31). Everything that the Apostles wrote about is found in the Torah and associated books of the Old Covenant. Yeshua says in Matthew 5:17 He did not come to change the law but fulfil it, which in the cultural context of that day means to properly interpret it, not complete it or do away with it, as many Christian teachings have said.
Yeshua said He represents the Father in heaven, right? That same Father who told everyone “here are my laws”. If God says these are the laws, then those ARE the laws! That’s it. Who can say to God that His laws don’t apply to me? Did Yeshua ever say, even once, even imply that we should disobey the Torah? Did Paul ever say Torah was useless and not good? No- Paul and the writer of Hebrews do say that Torah is being done away with and will be replaced, but they are using future tense and referring to after the final tribulation. Once the new covenant Jeremiah talks about (it’s also in Joel) is complete, the end days are past and the new heaven and earth are here, then the Torah will be written on our hearts. There will be no need for Torah as we have now. Paul said that the Torah is a guardian and when we are grown we will not need a guardian. We aren’t grown yet, so until you are perfect in God’s eyes, as Yeshua is, then you still need Torah. We all do. It’s the ultimate User’s Manual.
The Replacement Theologists say the Jews are out, God has forsaken them and that the Christians (meaning them) are the “Israel of God” that Paul talks about at the end of Galatians. But that is totally against what God says, so they are calling God a liar. Well, we all know who calls God a liar, and I wouldn’t want to work for him.
You need to just make up your mind- God gave the Torah to the Jews, and the Jews are supposed to be the priests to the world, right? That is pretty clear in the bible. So, if the Jews have Torah as their guide, and they are supposed to guide the world, then who can argue that Torah is NOT valid and needed to guide the world? It just don’t make sense, do it? Torah was given to us by God and it is what God says we are to follow. Yeshua followed the Torah- if He didn’t then he wasn’t perfect, couldn’t be an acceptable sacrifice and therefore our salvation is a lie. I don’t buy that because He was risen from the dead, so His sacrifice was accepted, so He had to have been a perfect sacrifice, without blemish, so He did live in accordance with Torah! Front to back or back to front: no one who reads and believes the bible, either one (although it is one book), can argue that Yeshua lived according to Torah.
Yeshua said that no house divided against itself can survive, right? And Yeshua also said that when we see Him we see His Father in heaven, also right? So, ipso factor ergo summa cum laude…..if Yeshua is a living example of the living God, then what He did when He walked the earth is what we should do, and (as we have proven above) Yeshua lived in accordance with Torah, so…we should live in accordance with the Torah, too.
If you want to do as Yeshua did, and want to please God, and want blessings on earth, then it is absolutely clear that the more you live in accordance with the Torah, the closer you will come to accomplishing that goal.
Don’t let anyone tell you what to do, not Pastor, not Rabbi, not me, not nobody. Make up your own mind because no matter what you do or why you do it, you WILL be held accountable.
As for me, I would rather know that I made my own decisions and not that someone else made them for me. And if I follow the Torah, then I can’t possibly not please God. If I choose not to follow Torah because some religious person said I shouldn’t anymore, well…what sense does that make?
The only reason people don’t follow the Torah is because they don’t want to. There is nothing anywhere in the bible, between Genesis and Revelations, that says following the Torah is bad. What Paul talks about is the thought that by following the Torah we can be saved. Now, here’s the kicker: we can be saved if we live every second of our entire life in total accordance with the Torah. But we can’t- that’s what confuses people. The Torah is what we should be doing, but we can’t, and that is why Yeshua came to earth. He is the “Get Out of Hell Free” card that let’s us escape the punishment we all deserve for failing to do as God says, for sinning.
Torah is the way we should live, but can’t because we are sinful and rebellious. Each person is that way, to their own extent: some more so, some less so, but we all are sinners who cannot live perfectly in accordance with Torah.
That’s no excuse to not try.
Shelly, its a journey. I was there. It takes literally being transformed by the renewing of your mind, because Hebraic thought is very different from Western American thought which insists that if one thing is true than the other must be false. This is not always the case. However, it was the land and language that the God of Abraham Isaac and Jacob used to write the Word; both the written word and the Word that was slain before the foundation of the world (case in point). =)
There is no Jew or gentile in Messiah. Christianity is the example of a movement/religion that has rejected the Torah and Judiasm is an example of a movement/religion without Messiah.
However, God is very specific about His love and heart for Israel, both natural born Israel and those grafted in through the Messiah. The good news is that we don’t have to judge another’s salvation and that is up to God to do as He wills with it. We are responsible for what we know, and if Jesus the Messiah has revealed Himself to you, then you work out your salvation from there. He will show you, just ask Him to tear down whatever constructs you may have that are not of Him and His word, that were placed by popular cultural worldviews and He will bring clarity that will ease the confusion. He is a God of order. Just do what you can to drown out what is not of God and He will reveal His heart to you, also known as the Torah!
Here here !! Well said.