Edition 47. 1st August 2010

In this edition:

●What is a Messianic believer?

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What is a Messianic believer?

Beware, this may be revolutionary to you! It may challenge and change much in your life...for the better! It may also cause you to reject it all and set yourself as an enemy of God!

To many this will be a fearful, unwelcome intrusion into their traditional ways, to others this will be an exciting adventure of new discovery, with God leading the way. To yet others, this will be a confirmation of what God is already doing in their lives.

Is this just another name to add to the array of titles we have today? No, its the name and description you are likely to be hearing a lot more of in the future.

Definition:

A true Messianic believer is one who accepts and embraces the Abrahamic expression of truth. Simply put; Abraham was the father of many Gentile nations and the Jews. This is how the thread goes: Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Israel, Yeshua / Jesus, Jewish and Gentile believers in Messiah.

The Roman-based thread, evident in most of modern Christendom is far off the mark and has picked up enormous amounts of pure error and occult activities on the way. It began in 300AD with many occult practices brought into Christianity by Constantine, which were later added to and entrenched into the Catholic church which began in 600AD. This plunged the world into the dark ages. Most of these terrible occult-founded errors have filtered right through into much of Christendom and are a major stumbling block in the way of the Jew coming to salvation. Yes "Christ crucified" is the major stumbling block of the Jews coming to salvation. That's of their own making, but there are many who have put additional stumbling blocks in their way.

Throughout the dark ages the Catholic church resisted the Jews. It persecuted and murdered  them (Inquisitions.) This later turned into full- blown replacement theology, which essentially teaches that the church has replaced Israel whom God has now rejected and is finished with. Replacement theology also denies the truth that God has a specific plan for the Jews, Jerusalem and the land of Israel in these days. This polluted, erroneous doctrine of replacement theology in it's various forms has clouded most of Christendom, and has resulted in a slant and flavour of Christianity that replaces the Hebraic flavour of Christianity with the Rome/ Babylon/ occult stench.

The diagram below shows the deviation. (Read from bottom up)

The thread of truth would obviously pick up a Hebraic flavour along the way. Its traditions, convocations, feasts, and practices would be those sanctioned in the Bible. For example there is no such thing as the Jewish feasts. They are called the feasts of the Lord and should be carried over into our era. The feasts of the Lord are for the Lord's people...all of them.

Messianic believers consist of Messianic Jews and Messianic Gentiles. You will see these two bandied about a lot. Both are legitimate. The Messianic Jew is a Jew who has recognised Yeshua / Jesus. A Messianic Gentile believer would be a term for a Gentile who is saved, but identifies with the Abrahamic expression of truth.

Most Jews who come to salvation, recognising Yeshua / Jesus as Lord and Messiah have an enormous problem of identity soon afterwards. They don't want to be called Christians, because the church is so foreign to them. They can't fit in with rabbinic Judaism anymore, so who are they and where do they fit in?

The Jews know that Babylon represents imprisonment, exile, rejection. Why would they now want to join the modern church, which is filled with Babylonian practices? Assimilation into the institutionalised, organised church for Messianic Jews is impossible. The church today has a blind spot and suspicion of Messianic Jews. They fear that they are revived Judaisers who will rob them of their traditions and identity.

They are quite a small group at this stage, but they will grow very fast in the near future. Messianic Jews are part of the Messianic movement of God. The Messianic Gentile arm is the other. Both are gloriously reconciled as one in Messiah.

The Messianic expression goes much further and roots out the traditions of Rome. Many of the traditional practises of the the church of Rome come directly from the occult practises of Babylon: Some of these include: The exaltation of the virgin Mary. (She was no virgin after Jesus and prayer to her is no different than praying to a leaf on a tree). The practice or participation in Easter, Christmas, lent and others, which are rooted in the occult.

A big and evil tradition is infant sprinkling, called baptism. It has with it the belief that a baby is freed from the power of original sin and becomes an eternal church member at the point of sprinkling. This tradition originates in Babylon. The pagan priest would put the mark of Tammuz on the baby's forehead by sprinkling water and fluids on the kid's head. The pagan priest would pray to the child-god Nimrod -Tammuz while performing the ritual. He would also come up with a name for the child he was 'anointing'  There is no example in the scriptures of infant sprinkling.

The Biblical truth is full adult immersion. The original word for baptise is 'baptismo' which is associated with burial. You don't sprinkle some dirt on a coffin. You immerse it totally in the ground. Coming up out of the baptism water is a type of resurrection or new life. In every single Biblical example only adults are baptised.

The modern church today, has, with few exceptions, blindly adopted many of these occult -formed traditions.

Mark 7:13 "You nullify the word of God and make it of no effect by your traditions handed down."

Torah observance:

There is a big debate and unfortunately a division between those who insist on full Torah observance and those who recognise it, but not in a legalist way. I have no problem with those (mostly Jews) who keep Torah, but I do have a problem with those who try to make others especially Gentiles do the same.

Let's have a look at what the Bible teaches and note I am using the New Testament epistles, which is the main teaching for the church:

Romans 14:1-6 "Receive one who is weak in faith, but not to disputes about doubtful things, for one believes he may eat all things, but he who is weak eats only vegetables. Let not him who eats despise him who doesn't, for God receives both. One person esteems one day above another and another esteems every day alike. He who observes the day observes it to the Lord and he who does not also does so to the Lord. Let us not put a stumbling block in our brother's way (vs13)

The above portion of scripture is very plain and clear. It teaches that doing things in a legalistic manner, shows weak faith, but it also legitimises choice for those who want to go that way. The verse does however teach that those who don't want to keep days, must do so unto the Lord. In other words, they would still have a recognition of these things.

Galatians 4:10, 11 "After you have known God, or rather are known by God, how is it that you turn again to the weak and beggarly elements, to which you desire again to be in bondage? You observe days, months, seasons and years. I am afraid for you, lest I have laboured in vain."

The whole context of Galatians is freedom from legalism. Paul is not forbidding the observance of these things here. It's doing these things in a legalist way, that's the problem.

Colossians 2: 16, 17 "Let no one judge you in food or drink or regarding a festival or a new moon or sabbaths, which are a shadow of things to come, but the substance is of Christ.

Mark chapters 2 and 3 speak of our Lord doing things on the Sabbath that were supposedly unlawful. "Is it lawful to do good on the Sabbath?" He asks the Pharisees. Mark 3:6 "Then the Pharisees went out and plotted how they might destroy Him."

Please note one very important thing here. Our Lord Himself did not keep the letter of the law in the way that the Pharisees expected. And the result was that they wanted to kill Him. This is exactly the same thing that we see all over the place today in most religious circles. Legalism produces a pride that looks down on others that don't see or do things exactly their way. "The letter (of the law) kills, but the Spirit gives life." (2 Corinthians 3:6) Romans 14 above says we are to "receive one who is weak in faith, not kill them!

Both Jews and Gentiles trapped in legalism are often extremely condemnatory of anyone who doesn't keep their laws their way.

What then do we do with special days?:

1 Corinthians 5:7,8 "Christ who is our Passover was sacrificed for us, therefore let us keep the feast..."

Acts 18:21 "I must by all means keep this coming feast in Jerusalem, but I will return again to you."

Acts 16:13; 20:6 "And on the Sabbath day we went out of the city to the riverside, where prayer was customarily made..."

1 Corinthians 16:8 "I will tarry in Ephesus until Pentecost."

The above verses (and there are others) most certainly do teach about observing certain days like the Sabbath, Passover and the feasts. Do we now have a contradiction to deal with? No not at all. We need to at least recognise these days and set them apart from others. We need to identify with the Biblical meanings and messages behind these days, but we do not need to become legalistic in our practises.

I know of a number of Messianic congregations that have a Shabbat celebration on Friday evenings.

Key beliefs:

The true Messianic believer accepts the ultimate prophetic word and destiny for Israel and the Jews (both the land and the people). The destiny of Jerusalem is brought out in Isaiah 62:7 "It will become a praise in all the earth." But before this it will become the bone of contention and "stumbling stone over which the nations will fall." (Zechariah 12:3).

The church today has taken the Jewish fruit and rejected the Jewish root and replaced it with the root of an imposter.

The true Messianic believer will embrace a Hebraic expression of worship and fellowship and steer clear of both Jewish legalism and Christian occult-born traditions. The Messianic believer will have the truth set before him and be one who is 'arrested' by the truth, led and enlightened by the Spirit of God.

The Gentile believer:

Israel is called to bless the nations and the nations are called to bless Israel. But what is brewing now is another Holocaust caused brought on by the Gentile nations.

The job of the Gentile believer is to "provoke the Jew to jealousy", not to tell them that God has finished with them. The New Testament epistles teach that the gospel is to go to the Jew first and the Gentile! (Romans 1:16)

We are very close to a very big paradigm shift where the "times of the Gentiles" will be up! It is then that the Bible declares "all Israel will be saved." and then the Messiah will return.

Beware of the very severe warnings in the Revelation to the churches. Revelation 2: 5 to the church at Ephesus: "Repent or your lampstand will be removed." The church of Thyatira in Revelation 2:22 is told that they will be "cast into great tribulation unless they repent". and in Revelation 3: 16 the church of Laodicea is told that because they are lukewarm, God will "spew them out of His mouth."

The non- Messianic church has failed in it's God given role to make the Jews jealous and to aim the gospel at the Jew and the Gentile. It needs deep repentance and change of direction and course.

It's interesting that the Bible speaks of a veil of blindness over the Jews, which will be lifted soon. At the same time the church has it's own veil of blindness to deal with as well.

The ultimate glorious Messianic believer:

The Revelation of Jesus Christ contains within it messages to seven churches. These messages have a historic context to them as well a present and a future prophetic aspect to them. In fact there is a marvellous plot of the whole church age contained in them. The last few are very important.

The church at Philadelphia is the church of glory! The Messianic believer is fully identified within Philadelphia!

This church is the only one of the seven without one word of condemnation levelled against it by our Lord.

This church holds the "key of David" which is explained in Isaiah 22:21, 22 "He shall be a father to the inhabitants of Jerusalem and the house of Judah. The key of David I will lay on his shoulder." So we see here that this church has an identity, involvement and heart for the Jews. This church is commended because it "keeps the word". This church is also told that those of the "synagogue of Satan will come and bow down to them." This would be a reference to the rabbinic Jews who reject Yeshua  /Jesus. This church is told that because they have "kept the word they will be kept from the hour of  hour of trial that will come upon the whole world."

This is clearly a Messianic church, being involved with Israel, Jerusalem, the Jews and keeping the word, which also implies not keeping occult traditions.

The good news and glory of today is that more and more believers are finding that they are misfits. Their churches have failed them, deceived them and let them down. The Spirit of the living God is making them uncomfortable with traditional, institutionalised churchianity. They are looking for and finding a powerful new identity with God's miraculous work with Messianic believers, both Jew and Gentile. This work of God cannot be stopped!

Some important points:

Romans 11 uses the olive tree as an analogy. In a nutshell, it speaks of Gentiles as the wild olive branch being grafted into the tree, while the natural branches, the Jews are cut off for unbelief. But then Gentiles are warned that they will also be cut off if they reject or come against God's new work of re-grafting the natural branches (Jews) back in to their tree.

Romans 11:25, 26 Brethren, I don't you want you to be ignorant of this mystery, lest you should be wise in your own opinion, that hardening in part has happened to Israel, until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in and so all Israel will be saved."

Ezekiel 39:22 "The whole house of Israel shall know that I am the Lord their God from that day forward. The Gentiles shall know that the house of Israel went into captivity for their iniquity; therefore I hid My face from them..."Now I will bring back the captives of Jacob and have mercy on the whole house of Israel;...for I shall pour out My Spirit on the house of Israel and will not hide My face from them anymore."

Zechariah 9:23 "In those days ten men from every nation (Gentiles) shall grasp the sleeve of a Jewish man saying "Let us go with you, for we have heard that God is with you."

Isaiah 60: 1,3 "Arise shine for your (Jews) light has come and the glory of the Lord is risen upon you...the Gentiles shall come to your light."

Ezekiel 20: 41 "I will accept you as a sweet aroma when I bring you out from the peoples...and I will be hallowed in you before the Gentiles, Then you shall know that I am the Lord, when I bring you back to your land, Israel."

Ezekiel 37: 23 teaches that in the re-gathering and coming salvation of the Jews they "will not defile themselves with idols, nor detestable things". This would obviously include the occult traditions of the Gentile church.

Acts 15:20 "Abstain from things polluted by idols" What a far reaching and powerful verse!

These amazing verses teach that God's grace in about to swing to the Jews. Messianic Gentile believers will recognise, welcome and accept this fully, while the traditionalists will grow in dangerous deception and ultimately come against this work of God.

Shocking views of intelligent Christians:

I was talking with one educated individual on these things a while ago. He says: "Why should the Jews deserve salvation, they crucified Jesus and God has rejected them." I said, "no they didn't crucify Him...you did!" The truth is that He gave His life up willingly for all of us. I then asked this guy if he thought that he deserved salvation? He then saw that he was trapped! This highly intelligent turkey had just blindly accepted oceans of erroneous thinking. Most of which is deeply entrenched in the church and an obstacle in the way of the Jews coming to salvation.

A church pastor I spoke with some time ago said to me that God was finished with the Jews. If some get saved they must be become fully Christian and join the church and participate in it's traditions and practises. The ignorance of this is just so incredible!

There is a shocking number of Christian leaders, who are ignorant of the scriptures. All they do is regurgitate what they have been taught.

There is a view out there that all Christians are "spiritual Jews" This is rubbish and makes a mockery of a great many portions of scripture. This is based on the allegorical method of interpretation, which enables you to make the Bible say what you want!

Summary:

The Catholic church and its offshoots have created an intimidating and fearful place for the Jews, instead of   provoking them to jealousy. Why is the salvation of the Jews at large important? Simply because "When all Israel is saved then the Messiah returns. And of course there are hundreds of passages of scripture revealing that the Jews will be saved en-mass in the time period running up to the second coming.

The Messianic congregation offers a welcoming safe haven and home for Jews where they can fit in comfortably, while steering clear from the entrapments of legalism and the occult.

If you're a Gentile Christian you don't need to become a Jew. If you're a Jewish believer you don't need to become a regular church member. If you are either you must flee from an identity with occult based traditions and practises.

The Messianic church is one that has an identity with, involvement with, and heart for the Jews, Israel, Jerusalem and God's plan for the Jews that are still lost. If your church has no little interest in these things in it's teachings, worship and fellowship, it is not a Messianic church.

This doesn't mean that a church needs to go overboard on these things either. The Abrahamic expression is to both the Jew and Gentile.

If your church is neutral toward these things, it is also an enemy of our Lord! Yeshua / Jesus says "If you are not for Me, you are against Me." The term "for Me" here is an active term!

Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying traditional non-Messianic churches are not saved or anything like that. I am saying that they're in danger!

Today there is a paradigm shift on the go. Many believers are unhappy and unfulfilled in their dying dinosaur churches as the Spirit of God moves in their own personal lives. Many will continue as blind followers of blind guides. At the same time, many are leaping for joy in their new identity in and with God's present new move. It's like when the two pregnant women, Mary and Elizabeth met. Unborn John the Baptist "leapt for joy" as he 'recognised' the unborn Messiah, and King of the universe in front of him, still in Mary's womb!

The answer:

You would be a dumb turkey if you went and asked a second hand car salesman if it's okay to buy one of his second hand cars! You need to get an outside opinion. Don't go and ask your nice priest in his nice frock if all of this is true or not. Go to our great Lord and God. He will show you.

The King of the Jews

There is a big difference between giving intellectual accent to something and actually doing it and putting it into practise.

Many Christians are afraid of this, just as Jews are afraid of the church. They think that they will have to start obeying all sorts of laws religiously. Well, as you can see the truth is not in keeping laws to make an angry God smile on you, but it's a matter of recognition, identification and a new way of thinking.

It's all about truth, your own heart and your life's desire. It's not about keeping on going in the bus that's headed over the cliff. If your heart is really after our Lord and you desire Him and His truth with an all encompassing passion. He will lead you. He will show you, but you need to be open for a God-created revolution!

The real glory is that in Messiah, Jew and Gentile will be gloriously united in grace and truth. Actually there will also be large numbers of Arabs that will come into the Kingdom as well pretty soon.

Messianic Resources:

http://www.messianicdirectory.info/ This is a comprehensive resource base for all things Messianic. We are listed here also.

http://jerusalemcouncil.org/articles/community/list-of-messianic-congregations/ This is a list of all the known Messianic congregations in the world.

http://www.messianictimes.com/ Good general news site

http://www.givengain.com/cgi-bin/giga.cgi?cmd=cause_dir_cause&cause_id=1507 This site is called Messianic Good news and that's just what it is.

http://www.inthedays.com/ Good Messianic news blog

Ephesians 2: 14,15 "For He Himself is out peace who has made both one and has broken down the middle wall of division between us, having abolished in His flesh the enmity, that is the law of commandments, contained in ordinances, so as to create in Himself one new man from the two, thus making peace."

Heaven or hell:

Old rabbi, who are you raising your hands to? You would say, "to the Messiah". Well do you know who your Messiah is? It's none other than the Jew of all Jews Yeshua / Jesus. Yes raise your hands to your soon coming Messiah, but if you don't recognise that He has been here before and died for your sins, you will go to hell. You must accept His sacrifice for you at His first coming to be able to meet Him again.

Young girl, some very exciting times are coming. God is doing a new work in this world in this day. Are you ready? Are you going to go the way of the majority and the way of traditionalism? Are you going to melt into the everlasting arms of our glorious saviour, the King of the Jews and the Gentiles and the Arabs? Don't wait to make up your mind, you may not have the time you think! These are monumental life changing issues, don't hesitiate!

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Marc Chagall was a Russian Jewish artist who became a believer later in life. His paintings are wonderfully playful and today sell for many millions. This one is entitled "Christ in the clock" It's rich with symbolism as most of his painting are. There are varied interpretations of this painting, but here is one. Christ crucified is a stumbling block to the Jew (lying on his back) The clock represents advancing time and the pendulum fish represents the church. Time is running out for the church and the time of God's favour is about to awaken the Jew. Why is there a horse floating in the sky? Well of course that's because he was an artist and therefore a touch mad.

Kind regards and many blessings...Shalom and grow in grace!