Who are we to believe in? pt 6

So the question that still is out there is this: is Jesus God? Is Yeshua YHVH? And if He is, then the next question is an obvious one: how does that impact the way we worship and live our lives? To remind each of us, Hebrews 13:8 says, “Jesus Christ the same yesterday, and to day, and for ever.” So if yesterday was before the world was created, then this tells us He has never changed.

If Jesus, who we know brought truth and grace to the world, is the same God that rained fire and brimstone down on Sodom and Gommorah, and later on in Leviticus 18 called homosexuality an abomination, then it still is an abomination, and all that practice homosexuality will not enter heaven. If Jesus is the same God that rejected His called and chosen one, King Saul, after Saul repeatedly refused to follow the His commandments, then He will reject anyone He has called and chosen that repeatedly refuses to follow His commandments. If Jesus is the same God that used the Babylonians to discipline His followers, then He can use other sinners to discipline His followers now. If Jesus is the Same God that gave His Law and commanded all to obey this Law or suffer discipline even up to death, then, since He has not changed, He still commands us to obey the commandments of His Law or suffer the same.

Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord. Abraham found grace in the eyes of the Lord. Moses, David, Elijah, and others including a harlot named Rahab all found grace in the eyes of the Lord. If Jesus is that Lord, then if they could find grace, and mercy, then we too can find grace and mercy. I Jesus is the Lord, then He can not show favoritism towards us and not towards Israel. If He required something of them, then He requires it of us. If He treated them one way, He has to treat us the same or that is unbalanced scales and showing favoritism.

Jesus and the Father are one. For us to reject Jesus, we have rejected God. For us to reject God, then we have rejected Jesus. By us saying that the God of the Tanach and Jesus are different, because Jesus brings grace and mercy, then we have rejected God because He is not the loving, merciful, gracious one, and because we have rejected one, we reject both.

By not knowing who it is we are calling on, then are we calling on the right person? By rejecting one for the other, if the are both the same, then are we not rejecting both? Jesus is looked upon as the one who is merciful, loving, and has done away with the law. But Jesus is God, and therefore God is merciful, loving, and still has His law. For those that say that there was one Sacrifice for all sins, then why does Scripture talk about making Sacrifices?

“Be ye therefore followers of God, as dear children; and walk in love, as Christ also hath loved us, and hath given Himself for us an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweetsmelling savour. But fornication, and all uncleanness, or covetousness, let it not be once named among you, as becometh saints; neither filthiness, nor foolish talking, nor jesting, which are not convenient: but rather giving of thanks. For this ye know, that no whoremonger, nor unclean person, nor covetous man, who is an idolater, hath any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and of God.” (Ephesians 5:1-5) Here in Ephesians chapter 5, Paul tells us to imitate God and to walk in love as Christ loved us, and then says that Christ offered Himself up as a sacrifice. Following this, Paul lists the things we must sacrifice so as to imitate God and walk in love as Christ did.

In Philippians, Paul twice talks about sacrifices. “Yea, and if I be offered upon the sacrifice and service of your faith, I joy, and rejoice with you all. . .But I have all, and abound: I am full, having received of Epaphroditus the things which were sent from you, an odour of a sweet smell, a sacrifice acceptable, wellpleasing to God.” (Philippians 2:17; 4:18) The first time Paul is talking about how he may be offered up by the sacrifice and service of the Philippians faith, and the second time it is the things that the Philippians had but willingly gave up for others that was an acceptable Sacrifice. Here are examples of how we are to sacrifice by service to our faith and by giving up the comforts we have so that others may benefit.

Hebrews 13:15 tells us, “By Him therefore let us offer the sacrifice of praise to God continually, that is, the fruit of our lips giving thanks to His name.” We are to offer up the sacrifice of praise, which is the fruit offering of our lips. First Peter 2:5 goes even further by saying, “Ye also, as lively stones, are built up a spiritual house, an holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices, acceptable to God by Jesus Christ.” We are a holy priesthood, and as priests, we are to offer up spiritual – not physical – sacrifice to God by Jesus Christ. If the Law has been done away with and there is only one sacrifice to cover all sins, then why is there a priesthood and why are they offering up Sacrifices? But look even closer.

Peter continues on by saying, “But ye are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, an holy nation, a peculiar people; that ye should shew forth the praises of him who hath called you out of darkness into His marvellous light: which in time past were not a people, but are now the people of God: which had not obtained mercy, but now have obtained mercy.” (1 Peter 2:9-10) Compare Peter’s statement to this: “Now therefore, if ye will obey My voice indeed, and keep My covenant, then ye shall be a peculiar treasure unto Me above all people: for all the earth is Mine: and ye shall be unto Me a kingdom of priests, and an holy nation. These are the words which thou shalt speak unto the children of Israel.” (Exodus 19:5-6) Both Peter and God (YHVH) say the people will be peculiar, priests, and holy. Before the Israelites where set free by the blood of the lamb and the death of the firstborn, then they were not a nation nor really a people. They were slaves and treated as much. But by the blood of the lamb and the death of the firstborn, their freedom was bought and then they became, by accepting the covenant, a holy nation, a people that were not a people, and a peculiar treasure for God (YHVH) alone.

Many times in the Torah do you find where God told the Israelites not to be like the nations that were to be around them nor to be like the Egyptians from where they came. They were not to live or behave like those nations, but they were call to be different. In both Isaiah and Second Corinthians, we find this command to us from God: “Wherefore come out from among them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing; and I will receive you.” (2 Corinthians 6:17) “Depart ye, depart ye, go ye out from thence, touch no unclean thing; go ye out of the midst of her; be ye clean, that bear the vessels of the LORD.” (Isaiah 52:11) Even in the book of Revelation do we read this: “And I heard another voice from heaven, saying, Come out of her, my people, that ye be not partakers of her sins, and that ye receive not of her plagues.” (Revelation 18:4) Both to the Israelites and to us are the same statements made by the same God.

But in the end, what will happen anyway. “And the LORD shall be king over all the earth: in that day shall there be one LORD, and his name one.” (Zechariah 14:9) The Lord will not be two or three different persons in one godhead, but will be one and will go by one name. “For then will I turn to the people a pure language, that they may all call upon the name of the LORD, to serve him with one consent.” (Zephaniah 3:9) We will not speak in many tongues as we do not, but rather we will speak with one tongue, a pure language, that everyone will call upon the name of the Lord – His true name – and everyone will serve Him. Not three in one, and not three separate, but one Lord with one name.

To reject part is to reject all, and that brings your rejection by Him. What is so fearful to the vast overwhelming majority of Christians today is that if Jesus is God, then that opens the pandora’s box called the Law, and that is what they are fighting so hard against. To them, the Law is without grace and without mercy. The Law is too cumbersome and no one can live up to it. The Law intrudes into every part of our lives. They can not have the Law still in effect because that means they will have to completely change the way they live their lives. Just as the Catholics were willing to burn at the stake anyone that would dare to disagree with them, the Christians of today are willing to go to whatever lengths necessary so as to keep the Law out.

Feminists will fight hard against the Law because of the things that they have won in civil governments would no longer be allowed under the Law. If the Law is let back in, then the grey areas in between the black and white are done away with and everything is either right or wrong. These Christians are terrified of the Law because it says that what they do, and say, and teach are false, and they would have to change their lives completely if they were to follow the Law. Satan does not want you to follow the Law, neither does he want you to believe that Jesus and God are one in the same. If you do, then he loses control over you. That is why he has gone to such great lengths to destroy the law, even as far back as the garden of Eden, while telling everyone the same lie he told Eve, God does not really mean what He says.

We can all argue with the Word til we are blue in the face that the Law should be changed or done away with. But God does not change; Jesus does not change. You either do it His way, or you are rejecting Him. You can call Him Lord and Saviour, you can even prophesy, heal, cast out demons, and perform miracles in His name, but if you are not obeying His commandments as He tells us to in John chapter 14, then you are not His. And in the end, just as Jesus warned everyone in Matthew 7:21-23 and in the last third of Matthew 25, not everyone who claims to be a Christian will make it to heaven.

If you accept everyone at their word that they are a Christian, and if they can not fall from grace, and if you can not judge them at all as to saying if they are living in sin or not, then billions of people will get into heaven. But Jesus said, “Enter ye in at the strait gate: for wide is the gate, and broad is the way, that leadeth to destruction, and many there be which go in thereat: because strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it.” (Matthew 7:13-14) Jesus uses the Greek word oligos (GSN 3641) which is translated as few but really means puny. If you are going the way that the majority is going, then are you on the right path? Will billions of people really make it to heaven or will billions of people be told, “I never knew you: depart from me, ye that work iniquity”?

What is a puny amount? Is it the total number of people that call themselves Christians in the United States? As of 2007, it is estimated that 301,139,947 people in the US alone call themselves Christian. How many of those are going to make it to heaven? All of them. Canada has an estimated 33,390,141 Christians, China has an estimated 1,321,851,888 Christians, India has an estimated 1,129,866,154 Christians, and Great Britian has an estimated 60,776,238 Christians living in these countries. That is a total of 2 billion, 847 million, 24 thousand, 368 people in just 5 countries in the world. Over 2 billion, and that is how many in those 5 countries claiming to be a Christian in 2007. What about all those who have died between the day of Pentecost and 2007 that claimed to be Christians? How many of them are going to go to heaven?

In the United States, as of 2007, that was 78.5% of all citizens. That is not a puny number, but a majority number. 100% if Ecuadorians, 99% of Romanians, 93.6% of Rwandans, and 92.3% of those from Ireland claimed to be Christians. Are these percentages puny? How about 100% of those in the Vatican City claim to be Christian. If we are not to judge to see if a person is a Christian or not, then we must accept their word at face value. And if this is the case, then the majority of most countries will enter into heaven, even though Jesus said only a puny amount of people from Pentecost til the Rapture will enter into heaven. So who is right, Jesus or the Christian theologians that say we are not to judge? Billions or trillions of people or just a puny amount of people?

Jesus and the Apostles warned us about pseudoprophetes (False Prophets), pseudadelphos (False Brothers), and pseudodidaskalos (false teachers). If there can be false Christians, then we had better know how to spot one then. “Beware of false prophets, which come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves. Ye shall know them by their fruits. Do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles? Even so every good tree bringeth forth good fruit; but a corrupt tree bringeth forth evil fruit. A good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit, neither can a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit. Every tree that bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn down, and cast into the fire. Wherefore by their fruits ye shall know them” (Matthew 7:15-20) We are to test their fruit. What they teach, how they behave, how they live their lives, all of this will tell you if they are of Christ or not. Why are Christians so afraid to have their fruit tested? Why do they cram down every ones throat verses 1 and 2 of Matthew 7? Is it because they are afraid that someone may see them as they really are – wolves in sheeps clothing?