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In Closing
The rituals that the Messianic Jews are tenaciously
clinging to as their Judaic roots are not at all what our Lord Jesus Christ
held fast to. The reason Jesus didn’t adhere to Judaism as it was practiced
leading up to and during His time was because it was polluted. The Jews, at
that time, were in a state of depravity. They were now divided into Pharisees
and Sadducees with the Pharisees being the majority and the most powerful
sect. [83]
“By
adding to the written law a mass of absurd or frivolous traditions,
which, as they
[Pharisees] foolishly alleged, were handed down from Moses, they subverted
the authority of the sacred record; and changed the religion of the
patriarchs and prophets into a wearisome parade of superstitious
observances” (The Ancient Church: Its History, Doctrine, Worship,
And Constitution, Traced For The First Three Hundred Years by W.D.
Killen. Anson D.F. Randolph & Company, New York, pp 6-7, 1883).
[84]
It
is these traditions [sic] that Messianic Judaism continues to observe
as a sign [sic] of them still being Jews or completed Jews. They want
the very stuff that Jesus abandoned just so long as no one calls them
“Christian.”
Church, Jew and non-Jew alike, you are
“…born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible,
by the word of G-d, which liveth and abideth for ever (1 Peter 1:23).
BORN
AGAIN and MADE AN HOLY NATION[99] sounds like a
new name to me, and don’t you ever let any one humiliate you by calling you a
Gentile Christian or a Messianic Jew. Yes, Satan has tainted the name
Christian for 2,000-plus years, that’s his job. But, a True Christian is
known by his fruit and is not ashamed of who he is in Christ Jesus. Satan is
also guilty of having blurred the spiritual vision of the non-Jewish
Believers by leading them to leave out much of what G-d intended them
to do, and on the other hand, the Messianic Jewish Movement, he [sic]
leads them to leave in The Church, much of what G-d intended them to
not do. It’s satanic trickery on both hands – the gates of hell
attempting to prevail against the True Church of Jesus Christ, and you all
have been so accommodating.
In
the infancy of The Church, wherever the Believers in Jesus Christ went, their
topic of conversation was of Jesus. [sic]
“They delighted to tell of His mighty miracles, of His holy life, of the
extraordinary circumstances which accompanied His death, and of His
resurrection and ascension. Out of the fullness of their hearts they
discoursed of His condescension and His meekness, of His wonderful wisdom, of
His sublime theology, and of His unutterable love to a world lying in
wickedness. When they prayed, they prayed to Christ; when they sang, they
sang to Christ; when they preached, they preached Christ. Well then might the
heathen multitude agree with one voice to call them Christians” (Ibid. p 57).
That
is why we are Christians. Why would one professing to believe Jesus as their
Messiah want to be looked upon as a Messianic Jew because his or her
Jewishness is more important than who he or she is in Christ? Messianic
Judaism is apostasy! It’s schism! Just to prove that they are still Jews and
be accepted by those practicing Judaism, Messianic Judaism is no better than
the Pharisees of Jesus’ day who were all about outward appearance. [sic]
“…hypocrites!
For ye are like unto whited sepulchers, which indeed appear beautiful outward
but are within full of dead men’s bones, and of all uncleanness….ye also
outwardly appear righteous unto men, but within ye are full of hypocrisy and
iniquity” (Matthew 23:27-28).
In
view of the fact that you have placed yourselves above being called
Christians, you are denying Christ even though He prayed that all His people
might be one.
Jesus
prayed for unity/oneness in His Body – His Church. For the reason that He is
immutable, why would He, after His death, say, “Oh, I changed my mind since
Jewish Believers should maintain their Jewish heritage and identify [sic].
They are going to have to stand apart from the non-Jews so that they are
Completed Jews.” No, Jesus didn’t say that. He didn’t tell the Jews that in
their walk with Him they must keep their Jewishness because when any of us
walk with Him, we are new creatures, meaning He and His ways are first and
far most [sic] above traditions, rituals, and cultures. It’s Jesus –
not the “nesses”. The “nesses” are outside The Church with the exceptions of,
maybe, music and one’s native tongue. (All music must be pure for G-d.) [sic]
Believers, the Bride of Christ – Jew or non-Jew, should be totally immersed
in The Church of Jesus Christ. There is no alternative and never has been
that can label itself as being of G-d. All in The Body of Christ should
identify with Him, His Gospel, and let go of the rest. As Believers in Jesus
Christ, our historical identity is Jesus and His Gospel, and nothing else.
Not even Judaism. It is far more important to remain a Believer in Christ – a
Christian, than it is to remain a Jew, or anything else. Messianic
congregations are not G-d-made, but are man-made – by some “wanna-bes” –
wanting to be special or a notch above other Christians. The Messianic Jewish
movement is not of G-d.
Jesus
is “JESUS” and what difference does it make how He is seen (Jewish picture or
non-Jewish picture) [sic]. What is utmost important [sic] is
that you follow HIM, and Him alone, not your “ness,” traditions, rituals, and
cultures.
There
is equity [sic] in following Jesus Christ. Thank G-d, no one in
Christianity is esteemed above another. Jewish Believers are not esteemed
above non-Jewish Believers. Remember, Matthew 8 where Jesus marveled at the
faith of the Roman centurion and He said …
“…many shall come from the east and west, and shall sit down
with Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, in the kingdom of heaven. But the
children of the kingdom shall be cast out into outer darkness…” (Matthew 8:11-12).
The
kingdom of heaven (www.scarlet-to-snow.com/info23.htm)
is “now” for all who have faith, and for Jesus to say many from all over will
“sit down” (in faith) with the patriarchal fathers of faith shows that no one
group of Believers in Jesus is esteemed above another. It’s about faith, and
when one has complete faith in G-d, that one has true love for Him, which is
all He wants from any and all of us.
It is
not the intent of this Apostate Alert to discourage MJM from wanting to
identify with the Hebrew people, but it is intended to discourage you from
clinging to Judaism as a way of being identified as a Hebrew. Go ahead, be
involved in the Jewish community, if they will allow you to « support Israel,
we all should « practice Saturday Sabbath, we all should « celebrate the
yearly feast days, we all should « have your traditional Jewish weddings «
have your Bar Mitzvahs « play your Jewish Music to The Lord with its unique
sound. [sic] Great! Go
ahead, do all of that. But, when it comes to Messiah Jesus, your salvation
and The Church, remember, The Church of Jesus Christ is a “new thing” and
it’s not about Judaism and its rituals and it’s not about anyone’s culture.
Thus, leave out of The Church your … |
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[83] Again Ms. Nero demonstrates
her abysmal lack of knowledge of either the Scriptures or of secular history.
Yeshua was born, lived, and died as a Torah-observant Jew, accepting and
observing all those things that were written in the Scriptures by the
prophets, who were verbally inspired by His Ruach HaKodesh (Holy Spirit). If
Yeshua is G-d, and the Holy Spirit is His Holy Spirit, and the Holy
Spirit inspired every “jot [yod] and tittle” of the Scriptures as He taught,
then He would have been a hypocrite had He Himself failed to follow the very
mitzvot [commandments] that He Himself wrote in stone with His own finger on
Sinai and that He gave to Moshe [Moses] when He met with him “face to face,
as a man speaks to his friend.”
What Ms. Nero either doesn’t know because she has failed to do
her homework, or fails to admit out of dishonesty, is that neither Yeshua,
nor the Shliachim, nor most adherents of Messianic Judaism accept the oral
(Rabbinic) tradition as binding on their lives, only those mitzvot
(commandments) that appear in the Scriptures. She obviously has no idea what
“rituals” are used in Messianic Jewish worship.
Judaism of the Second Temple Period was in almost exactly the
same state that “Gentile Christianity” finds itself in today, though it was
not nearly as fragmented as Christianity is. There were five major
“denominations” or so-called “parties” within Judaism at that time: the
Pharisees, the Sadducees, the Essenes, the Zealots, and the Messianics.
The Pharisees were the theological conservatives, and
through their sub-division of Scribes were directly responsible for
maintaining the faithful transmission of the Scriptures that we enjoy today.
They would be the theological counterparts of most of today's Baptists.
The Sadducees were the liberals, mostly political appointees
to the priesthood, who were only concerned with the proper “form” of worship
and with retaining their cushy “clergy” positions. Since they categorically
rejected all things supernatural, they naturally rejected a supernatural G-d
who provided supernatural revelation. Theologically they would be more like
today’s “high-church” Episcopalians, Lutherans, Catholics, and those “God is
dead” philosophers who for some strange reason want to cling to the title
“Christian.” If they were alive today, they would be those who produce
“religious” documentaries for PBS and The History Channel.
The Essenes were the separatists, like the Catholic monastic
orders, who were almost all gathered together at the Qumran community where
they spent their lives in prayer, meditation, ritual bathing, and copying the
scrolls that we have recently received as the “Dead Sea Scrolls.”
The Zealots were the religious/political activists similar to
the modern religious ultra-right, except they advocated and actively promoted
the violent overthrow of their political oppressors, like the “Branch
Davidians” and those other self-called “Christian activists” who bomb
abortion clinics.
The Messianics were the many tens of thousands of Jews who
made up the true “faithful remnant” from all four parties, who were earnestly
watching for Messiah, and who and recognized him immediately upon hearing of
His resurrection. Just as is true in the “organized church” today, only a
small portion of the “organized synagogue” were redeemed by faith as was
their father Avraham.
When Jerusalem fell in 70 CE, the Temple was destroyed so
there was no further function for the Sadducees, the Zealots were all killed,
captured, or dispersed, and the Qumran community was overrun and destroyed,
leaving only the Pharisees and Messianics The Pharisees and Messianics
maintained fellowship in the Synagogue until the Bar-Kokhba
Revolt in 132-135 CE. At that time
Rabbi Akiva
declared that all who failed to recognize
Shimon Bar-Kokhba
as the Messiah were heretics, which resulted in all true Messianic Believers
being put out of Synagogue fellowship.
From 135 until 324, Pharisaical Judaism and Messianic Judaism
went their separate ways. Pharisaical Judaism gradually evolved into today's
Rabbinical Judaism, and Messianic Judaism absorbed an ever-increasing number
of Gentile Believers, until the Jewish Believers became a relatively small
minority within what was still considered a “sect” of Judaism. Up until the
establishment of the Roman State Religion in 324, the synagogue remained the
only existing “form” or “model” for both Messianic and non-Messianic Judaism.
In 324, Emperor Constantine ascended to the Roman throne and immediately
established his total control over both the religious and civil life of the
Roman Empire by creating the blend of Messianic Judaism and Babylonian
Paganism that became “the church” at the Council of Nicea in 325. Following
the Council of Nicea, from which all the Jewish Elders were specifically
“uninvited,” all members of the new Roman Church, which de facto
included all citizens of the Empire, were given the choice of renouncing all
traces of their Jewish heritage or being put to death. And until the rebirth
of Messianic Judaism in 1967, that remained just about the only choice for
Jews who accepted Yeshua as their Messiah — convert to Ms. Nero’s form of
“Christianity” and renounce all Jewish heritage, or renounce Messiah and be
permitted to remain in the Jewish community.
[84] This statement is exactly
the kind of patently false, venomous, and inflammatory anti-Semitic rhetoric
that Martin Luther and Adolph Hitler spewed to stir up the masses against the
Jewish people.
[98][99]It is
quite interesting that Ms. Nero should take this promise that was as part of
the eternal covenant that G-d made with Israel and try to apply
it to the Gentile “church.” She is a thief and usurper, who would steal for
himself that which belongs to others.
“In the third month after the children of
Yisra'el [Israel] had gone forth out of the land of Egypt, on that same day
they came into the wilderness of Sinai. When they had departed from Refidim,
and had come to the wilderness of Sinai, they encamped in the wilderness; and
there Yisra'el encamped before the mountain. Moshe [Moses] went up to G-d,
and ADONAI [the pre-incarnate Yeshua] called
to him out of the mountain, saying, ‘This is what you shall tell the house of
Ya'akov [Jacob], and tell the children of Yisra'el [Israel]: “You have seen
what I did to the Egyptians, and how I bore you on eagles’ wings, and brought
you to myself. Now therefore, if you will indeed obey my voice, and keep my
covenant, then you [Israel, not the gentile church] shall be my own
possession from among all peoples; for all the earth is mine; and you
[Israel] shall be to me a kingdom of kohanim [priests], and a
holy nation.” These are the words which you shall speak to the
children of Yisra'el.’” (Exodus 19:1-6 HNV) |