You seem so gullible: you believe whatever anyone tells you even if he is preaching about another Jesus than the one we preach, or a different spirit than the Holy Spirit you received, or shows you a different way to be saved. You swallow it all.
— 2 Corinthians 11:4 (TLB) —
Modern-day Americanized Protestant “Christianity” never ceases to amaze me in its defiant approach to Scripture. I know that’s not an opening line that will make a lot of people say, “WOW, I really want to read this article.” But hang with me. In this message I want to highlight a few things I have observed within the context of “Christian Evangelism” that I find truly mind-boggling, and if you will take to time to explore these points as well you may find yourself just as perplexed as I am.
Years ago I was working at a large church and another person at the ministry returned from running an errand. He told us that he was stopped by the police for speeding, and proceeded to tell the officer that he was doing something for a church and somehow this justified his breaking the law. As absurd as that sounds—claiming that you have to break secular societal traffic laws to accomplish something for a church—I want to talk about something similar but far more outrageous.
Modern “Christian” evangelism has one focus: Get people to “believe in Jesus” as their Savior. Fueled by unbiblical beliefs such as, “we’re not under the law,” “the law was nailed to the cross,” and “Jesus fulfilled the law so we can be free from it,” evangelism is led further and further away from leading people to the biblical Yeshua, and more toward the cultural “Jesus” of the day.
How can one preach the true Yeshua Messiah, a Torah-keeping Jewish Rabbi who taught His followers to keep The Torah, if you are in some form against The Torah and open to breaking The Torah? How can you preach the true Ruach haKodesh (Spirit of Holiness) that in the new covenant is given for the purpose of CAUSING you to obey The Torah (Ezekiel 36:27) if you are in some form against The Torah and open to breaking The Torah? How can you be preaching the true Gospel of salvation from sin (Matthew 1:21), with sin being biblically defined as breaking The Torah (1 John 3:4), if you are in some form against The Torah and open to breaking The Torah?
Yet, when we look at the religion of “Christianity” today, and especially methods used for the purposes of proselytizing, we see exactly that. “Christians” who have no regard for The Torah and who think that The Gospel overturns or replaces The Torah tend to think nothing of doing things that directly violate The Torah. In their mind it’s “all about winning people to Jesus”. But which “Jesus”? Because the Messiah we read about in Scripture lived by The Torah and taught people to follow The Torah.
Revelation 14:12 says, “Here is the perseverance of the kedoshim—those who keep the commandments of God and the faith of Yeshua.” A little earlier in the Book, Revelation 12:17, says, “So the dragon became enraged at the woman and went off to make war with the rest of her offspring—those who keep the commandments of God and hold to the testimony of Yeshua.” Those who are considered the holy ones and those who Satan wars against are those who both keep the commandments and hold to the testimony and faith of Yeshua—in other words, they are those who embrace both The Torah and The Gospel, not one or the other or neither.
Satan has no need to war against the world and those of the many world religions who do not follow The Torah or Yeshua. They are exactly where he wants them to be. Satan has no need to war against Rabbinic Jews who follow The Torah but reject Yeshua as The Messiah. They are exactly where he wants them to be. And, like it or not, Satan has no need to war against the 2.4 billion people who claim to be “Christians”, one-third of the world’s population, because they too are exactly where he wants them to be. So long as you are not following both Yeshua and The Torah you are not a threat to Satan’s agenda, only those who follow the whole counsel of Scripture are problematic to his mission.
I have a shocking and hard truth for you—Revelation 12:9 says that Satan will deceive the whole world, Matthew 7:13-14 says that those who find the true path to life in God’s Kingdom will be FEW, and Matthew 7:21-23 says that MANY will profess to do great exploits “in the name of Jesus” and will be rejected from His Kingdom because of LAWLESSNESS—because they did not follow The Torah, they did not keep the commandments.
In Matthew 19:17 Yeshua said that if you want to enter into life you have to keep the commandments. In John 14:15 He said that if you love Him you will keep the commandments. The apostle John, referring to Yeshua, said that we know that we have come to know Him by keeping His commandments and that anyone who claims to know Him and does not keep His commandments is a liar and the truth is not in them (1 John 2:3-4). The apostle then said, speaking of The Father, that we know we love God’s children by loving God and obeying His commandments and that the love of God is that we keep His commandments (1 John 5:2-3). The apostle Paul said that it would not be the hearers of The Torah who would be deemed righteous, but the doers of The Torah who would be justified (Romans 2:13). Fantasy land “Christian” fiction theology will tell you that these passages are talking about some other set of commandments, like the so-called “Law of Christ”, but the people who wrote these things were all Israelites who lived their lives according to The Torah.
The Gospel as preached by all of the apostles included a message of obeying The Torah. So how can there be a Gospel that is not only void of any mandate to keep The Torah but uses acts of rebellion against The Torah as tools to “win the lost to Christ”? Yet, that is exactly what we see in “Christianity”, preachers who use acts of rebellion against The Torah as methods of evangelism. While there are surely others, I want to highlight four “big ones” that I have observed. Through these examples we can see how this happens and identify other times when this is done. Then, after going through these examples, I will discuss why this is of great concern and why we must never use violations of The Torah as a means to lead people to faith in Yeshua.
I will also note that in these examples I will not be able to provide a deep exegetical study of each point. Nor will this be like some of my written works where there will be a lot of academic sources cited due to the focus and purpose of this message. I do have other studies in each of these areas that more thoroughly examines the biblical position and how popular modern “Christian” theology gets these things wrong. If you would like to review these and examine sources that support the Torah-positive position, my other works on these topics will help you with that.
Unholy Holidays
When Adonai your God cuts off before you the nations that you are going in to dispossess, when you have dispossessed them and settled in their land, be careful not to be trapped into imitating them after they have been destroyed before you. Do not inquire about their gods, saying, ‘How do these nations serve their gods? I will do the same.’ You are not to act like this toward Adonai your God! For every abomination of Adonai, which He hates, they have done to their gods—they even burn their sons and daughters in the fire to their gods.
—Deuteronomy 12:29-31 (TLV)
Perhaps the biggest and most blatant example of breaking, transgressing, violating The Torah as a method of evangelism is done through the extravagant events hosted at “Christian churches” for the three big holidays of modern society—Christmas, Easter, and Halloween. These are pagan holidays. If for no other reason, they are pagan because they were initiated by the pagan Roman Catholic Church in connection to its deifying, praying to, and worship of “saints”.
If you are unfamiliar with the term “pagan” or have been confused about what it refers to, the primary historical meaning from a religious sense is: polytheistic religion. The word actually originates from a reference to peoples who lived in rural country settings. Because polytheistic religion—or, a belief that involves a pantheon of many gods—was in antiquity considered the religion of people who lived in the country the term “pagan” eventually became synonymous with polytheism.
When you look at the gods of polytheistic religions, there tends to be five characteristics that jump out: The gods have some special area of rule (god of thunder, god of time, god of oceans, goddess of fertility, goddess of love, etc.), temples are made for the gods and goddesses, statues are erected of the gods and goddesses, worshipers pray to the gods and goddesses, and special feasts or festivals are held for the gods and goddesses on appointed dates for each one. When you look at the treatment of “saints” in the Roman Catholic religion, all five of these characteristics are present. On top of that, the Catholic pope is venerated as what they call “The Vicar of Christ”; meaning that they believe this man—whoever is the living active pope at any given time—is considered the living embodiment of Yeshua and even has the authority to change Scripture.
While many “Christians” object to praying to “saints”, erecting idol statues of “saints”, naming cathedrals for “saints”, and giving spiritual authority to “patron saints”, they often celebrate two popular feast days for “saints”—St. Patrick’s Day and St. Valentine’s Day. Though these are not as big as Christmas, Easter, and Halloween, they are also not often shunned, as you would think they would be by an expression of “Christianity” that is wholly opposed to Catholicism. I often wonder why non-Catholic “Christians” have any interest in days appointed to worship “saints” when they generally oppose everything else about the Catholic treatment of “saints” as idolatry. I guess hearts and shamrocks are more appealing to most than holiness and obedience to The Torah.
So, what about the “big three” holidays? In the secular world of business there is a day commonly called Black Friday because it is the day when sales go from being in the red to being in the black—in other words, profits go up. In the world of “Christian religion” it seems like Christmas, Easter, and Halloween are regarded as the “Black Friday” of evangelism. On these three dates there is great effort to get more people into their churches.
What are they doing? Instead of just opening a Bible and just lifting up the name of Yeshua and just allowing The Spirit of Yah work in the hearts of the people, they are trusting in their own efforts and worldly methods of “growing their business”. This is the ultimate slap in the face to the Messiah who hung on the cross and rose again. Take Easter as a prime example; “Christians” celebrate the greatest even in the history of the world, the resurrection of Yeshua, in the name of a witchcraft goddess from the old Norse religion that continues to be a primary object of worship in the modern Wiccan religion—the religion of witches. That’s what “Easter” is; it’s taken from the name of the goddess Eostre (sometimes referred to as Ostara). How do you suppose Yeshua feels about His resurrection being celebrated in the name of a witchcraft goddess?
In The Torah it says: “When Adonai your God cuts off before you the nations that you are going in to dispossess, when you have dispossessed them and settled in their land,be careful not to be trapped into imitating them after they have been destroyed before you. Do not inquire about their gods, saying, ‘How do these nations serve their gods? I will do the same.’ You are not to act like this toward Adonai your God! For every abomination of Adonai, which He hates, they have done to their gods—they even burn their sons and daughters in the fire to their gods.” (Deuteronomy 12:29-31, TLV)
Some try to argue that this passage does not apply to things like Christmas, Easter, Halloween, and other Roman Catholic holidays. I have heard some say that this commandment was specifically related to the Israelite conquest of the land of Canaan and only applied to the paganism of that region in that time. Someone else, a longtime friend who pastors a typical American church, recently tried to tell me that the passage is only about child sacrifice, and of course that means Christians are not sacrificing their children when they send them out to find Easter eggs or sit on the lap of Santa Claus. The problem with that line of thought is that without this commandment we have no ground to stand on in condemning later Israelite embracing of those things we read about during the period of Israel’s kings. In that time we read a long history of Israel building altars to Baal, raising Asherah trees, burning incense in high places, and offering children on the lap of Molech—all of which is referenced earlier in Deuteronomy 12. Without a clear statement in The Torah against appropriating the activities of pagan religion we cannot say the Israelites did anything wrong.
Deuteronomy 12 is not exclusive to one time and one conquest, and it is about much, much more than child sacrifice. If you read the whole chapter, it’s clearly about all forms of idolatry and pagan religious worship. The chapter tells the Israelites to tear down the altars, smash the pillars, burn down the Asherah trees, and cut down the carved idols—to totally obliterate all of the idolatrous and pagan elements of worship. The chapter goes on to talk about how to live holy and then toward the end it talks about not appropriating the ways of the nations—idolatrous and pagan religious practices—telling us not to inquire about their gods and how they are worshiped. It isn’t until the very last statement in the narrative that is says: “For every abomination of Adonai, which He hates, they have done to their gods—they even burn their sons and daughters in the fire to their gods.” In other words, that’s the worst thing they do but far from the only thing they do that the entire narrative tells us not to do.
My friend, the one who showed his complete lack of biblical knowledge in claiming that Deuteronomy 12 is only about child sacrifice, was saying that things like Easter eggs are tools for evangelism. His comments to me came when I said that Easter eggs are directly associated with witchcraft. He tried to tell me that the day of the week I was talking to him is named for a pagan god. When I told him that Scripture actually permits us to use societal names for days, months, and anything else but still prohibits us from appropriating paganism, idolatry, and witchcraft into our worship he said that I would find myself in a lonely deep pit. Well, seeing as Matthew 7 talks about a narrow gate with a lonely path beyond it, a broad path that the masses follow, and how those many on that broad path will be rejected for lawlessness—they refused to follow The Torah—when it comes to following The Bible I will take that narrow path no matter how lonely it is every day of my life. And I hope you will too.
It is terribly bad hermeneutics to take one statement from a biblical passage like, “…they even burn their sons and daughters in the fire to their gods,” ignore everything else the chapter says, and say the chapter is only about pagan child sacrifice. However, contrary to what my friend seems to think, “Christians” are offering their children to idolatry, witchcraft, and pagan gods. A.J. Drew, from his book A Wiccan Bible: Exploring the Mysteries of the Craft From Birth to Summerland, praises those who host Easter egg hunts, concluding his thoughts by asking: “What better way of sharing the true Pagan meaning of this celebration with our children?” The character known today as Santa Claus originates from the old Norse god Odin, and the ritual of placing children on his lap to ask for Christmas gifts has striking similarities to the worship of Molech as described in The Bible. Children of “Christian” parents may not be literally burned in fires today, but they are absolutely being offered up to the gods and goddesses of pagan religions and witchcraft.
It is absolutely against The Torah to celebrate these holidays. Some people claim that there is not enough evidence to say outright that they are pagan, but there is more than enough evidence to say that they probably are—meaning that anyone who would say emphatically and dogmatically that they are not is straight up lying. On top of that, we can easily establish Roman Catholicism to be a completely pagan religion through the applied attributes given in the deifying and worship of “saints” as well as the popes being called “the Vicar of Christ”, and it is undeniable that these holidays originate from the Roman Catholic religion.
Easter egg hunts and pictures with Santa Claus are a big attraction, and most of these Torah-rejecting churches of the modern era see this and seem to feel like “as long as it gets people in the door and we can tell them about ‘Jesus’ then it justifies it”. They sincerely believe that providing a so-called “Halloween alternative”, like their “Hallelujah parties” and “Trunk-or-Treat events”, are acceptable ways to lead people to their churches. A preacher of a bygone era, Charles Spurgeon, is often quoted as saying: “If you have to give a carnival to get people to come to church, then you will have to keep giving carnivals to keep them coming back.” In other words, whatever draws people to faith is what will keep them there.
So why not draw them with The Bible, the name of Yeshua lifted up, and the power of The Spirit that CAUSES people to live in obedience to The Torah? If you draw them in with those things, then those things are what will keep them. If you use worldliness, paganism, witchcraft, entertainment, and lawlessness to draw people, then that is what you will need to use to keep them coming back. The moment you make any attempt to tell them to truly follow The Bible is when you will lose them. Besides that, once you make these compromises you really can’t lead them to follow The Bible.
Think about it. How can you use Easter, Christmas, and Halloween paganism and witchcraft rituals to attract people to your church and then turn around and tell them, “Well, that stuff is all evil paganism from another religion, we just used it to get you here, but it’s actually evil and God hates it”? You can’t do that, they will see you for the hypocrite you are and leave. So by doing these things all you do is create a body of religious people who think you can follow “Jesus” and paganism too. It’s as Scripture says: You travel land and sea, going to great lengths, to win a single convert and all you have done is made them more bound for hell than before (see Matthew 23:15). Because once a person has become wholly convinced that they are saved through “Christianity”, it becomes much more difficult to lead them to actual biblical truth that leads to actual biblical salvation.
Why not celebrate the Spring Feast Season of Passover, Unleavened Bread, First Fruits, and ultimately Shavuot (also called Pentecost) instead of Easter? Why not celebrate the Fall Feasts with The Day of Shofars, The Day of Atonement, and Sukkot (also called Tabernacles or Booths) instead of Halloween? Why not celebrate Hanukkah, as we see in John 10:22-23 Yeshua did, instead of Christmas? Why not celebrate Purim, from the Book of Esther, instead of Mardi Gras—a totally worldly holiday filled with outrageous levels of debauchery, yet some “Christians” also think is acceptable to celebrate.
Could you imagine what would happen if churches would host a week-long Feast of Tabernacles fall festival with nothing worldly, nothing pagan, nothing in any way resembling Halloween at it? Or if they held a fully biblical celebration of Passover, Unleavened Bread, and commemorated the resurrection where it should be, on The Day of First Fruits, with not one thing resembling Easter, Palm Sunday, Good Friday, or anything else associated with Roman Catholic or Wiccan traditions? Or if they exchanged their decorated trees and their Santa Claus for a candelabra to celebrate the eight nights of Hanukkah? People are so hungry for truth these days that if a church would do that, they would truly accomplish their goals of “filling the house” with people and they would do it through events that are actually biblical.
What it all boils down to is we have Holy Days listed for us in The Bible that were kept by every Believer throughout the biblical record and our Messiah Himself and we are told are to be kept forever throughout all generations and we have holidays that at the very least come from the pagan Roman Catholic religion and outright defy the commandment of our God. It should not take a great deal of intelligence to figure out which ones God wants us to celebrate and which ones He does not.
Just Eat It
You are not to eat any detestable thing.
—Deuteronomy 14:3 (TLV)
I remember a song released in 1984 by the comedic musician who goes by the stage name “Weird Al” Yankovic titled Eat It. This was a parody of the hit Michael Jackson song Beat It, and in Yankovic’s version the chorus belted out: “Just eat it, eat it, eat it, get yourself an egg and beat it…” It’s a song that reminds me of the popular Christian view of the Leviticus 11 food laws, where they reject the commandment of God and look at things like pork, shellfish, and pretty much anything prohibited and say: “Just eat it, eat it, eat it, Peter had a vision go read it…”
I have read books by American ministers who have spent time as missionaries in various parts of the world and spoken with American “Christians” who have gone on short-term missionary trips. Something I have noticed in these books and conversations is a common belief that when you go into various regions you have to eat whatever you are given so you don’t offend the locals and lose your chance of them “receiving Jesus”. This comes from a misrepresentation of 1 Corinthians 10:27, but if you read the whole passage in context it is talking about foods that may have been sacrificed to idols or pagan gods prior to being prepared and served as food. Paul wasn’t saying you have to eat unclean things if they are set before you. He was saying you don’t have to ask if the food was sacrificed and offered to an idol or pagan god prior to being served for dinner. Context is very important in matters like this.
If you need a visual picture of this and you are familiar with the old Indiana Jones movies think of the scene where Indiana and those with him survive a plane crash to find themselves in a remote village in India. They are provided a plate of rice with some type of meat on it and flies buzzing around the food. The woman who is with them, whose character was that of a showgirl not accustom to the lifestyle of the village, is grossed out by it and upon seeing this Indiana looks sternly at her and says: “Eat it. You’re offending them and embarrassing me.”
“Christians” have this mindset that in missionary work you have to “eat whatever is set before you”—a belief that comes from a completely out-of-context understanding of a single statement in The Bible. I once had a friend who saw one of my teachings on following the Leviticus 11 food laws. She is registered nurse and would go on medical missionary trips to parts of South America and became very upset with me over what I was teaching. She lashed out at me about it, telling me about how people where she goes to “minister” eat all sorts of unclean things and how wrong I am to suggest that they are “unclean” because of what they eat in their culture and I should be happy that they are “accepting Jesus” and being helped with medical care they would not otherwise receive.
She began to call me mildly derogatory names and it got to the point where I had to end our friendship. Think about that. The entire sin problem started when people ate something God said not to eat in Genesis 3. We know the distinctions between clean and unclean animals were established before the flood, as Noah is given special instructions for both groups in Genesis 7. Then, at the other end of The Book, in Revelation 18:2, unclean animals and unclean birds are still being called unclean. I was teaching something that is a theme in The Bible from cover to cover. Because of this, a person I was friends with got so upset because they believe this view that you have to eat unclean things in foreign countries, to have any hope if them receiving The Gospel, that I had no choice but to stop associating with her due to the way she verbally attacked me over it.
Do missionaries really need to eat “whatever is set before them” in order to be received? No! The plain fact of the matter is that if they understood and believed The Bible, they would know that in those moments when unclean things were set before them they would have the opportunity to share that there are things God told us not to eat and because you love Him you have to decline what they offer. I promise you that you will gain someone’s attention when you show you take your faith and obedience to The Bible serious much faster than you will when you violate The Torah because someone told you it’s the only way to “win people to Jesus”.
And what happens to those you claim to have “led to faith in Jesus” upon showing them that you really don’t have to obey everything in The Bible? Having done this, you have given them an open door to reject anything in The Bible that seems problematic to their cultural norms. There are “churches” today endorsing things prohibited in Scripture that historically has been unanimously opposed by “Christianity”. The primary reason for this is because “Christians” have rejected commandments like to food laws and opened a door for others to reject commandments that conflict with their chosen lifestyle.
Another example of how “Christians” reject the biblical food laws in order to preach “their gospel”, which is clearly different from The Gospel, can be found in a lot of activities at their churches. I don’t know how many times I have witnessed some type of church picnic, youth group pizza party, or any number of other such activities where biblically unclean things being called “food” are made available. One time I saw a church take those marshmallow chicks that are a popular part of Easter and use them to make a ten-foot tall rabbit as a big attraction. Well, those marshmallows are made with pork gelatin, and The Bible clearly prohibits eating pork. Another time I saw a church send their people out on The Sabbath to hand out those same marshmallow candies to invite people to their Easter service. Think about that—disregarding The Sabbath and giving people something that God said not to eat to invite people to a church service named after a pagan witchcraft goddess. This really is how far “Christianity” will break The Torah to preach what they think is “the gospel”. I’ll talk more about The Sabbath in a moment.
The mentality that in order to “preach the gospel” or “win people to Jesus” requires eating things The Bible refers to as unclean and detestable has to be the most absurd thing I can think of. The very first act of sin we read about in the whole Bible is from Genesis 3 where Satan convinced people that they can eat what God said not to eat. How “Christians” can’t see that when they eat unclean things is something I simply can’t wrap my mind around. Doing the very thing we read about in Genesis 3, and especially when they claim they are doing it to “win souls”, is something I have a hard time rationalizing.
Many believe that there are passages in what “Christians” will typically call “The New Testament” that prove the food laws are done away with. But consider the context of these passages through these points, all of which will prove true if you properly study them out:
— Matthew 15 and Mark 7 is about whether or not it is OK to eat bread without washing your hands first, and that not a regular washing but a ceremonial tradition of the elders.
— Acts 10 is about the good news of Yeshua being for all humanity, the Jew and the Gentile. Further, the language shows clearly that the dream wasn't even telling Peter to eat a biblically unclean animal, and even at that IT WAS A DREAM.
— Colossians 2:16-17 is about new converts who were being persecuted for keeping the biblical Feasts, Sabbath, and food laws, having abandoned the feasts, sabbaths, and dietary practices of their pagan culture.
— Romans 14, 1 Corinthians 8, and 1 Corinthians 10 are about how to handle biblically clean meats sold at local markets that may have been offered to idols or foreign gods prior to being sold.
— 1 Timothy 4:1-5 is about certain heretics who were teaching against marriage and against eating foods approved by The Torah—essentially connected to the same issue that was being addressed in Romans 14, 1 Corinthians 8, and 1 Corinthians 10.
— Revelation 18:2, set in the still-to-come prophetic future, refers to unclean beasts and birds. They are still unclean in that setting, in the future even to this present day. Why would these animals still be unclean in the yet-to-com future if the clean/unclean regulations no longer stand?
None of these passages, when properly assessed and put into context, override, abolish, abrogate, or in an way annul the Leviticus 11 and Deuteronomy 14 food laws regulating which animals are permitted as human food and which are not. We see the distinctions between clean and unclean animals as early as Genesis 7, prior to the flood, and as late as Revelation 18 in the still to come future. So where do “Christians” get the idea that they don’t have to follow them? It would seem that they have fallen for the same deception we read about in Genesis 3 where Satan first convinced people to eat something God said not to eat—and we see all the problems that caused. The entire reason there is sin, the entire reason we have a Bible, the entire reason Yeshua had to die, and the entire reason there is a Gospel is because someone ate something God said not to eat. How absurd to think that we should eat things God said not to eat in order to “get people saved”! Yet this is the way “Christians” think.
The Saturday Church Work Day
Remember Yom Shabbat, to keep it holy. You are to work six days, and do all your work, but the seventh day is a Shabbat to Adonai your God. In it you shall not do any work…
—Exodus 20:8-10a (TLV)
Some years ago I was approached by a member of the leadership team at the church I was attending. It was a church where the pastor had taught about keeping The Sabbath and celebrating the Feasts. It was a church where they had brought in guest speakers to teach about following the biblical food laws and the pastor had on numerous occasions talked about how he doesn’t eat pork. These are among the reasons I continued to maintain fellowship with them even after they were seemingly abandoning such beliefs until such a time when I decided I had to accept that they were no longer the Bible-believing and Bible-following church they once were. Despite all of this, the man came up to me and asked if I would be a part of a day they were putting together to do some work around the ministry—on a Saturday morning.
I declined, telling him that I do not work on The Sabbath. It did lead to some discussion about my views, which again are all things that were taught by the pastor during various messages he had given in the past. Unfortunately, that guy moved on from the church shortly after that and I was never able to fully get through to him, but seeds were planted and perhaps a day will come when someone else is able to pick up where I left off. Scripture does teach that the person who plants the seeds and the person who waters them are not always the same.
Oddly, despite having heard the pastor teach about keeping The Sabbath in that church, they would and still do have “volunteer serve days”, as they call it, on a Saturday prior to a big event they are hosting—just as I have already described. I just don’t get this at all. How can you think that the best way to prepare for an event, particularly one where the church is likely to attract a lot of people they could lead to faith in Yeshua, is to violate The Sabbath by having existing congregants come in to work in preparation of the event?
You know, if you ask most “Christians” about what are usually referred to as “The Ten Commandments”—the list from Exodus 20—they will tend to agree those are still valid. There are some, like those who think the four things listed in Acts 15:20 or those who think “love one another as I have loved you” are the only commands imposed on “Christians” today. But the majority view is still that these ten are absolutely still binding. Otherwise there would have been no outrage over monuments of them being removed from public court buildings.
Even at that, however, “Christians” try to skirt around The Sabbath. One way they do this is to claim that there is a passage where Yeshua talked about keeping “the commandments” and referred to 9 out of the 10 from the Exodus 20 list, leaving out The Sabbath. Some will say that there is no place where the “New Testament” repeats keeping The Sabbath as a commandment—which is nothing but “Christian” ignorance from people who don’t read The Bible. Anther is the completely unbiblical belief that “Sunday” is some kind of “Christian Sabbath”. Not only is Yeshua recorded throughout The Gospels as keeping The Sabbath and the apostles in Acts are recorded keeping 85 Sabbath Days, but Hebrews 4:9 quite plainly tells us that The Sabbath remains for those who are living according to the covenant with God. And not one time in Scripture is The Sabbath ever redefined as being anything other than the seventh day of the biblical week.
The fact of the matter, however, is that The Sabbath Day was initiated in Genesis 2 and was kept by every single person involved in writing the books that today make up The Bible. To think that you have to work on The Sabbath to in any way prepare your ministry to “win people to Jesus” is nothing but an insult to the God you claim you are serving.
Has “Christianity” really strayed so far from a biblical foundation that it’s no longer enough for them to say that “Jesus is their Sabbath” or “Sunday is their Sabbath” or “The Sabbath is one of those ‘ceremonial’ laws that were done away with” or some other nonsensical line? Has it really come to a place where they now have to so disregard The Sabbath that they think they should work on The Sabbath to prepare for their “church services”?
It would seem that this really is the case.
Consider these points about The Sabbath:
— God established the Sabbath on the seventh day of the Creation week. It is the only thing that was created on its own through God’s ceasing to create anything else. (Genesis 2:1-3)
— The Sabbath is listed among what is commonly referred to as “The Ten Commandments”. (Exodus 20:8-11)
— The Sabbath is referred to as a sign of one’s being in covenant with God. (Ezekiel 20:12, 20)
— Our Messiah, Yeshua, kept the Sabbath. (Luke 4:16, 6:6, 13:10)
— The Sabbath was kept by the apostles following the departure of Yeshua; 85 Sabbath Days are documented in this period as kept by the apostles. (Acts 13:13-14, 16:13, 17:2, 18:4)
— The Sabbath remains for God’s people. (Hebrews 4:9)
— The Sabbath was made for man, for our blessing and benefit. (Mark 2:7)
— The Sabbath will be kept in the coming Millennium. (Isaiah 66:23)
Now, I suppose I could be wrong, but it seems logical to conclude that if The Sabbath was established in the Creation week, is a commandment, is a sign of our covenant, was kept by literally every committed Believer in Scripture including the apostles and even kept by Yeshua Himself, and will be kept in the Millennium then where do “Christians” get this idea that they don’t have to keep it? Do they honestly believe that God will bless their Sunday services when they defy and break The Sabbath—and especially when they do it to prepare for their church gatherings? I would say any perceived “blessings” they think they have are not from God—likely any such “blessings” come from Satan who would use what they think are “blessings” for the purpose of making them think they are somehow in right standing with God in their breaking His Torah to preach their “gospel”.
I once ran into a guy I knew from church several years back. I had not seen in him years prior to this encounter. He was sharing with me how his legs were a little sore from all the work he was doing in his yard on a Saturday. I told him that maybe that wouldn’t be the case if he wasn’t working on The Sabbath.
He had to think for a minute, because apparently he didn’t automatically realize that most of Saturday—especially the daylight hours he was doing this work—is all part of The Sabbath Day. He then proceeded to tell me how he doesn’t think God cares that much about it. I told him that this is the problem with “Christians”, they act like if God doesn’t smite them and strike them down with a bolt of lightning it is somehow a sign of His “approval” for their defiance against His Torah. He got rather upset at me and the conversation quickly came to an end.
But this is how “Christians” treat The Sabbath. They don’t care about the commandments of the one they call their God. They don’t care about filling the courts of heaven. They care about filling their “churches” with people at all costs. But the cost is steep. When preachers and their congregations defy the commandments of God in order to build their ministries through secular growth methods they are preparing to fill the bowels of hell with the masses of religion, as they pass through the doors of their churches along the way.
A Constant Reminder
You are not to make any cuttings in your flesh for the dead or make any tattoo marks upon yourself.
—Leviticus 19:28 (TLV)
A pastor was addressing his congregation one Sunday morning. He was talking about the parable from Matthew 18:12 and Luke 15:4 where Yeshua spoke about a shepherd leaving the ninety-nine sheep to go after one that had went astray. He then took off his suit coat and rolled up his shirtsleeve to reveal a tattoo he had gotten of the number 1 inside of a circle.
He explained that he wanted a constant and permanent reminder that The Bible says we are to “win souls for Jesus”. To highlight just how absurd this is, he is a man who has been pastoring a church for decades, has conducted mass evangelism events, been on television, and numerous other such things. Why does someone like that need to do something that violates The Torah to remind him to do what he has already spent his whole life doing, and quite successfully at that? Why is The Bible not enough of a constant and permanent reminder that we are supposed to do anything that The Bible tells us to do?
To make matters worse, as this pastor has a good amount of influence not only to his local congregation but also to a lot of other pastors, I have observed a growing number of people mimicking his action by also getting a tattoo of the number 1 inside of a circle. It has become sort of a cultish action. Instead of looking to The Bible and allowing the whole counsel of Scripture to guide them, many are just doing whatever their lawless pastor is doing. Do people even care what The Bible says anymore?
You know, there is something to be said about leaving the ninety-nine to go after the one, but there is also something to be said about “traveling over land and sea to win a single convert just to make them twice as bound for hell as they were” (Matthew 23:15). If your idea of leaving the ninety-nine (your congregation) is to lead them into the comforts of lawlessness so that you can chase after more converts, than you have a wrong view of Yeshua’s parable and you are a deceiver working for Satan.
The Bible tells us that Satan will deceive the whole world (Revelation 12:9). More than anything else he does this through the “Christian” religion. This is a faith tradition that literally repeats the actions of Genesis 3 in their theologies and doctrines. The preachers of this religion tell you that “Christians” are not under God’s Laws. They will say that there are absolutes, but they define what those are, not God. And the things they call absolutes are only those things that are accepted as immoral by secular culture—things like don’t murder, don’t steal, don’t lie, don’t commit adultery. But if you bring up commandments like the food laws, The Sabbath, the Feast Days, the tattoo prohibition, or condemnations of secular-pagan holidays like Christmas, Easter, and Halloween they will tell you that you don’t have to follow those today and you won’t really go to hell for breaking those ones. This is 100% exactly what the serpent did with regard to the tree in the midst of the garden in Genesis 3. Regardless of what may have legitimately been called Christianity in the first few hundred years following the life of Yeshua, the “Christian” religion today is nothing but Satanic deception leading people to live in defiance of The Torah and think it’s OK.
The Spirit Of Lawlessness
You may be reading this article and thinking, “I attend a church like what this guy is describing, and I have seen many great miracles, many signs and wonders. How can you explain that?” It’s really quite simple, actually. The question is: Are you willing to receive the answer?
Satan can counterfeit everything in The Bible except for one thing—full Torah obedience. This is why Torah-keeping is the only way we can truly distinguish The Spirit of Yah from demonic religious spirits. Satan can mimic the most powerful and emotionally driven worship—it is a widely accepted view that he was the “fallen worship leader” from heaven—and most people will think it’s some of the most anointed music they ever heard. Satan can create false miracles and healing. If he put a disease on you, he can remove it while you’re “at church” so you think it came from God. But Satan cannot replicate Torah obedience because he is the lawless one.
In contrast, Yeshua is called the righteous one. The Bible gives us a definition for righteousness in Deuteronomy 6:25—“It will be righteousness to us, if we take care to do all this commandment before Adonai our God, just as He has commanded us.” Righteousness is obeying The Torah, and lawlessness (sin) is breaking, transgressing, violating The Torah (1 John 3:4). Therefore, the righteous one is the one who keeps The Torah and the lawless one is the one who breaks The Torah. So, which one is living within you?
I have conversations with people all the time about a particular commandment—whether it’s the food laws, The Sabbath, the Feast Days, or anything else—and I give them point after point of logically thought out truth, and they just can’t comprehend that they are really supposed to be following whatever commandment is being discussed at that time or that their view is in violation of God’s Law. I have gone through all of the history about things like Christmas and Easter with many and they just can’t comprehend that these things really are rooted in witchcraft and pagan religion. These things are a heart condition. In their mind they are submitted to “following Jesus”, but in their heart they are still attached to whatever sin (Torah-violation) they are actually committing.
Just recently I saw a social media post from a young pastor that read: “God’s WORD is INSPIRED NOT ‘expired’. If His word says to do something, do it. If His word says not to do something, don’t do it. Right is still right, wrong is still wrong, sin is still sin, and REPENT still means, REPENT.” He went on to share how God and His Word are synonymous and quoted some supporting Scripture. So I engaged with the post and inquired with him about things like The Sabbath Day, the biblical food laws, God’s Feast Days, churches keeping secular-pagan holidays, and other such things. If God’s Word, including His commands, are not expired, if right is still right and wrong is still wrong, if we are supposed to do what The Bible says to do and not do what The Bible says not to do, then such an inquiry should at least result in a positive discussion about how a preacher can make such statements but apparently not really mean them. Instead, he deleted my comments and blocked me from his social media page. Apparently “follow The Bible without exception, it’s not expired” actually means “except for the things that Christianity has deemed to be expired and don’t you dare challenge us or embarrass us with The Bible and our lack of knowing Scripture”.
When people break The Torah as a means to advance whatever they seem to think the gospel is, it becomes abundantly clear that they are operating under the spirit of the lawless one and their churches are houses of heresy and lawlessness. They have lied to you in saying that you are “saved” and “as sure for heaven as if you are already there” because you parroted some scripted prayer at some made up thing called an “altar call”. Tell me, where is any of that in The Bible? The Bible does not say: “Pray this prayer and you will be as sure for heaven as if you are already there.” The Bible says, Yeshua said: “REPENT! For the kingdom of God is at hand,” and “If you want to enter into life, KEEP THE COMMANDMENTS.”
Think about the billions of people who have been lied to through the con-artist tactics of the church that has told you through their evangelism methods that you don’t have to follow The Torah just as long as you “believe in Jesus”. The Bible says through the apostle James that even the devils “believe in Jesus”. When you fall prey to the lawless church you will be led to “believe in Jesus” while defying The Torah just like the devil does. The “Jesus” of the modern-day Torah-rejecting “Christian church” is the one described in 2 Corinthians 11:4, not the one described in Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. If you preach a “gospel” built on top of breaking God’s Laws then you are preaching a “gospel” of lawlessness. It’s just that simple.
Revelation 12:9 tells us that Satan will deceive the whole world. Today lawless “Christianity” boasts a whole one-third of the world’s population. This is not the FEW described in Matthew 7:13-14 that will find the narrow gate with the correct way beyond it. “Christianity” is described in Matthew 7:21-23 where the MANY who attribute all that they did to “Jesus” and are told to depart because they did not follow The Torah.
The only way to think you have to break The Torah in order to preach your concept of The Gospel is to preach another “Jesus”, another spirit, and another gospel. When you are against The Torah, especially to the point where you think you need to do things that defy The Torah as a means of evangelism, you are not preaching The Gospel—you are doing everything you can to win a single convert only to make them more bound for hell than they were without you or your church.
~Blessings and Shalom~ ©2022 Truth Ignited Ministry
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