Do you love God?
Do you love Yeshua?
Do you love The Bible?
If you asked practically any “Christian” from any denominational, non-denominational, cultural, church, or any other religious background these three questions they would all unanimously answer all three with a confident: “YES!” But what if I told you that the overwhelming majority, regardless of how sincere they are and how much they believe that to be true, are wrong?
I realize this is a strong statement to open a teaching with as I have essentially just literally accused the “Christian” masses of not actually loving their God, their Messiah Yeshua, or The Bible—despite how much they think they do. However, as we take a look at what Scripture says and how God and The Bible define love—particularly as it relates to loving God, loving our Messiah Yeshua, and loving The Bible—there are some hard truths that we must face. In this message I am going to share things that will be uncomfortable to some readers. But I ask only that you read through the entire message before deciding if what I am going to share makes sense.
What many people have missed today is the fact that The Bible itself gives definitions to a number of important keywords—those terms that we would use as the basis of formulating doctrines and theology. Such words would include sin, salvation, righteousness, holiness, grace, and redemption. If this only happened one or two times it would seem less significant. But as the trend is seen in a so many of the most important words in The Bible I would not consider this a coincidence.
Personally, I believe that this is yet another aspect of the divine nature of Scripture. It’s as if God Himself knew that religion and religious people would redefine these words, apply man-made meanings to them, or defer to things like the common definitions of Greek and even Hebrew words when His definitions are shown in the plain and revealed text of His Word. For example, many people are taught that sin means “missing the mark”, which is in harmony with both the Hebrew word chata (חָטָא) and the Greek hamartia (ἁμαρτία). However, in just a moment I will show you a much more precise definition for sin given within Scripture itself—which means this will be God’s definition of sin, not man’s.
Perhaps the greatest problem with “Christianity” today is the combinations of replacement theology, antinomianism, and the redefining of Scripture. “Christians” have been notorious for having unbiblical ideas of what grace is, what sin is, what salvation is, and so many other things plainly defined in The Bible. This means that they have literally created an outright counterfeit idea of what The Bible actually teaches. I often find myself reminding people that The Bible is a Hebrew book written by Hebrew people about the Hebrew God from the perspective of Torah-keeping Hebrew culture. Every single person who was used to write The Bible was a Torah-keeping citizen of biblical Israel. As such, I can assure you that the Bible authors were not saying what “Christians” believe and teach.
“Christianity” as a religion wasn’t really formalized until several hundred years after the final pages of the biblical canon were written, and “Christianity” as most outside of Catholic religion practice it today is only 500 years old. Most people do not realize this, but apart from Roman Catholicism, the majority of all other expressions of “Christianity” today were born out of the Protestant Reformation that began in the early 16th century—that’s roughly 1,500 years after the predominantly Jewish movement led by the Apostles. Even Pentecostal “Christianity”, which may come the closest of all mainstream “Christian” groups to being biblical, is still built on many of these false definitions that build into false doctrines and false theologies creating a false religion.
Some of the articles I have written more recently have focused on popular quests for secret esoteric knowledge through various forms of “Bible codes”, such as the ELS Codes that were trending a few decades ago to something called “Hebrew Word Pictures”. In these messages a directive from The Torah stands out—Deuteronomy 29:28 (TLV) says: “The secret things belong to Adonai our God, but the things revealed belong to us and to our children forever—in order to do all the words of this Torah.” This does not apply to just the seeking out of alleged “hidden encoded messages and prophecies” through the decoding of Hebrew letters or anything else. We can also apply this to seeking out “other definitions” for words in which we have clear definitions revealed in the biblical text. When God tells us in His Word what a particular term means, that’s what it should mean everywhere we see it in The Bible.
God’s Dictionary
Let’s take a closer look at some of the important words I mentioned and where they are defined in Scripture. This is certainly not going to be an all-encompassing list, but I want to highlight several words that both illustrate this principle and are among the most essential to establishing correct biblical doctrines and theologies.
Sin
Everyone who keeps sinning is violating Torah — indeed, sin is violation of Torah.
—1 John 3:4 (CJB)
Then Saul said to Samuel, “I have sinned! For I have transgressed against the word of Adonai and your words—because I feared the people and listened to their voice.”
—1 Samuel 15:24 (TLV)
Sin is the breaking, violating, transgressing of The Torah. Wrongly defining sin as “missing the mark” without this in-Scripture definition makes “the mark” fluid and allows people to determine in their own eyes what “the mark” is. Correctly defining sin shows that “the mark” is the Torah lifestyle that The Bible calls us to live. Properly defining sin as “breaking, violating, transgressing The Torah” is also essential to correctly defining the other important words I will discuss below.
Salvation
She will give birth to a son; and you shall call His name Yeshua, for He will save His people from their sins.
—Matthew 1:21 (TLV)
We are saved from sin. Sin is the breaking of The Torah. Therefore, salvation is where we commit to stop breaking The Torah.
Righteousness
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.
—Deuteronomy 6:25 (TLV)
Righteousness is obeying The Torah, doing what God commanded. This means that righteousness is the opposite of sin. This is critical to understanding passages like Romans 6:16 where sin (breaking The Torah) is contrasted with righteousness (obeying The Torah).
Grace
For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation to all men, training us to deny ungodliness and worldly desires and to live in a manner that is self-controlled and righteous and godly in the present age.
—Titus 2:11-12 (TLV)
Ungodliness and worldly desires are words related to sin—the breaking, transgressing, violating of The Torah. Righteousness is obeying The Torah, doing what God commanded. Grace, therefore, is what trains us and empowers us to stop breaking The Torah and then live by The Torah. This is perhaps the most contrary to the “Christian” definitions of Bible words, as the idea of grace through antinomian theologies says that grace is what “delivers” people from the mandate to obey God’s Laws. The modern “Christian” skirts around this belief by saying that things the whole world believes to be morally wrong like murder or adultery are covered under some fictitious “Law of Christ” or “Royal Law of Love” while maintaining that the parts of Torah not popular or upheld by the “Christian” masses—like the Leviticus 11 food laws, keeping the biblical Sabbath on the seventh day of the biblical week, or celebrating God’s Feast Days outlined in Leviticus 23—are null and void “under grace”. As you continue to read through this study, you will find out just how absolutely wrong this thinking really is.
Holiness
Here is the perseverance of the kedoshim—those who keep the commandments of God and the faith of Yeshua.
—Revelation 14:12 (TLV)
This Hebrew word kedoshim means “holy ones”. Holiness is both keeping the commandments of God (The Torah) and the faith of Yeshua (The Gospel). You cannot do one or the other and be living biblically, you are either doing both or you are in error. The “Jesus-only” theology of “Christianity” makes you no different than demonic spirits (James 2:19) and the Torah-only theology of “Judaism” makes you a denier of Yeshua. If you want to be holy, you have to wholly follow the whole Bible. The phrase, “Be holy, as I [God] am holy,” (Lev. 11:44, 19:2, 20:26, 1 Pet. 1:16) is directly connected with obeying the food laws (Lev. 11:44, 20:25-26) more than anything else in The Bible. Just take a moment to think about that. Take all the time you need. And please remember that the very first act of sin that started the whole problem came through people eating something God said not to eat (see Genesis 3).
Redemption
In Him we have redemption—the release of sins. —Colossians 1:14 (TLV)
Redemption is the release of sins, which occurs when you truly decide to enter into the covenant that involves both living according to The Father’s Torah and the faith of Yeshua. If sin is breaking The Torah, then redemption should result in a life of obeying The Torah.
New Covenant
But this is the covenant I will make with the house of Israel after those days” —it is a declaration of Adonai— “I will put My Torah within them. Yes, I will write it on their heart. I will be their God and they will be My people. —Jeremiah 31:32 (TLV)
For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says Adonai. I will put My Torah into their mind, and upon their hearts I will write it. And I will be their God, and they shall be My people.
—Hebrews 8:10 (TLV)
The new covenant is where God puts His Torah in your mind and writes His Torah on your heart through the choice to enter covenant with Him by repenting of sin (Torah-breaking) and following Yeshua, walking as He walked (1 John 2:6). If something is in your mind, it will consume your thoughts. So the covenant Believer with Torah in their mind will be consumed with God’s commandments, The Torah, to read and study them. If something is on your heart you will be driven with a passion for it. So the covenant Believer with Torah on their heart will be consumed with a drive to obey and do what is instructed in The Torah they as they read and study the commandments. A person with Torah in their mind and on their heart does not say, “we’re not under the law, the law was nailed to the cross, we can eat what we want now, don’t need to keep The Sabbath, and can celebrate whatever holidays we want, and if you dare trying to obey The Torah you are a Judaizer that has fallen from grace.”
Spirit-filled
Moreover I will give you a new heart. I will put a new spirit within you. I will remove the stony heart from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. I will put My Ruach within you. Then I will cause you to walk in My laws, so you will keep My rulings and do them.
—Ezekiel 36:26-27 (TLV)
This passage starts out with a parallel to the definition of new covenant, where you receive a new heart with Torah written on it and a new spirit with Torah put into it. Then it tells us that the covenant Believer will be filled with The Spirit that will CAUSE him or her to walk in The Torah. Many, especially in Pentecostal sects, teach that “the evidence” of being filled with The Spirit is speaking in tongues. While this and other gifts of The Spirit are wonderful and absolutely biblical, they are not “the evidence” that someone is Spirit-filled. Scripture makes it very clear that some receive each gift. This means that some do not, and something not guaranteed to everyone cannot be the evidence of being filled with The Spirit. According to God’s definition in Scripture “Spirit-filled” is what CAUSES us to walk in The Father’s Torah. In other words, to put this into perspective with some of the commandments most rejected by “Christians”, a true Spirit-filled Believer will be CAUSED to obey the Leviticus 11 food laws, CAUSED to keep the biblical Sabbath Day, CAUSED to celebrate The Father’s Feast Days, CAUSED to check clothing labels and not wear wool and linen together (Lev. 19:19, Deut. 22:11), and even CAUSED to not celebrate the pagan holidays created by the Roman Catholic church (Christmas, Easter, and Halloween, along with days of worshiping the Catholic “Saints” like “Saint” Patrick’s Day and “Saint” Valentine’s Day). These points will become much more clear as you continue to read through this teaching, and you will see that, among other things, if your “Christian” experience is not such that CAUSES you to walk in The Torah, you are not really Spirit-filled. You may be filled with a spirit, but it’s not The Spirit that CAUSES the covenant Believer to walk in God’s Laws.
Several years ago I did a teaching where I took every verse from the Apostolic Writings (what most people wrongly call the “New Testament”, a term that contributes greatly to confusion about what The Bible says) where the word “sin” is used and replaced it with the Bible definition of sin. You can do this with any word that The Bible gives a clear definition to and use that to better understand what the Bible writers and ultimately God through them were saying in various passages. To keep it brief I will only give a few here, but let’s look at some examples of this where I will replace the word with its Bible definition in brackets.
Sin
“Turn away from your [Torah-breaking], for the kingdom of heaven is near!”
—Matthew 3:2 (TLV)
“Then neither do I condemn you,” Yeshua said. “Go, and [transgress The Torah] no more.”
—John 8:11b (TLV)
Salvation/Saved
And it shall be that everyone who calls on the name of Adonaishall [stop breaking The Torah].
—Acts 2:21 (TLV)
For “Everyone who calls upon the name of Adonaishall [stop breaking The Torah].”
—Romans 10:13 (TLV)
Righteousness
But thanks be to God that though you were slaves of sin, you wholeheartedly obeyed the form of teaching under which you were placed; and after you were set free from sin, you became enslaved to [Torah obedience].
—Romans 6:17-18 (TLV)
Notice that this last example also included the word “sin”, so you can use this method twice in that verse and say that we are set free from Torah-breaking and become enslaved to Torah-keeping. In some cases there may be some redundancy, like Romans 6:16 that through this process you would get the phrase “obedience resulting in obeying The Torah”. But even in that we can better understand how the message of Scripture from cover to cover has a theme of obeying The Father’s Torah.
As you can already begin to see through these definitions and applying them throughout Scripture, what “Christianity” teaches these things mean and what The Bible says they mean are completely different. “Christianity” uses many of these words in support of antinomian beliefs driven by out-of-context statements like “we’re not under the law” or “Torah was nailed to the cross”. I will show you a little later in this message why such statements, as used by the majority of “Christians”, do not mean what people think they mean.
I left out one word from this list. That word is: LOVE. However, I did not leave it out on purpose. After all, the title of this article is The Biblical Definition Of Love. I left it out here because I want to commit a little more time to that one, which I will now do.
Loving God According To The Bible
Unlike the previous words we reviewed that are given one or at most two verses of Scripture, there is a definition of love that applies to our love for God, Messiah, and The Bible itself that is repeated a whopping eighteen times. It is to these passages we will now turn our attention. I have added emphasis to these verses in bold text so you can clearly see the pattern. Additionally, because I primarily use a translation that includes some Hebraic words, for those who are unfamiliar with the term “mitzvhah, mitzvot” it is a word that refers to individual commandments or in a plural sense the total of the individual commandments. So when you see statements like “keep My mitzvot”, think of it as just another way of saying “keep My Torah”.
“You shall have no other gods before Me. Do not make for yourself a graven image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above or on the earth below or in the water under the earth. Do not bow down to them, do not let anyone make you serve them. For I, Adonai your God, am a jealous God, bringing the iniquity of the fathers upon the children to the third and fourth generations of those who hate Me, but showing lovingkindness to the thousands of generations of those who love Me and keep My mitzvot.”
—Exodus 20:3-6 (TLV)
“Do not make for yourself a graven image—no image of what is in the heavens above or on the earth beneath or in the water under the earth. Do not bow down to them or worship them. For I, Adonai your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children and on the third and fourth generation of those who hate Me, but showing lovingkindness to a thousand generations of those who love Me and keep My mitzvot.”
—Deuteronomy 5:8-10 (TLV)
“Know therefore that Adonai your God, He is God—the faithful God who keeps covenant kindness for a thousand generations with those who love Him and keep His mitzvot, but repays those who hate Him to their face, to annihilate them. He will not hesitate with him who hates Him; He will repay him to his face. Therefore you are to keep the commandment—both the statutes and the ordinances—that I am commanding you today, to do them.”
—Deuteronomy 7:9-11 (TLV)
“So now, O Israel, what does Adonai your God require of you, but to fear Adonai your God, to walk in all His ways and loveHim, and to serve Adonai your God with all your heart and with all your soul, to keep the mitzvot of Adonai and His statutes that I am commanding you today, for your own good?”
—Deuteronomy 10:12-13 (TLV)
“Therefore you are to love Adonai your God and keep His charge, His statutes, His ordinances and His mitzvot at all times.” —Deuteronomy 11:1 (TLV)
“Now if you listen obediently to My mitzvot that I am commanding you today—to love Adonai your God and to serve Him with all your heart and soul—then I will give rain for your land in its season—the early rain and the late rain—so that you may gather in your grain, new wine and olive oil.”
—Deuteronomy 11:13-14 (TLV)
“For if you will diligently keep all this mitzvah that I am commanding you to do—to love Adonai your God, to walk in all His ways and to cling to Him—then Adonai will drive out all these nations from before you, and you will dispossess nations greater and mightier than yourselves.”
—Deuteronomy 11:22-23 (TLV)
“Suppose Adonai your God enlarges your territory, as He has sworn to your fathers, and He gives you all the land that He promised to give to your fathers—when you take care to do all this mitzvah that I am commanding you today, to love Adonai your God and to always walk in His ways. Then you are to add three more cities for yourself, besides these three.”
—Deuteronomy 19:8-9 (TLV)
“What I am commanding you today is to love Adonai your God, to walk in His ways, and to keep His mitzvot, statutes and ordinances. Then you will live and multiply, and Adonai your God will bless you in the land you are going in to possess.”
—Deuteronomy 30:16 (TLV)
“Only be very careful to observe the mitzvah and the Torah which Moses the servant of Adonai commanded you, to love Adonai your God and walk in all His ways, and to keep His mitzvot, cling to Him and worship Him with all your heart and with all your soul.”
—Joshua 22:5 (TLV)
“I prayed to Adonai my God and confessed, saying: ‘O Lord, the great and awesome God, who keeps covenant and mercy with those who love Him and keep His mitzvot, we have sinned; we have committed iniquity; we have acted wickedly; we have rebelled; we have turned away from Your mitzvot and from Your rulings.”
—Daniel 9:4 (TLV)
Then I said: “Adonai, God of heaven, the great and awesome God who keeps the covenant and lovingkindness with those who love Him and keep His mitzvot, please let Your ear be attentive and Your eyes open to hear the prayer of Your servant that I am praying before You today both day and night on behalf of Your servants, the Bnei-Yisrael. I am confessing the sins of Bnei-Yisrael that we have sinned against You—yes, I and my ancestral house have sinned.”
—Nehemiah 1:5-6 (TLV)
“If you love Me, you will keep My commandments.”
—John 14:15 (TLV)
“He who has My commandments and keeps them is the one who loves Me. He who loves Me will be loved by My Father, and I will love him and reveal Myself to him.”
—John 14:21 (TLV)
But in order that the world may know that I love the Father, I do exactly as the Father commanded Me. —John 14:31 (TLV)
If you keep My commandments, you will abide in My love, just as I have kept My Father’s commandments and abide in His love. —John 15:10 (TLV)
We know that we love God’s children by this—when we love God and obey His commandments. For this is the love of God—that we keep His commandments. And His commandments are not burdensome.
—1 John 5:2-3 (TLV)
Now this is love: that we walk according to His commands. This is the commandment—just as you heard from the beginning—that you walk in love.
—2 John 1:6 (TLV)
Perhaps you have never seen this before, or at least not viewed it laid out in this manner, yet here we have all of these statements saying that loving God and loving Yeshua are synonymous with loving and obeying The Torah. This is eighteen times throughout Scripture that we are told loving God means keeping His commandments, including three times where Yeshua said it of Himself—showing that He and His Father are one.
To add to this, I searched again using Bible software omitting the references to Torah, commandments, mitzvot, etc. and only looked for the phrases “love Me” and “love God”. I found that there is not one other thing in the entire Bible that defines loving God or loving Yeshua. The only thing Scripture ever equates with loving The Father and The Messiah is obedience to the commandments—living your life everyday to follow The Torah.
Now I want to “flip the script” a little on you. What is the opposite of the word love? Of course, most people know it is “hate”. So, if we apply the most basic of logic and take this idea to its common sense conclusion, then since loving God, loving Yeshua, and loving The Bible means obeying The Torah, then breaking The Torah would mean you hate God, hate Yeshua, and hate The Bible. Let’s do another little exercise using some of the commandments from The Torah.
Exodus 20:13 tells us not to commit murder. Therefore, if you love God, love Yeshua, and love The Bible you will not murder people. However, if you murder people you are expressing hatred for God, Yeshua, and The Bible.
Exodus 20:14 says not to commit adultery. Therefore, if you love God, love Yeshua, and love The Bible you will not commit adultery. However, if you commit adultery you are expressing hatred for God, Yeshua, and The Bible.
Leviticus 19:26 says not to practice enchantments and sorcery. Therefore, if you love God, love Yeshua, and love The Bible you will not engage in any forms of witchcraft. However, if you practice any type of witchcraft you are expressing hatred for God, Yeshua, and The Bible.
I could go on with many such examples, but these are all things that the majority of “Christians” still see as relevant and morally binding on their faith practice. For some reason those who chant that they are “not under the law” and that “the law was nailed to the cross” and other such things never seem to apply this belief to commandments against murdering people, various forms of sexual immorality, witchcraft, lying, stealing, and other such things that continue to be morally wrong even by secular standards. But what happens if we continue by looking at commandments that are written off by the masses in “Christian” religion today? Let’s take a look.
Leviticus 11 and Deuteronomy 14 outlines a number of animals that we are permitted to eat and others we are not. Therefore, if you love God, love Yeshua, and love The Bible you will not eat things like pork, shellfish, rodents, reptiles, and anything else God said not to eat. Eating what is prohibited as “unclean, detestable, an abomination” would then be an act of hating God, hating Yeshua, and hating The Bible.
Exodus 20:8-11 and many other passages tell us to keep The Sabbath Day, and clearly defines it as the seventh day of the biblical week—this coincides with sunset Friday to sunset Saturday on current secular calendars. It tells us that on this day we are to do no work, and a more thorough study reveals that this specifically means “servile work” (what you do to earn wages) and “laborious work” (anything that would be overly strenuous or stressful on your mind or body). Therefore, if you love God, love Yeshua, and love The Bible you will keep The Sabbath Day. However, if you do not keep The Sabbath Day you are expressing hate toward God, Yeshua, and The Bible.
Exodus 23, Leviticus 23, Numbers 28-29, and Deuteronomy 16 outline The Father’s Feast Days—Passover, Unleavened Bread, First Fruits, Pentecost, Trumpets, Atonement, and Tabernacles. These are all times of commanded celebration to our God where we rejoice and give thanks for His provision. Those who love God, love Yeshua, and love The Bible will celebrate these days. Those who do not celebrate them hate God, hate Yeshua, and hate The Bible.
Leviticus 19:28 says not to get any tattoo marks on your body. Now, I will note here for this one specifically that what a person does before entering into covenant—which would include any practicing “Christian” who has never been taught the truth in a message like this—is in the past. So if you have tattoos and you have never been told the truth before, you do not need to feel condemned. If you have the option to remove them and choose to do so, that is commendable. However, if you do not, it’s perfectly OK. But a person who has truly entered into covenant and loves God, Yeshua, and The Bible will not get tattoos on their body (or more than they already had when they entered into covenant). A person who rejects the commandment and gets tattoos on their body anyway hates God, hates Yeshua, and hates The Bible.
Leviticus 19:19 and Deuteronomy 22:11 says not to wear wool and linen together. This seems an odd commandment. Some would say it’s too strange a thing to follow. But if you truly love God, Yeshua, and The Bible you will begin the practice of checking clothing labels to ensure you do not wear this prohibited mixture and those who don’t are ultimately declaring that they hate God, Yeshua, and The Bible.
Deuteronomy 12:29-31 speaks against appropriating the practices of other religions, especially those steeped in pagan and witchcraft rituals, and using those things in a manner to worship our God. Many people in “Christianity” would say that they would never do this, but the harsh reality is that the holidays of Christmas, Easter, and Halloween come from a direct violation of this commandment. This means, as hard as it may be for some people to hear it, if you love God, love Yeshua, and love The Bible you will not celebrate these holidays. Those who celebrate these holidays, whether they want to hear it or not, according to Scripture, hate God, hate Yeshua, and hate The Bible.
Deuteronomy 29:28 (or verse 29 in some translations) says that secret things belong to God and that which is revealed [in The Bible] is for us, and this is for the sole purpose of living by and obeying The Torah. I have, in other teachings, addressed how this relates to the quests for mystical and esoteric knowledge, chasing things like “Bible codes”, “Hebrew Word Pictures”, numerology, and other methods of “digging out” so-called hidden prophecies supposedly found in Hebrew letters. There is also the matter of all the theories of eschatology (the end times). Whatever is revealed in Scripture serves to lead us to live a life of Torah-obedience. This includes any statements about whatever the future may hold. These things are not in The Bible for us to try to figure out when a rapture might happen, when Messiah will return, what the seven bowls or who the two witnesses will be, or if the “locusts” described in Revelation are a swarm of military drones. It’s definitely not there for us to start theories that every newly voted in President of the United States is the “anti-Messiah”. These things are in The Bible to tell us that we need to be prepared for the end by living according to The Torah. And while I know some things like eschatology are a touchy subject, people who cannot obey the commandment of God do not love Him. Just look at the damage that is done through “Bible codes” and things like “Hebrew Word Pictures” as well as the damage caused by weird end times prophesies and theories. We are told that any “secret” things that may exist belong to God and the revealed things are for us. Do you love God or hate Him? Do you love The Bible or hate it? Is it really that difficult to just follow The Bible? Why are people so easily drawn to this stuff that’s not in The Bible? I do not see anywhere in The Bible that instructs us to look for hidden codes using alleged “picture meanings” of Hebrew letters.
Again, I could go on with more examples, but I believe that these should hit most “Christians” like a ton of bricks, hard enough to knock the spiritual wind out of their sails and cause them to really stop and think: “Have I been lied to?” I understand that some of this is very hard to grasp for many people, especially the part about Christmas. After all, most “Christians” are absolutely convinced that December 25th is the day Yeshua was born, despite the fact that it can be proven beyond all doubt that He could not have been born in the winter and can be shown with near-certainty that He was born during the fall season in connection prophetically with the biblical Feast of Tabernacles (also called the Feast of Sukkot).
Certainly all practicing “Christians” today, especially those who are most active in their faith and radical in their commitment, believe that they are love their God and their Messiah. Yet The Bible says they are not. Yeshua Himself carries the statement forward saying, “If you love Me, keep My commandments,” (John 14:15) and then just a short time later says, “He who hates me also hates My Father” (John 15:23). It’s really quite simple. Either we love God His way or we hate Him. Either we love Yeshua His way or we hate Him. Either we love The Bible the biblical way or we hate the very Word of God.
Love Is Torah Obedience
There is one more statement in The Bible that defines “love”, this time focused on the broader sense of the word itself—much like those verses we looked at that define words like sin, salvation, grace, righteousness, etc.—as opposed to the eighteen verses that more specifically define loving God, Yeshua, and The Bible. Consider what the apostle Paul says here, again with emphasis added in bold.
Love does no harm to a neighbor; therefore love is the fullness of the Torah. —Romans 13:10 (TLV)
What I find most fascinating about this verse is that the biblical definition of “love” here is found immediately following a biblical admonition to love our neighbor. Many today are overly focused on two commandments that were highlighted by Yeshua: love God, love people. This has become the mantra of many churches. Yet, it is also a completely misunderstood passage. Let’s take a look at what was said.
And He said to him, “‘You shall love Adonai your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ The entire Torah and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.”
—Matthew 22:37-40 (TLV)
What most people in “Christian” religion today miss is that last part where The Torah and Prophets hang on the commandments to love God and love people. That word “hang” is critical to the context of the entire statement.
When we apply the context of this word to the whole passage, the two “love” commandments can be likened to two nails from which you would hang a work of art or two hinges from which you would hang a door. When all is in its place, you can enjoy the artwork or open the door to walk through with ease.
If, however, the components are separated there will be problems. Imagine, for a moment, someone carrying the artwork around everywhere they go and someone else standing at the wall staring at the two nails. Or we can visualize the problem with trying to go through a door that is not on its hinges—this would be quite challenging and inconvenient. This is a picture of what happens when we separate the two “love” commandments from The Torah and Prophets.
Like the scenario where one person carries the artwork wherever they go and the other stands gazing at two rusty nails pounded into the wall, today we have churches that approach The Torah and Prophets in a legalistic manner and others who think they can love God and love people while rejecting at least some of the other things The Torah instructs us to do or not do, which is lawlessness. But when you bring the two together the laws of love work together in the background and you can properly obey the commandments in a way that is not burdensome (1 John 5:3).
“Christians” generally use certain passages of Scripture, always outside of their biblical context, to claim that they have no obligation to “The Laws of Moses”—a label for The Torah that although biblical is most often used today to diminish Torah to something not truly from God Himself and “abolished” through the redemptive work of Yeshua. But this mindset is found very early in The Bible.
In Genesis 3 the whole sin problem began by Satan convincing someone to eat something God said not to eat. Again, just think about that for a moment. Today it is very difficult to convince a “Christian” that The Bible says not to eat certain things like pork, shellfish, or a variety of other detestable things. Yet I have found that once a person realizes the importance of the Leviticus 11 food laws and begins to keep them, everything else falls into place and they become radically sold out to obeying the whole Bible. It’s no wonder Satan chose to initiate his plan of deception by convincing someone to eat what God said not to eat.
The entire reason there is sin in the world today traces to this one single event where people ate something God said not to eat. This means the whole reason that we have a Bible is because of this as well. Also, the reason Yeshua had to come into this world and be executed on a tree starts with this single act. The reason people need to repent of their own sin [Torah-breaking life] and commit to following Yeshua is because of this one instance where God said not to eat something and they ate it anyway. Do you really believe that one of the major actions that Yeshua accomplished through the resurrection is the rescinding of commandments regarding things God said not to eat? Yet many churches and “Christians” are gluttonous and eat all manner of things that God called unclean and said: “Don’t eat that!”
It’s also no wonder that in the Acts 15 Jerusalem Counsel through the decree of the apostles three of the four “starting points” for new converts of that time were related to food. In the very next verse it says they would learn everything else and grow in their faith as they heard Moses [The Torah] read in the Synagogues on The Sabbath Day. Sadly, today “Christians” are herded into “churches” on “Sunday” and taught all manner of antinomian theology, humanist theology, hyper-grace theology, and what we could call narcissistic theology—the practice of reimagining everything in The Bible as being just about yourself. “Christians” have been led to believe that what they are doing is biblical, but if you do an honest evaluation of what “Christianity” teaches and what The Bible says it becomes quite apparent that “Christianity” in all of its forms is simply a counterfeited perversion of the actual message of Scripture.
We are told to love our God and our neighbor; this is absolutely a part of the message of Scripture. But can we love either if we are in any way defying The Father’s Torah? Are we really loving God or loving other people if we do not keep The Sabbath, follow the food laws, or celebrate the biblical Feast Days? Do we really love God or other people if we celebrate the pagan holidays of the Roman Catholic religion? Let’s look at a couple of examples as to how this plays out in relation to our mandate to love other people.
Think of the food laws. It is well document that extensive research has been done by Bible-believing and Torah-following experts in the fields of nutrition, diet, medicine, and other related topics. They have shown the health risks that are posed by eating unclean things—which is not limited to the Leviticus 11 list, but as I will show in a moment includes anything that is toxic and poisonous to the human body. Now, let’s say you offer something to eat to someone, such as pork or shellfish. One of the possible risks of pork is the pork tapeworm that can lay eggs in your brain that cause fatal tumors and shellfish allergies are one of the most common food-born diseases in the world. Now let’s say that, whether immediately or over a period of time, the unclean things you offered this person causes them to get violently sick or even die as a result. Is that an act of loving people? Clearly not!
Look also at these holidays of the totally pagan Roman Catholic religion—primarily Christmas, Easter, and Halloween. These festivals are filled with the traditions of idolatry and witchcraft from rituals that inspired them. So, do we really love other people when we bring them into a church where these are celebrated instead of The Father’s Feast Days?
I get it. “Christians” are absolutely convinced that Christmas is the celebration of Messiah’s birth—despite the fact that there is enough evidence to say it would be impossible to date His birth in the middle of winter. They are equally convinced that Easter is the celebration of Messiah’s resurrection, despite that Scripture associates the events of the crucifixion and resurrection directly and prophetically with the events of Passover—and Easter is literally the name of a pagan goddess still worshiped today in the Wiccan religion and other Satanist groups. If you are leading people into idolatrous and pagan religious practices, even if you have them masqueraded as “Christian” traditions, you do not love them. They will stand before the throne of judgment one day and while they are ultimately accountable for their own choices, what of those “preachers” who led them down the wrong path?
I fear for the wrath to be poured out on the deceivers of “Christianity”—especially when it comes to something like holidays where true followers of the whole counsel of Scripture get three times as many Holy Days in The Bible to celebrate: Passover, Unleavened Bread, First Fruits, Pentecost, Trumpets, Atonement, Tabernacles, Hanukkah, and Purim. Several of the Bible Holy Days span more than one day as well—three of them lasting a whole week. So the world and the counterfeit religion of “Christian” churches gives you three holidays that span only three days total and have no genuine connection to The Bible at all but come out of witchcraft religious traditions, and God gives us nine Holy Days that span about thirty days of total celebration and are rich with biblical history and prophetic significance to the like of Yeshua. Why anyone would want to celebrate three pagan holidays when they can throughout the year have a whole month’s worth of celebration directly from The Bible and exactly what Yeshua celebrated is mind-boggling to me.
Earlier I mentioned two phrases that are often used by the antinomian crowds: “not under the law” and “nailed to the cross”. Let’s take a brief look at these.
The phrase “not under the law” is used twice in The Bible, and exclusively by the apostle Paul. The first place he uses the phrase is in Romans 6:14-15, which says: “For sin shall not be master over you, for you are not under law but under grace. What then? Shall we sin because we are not under law but under grace? May it never be!” The other is Galatians 5:18 where we read: “But if you are led by the Ruach, you are not under law.”
Sin defined is “breaking The Torah”. So, it is those who “Torah-breaking” is not master over who are not under the law. Shall we break The Torah because we are not under the law? No! Also, Ezekiel 36:27, again, tells us that being led by The Spirit means we are CAUSED to walk in God’s Laws. Do you see why it is so important we apply the Bible definition of these words and how doing so exposes the lies of “Christian” theology? So it is obvious that “Christians” are misrepresenting what Paul said when they separate out this phrase “not under the law” from the context of these passages and use it as some kind of justification for their religion of lawlessness.
Regarding “nailed to the cross”, this comes from Colossians 2:14, which reads: “He wiped out the handwritten record of debts with the decrees against us, which was hostile to us. He took it away by nailing it to the cross.” Some have said this phrase handwritten record of debts and decrees, or handwriting of ordinances in another translation, is a reference to The Torah. But this is simply not true at all. The Greek word in use here is cheirographon (χειρόγραφον) and this is the only place in the whole Bible this word is used. It’s a Greek legal term that referred to a documented presented to a judge with a list of charges. In other words, what gets nailed to the cross is the list of times you broke The Torah in your life after you repent of living a life of Torah-breaking and commit to following Yeshua and His Torah lifestyle.
These are just a two examples of where “Christians” grossly misinterpret and misrepresent Scripture, especially the words of Paul, to their own demise. Nothing in The Bible ever endorses lawlessness—living a life that goes against the commandments of God. Yet the entire “Christian” religion seems to be built on this warped view of “not under the law” and “nailed to the cross”. “Christians” are wrong in their beliefs, and while they may be convinced that they are “saved” the harsh reality is that they are not in covenant with God at all, because people in covenant live by The Torah that is put into their mind and written on their heart.
Love What God Loves, Hate What God Hates
Psalm 97:10 begins with the statement: “You who love the Lord, hate evil!” It really doesn’t get simpler than that. Either you love God and hate what is evil or you hate God and embrace what is evil. The opposite of love is hate, so anywhere in The Bible you find a statement about love there is implied an equal and opposite statement about hate, even if not stated in the text, and anywhere hate is mentioned in The Bible there is implied an equal and opposite statement about love.
Isaiah 1:13-17 and Amos 5:21-27 describe the result of popular religion. These passages are often misread by “Christians” as saying that God hates the very same New Moon festivals and Sabbaths that He established in The Torah. But this is actually not the case at all. In the passage in Amos it clarifies what these things God hates are—they had established worship, New Moon Festivals, and Sabbaths for other gods like Siccuth, Chiun, and star gods. It was essentially, in proper context, the same thing as “Christians” today celebrating holidays like Christmas, Easter, Halloween, and the festivals of Catholic “Saints” in their churches. I do not normally turn to the controversial Message Bible, but in this case I think the author did a great job bringing these passages into a more appropriate modern rendering toward “Christian” religion.
Quit your worship charades.
I can’t stand your trivial religious games:
Monthly conferences, weekly Sabbaths, special meetings—
meetings, meetings, meetings—I can’t stand one more!
Meetings for this, meetings for that. I hate them!
You’ve worn me out!
I’m sick of your religion, religion, religion,
while you go right on sinning.
When you put on your next prayer-performance,
I’ll be looking the other way.
No matter how long or loud or often you pray,
I’ll not be listening.
And do you know why? Because you’ve been tearing
people to pieces, and your hands are bloody.
—Isaiah 1:13-15 (The Message)
I can’t stand your religious meetings. I’m fed up with your conferences and conventions. I want nothing to do with your religion projects, your pretentious slogans and goals. I’m sick of your fund-raising schemes, your public relations and image making. I’ve had all I can take of your noisy ego-music. When was the last time you sang to me? Do you know what I want? I want justice—oceans of it. I want fairness—rivers of it. That’s what I want. That’s all I want. —Amos 5:21-24 (The Message)
If I were to add one more thing to modernizing the passage, I would change Amos 5:26 from saying, “But you lifted up your images—Siccuth your ‘king’, and Chiun, your star gods—which you made for yourselves,” to reading something like, “But you lifted up your images—Santa Claus your ‘Christmas god’, and Easter, and your “Saints”—which you made for yourselves…” Now, I understand that when you say things like this religious “Christians” get angry and say that this is crazy, preposterous, and ridiculous to say that things like Christmas and Easter are evil and God hates them. But if you do an honest study of the history of these holidays, even just the origins of them through the Roman Catholic religion is enough to condemn them—and prominent Catholic theologians openly admit that they appropriated these holidays and others from outright pagan religions.
Notice also that in the Message Bible rendering of the Isaiah passage it includes that line: “while you go right on sinning.” That’s the key to the whole thing. Not only is the context of the passage dealing with pagan New Moon celebrations and pagan Sabbaths, but even if it were dealing with God’s Torah-established New Moons and Sabbaths, the issue is still while they were living in sin, living in defiance of The Torah. It’s absurd, after all, to think that a passage written by a Torah-keeping prophet under the time period of the old covenant would be writing against things established in The Torah. Yet this is how misguided “Christian” thinking is—they honestly believe that God hated His festivals and His Sabbaths that He gave His people. And to take it further, they must believe He even rescinded parts of His Torah allowing “Christians” to celebrate pagan witchcraft festivals renamed and repackaged as “Christian holidays” in their place.
“Christians” today seem to live in some sort of brainwashed fog of delusion. They believe they are following The Bible. But if you read The Bible and asked why so much of it is not done in “Christian” churches and if you observed typical “Christian” church practices and looked for them in The Bible you would find out how far removed The Bible and the religion of “Christianity” really are from each other.
The confusion and outright hypocrisy of today’s “Christianity” is easily seen when you examine certain things and weigh them against Scripture. As one example, many in popular religion are radically opposed to various acts of sexual sin that The Bible calls an abomination—most of which are today labeled under what has been called LGBT+ lifestyles. The modern “Christian” will rail against these things and talk about how these people are defying God’s Law. But then if you bring up the food laws—don’t eat pork, don’t eat shellfish, don’t eat rodents, etc.—that also defy God’s Law and are called an abomination in The Bible, these same “Christians” will say, “We’re not under the law now, we can eat those things”. The Bible never says that though. They pick a few passages (Mark 7, Acts 10, 1 Timothy 4, etc.), take them completely out of context, read an “interpretation” into them that goes against God’s Law, and feel like they have found the loophole. I have done full teachings on these and other passages often used as the “proof-texts” that the food laws were abolished—and I can tell you with absolute certainty that these passages, in context, do no such thing.
In Genesis 3 we find Adam and Eve eating something God said not to eat, not engaging in an LGBT+ lifestyle. This was the sin that initiated all sin and placed a curse on the planet we live in. This should put some perspective on just how big of a deal eating things God said not to eat really is. The reason why “Christians” will rail against one and do the other is because eating unclean things is the sin they are in love with doing. And if you are in love with sin, regardless of what the particular act of sin might be, you are not in love with God, Messiah Yeshua, or The Bible.
In Genesis 1:26-28 and 2:15 we are charged with the care of all Creation. In Revelation 11:18 it says that a day is coming when God will destroy the destroyers of the earth. 1 Corinthians 3:17, 6:19 and 2 Corinthians 6:16 all say that our body is the Temple of God. So what about when we eat things that cause our body harm and cause the earth to be destroyed?
I have done some research, which I have presented in the past, where the human quest to eat things like pigs, shellfish, and sharks set off a chain of events that cause the destruction of whole ecological systems. Isaiah 24:5 says that the earth is polluted and defiled because of people not living according to The Torah. God’s Law as written out by Moses contains a number of instructions regarding what we should eat, hygiene practices, farming practices, and numerous other things that directly effect whether the earth thrives with life or is systematically destroyed. Caring for our God’s Creation through a Torah-obedient lifestyle is one of the most important things we are told to do—in fact, it is the very first thing we are told to do in the opening chapters of Genesis. Yet, this same mandate and the commandments most related to it—especially the rules about what we are and are not supposed to eat—are the most ignored and rejected by “Christians” today.
In like manner, in addition to the known health problems caused by eating things on the Leviticus 11 unclean list, there are many things being sold as “food” today with various “man-made ingredients” that are equally concerning. But the terms clean and unclean are not exclusive to just the things on the list of permitted and prohibited meats in The Torah.
The Hebrew word used for unclean is tame (טָמֵא) and part of it’s meaning is “defiled, polluted”. The Hebrew word for clean is tahor (טָהוֹר) and part of its meaning is “chemically pure”. When we turn to the Apostolic Writings, the Greek word for unclean is akathartos (ἀκάθαρτος) and part of its meaning is “not pure, mixed, adulterated with ‘a wrong mix’) and the word for clean is katharos (καθαρός) and part of its meaning is “without admixture, unmixed”. When you study these things out, they are referring to anything in or added to food that makes it toxic and harmful to human health.
Think of all the bad things that are added to processed “foods” today. There are artificial sweeteners like aspartame and sucralose, among others, found in products like chewing gum and diet sodas. There are all sorts of preservatives. There are chemical colors that are so toxic that in factories where they are produced a safety data sheet is required for safe handling of them. There is “fast food” that has a long history of causing people health problems. Do you think you are loving God, loving Yeshua, and loving Scripture when you eat these kinds of things? Or do you suppose loving God, Yeshua, and The Bible is found in eating biblically clean, all natural, organic foods grown the way God created them?
Just like how Yeshua said that adultery included lust, not just the physical act, and murder included hate-speech, not just the physical act, the biblical food laws of what is clean and what is unclean is bigger than the list of meats we can eat and those we are told not to eat. The laws of what is unclean as food extend to anything that is bad for our physical health. Love God, love Yeshua, and love The Bible—eat real, natural, organic foods that are not in violation of the Leviticus 11 prohibitions. Following the basic food laws outlined in The Torah is really the minimum mandate. You basically have to have a heart hardened against the ways of God to eat things like pork and shellfish. But the person who truly loves God will desire only those things God created for us to eat—natural and organic fruit, vegetables, and biblically clean meats.
Another example is seen in the popular holidays. While some “Christians” look to create alternatives for Halloween or celebrate it outright, many still strongly oppose it because it is so blatantly filled with evil and demonic themes. Yet, if you try to talk to these same people about Christmas and Easter, they will act like you have lost your mind. They simply cannot comprehend being a “Christian” without the celebrations of the birth and resurrection of Yeshua. Halloween is the creation of the pagan Roman Catholic church as part of its worship of “Saints”—it’s connected in the Catholic tradition to All Saints Day—with influences from the Celtic Samhain festival, which continues to be venerated today through the Wiccan religion of witchcraft. But Roman Catholicism also created Christmas for the same purposes, with influences of the Roman Saturnalia and later the Nordic Yule festivals, and Easter as well with influences of the Nordic Eostre celebrations. These histories are readily available to anyone who wants to study them and none of these “holidays” are ever mentioned in The Bible.
You know, it is possible to celebrate the birth, resurrection—and many other aspects of Yeshua’s life—without Christmas and Easter, through biblical Holy Days that The Bible tells us to celebrate and are prophetically connected to His life. He was crucified at Passover and rose again on the biblical Day of First Fruits. That’s why Paul refers to His resurrection as being connected with First Fruits (1 Corinthians 15:20-23, 2 Thessalonians 2:13). The evidence leads to His birth being connected with the biblical Feast of Tabernacles—where He came to tabernacle among us (John 1:14). And when you see that these Feast Days, all of which were what Yeshua and all of the first century Believers celebrated, are all prophetically linked to Yeshua and that Christmas, Easter, and Halloween are completely unbiblical and linked to pagan religious traditions, the choice of which ones we are supposed to be celebrating becomes very obvious. And if you are worried that giving up Christmas means you will no longer have a festive mid-winter holiday: “Then came Hanukkah; it was winter in Jerusalem. Yeshua was walking in the Temple around Solomon’s Colonnade” (John 10:22-23, TLV).
Here’s an idea: If it’s in The Bible and we see indications Yeshua did it, that’s what we should do, and if it’s not in The Bible and we see indications that it’s even possibly connected with witchcraft or other religions, that’s not what we should do. Yeshua never ate unclean things. Yeshua kept the biblical seventh-day Sabbath. Yeshua celebrated all of The Father’s Feasts, as well as the biblical holidays of Purim and Hanukkah. And as the spotless Lamb of God, I assure you that if He were alive today He would not celebrate the pagan holidays that most “Christians” are in love with. But He probably would walk into churches with a whip in His hand when they are celebrating Christmas and Easter.
Take also the various types of Bible codes I mentioned—Equidistant Letter Sequence, Hebrew Word Pictures, Gematria, and so on. We do not have examples of these practices in The Bible. Nowhere do we ever read in Scripture about someone starting with one Hebrew letter and skipping to another letter and then skipping the same number of letters to another until they find a combination that makes a known word and declares it “prophetic”. There is not one place where we see someone mentioned in the biblical record taking Hebrew letters, giving them “pictographic meanings”, and putting this letter together with that letter and coming up with a “secret encrypted message”. We have no example in Scripture of anyone doing this, no commandment to do this, and no instructions on how to do it. But we do see such practices, historically, in such things as witchcraft and kabbalah. So we have something that is not in The Bible but is connected with demonic practices. Therefore, we must conclude that this is not something we should be doing. And people wrapped up in this stuff are practicing divination and witchcraft under the guise of “Hebrew studies” and leading a lot of people down a very dark path. If you know someone involved in such things, try to show them the truth but if they will not listen get as far away from them as you can.
A favorite argument of the anti-Torah crowd is: Have you read Galatians? I once, not so long ago, had some hot-shot preacher full of himself tell me I need to make Galatians my favorite book in The Bible. Why do they act like Galatians is the sole foundation of the rest of Scripture and everything else in The Bible must conform to the “Christian” interpretation of Galatians that, in actuality, conflicts with everything else in The Bible including the other writings of Paul who wrote Galatians?
Romans 2:7-8 (TLV) says: “To those who by perseverance in doing good are seeking glory, honor, and immortality—eternal life. But to those who are self-seeking and do not obey the truth, but obey unrighteousness—wrath and fury.” Romans 2:13 (TLV) says: “For it is not the hearers of Torah who are righteous before God; rather, it is the doers of Torah who will be justified.” Romans 6:16 (TLV) says: “Do you not know that to whatever you yield yourselves as slaves for obedience, you are slaves to what you obey—whether to sin resulting in death, or to obedience resulting in righteousness?” These are just a few examples where Paul clearly associates Torah-obedience with true new covenant faith and Torah-breaking with being outside of the covenant. We can find a Torah-positive way to approach the statements in Paul’s writings that “Christians” think are against Torah-keeping. We cannot, however, find an antinomian argument to override clear and undeniably pronomian statements made not only by Paul but every other Bible author.
Literally every book of The Bible promotes a Torah-positive theology where the message, in context, is that God’s Laws are mandated to those in covenant. This is an inescapable fact. Every single person involved in writing The Bible was a Torah-keeping Hebrew—with the possible exceptions of Job and Luke, but Job is believed to have lived at the same time as Abraham and there are good arguments that Luke was either Jewish or a convert to the Judaism of the Nazarene sect led by Paul (much like the man named Nicholas mentioned in Acts 6:5). Israelite or not, however, Job and Luke also lived their life according to The Torah. And in case there is any doubt about Job, as he lived prior to Moses, Genesis 26:5 says that Abraham obeyed The Torah. Most Bibles translate the passage with the word “instructions” but if you look at it in the original Hebrew it is Torah. God’s Law was known and kept by all covenant people before Moses. Noah knew the difference between clean and unclean animals (Genesis 7) and found favor with God because he lived in obedience to all that The Father instructed.
Loving God means hating evil, and from cover to cover The Bible defines evil and sin as living against The Father’s Torah. In like manner, we have seen a whopping eighteen times where loving God, loving Yeshua, loving The Bible, and loving other people are all synonymous with following and obeying The Torah. In Genesis 3 we are introduced to a serpent who deceived people into breaking The Torah through the simple act of eating what God said not to eat—and to this day the most rejected commandments in the entire Bible by “Christians” are the food laws outlined in Leviticus 11. This same serpent is mentioned again in Revelation 12:9 where it says he will deceive the whole world. Who do you suppose is behind the “Christian” beliefs that they don’t have to follow the food laws, don’t have to keep The Sabbath Day (or get to redefine The Sabbath as “Sunday”), can celebrate their pagan Catholic holidays instead of the Feast Days given by the same God they claim to serve, and many other things?
Revelation 12:17 goes on to say that this same Satan wages war against both “those who keep the commandments of God and hold to the testimony of Yeshua”. I must inform you that Satan is not attacking “Christians” who promote lawlessness in their churches teaching that they are “not under the law” and “the law was nailed to the cross” and “if you dare live by The Torah you have fallen from grace and voided the work of the cross”. Such statements come from a gross misinterpretation of things Paul said, and we can easily establish that Paul lived by and taught obedience to The Torah (see Acts 24:14, 25:8, 28:23). Anything that can be perceived as “an attack of the devil” among “Christians” is simply an act of deception, causing them to think that they are in right standing with God while not living by His Torah. People who “go to church every Sunday” and hear preaching that leads to a belief that even portions of The Torah are abrogated “through Christ” are exactly where Satan wants them to be. He wants to keep them right where they are, so he will give little “attacks” when needed to keep them there, but otherwise he is perfectly content leaving them to their religion of lawlessness.
When preachers or “Christians” designate certain commandments as “ceremonial” and deem them obsolete, that is Satan lying to you. If you want proof these things are not obsolete, just look at the yet-to-come millennium. The food laws will still be upheld in the millennium (Revelation 18:2). The Sabbath will be kept in the millennium (Isaiah 66:23). The Passover will be kept in the millennium (Ezekiel 45:21) and the Feast of Tabernacles will be kept in the millennium (Zechariah 14:16-19). In other words, everything in The Torah, including all the things “Christians” say are ceremonial and obsolete were kept by everyone who wrote any part of The Bible and will be kept in the millennium. These things are not obsolete, “Christianity” is deceived and lying to people. It is literally the religion of the Genesis 3 serpent built upon the foundation of the question: Hath God said?
In The Bible there is a lawless one (2 Thessalonians 2:8-9) and there is a Righteous One (Isaiah 53:11). The lawless one is Satan, and the Righteous One is Yeshua. Lawlessness (or sin) is defined in 1 John 3:4 as “breaking, transgressing, violating The Torah” and righteousness is defined in Deuteronomy 6:25 as “obeying, following, keeping, living by The Torah”. Satan, from his first appearance in Genesis 3, is seen leading people to question, reject, and break the commandments of God. Yeshua, from His first appearance in Matthew 1, is seen leading people to repent of their sin (Torah-breaking) and turn to a life of Torah-obedience. Read The Bible with these things in mind and everything will come together and make perfect sense—all of those places where people think The Bible contradicts itself or one part of The Bible terminates an earlier part of The Bible disappear and you are left with one complete and harmonious Word of God that from cover to cover promotes obeying the commandments of God—all the way to the very last chapter in the whole Bible where it says in Revelation 22:14 that it is those who obey the commandments who have a right to the Tree of Life.
Do you love God? Do you hate evil? Do you love The Torah? Do you hate sin? Do you love Messiah Yeshua? Do you hate Satan?
Or are you just too enamored with popular “Christian” religion to care?
To be clear, I am not anti-Christian. I believe everyone who is a “Christian” is so because they genuinely want to follow the truth—aside from the con artists using religion to deceive gullible people for money, but that’s another matter altogether. But Psalm 119:1 says The Torah is truth. You cannot have truth without living by The Torah.
The word “Christian” is used only three times in The Bible (Acts 11:26, 26:28, and 1 Peter 4:16). There is some debate about why Peter chose this word in his letter, but many scholars contend that the earliest uses of the word was derogatory and mocking in nature, stated by pagan Romans toward those who genuinely followed Yeshua and His Torah lifestyle. The word used in Greek is Cristianos (Χριστιανός). Today we use the word “Christian” and the key to differentiating what it wrongly means today and what it originally meant is in the suffixes. The modern suffix “ian” is a vague or loose “belonging to”. As such, anyone who says they “believe in Jesus” in any capacity is a “Christian”. In contrast, the Greek suffix “ianos” denoted slavery—you were considered a slave to that which the suffix is attached. Those who were called “Cristianos” in the first century were those who lived completely sold out to the holiness described in Revelation 14:12—they followed both the commandments of God (The Torah) and the faith of Yeshua (The Gospel). That’s what a true Christian is—someone who both lives in obedience to The Torah and follows Yeshua, walking as He walked (1 John 2:6).
Love Not The World
Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For everything in the world—the desire of the flesh, the desire of the eyes, and the boasting of life—is not from the Father but from the world. The world is passing away along with its desire, but the one who does the will of God abides forever. —John 12:15-17 (TLV)
I am always perplexed by “Christianity’s” love for worldliness. We should be loving the world enough to lead them out of worldliness, yet the “Christian” culture of the modern day seems enamored by the secular life.
Why does it seem such a strange and foreign concept for the average “Christian” to live according to The Bible? Why do they prefer the world’s holidays to The Father’s Holy Days? Why do they feel the best way to get people into their churches is to be as worldly as possible without crossing that ever-shifting line of what is “too far” into gross immorality—a line that moves further away from a biblical standard of holiness with every compromise?
I have actually watched this play out right before my eyes before. I have mentioned in other teachings that I spent a portion of time at a very influential church. At one time they were arguably the primary ministry leading the charge for revival in America. They used to bring in speakers to teach that the Leviticus 11 food laws are still mandated and to be obeyed. They used to promote keeping The Sabbath and celebrating the biblical Feasts. They used to preach against getting tattoos. They used to stand against all manner of worldliness.
But something happened. I do not profess to know what happened, when exactly it began to happen (as often these things start within leadership of a church long before they are discernible to others), or why it happened. What I do know is I started to see shifts toward worldliness and compromise. And I watched—perhaps The Spirit held me there just so I could see it play out—as one after another they discarded the values of their past that made them such a powerhouse for biblical standards in the first place.
I am not certain what first triggered me to see something was off, but it was likely either when they decided to host large Easter egg hunts when previously the pastor had spoken very disparagingly of such things and would say every year leading up to the spring holiday to “never say the word Easter”—because he knew it’s the name of a pagan spring fertility goddess of the old Norse tradition—or when I found out that the pastor had gotten his first tattoo because his daughter wanted one, so they got them together. From that point forward I saw certain trends prevail. They did continue promoting biblical Feasts in a more biblical manner for a period of time, but that began to fade away (they do still talk about the Feasts, but it seems they have made them into nothing more than another of their offering gimmicks). Then they started making their Easter celebration, now calling it by that name without reservation, into a worldly carnival—some years they dropped plastic eggs from a helicopter, some they had a raffle to give away a used car sponsored by a local dealer, some they had a literal circus theme with fire-breathers and clowns and all of the standard attractions, and one year they even brought in an “aerialist” in the typical very revealing attire performing in a manner much like the women who pole dance at strip clubs.
From there they began to compromise their views with Christmas as well. Though they also used to speak against the Santa Claus tradition, now they were having a very worldly Christmas event complete with a Santa Claus in the lobby. They began to say that such things are “bait” to draw in the lost. But the manner in which you attract people is the manner in which they will be kept. If you use worldliness to draw people, you must continue to be a house of worldliness to keep them. If you draw them with The Bible, the name of Yeshua lifted up, the power of The Spirit, and a message of Torah-obedience, then you will keep them with those things.
How do you say you love God if you are so enamored by the world and worldliness when The Bible says that you if you love the world then the love of God is not in you?
James 4:4 (TLV) says: “You adulteresses! Don’t you know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God.” Imagine, as has happened at times in church history—and even more frequently in the days we are living in—a pastor standing before his congregation and confessing to adultery or paying for a prostitute. Some people are so blinded by false religious views that they would say things like, “It’s OK pastor, we’re all human, keep on preaching to us.” But many would leave that church. Should we not take what The Bible calls adultery with God that much more serious?
Why would you want to be a part of a “church” that habitually commits adultery with God through its love for worldliness?
Because of the topics I often minister on, subjects not popular in churches like the food laws and the Feast Days, I often find myself in dialogue with hardened antinomians. Recently I was in one such discussion where the person began to literally mock the ways of God, talking about all the pork they were going to eat. I just have to wonder, when God said not to eat that and these people are so hardened against His commandments that they eat it anyway, even mocking the commandment, can we really say they love God? It seems they love their bacon, their ham, their sausages, their shrimp and lobster, and anything else more than they love God—and this despite that there are literally biblically clean alternatives to all of these things today.
You can get ham, bacon, sausage, and all things associated with pork made alternatively from turkey, chicken, beef, lamb, or other clean animals, and often these products are also made free from concerning food additives and preservatives—because it is typically health-conscious companies that produce these pork alternatives. I have even heard of kosher shrimp, which are not really shrimp but an imitation of them made using biblically clean ingredients. The point is that there really is no excuse; if you feel like you cannot go without these types of foods but you want to truly love God there are ways you can have them without defying His commandments.
I really just don’t understand why “Christians” have such a hard time simply following The Bible. Sure, there will be people, including most “Christians” who will look at you strange or think you are crazy if you don’t celebrate Christmas and Easter, but opt instead for the Holy Days of The Bible that they wrongly consider to be “those Jewish holidays”. There are many who won’t understand why you would keep the correct biblical Sabbath Day or refrain from eating things that The Bible says not to eat because they are so indoctrinated with a theology that originated with the serpent in Genesis 3 asking: “Did God really mean it when He said not to eat that?”
The Bible is clear regarding God’s Law. If we truly love Him, His Word, and The Messiah He sent then we would live in total obedience to His commandments. To do anything else is to love the world, love sin, and hate God. So this begs the all-important question: Will you love God biblically, will you love Him the way He defined the matter, through a life submitted to keeping His Torah? Or will you go down in the history of eternity as another victim of Satan, the ancient serpent, the lawless one, convinced that you can “be saved” without a requirement to obey at least some parts of The Bible?
Hebrews 5:9 says: “[Yeshua] became the source of eternal salvation to all who obey Him.” The favorite verse of all “Christians” is John 3:16, but they would do good to read a little further as John 3:36 says: “He who trusts in the Son has eternal life. He who does not obey the Son will not see life, but the wrath of God remains on him.” Saved people obey The Torah because they love God and they are filled with The Spirit that CAUSES them to walk in His Laws (Ezekiel 36:27).
“Christians” think they love God, love Messiah Yeshua, and love The Bible, but according to The Bible they do not. They think they love God when they “faithfully go to church”. They think they love God when they sing popular worship songs to Him, many of which today are more humanist than holy. They think they love God when they “tell people about Jesus”. But these are things that people can do, and most probably do, because they love “religion”, they love “church”, or any other number of things. This is, perhaps, why God made it a point to define loving Him as the only thing that can only be done as an act of loving Him—keeping His commandments, living according to His Torah.
In several of the Psalms there is a word usedwww.TruthIgnited.com
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www.youtube.com/c/TruthIgnitedto close them: Selah. There is some debate about what this word means, but the common view seems to be: “pause, stop, and take time to really think hard about what was just said.” It seems appropriate to close a message like this with such a thought. Maybe you are a person who has lived in “Christian” religion and never been shown what was revealed in this message. Maybe nobody every showed you in such simplicity the comparison of the lawless one and the Righteous One. Maybe nobody has ever listed out the whopping eighteen times that The Bible defines loving God, loving Yeshua, and loving Scripture as keeping, following, and living in total obedience to The Torah. Maybe nobody has ever explained to you how loving other people can only truly be accomplished through a life of Torah-observance. So take some time. Pause. Think long and hard on what you have read here. And ask yourself: Doesn’t this message make a whole lot more sense of the whole counsel of Scripture than the “not under the law” theology of modern-day “Christianity”?
In the past, there is an approach I have taken whenever I have heard a message that conflicted with what I was taught in churches. For purposes of illustrating this, I will use the biblical food laws from Leviticus 11 and Deuteronomy 14 where we are told quite emphatically not to eat things like pork, shellfish, rodents, camels, horses, sharks and rays, catfish, cats, dogs, birds of prey like owls and hawks, and various other things. I know I have talked about these food laws a lot already, but hang with me just a moment longer.
I first heard teaching that these things were still a part of our faith in the new covenant, what many like to call “New Testament Christians”, at a Pentecostal church many years ago. At that time they started to bring in speakers to teach about following the biblical food laws, and they said things that went completely against what “Christianity” teaches from passages like Mark 7, Acts 10, 1 Timothy 4:3-5, and others. One of them read from Isaiah 65:3-5 and asked something like: Doesn’t that sound like it really makes God mad when people eat this stuff? To answer his question, clearly, it does! What they said made a whole lot of sense and so I followed this pattern.
1. I completely stopped eating anything that went against the commandments listed in Leviticus 11 and Deuteronomy 14. This is the most important thing I feel should be done in these cases. Stop doing it. It’s much better to take this position than to keep doing it while you study things out. Tomorrow is promised to no man, always take this approach and err on the side of caution while you study it out.
2. The next thing is to begin studying everything you can find on the topic. Look up all the verses in The Bible that talk about the commandment in question and read them. If the verses used to claim the commandment is abrogated are not as “clear” as the commandment itself, consider that these passages might not mean what people say they do. Read the views of scholars, pastors, and others who have shared on the topic, both from a position in favor of obeying the commandment and against it. Which view seems to make the most sense against the whole counsel of Scripture? Which view sounds a lot like the serpent in Genesis 3—a very important question to ask?
3. Come to a logical conclusion and follow it.
This pattern has never failed. When I did this with the food laws, it became more and more clear that there is absolutely nothing in The Bible that overturns them. In fact, all indications are that Yeshua kept these food laws and we are to walk as He walked (1 John 2:6) and passages like Isaiah 66:17 and Revelation 18:2 indicate that unclean animals are still unclean and not to be eaten in the still-to-come “end times”. It simply makes no sense that God continually gave and emphasized these things, every single person who participated in writing The Bible followed them, they are clearly going to be enforced in the “end times” and the millennium, but somehow “Christians” do not have to follow them. The same has proven true as I studied out keeping the biblical Sabbath on the seventh day of a biblical week (what we would call sunset “Friday” to sunset “Saturday” in modern society and using secular calendars), celebrating the biblical Feast Days, and many other things.
On the other hand, there are many things taught in religion as being part of Scripture that following this method show might not be as biblically-based as people believe them to be. For example, in Torah-positive ministry there are a lot of people who dogmatically believe that it is prohibited to cook food on The Sabbath or that a new biblical month requires the “new moon” to be physically sighted with the naked eye by two witnesses in the land of Israel. I have followed the same process and the reality is that neither of these beliefs are clearly supported by Scripture. Though a lengthy study on these two matters and many others are outside of what this article is covering, the plain reality is that I simply cannot in good conscience tell someone that they “cannot cook on The Sabbath” or that they “have to confirm the sighted moon in Israel before they can keep a biblical Feast Day” when I cannot find these views clearly supported in Scripture.
So, if you have read this message through, as I asked at the beginning, now you have a choice to make. You may have been told your whole life that it’s OK to eat whatever you want now, that “Jesus” is your Sabbath now or “Sunday” is The Sabbath now, that the biblical Feasts are “Jewish holidays” and “Christians” are not Jewish, that “Jesus” was born on December 25th and that’s when we celebrate, and so many other things. This message has provided a valid and well-supported-by-Scripture argument that these beliefs are completely wrong. It has been shown that as such beliefs are a violation of God’s Law they would logically originate with the lawless one—that same serpent that started leading people to question, reject, and rebel against the commandments of God in Genesis 3. So you have a choice to make.
Are you going to reject this message, call me a Judaizer, legalist, fanatic, or something else? Or are you going to follow the pattern and STOP doing these things that go against The Bible, STUDY these matters out, and COME TO A LOGICAL CONCLUSION that is based in loving obedience to your God, your Messiah, and your Bible?
—Blessings and Shalom—
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