As a lay in bed this morning, I thought to myself, “perhaps I should read the Tanakh before reading my non biblical books”. I remembered that I had been reading from the book of Micah, but because I tend to study so many topics at once, i tend to get a bit scattered in recalling where I left off. I felt an unction to start off at chapter 4 of Micah, verses 1 and 2, but this time, rather than posting a hyper link, I want to just post what I read flat out. This comes from the CJB (Complete Jewish Bible version).
1 But in the acharit-hayamim it will come about
that the mountain of Adonai’s house
will be established as the most important mountain.
It will be regarded more highly than the other hills,
and peoples will stream there.
2 Many Gentiles will go and say,
“Come, let’s go up to the mountain of Adonai,
to the house of the God of Ya‘akov!
He will teach us about his ways,
and we will walk in his paths.”
For out of Tziyon will go forth Torah,
the word of Adonai from Yerushalayim
Before even getting engulfed in this blog, I feel the need to again reiterate that the focus of my ministry is to combat the “Replacement Theology” that has placed “modern Christianity” in a choke hold. Many of our beliefs are anti semitic, but in it’s most subtle form. It has existed as far back as the 4th to 5th century, and as such, goes unchecked or challenged by the masses. This is a hard subject to tackle due to the bias of most, thereby making it not the most appealing of subjects to address, yet, feeling led, I take it head on, along with prayer for the leading of the Ruach HaKodesh (The Holy Spirit). That being said, lets begin. The prophecy of Micah 4 would undoubtedly be considered a Messianic Prophecy, in that the events spoken of clearly have not happened yet. Understanding that many reading this article are of a belief that “Torah”, or as is known in the Christian world “The Law”, does not apply to us as “Gentile believers”. The belief is that, this applies to the Jews, but when Yeshua died on the cross, it was completely abolished. I would be remiss if I did not first point out that in Matthew 5:17-19 Yeshua points out that He was not sent to abolish Torah. Furthermore that not one bit of it would pass away until all had been fulfilled. Allowing Scripture to speak for itself, we see that Torah must be still in effect since He was not sent to abolish it. And then there is the fact that He lived Torah to the fullest. Had He broken any of Torah, He would have forefieted His role as Messiah, because the purpose of Messiah was to fulfill it so that He could take on the punishment that was over all of us for failing to live Torah.
To better understand all this, we need to first look back at the time of Moses. We have to breakdown what went on at Mt Sinai. To do this, we have to look at what it was to make a blood covenant. The blood covenant was an unbreakable pact between two or more parties. When a covenant was made, the parties involved would gather certain animals, and cut them in half, from top to bottom. They would then lay them on opposite sides, creating a walk way between them. As the blood between the pieces begin to run together, both parties would walk between them, walking through the blood. Once completed, the covenant was sealed. There was a common understanding that the one who violated this covenant, that what was done to the animals to seal this covenant could then be done to them by the one who faithfully kept the covenant. It was a death sentence to the one who violated it. With this in mind, Israel clearly understood what it was to make a covenant, as well as the consequences for breaking it. For this cause, it is unwise for one to make a covenant knowing that there is a chance that you can’t uphold it. And by looking at the stiff consequences of breaking a covenant, you would assume anyone with common sense would think twice about going back on it, even if to avoid the harsh punishment. Nonetheless, on Mt Sinai, YHVH laid out the terms of the covenant to Moses, who in turn conveyed them to Israel. Upon hearing the terms, Israel’s reply was “all that YHVH says, we will do”. With one voice, they all agreed to the terms. Moses then sprinkled blood on each of them, sealing the covenant. Not long after, this same people violated the covenant. By right, in accordance to the rules concerning covenants, YHVH would be justified in killing them all, seeing they all broke it. Instead, being El No’se (a Forgiving God), He had compassion on them and instead accepted the sacrifice of animals in their place. This however would be an ongoing thing. A reminder that they are indebted to Him for failing to keep their part of the covenant. From that day, on until the resurrection of Yeshua, these sacrifices would be done. It was a foreshadow of what Yeshua would do for them on the cross. The intent was that they would recognize first that the animal sacrifices were not capable of cleaning the slate, but that they would hold off their punishment for a time. However, Yeshua as the perfect High Priest could do it once and be done, having covered present and future sins.
Due to Rabbinic Judaism coming on the scene, and changing up YHVH ‘s Torah, it was needed more than ever for someone to come and physically show the people what it was to walk in Torah, while setting the teachers of the Torah, the chief priest, straight for leading the people astray. What we erroneously call a “New Covenant”, in the Hebrew is described as a “renewed covenant”. Think of it this way, a married couple after so many years decides to have another wedding ceremony. They are not making a new covenant, but rather renewing the original covenant. Because we broke the original covenant, rather than doing away with us, Yeshua came to “renew” the original covenant, but this time, it was His blood that was shed to seal this one. I will address how this theology came about that Torah was done away with in later blogs. For the sake of those who still hold on to the fact that Torah does not relate to us as “Christians”, we will now look at what the Prophet Micah has to say. Don’t think for one moment that Micah is the only prophet that speaks on the Messianic age. I’m just using the one prophecy as to not have to make this article longer than necessary. Now, according to the Prophet Micah, he speaks about the gentiles, which literally refers to “the nations”, which are all that are not of Abrahamic decent, saying that they will collectively go to the Mountain of YHVH, the God of Jacob, to learn His ways and His path. They also acknowledge that His Torah goes forth out of Zion. Clearly, this is spoken of in a time yet to come. I mean as far as I know, YHVH is not dwelling in Jerusalem like that yet. My point is this. What sense would it make for the nations to go to Jerusalem to learn the ways of YHVH, if He had decided at the time of Yeshua’s earthly ministry to do away with them? I mean, did He have a change of mind and decide to re-teach them again? If indeed he did, then that would imply that He realized that Torah was actually important after all and needed to be taught to all. One can argue that perhaps it was only to the Jews, but still we see the nations coming together looking at His Torah and wanting to learn them as well. This further implies that Torah will always be the standard of YHVH. Not only that, but looking at this acknowledgement of the nations, I can see it being those who collectively shared the belief that Torah was either abolished, despite Yeshua’s statement of NOT abolishing it, or even for the Jews alone, even though gentile believers observed Torah until the time of Constantine. There is a strong implication of the acknowledgement of a wrong theology in how they realized that “their way” was just that, their way, not YHVH ‘ s way, thereby causing them to want to change their views on what it is that YHVH requires from His people. Having seen the error of their way, they now realize they have a need to be taught. It is this teaching, that as you read further causes them to put down their weapons of warfare.
I cannot say it enough, until you have really read the 613 instructions found in Torah, you have no idea what it is that you are looking down on as being bad. Can Torah really be that bad when you see that in several Psalms, King David praised them as being beautiful, lovely and holy? One Psalm calls Torah perfect, citing how it converts the soul. Even Paul praised Torah as a good thing. The only issue was that there was a curse of death on all who couldn’t keep it. True enough, the standard was to high to keep, making it impossible to find salvation in it, but that is where Yeshua comes in. Yeshua as our Savior makes it possible to live the standard of YHVH, at the same time finding atonement in Him when we fall short. Now, living Torah is no longer about being saved, but rather observance thereof because we are saved. There is a difference. For too long our theology has led us astray in the thought that Torah, being the standard of YHVH no longer applies. We fail to really analyze just exactly what does the abolishing of Torah really mean? We do not ask the necessary questions that would cause us to search the Scriptures for ourselves, but instead just accept what gets taught across pulpits nationwide. This attitude is the same as what the Jews had in that they just accepted what the Priests gave them as the gospel. Failure to know the word for themselves was how Rabbinic Judaism was birthed, and ultimately surpassed Torah in relevance. This was also how the Catholic Church gained it’s power, by taking away the ability or desire of the people to know Scripture for themselves thereby causing them to rely solely on what the clergy had to say. Because the people did not know the Word, the clergy were able to introduce all kinds of corruption and false doctrines into church doctrine, leading people astray. It was this power that removed the Hebrew roots of Scripture, along with anything Jewish. Even the Jewish names were replaced, ensuring that this “new Christianity” did not look Jewish in any manner. The interesting thing is that all of this can be found in the annals of history, right there in plain sight. It is our lack of curiosity that allows this same information to be left there in the open, yet un-searched.
I further believe that it is on the church leaders to do a better job at leading the people. From personal experience, I have seen how pastors will teach on a subject like this, but only address one side of it, telling the members that the other side is wrong, so there is no need to touch on it. This takes away the ability of one to know of an issue with any certainty, not having seen both sides. I have even seen how Scriptures can be on a big screen for all to see, as it gets read by a pastor, but ends right before a verse that disproves the very same thing trying to be proved. And even when that disproving Scripture is on the very same screen, not only is it not read, but it’s as if the viewers don’t even see it. Wielding this much power and trust over a congregation obligates a leader to give them the truth of Scripture rather than personal belief of Scripture. We need to allow Scripture to speak for Itself. Not only that, but as I always say, it’s time for believers to walk in the spirit of the Berean's, the people whom Luke describes as a people that “searched the scriptures daily” to see if the things being taught were so. There is a prophetic awakening all over the land, causing people to awaken to Torah. The fact that people are awakening to Torah further affirms the fact of it’s relevance in the eyes of YHVH. It is further affirmed by the prophets of old, as they spoke of it in the future sense. The keeping of Torah has never been a heaven or hell issue, but rather a positional issue. The keepers of Torah will be great in the Kingdom, and those who teach contrary will be the least of the Kingdom. The question becomes, where do you want to be? Understand this, as long as “sin” exists, so will Torah. The two are connected in the same sense that up and down, left and right, or even east and west are. Sin is defined as violation of Torah. Therefore, in the absence of Torah, sin too must cease to exist. So, the abolishing of Torah in turn destroys sin. Without sin, there is no need for grace, because grace is used as a covering for sin. Without the need for grace, there is no longer a need for a Savior, gospel, preacher or a church. This is what I call The Law of Se7en’s, also a title of one of my past blogs. They fit like a stack of dominoes. Removing one affects all. You cannot have one exist without the other because the absence of one wipes away the need for the next. Take your time and think on that before brushing it off as false. Blessings!
