The New Divine Order
Where in the world are we at? Does the Bible have any relevance as to how we live and what we believe, and how we practice that belief? Does Yeshua’s parables, teachings and the way he confronted the religious leaders for the way they lived out their beliefs have anything to teach us today?
Israel believed in the One true God, Y’Hovah, as their Elohim – the Elohim of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. But they were polytheistic in their practice. That is, they worshipped many gods and carried idols and even had rooms in the Temple that honoured other gods. How bizarre is that, we may say! The Greeks had many gods, the Romans had many gods, the Egyptians had many gods, Mesopotamia, Persia, Chaldeans all had many gods. Israel was surrounded by nations who never believed in the One true God, but had a multitude of gods.
When you look at Christianity today, it is very Polytheistic in the way in which it practices its religion. They believe in the One true God of the Hebrews, but practice their faith in a thousand different ways, traditions and conflicting doctrines.
Yet Ephesian 4 teaches there is one Body, one Ruach, one hope, one Lord, one faith, one immersion, one God and that we are to be living in the unity of the Ruach and the unity of the faith all over the world. But I can see nothing remotely like that in the earth.
“Come Adoney Yeshua, come.”
Catholicism believes in one God, but worships a multitude of others. It’s the same with the Protestants, their idolatrous worship systems, and other worldly lifestyles, beliefs and traditions are multitudinous. Yeshua is going to cleanse the Temple! That was a prophetic act. He is doing the same today.
Matthew 21:1-17, 23, 40-46.
If the King is there, so is the Kingdom of Heaven!
In Yeshua a new divine order has arrived. That which is eternal has replaced that which is temporal. When man and his religion get in the way of what is of God and His eternal plan, then the result will always be devastating and painful.
Don’t get in the way of God and His purposes and plans, or you will feel the wrath of His whip and the fury of His judgements.
Violate even one of Y’Hovah’s ten Words or Commandments and the Church will feel the full wrath of His judgements.
The sins of the Church are being exposed more and more. There is sexual immorality and infidelity, financial greed, hideously wealthy lifestyles that are ungodly, marriage and divorce (sometimes multiple times over), covetous lifestyles, lying and cover ups with no real care or concern for the sheep.
Then there are all the practices of tradition and false doctrine that violate the Torah and the Commandments. Sunday worship instead of Sabbath. Communion and mass instead of Unleavened Bread. Easter instead of Passover, Christmas instead of Tabernacles. The eating of unclean meats instead of clean meats that represent Yeshua, our perfect, sinless sacrifice and His teachings. Preaching the traditions of the Christian gospel instead of the Good News of the Kingdom of God.
These are all violations of Scripture. They are the adding and subtracting from the unchangeable Word of God, as first written by Moses and the Hebrew prophets. The judgements of Y’Hovah Elohim of Israel are about to fall on many.
Are we as Gentiles to be judged with Israel on the same criteria and obedience to Torah and the commandments? Yes!
Jeremiah 10:25; 12:14-17; 1 Corinthians 10:1-12.
The same rules and moral code apply to all humanity.
A New Divine Pathway
Matthew 21:23, 43-46; Hebrews 1:1-4, 8-9, 2:1-4; 10:8-18.
Yeshua our Messiah: the new High Priest of the order of Melchizedek, not of the Aaronic priesthood of the Temple made with hands. The Aaronic priesthood and the Temple system is finished and replaced by the new, in Yeshua’s Name. But the High Priest, the Sanhedrin and the sects of the Sadducee and the Pharisees refused to accept it.
They knew the Law of Moses – or so they thought; they knew the Abrahamic covenants – or so they thought; they knew the teachings of the prophets – or so they thought.
But as well as they may have known them, they never understood the prophetic nature of those covenants, nor how to recognise the Messiah in those prophetic revelations when He arrived. They also never recognised that those covenants did not belong to them exclusively, but to the Gentiles equally.
Israel and their Messiah was the pathway, the narrow pathway into the coming Kingdom and the promised inheritance was to them and the Gentiles. Paul makes this very clear in his writings to the Roman believers. This new way of seeing and doing things would begin and be established in Jerusalem and spread to the ends of the earth. This was the beginning of the New Covenant way in the blood of Yeshua. It all began at Passover and with the teachings of Yeshua in John 13-17.
The Messianic Way
Matthew 16:13-20.
Yeshua said “I will build My Community.” In Hebrew, Kahal, or Miqra. These words mean “an assembly of called out ones.” A gathering of people set apart, called out of the ways of Babylon and into the Way of the Messiah. Touch not the unclean way.
The word “Church” is not in the Scriptures. Yeshua and the apostles never, ever spoke about the Church. No such thing existed in their day and was never intended to be. The Denominational Church system and mindset is of man, not God. The people of Yeshua’s generation with their religious traditions and beliefs struggled to accept this new direction and calling out just as much as our generation with all our traditions and false beliefs that are being challenged.
This is why in the Book of Acts this “new way of the Messiah” was very different from what they were used to. Acts 18:24-26. There was a new way of seeing things, a new road or route that needed to be understood and followed into the Kingdom. The true Kingdom was far bigger than Israel, and very different than what they understood, as it is for our generation of Church goers. People drift from Church to Church looking for the next best thing, but finding nothing truly satisfying or life changing. It wasn’t an easy message for the apostles to carry or to convey, it required Ruach HaKodesh revelation. It cost them a lot of opposition, hatred, and even death. He who has an ear let him hear what the Ruach is saying.
This became known as a sect and the Messianic Way, or the Way of the Messiah. Here we’ll follow it through the Book of Acts.
Acts 9:1-2. If Saul found any men or women “belonging to the Way” he persecuted them.
Acts 19:8-9, 21-23. Saul, the assassin of the Way, has now become Paul, the apostle and messenger to the Gentiles of the Way.
Acts 22:1-5. Paul is now being imprisoned because he is a follower and preacher of the Way.
Acts 24:14. Paul declares he worships God according to the Way, and it is based on believing everything written in Torah and the prophets. He says, we are called a “sect” because we are very different from what we were called out of by God.
We are a Messianic people, a Messianic Community, a people of the Way of the Messiah and the apostles. This is the New Covenant Way that Yeshua said He would build.
Acts 11:25-26. They weren’t first called Christians at Antioch.
Christianos is a Greek word that means “anointed one” or a kinsman of the “anointed One”. From the Hebrew it means the “Anointed One”. That is, the One anointed as King, the Messiah. This Scripture is confirming that all the Believers in Acts who follow the Way, are Messianic followers of Yeshua the Messiah.
The call of the Spirit of God is will you come out of that which doesn’t represent the Kingdom of Heaven correctly, and into the blessing of the Messianic Way? The new requires repentance from the old, and an entering into a whole new way of serving God and of seeing the Kingdom. We are then to be baptised into a new way of living and believing, the Messianic Way.
Acts 2:38-42;19:1-7.