“You will not do things the way we do them here today, where everyone does whatever in his own opinion seems right; because you haven’t yet arrived at the rest and inheritance which Adonai your God is giving you.”-Deuteronomy 12:8-9
When studying Torah, there is one mindset or way of thinking we must be on guard against or it can become a deadly trap.
What am I talking about?
I’m talking about the dangerous tendency to treat these five books of Moses as just a bunch of interesting historical facts and think that while they may have been relevant to the ancient Israelites, they actually have nothing to do with us.
The truth is the foundational God-Principles presented in these first Five Books of Moses have EVERYTHING to do with all believers everywhere…whether one is an ethnic Jew or an ethnic gentile.
Let me make it clear, if you claim to be a true believer in the one true God of Israel, you are NOT free from the God-principles established here in the Law of Moses.
Got that?
And no and I’m not saying that one has to obey the Laws of Moses in order to be “saved”.
That is a false paradigm promoted by the Christians that is nowhere taught anywhere in the TANACH (for the uninitiated, the TANACH is referring to the “Old” Testament, a term I’m not too fond of).
The instructions of Torah contain those very principles prescribed for right living that a person is expected to follow AFTER one has been “saved” or redeemed.
Remember, God saved Israel from Egypt first and then AFTERWARDS gave them His Torah…not the opposite way around.
And don’t forget that 2 Timothy 3:16 is referring ONLY to the TANACH because the New Testament was NOT even in existence at the time.
The problem with the gentile church is that for way too long now, they have made the dangerous decision to abandon the holy laws and instructions of God for some hazy and undefined “individual liberty” ridiculous way of thinking that basically boils down to just following one’s own subjective notions on any given matter and thinking it’s okay as long as they do it in “Jesus’s name”.
And you wonder why the the modern church has so many different denominations with about 20 billion different retarded doctrines and has seemed to have lost so much of its spiritual power.
Understand that BOTH the Tanach and the New Testament make it clear that obedience to God’s Torah and receiving His Blessings go hand in hand.
You can’t have one minus the other.
Period.
This might be a good time to re-examine your worship practices, the ways you celebrate and follow the Lord, and the way you’ve been living your life in general to see if perhaps they are not in accord with the foundational God-principles we have been studying in His Word over the past couple of years.
If after an honest self-examination you come to the conclusion that some of your worship practices or beliefs are shall we say not in harmony with God’s Torah, then you may have to ask yourself the hard question of…
..Who is it then, in reality, am I really paying allegiance to or…
…which “god” am I really trying to please?
The Messiah actually gives us the answer in Matthew 6:24.
“No one can be a servant
to two masters;
for he will either hate the first
and love the second,
or scorn the second
and be loyal to the first.
You can’t be a slave to
both God and mammon.”
-Matthew 6:24
Let’s take a look at verse 8 again.
“You will not do things the way we do them here today,
where everyone does whatever in his own opinion seems right”
If we were to apply the above verse to our modern day situation, what would we come up with?
We would come up with the following…
“You are not to do things that are only pleasing to yourselves.”
“You are NOT to follow the political correctness of the world.”
“You are NOT to follow after the philosophies and doctrines of the gentile religions and what’s worse you are NOT to practice their ways using My Holy Name!”
God is putting His foot down and saying the days when every man did what was right in his own eyes are coming to an end.
And why?
Verse 9 gives us the answer.
“..because you haven’t yet arrived at the rest and inheritance which Adonai your God is giving you.”
In other words, God is saying things are going to be mighty different once you cross over the Jordan and enter the place of rest and security I have provided for you.
Once the Israelites enter into their land inheritance, they are to fully obey the commands given them at Sinai and rejoice in their inheritance with their family along with their servants and the Levites before the presence of the God who saved them from Egypt.
If I was to summarize this short section of Deuteronomy, it would boil down to this:
There is man’s way of doing things…
…and there is God’s way of doing things…
…and never shall the twain meet.
There ain’t no middle ground or some happy compromise.
The Lord makes it clear “it’s my way or the highway baby”!
The Israelites will simply not be allowed to serve the gods of the Canaanites and simultaneously serve the God of Israel in any capacity or form whatsoever.
There will be no wiggle room allowed.
So that’s right…one won’t be able to get away with mainly serving HASHEM and then somehow secondarily serving Ba’al.
HASHEM makes it clear there are to be no gods before Him.
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