Are You on the Right Path? The Truth is Closer Than You Think

 

It’s ELECTION DAY. And lots of Americans are super passionate about getting out the vote.

And they should be! Because this election is critical to the survival of the Democratic Republic that is hanging on by a mere thread.

Some people wonder why I have not gotten into politics. I’ve had many people ask me to run for office over the years. There was a time I thought about it. In fact, according to my father, my first word was “President”. The story goes this way: Dad was on shore duty when I was born, and until I was 3 years old. He would come home from work, teaching Navy guys guided missile systems, and Mom would hand me to him, and he’d sit in his old rocking chair reading newspapers, magazines, or watching the news while mom cooked dinner. He would point at pictures and say what they were. Given that it was an election year, the Viet Nam war was going on, and all manner of chaos, Johnson and Nixon were all over the news. So, I saw ‘the president’ often, and learned to say “President”. Dad thought I would end up president!

I was involved in politics in the Reagan election of 1984, after graduating high school, and I was invited to the RNC in Dallas that year. I didn’t get to go, and went into the Navy soon after. I was a patriot, and wanted to serve; but, I also wanted to get my education.

Then, after having become a believer at 9 years old but wandering during my high school years, I returned to my faith at sea in the Gulf of Alaska on board a Trident Submarine during my third patrol. My loyalties totally changed then.

I was compelled to build His kingdom.

But, I had to figure out with whom to come along side in order to do so.

I was 22 years old. I was not biblically illiterate, but I had a LOT to learn. I began that pursuit on my last patrol, having devoured the NT scriptures after that night when Messiah revealed to me what was wrong in my life, and what to do about it. After finishing reading the NT scriptures, it made sense to read the OT. I remember getting to Leviticus 11 and thinking, “Hmmm, if God said not to eat it, perhaps I should not eat it.” I was already very health and fitness aware, and the instructions about food just made sense. Pork and prawns were no longer in my diet [the only un-kosher meats I actually ate before then].

I went first to a Baptist church, as I had grown up Baptist. I remember sitting in the adult Bible study and the teacher completely misrepresenting what a very simple verse was saying, and trying to interject my understanding of the verse; he wrote me off as ‘young’ [Timothy?], and persisted in teaching error, and roughly forty people just sat and took it.

The very next church was an ‘independent’ Baptist church. They did something even more egregious: they touted the very erroneous identification of Jesus that many have followed, with which I never agreed. It stuck in my craw, and I questioned myself, as I knew I was young, but, I also knew that I had met Yeshua, and that I understood who He was, without needing “hermeneutics” and sophistry.

I proceeded to investigate other ‘denominations’. There is probably not one major thread of christianity that I did not investigate. A curious person even asked me about Mormonism, and I investigated it for his sake, handing him my Bible to hold him at bay until I understood their teaching. I went into a Mormon church and was heavily courted by them. They handed me a stack of books, after having tried to walk me down the “Romans Road” to their version of Salvation, not knowing I already knew the Son of God. I read all the material they handed me, and refuted most of it with scripture, returning their books and my copious notes of refutation.

Shortly after that, I heard a Messianic congregation on the radio, and my heart was stirred… I understood intuitively that the Name they were saying, “Yeshua”, was the actual Hebrew Name of my Savior. It melted my heart. But, I transferred from there [Wa] to Georgia shortly thereafter.

I led a Marine buddy of mine to the Messiah at my Grandmother’s house in Georgia a year or so later. His mother was furious, as they were Catholic. They were not observant, but when my Marine friend gave his life to Messiah, he quoted scripture to her on the phone nearly word for word, having never read the Bible himself. I was so moved, I wrote a poem about his salvation. He told her, “Mom, if I need to be Catholic, I will, but I just wanted you to know that I am saved now.” We went to the library, checked out the Catechism, and studied Catholicism together. He rejected it, based on what he read with his own eyes. Some of the things we learned, I already knew, but there were other things that were simply anti-Bible that neither of us could swallow, out of the horse’s mouth.

I investigated other mainstream faiths; I preached in the streets with a Presbyterian, and sang in their choir my last few months in the Navy. I encountered a Nazarene preacher, and had in-depth, Biblical conversations with him. I read about several major denominations and their ideas; I had come across “Church of Christ” in high school; they were hypocritical and judgmental. I went to apostolic/pentecostal/charismatic congregations, all of which were way too focused on the hocus-pocus, though one or two people in their midst did seem genuine. Later, I met my wife in such company. That’s a different story.

Suffice it to say, none of it answered ALL my questions. They all had kernels of truth. But, they were all laden with manmade ‘rules’ that were contrary to the Bible, and many of them had lost sight of Yeshua’s preeminence, and/or the Sovereignty of the Father. I continued in my pursuit of the Truth.

I began to learn Hebrew, because I saw ‘misinformation’ in people’s interpretations of scripture at the pulpit. After marrying, my wife and I went to her family’s church first. Then, we bowed out to seek fellowship with more sincere people in Truth. We began to keep the Passover and Rosh HaShannah, because of their very significant Messianic overtones. After studying Hebrew for a while, I also began a Bible Degree with a very academically rigorous, traditional Christian bible college / Seminary.

I was ridiculed there simply for asking about the Jewish nature of the New Testament. Carrying a 4.0 average, two professors gave me “B”s for asking pointed, sincere questions. No other reason. I had the Deans review my work and compare it to previous 4.0 work; there was no reason for the lower grade. One of them got fired. The point is, they did not like their conclusions challenged, and were willing to punish individual thought that did not fit their narrative. That stuck with me.

Over all that time, I was often compelled to go into politics. I kept choosing not to. And the further I have come, the more I realize that the most important thing that I can do, and have been called to do, is to rescue people from the darkness of spiritual death, and His people from the stupor of religious deceit. If we can do that, theoretically, we can make better voters.

No one is to blame for America’s ailments but the VOTERS. The American public does not vote on PRINCIPLE, but on emotion, personality and pocket book.

America has turned away from Truth. Many denominations have popped up, and most of them are American-born. A nation full of religion is yet full of immorality. The ‘righteous’ bury their head in the sand at the unrighteousness going on in our country:

Killing babies. Maiming children for ‘identity confusion’. Celebrating adultery and fornication while condemning homosexuality. Show-casing mental derangement as ‘diversity’. Breeding racism for political gain. Robbing workers to pay the lazy. This is only a partial list of our sins.

All of this has been brought about by the lazy believer and their misguided votes.

It is now the day after the election, and it appears America has chosen well. However, there were some very, very close races, and it was not a landslide for Trump as many predicted. I have to wonder how much cheating went on in the blue states, as they are simply cheaters. They [Dems] are communists who have no God, and thus no conscience: “will to power” is their mantra, and they will do whatever it takes to ‘win’. But, even still, far too many Americans vote for evil, still. But, many who voted ‘red’ did so only based on their pocket book. Many voted merely because of conspiracy theories. [I would love for them to admit to being wrong when their dreams of ‘salvation’ do not manifest.]

But, I digress. Back to faith and its condition in America:

There are 40,000 streams of faith that fall under the moniker “Christian”;  that number illustrates the confusion and ongoing fragmentation within the community of faith in the Son of God. Many of these groups share core, Biblical beliefs, but differ on critical issues such as theology, practices, church organization, and liturgy.

Many of them claim ‘originality’, but their worship looks nothing like Yeshua’s.

So, how does a person choose?

Yeshua said, “Follow Me.”

Paul said, “Imitate me, as I also imitate Messiah”. 1 Cor 11:1

John said, “If anyone says “I am in Him,” he must also walk His Halakha.” 1 Jo 1:4

Jeremiah said, “Thus says יהוה , ‘Stand in the ways and see, and ask for the old paths, “Where is the good way?”, and walk therein, and you shall find rest for your souls’.” Jer 6:16

The only thing that will truly change this country is if we who believe actually live the faith of the Scriptures. Does that mean we have to speak Hebrew? No. Does that mean we have to dress as Jews? No. Does that mean we have to avoid all things ‘christian’? No. But, it does mean that we should be honest with The Word of God. We should put it back in context: historically, culturally, and biblically. We should admit the simple, obvious error of our forebears. We should give Messiah the same preeminence that the Apostles did in our Salvation, without overthrowing God, Our Father, whose throne is either vacant in most theologies, or usurped in others. We should do the Word of God, as Scriptures [The Word of God] tell us:

²¹“Therefore cast away all filthiness and all the multitude of evil things, and receive with meekness the implanted Word, which is able to save your souls.  ²²But be doers of The Word, and not hearers only, deceiving your own selves.  ²³For if any is a hearer of The Word and not a doer, he is like a man who sees his face in a mirror; ²⁴for he sees himself and goes his way and forgets how he looked.  ²⁵But whoever looks into the Torah of complete liberty and abides in it is not merely a hearer of it, which can be forgotten, but a doer of the work, and this man shall be blessed in his labor.” ~James 1

People have been so blinded by doctrine and deliberate mistranslation that they despise this passage. It is simple. The Word, when Jacob/James, the brother of Yeshua, a Jew, wrote these words, was only “Genesis to Malachi“, what most call the “OT”. Believers today hypocritically carry the whole book to church, but eschew the first 2/3 of it, saying it cannot be done, when Paul said, “I can do all things through Messiah who strengthens me”; saying it is abrogated/negated/nullified/destroyed, when Yeshua the Messiah Himself said, “I did not come to nullify the Torah, but to ‘confirm’ it” [live it out and demonstrate it]; and when Paul said that it was our SIN that was nailed to the tree, NOT the Torah. The Torah is not sin, and it is not the ‘law of sin’. The ‘law’ of sin is the impetus in man to go against God’s Word. The Torah is HOLY, and JUST and GOOD, according to Paul.

But evil men perpetuate the lies about The Word of God.

If Americans would repent of that, these 40,000 streams of faith would be more unified and far less confusing and hypocritical. But, that’s too simple a solution, and relies too heavily on humility, which few have in the sight of God our Father today.

I am glad Trump won. It gives us a chance to declare the truth. It gives us a chance to fix the wrongs. But, he is not the ‘end all’ to the evils in this country, and he is not my savior. Just like the Bible is perverted and ignored, so is the Constitution. Just like people try to say the Bible was written by evil men, so do they say our founders were evil, in order not to accept the wisdom of our Constitution. All of this boils down to the fact that people are following the god of their own flesh and their base desires, more than The Creator and His Son.

“Thus says יהוה , ‘Stand in the ways and see, and ask for the old paths, “Where is the good way?”, and walk therein, and you shall find rest for your souls’.” Jer 6:16

Consider looking at the Scriptures from a Hebrew perspective, the context of the Jewish man who was proven by resurrection to be the Son of God: Yeshua the Nazarene, the Messiah of Israel.

www.mpfellowship.com