Luke 1:79
“… To give light to those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the way of peace." The Torah provides us with much ruling having to do with man’s inhumane behavior. Some of the things the Torah talks about would make very gory bedtime stories. How can such a heavenly document be so besmirched with the filth of human sin? King David said that the Torah is Light (Psalms 119:105). Light is only useful when it shines in darkness. In essence, the Torah finds its mission within the spiritual darkness of our human dimension. Paul built on David’s proclamation in the Psalms with, But when anything is exposed by the light (of Torah), it (the sin of ‘anything’) becomes visible (Ephesians 5:13). He also taught his disciple Timothy that, the law (the Torah) is … not laid down for the just but for the lawless and disobedient, for the ungodly and sinners, for the unholy and profane, for those who strike their fathers and mothers, for murderers, the sexually immoral, men who practice homosexuality, enslavers, liars, perjurers, and whatever else is contrary to sound doctrine (1Timothy 1:8), and I think that includes all of us! The Torah is a Light made to reveal to us our sinful condition. As such, it is a help to direct our paths away from sinful behavior. In studying God’s Oracles, we must be careful to distinguish between what the Torah permits and what the Torah advocates. Failure to do so can be disastrous. Whereas the Torah advocates unbroken marriages, in the knowledge of the nature of man’s heart it gave leeway for divorce (Matthew 19:8). Whereas it advocates monogamous marriages, it gave rulings concerning polygamy. It doesn’t mean that the Torah advocates divorce or polygamy, it only means that the Torah is relevant to the society in which it was given. The same goes for slavery; whereas the Torah gives ruling for slaves, it does not advocate slavery. We must be careful to study it according to its contextual values. Not understanding this could cause us to feel removed from Its text to a point of irrelevance. Many of us who would not consider polygamy as a lifestyle, practice it in a sequential manner, using one spouse, and ‘throwing it away’ for another one. Also many today who would not consider enslaving humans practice a different form of slavery through the very commonly accepted practice of usury (lending for interest) and economic policies that offer less guaranties than those offered to slaves in the Bible. The Torah is a Light, and those who consider it obsolete live in darkness. The Torah reveals the Light of Hashem's nature and character to contrast it with ours, and those who in a cafeteria-style pick and choose what they want from it, are found to ‘edit’, or adding or taking away from the Torah in their hearts, For centuries man has tried to find a better type of government than the one offered in the Torah, and the messy results are evident. In the World to Come, the Light of Torah will expose our sinful world for what it is and we will finally learn to rule and be ruled under the justice and righteousness of Hashem. May it come soon Abba Father, this world can’t wait any longer; too many are crying out for justice.
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Matthew 24:12
Because lawlessness will be increased, the love of many will grow cold Once Moses finished his address to the Children of Israel, The Eternal called him and his faithful disciple Joshua to the Tent of Meeting. There, the One who first appeared to Moses in a non-consuming burning bush revealed that the Children of Israel will eventually forsake the God who rescued them from bondage; that they would also forsake and reject His commandments. To his great dismay and disappointment, Moses would also learn that because of it God would, for a time, hide His face from His people (Deuteronomy 31:14-21). Yeshua gave His disciples the same warning that eventually His followers will forsake the Torah. He said, because lawlessness will be increased, the love of many will grow cold (Matthew 24:12). History records that before the end of the first century C.E., a movement coined as the ‘Anomians’ had appeared on the scene and was growing in strength. The translation of ‘Anomians’ is: the ‘Lawless ones’. It is the term that gives us the word, ‘iniquity’, or: lawlessness. This early heretical movement defined itself by a permissive and licentious understanding of ‘grace’. Misreading and misinterpreting Paul’s letters, these people proclaimed that the mosaic code of Law was no longer valid as the expression of faith in Messiah. Yeshua also warned the early congregations about these people. In His address to John on the Isle of Patmos He refers to those people as the Nicolaitans and the followers of Jezabel (Revelations 2-3). Paul always claimed to adhere to the code of conduct defined in the Torah (Acts 24:14). Peter remembered his Master’s warning and in turn warned the believers. He calls the anomians, untaught and unstable, saying that they distort the Scriptures to their own destruction (2 Peter 3:16-17). Jude, the brother of the Master calls them ‘hidden reefs in your love feasts’ (Jude 12-13). As we can see, the apostolic era believers followed in the footsteps of our fathers in the Book of Deuteronomy of whom it was said that they would reject the commandments. Today, the grand majority of those who claim to be followers of the Master actually define themselves by a rejection of those commandments. This is just as Yeshua prophesied, because lawlessness will be increased, the love of many will grow cold (Matthew 24:12). About 150 years before the manifestation of Messiah on earth, a group of Torah loyalists started by a father and his five sons rebelled against the Hellenistic secularization of Israel. They fought to preserve the Torah and the sanctity of the Temple. This happened during the reign of one, both Prophet Daniel and Yeshua proclaimed to be a prototype of the Anti-Messiah of the end (The Book of Maccabees). In these days of introduction of the ‘man of lawlessness’, the ‘lawless one’, (2 Thessalonians 2), we again need a group of faithful ‘Maccabees’, unafraid neither of the king nor for their lives (Revelations 12:11); true warriors of the faith who stand against ‘anomianism’ and its perverted king to inspire the people of God to return to the Torah of Yeshua. Please Abba, raise them for us now! |
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