Mar 28, 2022
Diff between precision and accuracy, precision is hitting the
target every time and accuracy is hitting the right target.
Both important, but precision w'o accuracy is foolish and arguably
legalism, diligently following a checklist or set of rules but
following the wrong rules.
God made the world based on laws and His way of doing
things. If you don't know His way of doing things, i.e.
accuracy, you can be as precise as you want but what's the point if
you're not following His rules. If you think you're not
following rules, I would ask you if you put on a mask against your
better judgment at some point over the last 2 years. Where
there's a vacuum of rules, someone will fill that vacuum. The
Devil will gives us all sorts of rules if we don't follow God's
rules, or he will tell us that we should make our own rules.
I'm concerned about the talk among conservative Christians who
are still talking about Donald Trump like he's our savior and that
there's going to be a great awakening around what?
Freedom? Is that our ultimate goal, freedom? It depends
on what your definition is of freedom.
Romans 6:16 NKJV says "Do you not know that to whom
you present yourselves slaves to obey, you are that
one’s slaves whom you obey, whether
of sin leading to death, or of
obedience leading to righteousness?"
Romans 2:20 NKJV says "I have
been crucified with Christ; "
is that freedom, being crucified? it is if you
understand the meaning of true freedom.
We talk about slavery as the ultimate evil or thing to avoid,
but we should strive to be slave to Christ. To me that's a
big part of what being Torah observant is all about. Being
obedient to our Creator.
Jesus said if you love me keep my commandments in John
14:15.
1 John 3:4 says "Whoever commits sin also
commits lawlessness,
and sin is lawlessness."
What law is that talking about? It's certainly not
talking about man-made laws but God's law. The word Torah
means "the law".
|
When we read about slaves in the Old Testament, it was a
different situation than what we saw with African-Americans in the
earlier part of the U.S. history. People often became slaves,
or what was called bondservants by choice, or sometimes because
they needed to pay a debt.
Ex 21:2-6 says "If you buy a Hebrew servant, he shall serve
six years; and in the seventh he shall go out free and pay
nothing. 3 If he comes in by himself, he shall go out by
himself; if he comes in married, then his wife
shall go out with him. 4 If his master has given him a
wife, and she has borne him sons or daughters, the wife and her
children shall be her master’s, and he shall go out by
himself. 5 But if the servant plainly says, ‘I love my
master, my wife, and my children; I will not go out
free,’ 6 then his master shall bring him to
the judges. He shall also bring him to the door, or to the
doorpost, and his master shall pierce his ear with an awl; and he
shall serve him forever."
To me that picture of a man choosing to have an awl driven
through his ear to declare being a slave to someone forever, is
similar to our choice to be a slave to Christ forever, and give up
the world's version of freedom, which can be summed up by the
phrase do what you want.
You may have heard the phrase "Do what thou wilt" which was a
book written by occultist Alister Crowley. That's always been
the message of Satan, along with the questioning of what's God
wants us to do. Satan said to Eve "Has God indeed said you
shall not eat of every tree in the garden" and he says similar
things to us in various ways, questioning God's law.
Well, we should never be OK with not knowing what God expects
from us.
What does this look like if we pursue what God's will is for
us through His Word.
Well, for me one of the first implications of this was that me
and my family could no longer justify doing celebrating a pagan
holiday we call Christmas that God never told us to do. and in fact
He said very clearly we should He did not want his people to
worship as the pagans did but told us how He wanted us to worship
him and gave us specific appointed times when he wanted to meet
with us, in Hebrew these are called Moedim.
So we stopped participating in Christmas and then Easter and
then realized were not obeying the 4th commandment, which in Ex
20:8-11 says "“Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it
holy. 9 Six days you shall labor and do all your
work, 10 but the seventh
day is the Sabbath of the Lord your
God. In it you shall do no work: you, nor your
son, nor your daughter, nor your male servant, nor your female
servant, nor your cattle, nor your stranger
who is within your
gates. 11 For in six days
the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all
that is in them, and rested the seventh day.
Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and hallowed
it."
Here are some quotes from the Catholic church about this
issue:
from the Catholic Record, Sept 1, 1923 ". The Bible still
teaches that the Sabbath or Saturday should be kept holy. There is
no authority in the New Testament for the substitution of Sunday
for Saturday. Surely it is an important matter. It stands there in
the Bible as one of the Ten Commandments of God. There is no
authority in the Bible for abrogating this Commandment, or for
transferring its observance to another day of the week.” “For
Catholics it is not the slightest difficulty.”…“The Church is above
the Bible; and this transference of Sabbath observance from
Saturday to Sunday is proof positive of that fact. "
Chancellor Albert Smith for Cardinal of Baltimore Archdiocese,
letter dated February 10, 1920: "If Protestants would follow the
Bible, they should worship God on the Sabbath day [which] by God is
Saturday. In keeping the Sunday, they are following a law of the
Catholic Church."
Our Sunday Visitor (February 5, 1950): "Practically everything
Protestants regard as essential or important they have received
from the Catholic Church... The Protestant mind does not seem to
realize that in accepting the Bible and observing the Sunday, in
keeping Christmas and Easter, they are accepting the authority of
the spokesman for the church, the Pope."
Catholic Priest T. Enright, CSSR, lecture at Hartford, KS, Feb
18, 1884: "I have repeatedly offered $1000 to any one who can
furnish any proof from the Bible that Sunday is the day we are
bound to keep...The Bible says, “Remember the Sabbath day to keep
it holy,” but the Catholic Church says, “No, keep the first day of
the week,” and the whole world bows in obedience."
So if you consider yourself a Protestant and not a Catholic, I
would encourage to ask yourself why you're worshipping on
Sunday? The reformation corrected many wrong doctrines of the
Catholic church but left many unchanged and this is one of
them.
And that's just one of the 10 commandments, which are just 10
among all of the Torah.
You may have heard phrases like "Jesus nailed the law to the
cross" or that "Jesus did away with the law".
I won't take the time to counter those arguments here, but I
will say that if you are hungry to know the truth about these
matters you can start with a few of these youtube channels: The
Parable of the Vineyard, ShemaYisrael, Zach Bauer at An American
Homestead, or TruthUnedited.
But I'll leave you with this. In Matthew 5:17 Jesus said
"“Do not think that I came to destroy
the Law or the
Prophets. I did not come to destroy
but to fulfill." I've heard many quote this verse
to suggest that when Jesus said fulfill He meant to do away with or
destroy. If that were true, Jesus would have been saying "I
did not come to destroy but to destroy" which obviously makes no
sense.
In John 14:15 Jesus said
"“If you love Me, keep My commandments."
Hebrews 13:8 says "Jesus
Christ is the same yesterday, today,
and forever."
2 Kings 17:37 says "And the statutes, the ordinances, the
law, and the commandment which He wrote for you, you
shall be careful to observe forever; "
Another thing you may have heard is that Jesus blasted the
Pharisees because they were following the law. That's the
opposite of the truth. The Pharisees had made up all sorts of
rules that they considered to be fences, extra rules to make sure
that you never broke the Torah, which may have been well
intentioned, but they got to a point where they weren't following
the Torah they were just following their man-made rules and in so
doing they missed the spirit of the law and they were out of
relationship with their Creator, so much so that they didn't even
recognize the prophesied messiah when He arrived.
In the same manner, if we don't follow God's law and meet Him
in His appointed times, will we recognize Jesus when He
returns?
So before I wrap this up let me make an application to our
work so this isn't a total departure of the content you're used to
receiving.
So I want to bring us back to this idea of precision and
accuracy. I recently received some correction at my
work. It wasn't because I wasn't working hard, but rather I
wasn't working entirely on the right things. I was busy being
precise, but my accuracy was off, and ultimately I was doing things
as I thought they should be done but not as my boss wanted them
done, and that is not a sustainable situation because my boss
ultimately has a say about whether I continue to work with him or
not, and I do not.
It's the same with our heavenly father. He gives us
freedom to choose, but if we choose not to follow Him and His ways,
and not to meet Him when He wants to meet with us, we will not end
up spending eternity with Him.
|