Tag: persecution

Where Has Justice Gone?

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If you prefer to watch a video, I didn’t do one for this post. Sorry.

For three years I have been an annual pass holder for a really enjoyable activity at the Brevard Zoo called Tree Top Trek. It is a series of fun obstacles that are set up in the tree tops some 20-40 feet above the ground, with zip lines throughout it. I have been going two to three times a week for the past year and a half (since I retired) and just about all the staff, composed mostly of college-aged kids, know me.

I have had friendly conversation with all of them, and even on one occasion enjoyed a hug with one of the women. They have all been friendly and we have exchanged jokes. It has been very enjoyable for me to go, not just for the good workout I get but also for the camaraderie with these young people.  No one ever told me that I was doing anything wrong.

A week or so ago I received a phone call from the woman who manages Tree Top Trek telling me that she has just now been advised that over the past few months 4 of the staff have written complaints about me being unsafe and making improper gestures (whatever that means), and after reviewing this with her senior staff they have decided to terminate my pass and refund me a pro-rated amount of the cost of my annual pass.

Huh? 

I told her I was shocked to hear about this, and never did or said anything to anyone to purposefully hurt or upset them. I said I have always tried to be friendly and don’t have any idea of what she is talking about. No one ever said I upset them, no one ever told me I am in violation of safety rules and if I continue I will be evicted, and no one ever told me I was doing something inappropriate. There are always senior staff members and a manager on site, so if anyone had a problem (I asked her) why didn’t anyone say anything to me?  I assured her if I had been made aware of any of these allegations I would have immediately apologized and made correction to my behavior.

I also asked if she would tell me who said what, and her reply was that “for legal reasons” she would need to check if she could do that. Legal reasons? What laws, either municipal, state or federal, would prevent her from telling me what I was alleged to be doing wrong? Especially if those things got me kicked off their property!

I have had similar experiences during my 40+ years in the corporate world, both personally and hearing about others. This country has a Constitution that, under the 14th Amendment, guarantees everyone equal treatment under the law, and under the 6th Amendment (Confrontation Clause) states all people have a right to face their accuser. It has come to the point today where these two foundation stones of a free republic are ignored by the corporate world. I was subjected to a Witch Hunt and found guilty in a Kangaroo Court, which resulted in being persecuted for actions that I didn’t even know I was doing.

If I had done something wrong, I certainly would have corrected it.  The first time anyone does something wrong it is their responsibility to correct that action, but how can they if they don’t know about it? Isn’t it only fair to say, “When I first did that it was my fault.  But, because you never told me about it, when I kept doing it that was your fault.”?

The system of law we have has always been based upon the premise that one is innocent until proven guilty. Not any more. Today the way it works is that the first one to complain, wins.

I was told they investigated the claims against me, yet how can you investigate something when the accused hasn’t been part of that investigation? It is really sad that these people believe what they are doing is right- their idea of investigating a claim against someone is to ask everybody if that person has ever done anything wrong. Then they collect their accusations and decide what to do. The accused has no input to this at all. If this had been a jury trial, it would have been one where the prosecutor makes the case and presents witnesses against the defendant, but the defendant and the defense lawyer aren’t present, don’t get to hear the prosecutions case and are not allowed to rebut the witnesses.

The bible tells us what to do when someone sins. It is found in Matthew 18:15-17:

If your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault, between you and him alone. If he listens to you, you have gained your brother. But if he does not listen, take one or two others along with you, that every charge may be established by the evidence of two or three witnesses.  If he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church. And if he refuses to listen even to the church, let him be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector.

I do not expect everyone to do what the bible says we should do- that is a fact established by human history. But our laws are based on what we are told in Matthew 18, and if corporate America ignores these basic tenets of interpersonal relationships, then what happens to justice? We read the news and watch “cop” shows which include court cases all the time. But we aren’t experiencing it in our everyday lives. What we do experience is what happens to us daily, which for most people is what happens at work.

And what happens at work is that when someone complains about someone else, the alleged person is wrong from the git-go. That person never even gets a chance to explain or amend their behavior before they are either written up or fired. And when they ask why they were never told, it is almost always because the other person was too shy, or too afraid, or too upset to tell them. In other words, because the “wronged” person has a problem with being honest with others, you are the one who has to pay for it.

This also reflects poorly on the manager who clearly hasn’t created an atmosphere of trust that would allow the shy and emotionally immature person to come to the manager so that the “bad” behavior could be amended.

I did something wrong, at one time or another, and was never told about it. I was then accused of doing wrong constantly for months on end. Why it took so long for the Manager to find out I can’t say, but when she did she summarily “fired” me.  No warning, no probation, no opportunity to apologize and make it right. So what happens? I am upset, embarrassed and mortified, and the person(s) who felt I had wronged them never get closure, other than some feeling of revenge. The bible says the Lord shall avenge, but, well…since they don’t care about what God says we should do when someone wrongs us, why should they care about leaving revenge to God? Or for that matter, anything else God says about how to treat each other.

I am venting a little, yes, but I am not seeking pity from you or justice from them- there is no justice in the corporate world. I am also not “crying” about being treated unfairly, which I was, but am using my experience to show that we all need to steel ourselves against the unfair and sinful way people treat each other, which is now not just condoned, but encouraged by those who are in positions of authority in both the corporate and political arenas.

The way we learn about interpersonal relations outside of our own family starts in school and continues at the work place. Most people spend 2/3 of their life in “Corporate America” so what they see and hear in the workplace is how they believe they should act. And because of how corporations are today, how people believe they should act has nothing to do with the bible or the bible’s form of justice. And when justice doesn’t exist anymore at the work place it will soon disappear from the country completely.

First we threw God out of the American justice system, and now we have also thrown out Lady Justice. Her replacement wears no blindfold, has no scale and holds the sword over her head, ready to come down on whomever is brought before her.

The worst part of this entire debacle is that I am ashamed because I know that anything I may have done that was considered inappropriate or wrong will reflect poorly on God and other Believers, for many at Tree Top Trek know I am a God-fearing man.  That is how it is with people: if you say you are God-fearing they expect you to be as perfect as Yeshua was, and when you do anything that isn’t “saintly” they automatically say worshiping God is useless because you sinned. I was treated unfairly and persecuted unjustly, but the result will be some people there will think worshiping God is useless because Steve said he worshiped God and was a Minister, and look at what he did.

That is what hurts me more than anything else- I dishonored God.

 

How to Identify the Anti-Christ

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When  we read the bible we are given the promise of a Messiah from the very beginning, in Genesis , when God promises Abraham that his seed will be a blessing to the whole world. And at the end of the bible we are told of the tribulations we will suffer when the Anti-Messiah takes rulership of the world and tries to destroy God’s people, who will be the ones remaining faithful to Him and trusting in Yeshua as their Messiah.

There are many warnings about these End Times, in Hebrew called the Acharit Hayamin. Yeshua describes the things to look for in Matthew 24:4-15:

Jesus answered: “Watch out that no one deceives you.  For many will come in my name, claiming, ‘I am the Messiah,’ and will deceive many. You will hear of wars and rumors of wars, but see to it that you are not alarmed. Such things must happen, but the end is still to come.  Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. There will be famines and earthquakes in various places.  All these are the beginning of birth pains. “Then you will be handed over to be persecuted and put to death, and you will be hated by all nations because of me.  At that time many will turn away from the faith and will betray and hate each other,  and many false prophets will appear and deceive many people.  Because of the increase of wickedness, the love of most will grow cold, but the one who stands firm to the end will be saved.  And this gospel of the kingdom will be preached in the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come.

The A-C (it gets tiresome typing Anti-Christ all the time) is talked about in Revelation 13:5 as having 42 months of total rulership over the entire earth. I am not going to do a detailed exegesis of Revelation because, frankly, I don’t understand it well enough to teach about it. What I do know is that the A-C will appear to be an all-powerful, divine creature who survives some fatal attack, then rises to take control of the earth. The power that he will have will amaze and astonish people, but what this power is might be anything.

OK, so we know that there will be political turmoil, ecological upheavals and other bad things happening all over the world before the A-C takes charge. There will also be a false prophet, a beast and a dragon, all associates of the A-C, that will amaze people and cause them to accept the A-C as their Messiah. This means we are not really looking for a single A-C, but (at least) three separate entities, all working in unison to promote the A-C.

Now to tell you how I think we will be able to identify the A-C. The A-C will be the one who brings order and peace to the world; as such, we won’t know who that is until we can identify the greatest threat to order and peace in the world. So I ask you: what is the most chaotic thing that is happening nearly everywhere in the civilized world?  Isn’t it the international terrorism of the Islamic extremists?

We have plenty of ecological events happening: the Tsunami’s, earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, etc. going on all over the world, with the consequent famines and disease and poverty and starvation. End Times eschatology tells us these things will happen in unison with political trauma, and Man-oh-Manischevitz, don’t we have that in abundance now?

The A-C will be the one who puts an end to all these terrible events. 

Here’s how I see it happening: I believe we will see, originating in the United Nations, an international police organization come into being which will be empowered with authority throughout the membership of the UN to attack and defeat all forms of terrorism in the world. There will, of course, have to be management of this police force, and that will be through a triune leadership. One will be in charge of  policing actions (the Beast), one will be in charge of the administration of the program (the Dragon), and one will be in charge of reporting all that the police force accomplishes to the UN and the world (the False Prophet.) These three will lead this international police force in establishing the peace and prosperity of the world by defeating terrorism in a totally cruel and efficient manner.

For security purposes they will request (and receive) authority to establish world-wide martial law, and through this mandate they will control the world. Again, as a means of protecting the people, to simplify control there will be a single form of money, and the leaders of the world will report to this police force, essentially creating a de facto  one-world government. This won’t just be acceptable to the people, but they will actually be thankful for it.  In order to make it impossible for a terrorist to buy supplies or weapons without being known, all those who are “law-abiding citizens of the world” will be required to take the “Mark”, which will be the only acceptable form of ID to allow people to buy anything. Henceforth, anyone without the “Mark” will be considered a terrorist and an enemy of the world. This will be the beginning of the persecution and murder of God’s people, who will not be turned and refuse to take the “Mark.”

In this scenario, can you see how people will not only be giving their permission to the A-C to rule them, but will actually be thankful for his control and power? People will eagerly accept his “Mark” so that they can live peacefully. To those without the knowledge of the word of God and the Ruach HaKodesh (Holy Spirit) to open their eyes and ears to what is happening, it will seem that Messiah has returned. And if you think it was bad for a Jew in Nazi Germany, that will be a cake-walk for anyone in the world without the “Mark” when these events come to be.

Then things will really get bad; not so much for those that have the “Mark”, but for those that are remaining faithful to God and the real Messiah, Yeshua. We will have Tribulation like nothing ever before, and for 3 years or so we will be in great turmoil. This is what Yeshua warned us about; many will be turned from the faith and only those that hold on will be saved. Many, many thousands will be put to death in the name of Yeshua, but those that do survive will be able to see what everyone who believes in Messiah Yeshua wants to see: Yeshua riding on the clouds in power and majesty, taking power back from the A-C and chaining him up for a thousand years.

This is what I believe will happen. Although I can’t really call this a “vision”, the entire scenario came to me in a second as I was reading this morning’s paper about how England says it will tighten it’s security after yesterday’s (6/4/17) terrorist attack.  I guess we won’t know how correct I am until it happens, so please accept this as a viable scenario, Then, if I am right about this, at least you have been alerted as to what you can expect.

 

Expectation is Everything

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I was in the Sales field for about 15 years, between 1992 and 2007, and the title of today’s message is one of the most important lessons I learned about being able to have a successful sales career. 

I am sure all of you reading this have found the most disappointing purchases you have ever made were the ones where what you got wasn’t anything at all like what you expected. That can be the fault of the salesperson, or yourself, or both- neither one really explaining or listening to the other, and ending up having an unrealistic expectation.

 This same thing has happened with Yeshua and the Jewish people, which started in the First Century and is still present, today. 

The Tanakh (Old Covenant) has very explicit expectations of what the Messiah will do. He will regather Israel (Ezekiel 38:16), He will restore the Temple service (Jeremiah 33:18), He will end wickedness and heresy (Zephaniah 3:13),  He will reestablish the religious courts (Isaiah 2:2-4), and He will be a son of David. With these, and the many other Messianic prophecies found in Tanakh, the Jewish people’s expectations for their Messiah, taught to them by their leaders, was for a political savior who would immediately restore the Davidic kingdom, and that it would be just like it was in David’s and Solomon’s times. 

And when you think about it, that expectation wasn’t really all that far-fetched. So, looking back, it is understandable (isn’t it?) that the Jewish people would have rejected Yeshua as their Messiah when He walked the earth because many of the biblical expectations were not met: there was still sin and heresy (in fact, at that time the Jewish political and judicial systems were probably the most corrupt ones we’ve ever had), the Ten tribes were still in the Diaspora, Temple service had not been interrupted (so He couldn’t reinstate it), and He died! Duh! How could this guy be the Messiah and have an eternal kingship if he’s dead?  

These unmet expectations are the reason so many Jews back then rejected Yeshua as their Messiah, and even to this day they are the basis for still rejecting Jesus as Messiah. When you add to that the last two Millennia of the treatment Jews have received at the hands of the “followers of Jesus Christ”, well, it’s no wonder we don’t want anything to do with this Jesus guy. After all, isn’t Jesus the reason for the Crusades, which resulted in thousands of Jews being slaughtered when they didn’t convert?  And wasn’t Jesus the reason for the expulsion of Jews from Spain and her territories, not to mention the torture and murder of thousands of Jews during the 300 hundred years (or so) of the Inquisition? And isn’t Jesus the guy the Nazi’s said was on their side?- the belt buckle of the Nazi uniform had the words, “Gott mit uns” (God is with us) engraved on them. Oh, and let’s not forget the Replacement Theologists who say that God, Himself, has rejected the Jewish people (because they rejected Jesus) and that the Born-Again Christians are now God’s Chosen people. 

Taken altogether- unmet expectations, wrongful teachings, mistreatment, bigotry, persecution- is it any wonder the Jewish people have nearly universally rejected as their Messiah this blonde-haired, blue-eyed, Aryan image of the Jesus Christ we know today? 

So…how do we get around this misunderstanding (and it is a misunderstanding) about who Yeshua is? We start by realizing, within Judaism and Christianity, that what we know today as Christianity, and who we think Jesus Christ is, is wrong. First off, Jesus did not create Christianity: Constantine did, at the Council of Nicene in the Third Century. Without going into an entire history lesson on what happened, let’s simply state that as more and more Gentiles (who were Pagans at that time) were accepting Yeshua (He wasn’t called Jesus until many, many years later) and, thereby, converting to Judaism, all the restrictions of the Torah were too much for them at the start. In Acts (15:29)  there were only 4 absolute “Must Stop Now” restrictions, but when you read the entire passage it is clear that the Elders expected these new converts to learn how to obey the entire Torah as they continued to attend the synagogues. But with the continuing rebellion of the Jewish community against Roman rule, being identified as a “Jew” was becoming more intolerable than being a follower of Yeshua, so those Gentiles who were converting started doing less “Jewish” stuff. As early as the First Century, what was now being called Christianity began to actively separate itself from the Tree of Life it had been grafted into. They changed the Shabbat, they ridiculed and insulted Judaic practices, and by the time Rome accepted Christianity as an approved religion, it had lost most of it’s attachment to Judaism. Then Constantine created Christmas and Easter as a means to make Christianity more “fun” and further separate it from the Holy Days God defined for us. 

That is why today Christianity is not anything like what Christ preached or taught. We need to approach Jews with this information to destroy the expectation that by accepting  Jesus you have to reject Judaism. That is what Jews expect they have to do if they want to accept Jesus as their Messiah, and it is simply not true. 

Once we kill that first expectation of having to reject Judaism, we can then start to kill the next expectation, which is that Jesus taught against Torah. We need to educate people, both Jews and Christians, regarding the false teaching that Yeshua rejected Torah: that is a lie from the pit of Sheol! He not only taught to obey Torah, but He did so by teaching us the deeper meaning of it so we could live it more completely! And Shaul (Paul), John, Matthew and the rest of the gang all lived and taught obedience to Torah. Not as the means of salvation, which was the understanding of Torah then, but as a means of showing God our faithful belief that what He says to do is what is best for us, and to demonstrate our love and thanks to Him through obedience to His word.  

If you have gotten this far, having overcome thousands of years of wrong teaching and bigotry, now you have a chance to show how these expectations, which have resulted in such a massive rejection of Yeshua, are unreasonable. The prophecies were often dual-prophecies, meaning there was a current interpretation, and a future one, as well.  For instance, an argument against Isaiah 53 is that it was talking about Israel as a nation then and there, which could historically be shown, but it was also talking about Yeshua, which wouldn’t happen until far in the future. The expectations that the Jewish people had, and have, of Messiah were based on misunderstanding, not to mention the political and social pressures against accepting Him (back then) due to the corrupt individuals who would lose their power and standing if He had been universally accepted.

Today I can see the spirit of God moving- the regathering of Israel, the Hebraic Roots and Messianic Jewish movements gaining momentum, and the world getting worse and worse- all these point to the Acharit HaYamim (End Days) getting closer and closer. And that means we are getting closer to the return of Yeshua ha Maschiach!   Therefore, let’s educate in a way that edifies people, removing the unrealistic and improper expectations, showing the truth about who Yeshua is and what He teaches, and thereby making it possible for all people to hear the real Good News with unclogged ears and seeing eyes. 

Hate is Easy and Love is Hard

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That isn’t so much of a revelation, is it?

How many of us have had a “falling out” with someone? Usually it’s over something that isn’t really that important, but was at the time we had the falling out. And how much easier is it to just accept that relationship is over than it is to make contact and try to revive that friendship? Hating is easier, hating is what comes natural to sinful beings (like all of us, myself included) and hating is safer.

Yes, safer. Safer because when we try to mend a hurt, we take the chance that we will be hurt again. At Rosh HaShanah it is a tradition to go to one you may have sinned against or hurt and ask forgiveness. I did this, once, to the mother of my children about two years after we had separated. I apologized for any hurtful things I had done and asked forgiveness. What I got was an earful of hatred, spite and anger. She yelled at me, withholding her forgiveness from me as if it was necessary for my salvation. She never knew that the forgiveness she could have given to me would have made her more right with God and had nothing to do with me and God.

Forgiveness doesn’t have anything to do, really, with the person who hurt you and their relationship to God, but it has everything to do with your relationship with God. We are not commanded to ask for forgiveness- we are commanded to forgive (see Matthew 6:14-16); forgiveness of someone else makes us right with God, not them. They have to make themselves right with God.

Hatefulness comes easy to humans for all the reasons I stated above, and for one more: it just feels better. Yes, I admit that and confess it, as well. I have some family members and friends that I need to keep in touch with or they will never call me, visit me or even send me a text. If I am not on Facebook (which, by the way, I am not) then I will never know what is happening in their lives. That knowledge hurts. I love them and miss them and want to be with them, yet they don’t give a hoot about staying in touch with me. I am the one always reaching out to them, and sometimes I just feel like if I never, ever have anything else to do with them I won’t be missing anything at all. If they can’t take a few minutes out of their oh-so-very-important lives to say “Hi” or drop me a line, give me a call or even just leave me a voice mail, then screw them and the white horse they rode in on!!

That’s why love is so much harder- it takes sacrifice, it takes compassion (not one of my strong points) and it takes a high tolerance to emotional pain. Loving is giving, loving is being there when you don’t want to be, and loving is accepting the stripes that someone else deserves. And more than that! Love is doing all that and doing it willingly, without allowing yourself to feel regret you did the “right” thing or to feel animosity against the one you suffered over.

This is the kind of love Yeshua has for all of us. This is the kind of love that God has for you, right now. And it is the kind of love that they both expect you to show to others. More than expect- they require it! If you have known the loving forgiveness of God and understand the depth of the sacrifice Yeshua made so you can be forgiven, and yet you do not show (or at least try to show)  that same love to others, then you are the man Yeshua tells us about in the parable of the unforgiving servant (Matthew 18:21-35).

In Matthew 16:24 Yeshua tells us how hard it is to love. He says:

“Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.”

This isn’t easy, this isn’t something that comes naturally to us, and this isn’t fun. We get a sense of peace and joy from the Ruach HaKodesh (Holy Spirit) when we are deep in worship, but what we get from the world is a load of crap, hatred, and persecution. Many churches teach all about God’s love, and paint a pretty picture of salvation. In the meantime, they aren’t preparing their flock for the wolves. Yeshua told His Talmudim (students) that they would be sheep among wolves, that they are to be as gentle as doves but as crafty as snakes.

There is an old saying, I am sure you have heard it, that goes, “Time heals all wounds.” I don’t think time alone heals wounds, but with proper care of the wound, putting the balm of God’s love and compassion on it daily, time will eventually overcome the pain and the wound will heal. There is another saying that is similar: it goes, “Time wounds all heels.”  Those who are not forgiving, those who hate and persecute, bully and confound, will eventually be wounded. They will feel God’s arrow of justice pierce their liver.

And if the thought that those who have sinned against you makes you feel somewhat avenged, you need top pick up that cross because you aren’t carrying it! I have been hated, and that hatred has poisoned my own children to the point where despite all the sacrifices I made to be with them and try to show them how to be self-sufficient and succeed in the world, they have rejected me and abandoned me. They hate me because they were fed the hatred and spite their mother had against me when I left the marriage (which at that time was a marriage in name only.) And when I think of the suffering they will have to go through, for all eternity, if they don’t do T’Shuvah before they die, I can’t possibly feel anything but sadness and remorse for them. It kills me that they will have to face God without Yeshua in their corner. And not just the kids, but their mother, too. Sure, I have every reason in the world to be glad that she will get what she deserves for doing what she did to me and to our children.  All the reason in the world!

But we’re not supposed to be of the world, are we?

Why they hate us

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Why does who hate us? There is so much hatred in the world, who are you talking about, Steve?

I am talking about the Jewish people, and anyone else who believes in God and is faithful. The world is the one hating, and Jews and Believers are the ones it hates.

Why? The explanation is simple: They are shooting the messenger.

The Jewish people were chosen by God to be His representatives to the world; a nation of Priests. They were the first custodians of God’s Word, and through the Jewish people we receive the Messiah. Through the Messiah we receive forgiveness of sins and salvation. The “Christian” (usually interpreted as Born Again) people are in a similar role because they also bring the Good News of the Kingdom of God to the world (note I say similar- they did not, do not, and never will replace the Jewish people as God’s chosen people. Replacement Theology is a lie from the pit of hell.)

The problem is that the world doesn’t want to hear about it. The world is cursed, self-absorbed and hedonistic. It is wretched and perverse. The world prefers sin to salvation.

When we talk about our beliefs and demonstrate our faithfulness, to the world it is like poking them in the eye with a sharp stick. It brings to their attention, and to their dismay, the truth about who and what they are. It reminds them of the eventual payment they will have to make at the final judgement.

To restate what a nice Jewish boy from Tarsus once said: to those who do not believe, we who do believe have the smell of death upon us. It is not the smell of our death, it is the smell of their death!

That’s why the Jewish people are hated and persecuted. That is why Believers, whether Messianic Jews, Christian, Catholic, Episcopalian, Protestant, whatever, who are not ashamed of the Gospel, who try to save the souls of the unfortunate non-Believers, are hated, despised, persecuted and ostracized. No one wants to hear the truth when it comes to them having to suffer eternal damnation. I really can’t blame them for that- who wants to hear that your life choices will lead you to eternal suffering in hell’s fire and you will be tormented forever?

So, nu? What do they do? Do they change for the better? Do they worship the God of their Fathers and do T’Shuvah, so they can be saved? Nooooooo!!!  They kill the messenger. They exercise Ostrich Management by sticking their head in the sand and pretending that the truth doesn’t exist.

{By the way, since Donna and I have been Zoo Docents for over 15 years, I have to tell you that ostriches don’t really stick their head in the sand when they are threatened.}

It’s probably not a big surprise to anyone that the world hates those who love God, especially if you have tried to save someone from their fate. It is almost so obvious that it doesn’t need to be mentioned, yet I mention it because, all too often, those things that are right in front of our face are the ones we get so used to seeing we fail to notice them anymore.

If you are reading this and you are not one of the “messengers” I am talking about, please consider the message. You can ignore the truth about God and the Messiah all you want, but it doesn’t change what the truth is. You will never get scientific, definitive proof that God exists. This is how faith works- you become faithful, then you receive confirmation.

Actually, confirmation is all around you- the trees, the wonderful beauty of a sunset, the fact that you can eat something and get nutrition from it, the respiratory system, the wondrous mysteries of the Universe, reproduction of living things, the tremendous diversity of life… everything around and about you demonstrates God exists. The lie that the Enemy has been very successful at spreading is that just because we can explain how something works means it is just science, and not God.

I can explain how an internal combustion engine works, but I don’t know how to create it. I can’t think it into existence, and just because I can fix a broken one doesn’t mean I can make one from nothing.

There is a cute story I heard once: the leading geneticists of the world came together and decided that since they could map out the human genome, and knew about recombinant DNA, they figured they could cure any disease and form humans as they wanted to. They told God they didn’t really need Him anymore. God replied, asking if they thought they could create a human being using just a handful of clay. They thought it over and answered that they could, so God say, “Go ahead- show me!” They picked up a handful of clay and God said, “Oh no! That clay is mine- you have to make your own.”

The truth is all around us. The oldest truth is that God chose the Jewish people to be His messengers. The truth is that they will never be replaced as such, and will eventually accept their own Messiah, Yeshua. Not all, but those who do will be part of the remnant that has always been faithful. Of the billions of people that have been born, have died, and those that haven’t even yet been conceived, only a remnant, a small percentage, have or will accept the truth about God. And even from them, only a remnant will survive faithfully to receive the ultimate prize- eternity with God. It isn’t joyful news, it isn’t comfortable, it isn’t all rosy-wonderful-Pollyanna-happy news. Yeshua never said that following Him would be fun. In fact, He said we would need to pick up our execution stake to follow Him. That’s not a very pretty picture, and if I were a hedonistic, self-absorbed person who was enjoying the fruits of my sin, I would not find that a desirable alternative.

In fact, it sucks. Those who believe and are faithful will endure a lifetime on Earth of being persecuted, ostracized, hated, and many of us will lose our lives because of our belief in God. Those we try to save will kill us. When all is said and done, the world works this way: if you don’t like the message, kill the messenger.

Then, again, what can the world do to us? If we save a life, we will both be blessed, and if we lose our life doing so, we will be with God.

Sounds like a win-win to me.