A Rush To Judgment

We all do it! We judge others.It's a major part of the human experience and, I believe, the number one cause of the evil so rampant in our world today. Judgment negatively affects every area of our lives and has resulted in the ruin of multiple millions from the dawn of time.

We humans have made judgment a way of life and it is often so cruel and unfair. No one is off limits when it comes to the judgmental opinions or harsh words of others. I'm sure we all have been the recipients of petty gossip by unthinking individuals who didn't consider the potential results of their careless words. No one is immune from  this insidious practice, yet we all have to admit that we too have been guilty of the same. However, that behavior is mild compared to what we see going on today. Many have graduated to a whole new level of judgment. Due to social media, many are taking their verbal attacks to the internet, spewing out all manner of evil upon those they deem worthy of their displeasure. By their actions, many have taught their children that it's okay to belittle others, to attack those who don't measure up in their opinion. Now we see that school bullying is getting out of hand, often resulting in the suicide of the one being bullied. People, in general, are becoming less tolerant and are quick to get angry and lash out at anyone and everyone they encounter on a daily basis. Love and compassion for our fellow man has fallen in the streets. The frustrations of everyday life have caused many to take it out on any who cross their path. Families are disintegrating, divorce is rampant, children have no respect for authority, our colleges have become institutions of social unrest, the workplace has often become a war zone, road rage is common on our highways, riots have become daily fare in our inner cities.The list goes on and on. The problem is that many want to be GOD! Most don't realize it, but it is true. Their thoughts and opinions are the only truth there is and those who disagree are not to be tolerated.

When it comes to judgment, nothing is off limits. We judge others by appearance, race, gender, religion, culture, social standing, occupation, lifestyle, education, income, behavior, vices, on and on. This is true of every individual, every group, company, organization, institution, denomination, social club, political party, government, country, you name it.

It's the cause of every war, whether it be neighbor against neighbor or nation against nation. We make blanket judgments of entire groups of people. Millions around the world are suffering unimaginable horrors because of evil governments ruled by despots who delude themselves into believing they are GOD! They have decided who should live and who should die. Massive migrations of entire populations are seen on the evening news each night, people running for their lives because of war and persecution by those who have judged them of lesser value.

One day soon, our creator, Yeshua, is going to judge the world and I fear it is not going to be the judgment we hoped for. When he came to earth two thousand years ago, he taught his disciples to judge not lest they be judged. He is the only righteous judge and his judgment is not based on the criteria we use to judge others. He is not interested in outward appearances, but the inner heart. When he returns as King of kings and Lord of lords, he will come to render judgment upon each and every one of us according to our heart. The standard for that judgment will depend upon us. The measure we use to judge others will be the exact measure he will use to judge us. That is a very sobering thought. Our eternal destiny depends upon us. May we all consider our ways and our contribution to the pain and suffering of our fellow man. God is love and those who are his will live to spread that love throughout this dying world.

Beware of False Teachers

I guess you could say this post is a continuation of previous posts, "The Origin of Easter" and "Resurrection Sunday". However, it is much more than that. It is very personal and comes from the depths of my heart. Today, as I watched the news and saw nothing but people "celebrating" the resurrection with dyed eggs, face painting, candy, bunnies, and baby chicks, I was sickened to the core of my being. Just hearing the phrase "Happy Easter" sends chills down my spine. Easter, the Babylonian bare-breasted goddess named the queen of heaven, the reincarnated Semiramis, the wife of Nimrod has nothing to do with my savior.

How have so many in the world come to associate the resurrection of Yeshua with Babylonian sun-god worship? What do the ancient fertility rites and traditions of pagan cultures have to do with the Messiah? If you consider yourself to be a believer in Yeshua, saved by his blood, secure in your hope of eternal life through him, you should seriously ask yourself that question and, even more seriously, be careful how you answer.

I faced the truth many, many years ago and it is a bitter pill to swallow. It is not pleasant to go against the accepted traditions of an entire culture. You find yourself isolated from all that has previously been your reality. You are no longer comfortable in a world that you once were very much a part of. Yet, once you know and accept the truth, however painful it may be, there is no going back. You can't unlearn what has been revealed to you. The blinders are off, the veil has been lifted. You once were blind but now you see, and what you now see is a world under judgment, a world that will one day soon be stripped of all of its false gods, it's religions, governments, educational institutions, it's very culture. Everything they have put their trust in will collapse before their very eyes and they will see the awful truth, that they had been fed nothing but lies.

I read in an article this morning that says Easter is also known as Pascha (Passover). That is an absolute lie. Easter has nothing to do with Passover. None of it's ancient celebrations, rituals, or customs identify with anything remotely associated with Yeshua. Do you know where the custom of dying eggs comes from? On the first Sunday after the vernal equinox, the priests of Easter would impregnate virgins on the altar of Easter and the next year sacrifice those three-month-old babies, dying eggs in their blood. Is this the ritual we are rehearsing with our children. Many will respond, "That's not what it means to me!" Well, what does it mean to you? You tell me! When you are telling your children the story of the resurrection, how do you insert egg-laying rabbits, baby chicks and baskets filled with candy?

Yehovah's warning to his called-out ones is to stay away from the worship of pagan cultures, not to learn the ways in which they honored their gods and attempt to do so to him. It is an abomination. Jeremiah 10:2, "Learn not the way of the heathen". God tells his people in Revelation 18:4 to come out of Babylon, that we are not partakers of her sins, and receive not of her plagues.

It doesn't matter how sincere we may be. We are to worship him in spirit and in truth. He shows us what that true worship is in his sight. Ancient Israel rehearsed, through their temple services, the shadow pictures of the Messiah and how he would save mankind. The celebration of each of the festivals and the manner in which they were to be observed were to tell the story of Yeshua, both his first coming as the lamb of God and his second coming as King of kings. He fulfilled the Spring feasts two thousand years ago through his death, burial, and resurrection. These shadow pictures are beautiful illustrations that pagan practices can never duplicate or replace. However, because the majority of mankind has abandoned these feasts and celebrations for those of pagan sun-god worship, his second coming will be that of judgment on a disobedient, God-rejecting world. We have been warned. Jude 1:3 begs us to earnestly contend for the faith once delivered to the saints for, even in the first century, many crept in unawares among the early believers, bringing in false doctrine and leading many astray, turning God's grace into license. Too many today believe that God accepts any form of worship we choose to offer him, but God is not mocked. He has revealed to us how he wants to be worshiped.

The religions we have today come from the deluded mind of Emperor Constantine in 325 A.D. who declared Christianity the official religion of the Roman empire, albeit a hybrid religion. He purged the empire of the teachings of Yeshua and the early apostles and ushered in a corrupted form of religion that merged pagan sun-god worship with the worship of God.  Any who refused to comply with the new religion were executed. To appease those followers of Yeshua who remained, he changed the names of all the pagan festivals to cover up their origins, so as to make them more acceptable. So, here we are today, nearly two thousand years later, completely immersed in Babylonian sun-god worship, and it's not just Easter. It permeates nearly everything in our culture. We should not be surprised. The bible tells us that Satan is the god of this age and has deceived the whole world.

We have been warned, but will we heed the warning? We can do nothing about what we have inherited. It goes back much farther than our parents or grandparents. All we can do is repent and ask God to show us the truth. Can we do that? If we are taught the truth, can we turn from what has become so familiar, from those traditions that have become so dear to our hearts, those which we thought were honoring God but were birthed in the mind of a madman who remained a sun-god worshiper to the day of his death?

Modern day Christianity, as we know it, has been the recipient of this hybrid religion and our priests, ministers and pastors have continued in its teachings down through the centuries. Some have seen the light and discontinued their association with their previous denominations. Most have remained, many who know the origins of their religion but who are afraid to preach it for fear of losing their position in the church. They weakly proclaim that it doesn't make any difference. Well, lets read the message of Yehovah to Jeremiah and see if it makes a difference to him. You alone are responsible for your life, for the decision you make. God has set before us life and death. I pray you choose life.

Jer 2:8 The priests said not, Where is the LORD? and they that handle the law knew me not: the pastors also transgressed against me, and the prophets prophesied by Baal and walked after things that do not profit.

Jer 10:21 For the pastors are become brutish, and have not sought the LORD: therefore they shall not prosper, and all their flocks shall be scattered.

Jer 12:10 Many pastors have destroyed my vineyard, they have trodden my portion under foot, they have made my pleasant portion a desolate wilderness

Jer 22:22 The wind shall eat up all thy pastors, and thy lovers shall go into captivity: surely then shalt thou be ashamed and confounded for all thy wickedness.

Jer 23:1-2 Woe be unto the pastors that destroy and scatter the sheep of my pasture! saith the LORD. Therefore thus saith the LORD God of Israel against the pastors that feed my people; Ye have scattered my flock, and driven them away, and have not visited them: behold, I will visit upon you the evil of your doings, saith the LORD.

Jer 16:19 O LORD, my strength, and my fortress, and my refuge in the day of affliction, the Gentiles shall come unto thee from the ends of the earth, and shall say, Surely our fathers have inherited lies, vanity, and things wherein there is no profit.

The Cultivated Mind

I love the parable of the sower. Yeshua often used agricultural analogies to bring to light spiritual principles. We learn from this parable that God sows his word like seed in the world. His purpose in sowing the word is that it might bring forth abundance in people's lives. We are likened unto the ground in the parable. Some people hear the word of God, but don't understand it at all. They are pictured as the ground by the side of the road. The seed falls on it, but the birds come quickly and take the seed away. Maybe these are those who are not interested or maybe they don't believe in God, the bible doesn't say. What it does say is that the evil one (HaSatan) immediately takes it away so that it has no chance to make a difference in that one's life. 

Some are compared to rocky ground. This is ground that may quickly receive a seed, per chance, and bring forth a small plant. I've seen impatiens grow in some pretty rocky soil, but they have no opportunity to reach their full potential. This represents people that eagerly receive the word, but have no depth within their hearts that allows the word to get down deep, where it can grow.

Others are compared to ground that contains thorny weeds. These weeds, the cares of this life, the pursuit of possessions, fame or fortune, choke out the word. These people are too busy pursuing their own agenda to give ear to God's word.

Some, however, are likened unto good ground, cultivated soil that can produce abundant fruit. I was thinking this morning about cultivated soil. The tractor, tiller, shovel or hoe has to break up that ground to prepare it for the seed. The Holy Spirit's job is to prepare the way for God's word. Our hearts and minds need to be cultivated so that, when God's word is planted inside of us, we can accept it and allow it to grow and produce an abundant harvest for the Kingdom. To produce the greatest fruit, we often must be broken, humbled or chastened to prepare us for the growth to come, much like a plant needs pruning to bring forth a greater yield.

The important lesson here is that we are not the ones who produce the fruit. The fruit is produced by the word (seed). We are the ground. The ground does not, of itself, produce fruit. It receives the seed that produces the fruit. Any so-called goodness within us comes from God. We have no goodness within ourselves. We are a receptacle for his word. We must receive that word into cultivated minds and hearts, that it may be able to produce his purpose for our lives.

Never Give Up

Yeshua tells us that all things are possible with God. Sometimes we humans have a hard time believing that. We live in a world of limits, or so we think. The ones who truly excel are those who conceive a thought or an idea and bring it to full fruition with a never give up attitude and a boundless faith in their ability to achieve it.

Take every invention that we are the recipients of today. Each one began as a seed in the inventor's mind. They saw it clearly in their mind's eye first before they were able to manifest it in the physical world.

Every musician hears the music before he/she creates the notes. A writer sees their characters and story line before they appear on paper. An artist imagines the strokes of a painting before the picture is put to canvas.

What is man really capable of? What are each of us capable of? More than we can ever imagine! That's why I know, at the deepest level of my being, that we can eradicate negativity in our lives and we can rise above any obstacles that loom large in front of us and conquer them with an unwavering faith that all things are possible. Good things don't just happen to the "lucky" few, the rich and powerful, the educated or the famous. We are all on equal footing when it comes to faith. We hear all the time of people who have risen above their circumstances; humble beginnings, poverty, disabilities, abuse, whatever.

What did they all have in common? They were tired of the status quo. They assessed the situation and dared to believe. They put one foot in front of the other with determination and a will to fight for what they wanted, and they rose above every barrier, every naysayer, every mountain, fought every giant and their own doubts and fears until they achieved their dream. That's what each of us needs to do. We need to know that nothing can tear us down if we don't let it. It's up to us. How bad do we want it? That's the only question.