27 May 2010 (Chamahsee/Teruah)
Day #73, 5934 AM
Wild and Free?
That Rebellious Streak
Judging by the incessant promotion of this theme by Hollywood, you'd think that the ideal in this world is being 'wild-and-free'. Look at the picture above of wild horses. For many that is an ideal way to be. However, if you think that the powers-that-be want you to be 'wild-and-free' - asserting your independence and individuality in every sphere of life - you would be sorely mistaken. The powers-that-be do indeed want you to be 'wild-and-free' but only in their fenced-in area under their policing. The real agenda is that they want you break out of the protective hedge of the Commandments of God - the Torah of Yahweh - and into their own barbed-wired enclosure where they can control you. If you don't believe me, try refusing to pay your taxes or saying something politically-incorrect. Watch how they seize your possessions! Watch how they take your children! Oh you can be 'wild-and-free' alright so long as you think like them and behave like them. They're pretty 'wild-and-free' themselves only their 'freedom' is obtained at your expense. Just realise that they're concept of freedom for the masses is, in fact, your enslavement. They are your masters.
Many Christians have been seduced by the modernist 'wild-and-free' philosophy. They have concluded that God is 'wild-and-free' too. He has, in their deranged thinking, disbanded the Law He originally set up and created a new set of rules. The thinking goes like this: 'God has placed the rules in my heart now so I don't need any written ones. All I have to do is obey the Spirit!' Which sounds quite wonderful, actually, though I now hear more than echoes of the pre-election promises of politicians. What could be better than knowing Yahweh's will second-by-second? And that, brethren and sisters, is indeed the goal! Yahweh wants His commandments written on your heart so that everything you do flows naturally and non-compulsively out of your heart as a genuine and free expression of your love for Him!
The flaw in the theology of the Lawless Brigade is that it rests on a dangerous assumption, namely, that everyone who says 'Yes' to Yah'shua the Messiah or Jesus Christ automatically has the Law of Elohim transcribed onto His heart which he then automatically obeys. Thus we read in Scripture:
"But the Ruach haQodesh (Holy Spirit) also witnesses to us; for after He (Yahweh) had said before, 'This is the [new] covenant that I will make with them after those days, says Yahweh: I will put My laws into their hearts, and in their minds I will write them'" (Heb.10:15-16, NKJV).
Earlier Yahweh had made this promise through the prophet Jeremiah:
"Behold, the days are coming, says Yahweh, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah -- not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day that I took them by the hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt, My covenant which they broke, though I was a husband to them, says Yahweh. But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says Yahweh: I will put My law in their minds, and write it on their hearts; and I will be their Elohim, and they shall be My people. No more shall every man teach his neighbour, and every man his brother, saying, 'Know Yahweh,' for they all shall know Me, from the least of them to the greatest of them, says Yahweh. For I will forgive their iniquity, and their sin I will remember no more" (Jer.31:31-34, NKJV).
Now some serious questions. First, to whom did Yahweh say He would give this New Covenant? Answer: to the House of Israel (the northern Ten Tribes) and the House of Judah (the southern Two Tribes). This was a promise to the nation of Israel. Moreover, this nation would receive this covenant as two distinct bodies of people (Israel and Judah) and then become one people (Israel-Judah = United Israel). Second, what would the result be of the New Covenant bring written on the hearts of these two separated peoples? Firstly, they would be reunited as one nation - Israel (not Israel and Judah) - neither there would be any distinction between them nor would they be called 'Judah' (or 'Jews', 'Messianic Jews' or anything like that). Secondly, there would be no disputation - doctrinal or ethical (no denominations or sectarianism) - between the brethren because they would all know Yahweh, from the minister to the lay person. Thirdly, there would be an end to sinning. This is the resultant condition when the New Covenant is written on the hearts of believers.
Now can anyone honestly tell me that these conditions have been fulfilled? You would have to delude and deceive yourself to believe that they have. What, then, does this mean? It means that this writing of the New Covenant on the heart is not instantaneous but a PROCESS both for individuals and for the nation as a whole. It takes time. It takes work, It takes overcoming. It takes repentance. It takes submitting. It takes suffering until the victory is won. And the result will be a nation (not a 'church') called Israel (not the modern day, counterfeit 'Republic of Israel' in the Middle East but a future Messianic or New Covenant Israel) with its twelve tribal divisions. (NB. References in English translations of the New Testament to 'Church' should really be the assembly (ekklesia) or fellowship (koinonia) with are a part of Israel....they are a part of the national life of Messianic or New Covenant Israel which is a theocratic culture). Indeed, does this description not sound more like the condition of the Millennium than our time? If this is so - as I firmly believe - then the New Covenant has been as a process has been underway since the Cross and is still underway. This alligns with the idea of the Royal (Melchizedek) Priesthood being a process too.
The more honest believers recognise that denominationalism is not of Yahweh but still cling on to their lawlessness. They think the solution is to create 'independent local churches'. However all this does is create thousands of new denominations. Why? Because there is no Israel in them. How do you 'get' Israel? By, first, trusting in Yah'shua the Messiah - Jesus Christ - as your Master, Deliverer, Lord, Saviour and second, obeying the commandments - the Torah. (See The Way of Yahweh). However, Israel is dispersed - it is not in the Holy Land even if there is a militantly antichrist country there claiming to be 'Israel' (it isn't) and will remain dispersed until Messiah comes back. The Israeli Republic was established by political chicanery and by the sword (how totally unlike the foundation by Moses and Joshua!) but Messianic Israel is to be established by the supernatural power of Yahweh, even as Scripture records. Yahweh does New Covenant Israel's fighting for her.
For now, Messianic Israel is gathering like traditional 'churches' (usually called 'assemblies' or 'synagogues' but in spite of the different names, really little different from Christian churches but wearing different costumes and using different words) while they are refined. Messianics are rent by schism as much as evangelicals - that's a fact - even though they claim to be 'Israel' and wish to pretend to be 'different' which they sometimes do by making bold but vaccuous proclamations like 'I left Christianity'. The New Covenant is still being written in their hearts. It's still being written in every born-again believer's heart, messianic and evangelical. That's the truth. If it weren't, the divisions would be gone. Some messianics try to 'change' this situation by claiming that they are the one-and-only true 'restoration' around which everyone must gather. However, this is just playing with words. To them it's mostly about being doctrinally-correct. And doctrine is for sure important but it's neither all nor the main thing: for Yahweh first of all wants a right heart - a heart coming to Him like a little child - trusting, loving and obedient. Evangelicals have tried the 'one-and-only' legalistic road too and ended up with cults like the Mormons, Jehovah's Witnesses, 'The Way', etc.. The only true 'church' or true 'Israel' is a people with a right heart in all things. That is something that will evolve gradually from the grasroots upwards.
Lawless churches and individuals are 'wild and free' churches and individuals. However, they are not truly free in the biblical sense and they are wild in the same way that lawless, rebellious Ishmael was (Gen.16:12). They want their 'rights' and to do things 'their way'. They have fallen into the delusion that their hearts were instantly sanctified and perfected at their rebirth, forgetting that rebirth is not maturity. Or they believe that so long as they are in a divinely authorised 'organisation' or 'nation' and have strong, charismatic and knowledgeable leaders that they're on the right track irrespective of the condition of their hearts.
Don't misunderstand me, I am not saying that we do not need organisations and leaders. We do. But their task will be to foster and aid the heart-changes that Yahweh wants to see in His people by gently pointing them in the right direction, not coraling them. There will be complete freedom to explore and not a gulag mentality. There will be standards and rules to be sure - you can't avoid them - but they will not be so tight as to bind the infant to the cradle or promote an élitist, chauvanist agenda.
Young explorers in heart - espedcially the newly born-again, are energetic and on the one hand need space, but on the other don't need a totally unenclosed pasture. We are to be free - totally free - within the parameters of Torah but we are nowhere granted the right to be wild so long as we claim Yah'shua and claim Torah-allegiance. Those who were former unbelievers and not of Israelite descent do, however, come from a wild background, for as it is written, we were cut off a wild olive tree and grafted on to a cultivated one:
"For if you were cut out of the olive tree which is wild by nature, and were grafted contrary to nature into a cultivated olive tree" (Rom.11:24, NKJV).
Former lawless rebels who come to Messiah "were grafted contrary to nature into a cultivated olive tree". When such a soul takes his eyes of Yah'shua he will be drawn back to his former wildness which is resident in the flesh. When believers start feeling 'boxed in' or 'suppressed' and want to become 'wild and free' it is usually because they are no longer following Yah'shua but desiring the fleshy life once again again. They want to be wild horses again, free, untamed, uncultivated and unproductive. And that because they have not fully yielded to the Messiah, our Cultivator, who does what?
"Every branch in Me that does not bear fruit He takes away; and every branch that bears fruit He prunes, that it may bear more fruit" (John 15:2, NKJV).
Pruning is a part of cultivation to enable us to be more fruitful. But it hurts. Many resist pruning and would rather their branches grew wild and scraggly. However, wildness produces poor fruit, as any horticulturalist will tell you. (Notice he is called a 'horticulturist' for a reason).
As former Christians reject their roots and go in search of their pagan past, the world applauds them. Recently pagans in the British Police Force won the right to observe their own festivals and have time off for them, including one in which they take off their wedding rings for one day and have a massive orgy. I believe something similar happened in the US Navy a few years ago as a Satanist claimed his right to indulge in satanist practices. Little wodner that there is a strong political movement to decultivate tracts of nature and let it run wild again, evicting humans. No wonder that Norwegian farmers are no longer allowed to protect their sheep from wolves because 'wolves have rights'. (The lovers of this wilderness mentality should be forced to adopt wolves and keep them in their own back yards).
It needs to be understood that there are serious consequences for society when this wildness is promoted. What applied to Ishmael applies to everyone who turns away from Yahweh and reverts to the gods of his unsaved condition:
"He shall be a wild man; his hand shall be against every man, and every man's hand against him" (Gen.16:12, NKJV).
What else? If you go wild and everyone else goes wild, abandoning the rules of the Creator, then you must expect a violent struggle to survive. And I don't just mean physically, but mentally, emotionally and spiritually too. Wild horses may be able to run like the wind but they have to take care of themselves and run the gauntlet of red-clawed nature.
In Yah'shua the Messiah we have safety, purpose and the spiritual tools with which to make a difference. Wildness is wrongly associated with youth - it's a characteristic of the flesh and of lawlessness. Energy is a good thing but it must be channelled and made productive:
"Let no one despise your youth, but be an example to the believers in word, in conduct, in love, in spirit, in faith, in purity" (1 Tim.4:12, NKJV).
Born again believers are fiery but not wild; passionate but not lawless; free but not unharnassed.
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