Month 10:19, Week 3:4 (Revee/Shavu'ot), Year 5935:277 AM
Gregorian Calendar: Thursday 12 January 2012
Theological Extremism
Wild West Evangelicals and Messianics
Every denomination has its theological 'hobby horses', pet doctrines that are emphasised over all the others that bring the Besorah (Gospel) life into imbalance that can, if unchecked, become chronically ill. While Evangelicals cry "Jesus! Jesus!" and Messianics cry "Torah! Torah!", Adventists are crying "Sabbath! Sabbath!", Baptists, "Once saved, always saved", Mormons "Prophets & Revelation!", Jehovah's Witnesses, "Jehovah! Jehovah!", Zionists, "Israel! Israel!" and the Bedrock Pentecostals and Charismatics, "Yabbadabbadoo!" It's little wonder that seekers are confused by the confusion while embarrassed Christians and Messianics just pretend its a couple of giant happy (evangelical or messianic) patchwork quilts of 34,000+ denominations and ministries while others, who aren't fooled by that rhetoric, claim that they are the "one and only" folks in the desert to whom everyone else must come or be damned.
Let's be upfront here. Yes, Yah'shua (Jesus) - and Yah'shua (Jesus) alone - saves, as the Evangelicals teach, but He also said that the Emet (Truth) sets you free (Jn.8:32). Yes, Yah'shua (Jesus) the Truth-Person is the One we are to imitate but He is more than that - He is the incarnation of Yahweh's own truth-principles that liberate if we believe and implement them - He taught that His Father's Emet (Truth) or Torah (Law) were important, like the Messianics teach, and that if we truly love Him, we will obey all Yahweh's mitzvot (commandments) (Jn.14:15). So if Yah'shua (Jesus) alone is the Derech (Way), and the only Derech (Way) back to the Father (Jn.14:6), and if we are to obey all the mitzvot (commandments), then why are there 34,000+ denominations? It's really glaringly obvious, isn't it? It's because believers aren't really trusting Messiah enough to obey Him fully. Therefore, ipso facto, the 'Patchwork Quilt Church' doctrine is false.
The false dichotomy between Evangelicals and Messianics is no more perfectly illustrated than by a couple of teachings I read yesterday from both camps. First, from the Evangelicals, I read about a man who asked a question Martin Luther might have liked: "Now that all our sins are forgiven, can we do whatever we want to do?"; and from a Messianic minister in UONYC, a long discourse in which he set out to prove that the "abomination of desolation" is Jesus! (See my writings on the Ultramessianics and Messianic Heresies that expose this nonsense). In these two misguided attitudes we have the two extremes of Christianity and Messianism, respectively - total lawlessless on the one side and totally dead legalism on the other, that lead to two totally false conclusions! No wonder the 'Body of Messiah/Christ' is in such chaos!
Though these two extreme examples might at first give the impression that Evangelical Christianity and Messianism are at irreconcilable odds, this is not true. They are actually two aspects of the same Besorah (Gospel) truth that have been separated by historical events and developments in the ongoing Great Apostacy. And so long as they remain separated, there will always be extremism in both movements, because the true balance can only be found when they are seen to be two sides of the same coin, even though both sides are today muddied by error. This Yahweh explained to me in a vision four years ago when He showed me how the remnant needed to walk to get fully out of error and to the pure emet (truth). I have tried to as accurately as possible reproduce this vision in the illustration below:
By carefully walking between the evangelical and messianic houses we as a ministry have found, we believe, the correct balance, and are moving toward the final phase of the final gathering of Yahweh's people where we are witnessing the merging together and synthesis of the two houses minus the errors of both that lead to their respective extremisms. On that narrow path, shown in the vision above, is its spectrum of emunah (faith) that corresponds to the spiritual development range of believers, corresponding to the seven annual festivals. The people who are walking thus are fulfilling the prophecy made concerning the end-time seed that Satan would pursue but fail to overwhelm in the very last days:
"And the dragon was enraged with the woman, and he went to make war with the rest of her offspring, who keep the mitzvot (commandments) of Elohim (God) [Torah-observant Messianics] and have the testimony of Yah'shua the Messiah (Jesus Christ) [Evangelicals]" (Rev.12:17, NKJV).
The "man child" (Rev.12:13) - actually just "male" (Gk. arrhen) - is, on one level, the proper, harmonic synthesis of Messiah-trusting and commandment-obeying - they are not two separate, antithetical things as Evangelicals have made them out to be, but are echad (one). This intimate connection between the two is repeated once more in the Book of Revelation:
"Here is the patience of the set-apart ones (saints); here are those who keep the mitzvot (commandments) [Torah-observant Messianism] of Elohim (God) and the emunah (faith) of Yah'shua (Jesus) [Evangelicism]" (Rev.14:12, NKJV).
Notice that the offspring of the woman in the first passage is 'male', meaning that the proper synthesis leads finally to proper leadership and toqef (authority) in the remnant because the tavnith (pattern) is correct. Evangelicism is female without male principle and messianism is male without the female component (evangelicism) in its proper place. They are an untamed wild woman and an untamed wild man without one another.
We are in the business or marrying the two and what simcha (joy) it has been! We want to invite you to come and find out what we are doing and learn from all the revelations Yahweh has given us. This synthesis of emet (truth) is still going on as we continue to learn and grow. And that is part of the beauty of this end-time birth - there is room for everyone no matter where they are at until we come to perfect unity in Messiah.
We are here to proclaim to end of the extremism, bickering and mutual accusation that occurs when theological marriages fall apart, and that's what the two separate Evangelical and Messianic movements represent - an estranged wife and husband, respectively, each declaring their self-sufficiency and mutual antagonism! Each sees the other's faults but never their own, and so never (they say) the twain shall meet. We are not on either 'side' but like a marriage counsellor we are for both - we want them reconciled and reunited.
It's time to make a new start and it's underway. The eyes of many are being opened to the senseless war between the two that has bred such radical and dangerous heresies. Please contact us if you would like to know more about our work and why it is essential for the end-time remnant. And may Yahweh bless you as you continue your search for all emet (truth) and end the Wild West mentality of the two camps!
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