Former sceptic, Scott Peck, who expected to find in the Gospels a piece of Christian propaganda, wrote thus:

"I was absolutely thunderstruck by the extraordinary reality of the man I found in the Gospels. I discovered a man who was almost continually frustrated. His frustration leaps out of virtually every page: 'What do I have to say to you? How many times do I have to say it? What do I have to do to get through to you?' I also discovered a man who was frequently sad and sometimes depressed, frequently anxious and scared...A man who was terribly, terribly lonely, yet often desperately needed to be alone. I discovered a man so incredibly real that no one could have made him up.

"It occurred to me that if the Gospel writers had been into PR and embellishment, as I had assumed, they would have created the kind of Yah'shua (Jesus) three quarters of Christians still seem to be trying to create...portrayed with a sweet, unending smile on His face, patting little children on the head, just strolling the earth with this unflappable, unshakable equanimity...But the Yah'shua (Jesus) of the Gospels - who some suggest was the best-kept secret of Christianity - did not have much 'peace of mind', as we ordinarily think of peace of mind in the world's terms, and insofar as we can be His followers, perhaps we won't either" [1].

What a contrast this is to the 'timid and tame Jesus' of so much of Christianity. The real Messiah was honest, and at times, tactless in certain settings in order to wake people up. (I am not, of course, giving anyone the green light to lower their standards and be rude, as if I needed to say that, though there will always be a few who get the wrong end of the stick). Why should we be surprised to discover that lots of people felt uncomfortable and agitated around Him when we know the emet (truth) makes sinners uncomfortable and agitated. (Again, I am not saying you should deliberately set out to make people uncomfortable and agitated in the mistaken belief that you have to do this to help them, for that mindset is born not of emet (truth) but of egotism and achieves nothing good). Because emet (truth) is such an alien concept in a world saturated by lies, those who speak it are, from the point-of-view of untruthers, difficult to predict, pin down or understand. (Again, understand that those who are lost can also appear this way because they have no coherent or consistent mental system).

Charles Wesley said that Yah'shua (Jesus) is somewhat different from us because we, as believers, can only be "an example of living" whereas our Master is "life itself". We can only imitate the 'real thing' and that's fine because that's how it has to be. It is no shame on our part if we make people uncomfortable and agitated when we speak the emet (truth) but it is very definitely a sin if we set out to deliberately make people uncomfortable and agitated because of our egotism and pride - there are those who get a perverse pleasure in provoking people thus. Unfortunately there are a lot of Christians and Messianics who don't seem to know the difference.

If we cannot deal with ourselves, making steps to align ourselves with Yahweh's will through His Davar (Word) and through personal revelation, then He will hold us to our covenant of discipleship and make us, through chastisement and punishment (not, as you doubtless know, very popular concepts in today's liberal world). How does He do that? Through judgment, which we are about to go through and are already going through, 'the likes of which you never did see' (as Beatrix Potter once described the tail of squirrel Nutkin) and won't see again until the Second Coming on that final Yom Teruah (Day of Trumpets, Shouting) in a few short decades' time.

You will be surprised to see how the imminent judgment cures so many diseases, spiritual as well as theological. You design a fantastic military plane but until it has been tested in combat, whatever else you may think about it really doesn't matter. I have long predicted that the so-called 'Prosperity' gospel will die its very desrved death once prosperity is taken away, the more so when those who most profit from it (usually the leaders) lose their decadent lifestyle. A few greedy but naïve people will hang onto it but in nowhere near the numbers that have been attracted to it in our day.

I have also said that once the casualty rates start mounting, particularly in war, and as fewer and fewer godly men will be found anywhere, so the Catholic-inspired monmogamy-only doctrine will likewise go the way of dust. These are just two, the first an idolatrous drug (mammon) and the second the product of false Catholic piety and aestheticism. The whole Western way of life is about to do a belly-up and all the genuine gains of the last century will be irretrievably lost so long as man weilds the sceptre of political power without accountability ot Elohim (God). You'll see the return of the peasant class albeit it in modern, if somewhat tatty, togs. The good news, though, is that a vacuum will be left for the emet (truth).

Who really is Yah'shua the Messiah (Jesus Christ)? How have the churches and their traditions distorted Him to become someone else? Apostacy is not a new thing and it will hold sway until Yah'shua (Jesus) returns to finally judge and condemn it. In the time that is to follow a vacuum will be left as false models collapse leaving the way for the true one to be restored. Then the true picture and reality of Yah'shua (Jesus) will be 'fulfilled' or 'filled up' replacing the shadows and distorted images of the churches. If I am not looking forward to the collapse of our old world then I am most definitely looking forward to the manifestation of the King and Kingdom in power and glory!

Endnotes

[1] Scott Peck, Further Along the Road Less Traveled (Simon & Schuster, NY: 1993), p.160