When the writer to the Hebrews wanted to speak of Melchizedek, he was prevented from doing so because those in the community were still spiritual babes. The priesthood of Melchizedek (melech – king, tzedek – righteousness) is a mysterious one as he lived in the time of Abraham, long before Levi, was chosen to be the priestly tribe. He is claimed to be a type of Messiah in that he was “without father, without mother, without genealogy, having neither beginning of days nor end of life, but made like the Son of God, he remains a priest perpetually” (Heb 7:3). Studying about the Melchizedekian priesthood is not for the novice bible student. There are deep spiritual truths that require a lot of background to understand. The point here is that if we are going to understand deep spiritual things, we must get beyond the basics.
We live in perilous times. The glorious return of Messiah is just around the corner but first, the false Messiah must be revealed and given his crown to conquer (Rev 6:2). That means cataclysmic events are upon our doorstep and the fluff that believers have been fed from Babylon-inspired teachings from the pulpit for the past half century aren’t going to cut it anymore. Spiritual warfare is increasing and the stats aren’t reporting in our favour. The feel-good gospel that fills seeker-sensitive churches these days has lulled the family of God into a stupor and we’re not fairing well.
Have you ever pondered on what Yeshua meant when He says in Mat 24:9-12 “Then they will deliver you to tribulation, and will kill you, and you will be hated by all nations because of My name. At that time many will fall away and will betray one another and hate one another. Many false prophets will arise and will mislead many. Because lawlessness is increased, most people’s love will grow cold?” How are many who profess to believe going to fall away? How will so many who claim to be followers of Messiah going to be misled by false prophets? How does all this happen? Because love grows cold due to LAWLESSNESS increasing. That’s right. The further we move away from God’s commands, the colder our love grows. Why? Because sin is lawlessness (1John 3:4). Yet despite this and many other passages like it being in God’s word, teachers and preachers go on to say the Torah doesn’t apply to us today and we can make up our own definition of love. Then we wonder why love has grown cold. It is because when love becomes subjective, it is based on how we feel and as one pastor with keen understanding said “Your feelings will lie to you every day about what you need.” Only when our love is based on the commandments of God does it remain true and in line with the Father’s will. After all, didn’t Yeshua say loving God with all of our heart, soul and mind and loving our neighbour as ourselves is what all of Torah and the prophets were about? (Mat 22:40)
If you want to make sure you aren’t misled by the doctrines of demons and false prophets, you must be deeply grounded in the word. Being satisfied with just being saved is dangerous as many will be misled away from the true faith. I have known of anti-missionaries engaging believers in discussions and have them walk away doubting their faith. The devil knows the Scriptures a lot better than we do and if we’re relying on our own smarts to deal with the objections he and his wicked spirits will raise we are playing with hellfire. He used the very word of God to tempt the Son of God to sin. How did Yeshua respond? With the proper application of the Scriptures. The basics of salvation should only satisfy the true child of God for the first 10 minutes of his walk. After that, it’s time to start training. Are we daily in the word? Are we reading the bible through at least once a year? Four chapters a day will get you there. Are we praying for wisdom and understanding? Are we reading from good theology books and listening to messages from learned teachers? Are we able to be teachers? We should be. The writer of Hebrews says so but because many haven’t disciplined themselves to know much beyond “Jesus loves me yes I know for the Bible tells me so,” many are still on milk. Without solid food, we become dull of hearing (i.e. lazy) and tragically, cannot discern good and evil. Then we start to mix our faith with the New Age movement which many are embracing today or some of the cults of Christianity or secular wisdom and then wonder why our lives and our faith end up on the rocks.
Time is getting shorter and speeding up. The return of the Lord is approaching which means the world will be devastated under the reign of the Man of Perdition. Simple faith will not carry you through. Learn how to rightly divide the word of truth, to tell truth from error and be a workman who does not need to be ashamed (1Tim 2:15). There’s too much at stake not to.
L’ahava B’Mashiach
(In the love of Messiah)
Rabbi Darryl
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