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This is a non-WLC article. When using resources from outside authors, we only publish the content that is 100% in harmony with the Bible and WLC current biblical beliefs. So such articles can be treated as if coming directly from WLC. We have been greatly blessed by the ministry of many servants of Yahuwah. But we do not advise our members to explore other works by these authors. Such works, we have excluded from publications because they contain errors. Sadly, we have yet to find a ministry that is error-free. If you are shocked by some non-WLC published content [articles/episodes], keep in mind Proverbs 4:18. Our understanding of His truth is evolving, as more light is shed on our pathway. We cherish truth more than life, and seek it wherever it may be found. |
Have you ever asked your parents why they do something to have them answer, “It is just tradition”? Take this story for example: A little girl was watching her mom prepare the roast for dinner, and she noticed that her mom cut off the ends. This baffled the girl. The pan was large enough to hold it, so why did the ends have to be cut off? She asked her mother, “Why do you cut the ends off the roast?” The reply she got was not satisfying; her mother told her, “I don’t know; this is just how my mother cooked it and I learned it from her.” So the little girl went to her grandmother and asked her the same question only to get the same reply. With some disappointment she went to her great-grandmother and asked her, “Why did you cut the ends off the roast?” Her great-grandmother answered, “Well, honey, I simply did not have a pan big enough to hold it so I had to cut off the ends.”
How does this relate to the Bible? Simple. Today Christians do the same thing, only not with the roast. Christians have fallen for what we might call “traditional Christianity,” reliance on the big names, a situation in which people accept what people have to say without checking it with the Scriptures. This is dangerous. How do you think Plato, Luther, and Augustine made such an impact on religion? People did not verify what they heard against the Bible. They became passive and gullible and, may we say, lazy!
If we do not study the Bible we will fall for the deceptions that Satan has placed before us. Satan, the god of this age, has his ways of working deception and his greatest tool in regard to Christians is tradition. In the parable of the sower (Matt. 13, Luke 8) we are told that Satan will come and attack those who have fallen by the wayside and take the precious saving seed from them, so that they will not understand and believe in the good news of the Gospel as Yahushua taught it (see Luke 8:12). Truly Satan’s priority is to separate Yahushua from his teaching. We need to be on the alert at all times, comparing what is being taught with Scripture!
In Acts 17:11, we are given an account of a group of people, the Bereans, who studied the Bible daily to see if what Paul was preaching to them was true. Even though the Bereans may have studied with the intention of disproving Paul, their honest hard work and Paul’s truth resulted in them becoming genuine believers.
What are some of the deceptions so far that have made their way into the Church? Heaven as a place for disembodied souls. Nowhere in the Bible does it say that we will, when we die, go to heaven. Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and David were not promised a cloud or seat or rainbow in heaven but land and kingdoms and descendants and rulership here on earth (Rev. 5:10; Matt. 5:5). Yahuwah made a covenant with them that their kingdom will be established forever and that they will possess the land in a renewed earth. However, the typical “feel good” message does not engage this topic anymore, because it is easier to tell someone that when they die they will go to heaven instead of sleeping in the grave (sheol) until Christ comes back. It is easy to close one’s eyes tight to the plain statement that “the dead do not know anything” (Ecc. 9:5) and choose to believe the opposite, that the dead are fully conscious in heaven or hell. It is easier, because it is traditional.
Also, to say that Yahuwah is three or triune is preposterous! Where in the Bible do we read that Yahuwah is three Persons? Nowhere, but there are many verses that say that Yahushua is the Son of God. In John 3:16 we are taught that Yahuwah so loved the world that He sent H
is only begotten Son. The great creed of Yahushua and the Bible, the Shema (Deut. 6:4), says that Yahuwah is one Lord. So Yahuwah cannot be two or three. Yahuwah is one and He works through Christ who works through us.
1 Corinthians 15:3-4 are important verses for defining the Gospel. However, they should not be divorced from the multitude of other verses that define the Gospel. Paul was listing three things “of first importance.” Paul certainly did not exclude the Kingdom from the Gospel. In Luke 4:43 Yahushua tells us why he was sent: to preach the Gospel of the Kingdom to all (Matt. 28:19, 20). That was the meaning of his whole commission under Yahuwah. Christianity today has turned a blind eye to what Yahushua told us in Luke 4:43. The topic of the Kingdom is put on the “back burner” in the church. Instead of focusing on heralding the good news of the Kingdom of God, Christians are focused on telling people only that Yahushua died and was resurrected.
It is obvious that Yahushua was not sent just to die on the cross, as we may have wrongly picked up from church or Sunday school. Instead he was sent to tell others of the good news of Yahuwah’s world plan of the Kingdom (Mark 1:14, 15), so that we could be ready by repenting, understanding and believing. Yahushua preached for a long time before later including in his Kingdom Gospel the additional information about his death and resurrection (Matt. 16:21).
If we are to be followers of Christ shouldn’t we be teaching the message that he was constantly at work preaching as Gospel?
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