Dear friends, visitors of TET (The Electronic
Tabernacle), brethren,
This letter, I know, will not be well received
by many of you.
Nevertheless, I am prompted to write about the
recent Haitian disaster and the help being sent out to this stricken nation,
along with the email letters I am receiving.
Having listened to Pat Robertson’s view on the
tragedy that has befallen Haiti, and the many commentaries and blogs mostly
condemning, or at least disagreeing with the evangelist’s assessment of
the situation, I cannot help but add my 5 cents worth to it.
During my 30 years of ministry I have noticed
a peculiar thing among many churches and home churches. Whenever I would
ask the people present to lift their Bible high if they believed the whole
Bible to be the inspired, inerrant Word of G-d, everyone’s hand and Bible
went up triumphantly. Hence, unless things have changed of which I am unaware,
the whole Bible consists of the Old and New Testament.
However, I have observed an odd practice among
these very same people which I call “raisin pickings”, for many of them
“pick” only those Scriptures that please them and are within their “comfort
zone”; Scriptures which will not upset their view of G-d and Jesus
Christ. The Book of Psalms is an all-time favorite as are the Proverbs,
as well as certain sections of Genesis and Exodus. But as a general rule,
Christians prefer to read mainly the New Testament.
I remember well Norvel Hayes who liked to hold
up his thin New Testament Book in every service he preached, triumphantly
announcing that neither he nor we needed the Old Testament anymore since
Christ had done away with it. It all was fulfilled at the cross! All we
needed to know and concern ourselves with was the New Testament.
I recall how stunned I was and in my mind said,
“Lord, did You hear this? Norvel did away with two thirds of Your Word!
He just declared Torah, the Writings and the Prophets no longer relevant.
No wonder that so many have no inkling of the importance of the nation
and land of Israel, if they believe this sort of thing. And no wonder why
so many fail to understand the Book of Revelation. Yet Norvel is a man
of faith. How can he be so blind?”
Nevertheless, he is only one man, influencing
only some with his beliefs.
The Church of Rome, on the other hand, is a gigantic
organization, which has influenced countless millions throughout the past
18 centuries. This organization has changed the times and seasons commanded
and established by G-d, discarded Torah and declared the Jews rejected
as G-d’s Covenant people. And Rome continues to brainwash millions of Catholics
with her replacement theology, which claims that the “true universal Church,”
i.e. the Church of Rome, is now G-d’s new covenant people - the “true Israel
.”
Have their beliefs and doctrines indeed altered
the Word of G-d, and cancelled G-d’s covenant with the descendants of Abraham,
Isaac and Jacob? Can a Gentile church, or one man, annul G-d’s plan, purpose
and covenant, and two thirds of His Word?
As far as I know, G-d has not changed and will
not change. He is forever the same, the G-d Who was, Who is and is to come1.
If we could time travel and go either back or foreward in time hundreds
or thousands of years, G-d would be the same then as He is now.
Who or what then has changed Him that He won’t
speak and act anymore as He did in the past? When did He become another
G-d, with a different character and altered ways? Is Who He was, what He
did and what He said about Himself in the O.T. no longer relevant today
because He has become a N.T.
G-d?
Likewise, His Son, Messiah Yeshua, is the same
yesterday and today and forevermore2.
Or when did He change? Or who has changed Him? The way He spoke as recorded
in the Gospels - does He speak no longer this way? Is it alright to dispense
with portions of G-d’s Word and Yeshua’s teachings, while keeping and observing
only that which makes us feel “at home” in our comfort zones?
Surely, G-d’s Word endures forever and will not
pass away, not even a mere syllable [dot and tittle] of it, until all has
been accomplished. And that will be only when the divine Voice shall utter
for the third and last time, “It is done!,” and the new heavens and the
new earth materialized, with the whole plan of salvation consummated and
the cycle of time and ages merged into eternity3.
Until then all of Scripture is relevant, for has He said,
and will He not do it? Or has He spoken, and will He not fulfill His Word?
Did He mean it yesterday but now, in the 21st century, He has
changed His mind and forgotten what He said? Does not every Word of G-d
prove true?4 And of which
Scriptures did Paul the Apostle write to Timothy?5
The New Testament had not as yet been written nor compiled, and its canon6
was only formulated over 300 centuries later.
If ALL Scripture is inspired by G-d, how then
did those two thirds of inspired Scripture become irrelevant, as though
it had been the mere writing of mortals, apart from G-d?
Pastor Andy from Onalaska, WI7,
commented on my article, “Many fear saying anything negative about situations
of human suffering. I believe we need to do a thorough study of scripture
and not rely on our own human compassion. Let us look at God from his viewpoint
and not our own. Thanks for the article.”
Exactly, Andy; you said it!
