"Judah came to Jerusalem, slew the men and set the city on fire."

 

The title of this blog is a direct quote  from a very good pastor that I’ve been listening to when he popped up on my suggested playlist on YouTube.  The particular lesson was about one that most people have never heard about in the book of Judges.  It is the very first parable ever told and it can be found in Judges chapter 9. The theme being;  you reap what you sow.  The book of Judges is a very unpleasant book in the Bible.  It shows the depravity of GOD’s people who fell away from following and worshiping Him only one generation after Joshua..  We think of Bible heroes like Joshua and we put them high up on a pedestal as an example to live by, yet we don’t really know about most of their shortcomings.  Joshua definitely had some shortcomings.  He did not do as GOD has instruction to the tenth degree.  He digressed and did was seemed right to himself.  

And therein is where we get in trouble.  We do what seems right to us.  Judges may be a history lesson, but it’s a book of prophecy, even though it doesn’t read that way.  Scripture tells us that whatever happened in the past will happen again, because there is nothing new under the sun. (Ecclesiastes 1:9-10) The next verse is also the sad truth about mankind.  There is no remembrance of former things, nor will there be any remembrance of things that are to come by those who will come after.  No one likes to teach the book of Judges and for very good reasons.  We think those stiff-neck ignorant people were pathetic, yet aren’t we?  Don’t we change the way GOD’s Word is supposed to be followed to what seems right to us?  Is something getting lost in the translation and interpretation?  We know that false gods are a figment of people’s imaginations and that there is only One GOD who is LORD over all.  Back then, however, each nation had their own god, and they respected a fellow nations belief in their own god.  The Israelites did not understand that there was only One GOD and theirs was It.  They believed in other nations gods, and most of them had as much power as their Own, in their eyes.  They didn’t know any better because it only takes one generation to totally screw up GOD’s Word or intentions in His Torah, which means instructions.  Look at what happened only one generation after the Apostles died, The Way that Jesus, Paul, and the Apostles  taught became totally messed up by human intention and interpretation.  It even got a new name, Christianity, and a whole bunch of new rules and instructions, so much so that it is completely unrecognizable to The Way Paul taught when he was sent to the gentiles.  Paul never converted to Christianity because Christianity wasn’t even a named thing back then.  It was centuries later that it got a title and by gentiles, not the Jews.  Paul remained  a faithful Jew, living with the Torah, or rather original instructions to the best of his ability.  Even that got messed up after two thousand years and was called Halacha, a combination of the Torah given by GOD and the Talmud, written and devised by men. 

We tend to point fingers at the “stiff-necked” Israelites, when in all actuality, we are no better. We have the benefit of the Holy Spirit indwelling in us, so we are without excuse, except as Paul said in Romans 7, the new Spirit battles the flesh every day. One of the worst things we do is to change the Bible and the stories to make them more palatable.  Christians have their own idea of what Scripture says and they "water it down" to make it acceptable or pleasant to read.  For instance, the title of this post is the exact quotation of what that pastor taught in regards to Judges 1:8.   The verse said, “the city.”  Who lived in the city? Was it just men, just soldiers?  What happened to the women and children in Jerusalem? Were they put aside, rescued and adopted by the Judahites? Did they all get new homes, new husbands, new fathers for the young children? No, they did not. They died along with the men.  When GOD told His people to drive them out, or to annihilate a city, He told them to kill all of its inhabitants, men, women, children and sometimes livestock. Warfare was carried out very differently than it is in these contemporary times.  “Innocent” people, including women and children were casualties of war.  One prime example is when GOD gave specific instructions to King Saul, 1 Samuel 15:3 3 Now go, attack the Amalekites and totally destroy all that belongs to them. Do not spare them; put to death men and women, children and infants, cattle and sheep, camels and donkeys.’” This is the stuff that we find repulsive that "innocent” women, children and livestock were slaughtered. This is the ugly part of the history of GOD's people that Christians gloss over.

So, if glossing over the ugly parts is acceptable, then glossing over the parts we don't like is acceptable, right? Christianity it seems is a license for congregations and denominations to do what's right in their own eyes. One denomination teaches this, the other teaches that is wrong. So, where can the truth be found? Where can GOD's instructions and principles of how to think and act be found? It can be found in what Jesus lived and taught, the Torah, which means "instructions." What Christianity did was make an undesirable word, LAW, and place as the meaning of Torah.  Those 3^rd Century clergy hated the Jews and wanted to wipe anything Hebrew from the Scriptures. They "white washed" the Scriptures to make it palatable to gentiles.

 What did Jesus (Yeshua) say? Matthew 5:17 “Don’t think that I have come to abolish the Torah or the Prophets. I have come not to abolish but to complete. 18 Yes indeed! I tell you that until heaven and earth pass away, not so much as a yud or a stroke will pass from the Torah — not until everything that must happen has happened. 19 So whoever disobeys the least of these mitzvot and teaches others to do so will be called the least in the Kingdom of Heaven. But whoever obeys them and so teaches will be called great in the Kingdom of Heaven. There is so much more involved, here. Jesus came to explain the principle behind the Torah, because it was lost in religiosity. 

Then, he did what the Law and animal sacrifices could not do. He made atonement for INTENTIONAL sin. Romans 8: 3 For what the law could not do in that it was weak through the flesh, God did by sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, on account of sin: He condemned sin in the flesh, 4 that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us who do not walk according to the flesh but according to the Spirit. We all commit intentional sin, but there was no sacrifice for atoning of that sin, until Yeshua Ha Maschiach  (Jesus the Messiah or Christ if that's what you want to call him) accomplished on our behalf.  That's the truth. We are still judged by the Law, but we are saved by Christ, because we cannot fulfill the entire Law, no one can. Even Jesus could not obey all 613 rules laid down by Moses as give to him by GOD.  Did he sin in not doing them? I don’t think so, because he was born male and some of those laws only pertain to females and wives.

So, you see, it’s not about following and doing all 613 so-called laws, it’s about the principles behind them, and that’s what Jesus came here to teach, to bring them out of Halacha and back to YHVH GOD’s instructions. I know for a fact that GOD is doing something new the last decade or so and bringing some of His people out of Christianity and back to the origins of what He intended for us to know and do in the beginning.  Jesus summed up the prophets and law on these commandments.  Yes, they are the most important of GOD’s laws, or instructions, however there are many other very useful instruction in the 613 mitzvot given to us by Moses.