By Jason Charles on 10/19/2015 (9 years 35 days ago) Israel/Zionism
Have you ever heard a fellow Christian say, Shalom as a greeting? Or maybe heard someone emphatically state that we must pray in Yeshua's name if our prayers are to be heard? Have you met a Christian who only observes the Sabbath and even wears a Jewish prayer shawl? Maybe you have heard someone casually say that they are learning Hebrew and attending Torah classes to better understand the Jewish culture. Or better yet have you heard someone audaciously declare that the Jews have their own path to God? If so then you have run into someone that the Apostle Paul warned against in almost every epistle he wrote, a Judaizer.
It is hugely unfortunate, but there are a lot of people who get caught up in this infatuation with the Jewish religion, but did you know this debate caused a huge amount of controversy in the early church? So much so it almost caused a split in the early church and almost set the Apostles at odds with one another? To better understand why this is, it is important to give a bit of background on the controversy to better explain the modern situation many churches now face. Yes, this controversy has once again set the Church at odds with itself.
The Apostle Paul and Barnabas, while at the Church in Antioch nearly had a physical altercation with a group of Jews from Judea that were teaching Christian converts that salvation comes through circumcision? These Jews were actually instructing grown men to cut off their foreskin saying that belief in Christ was not enough and that they had to obey the Mosaic Law and be circumcised also if they wanted to go to heaven. As you can imagine, Paul the Apostle to the Gentiles was livid at such a suggestion, so much so he took this issue up with all of the Apostles in Jerusalem. This episode is one of the most intriguing episodes of the New Testament and can be found in Acts Chapter 15.
To their great surprise when Paul and Barnabas arrived back in Jerusalem it became apparent that there was a group of Pharisee/Christian converts that were teaching and seeding this false doctrine into the larger body there at Jerusalem. They were the ones who were sending out men abroad to teach this false doctrine to the Gentile Churches. These Pharisees were recorded in Acts 15:5 as saying,
"And when they [Paul and Barnabas] were come to Jerusalem, they were received of the church, and of the apostles and elders, and they declared all things that God had done with them. But there rose up certain of the sect of the Pharisees which believed, saying, That it was needful to circumcise them, and to command them to keep the law of Moses. And the apostles and elders came together for to consider of this matter."
These men became forever notoriously known as the Judaizers. Paul in his Epistle to the Galatians in Chapter 2 expounded in detail as to just how manipulative these Pharisee converts were, and how effective they were in deceiving even the elect Apostles like Peter, James and even Barnabas for a time. Paul confronted them all, and in no uncertain words said they are making faith in Christ null and void by burdening gentile Christians with the Mosaic Law and compelling circumcision. Peter realizing through the Holy Spirit what these Judaizers were doing to the church body had an epiphany moment there in Jerusalem in what became known as the Jerusalem Council. At that council he made this authoritative and very insightful statement, he said,
"And when there had been much disputing, Peter rose up, and said unto them, Men and brethren, ye know how that a good while ago God made choice among us, that the Gentiles by my mouth should hear the word of the gospel, and believe. And God, which knoweth the hearts, bare them witness, giving them the Holy Ghost, even as he did unto us; And put no difference between us and them, purifying their hearts by faith. Now therefore why tempt ye God, to put a yoke upon the neck of the disciples, which neither our fathers nor we were able to bear? But we believe that through the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ we shall be saved, even as they." Acts 15: 7-11
If you read further, James the brother of Jesus, and leader of the Jerusalem church having heard these anointed words instructed that letters should be written and sent off to all the established churches abroad, stating that never again will any Jew instruct a Gentile to conform themselves to the Jewish religion. That circumcision and following the Mosaic Law have absolutely no power to save their souls, that it is only faith in Jesus that one can be saved from their sin, echoing the words of Jesus himself in John 14:6
"Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me."
You see, even though the disciples witnessed Jesus' many altercations with the Pharisees during his ministry, and that those same Pharisees even put him to death because he pointed out the hypocrisy and flaws in their legalistic religion they still didn't get what Christ had done right away. It took many miraculous acts after Jesus ascended to Heaven for them to begin to perceive the true magnitude of what Christ had accomplished on the Cross. Gentile languages spoken at Pentecost in Acts 2, Saul's conversion and preaching in Damascus in Acts 9, Peter's vision and witness to the Gentile Centurion Cornelius in Acts Chapter 10, Paul's miraculous works and preaching throughout the Gentile nations. Works that he witnessed and spoke about at the Jerusalem Council as evidence toward the Gentile inclusion in God's plan for salvation. All of these things took time, the powerful nature and the sway that the Jewish religion had over the minds of even Jesus' closest disciples was extremely potent. It can even be said that there is a evil, controlling spirit behind all false religion. Whether it be of pagan origin, Jewish origin or even false Christian doctrine. This spirit works to drag people away from the saving gift of salvation and place people back under the law. All false religion is works based, it says that if you follow so and so set of rules and do such and such things you will go to heaven. This lying spirit was active in the Apostles time and it is super active in today's modern church also.
5 Ways to Tell if You have Been Judaized
The most important thing a Christian can do is be wary of false doctrines and teachings. These teachings have a way of working themselves into our lives and into our thinking in very subtle ways, yet they have a very drastic effect on our spiritual lives. Often times people don't even know how they assimilated these lies and half truths into their belief systems. There are often un-Christian manifestations in your behavior and spirit that are indicative that you have fallen prey. The devil is very subtle, and uses very slick and clever people and enticing presentations to get you to accept these things. Unless you are aware of how he does it you too may have fallen prey to the devices of the Neo-Judaizers.
You have become Horribly Legalistic and Judgmental
The Pharisees were notoriously legalistic in their thinking, and today's church is plagued with Christians that are constantly judging, gossiping, back-biting and being overtly cliquish. This legalistic spirit is a hallmark of the Jewish religion. People who exhibit these traits would not have fared well in the presence of Jesus because he had no tolerance for it. Christians who genuinely wish to be free and exercise their liberty in Christ, are confronted and chastised by other believers for what they eat, what they drink, what the wear, the music they listen to, the TV shows they watch etc. These types of Christians make it their business to police other Christian's conscience not realizing that this sin tops the list of most hated things by God. It is blasphemous to think that you, a fallen, sinful creature can take on the role of the Holy Spirit and dictate someone else's inner conscience.
There are numerous verses dealing with this legalistic thinking throughout scripture, Jesus railed against the Pharisees who would proselytize people to their religion and their understanding of the Law when he said,
"Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye compass sea and land to make one proselyte, and when he is made, ye make him twofold more the child of hell than yourselves." Matthew 23:15
If this is you, then you have been Judaized, there is no place for this kind of un-loving, dogmatic spirit in the body of Christ. We are to love one another unconditionally, and if anyone has undergone a true conversion and desires to be made into a new creature then God's Holy Spirit will guide them over the course of lifetime into their own unique convictions of the heart. If we find someone to be sinning and un-repentant that is a different story, but even then we deal with the sin in a firm yet loving way not giving into anger and evil. Nothing you eat, watch, or wear will damn you to Hell, it is only by rejecting Christ that you will find yourself in Hell for all eternity. The Pharisees rejected Christ in favor of their lists of do's and don'ts, how many modern Christians do the same?
A Un-Natural Fascination with Prophecy
Since modern Israel (not ancient Biblical Israel) popped back onto the stage of history in 1948, we have been subjected to an onslaught of people proclaiming themselves to be prophets and predicting that it is their generation that is to see the End Times and Christ's return. They even go so far as foolishly giving precise dates. What they fail to recognize is this fascination with prophecy is a Jewish fascination. The Apostle Paul in 1 Corinthians 1:22 spoke about the Jews as always having to require a "sign from God." He said,
"For the Jews require a sign, and the Greeks seek after wisdom: But we preach Christ crucified, unto the Jews a stumblingblock, and unto the Greeks foolishness;"
You see trying to predict God's timeline is inherently a Jewish fascination, people see the prophets and their writings as having intrinsic power and want it for their own. Instead of being satisfied with the Great Commission and making disciples as Jesus instructed Christians to do in Acts 1, they want to be recognized as some sort of glorious prophet. What they don't know is Jesus warned them that God is the only one who will know the time and place of the Second Coming. What this infatuation with prophecy really is, is the practice of sorcery. Sorcery is recorded as an abomination in scripture, but that is exactly what all of these false prophets over the years have done by laying out timelines, and writing books, and making bombastic claims, and giving dates. They are trying to predict the future through manipulation of scripture, even though God condemns it.
"There shall not be found among you any one that maketh his son or his daughter to pass through the fire, or that useth divination, or an observer of times, or an enchanter, or a witch, Or a charmer, or a consulter with familiar spirits, or a wizard, or a necromancer. " Deutoronomy 18:10-11
then in Deuteronomy 18:14-15 God said that he will raise up his chosen prophets.
"For these nations, which thou shalt possess, hearkened unto observers of times, and unto diviners: but as for thee, the LORD thy God hath not suffered thee so to do.The LORD thy God will raise up unto thee a Prophet from the midst of thee, of thy brethren, like unto me; unto him ye shall hearken;"
Well you go on to read through the Chronicles and Kings and see that this was a constant struggle for the Jews, they often rejected the prophet in favor of the foreign groves and idols. They did this right up to John the Baptist who was rightly the last prophet that cleared the path for the Messiah. Anyone who claims to be a prophet in these times fathoms themselves better than the Old Testament prophets, John the Baptist and even have a better revelation as to God's internal mind than Jesus himself. This is pushing the line Christian, when Jesus says it is not for us to know and to instead busy ourselves with teaching and preaching the Gospel I suggest we do just that. Think about how much strife, division and consternation in the body these false prophets have caused because of their meddling in things they should not be meddling in. These men that take believers astray are like King Saul and the Witch of Endor in 1 Samuel 28:7, just don't go there Christian.
An Obsession with the Jewish Religion
As mentioned in the beginning of this column, there are many in the church that literally have an obsession with the Jewish religion. You go to these people's homes and they have prayer shawls, Zionist flags, Hebrew verses hanging on the walls, pictures of Israel, they even import Shofars and blow on them like they are going to collapse the wall of Jericho from the confines of their living room. They go by many names like the Hebrew roots movement, or the sacred names movement, etc. What they really are is men and women who have lost their first love, that of Christ. It is a shame that they think that if they want to get more spiritual, and closer to God they have to go back and study the Torah, and learn Hebrew, and other such nonsense. Think about this, at Pentecost the Holy Spirit did not cause every person to hear what Peter preached in Hebrew or Aramaic which was the Apostles native tongue no, the people that heard him heard him in their own mother tongues. Real languages, not babbling from all over the region. This was a miracle and one of the first indications that the Gospel message was intended to go into the Gentile nations. Acts 2 recorded the peoples astonishment,
"And they were all amazed and marvelled, saying one to another, Behold, are not all these which speak Galilaeans? And how hear we every man in our own tongue, wherein we were born? Parthians, and Medes, and Elamites, and the dwellers in Mesopotamia, and in Judaea, and Cappadocia, in Pontus, and Asia, Phrygia, and Pamphylia, in Egypt, and in the parts of Libya about Cyrene, and strangers of Rome, Jews and proselytes, Cretes and Arabians, we do hear them speak in our tongues the wonderful works of God." Acts 2: 7-11
If God meant for us to say Yeshua and to only pray in the original tongue then why did all these men at Pentecost hear the name Jesus transliterated into dozens and dozens of different languages? It is nonsense to think that you become more spiritual by saying the original name, that flies in the face of what God did at Pentecost which was exactly opposite of that. No, chalk another one up to the success of the Neo-Judaizer who are constantly pulling weak minded Christians back under the law and back under the Jewish religion. Your prayers are no stronger under your Jewish prayer shawl, you're not getting any more insight by reading your Bible in Hebrew, and frankly you sound and look stupid blowing on your Shofar. Stop Judaizing yourself, what's next if you have one are you going to cut off your foreskin too? Foreskins now days just end up as medical experimentation and sarcastically speaking is all they are good for anymore. Messiah hass come the need for circumcision is long gone.
You Believe that Jews have a different path to God than Christians
Now we are getting into the real heresy of the Neo-Judaizers. John Hagee the widely celebrated Pastor is notorious for promoting a doctrinal heresy called Dual-Covenant Theology. This doctrine states that the Old Testament Mosiac Law is sufficient for Jews and that only Christians need to accept Jesus as their messiah to be saved from their sins and go to Heaven. Here he is in his own words.
"The Jewish people have a relationship to God through the law of God as given through Moses," Hagee said. "I believe that every Gentile person can only come to God through the cross of Christ. I believe that every Jewish person who lives in the light of the Torah, which is the word of God, has a relationship with God and will come to redemption. "The law of Moses is sufficient enough to bring a person into the knowledge of God until God gives him a greater revelation. And God has not," said Hagee, giving hisinterpretation of Romans 11:25. "Paul abandoned the idea (of Jews knowing Christ). In the book of Romans, he said, `I am now going to go to the Gentiles from this time forward.' Judaism doesn't need Christianity to explain its existence. But Christianity has to have Judaism to explain its existence." Houston Chronicle
"I'm not trying to convert the Jewish people to the Christian faith," he said. "There is nothing in the `night to honor Israel' that does that." In fact, trying to convert Jews is a "waste of time," he said. "The Jewish person who has his roots in Judaism is not going to convert to Christianity. There is no form of Christian evangelism that has failed so miserably as evangelizing the Jewish people. They (already) have a faith structure." Everyone else, whether Buddhist or Baha'i, needs to believe in Jesus, he says. But not Jews. Jews already have a covenant with God that has never been replaced by Christianity, he says. Houston Chronicle
If you are saved and have given your life to Jesus as a confessing Christian, your mouth should be agape at these statements. The popularity and influence this man wields has nothing to do with the fact that he is a bona fide prophet of God, but more to do with the fact he is a agent of the Zionist regime in Israel. His mission is to Judaize as many Christians as he can. Everything he says is a manipulation and perversion of scripture aimed at getting ignorant and gullible Christians to believe that modern Israel is STILL God's chosen people and fulfillment of prophecy.
This man might as well go into the foreskin-chopping for salvation business, the way he has manipulated so many Christians. If you can't get the simple fact we are saved through faith in Christ right, you have no business being in ministry. This bastardized form of Christianity is what is now called Christian-Zionism. If Jesus himself said that "no man comes to the father except through me" then John Hagee is responsible for the damnation of the Jews and the cultish Christians that follow him. If you really love Israel and want to see God's provision and blessing on the nation then every Christian reading this column needs to rebel against his false message. John Hagee hates the Jews and wants to see them all burn in Hell if he fails as a pastor to give them Christ, end of story.
You Believe Israel is Infallible
As a result of the heretical influence the Neo-Judaizers like John Hagee and others have had on the American Church it is now fully apostate. These Christians view Israel as some sort of divine miracle, that can do no wrong, that the Zionist party must be 100% unequivocally supported by Christians no matter what evil they bring to the world.
So when it comes out that Israel attacks a US ship like the US liberty in 1967 then it is good and of God. Or that when they are creating the conditions for apartheid and extermination of the Palestinian people it must be good and of God. Or when the US, Israel and Saudi Arabia train, fund, equip, and radicalize Muslim extremists to fight proxy wars against democratically elected countries like Egypt, Libya and Syria they must be good and of God. Wrong!
No, real Christians don't support these evils, these are aggressive acts against nations that are no threat to the US or Israel. The US and Israel and other NATO partners are falsely creating a narrative that frames Muslim countries for crimes they have not committed, utilizing the media to propagandize the American people towards endless, costly and bloody wars. As a result many Christians are being slaughtered and run out of their home countries by US/Israel funded barbarians.
One of the most telling tales of Judaized Christians is the fact they become filled with hate. How many Christians sit around all day and listen to Fox news pundits push unjustified war on behalf of our ally Israel. These "Christians" say wicked things like turn the Middle East into a glass parking lot, disgustingly inferring the use of nuclear armaments. The venom that American Christians have embraced in the name and defense of Israel is wildly inappropriate for any professing Christian to engage in. This anger and hate for the Muslim people is a direct result of their embrace of the Jewish religion. Not only is it okay to forgo preaching the Gospel to the Jews because of the Dual-Covenant theology, but it is also imperative that we wage endless war on the Muslims according to them. As result of this slavish obsession with Israel, we send both Muslim and Jews to Hell. I propose that these Christians are not even saved, that their hate reveals them as the Jewish converts they are.
You would think that Israel's destruction in 586 BC when the Babylon army destroyed the temple, and also the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 AD by the Roman legions would give US and its allies pause but it doesn't. They will continue to cheer on the destruction, they will divide the church among those who support Israel and those who don't and they will continue to fallaciously believe that Israel and the US are justified in their nation building on behalf of the New World Order.
In Conclusion
Warmongering, filled with hate, legalistic, full of false prophetic predictions, and even disdain for Christ, seeing these Zionist-Christians preach that Jews don't even need the Cross and Jesus. This is the fruit of the Neo-Judaized Christians in these modern times. There is nothing good that is coming out of the American foreign policy and likewise Israel's constant meddling. All of these Christians that misinterpret Genesis 12:3 and say that, "God will bless those that bless Israel" are fools. The only thing these unjust warmongering actions breed in the eyes of God are destruction and judgment. That promise was made to Abraham, and the blessing was fulfilled in the life of Christ. Modern Israel is just another nation, that is under the same laws that all nations are under, and do not get a special pass. To think God will protect them when they do evil is laughable, and the same goes for the US. If we really love this country, and we really love Israel we would be in the streets repenting of our sin, and asking God hold off, and to not execute His righteous judgment and wrath on our nation like we deserve. How much further are we going to test the patience of our Creator?
The prophet Amos stated in Amos 5:15
"Hate the evil, and love good, and establish judgment in the gate: it may be that the LORD God of hosts will be gracious unto the remnant of Joseph."
This is what we would like to see out of both our own government and that of Israel. A return to just and righteous government that we might reap the gracious love and forgiveness of our Creator God. I for one refuse to recognize and legitimize these nations with my support. I implore every God fearing Christian reading this today that they put aside their Jewish infatuations and fables as did the Apostles of old and get on with the business at hand, which is spreading the Gospel and instructing people in the tenants of Christian love, forgiveness and the saving grace Christ freely offers. So please go witness to a Jew instead of giving them a pass, and go witness to a Muslim instead of wishing death upon them, only then can we say that we haven't been manipulated by the Neo-Judaizers.
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