Avoid These Messianic/Hebraic-Type Congregations (Pt 2)
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Tag Archives: Messianic Movement
From Messy Antics to the Dance of Lovers — The Eight Phases of Coming Out of Spiritual Babylon of the Church
Alone in a Dark, Strange House
Have you ever found yourself groping and stumbling around in a totally dark, strange room without a light? You’re running into walls and furniture, stubbing your toes on things looking for a light switch or the door? Similarly but on a spiritual level, many people have left the comforts and familiar surroundings of the mainstream church system with some vague notion of returning to the Hebrew roots of their faith only to find themselves in such a dark house. Welcome to the house of the so-called Messianic or the Hebrew roots movement!
Many of us have been in this new spiritual house asking ourselves questions like: Where are we? Where are we going? What’s next? Who’s out there? Am I alone?
Shifting from a traditional church-system paradigm and lifestyle to that of that of a more first century or Hebraic one as modelled by the early believers in the Book of Acts and apostolic leaders isn’t an easy to do. There are a lot of questions and unfamiliar territory to traverse. Am I moving into cultism? Legalism? Too much Jewishness? Or some bizarre new religion or what?
Perhaps knowing the transition zones or spiritual growth stages that you will likely go through, as most of us have, might be like someone handing you a flashlight in that dark house. Even a little light on the subject might save your toe from getting stubbed and keep you from doing a nose plant on the floor! Not only that, knowing the stages most people inevitably go through when making the transition from a traditional Sunday Christian orientation to a Torah-pursuant one just might…
help us to stay on course spiritually, so that we won’t get stuck in one stage of spiritual development and fail to move to the next stage.
help leaders to see where people are at in their path to spiritual maturity, and help them to move to the next level.
help those who have advanced through these stages to be gracious and helpful to those who have not yet done so.
Here are the stages, as I see them. Each one’s personal experiences may vary a little, and the order of the steps may be slightly different for each person, but I think that most of us can relate to these steps of spiritual transformation to one degree or another. I know, because I’ve been through these steps myself!
The Eight Stages of Coming Out of Spiritual Babylon
1– Awakening Stage: Hearing the Sound of the Shofar and the Call of the Bridegroom
At this stage, we begin to awaken to our spiritual heritage—to the Jewish or Hebraic roots of the Christian faith.
We begin to develop a love for the land of Israel, the Jewish people as well as the Hebrew Scriptures.
We become aware of our need to return to YHVH’s ancient and good spiritual (Torah) paths (Jer 6:16), which predate Constantine Christianity and the traditions of men that are contrary to the Word of Elohim that often characterize much of what has been associated with our past church involvements. We realize that we have strayed spiritually from YHVH’s biblical paths of Torah-Truth and bought into many lying doctrines and traditions of men (Jer 16:19) that were taught in our Christian church experience.
2 – Anger Stage: Our Fathers Have Inherited Lies
We become aware that our spiritual fathers have inherited lies (Jer 16:19). Namely, we discover that the church has lied to us about our Hebraic heritage and YHVH’s Torah-instructions that he revealed to Adam, Enoch, Noah, Abraham and the patriarchs and then to Moses and the children of Israel. We come to realize that the mainstream church has withheld much in the way of YHVH revealed biblical Truth from us, and has substituted for that Truth man traditions of men and pagan ideas. If not careful, anger against the Christian church—our brothers in the faith—can set in and overtake us.
Some people, at this point, will begin to despise, denigrate and even hate the Christian church and Christians. Some don’t even believe that there are any Christians who are saved. In the process, many Hebraic-minded people become judgmental and bigoted toward Christians who still adhere to anti-Torah belief systems. In anger and bitterness, some people will even turn away from what correct Truth the church does have (e.g., the message of Yeshua, the cross, the basic gospel message, the message of love, etc.) and toss out the proverbial baby with the bath water. Sadly, some people will turn away from belief in the New Testament, the gospel message and the truth about the deity and messiahship of Yeshua.
3 — Exploratory Stage: Learning About the Roots of Our Faith
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Frauds in the Messianic, Hebrew Roots Movement Exposed
WARNING! THIS IS NOT FOR THE FAINT OF HEART OR RELIGIOUS GAME-PLAYERS. IT IS FOR THOSE WHO ARE SERIOUS ABOUT THEIR SPIRITUAL WALK. In this video, Nathan Lawrence calls out fakers, frauds, talkers and white-washed sepulcher hypocrites who are part of the so-called Messianic or Hebrew roots movement. This is a call to repentance and for everyone everywhere to get right with YHVH-Yeshua in preparation for his second coming and to stop playing nefarious games with His Torah-Word.
Is the Mainstream Christian Church the Real Cult?
Returning to the Hebraic Foundations of the Christian Faith: “The Faith Once Delivered” or Cultism?
Beloved, while I was very diligent to write to you concerning our common salvation, I found it necessary to write to you exhorting you to contend earnestly for the faith which was once for all delivered to the saints. (Jude 1:3, emphasis added)
In recent years there has been great awareness brought upon the subject of non-Christian cults by Christian apologetic organizations whose mission it is to defend the “historic Christian faith” against teachings they consider to be contrary to the Bible and to traditional or normative Christian theology and tradition. At the same time, the so-called Messianic or Hebrew roots movement has come under the scrutiny of some of these “cult watchers.” Are those Christians returning to the Hebraic foundations of their Christian faith join a cult or are they actually earnestly contending for the faith once and for delivered to the disciples of Yeshua the Messiah (Jesus Christ)?
Many well-meaning Christians in their zeal to protect core Christian beliefs from the onslaught of missionizing activities by cultic groups have developed a fortress-like mentality where they label everything a cult that does not agree with their definition of “the historic Christian faith”. Yet at the same time, many of these same Christians would be hard-pressed to define the word cult or to explain the sociological, psychological and theological implications the label they so glibly attach to those who disagree with them.
So what is the truth? Is labeling the Messianic or Hebrew roots movement as a cult justified or not? To answer this question, we will use the same criteria that those Christian “watchdog” organizations themselves use to define a cult. We will then see if this moniker is justified when it comes to those Christians who are returning to a more Hebraic or Jewish orientations to their spiritual walk.
This author has a unique perspective on the subject of cultism having been born and raised in a name-brand cult till age 30 where upon leaving the cult he became an ordained Christian evangelist in a major Christian (Protestant) denomination where he then reached out to those bound up in cultism as he once was.
In exploring the ramifications of cultism, let us first define the word cult from Webster’s Dictionary: A cult is
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My Commentary on the Messianic or Hebrew Roots Movement
Ezra 6:21, Separated themselves. This is traditionally believed to be the origin of the sect of the Pharisees. What started out as a noble step toward holiness and pleasing Elohim through righteous obedience to his commandments by Yeshua’s day had devolved into an exclusivistic religious cult comprised of a caste system based on human pride and traditions of men that had all but lost the concept of the true biblical concepts of holiness and righteousness.
Having just suffered and endured the judgments of Elohim against the wicked rebelliousness of their forefathers, these Jews returning to land of Israel with Ezra the priest resolved to separate themselves from the pollutions of the world and devote themselves to living set-apart lives holy unto YHVH their Elohim. Their starting point was noble and commendable and well-pleasing to Elohim, but several hundred years later they had so strayed from that original mission and spiritual course that now Yeshua the Messiah, Elohim in the flesh, was condemning them as the sons of the devil and the synagogue of Satan!
The same has been true, to one degree or another, of nearly all biblical based religious movements from that time until now including the modern Messianic or Hebrew Roots Movement. Many well intended individuals have started biblical truth restoration movements hoping to corrects the errors of past religious leaders, organizations and movements, but, in time, they too succumbed to the pendulum swings of whimsical and capricious human vicissitudes and have ended up in a ditch on the side of the road that Yeshua Messiah referred to as the straight and narrow path.
What therefore must we do? Simply this: Get back to the basic apostolic message or the everlasting gospel (Rev 14:6) as described in the book of Revelation. The true end times saints are those who keep or guard the Torah-commandments of Elohim as revealed in the Tanakh (the Old Testament), while at the same time adhering to the faith or testimony of Yeshua as revealed in the Testimony of Yeshua (the New Testament) (Rev 12:17; 14:12).
Errant Teachings in the Hebrew Roots Movement Pt. 1
This video is an expose and refutation of some false and unbiblical tachings in the Hebrew Roots Movement. These include the lunar “Sabbath”, the boker to boker “Sabbath”, the conjunction new moon, polygamy and rejecting the deity of Yeshua the Messiah.
What is the Messianic Movement?
What is the Messianic Jewish Movement? What is the Messianic Israel or Hebrew Roots Movements? What are the distinctives of each one? Watch this video and find out.