Many in this world hate instruction from the Most High Elohim Hashem Jehovah, and throw God’s Words behind them, refusing correction and rejecting His commands (Psalm 50:17). Many rebelled and disobeyed God’s laws. Some even killed God’s prophets, who warned them to turn back to God, and they cursed God’s Holy Name. There were those who like king David guarded God His misvoth (or commandments) and walked after Him with all their heart, to work only, straight in God His Eyes. But many others liked men’s words and and vilified to work above all who are at their face and went and worked other elohim and molten to vex the Most High Elohim and to bow down in front of graven images in front of beings they called ‘god‘.
Neh 9:26-27 NHEBJE “Nevertheless they were disobedient, and rebelled against you, and cast your law behind their back, and killed your prophets that testified against them to turn them again to you, and they committed awful blasphemies. (27) Therefore you delivered them into the hand of their adversaries, who distressed them. In the time of their trouble, when they cried to you, you heard from heaven; and according to your manifold mercies you gave them saviors who saved them out of the hand of their adversaries.
1Ki 14:9 NHEBJE but have done evil above all who were before you, and have gone and made you other gods, and molten images, to provoke me to anger, and have cast me behind your back:
Today even in Christendom we can find many people bowing down in front of crucifixes or statues of Jesus or other persons. Those people call themselves also Christians but they seem to forget what God, the Adonai who brought the Israelites out of the land of Egypt, Himself said about such a worshipping with bowing down in front of graven images.
Exo 20:2-7 NHEBJE “I am Jehovah your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. (3) You shall have no other gods before me. (4) “You shall not make for yourselves an idol, nor any image of anything that is in the heavens above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth: (5) you shall not bow yourself down to them, nor serve them, for I, Jehovah your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children, on the third and on the fourth generation of those who hate me, (6) and showing loving kindness to thousands of those who love me and keep my commandments. (7) “You shall not take the name of Jehovah your God in vain, for Jehovah will not hold him guiltless who takes his name in vain.
This God Who created the heavens and the earth demanded to follow His instructions.
Pro 4:13 NHEBJE Take firm hold of instruction. Do not let her go. Keep her, for she is your life.
Receive God His instruction rather than silver; God’s knowledge rather than choice gold. For wisdom is better than rubies. All the things that may be desired can’t be compared to it. (Proverbs 8:10-11)
Pro 13:13 NHEBJE Whoever despises instruction will pay for it, but he who respects a command will be rewarded.
The law of truth should be found in followers of Christ but throughout history we can see that there were many who preferred to follow teachings by men who called themselves theologians. already at the time of the apostles false prophets came unto the scene and a few centuries later the ‘church’ sold her soul to the Roman Empire fulfilling the wishes of Caesar Constantine instead of keeping faithful to God’s commandments of honouring only One God Who is One.
When centuries later some rebellious priests found that the Bible alone (sola Scriptura) should have everything to say and to instruct and condemned the Roman Catholic Church, soon they too went the same way as that church making their own doctrines. A 2014 survey on American Evangelical beliefs found that most American evangelicals hold views condemned as heretical by some of the most important councils of the early church. Many came to understand that their personal (“alone”) interpretation of Scripture would be authoritative instead of taking the words like they are written in the Bible (Old and New testament) for what they really express.
G. K. Chesterton remind us that it is arrogant to ignore the teachings of our forefathers in the faith, but we should be weary to find who was in the faith. They faced many of the same theological questions we do today, and their answers have stood the test of time, but that does not mean yet that their answers are the right ones. When we look at the previous theologians their writings we must remember that bishops and councils, after all, can err. We all should also remember that politics played a big part in it as well. That’s how the Nicene Creed came to be.
To protest against an error, such as Romanism, and to affirm that every man has a right to worship God according to the dictates of his own conscience, is a very different thing to believing and obeying the gospel of the Kingdom of God, and walking in all the institutions of the Lord blameless. To do this would unchristianize a man in the estimation of State churches and sectarian denominations; for the Bible religion requires a man to “contend earnestly for the faith once delivered to the saints”, which in these times cannot be done without upheaving the very foundations of the self-complacent, self-glorifying, and self-laudatory communions of the antipapal constitution of things. It is true that no man or power has a right to interfere between God and the conscience; but it is also true that no man has a right to worship God as he pleases. This is a Protestant fallacy. Man has a right to worship God only in the way God has Himself appointed. “In vain do ye worship me, teaching for doctrines the commandments of men.” This is the judgment pronounced by the wisdom of God upon all worship which He has not instituted. He declares it to be vain worship; concerning which the apostle to the Gentiles says: “Let no man judge you in meat, or in drink, or in respect of a holy-day, or of the new moon, or of the Sabbath; let no man beguile you of your reward in a voluntary humility and worshipping of angels. Be not subject to dogmatisms (δογματίζεσθε) after the commandments and traditions of men; which things have indeed a show of wisdom in WILL-WORSHIP and humility.”
These exhortations apply to all faith and worship, Papal and Protestant. If Popery judges men in meats, Protestantism doth the same in drinks, and in the Sabbath; they both judge men in holy-days and “movable feasts”; and though Protestantism repudiates the worshipping of angels, it proclaims in its “fasts”, “preparations”, “concerts”, etc. a voluntary humility, anti celebration of “saints and martyrs”, renowned in legendary tales for “the pride that apes humility”. Let the reader search the scriptures from beginning to end, and he will nowhere find such systems of faith and worship as those comprehended in the Papal and Protestant systems. The gospel of the Kingdom of God in the name of Jesus is not preached among them; they are communions which are uncircumcised of heart; theological dissertations on texts, called “sermons”, are substituted for “reasoning out of the scriptures”—for “expounding and testifying the Kingdom of God, and persuading men concerning Jesus, both out of the law of Moses, and out of the prophets”. Puseyism, Swedenborgianism, and all sorts of isms, to which in apostolic times the world was a total stranger, run riot among them; the lusts of the flesh, of the eye, and of the pride of life have extinguished even the energy and zeal of the antipapal rebellion out of which they have arisen; they are dead, twice dead, plucked up by the roots, and therefore the time is come to cut them off as a rotten branch from the good olive tree. Let therefore every man that would eschew the wrath which is begun, and who would become an heir of the kingdom of God, save himself from the unholy, lifeless, and effete denominations of these “Latter Days”. By remaining in them, a man partakes of their evil deeds, and subjects himself to their evil influences. The word of man has silenced the word of God in their midst; and religion has degenerated into a professional commodity sold for cash according to the taste which most prevails in the soul-makers of the world.so
Let us then “cease from men, whose breath is in their nostrils; for wherein are they to be accounted of?” “They be blind leaders of the blind”, in whom is no light, because they speak not according to the law and the testimony of God. Let us repudiate their dogmatisms; let us renounce their mysteries; and let us declare our independence of all human authority in matters of faith and practice outside the word of God. The scriptures are able to make us wise, which the traditions of “divines” are not. Let us then come to these scriptures, for we have the assurance that he who seeks shall find. But we must seek by the fight of scripture, and not permit that fight to be obscured by high thoughts and vain imaginations which exalt themselves against the knowledge of God. Great is the consolation that “the wise shall understand”, and “shall shine as the brightness of the firmament”. Be this then our happiness, to understand, believe, and do, that we may be blessed in our deed, and attain to the glorious liberty and manifestation of the sons of God.
To the Bible then let us turn, as to “a light shining in a dark place”, and, with humility, teachableness, and independence of mind, let us diligently inquire into the things which it reveals for the obedience and confirmation of faith. The object before us then will be, to present such a connected view of this truthful and wonderful book as will open the reader’s eyes, and enable him to understand it, and expound it to others, that he may become “a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth”; and be able intelligently to “contend for the faith”; and by “turning many to righteousness, to shine as the stars for ever and ever”.
In effecting this purpose, we must proceed as we would with any other book, or in teaching any of the arts and sciences; namely, begin at the beginning, or with the elements of things. This was the method adopted by the spirit of God in the instruction of the Israelites by Moses. He began His revelations by giving them, and us through them, an account of the creation of the heavens and the earth; of animals; and of man. This then would seem to be the proper place for us to start from; and as we have the system completely revealed, which they had not, we may extend our enquiries into the reason, or philosophy of things farther than they. Be this, then, our commencement; and may the Lord himself prosper our endeavours to decipher and understand His word, and to disentangle it from the crude traditions and dogmatisms of contemporary theologies, useful in their beginnings as “oppositions” to the Mystery of Iniquity, but now “waxed old and ready to vanish away” with the thing they have antagonized; but which, though consumptive of the civil and ecclesiastical tyranny of the Image of the Beast, have by their glosses in effect taken from the people “the Key of Knowledge”, and thus shut up the Kingdom of Heaven against men. Our endeavour will be to restore this “Key”, that they may understand “the mysteries of the kingdom”, and “have right, to the tree of life, and enter in through the gates into the city”. And this we will do if God permit.Thomas, D. J. (1990). Elpis Israel: an exposition of the Kingdom of God (electronic ed., pp. 6–9). Birmingham, UK: The Christadelphian.
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Preceding articles:
Necessity of a revelation of creation 3 Getting understanding by Word of God 1
Necessity of a revelation of creation 4 Getting understanding by Word of God 2
Necessity of a revelation of creation 5 Getting understanding by Word of God 3
Necessity of a revelation of creation 6 Getting understanding by Word of God 4
Necessity of a revelation of creation 7 Getting understanding by Word of God 5
Necessity of a revelation of creation 8 By no means unintelligible or mysterious to people
Necessity of a revelation of creation 9 Searching the Scriptures
Necessity of a revelation of creation 10 Instructions for insight and wisdom
- Want (activeinspiration.wordpress.com)
- In with the New (joyfullnuggets.wordpress.com)
- Psalm 89 (embodiedtorah.wordpress.com)
- The Strange Inclination of Christian Church Institutions Against Israel (cinchreview.com)
- Pope Francis Told by Doctors to Revamp Diet in Wake of Weight Gain (guardianlv.com)
- Why G.K. Chesterton’s ‘Everlasting Man’ has an everlasting appeal… (thechristianreview.com)
- Strangers in the Land (munsonmissions.org)
- An imaginary interview with a Christian… (nytimes.com)
- Acharei Mot: Live (anitasilvert.wordpress.com)
- Solution for Willing hearts filled with gifts (christadelphianworld.blogspot.com)
Further reading:
- Want (activeinspiration.wordpress.com)
- In with the New (joyfullnuggets.wordpress.com)
- Psalm 89 (embodiedtorah.wordpress.com)
- The Strange Inclination of Christian Church Institutions Against Israel (cinchreview.com)
- Pope Francis Told by Doctors to Revamp Diet in Wake of Weight Gain (guardianlv.com)
- Why G.K. Chesterton’s ‘Everlasting Man’ has an everlasting appeal… (thechristianreview.com)
- Strangers in the Land (munsonmissions.org)
- An imaginary interview with a Christian… (nytimes.com)
- Acharei Mot: Live (anitasilvert.wordpress.com)
- Solution for Willing hearts filled with gifts (christadelphianworld.blogspot.com)
- Being Religious and Spiritual 4 Philosophical, religious and spiritual people
- People Seeking for God 4 Biblical terms
- Science, belief, denial and visibility 2
- No prophecy of the scripture is of any private interpretation
- All things written aforetime for our instruction
- Hearing words to accept
- Bible Word from God
- God’s Blog recorded in a Book
- Creator and Blogger God 10 A Blog of a Book 4 Listening to the Blogger
- God’s forgotten Word 4 Lost Lawbook 3 Early digressions and Constantinic revolution
- An anarchistic reading of the Bible—(1) Approaching the Bible
- The holy spirit will bring back to your minds all the things told
- Colour-blindness and road code
- Materialism, would be life, and aspirations
- A Bible Falling Apart Belongs to Someone who isn’t
- At the end of your life
- Position and power
- Icons and crucifixes
- Hellenistic influences
- Objects around the birth and death of Jesus
- Politics and power first priority #1
- The Advent of the saviour to Roman oppression
- History of Christianity
- A rebellious movement founded on a fake?
- Simplicius Against the Monophysites
- History of the acceptance of a three-in-one God
- Christianity without the Trinity
- Trinity And Pagan Influence
- Trinity: A False Doctrine of a False Church
- Part 2) God is not a Trinity
- The Trinity: paganism or Christianity?
- Unitarianism and the Bible of the Holy Trinity
- Trinity: The Truth about Matthew 28:19 & 1 John 5:7
- Anyone Who Goes Too Far and Does Not Abide in the Teaching of Christ, Does Not Have God
- Is Jesus God?
- Want (activeinspiration.wordpress.com)
- In with the New (joyfullnuggets.wordpress.com)
- Psalm 89 (embodiedtorah.wordpress.com)
- The Strange Inclination of Christian Church Institutions Against Israel (cinchreview.com)
- Pope Francis Told by Doctors to Revamp Diet in Wake of Weight Gain (guardianlv.com)
- Why G.K. Chesterton’s ‘Everlasting Man’ has an everlasting appeal… (thechristianreview.com)
- Strangers in the Land (munsonmissions.org)
- An imaginary interview with a Christian… (nytimes.com)
- Acharei Mot: Live (anitasilvert.wordpress.com)
- Solution for Willing hearts filled with gifts (christadelphianworld.blogspot.com)
Messiah For All 