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I
have to challenge your statement about your friend
loving God. Your friend may have had a zeal for
God not according to knowledge, but she did not
have genuine love for God. The Word of God is
clear that all of humanity (including non-Messianic
Jewish people), is at war with God. We are part
of a great rebellion against God. We are not in
a right relationship with God. We don't have peace
with God. We don't love God. It is the one who
knows and loves the Son and submits to Him who
truly loves the Father. The Messiah said to a
group of very religious Jewish men: If God
were your Father, you would love Me, for I proceeded
forth and have come from God (John 8:42).
If I had
a good son who was very much like me, and someone
disliked or ignored him but claimed to love me,
I would know that his claim to love me was false.
How can he love me if he hates my son who is just
like me? The same holds true of love for God the
Father and God the Son. Yeshua is the perfect
reflection of God the Father. He shares the Father’s
name and nature, deity and essence. He always
did everything that pleased His Father. How can
someone claim to love the Father but hate the
Son, who perfectly reflects who God is? Consider
the words of John: Who is the liar but the
one who denies that Jesus is the Messiah (the
anointed, God-ordained prophet, priest and king
sent by God)? ... Whoever denies the Son does
not have the Father; the one who confesses the
Son has the Father also (1 John 2:22-23)
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I,
too, hate the thought of my family and my people
going to Hell. However, denying that they are
presently headed there doesn't help them. It is
better to be estranged from family and people
and be faithful to warn them, than to neglect
our duty to proclaim the Good News. If we don't
warn them, we will be like the watchman who saw
danger approaching and didn't raise the alarm.
That watchman will have blood on his hands and
will be punished (see Ezekiel 33). How will they
hear, and why will they consider, if we who are
closest to them don't tell them, and if we are
not insistent about the reality of Hell and the
importance of salvation and eternal life that
only comes through faith in Messiah Yeshua?
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Yeshua
never changed. He did not start a new religion.
As the Seed of the Woman and the Messiah, Yeshua
came to fulfill the ancient promises in the Law
and the Prophets and the Writings about Messianic
salvation. He came to bring salvation to Israel
and to the nations of the world. Nor did great
Rabbi Paul change things and start a new religion.
Paul never ever contradicted the Son of God! Paul
was faithful to serve the Three-In-One God. You
need to understand that Paul was raised up by
God and specifically sent to bring the teachings
of Messiah to a new people - the Gentiles. Yeshua
was sent to the lost sheep of the House of Israel.
Paul is the great emissary and theologian that
Messiah sent to the Gentiles, to make clear what
was necessary for them. Paul is unjustly portrayed
as the bad guy by many modern scholars, but that
is not the case. Paul and his mission are simply
misunderstood. He was welcomed by the other apostles.
They recognized and approved of his ministry and
message to the Gentiles. The great Rabbi from
Tarsus understood that the Gentiles were not obligated
to keep all of the commands that were directed
to the Jewish people, and they could remain within
their cultural heritage. The First Jerusalem Council
in Acts 15 agreed with Rabbi Paul and extended
a “trans-cultural Judaism” (Christianity can be
understood as Biblical Judaism that includes the
Messiah, but without all the cultural practices
of Israel) to the other nations - without ever
asking the Messianic Jews to give up their Jewish
heritage and practices. Sadly, over the centuries,
the Church gradually lost more and more of its
appreciation for its Jewish roots. The good news
is that those Jewish roots are in the process
of being restored!
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I
have seen this situation repeated many times;
and you, pastor, should not marry them until he
becomes a believer. Even though the woman who
is considering marrying this Jewish man is a member
of your church, she is not a serious Christian.
In fact, she may not be a real Christian at all.
If she were serious about pleasing God and doing
His will, she would know that it is wrong for
a believer to marry a non-believer. If, after
being warned not to become unequally yoked, she
goes ahead and marries him, she will find her
husband to be an obstacle preventing her from
serving the Lord fully and from raising her children
to follow God and Messiah. Like an ox and a donkey
that are yoked together but don’t have the same
strengths and temperament and therefore can’t
even plow a straight furrow together, a husband
and wife who don’t share the true Faith will have
different strengths and interests, pulling each
other in different directions. They will be unable
to achieve a spiritually strong family life. Typically
the kids from this kind of marriage grow up with
a father who is their role model who is against
Messiah and who undermines them in the most important
area of their life - their spiritual life. I have
had many Christian women come to me with tears,
filled with regret for having disobeyed the Lord's
command not to be unequally yoked. I urge you
to do everything in your power as this young woman’s
pastor to discourage her from making a terrible
mistake.
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The Temple
in Jerusalem was destroyed the second time in
70 AD. According to the Torah, that is the only
place on Earth where sacrifices can be offered.
With no Temple, there can be no sacrifices, so
none have been offered by the Jewish people since
70 AD. Today's "temples" and "synagogues"
are not the same as the Temple in Jerusalem. About
1300 years ago, the Muslims built the Dome of
the Rock on the Temple Mount. The Dome of the
Rock is still there and is preventing the rebuilding
of the Temple and the re-institution of the sacrifices.
It is a major point of contention between Judaism
and Islam.
Before
the Temple was destroyed in 70 AD, “Judaism” (the
faith of the Jewish people) was centered around
the Temple and the sacrificial system, and brought
temporary atonement - waiting for the full and
final atonement provided by the Messiah. After
the destruction of the Temple, the non-Messianic
rabbis radically restructured Judaism - substituting
synagogues, rabbis, prayers, study and observance
of those commandments that could still be observed
for the Temple, priests and sacrifices. They also
added many of their own laws, rules and traditions.
Non-Messianic Jews who are religious believe
that their efforts to observe this man-made restructured
Judaism will tip the scales of justice in their
favor - but the reality is that it won’t. Only
a Judaism based on the full and final atonement
made by Messiah will ensure real atonement, salvation
and eternal life!
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