Although
I have cast them far off among the Gentiles and although I have scattered them
among the countries, yet I shall be a little sanctuary for them in the
countries where they have gone.”
Ezekiel 10:16
Well, I’m back. I did
not expect to be posting again but I noticed there were some issues I wanted to address and in this article I aim to
that. I expect that if I am successful
this will indeed be the last of several articles on this blog for a space of
time unless I feel a need to post again.
I dedicate this post to my great aunt Inez Morrison who passed away August
28, 2015. She will be sorely missed, but
may she now bask in the presence of the Lord.
I apologize in advance for the length of this post.
The Widow of Zarephath Church
In the
course of my readings of other authors who are of the view that Black
Americans aka (African-Americans) are
Hebrew Israelites many of them cite Deuteronomy 28 in regard to the blessings
and cursing of Israel in terms of the keeping or breaking of the covenant with
God. Our condition is by their reading
of Deuteronomy 28 due to the breaking the covenant . Thus, their answer to that is to keep the
commandments. As I have written before
some of them are messianic but believe the law should be kept as well. I do not have a problem with that in terms of
observing the feast times and keeping the Sabbath, but one author went into
more detail in how the Sabbath was established in Old testament times via the
moon so that it may not necessarily be a Saturday as most today who observe the
Sabbath do so on a Saturday.
If one were to be technical, it is obvious
that no one can keep all the provisions of the Law as many of them had to do
with living in the land of Israel. While
in the land of Israel, the people were required to present sacrifices. If some people argue that keeping the
covenant requires observing all of the Law then they are already falling short
by not offering the sacrifices required to the priest of the tribe of Levi. If we are in exile, just how much of the Law
is God requiring of us to keep in order to return to the land in a controlling
position? If I asked all the various groups this question, I am sure I would
get a different answer from each one.
As I
wrote in a previous article the notion of Black Americans having Hebrew
heritage or affiliation is not a new one. There have been Black people observing the Torah
and having their own synagogues in this country as early as the reconstruction
era. A group of African Hebrew Israelites who
followed Ben Ami Ben-Israel are in Israel today observing the Law as they understand it. Even in Africa tribes such as the
Lemba have been for as long as time has
been around keeping the Law of God as they know it. Many people new to this subject have pointed
this out about the Lemba as well as among the West African Igbo people and among
other tribes that exhibited Israelite characteristic prior to the Atlantic
Slave trade. If these people were
practicing the Law of God as best they knew how, why did it not prevent them
from being enslaved and sent in exile to countries among the Atlantic
ocean?
In
Matthew 19:16 a young man asked Jesus what could he do to have eternal life? Jesus response was if you want to enter into
life keep the commandments. He asked which
ones? To which Jesus responded, “You shall not murder, commit adultery, bear
false witness. Honor your father and
your mother and you shall love your neighbor as yourself.” (vs. 18) “All these things I have kept from my youth,”
replied the young man (vs. 20). Notice
that Jesus told him at bare minimum to keep the commandments given to Moses
from God on mount Sinai and not the Levitical ordinances.
In Acts 10:12, Peter has a vision where he is commanded to kill and eat
all kinds of four-footed animals, wild beasts, creeping things and the birds of
the air. He exclaims in horror “Not so
Lord! For I have never eaten anything common or unclean.”
My point in citing these scriptures is that
there were Israelites who were keeping the Law just as the young man and Peter
were. Everyone knows about the Pharisees
and Sadducees and their interpretations regarding the Law which often butted
heads with Jesus. All in all I am sure
there were religious sects of all kinds who felt they had a lock on what the Law
required, yet none of this prevented the devastation and sacking of Jerusalem
by the Romans in 70. AD. Therefore, what
is suggested is that a deeper consideration is needed in regards to why God
allowed the Israelites to be sent into exile again. If He is a God of justice, would it not seem
unjust or overkill to send a people into the worse exile they have ever known where they do
not even remember who they are if their only issue was executing the law
incorrectly, debating to eat or not to eat, to wash or not to wash, what to do
or not to do on the Sabbath and other such things.
Moreover, when Israel was sent into exile in
Babylon God gave them a time period of 70 years in which they would be gone and
a remnant returned. He did no such thing
with the Roman depopulation in 70 AD. Instead, Jesus framed the exile in the “time
of the gentiles being fulfilled” so that in terms of years it remains
indeterminate. Also, all of Israel’s
previous exiles did not result in the extinguishment of their memory of who
they were. I would suggest that the
reader read my article Israel The Ultimate Dispersal Part Two, as it intimates why the
justice of God would require the most horribly comprehensive exile Israel has
ever known. Therefore, it stands to reason that if a
return to the Torah and law by many Black groups over the years whether they
are messianic or not has not ended the time of the gentiles then there must be
something else God is requiring.
In the
meantime the church once the apostles were dead and Jerusalem destroyed fell
into the hands of the gentiles and it is without doubt filled with all kinds of
wrong practices that many an Israelite would find offensive. As some have pointed out it is undergirded by
pagan ways simply because Constantine was a pagan gentile and yes many of those
practices have stayed with the church until this day. It is as a wise teacher used to say
“gentilic” and generally far away from its Hebraic roots. It is a widow of Zarephath church. What do I mean by that? When Israel missed who was sent to them, God
post the death and resurrection of Christ would sojourn with them who believed
on the one He had sent. He would sojourn
with people who were outside the covenant, many of whom did not know the laws let
alone follow them. He would dwell with
people who were illiterate and only knew what the Roman Catholics would tell
them.
Somehow in all the gentile
mishmash of Catholicism and Protestantism some people would manage to become a
part of the spiritual house of Israel and the biggest irony is that Hebrew
slaves in exile would come into that which they did not come into when Jesus
was among them. In this sense God
fulfilled his word when in Ezekiel 10 it states, “Thus says the Lord God. “Although
I have cast them far off among the Gentiles and although I have scattered them
among the countries, yet I shall be a little sanctuary for them in the
countries where they have gone.” (vs. 16).
It is notable that in addition to a being a place of refuge a sanctuary
is the room of worship in a church or previously the holy of holies in the
ancient temple of Jerusalem.
The
widow of Zarepahth of Sidon was not of the house of Israel but Elijah would
nonetheless dwell with her during the famine he instigated. Jesus makes reference to this in Luke 4:24
and foreshadows the same the event occurring with the church. Specifically, the passage reads, “Assuredly,
I say to you no prophet is accepted in his own country. But I tell you truly, many widows were in
Israel in the days of Elijah, when the heaven was shut up for three years and
six months and there was a great famine in the land; but to none of them was
Elijah sent except to Zarephath in the region of Sidon, to a woman who was a
widow.” (vs. 24-26).
What Jesus brought home to the people in the
synagogue who he angered with his words was that God was not above leaving the
confines of his own law and the ways of Israel to do the unconventional. Consider that the widow of Zarephath would be
seen as beneath the Hebrews someone not to associate with and not only that but
she was a woman without a husband housing a strange man. That surely would have raised a few
eyebrows in Elijah’s day. In conclusion
, it is evident that ending one’s examination of the plight of Black Americans
of Israelite heritage to the curses of Deuteronomy does not go far enough. Israel’s house being left desolate may have
encompassed those curses but for the purpose of fulfilling the times of the
gentiles a deeper contemplation is needed.
What
Is The Church?
In our
society today definitions do not mean much.
The people in the media will take definitions and re-define them in
accordance to whatever agenda is being pushed.
The issue that has been on radar for the last several years is gay
marriage and now transgender people. It
is without question that homosexuality has been as demonstrated by the bible
around for quite some time. It was
around during the days of Abraham and during the days of the early church and
with that during Jesus’ time. Although I
have never read about it in gentile society, they could have had same sex
marriage. When God called Israel to be
his people he set out for them ways to conduct themselves sexually. In the early church the apostle Paul
reaffirmed this with the gentile believers as they were coming into the
covenant of Israel. If God wanted to
make an exception to homosexuality being a sin if people were married he
certainly could have done so when he was giving Moses the law for living in the
land by the Israelites. Additionally, if
the early church fathers wanted to make such an exception because Jesus loves
everybody and we live by grace they could have done so if God had given them
such a revelation.
In Abraham’s time people were not
just engaging in homosexuality, but fornications of all kinds including what we
would call today married couples swinging.
This is noted in the book of Jasher and was equally cited as an
abomination being done in Sodom and Gomorrah.
In that book one really gets a view of just how crazy they were as their
sense of justice was equally horrible. They
like our society would probably call two men getting married husbands even
though it makes absolutely no sense definition wise. They would probably call a man a woman and
vice versa even though they do not have the anatomical equipment to support
those definitions despite modern day surgical advancements. But that is the
world and there is a certain expectation that in our natural sinful state
without any sort of moral standard we are inclined to do whatever evil in the
eyes of God that our hearts can imagine.
In the midst of this same sex marriage wave in secular society, the
church necessarily gets drawn into the conversation because surely if people
including people who are in our families and who we love are homosexuals than
surely the church cannot still consider it a sin. Inevitably, there have been some churches who
have agreed with the secular adherents and allowed homosexual clergy and
conducted same sex marriages and what not.
Thus, the question becomes what is the church? If I asked several people this question I would likely
get several different answers. What the
church is not is a building where people merely assemble to hear a good message
preferably one that does not offend them in any way. What it is most definitely is a body of
people who have been called to be the people of God. It is a calling and a high one at that. It is not a social club ,which when you
neuter what makes it unique, is exactly
what it becomes-a place where the power of the holy spirit is never manifest to
change anyone’s life and one in which even low level demons laugh at because
they know you are a hollow shell and no threat to them.
Christians often give off the
impression that God is desperate for everyone to be a part of his kingdom. Often times in church they will give blanket
invitations to accept Christ with no explanation of the sacrifice which is
required of one’s life to follow him. Jesus had already stated that if anyone desired
to come after him that he must deny himself
and take up his cross daily and follow Him. (Luke 9:23) . If you can sit in
a church day in and day out and not give up any of your ways that are contrary
to what God demands to be a part of the kingdom of heaven then you have not
been called or born again. In this sense the church is analogous to the marine
branch of the army. As they advertised
in their commercials years ago they are only looking for the few and the
proud. They are looking for people who
have the courage to want to be among an elite class of people and will
sacrifice a cushy life to do so.
I am not saying homosexuals should
not attend churches because that would be like saying fornicators or other
sinners should not attend churches. However,
what they should not do is bring a worldly mindset into the church where they
have concluded they were born a homosexual and there is nothing no one can do
about it including God and therefore, the church should just accept it and not
speak against it. That is a dangerous
attitude to have because with knowledge comes accountability and if you know
what the word says and persist in not doing it what argument will you have when
you stand before him. What sacrifice for sin is left? An attitude of Father
have mercy on me is what anyone who understands the holiness of God should
exhibit when they are challenged to bring their life into conformity with his Word. It is this demeanor which caused Jesus to
tell the one criminal who hung on the cross next him , “Assuredly I say to you
today you will be with me in paradise,” when the man insightfully said, “Lord,
remember me when You come into Your kingdom.” Conversely, the criminal who had
a haughty attitude and blasphemed him received no such assurance. (Luke
23:39-43).
It is better that people who
have a problem with homosexuality being a sin from the church perspective and
want to live that life find another faith to practice or belief system. They should live the best life they can and
take their chances in the court of God when they are resurrected on the day of
judgment. This doesn’t mean that parents
who are a part of the body of Christ can’t continue to love and pray for their children who
are of this lifestyle as well as other family members but loving family and
friends of the homosexual lifestyle should never usurp the standard of God as
it is us who must come up to Him and not Him down to us.
To conclude, when God called Israel
he set the standard high for them to be his people. If he had wanted to come through nations who
worshipped other gods, he could have done so.
But it is axiomatic that he would not come through nations who
worshipped demons so he called Israel to be set apart in order to have a
vehicle in which to spoil principalities and powers and make an open show of
them. He continued this high call with
the church that would now include gentiles.
Whenever some nation or some people purport to be of God and behaves in
ways that are opposite of what God requires it is dubbed a mystery. Therefore, if Jerusalem is suppose to be the
city of God and all kinds of wickedness takes place in her God calls her
Mystery Babylon. If the church engages
in all sorts of behavior which is contrary to God’s standard it becomes a
mystery and a mystery is good for no one.
The church is a separate institution from
secular society and government. Although
it is lamentable for many Christians that the government has redefined marriage
and now want to redefine gender in sync with the popular culture, what must be
remembered is that the US is not called to be the church. When God turned the world upside down in the
days of the Apostles, he did not do so by appealing to the Roman government to
change their laws about how they viewed sexual relations in their society. He did it through the power of the Holy Spirit. If people are being changed by that same
power then it doesn’t matter how many definitions pop culture redefine because
people will leave the kingdom of darkness for the greater treasure of the
kingdom of heaven.
The following are songs that are
gold and accompanied many of my ruminations.
The first is a song performed by the great grandson of my aunt Inez at
her funeral in mime.
Thanks for thought provoking and insightful teaching about current issues such as legalized homosexual behavior and transgender identity in the United States.
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