Be Ye Separate

Before Abram could learn Yehovah’s Teaching and Instructions (Torah), God had to

get Abram out of his own country and away from his pagan family and neighbors.

Gen 12:1  Now Yehovah said to Abram, "Go forth from your country, And from your relatives And from your father's house, To the land which I will show you;

Gen 12:2  And I will make you a great nation, And I will bless you, And make your name great; And so you shall be a blessing;

Gen 12:3  And I will bless those who bless you, And the one who curses you I will curse. And in you all the families of the earth will be blessed."

Gen 12:4  So Abram went forth as Yehovah had spoken to him; and Lot went with him. Now Abram was seventy-five years old when he departed from Haran.

Gen 12:5  Abram took Sarai his wife and Lot his nephew, and all their possessions which they had accumulated, and the persons which they had acquired in Haran, and they set out for the land of Canaan; thus they came to the land of Canaan.

Gen 12:6  Abram passed through the land as far as the site of Shechem, to the oak of Moreh. Now the Canaanite was then in the land.

Gen 12:7 Yehovah appeared to Abram and said, "To your descendants I will give this land." So he built an altar there to Yehovah who had appeared to him.

Abram had to be separate from all the pagan influences so he could learn God’s instructions in detail and specifics.  This same principal was at work when Abram told his nephew to go his way because their herdsman could not have a meeting of the minds.  Both were being influenced by the herding practices of the Canaanites and the Perizzites.

Gen 13:7  And there was strife between the herdsmen of Abram's livestock and the herdsmen of Lot's livestock. Now the Canaanite and the Perizzite were dwelling then in the land.

Gen 13:8  So Abram said to Lot, "Please let there be no strife between you and me, nor between my herdsmen and your herdsmen, for we are brothers.

Gen 13:9  "Is not the whole land before you? Please separate from me; if to the left, then I will go to the right; or if to the right, then I will go to the left."

Yehovah did the same thing with the children of Israel when he had to separate them from the pagan Egypt.

Exo 8:22  "But on that day I will set apart (separate) the land of Goshen, where My people are living, so that no swarms of flies will be there, in order that you may know that I, the LORD, am in the midst of the land.

Exo 8:23  "I will put a division between My people and your people (Egypt). Tomorrow this sign will occur."

Yehovah continued His plan until He actually got them out of the land of Egypt, and then He gave them His Torah written in stone.  He was also able to give them all His other statutes and ordinances in what we know as the Mosaic Laws.  By the way I must make a very important point here.  It was the Ten Commandments that were placed in the Ark of the Covenant.  The Ten Commandments are the basis for God’s Torah.  The Mosaic Laws or God’s statutes and ordinances were written in a book and placed beside the Ark.  When we stand before Yeshua, it is both these documents of His covenants from which we will be judged.

Deu 31:26  "Take this book of the law and place it beside the ark of the covenant of the LORD your God, that it may remain there as a witness against you.

There are some instructions in the Mosaic Law that explain and define the principal of separation.

Deu 22:9  "You shall not sow your vineyard with two kinds of seed, or all the produce of the seed which you have sown and the increase of the vineyard will become defiled.

Deu 22:10  "You shall not plow with an ox and a donkey together.

Deu 22:11  "You shall not wear a material mixed of wool and linen together.

If you sow your field with corn and one row has silver queen and another row has golden bantam, they will cross-pollinate. You will have a mixed corn.  Can you imagine a huge ox hooked to a plow with a little donkey and both are trying to keep up with each other in plowing your field?  I think that it would just make it more difficult for the ox to plow because he would have to pull the donkey along as well.  If you make yourself a shirt with the body of linen and the sleeves of wool, and then wash it, the body part will be just fine but the sleeves will shrink to your elbows.

It is these Mosaic Instructions and these principals of separation that Paul is writing the Corinthians about.

2Co 6:14  Do not be bound together with unbelievers; for what partnership have righteousness and lawlessness, or what fellowship has light with darkness?

2Co 6:15  Or what harmony has Christ with Belial, or what has a believer in common with an unbeliever?

2Co 6:16  Or what agreement has the temple of God with idols? For we are the temple of the living God; just as God said, "I WILL DWELL IN THEM AND WALK AMONG THEM; AND I WILL BE THEIR GOD, AND THEY SHALL BE MY PEOPLE.

2Co 6:17  "Therefore, COME OUT FROM THEIR MIDST AND BE SEPARATE," says the Lord. "AND DO NOT TOUCH WHAT IS UNCLEAN; And I will welcome you.

2Co 6:18  "And I will be a father to you, And you shall be sons and daughters to Me," Says the Lord Almighty.

Once we learn God’s truths we must follow that truth.  Once we learn that much of the church is following a pagan worship system and that is not how God wants to be worshiped, then we need to separate ourselves from the pagan system.  We can not continue learning God’s word with purity and at the same time glorify pagan worship.  Verse 15, what harmony has Christ with Belial means how can you compare the truth of Yeshua with something worthless. (In the Strong’s Concordance, Belial means something that is worthless.)  Since most of the church pastors avoid using the Old Testament as a base for their messages, they are left preaching from the New Testament.  They have few instructions of how to become a good Christian except to follow the example of Yeshua.  They don’t even teach that fully or they would instruct on keeping Sabbath, the Feasts of God, and keeping the Ten Commandments as Yeshua taught them.  No, they resort to philosophy, human ethics, new age morality, and good sounding commentaries of other preachers.  Let me point out that they do preach the plan of salvation under grace.  The problem is that they preach it over and over again to people already saved.  So, it is the philosophy and human ethics that is Belial for Christian growth and cannot be in Harmony with the Teaching and Instructions of God in His Torah.

Now here is the dilemma.  When a Christian begins learning the unity of God’s word consist of both the Old and New Testament and that everything in the Old Testament points to the New Testament (to Yeshua), they see no reason to come out of their church.  It was in the Church that they learned about God’s grace and mercy and it was in the Church they were saved.  They believe that if the Church were not able to see God’s Covenants applying to them, there must be an awful lot of good to be gained by remaining in the Church.  They have friends and family in the Church and that is hard to walk away from.  They have come to respect and love the pastor who has always been so kind and gentle with them.  Some have assignments such as Sunday School Teachers, the Church Board, Deacons, Choir Leaders, or Youth Group Leaders.  They feel a sense of responsibility that they cannot let someone down by failing to keep their word of fulfilling a very needed task.  My advice here is to just let them be.  Gently motivate them to come as often as possible to the Torah Teachings and in time the Holy Spirit will work it out for them so they can walk away and absorb themselves fully in God’s Torah.

However, there are those that have learned full well where they should be and what they should do, but they do not want to give up their role in their church.  They feel a sense of pride in being able to participate in the activities for self-fulfillment.  Some have even gone so far as to feel that now they have learned some great truths that their Church does not know, so they are going to be the one who teaches it.  They are there for self.  They are rebelling against the truth they have learned.  They give the excuse that they are still going to the Church so they can carry out the “Great Commission” and spread the true gospel to their friends.  There is an old saying:  “You don’t go to dinner with a lion in his own den, or you may end up being the dinner.”  You cannot teach someone anything contrary to what they believe, in the very school they learned their belief.  If one wants to teach anyone anything they should do it on mutual ground.

The new convert, as a Messianic Christian should not run over to his or her friends trying to teach a new truth the moment they learned it.  They are still in the process of learning themselves.  The half blind cannot lead the total blind very effectively.  Just because one learns how pagan Christmas is and gets so excited about it, does not mean that all their friends and family must be told right away.  The new Messianic must mature in their learning.  Our main job right now is not try to save the world or correct their errors.  Dave Gardner used have a saying, “If the world is wrong, right your own self.”  Our first job is to right our selves.  We need to learn Torah and then teach Torah.  By teaching Torah the friend will learn the paganism of Christmas. 

A good example of this is Paul. Soon after he got his sight back he went into the streets and began to preach.  It almost got him killed.  His friends had to sneak him out of the city by letting him over the city wall in a basket.  He went to Mount Sinai in Arabia and learned directly from Yeshua for three years. Then he returned and began preaching with such effectiveness that he planted the Gospel in the hearts of the gentiles so well that it reached you and I.

We have seen this same thing in Messianic Congregations.  There are pastors who are trying to teach Torah to people within their communities, who are good devout Christians, but they still have Church baggage of adhering to only New Testament Gospel.  They still cling to the Catholic traditions of Sunday Worship, Christmas and Easter and all the clutter of idols such as Santa Clause, Easter bunny, tooth fairy, Valentine’s Cupid and the good witch of the West on All Hallows Day.  To placate his learning students he has Sabbath Torah Class and Sunday morning sermons.  On Sabbath he completes a Shabbat meal with all the ritual according instructions found in the Torah but will have a newsletter given to everyone inviting them to participate in the “Lords Day Services” on Sunday morning.  I have read in one of these news letters where the pastor is announcing the upcoming Passover Meal they will be having in early May, and also remind them that next Sunday (early April) is the Feast of Resurrection and they will be having a special service.  He avoided calling it Easter but at the same time continuing the Catholic teaching that Yeshua was crucified, buried and rose during Easter.  He knew full well that Yeshua went to Jerusalem for the Passover Feast with His apostles and completed three of the Feast during that week.  To fulfill these Feasts, He had to be the Passover Lamb, take the sins (unleavened) of the world on himself for the Feast of Unleavened Bread and be the First Fruits of rising from the grave on day of First Fruits.  But yet, this pastor glorifies a pagan holiday and heathen worship system.  The very beginner Messianic Christian can see the error of this practice.

I am going to be just as gentle as I can but try to get the point across to the messianic teacher.  God does not give out His salvation one step at a time.  His grace is all or nothing and is instant.  We should not try to worship Him one step at a time.  Do not piece meal it.  Tapering off for the smoker or alcoholic who is trying to quit does not work and slacking off from sin one step at a time does not work.  You are either in or you are out. This method of teaching is neither cold nor hot.  Remember Yeshua will spit the luke-warm out of His mouth. 

The point of all this for the beginning Messianic is for us to just love them where they are and continue to teach.  In the case of the fellow Messianic teacher that should know better and does not do it, then like Jeremiah did, they need to be gently rebuked so they will know the error they spread.

I will leave this topic with one last verse:

Rev 18:4  I heard another voice from heaven, saying, "Come out of her, my people, so that you will not participate in her sins and receive of her plagues;