Will we manage to do our part to hold on and keep on going until the end?
Where will we be in six months, in a year or more?
The advent of the Messiah, the head of the body of the Assembly of Believers will come fast without any prior notice!
We have to hold on, but are we making even a small effort in that direction?
Are the examples that are left for us in the Bible by our Father useful to change our way of life, especially when we have a tendency to be lazy?
To keep sabbaths and holy feasts, to eat pure food, to pay our tithes, all this is just a DECORUM, an artifact. To do this and only this is to live like a Pharisee in Yeshuah's day:
" 37 And as He spoke, a certain Pharisee asked Him to dine with him. So He went in and sat down to eat. 38 When the Pharisee saw it, he marveled that He had not first washed before dinner.
39 Then the Lord said to him, “Now you Pharisees make the outside of the cup and dish clean, but your inward part is full of greed and wickedness. 40 Foolish ones! Did not He who made the outside make the inside also? 41 But rather give alms of such things as you have; then indeed all things are clean to you.” (Luke 11: 37-41)
Two thousand years ago, this was the case of the Pharisees!
Two thousand years ago, the vast majority of those who listened and followed the example of the Pharisees failed in their lives. Generation after generation, they did not hold out and they lost patience. They lacked perseverance, humility and at the time of Yeshuah, they mostly missed their Savior because they did not recognize him! For the Jewish people at that time, subject to the domination of the Roman Empire, Yeshuah did not match what THEIR NATIONAL PRIDE was wishing. In their imagination, their savior should have been a warrior fighting to conquer with power and get revenge from the vexations of the Romans. The Jewish people excited and seduced by the religious authorities at this period of time behaved like spoiled children who cannot wait patiently for the complete unfolding of the prophecy. The Jewish people wanted to reach the end and the victory immediately. The current result of this attitude among the Jewish people is that nearly eighty percent of them today have become unbelievers both in Israel and in the world. They have certainly kept a whole series of traditions transmitted by their ancestors and observed often them without understanding their meaning (if there is any meaning) and which are as we wrote above, a lifeless decorum inside the man. These traditions, blindly observed, have nothing to do with the worship of the Lord. On the contrary, every Jewish sect goes with its abundant imagination to attribute to each tradition a symbolic explanation which satisfies the emotions of each.
A little bit later, the so-called "Christians" followed the same path.
The "Christians" have not escaped either this weariness, because of the apparent lack of action of our Lord in the world’s events, as if He is here a foreigner! They too did not hold up. They quickly gave up the idea of a Kingdom of the Elohim as the one revealed by Yeshuah-Christ. They, too, like spoiled children, rushed towards traditions, most of them rooted in the paganism which is in horror for Yehoah. These carnal traditions introduced even before the beginning of the Middle Ages were intended to satisfy the five senses. Mao Tse Tung said rightly that this kind of Christianity or religion is the opium of the people!
The religion of a paradise already there in heaven welcoming the deads after prompt resurrections actually hides the reality and true beauty of the Gospel as opium hides the beautiful aspects of life by creating a world of lies terribly disappointing at the time of a hard awakening to reality. The warnings given by our Father in the book of Isaiah's prophecies, chapter 44, verses 9 and 16-20 are good for encouraging man to flee this world of "erzats":
" 9 Those who make an image, all of them are useless, and their precious things shall not profit; They are their own witnesses; They neither see nor know, that they may be ashamed....
16 He burns half of it in the fire; With this half he eats meat; He roasts a roast, and is satisfied. He even warms himself and says, “Ah! I am warm, I have seen the fire.” 17 And the rest of it he makes into a god, his carved image. He falls down before it and worships it, prays to it and says, “Deliver me, for you are my god!”
18 They do not know nor understand; For He has shut their eyes, so that they cannot see, and their hearts, so that they cannot understand.
19 And no one considers in his heart, nor is there knowledge nor understanding to say, “I have burned half of it in the fire, Yes, I have also baked bread on its coals;
I have roasted meat and eaten it; And shall I make the rest of it an abomination? Shall I fall down before a block of wood?”
20 He feeds on ashes; A deceived heart has turned him aside; And he cannot deliver his soul, nor say, “Is there not a lie in my right hand?”
What should we expect during the 21st century?
And now, let's come to us, who are living in this twenty-first century! Do you also lock yourself into a network of habits that you repeat blindly, forgetting that in the beginning, everything you did them with love for Yehoah, our Lord? If this is the case, you became the spiritual sons of the Pharisees, you became an easy prey for Satan. How will Satan catch you? To understand that, you must refresh your memory by reading the teachings that our Father gives us about the Beast, incarnation of Satan. Do you believe that because the Beast seems unpleasant to you, it will only be a passing myth? Think again and wake up, the Beast already lives today and begins to act following the example of his spiritual master, the Devil (I Peter 5: 8-9):
" 8 Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil walks about like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour. 9 Resist him, steadfast in the faith, knowing that the same sufferings are experienced by your brotherhood in the world."
So be careful and apply yourself to recognize the Beast, because it is already recognizable, thanks to the information given to us in Revelation 13: 18:
" Here is wisdom. Let him who has understanding calculate the number of the beast, for it is the number of a man: His number is 666."
So, hold on ad don’t give up!
Don’t waist the time left and follow Peter's advice in
I Peter 4: 7-19:
" 7 But the end of all things is at hand; therefore be serious and watchful in your prayers. 8 And above all things have fervent love for one another, for “love will cover a multitude of sins.” 9 Be hospitable to one another without grumbling. 10 As each one has received a gift, minister it to one another, as good stewards of the manifold grace of Elohim. 11 If anyone speaks, let him speak as the oracles of Elohim. If anyone ministers, let him do it as with the ability which Elohim supplies, that in all things Elohim may be glorified through Yeshuah Christ, to whom belong the glory and the dominion forever and ever. Amen.
12 Beloved, do not think it strange concerning the fiery trial which is to try you, as though some strange thing happened to you; 13 but rejoice to the extent that you partake of Christ’s sufferings, that when His glory is revealed, you may also be glad with exceeding joy. 14 If you are reproached for the name of Christ, blessed are you, for the Spirit of glory and of Elohim rests upon you. On their part He is blasphemed, but on your part He is glorified. 15 But let none of you suffer as a murderer, a thief, an evildoer, or as a busybody in other people’s matters. 16 Yet if anyone suffers as a Christian, let him not be ashamed, but let him glorify Elohim in this matter. 17 For the time has come for judgment to begin at the house of Elohim; and if it begins with us first, what will be the end of those who do not obey the gospel of Elohim? 18 Now “If the righteous one is scarcely saved, where will the ungodly and the sinner appear?”
19 Therefore let those who suffer according to the will of Elohim commit their souls to Him in doing good, as to a faithful Creator. “