Listener Feedback - Different Teachers

Listener Comments: I read the exchange about different teachers /teachings. We have been listening to _. He believes that we should go to worship in the temple. He believes that Jesus came for the 10 tribes not Judah. He thinks Judah wasn't sick and didn't need Jesus, only the rebelling 10 tribes. What do you think about this?

Tsiyon Answer:   I don’t personally know much about the teacher you mentioned, other than that he rejects the Renewed Covenant Scriptures (NT) but I will comment on the teachings you have listed. I consider this such a timely question my answer here is not only for you, but for all of our newsletter readers too.

1. "He believes that we should go to worship in the (literal) temple." 

Having rejected the NT, it is understandable that he has come to this conclusion. This illustrates the great error of rejecting a large part of the Scriptures. Both Kefa (Peter) and Paul, both emissaries of Y’shua Himself, tell us that Messiah is now building a Temple composed of living stones. These are natural and grafted-in Israelites who, through faith in Messiah, are built into the True Temple by the set-apart (Holy) Spirit. This is the True Temple in which true followers of Y’shua Messiah must worship. Just as Israel pulled back from entering the Promised Land and thereby missed the plan of YHWH teachers like this pull back from entering into the fullness of what Messiah has opened up to us as recorded by His faithful emissaries for our good. It cannot end well for them if they do not repent.  (Eph 2:19-22, 1 Peter 2:1-10, Heb 3:1-19)

 

2. "He thinks Judah wasn't sick and didn't need Y’shua, only the rebelling 10 tribes."

If Judah was not sick and didn’t need Y’shua then why was the Jewish capital, Jerusalem , including the Temple , destroyed in 70 CE just as Y’shua had said it would be?  Jews from near and far were in the city to celebrate Passover at the time it was put under siege by the Romans. Josephus records that 1,100,000 people were killed during the siege of Jerusalem , of which the vast majority were Jewish (of Judah ). Surely, the Temple could not have been destroyed, except by the will of YHWH, as a judgment upon that wicked generation of unbelieving Jews who rejected their Messiah. Y’shua told the leaders of the Jews this would happen upon their generation, and it did!  “Truly I say to you, All these things will come on this generation. Jerusalem , Jerusalem , the one killing the prophets and stoning those sent to her. How often I desired to gather your children in the way a bird gathers her chicks under her wings! And you did not desire it. Behold, "your house is left to you desolate." (Matt 23:36-39,  Jer. 22:5, Psa. 118:26)

 

In recalling this disaster let us not forget that there was a sizable remnant of Judah who believed and were literally saved from the destruction of Jerusalem and the Temple , as history also accurately records. This salvation came to those Jews who believed in the words of Y’shua, Who told them well in advance: “And when you see Jerusalem being encircled by armies, then recognize that its destruction has come near. Then let those in Judea flee into the mountains; and those in its midst, let them go out. And those in the open spaces, let them not go into her. For these are days of vengeance when all things that have been written are to be fulfilled.” Luke 21:20-22 

 

The believing Jews in those days were sometimes called “the sect of the Nazoraeans.” Here are two historical reports that tell us of the origin of the Nazoraeans that occupied the area of Pella in Syria : "The Nazoraean sect exists in Beroea near Coele Syria , in the Decapolis near the region of Pella , and in Bashan in the place called Cocaba, which in Hebrew is called Chochabe. That is where the sect began, when all the disciples were living in Pella after they moved from Jerusalem , since Christ told them to leave Jerusalem and withdraw because it was about to be besieged. For this reason they settled in Peraea and there, as I said, they lived. This is where the Nazoraean sect began." And "Their sect began after the capture of Jerusalem . For when all those who believed in Christ settled at that time for the most part in Peraea, in a city called Pella belonging to the Decapolis mentioned in the gospel, which is next to Batanaea and the land of Bashan, then they moved there and stayed.." (Acts 24:5, Epiphanius, Panarion 29:7:7-8, 30:2:7)

 

Here we find out that Jews (Judah) who believed Messiah escaped the destruction of Jerusalem while the unbelieving Jews were trapped and killed in Jerusalem or were taken captive by the Romans. Does that sound to you like unbelieving Judah “didn’t need Y’shua” – or does history itself prove that unbelieving Judah rejected their Messiah and His emissaries and in so doing brought destruction down upon their own heads?  The facts of history speak for themselves.

 

Someone rightly said; "Those who fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it." Teachers who seek to minimize Y’shua and even try to turn Him into a Pharisee set themselves on the same course as those 1st Century Jews who opposed Messiah’s message and they shall come to a similar end if they do not repent.  Indeed, Messiah’s warning, “Beware the leaven of the Pharisees!” is as timely today as it ever was. (Mar 8:15)