I was recently meditating on the current down spiral of morals and everything else that is taking place in our nation. I just kept thinking where are those out there who are the light. Where is the light at. (I didn’t exclude examining the light in my life either so I am not pointing the finger). Why does it seem that so many have placed their light under a bushel as Scripture says? So with that thought in mind I would like to pen this months teaching dealing with that specific issue and where I believe Scripture shows us where the problem lies. I know that there will be some who will disagree with what I am about to share because it will go against their ‘doctrines of their organization’ but I encourage you to go and look up everything that I am saying and see if it is what Scripture teaches and come back and correct me if you believe I am wrong.
Lets be that iron that sharpens iron and deal face to face one on one with each other as believers. But PLEASE don’t read what you believe, BELIEVE what you read. We have been trained by theologians and ministers to think like them and believe like them and not think or believe like Messiah which Scripture tells us to do (Philp 2:5). Also, we read Scripture as if the Messiah were walking around in Ouachita or Orleans Parish. Messiah wasn’t Western nor did he think like you or I. He was from a totally different culture. So with that said lets look at a word and break it down into it’s Biblical context. Notice I said Biblical context and not what our culture says it is. One word, wicked or as some translations say evil. Pause for a moment and ask yourself what does wicked or evil mean to you. Now I encourage to knock the dust off of your Bible and open it up and look for passages that define Biblically what wicked or evil means. I know I just gave you some homework to do but hey homework never hurt anyone right. Although it wasn’t very fun. I am sure some of you had some thoughts or along the lines of something like these: well Jeffery Daumer was wicked because he killed people or abortion is wicked and stealing is evil or homosexuality is wicked. This is how we have culturally been taught to view wicked or wickedness. I am not saying I disagree with the above conclusions but we have to remember that Messiah wasn’t walking around in Lincoln or Webster Parish. He was in the Land in a different culture. One problem with our Western culture is that when we identify things like abortion, homosexuality, or Jeffeory Daumer. We think along these lines. Well since I am against abortion, am not someone like Jeff Daumer, nor am a homosexual then I am not wicked. See how our culture has fashioned and twisted the meaning of words. I began to realize this when I was learning Spanish. You can translate certain words into English or vice versa and you lose the true meaning of what the word really means because of the cultural barriers.
Now I want us to look at 2 Chron 7:14. We are all familiar with this & have heard it preached a million times but have we truly understood Biblically what it means? The phrase turn from their wicked ways means what? Well you don’t have to go very far just open up your Strong’s Concordance and you will find something interesting. It’s the word rah in Hebrew which means to spoil by breaking into pieces or cause to be good for nothing. Interesting. This word is all over the Older Test. I want you to pay close attention because here is where the rubber meets the road. So Biblically speaking what does wicked mean. The picture we are given from the Hebrew is this. Say you have a bowl and this bowl is used to make salads and you take this bowl and you throw it on the ground and it breaks into a hundred tiny little pieces. That is considered rah or wicked because you have spoiled ’the function’ of what that bowl was created to be and do. So how can we apply this to our lives. Well like I always say the nation is in shambles because many are preaching lawlessness from the pulpits. So we are reaping what we have had sown.
The application is this. When we take God’s Word and add to it or take away from it by inserting our traditions or man made organizational doctrines that aren’t Scriptural, that is Biblically considered wicked. When we replace the Biblical Holidays or as Lev 23 says Feasts of the Lord with holidays that aren’t Biblical and are made up man made traditions then Biblically that is considered by YHVH as wicked. So by taking away and adding to the Word we have broken into pieces what the purpose of the Word was meant to do for and to our lives. Will we turn from our wicked ways & obey ALL of His Word? Obedience exhibits our faith!!! Remember until we repent (which means return to Torah according to 1 Jn 3:4) our land CAN NOT and WILL NOT be healed.
