"Many Will Come In My Name", and The Case For the Apostle Paul
Yeshua gives us a very real warning about deception. In the gospel of Matthew He is answering His disciples questions about the "signs" of the end of this age and His returning to establish His Kingdom on earth.
"“For many shall come in My Name, saying, ‘I am the Messiah,’ and they shall lead many astray." Matthew 24:5
The traditional translation of this scripture is that "false Messiah's" will be arising and leading people astray from the true path but this is an error. Yeshua does warn about "false Messiah's" arising a little further along in the discourse (Matthew 24:23-25) but in this particular verse His warning is of a different type.There have been many individuals that have arisen throughout Jewish history that claimed to be the Messiah of Israel. They, of course, all ended up being false Messiah's.
In this verse Yeshua is actually saying - "There will be many who will come saying that I (Yeshua) am the Messiah, and they will lead many astray".
In other words, Yeshua is giving a warning that many will believe in Him and confess Him as Messiah but their message will be the wrong message, a message other than what He delivered, and these people (teachers) will lead many people astray from the truth.
Now, I know that we all believe that we have always heard the right message of the Kingdom and that we have never followed a "false teaching". Everyone thinks that they have the truth. If Yeshua, being all-knowing, could issue us a warning here about a real deception taking place, because of a different message going forth in His name, then I think that we should all take head to the warning and give up our preconceived translations of the Word.
Deception is a powerful thing for if you repeat lies long enough then eventually people will accept them as truth. The traditional Christian Church has been guilty of believing lies for millennial. While they have carried many truths around the world, especially about salvation in Yeshua alone, they have also missed the mark in many areas and have believed lies that have been handed down from one generation to another for so long that they now call them "truths". In fact, the prophet Jeremiah predicted just such a thing, "inheriting lies from our forefathers".
It is not that "the church" has intentionally tried to propagate lies throughout its history, it is just that lies crept in and then they were repeated and practiced until they are accepted as truth at this point. Much of this happened because of the break in fellowship between two "sects" of first century Judaism: the sect of the Way (Nazarenes) and main stream Judaism headed by the Sadducees and Pharisees. A great rift happened after the destruction of the temple in 70AD.
Add to this Constantine and the Roman Catholic Church and one does not have to wonder any longer how lies could have passed from one generation to another. The early Apostles had to deal with these lies that were already being propagated in their time. Much of the writings of the New Testament deal with such issues.
How do we know the correct message of Yeshua? We look at His Words that have been recorded for us. In John 15:10 it states that "if we keep Yeshua's commandments that we do well and that we will abide in His love, even as HE HAS KEPT HIS FATHERS commandments and abides in His love". Yeshua continually tells us that He and His Father are One, that if you have seen one then you have seen the other. Yeshua was the WORD (Torah) made flesh.
What were His Father's WORDS/Commandments? Moses records the "words/commandments" of YHWH. Yeshua stated that He did not come to "abolish the Torah but to fulfill it" (interpret it correctly). He then goes on to say that not one "jot or tittle" will be erased from it as long as heaven and earth stands.
At this point, I would like to give an example of how a lie has been told for so long that it has now been accepted as a truth by the majority of the Christian church. It is interesting that all of the 10 commandments are repeated in the New Testament. Yet, most Christians only keep 9 of them. The Sabbath day commandment has been abolished by the Christian Church as a whole. Yet, it is the Seventh Day Sabbath that YHWH tells us is the key to having a true relationship with Him. For YHWH states that the Sabbath Day is a sign between "me and you throughout your generations." Disobeying this commandment even brought death to the individual. The Seventh Day Sabbath is actually the first of the "Appointed Times" of YHWH.
YHWH instructs us to keep the Sabbath Day Holy. Yeshua said He kept His Father's commandments. This means HE KEPT the Sabbath Day holy. As recorded in Acts, His first apostles and disciples kept the Sabbath Day Holy. In fact, the Apostle Paul kept the Sabbath Day Holy and practiced it.
Now, let's use some rational thinking here. Most people use the writings of Paul to nullify Sabbath keeping and all of the Torah. While I don't have time to prove to you that you have misunderstood the Apostle Paul's writings and that HE DID TEACH and practice the keeping of the Sabbath and all of YHWH's Torah, just logically consider this for a moment: we are to follow the words of our Messiah, NOT PAUL or anyone else. If Paul had said, and he didn't, that the Torah has been done away with, including the changing of the Sabbath from Saturday to Sunday, then we would have to regard him as a heretic departing from the words of our Master and Lord Yeshua who said He kept His Father's Commandments. Paul even said in his letters that if any man or angel came preaching any other gospel than what had been preached that they were to be accursed. Now logically speaking, Paul preached the same thing that the other apostles preached, in his own style, and they all preached what they had received from Yeshua. If Paul did not preach what the other disciples preached and what Yeshua taught then Paul is accursed. This would be a clear example of a person claiming Yeshua as Lord and Master but teaching a different message than that delivered by Yeshua, and hence this would be deception.
Friends and fellow believers in Jesus Christ - we have been deceived! We have been deceived in believing that Paul said things that he did not say and we have believed those lies and believing them - we have inherited the lies of our forefathers who started these heretical teachings, taking the words of the Apostle Paul out of context, and have rejected the words of our LORD!
Again - even if the Apostle Paul or an angel has said "the Torah has been abolished", "Sabbath has been abolished or changed", we don't listen to man, or angels, when they contradict Jesus' (Yeshua's) on words!!!
If a person is under the assumption that the Apostle Paul contradicted the teachings of Yeshua, when he claimed otherwise, then maybe it is instead our mis-translation of his words that has happened because we are so far removed from the culture and setting of the first century.
YHWH is calling His children back to Himself in these last days. Look around, the truth is speaking out loudly all around you. The returning to the Jewish roots of Yeshua is happening with or without you!
Shalom
Leisa
