| From Truthseekers Romans 13 Today Dear Editor, WorldNetDaily reported today August 18, 2007 that "Clergy to be used to quell dissent" by the government. It is a very interesting article and one that is sure to cause many to fear and think. Think about their faith in our Lord Jesus. This article should force you to tackle the question of, who is your allegiance to. Is it to God or America. We all know from the parable of God and Mammon that man can not serve two masters, "No servant can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or else he will be loyal to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon." -Matthew 6:24. Do Christians need to obey evil governments that are against our Lord and his Father and our Father? This is confusing and must be the work of the devil for he is the father of lies and confusion. Think about it, to serve God you must obey Satan. This is the perfect Catch-22. "Let every soul to the higher authorities be subject, for there is no authority except from God, and the authorities existing are appointed by God, so that he who is setting himself against the authority, against God`s ordinance hath resisted; and those resisting, to themselves shall receive judgment. For those ruling are not a terror to the good works, but to the evil; and dost thou wish not to be afraid of the authority? that which is good be doing, and thou shall have praise from it." -Romans 13:1-3. There are two ways a follower of Jesus can look at this. The first way is to accept the Bible as the complete word of God, without any thought. The second is to challenge it using the rules that our God gave us. Let us assume that Paul is speaking for God and must be obeyed. "And it hath been -- the man who doth not hearken unto My words which he doth speak in My name, I require [it] of him." -Deuteronomy 18:19 The prophets of old used a very simple phrase, and if you look you will see it. When a prophet spoke the words our Lord God gave them to say, they said, "thus says the Lord." Only Jesus is exempt from having to always say, "thus says the Lord," by the divine command of his Father. And a voice came out of the cloud, saying, "This is My beloved Son. Hear Him!" -Luke 9:35. I challenge any priest or pastor to show me where in Romans Paul speaks in the name of the Lord. There are a few verses where Paul quotes the prophets of old using the phrase in chapters 12 and 14, but nowhere in Romans does Paul, himself speak in the name of God, as required by God's holy law. Since Paul does not speak in the name of the Lord, we are required by God to test his word to see if Paul contradicts the Lord. Through our faith we know that God is perfect, and His holy word is true, there can be no lie, no deception, no ambiguity from the mouth of the Lord God of Israel, His son or those He has chosen to speak through. So the question for us is did God ever say that all authority comes from him? "They have made kings, and not by Me, They have made princes, and I have not known, Their silver and their gold they have made to them idols, So that they are cut off." -Hosea 8:3. No!!! God did not say all authority comes from HIM, in fact God says the exact opposite. Abraham Lincoln in his Gettysburg address said of this government that it is of the people, by the people and for the people. Where is God in this formula? When we faced the British, we sought God's protection in the Declaration of Independence, and when God delivered our victory how did we repay Him? We drafted a Constitution that does not mention His role in our affairs. But we know God did set up kings, some He prospered, others He destroyed. How can we be sure that our government was anointed by God? We must use our reason. We must look into the heart of the king, Jesus said we can see a man's heart by what comes out of him. If the king's heart is for God then the laws he makes will illuminate the word of God. Only God's law can lead a man to righteous actions. Therefore, if our laws are fully in accordance to God and the laws of God than yes, Romans 13 has the weight of God's own anointing. Nevertheless, look at our laws. We are allowed to kill the innocent through abortion as a choice, we have invited and set up for ourselves new and strange gods in the name of pluralism, and our halls of justice have removed the laws of God from its walls to enforce the separation of church (God) and the state (king). There are those that would say that God's laws were nullified on the cross, as Paul and the anonymous author of Hebrews state. This is a terrible mistake, our Lord Jesus' own words state that the law will stand until the end of the world. "Do not think that I came to destroy the Law or the Prophets. I did not come to destroy but to fulfill. For assuredly, I say to you, till heaven and earth pass away, one jot or one tittle will by no means pass from the law till all is fulfilled." -Matthew 5:17-18. If you are reading these words, I assure you that heaven is still above you and the earth is below you. Still there is more proof of the unity of the Law, the Prophets and of our Lord Jesus. Jesus also said that it was these the Law and the Prophets that would testify to him. Then He said to them, "These are the words which I spoke to you while I was still with you, that all things must be fulfilled which were written in the Law of Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms concerning Me." -Luke 24:44. I would submit to you that if you pull the Law and the Prophets from under Jesus, you have removed him as the son of God, the promised Messiah, and created for yourselves another god-man like Mithras or Tammuz. It is the Law and the prophets that testify to all of Jesus' life and death. The transfiguration upon the mountain is proof of this that the whole Law as embodied in Moses and all the Prophets as Elijah stand together with Jesus. No other faith under heaven has this continuity, this unity of both spirit and purpose. I ask you what two witnesses of the book of life stand ready to testify for Mohammad, or Buddha or Krishna, or any human messenger for a pantheon of gods. I know what words are forming on your lips, 'but Paul is in the Bible and must be true'. I too once believed this until the plain and simple words of my Lord Jesus leapt from the pages into my heart and my understanding. Jesus predicted Paul in the parable of the wheat and the tares. The wheat Jesus sows is his word, the tares are not his word, but they appear to be his word at first, the field is the bible, and the night, when the tares were sown is after the true light left this world to take his place at the right hand of his Father. A kingdom is defined by its boundaries, and within these boundaries exist the law of the KING as the supreme law of the land. The tares have a purpose to cause men to trip and stumble; the tares are our test to see if we obey God or the devil. If I speak about Paul on my own, I too would stand on one leg, but I am not. Another American had seen this about Paul too. Thomas Jefferson said, "Paul was the great Coryphaeus, and first corrupter of the doctrines of Jesus." Jesus told us, "Enter by the narrow gate; for wide is the gate and broad is the way that leads to destruction, and there are many who go in by it." (Matthew 7:13.) The wide gate is easy, believe everything a preacher would tell you, and trust that your faith alone in Jesus will save you, and do not do what Jesus tells us to do. The narrow gate is living within the Laws of the Lord God of Israel, following Jesus and not those who come after him. For some who are ready to let go of their traditions but still hold tightly to them, I offer you these words from our Lord concerning his return: "Then if anyone says to you, 'Look, here is the Christ!' or 'There!' do not believe it. For false christs and false prophets will rise and show great signs and wonders to deceive, if possible, even the elect." (Matthew 24:23-24.) Jesus said he would not return until the end of time, when Paul said he was struck by Jesus on the Damascus road it was not the end of time, and Matthew 24 stands. For a while even, the apostles in Jerusalem were deceived until Paul bore his fruits of deception. The bible is a book, that when viewed through history was compiled by man, Athanasius of Alexander, who would be one of the first bishops to persecute other Christians for disagreeing with him. This does not mean that everything in the Bible is false. No, but the best lies are those lies that abide next to the truth. If we are truly brothers and sisters to Jesus, if we are the children of God than we must search for the truth, taking that which is true into our hearts, rejecting the lies. An honest and sincere question would be why did the church allow Paul into the bible, why did they make him a part of scripture. The answer is simple, it is Paul who empowers the churches of today with titles, and ranks of office, priests, ministers, prophets, evangelists and bishops, while Jesus left us with only one office, the servant. It is Paul who commands the faithful to divert their donations from the people God said we should help to the church, while Jesus tells us to give what he has given us freely and without charge. It seems disingenuous that these churches must keep quiet about the evil done in this country for fear of losing their tax exempt status. Why cannot the churches be vocal to the sins committed under our name though the instrument called democracy? We will see who the churches serve, have they forsaken their first love, and chose to serve mammon. I fear that this message shall be ignored by most, not all. These priests, pastors and ministers will betray us, and turn us over to the gods of this world. This too has been prophesied by our Lord when he spoke of care of the little flock by the hired hands. "But a hireling, he who is not the shepherd, one who does not own the sheep, sees the wolf coming and leaves the sheep and flees; and the wolf catches the sheep and scatters them." -John 10:12. The bottom line and the place the buck stops at is Luke 6:46, "But why do you call Me 'Lord, Lord,' and do not do the things which I say?" Nineteen times Jesus commanded us to follow him, he never said that we should follow another. If you follow Jesus, you reject Paul and Paul's teachings, for one reason and one reason only, because Jesus is our Lord and our only shepherd. "My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me." -John 10:27. Copyright © 2008 Truthseekers Home |
