Articles
To Understand the End We Must Go Back to the Beginning
Barbara L. Klika, MSW, Undershepherd, Life Coach
March 2013
Written for Wisconsin Christian Newspaper
The season has changed. Are we watching and praying?
Messiah’s first coming followed a long period of waiting just as in His second coming. The earth itself is groaning and so are His people.
Peter’s second letter speaks to us today as clearly as it first did. There have always been scoffers who don’t think anything will ever change. Scoffers abound today despite many prophetic signs they don’t seem to see. But spiritual things are foolishness to the natural man…and those who honor Him only with their lips will not be able to see either!
Messiah told us to watch and pray as we draw near to the time of His return. Those who guard His Name and His commands are children of the day so that they will see and know the season. (1 Thess. 5:4-5) Those who are of the dark will experience His return as a thief in the night. All the flesh-based works will be burned as hay and stubble. Only that which was borne of the heart of our God and worked in and through us will remain. This would surely include our misguided man centered ideas of how to honor Him. Godly Prophets and shepherds speak and are rejected. Ungodly prophets and shepherds appear affirmed. Though we scoff at the Israelites so quickly falling away after the Golden Calf, we have tolerated too many such calves in our lives and stand convicted.
Forgive us our idolatries, Master!
Peter speaks of the hope that we have of the new heaven and earth that will follow the necessary judgment; and asks the question, what manner of persons should we be as we watch? These are the points I see:
- Our conversations and our reputations for behavior should be set apart, holy to YHWH which is commonly referred to as “holiness,” and in godliness.
- Be diligent to be found by Him in peace, without spot, and blameless.
- Be wary not to be led away by the error of the wicked, and fall from your steadfastness.
- Grow in grace and in knowledge of Messiah.
Lacking space, I address only “godliness.” To be like God we would look to Yeshua Who is the Author and the Finisher of our faith, Who is One with the Father. We walk after Him and do as He did, not as men’s traditions tell us. He is the Lion of the Tribe of Judah. He never stopped being that. He walked out the Written Word from the beginning because HE IS the Living Word from the beginning. If He intended us to change practices surely He would have seen to it that it would be written? Reggie White once observed that Yeshua did not put “the blank page between the Old and New Testaments.” It is all one Book, given by the inspiration of one God, Who is our Great Shepherd/Savior and Who has one flock. Yeshua clearly told those who questioned Him that His doctrine was not His own but His Fathers. (John 7:16 & chapter for context) His Word is called good, light, a lamp, Truth, riches, wondrous… read Psalm 119 for a great list! All Scripture is God Breathed! Anyone who says otherwise or calls His Word a burden or bondage is not in the Truth. How can man be so presumptuous as to think that our God Who’s character is good would ever have done anything that could be called bondage!!
How arrogant we have become. Abba, forgive us!
So our God, the God of Israel, and His Son our Messiah Yeshua are One, the First and the Last, Alpha and Omega, Alef and Tav in Hebrew. (Did you know that He declares He is First and Last in both Genesis 1:1 and again in Revelation 22:13? You can’t “see” it in the English in Genesis until you see the alef and tav in Hebrew. In fact the entire message of the Gospel is seen in the first sentence, seven Hebrew words. If you don’t know this, contact me and I will show you or refer you to necessary background info to search it out for yourselves.) “They” are the same and do not change. (Malachi 3:6)
He created mankind from the dust of the earth, put him in the Garden in the beginning (Genesis 2:7-8). Sin led to their being cast back out into the earth, but those who have returned from the errors of men to His ancient paths are found to be “set apart” or holy to Him and who are godly, like Him, will be able to return to the Garden! (Rev.22:14—to live in Lamb Light!) I am not saying this. The Word says it.
Poor Blind and Naked from Eden to Laodicea; we see the pattern repeat itself there, too. Adam and Eve at least knew it. Those of the apostate church today do not. How is it that people can have eyes and not see, or ears but not hear? Jeremiah tells us it is because they are rebellious. They do not want to accept, hear and obey all of His Word. (Jer. 5:21-25& chapter for context) We can’t change them… perhaps it is we who need to change.
Abba, please show me what I need to know; not because of anything I am or have done but for Your Name’s Sake!
All who have believed on Messiah Yeshua/Jesus of Nazareth for salvation have been grafted into the House of Israel or Jacob. (Eph. 2:3; Romans 11) Yet all Israel is not Israel...only those who have believed in Messiah Yeshua, both wild and natural branches. His Word is for His people, and their companions, the grafted-in ones. No one else will comprehend it or desire it.
The Whole Word of God is our handbook for life.
To understand what to do in the end, go back to the beginning.
The call to repentance, to turn back, has gone out. But no one can persuade another.
It is only the work of the Spirit that brings His Truth.
What manner of person will you be?
He that is unjust, let him be unjust still: and he which is filthy, let him be filthy still: and he that is righteous, let him be righteous still: and he that is holy, let him be holy still. And, behold, I come quickly; and my reward is with me, to give every man according as his work shall be.
Rev. 22: 11-12
End_Beginning_March_2013_WCN.pdf