Pure Religion
What is all this talk about Religion
Does your religion profess a belief in God? Do you believe in the religion of Jesus Christ?
To honestly answer a question like that we need to know what the individual is thinking it means to be "God". After all Paul said there are gods many. It has been the custom of people for centuries to think or say they worship God when they in fact were worshiping men who were no gods. If men can be as gods and even Jesus said that it is written that we are gods it would seem important to find out what that word “god” really means.
With the coming of Jesus we were supposed to know the God of Heaven by knowing Jesus. That knowledge of the Son gave us a knowledge of the Father. And it was said that knowin him would set us free. Yet, almost immediately there was concern that we would go back into bondage to the “beggarly elements” again.
Those “beggarly elements” were the elements of the world that had us in bondage when we did not know better. The word “elements” is the same word we see as rudiments of the world in Colossians and also in Peter when he talks about those elements of the world melting.
It is very easy to say that we believe in Jesus. It was very easy for the Pharisees to say they believed in God, but Jesus said they did not know the Father, because if they did they would have known Jesus. Before we can answer the question "Do you believe in Jesus and the Father" we need to know “Do you know the Father or Jesus?” If you were not doing what the ather and Jesus said to do but rather doing what the Pharisees were doing and Jesus said made the word of God to none effect then you robably do not know Jesus either .
Religious doctrines are often created with complex eschatology and theologies composed of mental mysteries to hide the personal sins that results from straying from the basics of real faith. We should define the terms of "religious doctrines" so that they can be held up to the light of the whole gospel of the kingdom.
It seems fairly evident that many people who claim they believe Jesus, or even in God often do not agree on much else. In fact, sometimes, people calling themselves Christians seem more like the Pharisees than the early Church. They have lots of rituals and ceremonies, they sing songs and make praises, but so did the Pharisees. The question is are they taking the Lord's name in vain because they do not know or do the will of the Father?
Are they not doing the will of the Father because they do not know the Father? If they do not know the Father then how can they know the son?
It is reasonable to accept the truth that people do not really know Jesus, or who God is if people are doing contrary to what Jesus said but claiming to love him. They may be under a strong delusion. Just because someone says they know Jesus or the Father and claim to believe that does not make it so. They may be lying to you or to themselves or both. It is far easier to profess something with our lips than to profess it with our lives.
Jesus points out that the only way to really know if someone knows the Father or the Son is by the works they do, the fruit of their lives. This has nothing to do with earning salvation. It is about how we bear witness and profess our faith.
We also know that Jesus warns about many who will claim to come in His name but do not know Him, nor do they know the Father. They do not know Him and though they profess Him they are actually workers of iniquity.
Jesus makes it clear that it is not our words that make us His brother or the God in Heaven our Father, but it is our faith and our faith alone. That faith will determine what we do and produce a profession to the world of what we believe.
These are all warnings and precepts professed by Christ and and the prophets of God. They are repeated by those who followed Christ and served God's people in the early Church.
We will need to know what Jesus said to do and not to do in order to find out who really believes in Jesus and the Father. Many may be under a strong delusion about where their faith truly lies. We need to look at who, how, or what they are worshiping and what religion they really practice. Is it “pure religion” or something less or even the opposite?
To know what the early Church did and did not do will assist us in understanding the gospel. Workers of iniquity are mentioned by David in Psalms more than any other book of the Bible and evidently they are out to snare us. We know that the way to the kingdom is narrow and we need to seek the narrow path to that Kingdom of God and His righteousness if we are goiing to do as Jesus said.
Religare
An honest answer to these questions can be determined by the nature of the religion we profess. But what lreligion do we profess in words and deeds? What is religion from the biblical point of view.
The word religion from religare to restrain, tie back and today is sometimes defined:
Religion 1. The outward act or form by which men indicate their recognition of the existence of a god or of gods having power over their destiny, to whom obedience, service, and honor are due; the feeling or expression of human love, fear, or awe of some superhuman and over ruling power, whether by profession of belief, by observance of rites and ceremonies.... From Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary (1913)
Have you done any outward acts to recognize any god or gods other than the God of Heaven? We know there are gods many.
We may need to ask ourselves a few questions in order to determine if we understand what it means to believe Jesus is God or at least our God and if we are seeking to do what he said to do and the Father has wanted us to do from the beginning.
Do you owe obedience to anyone other than your Father in Heaven? If so why?
We need to understand why Jesus said to Call no man earth Father. Or why he said to honor our Father and Mother as a part of the Ten Commandments. Or do we bow down or owe our service to anyone other than the God the Father?
Do your ministers serve you according to the perfect law of liberty? Or have they lulled you to sleep and allowed the kings of the gentiles to lay heavy burdens upon you, and delivered you back into bondage of Egypt to serve other gods who are not following after the teachings of Jesus the Christ, Yeshua the Messiah?
There are dozens of verses that speak of the Kingdom of Heaven and twice that number which speak of the Kingdom of God. Jesus speaks of it being at hand and tells us to do the same. He takes the kingdom from one group and appoints a kingdom to another group as he promised.
The Bible speaks of governments and not making contracts man, many times, but of religion it is only mentioned 5 times.
The first is Acts 26:5 where Paul speaks of the Religion of the Pharisees.
Then Galatians 1:13 and Galatians 1:14 which mentions the "Jews' religion."
Then James 1:26 a man who seems to be religious, and that man's religion is vain.
And the last place it states in James 1:27:
“Pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this, To visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, [and] to keep himself unspotted from the world.”
Pure religion and undefiled is to look after those without a family in their affliction or tribulation or needy families and to keep yourself in this administration to the needy from being spotted by the activities or character of the world.
The word world is the same Greek word used where Jesus says His kingdom is not of this world.
What was it?
It wasn't Aion' which means an unbroken age.
It wasn't 'oikoumene' which has to do with inhabited but it does not mean planet..
It wasn't the word 'ge' which is the closest word to meaning planet earth that you will find in the Bible.
It wasn't 'erets' meaning land, earth, soil.
So, what word did the author use to describe the world that Jesus, Kingdom was not in and that we should keep our selves unspotted from?
The word 'world' is translated from the word 'kosmos' which means "an apt and harmonious arrangement or constitution, order, government." It came from the word komizo meaning "to care for, take care of, provide for" or "carry off what is one's own," which is what the harmonious arrangement or constitutional systems of Rome was doing with their Pax Romana.
Jesus did not come preaching the Religion of heaven on earth but the Kingdom of heaven. The kingdom was on the planet, but it was not of a particular “world order”.
When pure religion is mentioned in the Bible the Greek word is threskeia. It derived from the verb throsko, which means to move with expectation, to search.
"As used by Herodotus (ii.37) and other Greek writers, threskeia means "'religious conduct or practice' in general, with particular emphasis on the zealousness of such practices.”
Threskeia is specifically the procedures and ceremonies by which one worships their god or gods, to honor, sacrifice, serve, or contribute to him or her or them, as the case may be. Religion is the manner in which you conduct yourself in relationship to your gods or god, your rites and ceremonies, rituals and rules, precepts and procedures. It is how you go about seeking God, His kingdom and His righteousness.
The kingdom of heaven's religion is the procedures and ceremonies of the congregation of God the Father and is how they govern themselves. Those activities must be immersed in righteousness.
Visiting the needy does not mean stopping by and chatting with sick people or the poor. It has to do with caring for their needs. To visit is from the Greek word episkeptomai which means “... to look after, to take care of, to see to – to be present to help, to be on hand to aid.”
That pure religion certainly includes caring for the needy of our society, often in congregations. If your congregation does not come together for the purposes of taking care of the needy of your society then it appears it is not practicing the religion of James. If it does not do that without depending on the rulers of governments that call themselves benefactors but exercise authority one over the other, which Christ forbid His Church to do.
Jesus came to serve and praised the good Samaritan, healing and feeding the needy at every opportunity. The early Church provided all the social welfare of the Christians. In God's kingdom there are only free will offerings given in charity with faith and hope under the perfect law of liberty.
The ministers of God's kingdom cannot drag you into court and punish you for not contributing enough to the needy. In the Old Testament those men called judges today would be called "elohyms" or gods and in the New Testament times they would have been called "theos", also translated gods.
These are the same words the Bible translates into both gods and God. Strong's Bible Concordance tells us that both terms were used in the Old and the New Testaments in courts to address magistrates and judges at the time of Christ. [a.k.a. There are gods many in the courts of the the gentiles].
Not contributing to the needy of society, while selfish, is not an actual crime. The power to rule over people and judge them as too selfish comes not from criminality but from the fact that people have made some agreement or covenant with men who exercise authority.
This is usually done because men who call themselves benefactors, but exercise authority over the people, offer some system of social welfare, or promise that they will make the people secure. People are enticed to sign up, but they also make themselves a surety for the obligation and even debt which accompanies these benefits.
These men, who they 'call benefactors' obtain the right to force the contributions of those who become members of their administrative schemes of social welfare. Unfortunately what should have been for your welfare will become a snare. This warning about consenting, making a contract, taking benefits is repeated over and over in the Bible.
Your contribution becomes a form of homage [a.k.a. worship] This is a form of religion and you are bound by the terms of your agreement. It is not the religion of John the Baptist or Jesus the Christ or our Father in Heaven. It is the opposite of Christ's instructions to His Church. This is clear when we read:
"And from the days of John the Baptist until now the kingdom of heaven suffereth violence, and the violent take it by force." Matthew 11:12
When he was asked how his system of Baptism worked compared to Herod's system of baptism and social welfare "He answereth and saith unto them, He that hath two coats, let him impart to him that hath none; and he that hath meat, let him do likewise." Luke 3:11
Rome and the Pharisees took care of their needy. They did this through different types of system of Corban. The temples of Herod and Rome depended on some actual charity, but almost all were being subsidized or entirely supported by government funds. There temples were doing what many government buildings do to today. They provided social insurance, kept a record of government documents, everything from contracts to birth certificates.
By everyone becoming a member of a political society the people may apply to the men who call themselves Benefactors. The only help the people receive is extracted from the people by those men who exercised authority. There welfare institutions are supported by taxes, not charity. This is their religion, their Corban, which makes the word of God to none effect. They have an allegiance to force and do not have faith in love.
They do not hope for aid by charity through love and honor but trust in the entitlements of men who call themselves benefactors but compell the offerings of the people. The people must give full faith and credit to the ruling judges of their government temples. Those ruling judges are the gods of their world and Christ's kingdom will have no part of that world .
Jesus preached a government that operated according to the perfect law of liberty, by faith, hope, and charity where the people loved their neighbor and their neighbor's rights as much as they loved themselves and their own rights. Where the citizens did not covet their neighbors goods nor anything that was their neighbors.
They knew that what should be for their welfare would be a snare and make them merchandise. The Kingdom of God and the righteous Church instituted by Christ was a system of self government where it was against the law to covet your neighbor's goods or pray to men who call themselves benefactors but exercise authority on over the other because that was a covetous, deceitful, iniquitous, net that would snare the people back into the bondage of Egypt again.
Modern governments offer welfare to the people but not without the price of liberty under God. Like Cain, Lemech, Nimrod, Pharaoh the people are subjects. We should all know and cannot deny that those workers of iniquity makes us slaves and leads to bondage.
There are numerous articles and books available to explain the contractual nature of government and why we were warned hundreds of times about the danger of making contracts, covenants and constitutions that may lead to bondage through agreement and consent.
“Redemption is deliverance from the power of an alien dominion and the enjoyment of the resulting freedom. It involves the idea of restoration to one who possesses a more fundamental right or interest. The best example of redemption in the Old Testament was the deliverance of the children of Israel from bondage, from the dominion of the alien power in Egypt.” Zondervan’s Bible Encyclopedia
Repent, and seek the Kingdom of God, and His righteousness.
Religion, NN Video Series:9-10 4:27
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EMxTbD3s3s8
The Opiate of Religion
http://www.hisholychurch.org/sermon/opiate.php
The Corban of the Pharisees
It made the word of God to none effect.
Is our Corban making the word of God to none effect today?
http://www.hisholychurch.org/sermon/corban.php
The Nicolaitan who God hates?
Because they covet their neighbor's goods
http://www.hisholychurch.org/sermon/nicolaity.php
Baptism, the Ritual and the Jurisdiction
Are Christians repenting and getting baptized or are they just all wet?
http://www.hisholychurch.org/sermon/baptismjura.php
Footnotes:
|
