MY SCRIPTURE STUDIES

My Scripture Studies
Seek God. Engage with His voice in the Bible and start in the beginning.

April 22, 2011

Truth or Tradition?


If we believe the Bible is truth, I want to pose a couple of questions.

Are we walking in the Bible's instruction?

Or...

Have we unwittingly become transgressors by traditions?
But he answered and said unto them, Why do you also transgress the commandment of God by your tradition? Matthew 15:3
In my Scripture studies I realized some traditions I had grabbed and hung onto can be a problem when traditions go outside the truth or beyond the bounds of Almighty God's commandments for life in the Kingdom of God. 

One of those is a church tradition that Jesus came to start a new religion and toss out the old. 

By the way, one tradition is the name Jesus. I was shocked when I learned the truth is Yeshua is the Hebrew name and that name means "Salvation." 

Not only that, in faith Yeshua always walked in Biblical instruction. That why the word sinless is used about Yeshua. 

The truth is Yeshua kept the weekly Sabbath, kept all of the Feasts of The Lord and even showed up at the Temple during Hanukkah.

My faith is that the Jew named Yeshua fulfilled the spring time lamb offering of Passover, the Feast of Unleavened Bread and First Fruits right on time in the month of Nisan. 

Many say they follow Jesus and accept Him as the Christ, but His disciples knew Yeshua as Moshiach.

The truth is Peter knew Him as his Rabbi, check it out, see Mark 9:5 and Mark 11:21.

Like I said, it shocked me when I learned that over time "tradition" and "translation" morphed the Hebrew name Yeshua into a Greek and Latin replacement. That happened sometime around 400 AD. I was shocked to learn that the word that stands for salvation became Jesus.

Not only that, I got another system shock when I learned the letter "J" is a relatively modern new letter that first showed up in the English alphabet around the 14th century when the town world was in chaos. 

At that time, the Black Death destroyed 25 million lives, a third of Europe's population as England and France fought in their 100 year war. It was also the time of the Italian Renaissance and the birth of the Ottoman Empire. John Wycliffe was tossed out of Oxford for criticism of the Catholic traditions pogroms spread through Spain and Portugal as thousands of Jews were massacred.

It was mind bending for me to realize Matthew, Mark, Luke and John or Mary for that matter never spoke the name Jesus.

I dug in and found that the name Jesus morphed from the Latin word "Iesous" and that name stuck when John Wycliffe translated the New Testament to English from the Latin Vulgate years before a man named Gutenberg invented his printing press. 

I was shocked to discover what most English dictionaries will tell you. The fact is there was no letter 'J' in use prior to the 14th century!

Not only that, the name Jesus can't be found in the Bible that arrived in America on the Mayflower! 

Are you kidding me, the truth is the Pilgrim Puritans never knew the name Jesus!!??

Then I realized, whether people over the years have believed in Jesus or Iesous, the truth is the disciples, aka the taladim followed Yeshua, their Jewish Rabbi declaring repentance while healing people, teaching Torah and restoring the breach between heaven and earth. 

Then I realized that Yeshua will return to establish God's promised Kingdom on Earth as the anointed Messiah High Priest King and He will have a constitution. Like He said at the Sermon on the Mount:
"Do not think that I came to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I did not come to abolish but to fulfill. For truly I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not the smallest letter or stroke shall pass from the Law until all is accomplished. 
Whoever then annuls one of the least of these commandments, and teaches others [to do] the same, shall be called least in the kingdom of heaven; but whoever keeps and teaches [them] he shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven." Matthew 5:17-19
From that tradition shocking declaration, let's tackle another truth.

Many think by tradition, that Jesus was murdered by Roman crucifixion on "good" Friday and was resurrected on Easter Sunday two days and nights later. But the two day - two night tradition leaves us a day short of the Jonah truth Yeshua declared as His sign. 
"For just as JONAH WAS THREE DAYS AND THREE NIGHTS IN THE BELLY OF THE SEA MONSTER, so will the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth." Matthew 12:40
I realized that the Easter two day, two night tradition doesn't add up!

Yeshua declared He would fulfill the sign of Jonah, period.

The truth is Yeshua willingly gave His life on the cross to overcome the penalty of sin we brought on ourselves. Three days and three nights later like Jonah, Yeshua arose by God's life giving power from earthly death to heavenly rebirth in resurrection. 

After the Sabbath rest, Yeshua was seen the next morning outside the tomb owned by Joseph of Arimathea because the tomb was already empty.

The two day, two night Easter tradition has big problem.

It was developed with a "church" tradition that forgot Yeshua and took a left turn from the Jewishness of Jesus. It happened after Constantine became emperor of the Roman Empire. One of Constantine's goals was to set out with a new religion for the empire. He did it by political control and religious assimilation. 

It was formalized with rulings from the Council of Nicaea in 325 AD and the emperor's goal to settle a matter brought before the council for a ruling.

What was it? 

Either follow Scripture and the faithful Jewish people that for millennia have loved it and do it or follow the emperor of Rome.

The truth is Constantine despised Jewish people. The emperor desperately wanted his own brand of Romanized Christianity to be separated from Jews and Judaism, so he mixed in some ancient pagan Mithraism to settle the crowds in under his power.

The result, Constantine's mithra timelines changed Biblical times and seasons and lost count of reality. The emperor's committee blended in some old sun-god traditions of Easter and disconnected them from the Passover of The LORD that had been honored by faithful Jewish people since the exodus from Egypt.

Constantine's Council of Nicaea set up a new feast of the crucifixion. They affixed it to a Friday while forgetting the Bible's forever calendar set out and owned by our Creator for the Passover offering, the day First Fruits and the week long Feast of Unleavened Bread established. 

Constantine's councils injected traditions mixed from the roots of Mithaism so that Babylon's Easter tradition could continue on the first Sunday after the first full moon of the spring equinox.

There's a reason Constantine chose the pagan symbols of Sol Invictus and Mars to be engraved on his coins. He was stuck in the tangled roots of paganism despite what he said he believed.

Simply put, Roman tradition ignored Biblical truth.

Wait a minute... are Christians to follow:
  • Truth or tradition?
  • Yeshua or Constantine?
The choice is mine and yours. About ten years ago I choose truth because Elohim God's plans are bigger than mine.

Yeshua is a Jew and we get to honor Passover if we follow the Master Rabbi. 

We have a choice to skip the Easter bunny eggs and the Sunday baked ham traditions. To do that, we just need to read, believe and walk in the written words of the Bible because truth always comes from the Word of God, not the traditions of men no matter who they are.

When Paul penned his letters, he wrote to communities in the middle of religious culture wars. 

Pagan tradition or God's tradition was the paradox of Paul. Open the letters and you'll see he wrote to what he called "former" Gentiles admonishing them to keep the Bible traditions he'd taught them just as Messiah did. Check it out:
Therefore let’s celebrate the feast, not with old leaven, nor with the leaven of malice and wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth. 1 Corinthians 5:8 
You are to imitate me, just as I imitate Messiah. Now I commend you for remembering me in everything and for maintaining the traditions, just as I passed them on to you. 1 Corinthians 11:1-2  
Therefore, brothers, stand firm and cling to the traditions we taught you, whether by speech or by letter. 2 Thessalonians 2:15
In 1 Corinthians 5:8 when Paul says to celebrate the feast (aka Passover) it is NOT a metaphor. Not only that, the truth is Paul observed the seventh day Sabbath, the proof's in Acts 13:42, Acts 17:2 and Acts 18:4 just as he kept Passover. Paul also honored Shavuot (aka Pentecost) in Jerusalem, see Acts 20:16.

Paul called the Torah "sound teaching" in 1 Timothy 1:8-11 and in 2 Timothy 2:15 he called Torah the "word of truth."  Paul told Timothy that “scripture (the Tanach) is written by inspiration of the Ruach (Holy Spirit), and that truth is profitable for doctrine, reproof, correction and instruction in righteousness. You'll find that in 2 Timothy 3:16.                                  

Back in the day, Paul was misunderstood, he still is today. 

Do who know the truth of the time shift? Back in 326 AD, a year after the Council of Nicaea, Constantine outlawed worship on the Biblical Sabbath established by Almighty since creation week.

Many people still follow Constantine and call themselves saved Gentiles, but Paul would disagree.

Finding truth for me has been a process of repentance and returning to the words of Scripture for doctrine, reproof, correction and instruction in righteousness. 

The root of true faith and tradition is not an emperor's decree, so it's time to repent and do the right thing.

If you ask me, repentance is a BIG part of the "fullness of the Gentiles" that Paul wrote about in Romans. It's not a head count.

I don't think Paul was counting conversions, but he taught don't be ignorant on the revelation of Jacob's prophecy regarding Ephraim that is found in Genesis 48:17-20 when he penned these words:
"For I would not, brethren, that you should be ignorant of this mystery, lest you should be wise in your own conceits; that blindness in part is happened to Israel, until the fullness of the Gentiles [nations] comes in. 
And so all Israel shall be saved: as it is written, there shall come out of Zion the Deliverer, and shall turn away ungodliness from Jacob: 
For this [is] my covenant unto them, when I shall take away their sins. Romans 11:25-27
If you are not familiar with the story of Genesis 48, don't be ignorant you need to know. The "fullness" details have been declared there since the beginning. 

First take note that Jacob, aka the man renamed "Israel" believed Almighty God's promise that began with his grandfather. Jacob believed what God said, it was a blessing for all nations. 

Because of that Jacob knew it would involve his grandsons. Both of them were born in Egypt and their mother was not Jewish, she was daughter of a pagan priest and because of that Jacob told Joseph: "I will make you a company of peoples" (Genesis 48:4).

Jacob's blessing of faith was given to Joseph's half Egyptian sons. Ephraim and Manasseh were adopted and "born from above" with a Heavenly promise.

They had to be adopted by Jacob as his own children to receive the blessing promised to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. Jacob passed his blessing on to the nations and today, many nations of believers that call themselves “Gentiles” have begun to enter into the "fullness" of the Gentiles by adoption, but how?

They are returning (repenting) adopting the ways of the Torah keeping Jewish Messiah. His name is Yeshua. He is the Sabbath keeping, humble Passover fulfilling Messiah that is returning as the King of the Jews.

The fullness of the Gentiles points to keeping the faith, 
the way and a Torah walk following Messiah.

Paul wrote to the Romans telling them that Jacob's amazing prophecy would be revealed in the time we are living in today as many nations, aka former Gentiles are returning like sojourners, adopting truth in the faith of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, not Constantine. 

Noah Webster's 1828 Dictionary sheds some light on the definition of a Gentile we should know: 

"GEN'TILE, noun [Latin gentilis; from Latin gens, nation, race; applied to pagans.] In the scriptures, a pagan; a worshipper of false gods; any person not a Jew or a christian; a heathen."

By his definition, Mr. Webster points us to the Gentile problem. It's the heathen worship of false gods as being their character distinction. Gentiles are linked to the heathens, the false-god worshippers. The 1880 McClintock and Strong Biblical Cyclopedia agrees:

"As to the religion of heathenism, it is "a wild growth on the soil of fallen human nature, a darkening of the original consciousness of God's deification of the rational and irrational creature, and a corresponding corruption of the moral sense, giving the sanction of religion to natural and unnatural vices."

Paul agrees with both. He called the Ephesians “former Gentiles”… you once were separate, excluded "strangers" from Messiah and the commonwealth identity of none other than… Israel!
“Therefore remember that formerly you, the Gentiles… remember that you were at that time separate from Messiah, excluded from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world” Ephesians 2:11-12
The Greek word for "fullness" that Paul used is "plērōma" and the root meaning of that Greek word is “keeping” as in Deuteronomy where we see "keeping" used seven times from the Hebrew word "shamar" which means: "to keep, to guard and to observe."

English cuts short the depth of the word "fullness" in Paul's Roman letter. 

It's not a word reserved for a number, it's deeper and linked to a fuller understanding of Abraham's blessing that includes keeping the faith in spirit and truth just as Yeshua kept it. In other words, follow Him.

Paul was pointing out that the “fullness” of faith will provoke Judah for a relationship with long lost Joseph.

For Jewish people, believing in Messiah does not require a conversion to a new "religion" like Constantine's that is mixed with an emperor's decree against the Sabbath that helped turn Christianity from the persecuted into a persecuting new religion. The problem is they can't see the return trip because the church created a new Jesus that turned followers away from God's voice. 

When the church taught that the Law (Torah) was old and done away with at the cross, it was a church emerged distorting the truth with new tradition.

Constantine's decrees planted a bizarre history of anti-Sabbath, anti-Torah and anti-semitism in the church and it grew into inquisitions, pogroms, forced conversions and eventually in the perverted religious mind of Hitler, the Holocaust. Adolph tried in vain to carry out Luther's warped treatise, "On the Jews and Their Lies."

Luther instigated a tradition of hatred writing: “Set fire to their synagogues or schools” and that Jewish houses should “be razed and destroyed.” Not only that... “their rabbis be forbidden to teach on pain of loss of life and limb” and Luther insisted that “safe-conduct on the highways be abolished completely for the Jews” and that “all cash and treasure of silver and gold be taken from them.”

Yet there's light on the horizon with proper understanding. 

Eyes are being opened and hearts are demonstrating their fullness of love for The LORD by the way they walk, following in the footsteps of Yeshua the Master Rabbi.

The Bible is written by Jewish men. They declare that the walk is the Torah path of God's teaching and instruction. Understanding and keeping the way is opening a door of understanding and reconciliation as Jewish people see their Christian friends actually following the Jewish Messiah. 

Whether they know it or not, Yeshua is not the death image seen hanging on a Easter crucifix or a part of a new religion in Roman tradition, but he is the risen First Fruits Messiah.

Today is the time for the restoration of that truth and God's purpose for the Sabbath and His Feast Days. Now is the time for the fullness of renewed friendship and worship in vigor, purpose and love freed from an identity crisis that divides the Bible with a blank page.

It's time to say good bye to Constantine and the Roman creeds of the Council of Nicaea. It's time to say good bye to Nimrod, Ēostre and Ishtar too, because today is the time to wake up to the truth and waive goodby to those religious traditions, love Almighty God and walk in His image the way He intended from the beginning.

Love includes doing something, because it shows how much we love our Creator for what he has done for us.

Think about it. Love is spiritual, of the heart and its unseen until it's manifested in what we do for others.

That includes our spouse, children, family and friends. 

Yet loving God's way goes beyond the home and neighborhood. Love reaches out to those we don't know that have needs including those the Bible describes as orphans, widows, homeless and more. 

The disciple James (actually Jacob) taught nothing new about religion when he repeated God's call to care given in Exodus 22:22 that is explained and repeated over and again by Moses in Deuteronomy 10:18, 24:19-21; 26:12-16, 27:19 to care enough to do something when he wrote the definition of acceptable religion: 
“Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this, to look after fatherless, orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.” James 1:27
Almighty God repeated His command to do good to the prophet Isaiah: 
Learn to do well; seek judgment, relieve the oppressed, judge the fatherless, plead for the widow. Isaiah 1:17 17 
The Father, Almighty God uses the Hebrew word היטב yāṭaḇ, to do good. It also means to spread joy, to make a thing good, right or beautiful.  

Simply put, do the right thing, it's the will of my Father who is in heaven. 

Elijah the Tishbite, from Tishbe is the good example, the story is in 1Kings 17. He was sent to  Zarephath, a city of Sidon to the widow and orphan to do good.

It's time for fullness, its time to be restored to the Hebrew Bible and thank the Jewish people as a friend for keeping it!

So, like Ripley might say: "believe it or not" Christians should look Jewish because it's time to follow Messiah Yeshua the Jew and walk His walk of rich life in the Kingdom. Who knows, God knows they might just see the Jewish Messiah in you by the brotherly love in you.

Paul asks a big question in Romans 11:11:
“Did they [the people of Israel] stumble in order that they might fall? By no means! 
Rather through their trespass salvation has come to the Gentiles, so as to make Israel jealous. 
Now if their trespass means riches for the world, and if their failure means riches for the Gentiles, how much more will their full inclusion mean!”
That does not mean Jewish people will be consumed by jealousy from "former Gentiles" who follow the Torah, rather its about relationship. A relationship rooted in love.

If you open the back of "the book" you'll see this: "Come out of her my people" (Revelation 18:4).

One reason is the truth... the Passover lamb did not morph into an Easter ham tradition.

Passover is an appointment. It is the holy, set apart forever day before the Feast week of Unleavened Bread that The LORD established as His in the Hebrew Bible. That's the storyline shown in the good news Gospel of God no matter what you have heard from tradition.

Yeshua's death offering paid the Passover price willingly. It was required for three days and nights to satisfy mankind's debt of sin against Almighty God's word and Yeshua's resurrection to life opened the door to eternal life in the Kingdom of God for all people that repent. 

That's the blessing God promised Abraham.

When Yeshua entered Jerusalem right on time, it was the 10th of Nisan almost 2,000 years ago riding a donkey, He was inspected as the Lamb of God. His blood stained the wood of the cross and He put death to rest in the grave right on time before the 15th of Nisan, the first day of the Unleavened Bread week. 

After the third day and third night, as it grew dark at the evening end of the weekly Sabbath, His work in the dirt was complete. It was a new day as He was quickened to resurrection life by Almighty Abba Father right on time on the Day of Firstfruits.

Now, almost two thousand years later, non-Jews of all nations are beginning to come into the fullness of the root of the faith of the King of the Jews because a great move of the Spirit of God that Moses promised in Deuteronomy 32:21 is happening right now.

Paul describes it and we are living in Bible time:
“I ask instead: Did Israel not understand? First, Moses says: "I will make you jealous by those who are not a nation; I will make you angry by a nation without understanding." Romans 10:19

“I ask then, did they stumble so as to lose their share? Absolutely not! However, because of their trespass, salvation has come to the Gentiles to make Israel jealous.” Romans 11:11

“I am speaking to you Gentiles. Inasmuch as I am the apostle to the Gentiles, I magnify my ministry, in the hope that I may provoke my own people to jealousy and save some of them.” Romans 11:13-14
The repentant fullness of former Gentiles will be used by Almighty God to bless our brothers and sisters, the Jewish people. They will see their Jewish Messiah. Today, is leading to a time when every knee will bow, and every tongue will recognize that Yeshua is indeed the promised Messiah King. 

We all share something in common Israel is the family name for the children of God. All of them...

Almighty God will keep the promises given to "all" Israel and the words of Abraham's covenant for all nations will be fulfilled. The Priest King in the order of Melchizedek will return to Zion where He will regather His own in a great end-time harvest. 

Melchizedek מַלְכִּי־צֶדֶק means "king of righteousness," he was the king of Salem and priest of El Elyon the "most high God" first mentioned in Genesis 14:18-20.

The return to Zion and the harvest isthe reason the Jewish people are back in Israel today. They are there to prepare the land for its Messiah King and show the world, our Creator God keeps His promises, all of them.

I believe Messiah Yeshua wants every believer, Jewish or not, to follow Him, to walk the narrow road and live in the manner of love that will cause a miracle that has been unimagined before now. 

That miracle is seen in the friendship arising between Christian and Jew. 

Jewish people are becoming friends because of what they see in former Gentiles.

Part of what is required for friendship is a witness to the truth untarnished by the religious traditions of Constantine's new religion mixed in old heathern pagan ways from Babylon.

Every worshiper's faith assignment is to witness in spirit and truth as Jesus (aka Yeshua) prophesied. It will be so because truth and spirit is the kind of worship that The Father seeks:
“Yet a time is coming when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth for they are the kind of worship the Father seeks. God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in spirit and in truth.” John 4:23-24
To walk in worship with the spirit is the truth of God's teaching (Torah). We need to repent of the traditional lies of our forefathers, we must return to walk in the way and follow the Jewish Rabbi Yeshua of Nazareth. 

His way is a faith walk in the light of Torah with God's hearth of lovingkindness.

The bright light of Torah is to fulfill the first and second greatest of all the commandments, to love God first and foremost and to love others as ourselves. When we love our Heavenly Father, we get to show it by doing as He teaches and instructs us to walk in His image.

The very existence of the modern state of Israel proves that the Bible is the word of God.

Israel is the miracle that proves The LORD has His sights on the covenant He gave to the Jewish people, so if your are a Believer and want to be a true worshipper, its time to repent and be a witness in the spirit and truth of adoption.

Consider James, he said faith without works is dead (read James 2:14-26).

One key to understanding repentance from tradition is to understand 
God gives us His teaching and instruction for living because He loves us. 
God teaches us how we are to follow Messiah.

It's the original message of the deceiver to fall for the idea that God does not mean what He says or that He changes His mind. Don't listen to that serpent's lie any longer.

Start the return to truth. After all, the cross of Yeshua is about the Passover lamb not an Easter bunny or baked ham.

To learn more, type the term Easter in for yourself and you will see that The Vine's Complete Expository Dictionary of Old and New Testament Words, defines Easter:
"mistranslated "Easter" in Acts 12:4, AV, denotes the Passover (RV). The phrase "after the Passover" signifies after the whole festival was at an end. The term "Easter" is not of Christian origin, its an ancient traditon from Babylon. It is another form of Astarte, one of the titles of the Chaldean goddess, the queen of heaven.

The festival of "Pasach" held by Christians in post-apostolic times was a continuation of the Jewish feast, but was not instituted by Christ, nor was it connected with Lent. From this "Pasach" the pagan festival of "Easter" was quite distinct and was introduced into the apostate Western religion, as part of the attempt to adapt pagan festivals to Christianity" (W.E. Vine, 1940)
Resurrection is about the Feast of First Fruits not Easter egg hunts, and the giving of the gifts of the Spirit is all about the Feast of Shavuot.

So it time to imitate Messiah, seek the truth and walk away from tradition toward our risen Savior and King of the Jews. One of the best ways to do that is to start by returning to keep Sabbath, just as Yeshua, the Lord of the Sabbath taught His disciples.

I repeat, Passover is about a lamb, not an Easter ham. The disciples did not eat hot cross buns at the Last Supper and the bread that Jesus broke was unleavened. Jesus did not start a new tradition of communion with His bread of affliction.

The Passover was instituted in Egypt forever by God Elohim and its witness to the world and the Jewish people is why we are all to honor it. Paul understood this. His exhortation to keep the feast is found in a letter he sent to Corinth:
“Purge out therefore the old leaven, that you may be a new lump, as you are unleavened. For even Messiah our passover is sacrificed for us: Therefore let us keep the feast, not with old leaven, neither with the leaven of malice and wickedness; but with the unleavened [bread] of sincerity and truth." 1 Corinthians 5:7-8
Rest assured, the gospel, the good news is that Jesus, the One whose family and friends called Him Yeshua will return as King in Jerusalem. So, how then should we live today... in sincerity of truth or by our tradition?

Be a witness, choose truth from the Scriptures.
"And beginning at Moses and all the prophets, he expounded unto them in all the Scriptures the things concerning himself." Luke 24:27

"And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth." John 1:14

"For had ye believed Moses, ye would have believed me: for he wrote of me. But if ye believe not his writings, how shall ye believe my words?" John 5:46-47
Now, what are we to do as disciples?
"Do not merely listen to the Word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says." James 1:22
When we don't just hear, but"do" as James says, we get to live in the spirit of grace and in the truth of God's Word because we choose to.

Noah did. Grace is not new, it's the reason earth was saved. If you don't believe that... read the Bible!
"And the LORD said, I will destroy man whom I have created from the face of the earth; both man, and beast, and the creeping thing, and the fowls of the air; for it repenteth me that I have made them. 
But Noah found grace in the eyes of the LORD." Genesis 6:7-8
What does this all mean? 

It's time for you to repent and return to God's voice, return to hear and do His word and walk in the faith of His Kingdom path so that you can ready your lamp for your coming assignment. 

It means we need to know "Who is the One Called Jesus.

Consider a prayer: Please, God guide me by your Spirit as to what I should hear and do.

It's time to repent and return to God's voice, return to hear and do His words and walk in the faith of His Kingdom path so that you can ready your lamp for your assignment. 

Stretch out your hand, and take from the tree of life, and live forever.

Open a Bible, read it, listen to God's voice and do Yeshua's teaching about the forever jots and tittles. 

You can learn how the things which are written in the Torah, the Prophets, and the Psalms are concerning Messiah and you can teach others to live life like Jesus, it's love in God's way:
"For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believes in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life. 

For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved." John 3:16-17
Today is the time, open your eyes if you're dead in your own valley of dry bones.

Look up and you'll recognize Messiah from Abraham's promise passed on to Isaac and Jacob as written by Moses in the Torah. You can see Him too in the Prophets and the Writings.

Repent and walk your Emmaus Road with Messiah. Study the Scriptures He taught every Sabbath that are filled with doing life God's way in the Kingdom, and tell others about Him. Be a gatekeeper until the house is complete.

Shalom.