MINI-DESPATCH. March 3, 1999.

WARNING !!!
PLEASE DO NOT ACCUSE THIS MINISTRY OF ANTISEMITISM
BECAUSE OF THIS ARTICLE;
ACCESS THE HRM CHART AND THE ANTISEMTIC CHART
THAT IS ALSO ON THIS SITE
IN CASE YOU YOURSELF ARE CALLED TO ACCOUNT BEFORE GOD
for wrongfull accusations....This ministry is completely NON antisemitic
we would suggest brainwashing is occuring out there to consider this site otherwise!

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A CRITIQUE OF THE HEBREW ROOTS MOVEMENT.

 The following statement from Endtime Ministries, which publishes Despatch magazine quarterly, is the stand which this ministry has defended and Imagestained for many years. The Hebrew Roots Movement/Messianic has been gathering strength in these last days. The influence of this HRM is quite beyond mere evangelism of Jewish people. Both the HRM and the Messianic Jew groups have moved into an influence over Christendom which is quite astonishing. We view this as another instance of apostasy in the Age of Apostasy which marks the end of the Church Age, and a religious trouble of the pre-Tribulation perilous times in which we live. We will not delve into many manuscripts and compare many quotes from different sources, this sort of expose has been adequately handled before, by a number of Christians. We will stick to the bare issues, so that all who read can (hopefully) see the basic dangers and aims clearly.

The various shades of this apostasy do not make any of it acceptable to Biblically sound Christians.
Some insist they are "good" Hebrew Roots ministries, opposed to the "unsound" Hebrew Roots ministries' emphasis. As Christians who are redeemed by the Blood of the Lamb, we rightly see only those who are redeemed, and those who are not.
Those Jewish people who will not accept Christ Jesus as Saviour are unsaved.
Those Jewish people who have accepted Christ as Saviour are CHRISTIANS.
There is now no Jew or Gentile in Christ Jesus, we are now Christians together. (Gal.3:28) .

All who are saved must come away from the old religious systems they adhered to before receiving new life in Christ. Jesus Christ is NOT a religious system which can be joined to another, even Judaism.
He is unique, He is the Lord God Who came to die for the sin of the world. He is Christianity Personified.

This statement is not issued in order to denounce the Jewish converts to Christianity. This is made to call to order those converts who refuse to submit to proper Church Age order. We live in times when the majority of the churches in Christendom have slipped away into New Age pseudo Christianity. There are few Biblical fundamentalists who will assess the situation, or challenge the stand of the Jewish converts. This statement is made to call to order those Christians who will not aid these converts by leading them deeper into Christ Jesus. It is made in order to save young Christians from being led astray into Judaising doctrines and teachings as they are presented by the HRM/ Messianic Jew Movements et al.

May God show us all Christ Jesus in all His glory afresh.

These are the Images apostasies we see in ALL shades of the HRM, or ANY, for that matter, who call themselves Messianic Jews/ Messianic Ministries:

1. The call is going our loud and strong for the Christians to recognise extra-biblical Jewish books.
These are supposed to give understanding of the Greek New Testament.
See our link online to the Preserved Greek Text book
This is basically a refusal to submit to the closed Canon of Scripture, preserved by the Lord in the Greek language. Whether Christians are from Jewish backgrounds or not, we must all recognise the authority of God's Word, as given to us in the Canon of Holy Scripture. No other books can or should be added to this Canon.
No controversy can be entered into on this point, no other authority can be accepted.
Jewish books do NOT enlighten Christians as to the "hidden meanings" of Scripture.
The deep things of God are shown to surrendered Christians by the Holy Spirit opening Scripture, not by Jewish books making the Bible plain!

2. The "Replacement Theology" controversy should be rightly understood.
Jewish converts seem to say, with the support of some other Christians, that they do not believe in "replacement theology". By this they mean that the Church has not replaced Israel, God has still got His Plan ahead for Israel and the Jews. This appears quite correct on the surface, but a subtle twist has entered in. The Jewish converts now believe that they are going to be used of God as individual Jews, and Jewish ministries, right NOW! Before the Tribulation. This is not Scripturally correct in any way. God is going to take up the NATION of Israel in the Tribulation period of seven years. Israel will return to the Lord God and mourn the One Whom they pierced. (Zech. 12:10). (After this Church Age is finished). God has never said that individual Jews, at the close of the Church Age, will come forth with Jewish teaching which they will tack onto Christian teaching! These are not Jews, anyway. Every Jew who was ever converted to Christ in the whole two thousand years of the Church Age has become a CHRISTIAN when he/she was saved. The converts from the Jewish religion must humbly join the Christian Church, not make a new merger with us and Judaism. With Jewish books and feasts and the rest of it. There is NO Hebrew Roots Movement/Messianic Jew et al  that is legitimate in the Christian Church! There is NO separation of the Body of Christ into Jew and Gentile.

The HRM and the Messianic Jew phenomena is not recognisable in Church history as being legitimate in any way.
The idea has arisen that the Jewish converts are being taken up and given a special ministry at the end of this Age. They are being used because of Biblical prophecy about God taking up the Jews again? As we have already discussed, this is not Scriptural at all! Instead of being One in Christ with the rest of the Christian Church, they are seeking a sort of "replacement theology" which is a back-to-front version of the replacement theology we have know previously in Church circles. This time, the Jewish emphasis, books and even would-be rabbis, are replacing Christianity and the closed Canon of the New Testament.  Neither error is acceptable! The Church has not taken over Israel in God's Plan, but neither can Judaism take over Christianity. ISRAEL, as a nation, will again come into her own in the TRIBULATION, after the Church is gone and the Church Age is closed. The HRM or Messianic Jew concept is NOT just a kind of Jewish Convert denomination. It is far more than that, it is the attempt by unsound Judaisers to commit religious adultery!
See the book of Galatians for more about this in the early Church.

3. The leaders of this remarkable move by the Jewish Converts (JCs) will not address the real issues. There has developed an unhealthy refusal to debate, to be confronted, or to submit to reason from the clear and plain Word of God. The Greek New Testament has been proposed by the JCs  as being not sound enough to be believed, as it is at present. Those who insist that the NT in our hands is reliable, our authority, and must be obeyed, are accused of being ignorant of the original Hebrew texts! We are being seen as those who are just not aware that the Reformers, who translated our KJV, were unsound and rather ignorant??? There is really no clear way to appeal to these JCs, as they are lost in the idea that they alone can find out the real meaning of the Greek New Testament, by bringing forth the Hebrew originals!
Christians who submit to such notions will find themselves deprived of the most important thing they have  - belief in the Bible which they hold in their hands. They will be deprived of another most important thing, religious freedom in Christ: the right to open and study the Bible for themselves. They will then return to a sort of dark age, where only the priests/rabbis can interpret Scripture FOR them. Why? Because only the Jewish converts/rabbis can read and interpret the Hebrew texts which THEY SAY are the authentic and correct New Testament. Out goes the Greek NT you have at home in your KJV, in comes the Judaic version with its priests/rabbis. It is on its way people, there are already priests like Dick Reubens in action. Oh, and let us not forget that anyone who opposes these stupendous moves are labeled at once by the JCs as being, "anti-Semitic."
Is all this important? You better believe it is!!!

4. A mountain of material is coming forth by those who see the desperate need to call the JCs and various Christian ministries to order!
The issues are so complicated, the documentation is vast, the answers given by the JCs are so wordy, that clear sense is hard to arrive at. There are a number of smoke screens going up from the JCs' camps. We need to examine these smoke screens carefully. One is that the critiques which are coming forth on the HRM and others are presented by ignorant people, who do know what they are talking about. Here the JCs cite their superior knowledge of Jewish books, and claim that they are NOT trying to replace the God preserved Greek NT with a Hebrew version. This is indeed a smoke screen, sadly. Even a casual visit to a HRM or Messianic Jew Website will show the reader that this is so.

5. A clear evaluation of what is happening at this time must be made,
FREE of two major stumbling blocks.
These are:
(a) AN EMOTIVE response to anything that even resembles criticism of people who are Jewish.
If any Jew was in danger of imprisonment on the grounds of their race, I and others I am sure, would personally defend them even at the risk of our own lives. For instance, what happened in Hitler's Germany. This issue of the HRM/Messianics has, however, nothing whatsoever to do with insulting Jews, racism, or discrimination. It has to do with the defense of Christianity and the Christian Scriptures. We are facing what could well develop into an overthrow of the Christian Reformation! This time by JCs who are determined to cast doubt on our faith by challenging the very Scriptures we have been given by the Lord.
They will not submit to the Greek New Testament, and are instructing others to follow suit.

(b) There is a mass of material surrounding the debates on the HRM and the JCs.
These may or may not contain material which has come from occult sources, why this is so or not so could be debated forever. This debate is in a way a side issue, and can be left for the moment. We must, in my opinion, evaluate the reality of the HRM and JCs,  FREE of confusing issues about sources and documents. Get onto common ground, and you will see clearly that we must not allow our Reformation Scriptures or our Greek NT to be overthrown.

6. The whole "Hebrew Roots" concept is so unbalanced and unscriptural;
that it is clear to see that the JCs and some Christian ministries lack CHRISTIAN teaching and study. In sounder times for the Church, Godly preachers and pastors would have grounded the JCs in the Faith of the Lord Jesus Christ. Today we are in midst of an unprecedented apostasy! The JCs have few Godly men to instruct them, few who even care if they re Images caught between Judaism and Christianity! They should be called upon by Godly men to press on toward the goal of their high calling in CHRIST JESUS. The idea that we all must go back to our "Hebrew Roots", in any way at all, is NOT Scriptural or Christianity. THEY must go on to the Reality in Christ, the OT is a mere shadow compared with the NT.  We can't accept the notion that the OT opens and enlightens the NT, and the old Jewish books (non-Canonical) will give light to the NT. The truth is the opposite! The NT opens the OT, and shows what the symbols and shadows really meant. It is by far the greater revelation, and the DEEPER things of God are found in the NT, not the OT. We are rooted, all of us, in CHRIST, the OT is filled with the glory of the Living Son of God, and the NT opens up His glory.

7. All sorts of false doctrines are already proceeding from the HRM/Messianic Jew Ministries and JCs. No wonder - they are not rooted in Christ Jesus.

"As ye have received Christ Jesus as Lord, so walk ye in him.
ROOTED and built up in HIM, and stablished in the faith,
as ye have been taught, abounding therein with thanksgiving." (Colossians 2:6,7).

"But what things were gain to me, those I counted loss for Christ.
Yea, doubtless, and I count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord: for whom I have suffered the loss of all things (compare verses 1-6),
and do count them but dung that I may win Christ.
...That I may know him, and the power of his resurrection,
and the fellowship of his sufferings, being made conformable unto his death."

We have seen doctrines from the JCs which would make any fundamental believer stand aghast!
Yet, if those presenting unsound doctrines and beliefs are ex-Jews, then they seem to be sacrosanct!
* We dare not say they are preaching against the Trinity;
* they are looking for "hidden" meaning in Biblical revelation just like Gnostics do;
* we are not allowed to say they should accept sound fundamental precepts, i.e. there is ONE interpretation, many applications; and
* we must not mention any leanings toward Unitarianism or British Israelism!
* We cannot insist that they must accept sound doctrines, or ordinary CHRISTIAN statements of faith - or anything else it seems.
If we do so, we have touched the belly of the sacred cow, and we face screams of  the "anti-semitic" variety. Christians cry "racism" and weep tears about the persecution being perpetrated against Jewish brethren!
This is NOT GOOD ENOUGH, brethren and sisters in the Lord. It is not good enough for the Lord we serve, or for the Jews He has shed His Blood for.   SNAP OUT OF IT! This is SERIOUS!

Faith Alone (In Christ Jesus);
Grace Alone (Through His shed Blood);
Christ Alone (No Jewish Traditions).

LUTHER said this in his day, more than four hundred years ago:

"If I profess with the loudest voice and clearest exposition every part of the truth of God except precisely that little point which the world and the devil are at the moment attacking, then I am not confessing Christ, however boldly I may be professing Him. Where the battle rages, there the loyalty of the soldier is proved; and to be steady on all battlefields besides is merely flight and disgrace if he flinches at that point."

Access Link here to our home site material re this issue.

P.S. MERCY AND TRUTH ARE INSEPARABLE!

The exposing of the TRUTH must always be accompanied by MERCY!
The Christian way of life is a way of godliness, and God is filled with mercy as well as truth.
The false doctrines and counterfeits which have been taken on board by people and ministries may well be disasterous spiritually. But we are still to have mercy upon those who have been deceived. Especially if those affected are basically sound doctrinally in most areas. We must always show courtesy, gentleness and compassion - or we are NOTHING!
 

"Let not mercy and truth forsake thee: bind them about them about thy neck;
write them upon the table of thine heart:
So shalt thou find favour and good understanding in the sight of God and man."
 (Proverbs 3:3,4).
"Not unto us, O Lord, not unto us, but unto thy name give glory, for thy mercy,
and for thy truth's sake." (Psalm 115:1).
"He hath shown thee, O man, what is good; and what doth the Lord require of thee,
but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God." (Micah 6:8).
"Be ye therefore merciful, as your Father also is merciful." (Luke 6:36)

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