I quite agree about natural farming and the bane of pesticides and artificial fertilizers. Leaving fields fallow for a year, as instructed in Torah, is also important for the rejuvenation of the soil which like us needs its sabbath rest for revitalisation.

The unity. I believe this will happen. It is called new world tolarance. The scriptures states that we should seek peace with all men. But also that Messiah did not come to bring peace but a sword. This does not mean that we are against peace although many others that claim to know him are. We need to just be decerning while seeking peace, his word is sharper than a two edged sword. To men in the kingdom of darkness, when they find out that this sword seperates us from them they will hate us. One other point is that many that don't know Messiah feel like we are trying to be more than what we are. Remember in the garden Elohim said man as become like on of us, Messiah said it is written you are Gods. This is not a blanket statement, but think on it, we cannot force anyone to come to Messiah we are told only to proclaim and compell them to come. Also since we are many let our voices be heard for the sake if the next generation, if Messiah tarries. We must be gentle as serpents and harmful as doves. The harvest is indeed plentifull. Thanks for your topic it is much needed. We trully need to represent the Messiah in Spirit and truth and that is peace.

Shalom

I agree, Earl. My question was more along the lines of how should we, as believers, go about making common moral cause with those of other religious persuasions or of no religious persuasion at all without compromising our own beliefs? I am thinking here of the basic sense that all decent people - whether converted or unconverted - have that will allow all men and women of good will to co-exist.

Hello Everyone,
I think this is a very interesting topic. I tried to post a few days ago and lost the post. I was repling to Earl's comment. I also feel that we are headed in the direction of an one world order. I feel the concept of an one world order is born from scripture, and perverted by man. Because mankind can not wait on the promise that the Word will become flesh again, he (mankind) creates action related to the promise before the prescribed time thereby perverting the promise. One world order created by mankind will happen, but it will come at a great cost to the three religions that profess YHWH as the one true GOD. Jews, Christians and Muslims. A secular group with more power than most are willing to admit is already at work fulfilling this concept by creating a world bank, a world court, and the most important one to us as Christians a world government. A government's real function is to provide civil order and a protection system for its citizens. Once a citizen acepts this civil structure and protection they become indebted to the system. They begin to serve the system. I believe in YHWH, country, and family in that order. Without YHWH there is nothing. Without a country we have no civil place to raise our family. I don't trick myself into believing that I am not a servent to my country. They take 33% percent of my wages every week to remind me of that fact. I also know that the word civil implies laws and laws govern morals. So governments control a society's morals by controlling the laws of that society. In a sense all a government really does is to control its citizens by a network of laws that are created to reflect that society's morals. We as citizens are now obligated to obey the law because we are indebted to the government that created those laws and indoing so we let the government slowly pervert our sense of moralty by acepting laws that are designed to effect our sense of right and wrong. The new push (relatively speaking) and a dangerous one I might add, is the concept of humanism. That will be the apporach from which the one world government will grab its power. But first there is a small matter of how do they unite the world's nations. Change on a scale such as the one we are speaking can only happen with violence. Now don't misunderstand me I do not condone violence for any reason. What I am saying is that many zelots from the three religious groups I mentioned earlier are only too willing to solve precieved differences with violence. Those in power know this and will use those zelots to start a so called "holy war". After the smoke settles the powers to be will say look at what those religious zelots did to our societies how can any good come from religion. The time will then be ripe to rid the world of religion and then fill the void man has in his soul with humanism. There is a concept that we have in our society today that will be lost before the Word becomes flesh again. The concept that humans should Love and serve YHWH with all their might and heart. Don't be fooled or distracted from the true mission of all Follower's of The Way. Shalom

I agree with you in most areas here. Where I would differ is in putting country before family. It is a collection of families and individuals that together make up the country. In Israel's ideal form of government, you have a Confederacy of families, clans and tribes - there was no central state structure during the times of the judges. Centralised power has always been a temptation for despots which is why Nimrod invented the system in the first place - see The Empire of Nimrod. We have been programmed to think 'Federal' whereas in Yahweh's system of nations there are no federations or unions, only devolution of power. I have tribal and national affinities for sure but my first loyalty is always to Yahweh and family. One reason (aside from the whole slavery issue) that the Confederate System in the American South was hated so much was because by its very nature it was less suscenptible to manipulation and control by the then federal 'globalists'. The way I see it, the more devolution of power there is, the more possibility there then is for different systems citizens can then choose between. Different interest groups can establish different state systems and then prove whether such systems work or not without the manipulation of big finance (true the love of mammon is the root of all evil).

The areas of our allegiance to national government are defined Scripturally and do not include all areas that big government claims. Realistically, government and the people (at least some of them) are always in tension which is why there is constant movement (at least in democratic systems) and pressure for change. Of course our democratic systems have become subverted, as we all know, and we long ago passed the point where we had any 'real' deocracy - it's now mostly all illusion and show.

My family will always come ahead of my country because my family is a unit of what makes a country anyway. When my country's ideals are allied to Yahweh's then my allegiance to country proportionally grows. Families are eternal, countries are not. Three centuries ago the USA didn't exist, and 1,500 years ago Britain did not exist. But families always have and we can (theoretically) trace our family roots all the way back to Adam. No country can do that. So I view allegiance in terms of truth and permanance. Our countries may very will vanish altogether in the Millennium - what are they anyway? They're just concepts. The only country of any permanence is the Eternal City.

So, yes, I have obligations to my country but they are within certain parameters even if the government of the day may tell me otherwise. My obligations are to pay taxes (even if they are unrighteous - I will not make the mistake of Kent Hovind), pray and support the nation's leaders (in righteousness, as well as recognising the importance of governance) and supporting laws that bring righteous order to protect citizens. If a law says I can no longer preach the Gospel, then like the Christians of the former USSR, I must politely refuse, doing so with intelligence and wisdom. If needs be, I must leave the country. What happens when there is One World Government and I cannot become a refugee to another country? Well that's where we come in - Yahweh has told us to make prepartions to build 12 cities of refuge, beginning with spiritual preparation now. Then there is a real choice to leave Babylon, as commanded, or remain behind and meet the inevitable fate of those who would not leave as Lot did.

That's my view.

Hello Everyone,
Lev you make good point about not putting government before family. I too would never put a man made government before my family. Many times people confuse governement with country and rightly so because they are two threads of the same fabric. A country has also been called the motherland, the fatherland, and the homeland all the phrases used here to describe a country interjects a family structure into the concept of a country. I would go as far as to say the word body and country may be interchangeable for the sake of our conversation and the smaller family unit which you describe in your reply as a cell within the body or even a function of the body such as the foot or the hand. It is written that if the lesser offens the greater then cut it off. If the hand offens the body then cut it off. Christ did not come as an one who united the smaller family structure but as the oppsite, one who caused division in the smaller family structure for the good of the body/the greater Lk 12:52. It is written that the families of Israel were subjected to 40 years wandering in search of a country or body. If the lesser (the family unit) didn't need a concept that collectivly (the country or body) represented a greater power than the family unit then why did YHWH place such importance on establishing a place for the smaller/lesser to inhabit. I submit that when Moses presented the ten commmandments to the tribes of Israel they became a country and from that time forward the concept of the smaller sacrificing for the common good was written in stone. YHWH could not have presented a better example of this concept that the sacrifice of his Family Member (the Son) for the collective Body. I feel we are not that far apart with our concepts just the terminology. That is why communication in a civil forum is an important process in the building of a city/country for which travlers may find refuge for their families during times of tribulation. The word tribulation has as its root the word tribe which represents a body of smaller family units. So when we have tribulation, many times it starts with a disruption in the function of the lesser (the family/tribe) placing unbearable stress on the greater the (tribe/country) if the lesser disruption could be identified and addressed (many times with a tribunal) then order would be restored to the greater. Now that is a great truth, which is now being and will contuine to be preverted by humanism theology until a one world order is established and they (humanist) will use the perverted truth to keep order once it is established. I feel humanism is the theology of the evil one. Shalom

All sound points. I would also add the observation that the Body of Messiah is not a "Church" (which is a modern invention) but a NATION too. The Nation of Israel (not the Israeli Republic) has never ceased - it simply has a new national covenant (the New Covenant) and a new King (Yah'shua), both of which the rulers of Yah'shua's day rejected, thus ceasing to be Israelites any longer and reverting to no more than a biological identity as Jacobites, Judahites, Levites, etc. illegally occupying the geophraphic land, the terms of occupation being felicity to the National Covenant. So they were dispersed by the Romans. The covenant land is STILL under foreign occupation, this time by Ishmaelites and Edomites, the latter having a firstborn right to rule on probation and proving by his probation that he does not fulfil the conditions of either the first or the new covenant (I speak of secular and religious Judaism) because he still rejects the Messiah. Thus the country is not under covenant protection (hence the success of militant Israel, the never ending cycle of violence, etc.). So we are still a country in dispersion, and will remain so until Yah'shua returns. So my country is first and foremost Israel (not the Zionist variety, but the Messianic one) before my 'natural' one. Thus we find ourselves in the peculiar situation of being citizens of fallen earthly nations in the secondary sense and citizens of a heavenly country which we are not permitted to possess yet in the primary sense. We are, physically speaking, back in Egypt holding a variety of "Egyptian" passports (US, UK, Canadian, Norwegian, etc.).

Humanism, whilst superficially resembling Christianity in some respects, is basically a religion of the flesh and so by definition comes from the evil one. It has the appearance of righteousness sometimes but lacks the substance, because it is religion without Elohim (God).

Thank you for pointing out the tribulation/tribe connection - I had never heard that before.