Can you accept discipline or does your pride get the better of you?

How are you going to react when you are shown that what you believe to be true, is actually false? All of us who have come out of the Christian faith have had to face this scenario. But after coming out of the Christian faith, the great majority of people fall into a Messianic or Hebrew Roots group, thinking that they are now following the true faith.

Now the true test comes in here when you are confronted with truths and facts that contradict what you thought to be true. How are you going to react when you realize that what you believe to be true is, once again, wrong? 

The unfortunate thing is that the majority of people still subscribe to false teachings, as it suites them, and rejects the factual evidence of the truth. Many people do so as they cannot believe that they can be fooled again and many times are too embarrassed to acklowledge this, and that they would rather run away from the facts, than accept them. Is this not pride getting in the way of truth?

Many of the Messianic and Hebrew Roots people come to realize the Hebrew-ness of the Scriptures and get a very basic knowledge of the Hebrew language and culture. Then they act as though they are experts in the Hebrew language and at the same time come up with so many errors by breaking every Hebrew grammatical rule possible. And when they are approached with the facts, they fight with the person trying to help them. The same goes for the cultural aspect, e.g. the "feasts" and shabbat.  They are taught about them but also that it is not actually necessary to DO them.  For example, they are taught that it is only necessary to have a shabbat meal on the Friday evening and then can do whatever they like!

Let us look at one of the biggest errors that I am speaking of:

The majority of the Messianic and Hebrew Roots people proclaim the name of the Messiah as “Yahushua” or “Yahuwshuwa” or something similar. These are not correct. Yes, the Name of the Father (Yahu) is in His Son’s Name and is joined to the word ‘shua’ which means save. So the Name of the Messiah means “YHWH is our salvation” but joining these two words together to give us the Name of the Messiah is where the people go wrong. You see, we need to understand Hebrew grammar before we can just join these two words together. Let me explain:

When joining two words together, the suffix (in this case “shua”) always retains its form, whereas the prefix (in this case “Yahu”) always shortens its syllables. For example, NATHAN + YAHU = NeTHANYAHU, and YAHU + NATHAN = YeHoNATHAN. This is always the case, and I challenge anyone to go and look it up in any Hebrew dictionary or lexicon or grammar book and show me that this is not true.

So the true Name of the Messiah is YAHU + SHUA = Yehoshua, which still holds the meaning of “YHWH is our salvation”

This is just one example of many!

Now when I have tried to help people with this factual evidence, I have been met with hostility and hatred without them being able to prove these facts wrong. These people who claim to be believers in the Torah of YHWH refuse to accept truth and rebuke the righteous people who lovingly try to help them… where have you seen this before? It looks a bit Christiany to me. These people look at the facts and claim that it is only opinion… what foolishness!!! How can you say that it is an opinion when it is factually documented and cannot be disproven? It would be good to be like the Bereans and go and search the Scriptures (Tanakh) to search for the truth.

After such hatred, I posted on my Facebook wall that “all those who are not interested in the truth, should rather unfriend me as I will be proclaiming only the truth” I could not believe how many Messianic and Hebrew Roots people unfriended me almost immediately. This proves to me that the Messianic and Hebrew Roots is not the true faith of the Messiah Yehoshua. I have also stated the fact that I have not met one Messianic or Hebrew Roots follower that keeps the Torah of YHWH. They say they do, but their actions say otherwise.

Let me tell you about the instance when I walked into a Messianic book store to ask them if I could leave some pamphlets there for guitar lessons. I was immediately asked, by one of the store owners, if I was Torah observant. I could not believe my ears. I had a beard and wore tzitzit that was clearly visible, and that person could not identify me as a Torah observant person. This is because the Messianic people are not taught the true meaning of the Torah and therefore, cannot recognize the Torah or its followers, even if they were hit in the face with it. I realized that I was speaking to a Christian who had a little bit of a Hebrew flavor. The book store had more Christian books than anything else. No wonder they are so ignorant of the true faith. 

People want to mix their Christianity with SOME Hebrew flavour, but do not see that the two cannot mix.

This is unfortunately the truth about Messianic and Hebrew roots groups, they are Christian groups with a Hebrew flavor. They get together in small groups where a “leader” will teach them what the Scriptures say. Every group has a different set of beliefs (denominations) like, those who follow the lunar Sabbath, or those who subscribe to the false teaching that a Scriptural day starts at sunrise and some even sacrifice lambs still and many other false teachings like these. Not one of them keeps the Torah in its entirety.

Neither the Messiah nor His disciples were Messianic or Hebrew Roots, but rather obeyed the Torah of YHWH fully. They did not have a title, nor did they follow anyone else, but learnt from the Torah of YHWH, which the Messiah magnified.

Now… only those who are righteous will humble themselves and accept the truth, no matter how silly it makes them look.

Let us look at a few verses that were written by the wisest man to have lived (Other than the Messiah of course).

“The fear of יהוה (YHWH) is the beginning of knowledge; Fools despise wisdom and discipline” (Proverbs 1:7)

“Blessed is the man who has found wisdom, And the man who gets understanding;

For the gain from it is better Than gain from silver, And its increase than fine gold” (Proverbs 3:13-14)

“He dies for lack of discipline, And in the greatness of his folly He goes astray” (Proverbs 5:23)

“Listen to discipline and become wise, And do not refuse it” (Proverbs 8:33)

“He who heeds discipline is in the way of life, But he who refuses reproof goes astray” (Proverbs 10:17)

“Whoever loves discipline loves knowledge, But he who hates reproof is stupid” (Proverbs 12:1)

“Poverty and shame are for him Who ignores discipline, But he who heeds reproof is esteemed” (Proverbs 13:18)

“He who ignores discipline hates himself, But he who listens to reproof gets understanding” (Proverbs 15:32)

“The fear of יהוה is the discipline of wisdom, And before esteem is humility” (Proverbs 15:33)

“Listen to counsel and accept discipline, So that you are wise in your latter end” (Proverbs 19:20)

“Bring your heart to discipline, And your ears to words of knowledge” (Proverbs 23:12)

“The way of a fool is right in his own eyes, But he who listens to advice is wise” (Proverbs 12:15)

I think that you get the point. I love discipline as it leads me to righteousness and keeps me on the narrow road. I accept it with joy and thanksgiving.

Now are you going to follow the way of righteousness and accept discipline and knowledge with joy and thanksgiving? Or are you going to remain proud and reject knowledge and truth? This is the difference between being wise or being a fool.