The point Yeshua makes in Mark 7:18-23 is that ceremonial washing is not necessary for spiritual purity or sound spiritual health because unwashed hands do not defile anybody’s “heart”/spirit. It each person’s stinking thinking that spiritually defiles his or her own “heart”/spirit or mind.
I am doing what all saints of Yeshua should do – set the record straight about the Black Friday graphic that has Yeshua on the cross flanked by two criminals. Many versions of this graphic have been posted for years on Facebook, but, sadly, they all have been posted not only to confirm Yeshua died on a Good Friday but also to confirm that that Good Friday was a black Friday. The truth is that Yeshua never died on any Friday – neither good nor black or otherwise.
ALL the Hebrew and Roman religious leaders’ traditions of men that have been added to the Word of God are why so many believers in Christ who will be living right before the Tribulation Period begins will be so unprepared and unalert. They will be the carnal believers and the natural men and women (unbelievers – Jews and Gentiles) who will miss the Rapture and end up suffering during the Tribulation Period.
Even though all believers in Christ are promised eternal life, all believers must understand that believing is more than giving intellectual assent to Christ’s Existence or His Redemptive Work. Believing also means Christ’s Ekklesia (His One Body of Believers or One Community of Faith Believers) is His collective Bride who uses everything He gave to Her to help Her become His saintly Overcomers.
When the apostle Paul says the righteous believers are NOT meant to go through God’s end-times Wrath, the apostle Paul means exactly that. So that God would not pour out any of His Wrath upon His righteous sons and daughters, He poured out His full cup of Wrath upon His only begotten Son, Jesus the Christ. As a result, the Bride of Christ (every born again, saved, justified, and fully sanctified Jew and Gentile) would be RESCUED from (would escape) ALL of the end-times Wrath to come!
God established the Feasts of First Fruits and Pentecost as moveable Feasts that fall 50 days apart, on the Sundays that follow regular weekly Saturday Sabbaths. Today is the 50th day after First Fruits 2014 or the Sunday after the seventh Sabbath, which means it is Pentecost Sunday.
It is a huge interpretive mistake that always causes many to identify the Bride of Christ as the Tribulation’s “elect.” The Bride of Christ absolutely is not the Tribulation’s “elect,” because the Scriptures show that it is the spiritually blind Jewish people, the unbelieving Gentile masses, and the unprepared, unwatchful Body of Christ members who are the ones who will experience the Tribulation Period. The Bride of Christ (the faithful, obedient, prepared, and watchful Body of Believers) is raptured before the seven year Tribulation Period ever begins!
Many Messianic Jews and Christ-believing Gentiles agree that the Feast of Trumpets primarily is a picture of The Rapture—the “snatching away” of the alive Bride of Christ. Yet, despite the fact that biblical Scriptures and Jewish traditions are in harmony with each other about the “last trump” or last trumpet being the shofar blast that marks the start of Yom Teruah or the Feast of Trumpets/Rosh HaShanah, many people still want to claim that the “last trump” is the seventh judgment trumpet in Revelation.
The Bible neither suggests/states that the Rapture will be unexpected for EVERYONE nor does the Bible suggest/state that the Day of the Lord will be unexpected for EVERYONE. On the contrary, Christ Jesus clearly implies that the Rapture ONLY will come as a thief in the night to the unprepared and unwatchful believers. Likewise, the apostle Paul clearly states that the Day of the Lord ONLY will come as a thief in the night to those individuals who are in “darkness”—to those very surprised ungodly and immoral unbelievers!
The Divine Truth that can be found in the Holy Bible is that Father God wants His children, and the Lord wants His disciples, to strive to be holy in every aspect of life—to see no evil (to not look at anything that can cause us to sin), to hear no evil (to not listen to ungodly advice), and to speak no evil (to not speak corrupt communication)!
