Misled

Being Misled

What do you do when you find out that someone has misled you?  Many of us get mad and lash out in some way.  The sad fact is that people lie to each other.  When we catch a friend or family member in a lie, our trust in that person is shaken and in many cases, it is shattered.   The extent to which that trust is shattered is in direct proportion to the size of the lie.  Small lies are most times overlooked while big lies take time to be repaired.  Sometimes these big lies cause irreparable damage resulting in one never having anything to do with that person.  One of the biggest reasons for divorce is dishonesty.  None of this is new information.  

There is a lie that I am going to tell you about that may shake you to your very core.  This lie is so big that a very large percentage of the population have fallen because of it; friends, loved ones, fellow church members, co-workers and even your casual acquaintances, are its victims.  I say, victims because that is exactly what they are.  This lie goes so deep that the poor people who are being held victim to it don't even realize what has happened to them.  The worst part of this is that it is being furthered by those we want to trust the most; the church.

I use the term church very loosely, as I don't wish to alienate one specific denomination.  It's not the Catholics, the Baptists, the Methodists, or the Presbyterians.  It's not the Messianics, the Charismatics, or any of the other thousands of other denomination which claim to be of the Christian Faith.  It is all of them.  In fact, this lie, which the church perpetuates, is rooted in the idolatry thousands of years older than the church itself.   

Background

No matter what a specific Christian church calls itself doesn't matter.  They all hold to the idea that Jesus is the Messiah foretold in the Hebrew Scriptures.  Each denomination holds fast to their own version of the narrative, but for the most part, they can all agree on this one point.  It is not my intention to pick apart any one denomination for their beliefs.  The fact is that the people in each denomination believe what they do because of what they have been taught.  These teachings go back two thousand years to the time of Jesus.  It is generally accepted that Jesus lived in Israel during what is called The Second Temple Period.  (538 BCE to 70 CE), and that he was the Messiah. 

The New Testament tells us the story of Jesus and the early church as well as those credited with its beginnings.  The writers of the New Testament tell us that everything that happened during this time was foretold in the Hebrew Scriptures.  They mention various passages from scripture as evidence of this.  This is where the problems start.  This is where the lies begin that have been destroying lives for centuries in the name of God.  

According to Scripture, I use this term to mean only the Hebrew Scriptures included in the Hebrew Bible and not the New Testament, the Messiah will be the King of Israel and a descendant of King David (1040 - 970 BCE).  This becomes a problem for Jesus because his lineage is questionable.  The New Testament gives two, very different lineages for Jesus.  One can be found in the book of Matthew and the other in the book of Luke.  There is a problem with both of these lineages so whichever one you choose, they both disqualify Jesus as the Messiah.  Matthew's lineage includes an ancestor named Jechoniah (Mt 1:11).  Jechoniah was cursed by God so that none of his seed would ever sit on the throne of Israel. (Jer 22)  The lineage in Luke is through David's son Nathan and not through Solomon.  Both of these problems alone disqualify Jesus as the Messiah.  You will never hear this in church, but you can easily look it up for yourself in your own Bible.  This is only one of many examples.  My purpose is not to outline all of the misinformation in the New Testament.  I will go into these in a later entry.  If this surprises you or you are in doubt, I urge you to look it up in your own Bible.  

The Test

Deuteronomy 13:4 tells us that God will test the Children of Israel with false prophets.  Remember, Jesus came to the Jews.  Christianity didn't spread to the gentiles until after his death.  The first part of Deuteronomy 13 explains how to determine if someone is a false prophet.  Anyone who teaches anything other than what was given through Moses is a false prophet; even if thy do miracles. Miracles are not indicative of someone being either from God or being God.  Deuteronomy 13 is the reason the Jews, as a whole rejected Jesus.  

Many Jews failed this test.  All those who followed after Jesus because of the miracles he did, failed to see what was really happening to them.  They were being tested.  Over time, those Jews who followed Jesus dwindled until there were no more.  By the end of the first century and into the second century, Christianity had become a religion of the gentiles only.  

Back to Today

Over the last year I have been studying the Scriptures and have found this truth.  The church is nothing more than a test that was given to the Jews two thousand years ago.  But it gets worse.  The Christian Bible contains both the Old and New Testaments.  We are told that the Old Testament is a translation of the Hebrew scriptures.  It is not.  Many of the Scriptures have been changed in order to fit the narrative of Jesus as the messiah.  The day I learned this was the day I left Christianity. Apparently, the entire chapter of Isaiah 53 is not about Jesus at all, as we are told.  It is about Israel.  This is the case in many of the Messianic Prophecies in the Christian Bible.  Once I realized this chapter, one which has been the cornerstone of Christianity, was being misrepresented, It was all over.  Without Isaiah 53 there is really nothing left.

Many of the messianic prophecies quoted in the New Testament aren't messianic at all.  Most of them are about the Hebrew people.  One of the more famous ones is the Emanuel prophecy.  Matthew 1: 21-23 describes how Mary, the mother of Jesus, was found to be pregnant.  An angel appears to Joseph and says, "Joseph, thou son of David, fear not to take unto thee Mary thy wife: for that which is conceived in her is of the Holy Ghost. 21 And she shall bring forth a son, and thou shalt call his name JESUS: for he shall save his people from their sins. 22 Now all this was done, that it might be fulfilled which was spoken of the Lord by the prophet, saying, 23 Behold, a virgin shall be with child, and shall bring forth a son, and they shall call his name Emmanuel, which being interpreted is, God with us."(KJV)  This story is told in churches around the world at Christmas time.  The problem is that the prophecy to which this refers is in Isaiah 7:14.  In the Christian bible it says, "Therefore the Lord himself shall give you a sign; Behold, a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel."  This sounds like it fits just right.  Now read it in the Hebrew scriptures, "Therefore, the Lord, of His own, shall give you a sign; behold, the young woman is with child, and she shall bear a son, and she shall call his name Immanuel."(Complete Jewish Bible)  Notice it says "the young woman (not virgin) is with child, (not shall conceive).  The young woman was already pregnant when Isaiah gave this prophecy to King Ahaz.  But, this doesn't end here.  When you read the entire chapter of Isaiah, you will see that this prophecy is something completely different.  It is not about the messiah at all.  It is about King Ahaz grandson Hezekiah, who would rescue his people.  When reading the Bible, you must always read it in context.  One could simply pull a line out and make it mean anything.  This is what the Christian Bible has done; taken things out of context and superimposed a different meaning to it.  In other words, it is a lie.  There are examples just like this all over the New Testament.  The problem is that many Christians do not ever read the Old Testament.  When they do, it is specific verses taken out of context.  In this example, they read Isaiah 7:14 but not the rest of the chapter.

So What Now

This leaves me in an interesting position.  What am I?  Currently, I am what is called a Noahide.  A Noahide is a person who adheres to the seven laws given to Noah after the flood.  They are as follows:

Do Not Deny God

Do Not Blaspheme God

Do Not Murder

Do Not Engage in Incestuous, Adulterous or Homosexual Relationships.

Do Not Steal

Do Not Eat of a Live Animal

Establish Courts/Legal System to Ensure Law Obedience

These laws, or rather, groupings of laws; there are deeper aspects to each one, are very easy to follow.  So, how come you've never heard of them?  The one-word answer is religion.  There have been countless religions throughout the history of the world.  Many of them revolve around things like the sun, the moon, the earth, etc. People have made up religions around almost anything.  Over the centuries, various aspects of some got molded into another.  This is seen in Christianity with the celebrations of Easter and Christmas.  Both of these holidays have their roots in ancient pagan religions.  Easter is the celebration of Ishtar, the goddess of fertility.  Christmas is the celebration of the winter solstice.  These holidays were Christianized  so many years ago as a way to appease the people who celebrated these holidays originally in an effort to include them into Christianity.  There are many other "gods" with the same characteristics as Jesus.  Some of these characteristics include being born of a virgin, born on December 25th, resurrected after three days, and several others. These pagan holidays can be traced back to ancient Babylon and its first king, Nimrod.

Christianity today exists for one reason, to perpetuate Christianity.  To do so takes huge amounts of money.  Participants are expected to give a portion of their income to the church.  They call it tithing. Tithing, as they describe it does not exist in the Hebrew scriptures.   Tithing is used to pay for the church and the things that the church decides that it needs.  Scripture describes four different tithes, none of which went to the Temple.  Yet, every time the church brings up tithing it goes to the old testament.  "Bring the tithes into the storehouses," they quote.  Tithes went to the Levites so they would have food to eat.  The Levites, in turn, gave a portion of this to the Priests so they would have food to eat.  Now, every third year, the people would bring their tithe and would eat it themselves. The Temple received one shekel per person per year.  It was not a tithe.  This was over and above the tithe and went to the Temple.  The Temple didn't get the tithes at all.   If you want to see a difference in your life, give that portion of your income to charity.  (I will expound more on this in a future post about forgiveness.)

Make a Decision

The information I am giving you here may have shocked you.  That's normal.  If you are in the church I can't urge you enough to follow up on this.  Please, don't take my word for it.  What I think, or say, doesn't matter.  Go to The Bible and look these things up for yourself.  You have been told that God is three.  You have been told that Jesus is the son of God, the prince of peace, the son of man.  With this I will leave you two things.  Deuteronomy 6:4 "Hear, O Israel: The Lord is our God; the Lord is one." (not three but one). Psalms 146:3 Do not trust in princes, in the son of men, who has no salvation.4 His spirit leaves, he returns to his soil; on that day, his thoughts are lost.5 Praiseworthy is he in whose help is the God of Jacob; his hope is in the Lord his God.6 Who made heaven and earth, the sea and all that is in them, Who keeps truth forever.

Copyright 2015 by:

William Bouker