IAUA End Time Ministry
Preparing for the End of Time
The Lord is Coming! Are you ready?
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IAUA End Time Ministry |
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Preparing for the End of Time | |
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Dear Brothers and Sisters in
IAUA
(ee-ah-oo-ah) our Father,
Greetings on this day of preparation for the weekly sabbath. I hope this newsletter finds you in good health and happy in the service of the Lord. It is amazing how often I find that people do things because it is "traditional". Someone, sometime, somewhere decided to do something a certain way and everybody kept on doing the same thing. The reasons why are lost in antiquity but people keep on doing it no matter what. Before long the power of these traditions becomes so strong that people with fight and argue to keep doing things the way they have always been done. Now, not all traditions are bad. Many traditions are valuable keepsakes of our past which give life continuity and provide comfort. There is a severe danger when traditions lead us astray from the path set for us by God. The Bible speaks often of the damage of the many Jewish traditions which came to be honored over the words of the Bible. These traditions became so great after the time of the Messiah that they became the writings of the Talmud and Mishnah which rival the importance of the Scriptures. The apostasies of the Apostolic church in the Dark Ages resulted in traditions which are held by most to be more powerful than Scripture. Tradition can lead us astray so subtly. Someone, somewhere, sometime comes up with a saying and after enough people repeat it the result is considered Bible truth. The new "truth" can sound so good and be so reasonable. This is one I have heard so often. "God helps those who help themselves." As far as I know this is not a biblical statement. If you know different, please enlighten me. I have discussed this with several Bible teachers and pastors. No matter how reasonable the statement, it is not scriptural. The subtle danger is to encourage us to self-reliance. I was reading an interesting news item about a controversy in Iraq. There is no clear-cut rule for weekends in the Middle East and other Muslim countries in the region. A two-day weekend is the American/European tradition. This works reasonably for the Judeo-Christian tradition. In Muslim countries this creates a problem. Iraq followed the tradition of the conservative countries Iran and Saudi Arabia which only give Friday off. Iraq recently decided to implement the typical European weekend. In many Baghdad districts, including Shiite-dominated Sadr City, students and civil servants ignored the decree and went to school and work on Saturday. At Sadr City’s al-Fazilah secondary girls school, all 400 girls showed up for class. In other Muslim coutnries such as Lebanon, the weekend starts at 11:30 a.m. Friday and includes Sunday. In Jordan, the weekend is Friday and Saturday. Bahrain, Egypt and Kuwait have Thursday and Friday off. The devil is having a ball confusing the people of the world with traditions instead of God's truth. There is a lot of anti-semitism behind this. Saturday is rejected for a weekend because it is considered a Jewish holy day. Many in the Adventist church, including major evangelists, reject the statutes and the annual Sabbaths. These are referred to as "Jewish" laws and practices. I have heard several comments from Doug Bachelor, currently broadcasting the evangelistic series "Prophecy Code", ridiculing those who observe the feasts. You can hear one of these at the video for March 9 Meeting #5 time 46:12: http://www.prophecycode.org/Resources/Video/PCVideo/ProphecyCode_5.asx Those worshipping on the true Sabbath suffer this same kind of derision for observing a Jewish day. Quoting Doug Bachelor: March 5 Meeting #2 51:00 Whenever you're in doubt believe the safe thing. I am absolutely certain that the statutes are binding. I wonder if he is absolutely certain they are not? May we all find peace in the name of Yahushua (Ee-ah-oo-shoo-oh) Messiah, the son of God. Shabbat Shalom
Frank T. Clark
Next: 2005-03-14 Tradition revisited |
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Revised 2005-03-14 |