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Obedience:  The Summation of All Scripture

Romans 6:16
Do you not know, that to whom you present yourselves as servants in obedience, his servants you are whom you obey; whether of sin unto death, or of obedience unto righteousness?

All of Scripture can be summed up in a single word:  obedience.  But this is not an obedience to just anything or to just anyone as the opening passage of Scripture aptly points out.  Each person has two options as to who they will obey.  One can obey sin which will lead one to death.  Or, one can live righteous obedience which will lead one to life.  Please make no mistake about it, every person is doing one or the other and there is no middle ground.

It is at this very point that much of Christianity falls into death.  Why do we say this?  It is because much of Christianity today teaches that the Torah (Law) has been fulfilled and thus a believer does not have to obey the Law (Torah). On the other side, there are those who teach that obedience to the Torah (Law) is all that one has to do. This too is in error.   However, either of these mindsets will lead one straight into the clutches of death. To truly understand what Shaul is teaching in this regard, one needs to see and understand that this obedience that he is referring to here, is not obedience to the letter of the Law (Torah).  Rather, it is obedience to the Law of the Spirit – the Torah of the Spirit.

Now, mind you that the Spirit of Mashiach which was in Yeshua, led Him to keep and obey each and every one of the Torah commandments.  If a person is subsequently filled with His Spirit after he has been saved, then this same Spirit that led Yeshua to keep and obey all of the Torah commandments, will also lead him in keeping and obeying all of those same Torah commandments.  Any spirit that leads one to blatantly or intentionally disregard or disobey any of the Torah commandments is the spirit of anti-Mashiach.

When a person obeys His Spirit, then His Spirit will lead one into the experience of salvation through repentance of all sin.  What does not make sense, is for a person to go through all the effort of repentance and confessing his sins to Elohim, and making all things right with Him, and promising to live for Him in all things, then to turn right around and return back to the life and lifestyle one just repented of living.  Does that make any sense to anyone at all?  It sure does not make any sense to me!

Kepha Bet (2nd Peter) 2:21-22 
21 For it would be better for them not to have known the way of righteousness, than after knowing it, to turn back from the holy commandment delivered to them.
22 It has happened to them according to the true proverb,
The dog turning to his own vomit again,
and the sow that had washed to wallowing in the mire.

Notice that when a person turns away or turns back from following Yeshua, he is turning back from following the commandment.  Which commandment?  It is the commandment to obey Him in all things great and small.  It is the commandment which leads to life everlasting. 

Luqa (Luke) 9:62 
But Yeshua said to him, “No man, having put his hand to the plow, and looking back, is fit for the kingdom of Elohim.”

It is rather odd that much of Christianity today practices this very thing; that once a person has been saved, he can live and do however he pleases, for he is now under grace and not under the Law (Torah).  However, the truth is, that as soon as one breaks the Law he becomes subject to the Law.

Ya’aqov (James) 2:10 
For whosoever shall keep the whole Torah, and yet stumble in one point, he is become guilty of all.

When a person obeys the law as found in the community in which he lives, he is not bothered by the authorities.  However, as soon as one breaks any law in that community (local, state, country), then he becomes subject under the law and can be arrested, and most likely will be, as soon as his lawbreaking becomes manifest to the authorities.

Yochanan (1st John) 3:4 
Every one that does sin does also lawlessness; and sin is lawlessness.

We could have translated this verse just as rightly, to read in English as:

Every one that does sin does also Torahlessness; and sin is Torahlessness.

Those places in the English translations of Scripture in which the word “Law” is found comes from the Hebrew word “Torah”.  So lawlessness is one who is without Torah.  So, in order for a person not to be subject to the Torah, one must obey the Torah.  It is this obedience to His Torah instructions which brings us life.  But this obedience must not be an obedience in which one does so just to the letter of the law.  Rather one needs to obey the Spirit of the Torah as well.  Yeshua taught us this in many ways.

Matithyah (Matthew) 5:20 
“For I say to you, that except your righteousness shall exceed the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, you shall in no wise enter into the kingdom of heaven.”

Make no mistake about it, these scribes and Pharisees were very, very serious about observing each and every little commandment.  However, they missed some of the bigger, more important things found in the Torah as Yeshua points out.

Matithyah (Matthew) 23:23 
“Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites!  For you tithe mint and anise and cummin, and have left undone the weightier matters of the Torah, justice, and mercy, and faith; but these you ought to have done, and not to have left the other undone.”

Please note that Yeshua taught us right here, that we should actually be keeping the Torah.  But the sad thing was, that those who were teaching the Torah were missing the weightier matters found in the Torah, namely: justice, mercy and faith.

Here is the thing about legalism.  Most often it does the very thing found in this passage in which the minutiae of the Torah are focused upon to the exclusion of those things that are, as Yeshua put it, the “weightier” matters.  When this happens, it makes it difficult for those who desire to live for YHWH to do so in a manner that is pleasing to Him.  For, the natural reaction to legalism is for one to go too far in the other direction and end up in licentiousness, which is living without any restraints whatsoever. 

Legalism is also about man sticking his nose into YHWH’s business of declaring what is right and what is wrong.  When man declares what is right and what is wrong, then he is eating of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.  We have been commanded not to eat the fruit of this tree.  This commandment is still standing and has not been voided or rescinded.  This was the very problem of the scribes and the Pharisees.  They were in the habit of following the dictates of man and man’s ideas on how one should obey His commandments.  In this they went too far and voided His commandments in favor of keeping man’s traditions.

Matithyah (Matthew) 15:6b-9
6 “And you have made void the word of Elohim because of your tradition.
7 You hypocrites, well did Yeshayah prophesy of you, saying,
8          ‘This people honors Me with their lips;
But their heart is far from Me.
9          But in vain do they worship me,
Teaching as their doctrines the precepts of men.’ ”

There is nothing wrong with traditions as long as a tradition does not cause a person to violate any of His Torah commandments.  Some traditions can actually help us to understand the commandments better.  However, the thing with traditions is this: they are not commandments.  And just because one person chooses to keep a tradition which does not violate Torah, does not mean that he can force another to keep that same tradition.  Commandments are binding upon us because they are from YHWH.  Traditions are not binding upon anyone because they are manmade.

It is the present tradition in Christianity that the Law has been fulfilled and thus not to be followed.  But if one does not have the Law (Torah), then this by its very definition means that one who is without the Law is lawless.  Scripture has much to say about those who live a lawless life or a life without Torah.  This is not all that difficult to see or understand.  However, one must be willing to live a lawful life, a life that is actually pleasing to our heavenly Father, to see the validity of this kind of life.

Satan is the lawless one.  It is his desire for all those who follow him to be lawless just as he is.  So, if one is living without the Law, if one is living without the Torah, then he is living exactly as Satan lives.  Satan is not obedient to YHWH, but is in outright open rebellion of His Torah commandments.  Satan and all his followers desire that you and I would live outside the Law (Torah) as well.  Make no mistake about it, all those who live outside the Law (Torah) will die in like manner. 

The Law (Torah) was given to us by YHWH to protect us so that we could live in harmony with Him and with one another.  If a person refuses to live inside of these boundaries given by YHWH, then he is outside the Law and is a lawless one, just like Satan!

Satan will use any means possible to get a person to accept the idea that one should not live according to the standards of YHWH.  Satan uses many religious people to accomplish this very thing every day.  He must sit back and laugh at the absurdity of it all, that there are those who say they love Mashiach Yeshua, but then turn right around and do not obey His commandments.  Yeshua taught us that if we love Him then we will obey His commandments.

Yochanan (John) 14:15 
“If you love Me, you will keep My commandments.”

Now, before one can understand what this means he needs to understand who said it.

Shemot (Exodus) 20:6 
“and showing mercy to thousands of them that love Me and keep My commandments.”

The Person who said “love Me and keep My commandments” is the same Person in both cases.  He is the Giver of the Torah – the Giver of the Law.  In the first case, upon Mount Sinai to Moshe, it was the Son in His pre-incarnate manifestation.  In the second case it was Yeshua, the Word made flesh.  But the truth is that it was the same Person in both cases.

What this shows us is at least two things.  It shows us what Yeshua meant when He said that those who love Him “keep My commandments”.  The commandments Yeshua was referring to were the commandments given to Moshe by Him.  It also shows to us that these commandments that He gave to Moshe are still valid today, for Yeshua said that if we love Him, then we will obey these commandments that He gave to Moshe. 

Please note what the primary requirement is for those who desire to be a part of His people.

Shemot (Exodus) 19:5 
“Now therefore, if you will obey My Voice indeed, and keep My covenant, then you shall be My own possession from among all peoples; for all the earth is Mine.”

In this verse, the word “obey” is the Hebrew word שמע – “shema” which means “to hear with the intent to obey.”  In this particular verse, this word שמע occurs twice back to back, thus we find in this translation (ASV), the second occurrence is translated as “indeed” for emphasis. 

What YHWH is saying is that if those who desire to be His people will hear and obey His Voice with the intent actually to obey what they hear from Him, then those people will belong to Him.  But if a person hears His Voice but does not have the intent to obey, then such a person does not really belong to YHWH as a possession from among all the peoples of the world.

Speaking through the prophet Moshe, YHWH knew that these people that He had brought out from the bondage of Egypt would not hear and obey His Voice and that He would have to discipline Israel severely for their disobedience and following after the ways of the nations around them.  So YHWH gives us a prophetic word which speaks to us in our day concerning this matter of hearing and obeying His Voice.

D’varim (Deuteronomy) 30:1-3 
1 “And it shall come to pass, when all these things have come upon you, the blessing and the curse, which I have set before you, and you shall bring them to mind among all the nations, where YHWH your Elohim has driven you,
2 and shall return to YHWH your Elohim, and shall obey His Voice according to all that I command you this day, you and your children, with all your heart, and with all your soul;
3 then YHWH your Elohim will turn your captivity, and have compassion upon you, and will return and gather you from all the peoples, where YHWH your Elohim has scattered you.”

D’varim (Deuteronomy) 30:8-10 
8 “And you shall return and obey the Voice of YHWH, and do all His commandments which I command you this day.
9 And YHWH your Elohim will make you plenteous in all the work of your hand, in the fruit of your body, and in the fruit of your cattle, and in the fruit of your ground, for good; for YHWH will again rejoice over you for good, as He rejoiced over your fathers;
10 if you shall obey the Voice of YHWH your Elohim, to keep His commandments and His statutes which are written in this book of the Torah; if you turn to YHWH your Elohim with all your heart, and with all your soul.”

Every person who loves YHWH as his Elohim and accepts Yeshua as Mashiach will have to come to that place in his life in which he will choose to obey the Voice of our Master Yeshua.  This includes keeping His commandments; all of them.  Not just the ones he likes, but each and every commandment that He has given to us; we are to keep and do them all.  This is the essence of the word שמע – “shema”: to hear and obey His Voice.

It is this word that actually embodies the summation of all of Scripture.  This word embodies all the words of all the prophets that YHWH spoke through to His people Israel.

Ivrim (Hebrews) 2:2 
For if the word spoken through messengers proved steadfast, and every transgression and disobedience received a just recompense of reward;

There is something that Satan does not want us to know and understand.  It is, that every time we disobey YHWH, either His Voice or His commandment (there is really no difference), YHWH must punish us, i.e., discipline us as His sons.

Ivrim (Hebrews) 12:6-7 
6 For whom YHWH loves He chastens, and scourges every son whom He receives.
7 It is for chastening that you endure; Elohim deals with you as with sons; for what son is there whom his father does not chasten?

This is one of the things that Christianity by and large has fallen woefully short on in teaching from Scripture.  YHWH is high and lifted up and He is qodesh (holy) and set-apart.  Because this is true, He must discipline and/or punish all disobedience in His children.  But what happens when a person fails to realize and see discipline for what it truly is?

Hoshea 4:6-9 
6 “My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge; because you have rejected knowledge, I will also reject you, that you shall not be a priest to Me; since you have forgotten the Torah of your Elohim, I also will forget your children.
7 As they were multiplied, so they sinned against Me; I will change their glory into shame.
8 They feed on the sin of My people, and set their heart on their iniquity.
9 And it shall be, like people, like priest; and I will punish them for their ways, and will require them of their doings.”

If a person continually rejects the discipline of YHWH, then at some point he will be destroyed because he does not understand this simple truth found in Scripture.  I have seen sickness, tragedy, and many other things beset a person, and all he ever says is that Satan is attacking him.  Now mind you, Satan does attempt to destroy us and brings all sorts of hardship upon us.  However, it is different from that which YHWH brings into our lives.  So how does one tell the difference?  Simply, we ask YHWH.  But if a person never asks YHWH if this is from Him and is He disciplining him, then how will he know?  Most likely he won’t, which means that at some point he will be destroyed by this discipline.  The truth is, that the longer one takes to respond to the discipline of YHWH, the more severe it becomes.  We see this in the life of Pharaoh.  Each plague from YHWH became more and more severe as Pharaoh refused to submit to the discipline of YHWH.  This discipline included the death of his firstborn son; and then when Pharaoh refused to submit even to this, Pharaoh himself lost his life.

Ephesians 2:2 
Wherein you once walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the powers of the air, of the spirit that now works in the sons of disobedience;

The question that each one of us must ask ourselves is this:  Am I a son of obedience or a son of disobedience?

Ephesians 5:6 
Let no man deceive you with empty words; for because of these things comes the wrath of Elohim upon the sons of disobedience.

As we have said above, Christianity today teaches that one is under grace and not under the Law, and therefore should not keep the Law.  But if one is not keeping the Law, then he is a son of disobedience which leads to death.

Now mind you, that at one point in every person’s life, we all were without exception a son of disobedience.  It is only through the everlasting compassion of YHWH towards us that we have come to know the truth about Mashiach Yeshua, and through Him given access to eternal life.  But He has taught us to keep His commandments.  This is not something that we can do on our own.  In fact, it is impossible for us to do this in the flesh.  This is why, over and over again we are admonished to walk in the Spirit.  When we walk in His Spirit, then we not only can, obey the Torah, but we will, obey the Torah. 

Kepha Bet (2nd Peter) 2:9 
YHWH knows how to deliver the righteous out of temptation, and to keep the unrighteous under punishment unto the Day of Judgment;

It is mainly up to the individual as to which group he will place himself in: either with the obedient righteous or the disobedient unrighteous.

Ivrim (Hebrews) 4:6 
Seeing therefore it remains that some should enter into, and they to whom the good tidings were before preached failed to enter in because of disobedience,

This section of Scripture from Ivrim is dealing with entering the rest of YHWH.  The writer teaches us that Israel failed to enter that rest because of disobedience.  Now, the Scripture plainly teaches us that YHWH our Elohim is no respecter of persons, meaning that He holds all to the same standard.  So, if those in the past failed to enter into His rest because of disobedience, then all those who are disobedient now will also fail to enter into His rest.  One aspect of His rest is eternal life.  The disobedient shall not have eternal life with Mashiach Yeshua.

Ivrim (Hebrews) 4:11 
Let us therefore give diligence to enter into that rest, that no man follow the same example of disobedience.

Those who teach one to disregard the Law (Torah) and follow after some other mandate, which is usually manmade, are teaching disobedience.  Those who walk this path cannot, and will not, enter into His rest.

Ivrim (Hebrews) 12:5 
and you have forgotten the exhortation which reasons with you as with sons,
My son, do not regard lightly the chastening of YHWH,
Nor faint when you are reproved by Him;

YHWH speaks to us as sons.  When a father speaks to his son, he expects his son to obey him.  When his son does not obey him, then discipline is sure to follow.  Likewise, this is true of our heavenly Father towards us as well.  This includes you ladies as His daughters as well.

Ivrim (Hebrews) 12:11 
All chastening seems for the present to be not joyous but grievous; yet afterward it yields peaceable fruit to them that have been trained by it, even the fruit of righteousness.

It is difficult to be disciplined!  It is not a pleasant experience to have to endure this.  However, when a person submits to discipline, then the outcome will be a better person.  Surely we all want and need to be better people.  Surely I do; don’t you?

Ivrim (Hebrews) 12:8-10 
8 But if you are without chastening, of which all have been made partakers, then are you bastards, and not sons.
9 Furthermore, we had the fathers of our flesh to chasten us, and we gave them reverence; shall we not much rather be in subjection to the Father of spirits, and live?
10 For they indeed for a few days chastened us as seemed good to them; but He for our profit, that we may be partakers of His holiness.
 
Those that are not disciplined simply do not belong to YHWH our Elohim.

What I have been noticing a lot, and perhaps it is just YHWH simply opening my eyes to something that has always been there, is that He seems to be stepping up the discipline on His people.  Why would He do this?  We are headed into some very rough times in the near future.  These times will be hard to endure.  But endure them we must.  In order for us to make it all the way through this time of tribulation, we must be able to hear and obey His Voice.  This is what YHWH is training us to do: to hear and obey His Voice.

When He speaks to us, He expects us to obey Him.  He actually expects us to obey Him right away.  Instead, what we often see and what we often do is to delay obedience.  This all too often ends up in outright disobedience in the long run.  YHWH is simply not pleased with this in our lives.  So He is attempting to discipline it out of our lives.  The problem is that most do not willingly submit to this discipline. 

If a person is not faithful in obeying His Voice in the little things, then how are they going to survive the Great Tribulation when obeying His Voice every single time is a matter of life or death?  And we mean this quite literally: life or death. 

It will be seen then for what it really is in a much easier fashion, when we see a man die simply because he did not obey YHWH in a timely fashion.  But the truth is that it is a life or death matter right now.  The only difference is that now, it is more spiritual than physical.  But the physical life and death is soon to match with the spiritual in this matter.  When a person disobeys the Voice of YHWH now, he dies spiritually.  The time is coming when this will also include his physical life as well as his spiritual life.

Yochanan (John) 10:4 
“When he has put forth all his own, he goes before them, and the sheep follow him; for they know his voice.”

It is imperative that we know the sound of our Master’s Voice.  For if a person does not know it, then he opens the door for an imposter to come in and he would follow the imposter rather than our Master Yeshua our Mashiach. 

We are to know His Voice.  We are to obey His Voice.  We are to obey His Voice right away without delay.  This is the path to life and that eternal.

Matithyah (Matthew) 11:30 
“For My yoke is easy, and My burden is light.”

This is not a difficult matter that is before us.  We do not have to fret about tomorrow.  In fact, Yeshua taught us not to do that.

Matithyah (Matthew) 6:34 
“Be not therefore anxious for tomorrow; for tomorrow will be anxious for itself.  Each day has enough evil unto itself.”

All we need to do is to obey Him right now.  Do not worry about tomorrow.  Do not worry about later today.  Do not worry about five minutes from now.  Do not worry about what your friends and family are going to think of you for obeying His Voice.  Just do it.  Just do it right now. 

Then, as one’s obedience to His Voice right now stacks up, one ‘now’ upon another ‘now’, it will lead to an entire life of ‘now’s lived in obedience to His Voice.

ABBA YHWH, fill us with Your Spirit that we might live in loving obedience to You every moment of every day.  In the name of Yeshua our Mashiach we pray.  Amein.

Shabbat Shalom
Zerubbabel ben Emunah
www.onetorahforall.com
zerubbabel@onetorahforall.com

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