RELIGIOUS MASSES OR RIGHTEOUS REMNANT

Through the sacrificial blood of the Lamb, men were purchased for YAHveh from every tribe of Israel and every Gentile nation. YAHshua has “made them to be A KINGDOM AND PRIESTS to our God.” (Rev 5:10)

The priests of the Old Testament were chosen “to stand and serve IN THE NAME OF YAHveh forever.” (Dt 18:5) When YAHveh called Israel to be His people, they were to be a forerunner and example of His modern-day priesthood, the redeemed as one new man. Through the New Testament, YAHshua commissioned the righteous remnant of both Jews and Gentiles to become priests in the service of the Most High.

“And coming to Him … you also … are being built up as a spiritual house for a holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices [of your pure and spotless lives] acceptable to YAHveh through YAHshua Messiah. … But you are A CHOSEN RACE, A ROYAL PRIESTHOOD, A HOLY NATION …that you may proclaim the excellencies of Him who has called you out of darkness into His marvelous light …(1Pe 2:4-5, 9)

In the final book of the Old Testament, the prophet Malachi addressed a religious community whose worship had degenerated into a lifeless perpetuation of empty forms and traditions. The name Malachi means “messenger of YAHveh.” It was through this prophet that YAHveh issued a message of rebuke to His faithless priesthood. The prophet exhorted the people to repent and reform their ways in order to regain YAHveh’s blessings rather than the prophesied judgments to come.

YAHveh’s heart grieves over the compromised priesthood of today’s religious masses. Listen to the heavenly Father’s cry as recorded in the book of Malachi: “A son honors his father, and a servant his master. Then if I am a father, where is my honor? And if I am a master, WHERE IS MY REPECT?’ says YAHveh of hosts to you, O priests who despise MY NAME. … You are presenting defiled food [hypocritical sacrifices] upon My altar. …” (Mal 1:6-7) Cursed is the cheat, cursed is the thief, cursed is the robber who has an acceptable male in his flock and vows to give it but then sacrifices a blemished animal. You have a life to give Him and He says you are cursed if you don’t give it to Him and you bring Him some cheap sacrifice of lip service, a little religiosity.

I beseech you brethren, by the mercies of YAHveh, that has shown mercy to you, to pour out His Son’s blood to redeem you to Himself as a pure and righteous people, to bring Him praise, honor and glory. I beseech you, to offer yourselves, EVERYTHING, body, soul, spirit and mind upon His holy altar, an acceptable sacrifice made holy through repentant hearts that are covered in the blood of YAHshua, which is your due and reasonable service. And it is His due!

A holy sacrifice of your lives, because He says, “Be holy for I, YAHveh am holy.” There is no in between. Do you understand that? YAHveh is going to judge the world in righteousness and the enemy has deceived the whole world. There is a broad path that the multitudes in religion go down and they think its ok, they are going to be just fine. He says, “No!” The door is going to close and many are going to stand there saying, “Lord, Lord, I cast out demons in your name, I prophesied in your name…” He will say, “Get away from Me you hypocrite. You hypocrite! You confess Me with your lips but your heart is far from Me and I don’t know you. You do not do the will of My Father and you are going to be cast out with those who never professed to know Me.” These are His words.

In the book of Zechariah we are told about a scroll that would be magnified 15 X 30 feet. He said, “in a day of darkness and gloom the scroll would be opened and people would begin to understand.” They wouldn’t complain anymore because the darkness on the earth is going to become so dreadful that all of a sudden they are going to realize I’ve got to give Him everything. But why wait that long? Open your eyes, it is at the door, judgment is at the door, it is in the door! Now is the day of salvation.

People want peace, peace, sweet, soft, cuddly love, grace messages. The grace is, the blood of the Lamb is on the altar and when you repent of your transgressions of His righteousness your sins will be forgiven. That is grace! It is not to keep on sinning and in the process trample the blood of the Lamb under your feet and treat as an unholy thing the blood that sanctifies. What a salvation! What a high price beyond compare has been poured out on our behalf. Should we give Him anything less than our whole lives, body, soul, spirit, mind, all of our gifts, all of our talents, all of our energies, all of our strength, all of our might, to serve Him, to honor Him, to glorify Him? We do this because we fear His name and want to, out of love and wholeheartedness.

The Holy One abhors half-hearted, compromised religious sacrifices and says to His priesthood: “Oh that there were one among you who would SHUT THE GATES, that you might not USELESSLY KINDLE FIRE [the fiery fervor of religious rituals and traditions] on MY ALTAR! I am not pleased with you,” says YAHveh of hosts, “nor will I accept an offering from you.” (Mal 1:10)

Going through rituals and motions, sitting on pews, “useless fires,” because you have no intention of obeying Him fully. You are going to give Him some half hearted maimed sacrifice. He is not going to accept your lip service, you can cry out to Him all day and all night, but a humble and a contrite heart that trembles at His word and obeys it, these are the hearts He will listen to. If you don’t have any intention to love Him with all your heart and because of that love obey Him - HAVE A GOOD TIME! Go and be cold, go and join the world because this is going to be the end of all of your joy and fun.

Let your yes be yes and your no be no. Either you want to serve Him wholeheartedly, in complete obedience and find out what pleases Him and do it or you are just a hypocrite. He says, “Beware of that yeast.” It puffs you up with religious pride and you think you are fine before Him, and He says, “a useless fire you have lit.” You brought Me an unacceptable sacrifice. Close the door I don’t even want to see or hear from you. Yet, you go about in deception thinking, I’m fine, I’m a Christian, I pray. These prayers are not heard because sin has locked the path.

YAHveh’s name is to be great. He is going to have a remnant who glorifies and honors His name because they fear Him, love Him, and they do His will at any cost. They will be rejected and despised because of it, for the world hated Him first and they are going to hate them. It is going to be very difficult for the righteous but He will protect them. They will have all the eternal promises that are for His righteous remnant.

YAHveh sees what is going on in our hearts. There are people who are going to say and have said, “I’m going to a traditional church and I do not want to hear all of this stuff," just like Israel said, “tell us sweet messages, tell us messages of peace, peace. Do not keep giving us these hard messages. Stop confronting us with the Holy One of Israel.” But YAHveh said this sin of rejecting My word is going to become for you a cracked wall and it is going to fall and you will be under the rubble because you did not want to hear from Me, much less obey Me. You would prefer deceit, it is much more comfortable and think, “What a burden, I don’t like YAHveh’s holy requirements.”

YAHveh said to exhort and admonish the people. Most people don’t like that. Give me peace. Stop confronting me with all this holiness. I don’t like this table, I don’t like the food on it. I’m going somewhere else where I can get just pie and deserts and everything that is sweet and nice and appeals to me. He will spew you out of His mouth just as you spew out of your mouth, turn up your nose and say, "I don’t like this holy banqueting table. I don’t like going around being separate and peculiar while the rest of the people I hang around with have a life of fun, and this and that. I can go to church, I can go to Bible studies, I can do this," but He says, “No!” “Separate yourselves, touch no unclean thing, come out of this world and be separate and then I will accept you unto Myself and I will be your God and you will be My people.” Could it be clearer?

YAHshua said, “My food is to do the will of My Father." That is to be our food and if you do not like that particular banqueting table and all its ingredients - DINE OUT! Because He doesn’t want to see you anyway until you repent and call His banquet pure and holy and satisfying beyond all else.

“For from the rising of the sun, even to its setting, MY NAME WILL BE GREAT AMONG THE NATIONS, and in every place INCENSE [holy prayer] is going to be OFFERRED TO MY NAME, …FOR MY NAME WILL BE GREAT AMONG THE NATIONS [Gentiles],” says YAHveh of hosts. “But you are profaning it, in that you say, ‘The table of YAHveh is defiled, and as for it’s fruit, its food is to be despised.’ You also say, ‘My how tiresome it is!’ And you disdainfully sniff at it,” says YAHveh of hosts …” (Mal 1:11-13)

The Almighty’s full counsel, including the Old and New Testaments, is also a banquet table. YAHveh desires to take a righteous remnant up to the mountain of His glorious presence. There, in the midst of His Shekinah glory, He has prepared many delicacies of truth reserved for this last great hour. The redeemed remnant will rejoice as they feast at His table, but the religious masses will turn up their haughty noses as they “sniff” at His feast with contempt.

“And YAHveh of hosts will prepare a lavish banquet [great spiritual blessings] for all peoples on this mountain; A banquet of aged wine [He has saved the best wine for last], choice pieces with marrow [spiritual nourishment], …And on this mountain He will swallow up the covering [of deception including religious apostasy] which is over all peoples, Even the veil which is stretched over all nations. He will swallow up death for all time… (Isa 25:6-8)

He is inviting the humble and spiritually hungry to be blessed as they partake of this holy banquet. In Messiah’s words: “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied” (Mt 5:6).