For the last five years, I spent much time wondering why our Awakened nation is so painfully divided, a fact that increases as time goes on. I remember thinking I had reached Utopia when I landed in the Torah & Tanakh Only community: after all what more confusion could be between us now that the wickedness of the New Testament was gone? But not a year after leaving the death of the New Testament (a release for which I will praise YAH forever) our social media pages became abuzz with those claiming that the commandments we are called to return to for salvation and to be gathered again (Deut 30:1-11, Isaiah 59:30, Jeremiah 3:14) are no longer applicable in captivity, also or anywhere outside the land, despite the triumph of Daniel, Shadrach and Abednego; and the Ten Commandments though given to our ancestors are ultimately accountable by all men (Ecc 12:13).
So between the Awakened Ones who still believe in the New Testament and the Torah Community who no longer believe in Torah is a livable reality, it’s not a stretch to say that the majority of the Awakened community is divided. By the time we add in those among the Torah & Tanakh Community who believe Jeremiah’s plea is literal (“flee from the land of Babylon and save your lives each one of you,” 51:4) and somehow usurps the law and all other testimony that says it is YHWH who will save and deliver… matters even become more complicated. And to be fair to my siblings who, in a whole hearted effort to save and deliver themselves, have packed up and moved to the deserts of America, W. Africa and even what is called modern day Israel, the prophet Jeremiah is not alone in his call to flee Babylon as the prophet Zechariah says so as well. Nevertheless it still appears as if all context is thrown to the wind as the plethora of scripture (“no more shall they say as YHWH lives who brought the children out of the land of Egypt but rather as YHWH lives who brought the offspring of the House Of Yisrael from the land of the north and from all the lands which HE has scattered them.” Jer 23:8) is ignored and salvation suddenly becomes a geographical cure, a remedy that is no way supported in scripture. In truth the prophet Joel beckons us not even to be concerned about our attire yet a geographical space as our salvation would depend on YAH’s analysis of our heart: “Therefore now saith YHWH, turn even to ME with all your heart and with fasting, and with weeping and with mourning. Rend your heart an not your garments and turn unto YHWH your Elohim…” 2:12-13
By the time one spends enough time in our community to realize that we also cannot agree on the matter of Sabbath, and are splintered into subsects that keep it from sunset to sunset Friday to Saturday, and some only sunrise to sunset Saturday and yet others according to the rotations of the moon; and add in too matters around polygamy…it seems the only thing Awakened Yisrael believes in common is that Negroes are indeed the twelve tribes of Yisael. But unfortunately even there one cannot rest as there are many of us that believe in the 12 Tribe Chart made by Abba Givens, a former and now deceased leader in our community who posited that while the southern tribes (Judah, Benjamin and Levi) are from black west Africa…the descendants of the greater Northern tribes are not from Africa but are native to north and south America as represented by meso-indians, a people whom we are almost as biologically and geographically different as Europeans. Nor can anyone explain in any logical historical processes how this multi-racial nation of ancient Israel came about or even in modern terms respond to its lack of geographical boundaries according to the Law: “the ALMIGHTY shall drive you and the king set over you to a nation neither you or your fathers have ever known…” Deut 28:36
And no doubt all these differences among us is the fact that YHWH is testing us, finding those among us who still don’t want to honor HIS law, including Sabbath; those of us given to such self hatred that we look at a whole continent of people (Africa) who look just like us and say no, I am not from there, and would rather embrace the Cherokees as brothers even though they held our people in the bondage of slavery in America no different than the European. YHWH has not only found those who still reject HIM as Savior and cling onto the heathen’s savior JC/Yahusha/Baal but even those who have decided to be their own Saviors and Deliver themselves. And I too didn’t understand the meaning of it all…until a brother wrote on my facebook page, likening YHWH as the tempter with the tree of life but even more profoundly he said: YHWH is HE who causes you to know yourself through HIM, and by HIS law we are all revealed as obedient or not.
And this makes sense to an extent after all the demon Paul did write succinctly and clearly in 2 Thessalonians 2:10-12 the purpose of the Piso book or New Testament: “And with all deceivableness of unrighteousness in them that perish; because they received not the love of the truth, that they might be saved. 11 And for this cause God shall send them strong delusion, that they should believe a lie: 12 That they all might be damned who believed not the truth, but had pleasure in unrighteousness.” However I will never see YHWH as a tempter: for HIS love is unparalleled and there’s none that wants the bloodlines of Abraham more to pass HIS test. Still it can’t be refuted that since the beginning, YHWH did warn us of HIS nature: “If there arise among you a prophet or dreamer of dreams…saying, Let us go and worship other gods…YHWH your Elohim is testing you to see if you really love HIM with all your heart and all your soul.” Deuteronomy 13:3. In the end I only know that if we don’t keep this part of YHWH’s nature in mind always then we don’t know HIM and if we don’t Him, we cannot walk with HIM and we are lost.
It certainly would help to understand the beginning, even before the fall of Levi and the rise of the scapegoat (Leviticus 16) but when Ilblis/Baalim-Goim refused to bow to Adam and instead he would show YHWH that he was better than HIS man; and the allotted time (called AD) he was given to live out his nature, to deceive, to turn everything upside down and reversed (“woe to them that call good evil and evil good,” Isaiah 5:10 ); because maybe even YHWH realized something about HIS beautiful creation that day in the Garden: if he could be deceived into disobedience than he was crooked too no different than Ilblis, the Crooked Serpent, Baalim-Goim. And for it YHWH wrote through the prophets so long ago: “For though thy people Yisael be as the sand of the sea, yet a remnant of them shall return: the consumption decreed shall overflow with righteousness.” Isaiah 10:20-23. So we will be tried and tested and tried and tested. “Two thirds shall perish and die and one third of it shall survive. That third I will put into the fire and smelt them as one smelts fire. And will smelt them as one smelts silver and I will test them as one test gold. They will invoke me by name. And I will respond to them. I will declare you are My People and they will declare YHWH is our Elohim.” Zechariah 13:9
When you consider that Ilblis and his line (Genesis 3) are also referred to as the man forged from fire, made with a sulfur-based melanin (that makes them smell peculiar when their hair is wet) some believe we are living the above prophecy as we speak. Nevertheless YHWH is certainly beckoning us to reexamine deceit and all manner of it: till this moment we always thought it was evil and the deceived as innocent, naive–victimized. Now we know there is something just as flawed in the one who is deceived and even comes to love that deceit and maybe this is best examined in our enemy now who despite their butchery in all cultures of the world, who has indeed destroyed the planet but constantly refers to itself as good and the countries of their origins such as America as Great! America, the greatest land in all the world, they say. Yes from YHWH’s perspective the deceived are no different than the deceiver. Inherently evil and doomed. “With HIM is strength and wisdom: the deceived and the deceiver are HIS.” Job 12:16
In the interim we must understand that this constant trying by YHWH ( “to humble thee, to prove thee, to see what was in thine heart whether thou would keep his commandments,” Deut 8:2) naturally inhibits our own organizational efforts, family interactions and even our friendships are often usurped by our choice in doctrine as no doubt YAH will decide who will be family and also resident of the nation of Yisrael: “…I will take you one from a family and two from a city and bring you into ZION.” Jeremiah 3:14 And in reading the prophets, should we even be surprised to the extreme that each of us will be tested by YHWH? Did HE not especially send the prophet Jeremiah to the Rechabites for the purpose of offering them wine; just to see if they would break their vows and drink? But they refused, remembering their ancestor’s vow and were spared the fall the other families of Judah were soon to experience. Yes, because the descendants of Rechab past their test and had broken no other commandments while the rest of Judah had only destruction to look forward to; and their descendants to go into slavery where YHWH would not hear their prayers or acknowledge their suffering…the prophet Jeremiah spoke to them, “…assuredly thus saith YHWH Of Hosts there shall never cease to be a man in the line of Jonadab son of Rechab standing before ME.” Jeremiah 35:19