Pedro Melendez

There are many who believe and preach that Christians should only love God and not fear Him.  To prove their point, they would refer to 1 John 4:18, where it says, “There is no fear in love; but perfect love casts out fear, because fear involves torment.  But he who fears has not been made perfect in love.”

There, they say, it is clear that if we love God, we wouldn’t fear Him, because if we fear Him, our love for Him is not perfect.

How do we explain this particular scripture, which seems to contradict other scriptures that, clearly, exhort us to fear God?

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Not everyone who says to Me, “Lord, Lord,” shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father in heaven. Many will say to Me in that day [the day of Christ’s bodily return to earth], “Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in Your name, cast out demons in Your name, and done many wonders in Your name?'”And then I will declare to them, “I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness” (Matthew 7:21-23, NKJV).

Those are chilling words which Jesus Christ will say to certain people at His return! If you truly believe in Jesus as your Lord, you will want to make sure you won’t hear Him, at that time, telling you, “I never knew you; depart from Me…”

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In Part 1 and Part 2 of this series, we discussed the history and traditions of the Jews regarding God’s weekly Sabbath and the first four of God’s feasts. [See: God’s Feasts and the Jews — Part 1 and God’s Feasts and the Jews — Part 2.] We pointed out how the Jews have unwittingly fulfilled or missed out on certain steps in God’s plan of saving all of mankind. In this third and last part of the series, we will discuss how the Jews have observed the last three of God’s feasts: the Day of Atonement, the Feast of Tabernacles, and the Last Great Day.

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In Part 1 of this series [see: God’s Feasts and the Jews – Part 1], we discussed briefly the command of God to observe His weekly Sabbath and His feasts (Leviticus 23) and how His people — the nation Israel — kept these feasts at the start. Then we saw how the kingdom of Israel split during the reign of King Rehoboam, and how the southern Kingdom of Judah continued to observe these feasts, while the northern Kingdom of Israel (under its first king Jeroboam) forsook these feasts and established festivals which he “devised in his own heart.”

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When the word or name “Jew” is mentioned, many people would associate it with a race of people who are distinguished for their observance of the seventh-day Sabbath and the Feasts listed in Leviticus 23. Besides these, the Jews are also known for their traditional national holidays (most notably Purim and Hanukkah) and their strict adherence to the dietary law in Leviticus 11 and Deuteronomy 14 — even going beyond that by observing more rigorous kosher laws —  and many, many other traditions. Of course, Jews are very much in the news today because of the worsening fight between “Israelis” and neighboring Arabs. [See: God’s Kingdom and Israel. It will explain why the Jews’ claiming their nation to be Israel is a Biblical error.]

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In many evangelical circles, it is the generally accepted belief that Jesus came to oppose or put an end to Moses — to that body of writings called the “Law of Moses” or the “Mosaic Law.”  That law consists of what the Jews call the Torah — the first five books of the Old Testament (Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy).  In a word, the belief is that Moses and Jesus are contraries — opposites — even at odds with each other.

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The issue of salvation “by grace through faith” and “not of works” (Ephesians 2:8) has challenged people, who find themselves on either side of the fence. The issue, simply, arises from the nature of the apostle Paul’s writings which, as the apostle Peter admitted, contains “some things hard to understand, which untaught and unstable people twist to their own destruction, as they do also the rest of the Scriptures” (2 Peter 3:15-16).

Thus the divide between those who believe and teach that salvation is by grace alone — without works — and those who believe and teach that salvation is by grace — plus works.

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There’s a common understanding and belief that, for Christians, who we are in Christ is more important than what we do. That all that matters is that, in Christ, we are forgiven; what we do after that is less important, if not unnecessary. That any “works” we try to “add” would actually detract from the “finished work” of Christ at Calvary. [See: Law Added to Law Transgressed, Freed From Bondage,  God’s Spirit and Obedience and  Saved for Good Works.]

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Almost a year ago my wife and I had our first-ever opportunity to visit the Great Wall of China, in the outskirts of that great nation’s capital, Beijing. Like most everyone who’s been there, we came away with great awe at the marvel of the massive and extensive engineering work done by these ingenious people long, long before the time we call “the modern age.”

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