A Battle of Cultures

Matthew King
Mar 18, 2002

Here is another E-mail that I received from a messianic Jewish club on the web. The reason I wanted to post this letter is because even though this man has probably never seen my web site, he does back up several pages in this letter. Although, he does not make the jump that I do, linking the high taxes of a welfare State to the woman having to work to help make ends meet. He does a good job pointing out something that most churches feel inclined to reject. That Jesus Christ come to save you FROM your Greekness, not IN your Greekness. Check this out, ~Matt~
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Have you ever wondered how a family or home could actually be run? In modern times, you have both the husband and the wife working outside the home, and the children are sent from school to day care. A good home cooked meal is something that may happen once or twice a week, and conversation at the dinner table is almost forgotten. No one seems to have the time to sit down and eat, let alone talk to one another, and when you do sit down, usually there is either silence or fighting. So it is truly difficult to understand exactly how that those people in scriptures cold eat, and could take a day and spend it in celebration. Our view of the Scriptures is seen through the tinted lenses of our modern world. But have you ever stopped to think what those people in the Scriptures would say if back then, they could look ahead and see us today?
That stove or microwave oven that you can not seem to not use even for one day would be non-sense to them. The car that you drive would be useless to them. All the money the jobs make for you would be foolish to them. And you ask yourself why?

They would tell you that everything begins with family. We are HaShem's family, they would say, and if you are too busy running between jobs and taking your children here and dropping them off there, going to this meeting or that party, then you do not have time for the true Patriarch of the family – HaShem. We look forward to eternity because there will be no cares or worries there, and we can finally relax. The piece to the puzzle that we are missing is that He already gave us one day a week like that. A day to step back and say, "Everything else is put aside because I have royalty that is coming to my house today." HaShem gave us the Shabbos to relax and to think about Him on. "Oh but Rabbi, you are forgetting that the Shabbos has been done away with," Christians will say. "Oh but Rabbi, you are forgetting that times have changed," the reformed, conservative or secular Jews will say. "Oh but you are looking at the physical," I will say. You see, there are two realms co-existing with one another, with one dependant upon the other. These two realms, the physical and the spiritual, are on top of one another. The first level of heaven "the spiritual realm" is air. What do we need to breathe to survive? Air. So we are already surrounded by the Spirit realm. But the one of the biggest differences between the two realms is that while the physical realm is tied down to point, distance, and time, the spirit realm does not have any of those three to tie it down. So we see, what was in the beginning is today and will be tomorrow, for there is not concept of time. We say that the lifestyles are different and the cultures are different and they call for different ways of doing things. But to say things have changed and to compare two societies or cultures is to compare two different times. There is no such thing in the spiritual realm. So there has been, is, and will be only one culture.

"Oh but Rabbi, you can not prove that in Scriptures." Oh but I can. Malachi, the prophet, told us what HaShem says. He says that HaShem never changes. You see, HaShem is spiritual and is not restricted to the laws of physics – the laws that hold the physical realm together. So to Him, it has always been eternity. To Him, what the culture He set up in the Garden of Eden is the Culture of eternity. If things change, then why is there nothing new under the sun? "Oh but Rabbi, we have cars now and we have electronics now and we have telephones and television now." First off, a car works off of fire, and goes in motion just like an animal. Secondly, electronics works off of fire, and so does telephones (which also uses the human voice) and the television. So they are nothing but window dressing on old items that have been here for a long time. But the main difference is, do these items help or hurt our ability to be spiritual people? These are all things that tie us down in the physical, so the answer is, no. They are ice, but we could be just as obedient and even more if we did not have all these new things.

Avraham did not need a computer or a television to have faith in HaShem. Noach did not need a car to go round up all the material for the ark or the animals. Moshe did not need a telephone to talk with HaShem. David did not need a synthesizer or a stereo to praise HaShem. What they needed was the ability to see the spiritual, and the ability to take what they were given, their minds, their hands, their voices, and use them spiritually to be co-workers with HaShem. And these men took their Shabbos, and spent it with HaShem. These men had much larger families than we do today and they relied upon HaShem to see them through. They were faithful with a little, not needing what we have today. If what you have is tearing you and your family apart, causing strife and taking up all of your time, then it is not worth it to be doing what you are doing, and to have what you have. It would be better to live in His care in a happy small house, than to live off of your own sweat and tears and live miserably is a mansion. But we have to decide, is it a physical god we serve, or do we serve the Divine Creator who is spiritual? If we serve a spiritual G-d, then we need to live in the Spirit, and that means we can not be tied down to the physical. If we live in the Spirit, it means that no matter how chaotic and changing that this physical world gets, the spirit world never changes and has been the same ever since before the physical world began. To live and walk in the spiritual kingdom of HaShem is to live by His culture and His society, but if you live your life by this culture and this society, then you are living in a physical world, worshipping a physical god.
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