Recently, I was having a discussion over coffee with a group of friends when one of them asked the question: “Can you believe how much the world has changed in what seems to be a very short time?” My answer was: “Yes. Yes, I have no problem believing how much the world has changed.”
My short answer got the attention of those I was sitting next to and they asked me to continue. I responded by reminding them what we read about Caleb in Joshua 14.
Caleb is one of my favorite people from the Bible. He is mentioned several times in Scripture, but he is one of the few men mentioned in the Bible that we never read anything negative about. He was one of the twelve spies who entered Israel and he was one of the two spies who rejected unbelief and fully trusted that G-D would fulfill His promise to give the children of Israel the promised land. Caleb was a faithful man of faith. In Joshua 14, at 85 years old, Caleb says these words:
“I am still as strong today as I was in the day that Moses sent me—as my strength was then, so is my strength now, for war and for going out and coming in. Now therefore, give me this hill country about which Adonai spoke on that day. For you heard on that day how the Anakim were there as well as great, fortified cities. Perhaps Adonai will be with me, and I will drive them out, just as Adonai has spoken.” (Josh. 14:11).
One of the people in the group asked me to explain what Caleb had to do with the state of our world today. My answer was: “Too many people who claim to be believers in the G-D of Israel and trust in Yeshua as their Messiah are not faithful people of faith.”
A simple look at the statistics show that there is no significant difference in the numbers of divorce, adultery, fornication, drug abuse, sexual abuse, infanticide (known as abortion) and other moral sins between those who claim to be believers in Yeshua and those who do not.
This is the reason the world we live in has changed so dramatically; The people of G-D can no longer claim moral high ground. As with those who chose to follow the unbelief of the 10 spies instead of holding fast in faithfulness believing in G-D promises, many faith leaders now preach and believe that a follower of Yeshua has no responsibility to obedience because Yeshua did away with the Laws of G-D and now they live by grace.
When you teach people that G-D’s instructions and commandments are done away with, this slippery slope of disobedience is the result of unbelief and has resulted in every man doing what is right in his own sight.
This is what we see within the ranks of those who claim to believe in Yeshua today. Please understand that the Ten Commandments are part of the Torah that teachers proclaim believers have been set free from. If believers have no responsibility to the Torah, the end result is a body living in sin proclaiming that their sin is righteousness.
If the body of believers is going to impact this world with the Good News of Yeshua our Messiah, they are going to have to repent and return to a place of faith and trust in G-D and a belief that trusting in Yeshua brings redemption. However, our redemption also brings with it the responsibility Yeshua spoke of in John 15:10-11:
“If you keep My commandments, you will abide in My love, just as I have kept My Father’s commandments and abide in His love. These things I have spoken to you so that My joy may be in you, and your joy may be full.”
G-D doesn’t just want us to be people of faith. G-D wants us to be like Caleb, faithful people of faith. I encourage every believer in Yeshua to read Jacob (James) chapter 2 again to be reminded what is said before we get to Jacob 2:17-18:
“So also faith, if it does not have works, is dead by itself. 18 But someone will say, “You have faith and I have works.” Show me your faith without works and I will show you faith by my works.”
G-D wants to give us our mountain, but it is difficult for us to take our mountain if we are walking up a slippery slope.
Eric Tokajer is the author of Overcoming Fearlessness, What If Everything You Were Taught About the Ten Commandments Was Wrong?, With Me in Paradise, Transient Singularity, OY! How Did I Get Here?: Thirty-One Things I Wish Someone Had Told Me Before Entering Ministry, #ManWisdom: With Eric Tokajer, Jesus Is to Christianity as Pasta Is to Italians and Galatians in Context.
