Women’s Portion for Today: Sunday March 10

Ladies, the best way to assure the future of your children, is to deal with the present constructively and courageously. (Prayer: Be merciful to very mother Father, forgive their trespasses and help them to forgive those who trespassed against them, as You forgive them, amein.)

"Also they do no iniquity: in his ways they walk."

Ps 119

doing righteousness in all times Original Hebrew Scripture from Psalm 106
"Blessed are keepers of judgment, doing righteousness in all times."
אַשְׁרֵי שֹׁמְרֵי מִשְׁפָּט עֹשֵׂה צְדָקָה בְכָל־עֵת

(You can just hear an owl after I say "Scripture". ?)

Thought for Today: Sunday March 10

If we follow in YHVH's ways, we find joy on each path.

Don’t Mock of Peoples’ Beliefs | #theway

{From a conversation ?}

Circumcision is a covenant, not a religion, and it is not for salvation: as Paul pointed out about Abraham: "faith was reckoned to Abraham for righteousness. How was it then reckoned? when he was in circumcision, or in uncircumcision? Not in circumcision, but in uncircumcision." Ro 4 - Abraham was saved when he was uncircumcised. Likewise, Christ rebuked the faithless circumcised by saying, "many lepers were in Israel in the time of Eliseus the prophet; and none of them was cleansed, saving Naaman the Syrian." Lk 4.
About Naaman, when he converted to worshipping Yahweh, he did not become circumcised - instead, he took soil from the land of Israel to build an altar to Yahweh in Syria (which was forbidden for the circumcised to do), and the Prophet of God blessed his action (2K 5).

Even though Christ explicitly said, "No man cometh unto the Father but by me" (Jn 14), still many people (even many Baptists) will say that salvation was by circumcision before Christ came - this idea may have come from Atheist anthropologists mistakenly categorising circumcision as a religion replaced by Christianity, rather than as a covenant within the one true religion which has been since the beginning of time.

The circumcised must of course keep the covenant they are in, and after Christ's coming (no doubt because of the judgement on the circumcised) other people must not enter into the covenant:
"Is any man called being circumcised? let him not become uncircumcised. Is any called in uncircumcision? let him not be circumcised." 1Cor 7

Sadly, I doubt many circumcised today keep the covenant as they should keep it. Many of them also, especially those named "orthodox", follow the same man-made traditions which were called "the traditions of the elders" in Scripture. Jesus spoke against these traditions; even hand-washing before eating, which doesn't go against any of God's commands, and of course would not be wrong for you or I to do, Jesus and his disciples specifically did not keep this tradition, because the traditions were "teaching for doctrines the commandments of men" (Mt 15 and Mk 7).

This is why the Sarkosi definition has this part: "A free man has sole authority under God over his possessions". That is, no man can arbitrarily create a rule that a free man must follow, but can only enforce the laws that God has already made. (Of course, a man is bound to keep his word: this is the righteous way other rules come in, like agreeing to follow the rules of a website in order to use it.)

The Amish look different from the outside - there's different groups, and the Mennonites are similar but less strict - but within, the Amish "teach for doctrines the commandments of men" very very much, sad to say. For example, some of them don't merely choose not to use technology, they actually condemn all people who use it, and some within these Amish groups would be cast out and despised if they so much as posed for a non-Amish person to take a photograph of them.
It is kind of funny though, some people in Ireland thought we were Amish - even though the Amish would not get on a plane to come to Ireland! ?

#sabbathposts 2024/03/09

Here's this week's sermon archive. Please share this one as much as you can. The YouTube, Rumble and PDF transcript download links are all available here: https://firstfruits.cc/blog/20....24/03/09/the-lord-s-

1 Kings 11:11-13 ISR
And Yahuah said to Shelomoh, "Because you have done this, and not guarded My covenant and My laws, which I have commanded you, I shall certainly tear the reign away from you and give it to your servant. Only, I do not do it in your days, for the sake of your father Dawid. Out of the hand of your son I shall tear it. Only, I shall not tear away all the reign but give one tribe to your son for the sake of my servant Dawid, and for the sake of Yerushalayim which I have chosen.

1 Kings 12:32-33 ISR
And Yarob'am performed a festival on the fifteenth day of the eighth new moon, like the festival that was in Yehudah, and he offered on the slaughter-place. So he did at Běyth Ěl, slaughtering to the calves that he had made. And at Běyth Ěl he appointed the priests of the high places which he had made. And he made offerings on the slaughter-place which he had made at Běyth Ěl on the fifteenth day of the eighth new moon, in the new moon which he had devised in his own heart. And he performed a festival for the children of Yisra'êl, and offered on the slaughter-place and burned incense.

Hosea 2:16-17 ISR
"And it shall be, in that day, " declares Yahuah, "that you call Me 'My Husband,' and no longer call Me 'My Ba'al.' And I shall remove the names of the Ba'als from her mouth, and they shall no more be remembered by their name.

Isaiah 65:1-7 ISR
"I have let Myself be inquired of, not by those who asked; I was found, not by those who sought Me. I said, 'Here I am, here I am,' to a nation not calling on My Name. I have held out My hands all day long to a stubborn people, who walk in a way that is not good, after their own thoughts; the people who provoke Me continually to My face, who slaughter in gardens, and burn incense on slaughter-places of brick; who sit among the burial-sites, and spend the night in secret places, who eat flesh of pigs, and the broth if unclean meat is in their pots, who say, 'Keep to yourself, do not come near me, for I am set-apart to you!' These are smoke in My nostrils, a fire that burns all day. See, it is written before Me: I am not silent, but shall repay, and I shall repay into their bosom, your crookednesses and the crookednesses of your fathers together," declares Yahuah, "who burned incense on the mountains and reproached Me on the hills. And I shall measure their former work into their bosom."