Scripture: Galatians 5 v 4: "Christ is become of no effect unto you, whosoever of you are justified by the law, ye are fallen from grace."
Jeremiah 31 v 31 - 33: "Behold, the days come, saith the LORD, that I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel, and with the house of Judah:
32 Not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day that I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt; which my covenant they brake, although I was an husband unto them, saith the LORD:
33 But this shall be the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel; After those days, saith the LORD, I will put my law in their inward parts, and write it in their hearts; and will be their God, and they shall be my people."
Over the past 20 years or so there has been a marked increase among born again Christians to revert to the Jewish Law and follow its traditions, feasts and precepts. They don't seem to realise that the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ meant that sin was crucified and the season of grace had arrived.
Grace is not just a prayer before meals - it encompasses God's forgiveness for all our sins. Without this forgiveness we are not saved or washed or clean of sin before Him.
Jesus cried out on the Cross just before He died, "It is finished". He was signalling the end of living under the Law, more than 600 laws, needed to show man that he was sinful. For each different sin an animal or pigeon had to be sacrificed as a substitute for the human who erred.
In Hebrews 7 v 27: (Our High Priest, Jesus) "Who needeth not daily, as those high priests, to offer up sacrifice, first for his own sins, and then for the people's: for this He did once when He offered up Himself."
Through grace we are saved, not by works, it is God's gift to us. So an angry Paul, who had once been the most devoted Pharisee, who had Christians imprisoned or killed for not following the religious laws, asked the Galatians who had bewitched them. They had abandoned the faith they had in Jesus to return to the Old Covenant Law. He was telling them that a demonic force had deceived them.
We must ask the same question today of the modern "Galatians" who religiously keep all the feasts and sabbath days and generally behave like the Pharisees of old, whom Jesus called vipers and other very unflattering names. The pride and intolerance of the religious rulers of Israel offended the Lord very greatly.
I have tried reasoning with some of these "Galatians" and was told, confidentially, that I need to come up spiritually higher as I was not found worthy to be as enlightened as they were to receive this new secret knowledge. This from people I have prayed for and ministered to for some years, who spent weekends in my home and me in theirs. Who spent holiday retreats with me when we were in deep prayer and Jesus was visible in the room with us! These people now live in fear with round-the-clock bodyguards for protection!
Psalms 127 v 1: "Except the LORD build the house, they labour in vain that build it: except the LORD keep the city, the watchman waketh but in vain."
When we are fully submitted in the grace of Jesus Christ, His protection is powerful and constant. Those who slip back to following the Jewish Law can be likened to Adam and Eve being tossed out of Eden. They are on their own and must fend for themselves.
There are many thousands like them who have been turned aside from true faith to follow the law that makes Jesus a stranger to them. God told the Jews in Jeremiah 31 v 31 - 33 that He would make a new covenant with them because the old one had been broken.
He would write His laws upon their hearts and not on tablets of stone. He would give personal inner guidance. He would change the Ten Commandments into just two. Love the Lord your God with all your heart, and your neighbour as yourself. If we follow those precepts we will always be pleasing to our Father.
Those Christians who now follow the law are actually denying their salvation through Jesus and are believing that the Law can save them. The Law saves no-one. It is there to tell people they are sinners. Its a system of rites, rules, regulations and traditions that saw witches, homosexuals, occultists, adulterers, etc being put to death (the wages of sin is death) as there was no power strong enough to change their nature.
These laws came after the Flood which left only eight righteous people alive on Earth. Our God will never allow sin in Heaven, He has made that clear throughout history. Churches like Seventh Day Adventists base their foundational teachings on the Laws of Moses. From the foods they cannot eat to keeping the Sabbath holy. True Christians are living in the Sabbath every day, every hour, every minute.
Jesus is our Saviour and He alone is able to change us from the sinners we were to saved saints walking by faith to His glory. We all have sinned and Jesus became SIN and took death for us all. We have to reject this salvation to follow the Old Law. You are condemning yourself to eternal death and separation from God if you reject Jesus.
Some of the happiest people I have met on my journey are Jewish Christians, who have received Jesus as their Messiah and become part of the New Covenant of grace and freedom. Even when their families reject them, disown them and have funerals for them for following Jesus, they will never go back under the burden of the Law of Moses.
The Law was not wrong, but it was broken so often that it became meaningless. All the Law can do is teach you that man is a sinful creature needing salvation. Jails are full of law-breakers but the Body of Christ is made up of those who are filled with the Holy Spirit, who need no law to live correctly before God.
Galatians 5 v 21 - 23: "Envyings, murders, drunkenness, revellings, and such like: of the which I tell you before, as I have also told you in time past, that they which do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God.
22 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith,
23 Meekness, temperance: against such there is no law."
Paul has this warning on repeat, highlighting that the sinful works of our carnal nature will keep us out of Heaven forever. The fruit of the Holy Spirit transforms us from who we were as sinners into the very nature of Jesus Himself. Because we are members of His Body we must be changed to be like Him.
Prayer: Heavenly Father, I pray for every person who has fallen from grace back into the Old Covenant Law to be convicted by the Holy Spirit of their folly. I pray that they will return to true faith in the Son of God and abandon the error they now embrace. Show them Your love and forgiveness. In Jesus' name. Amen.