Category: Two House Theology

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Swine in the Father’s House

Bacon Sandwich

What Western Christian church doesn’t understand is that the Torah is a set of rules and guidelines to live by that make you “different” than the peoples and nations around you. Its a code of conduct. Follow it and you will be blessed. Don’t follow it and you will be cursed (Deut 28). It is about living different, which makes you distinguished, which makes it more obvious that you are a child of Yehovah, the one true God of the universe. This is NOT legalism. This is about your identity- who are you? Are you a child of the devil and the world or are you a child of the Kingdom Yehovah and of another world?

So, eating that bacon swine flesh sandwich may not send you to hell, but it sure identifies you with the kingdom of this world. It separates you from God and the people of God. If you eat it, you miss out on the blessings of obedience. It’s your call. Blessing or curse? Obedience or disobedience. Satisfy the cravings of your flesh and eat the same flesh of a pig that was used to desecrate the Lord’s temple or walk in the Spirit?

It’s Hanukkah, so this becomes even more relevant as I am writing this. Antiochus Ephiphanes slaughtered a hog on the altar in the Lord’s temple and erected a statue to Zeus to desecrate it. The Bible says our bodies are now the temple of Holy Spirit. Hummm. That should make us think.

So also picture this-

In Luke 15:11-32, the parable of the Prodigal Son. The people of the day, no doubt, knew exactly what Yeshua was saying. Its a picture of a father and two sons. The father is, of course, Father God. The two sons are the two nations of Israel- Israel and Judah. Israel are the northern tribes that were scattered in 722 BC and never came home. They are the “lost house of Israel” (Matthew 15:24).

That is the son who found himself in the pig pen. The other brother who stayed home is the southern tribes of Judah, Judah and Benjamin. Judah came back home from Babylon and rebuilt the temple with Ezra and Nehemiah. These are the “Jews.” (Judah = Jews) They have been given charge to hold the scepter of the law for all these centuries (Gen 49:10). Its been their duty. Without them, we would have no Bible. Without them there would have been no Hanukkah. Without them there would be no nation of Israel today. Remember, Yeshua IS a Jew.

So now, with that big picture context lets ask the question, When the prodigal son (who basically represents us) comes home and embraces his father who is Yehovah God and eats the fatted calf, then reconciles with his brother who stayed home and tended the farm, will he also want to slaughter a hog on his father’s kitchen table? That is what the pagan Christian who comes back home is demanding saying, Father we love our bacon sandwich and want to bring it into Your house.”

What Peter’s vision was about in Acts 10 was “receiving” the people who had been eating unclean foods and opening the door of salvation to them. The blood of Yeshua was making the people clean. This matter does not mean that the food laws changed. It means Father will receive you no matter what you ate because of the blood of Yeshua. Remember, Yeshua said He did not come to strike a single letter from the Law (Matthew 5:18). And we must realize Yeshua would never contradict Himself. So…

The big question is, (check your heart) Do you still want to bring your bacon lover’s sandwich into the Father’s house? Do you think shrimp cocktail and lobster will be served at the Wedding Supper of the Lamb?

The Gentile church who is “Israel” needs to reconcile these big picture truths that are much deeper than just our salvation and adoption and “get out of Dodge” for free.

This may be the first time you have recognized that bacon or lobster or that shrimp cocktail or catfish dinner might be an idol in your life and you never realized it. Selah.

Please take a few moments and pray about this before you immediately dismiss it.

Grace and love.

HalleluYah!

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We Are Manasseh

Some believers have the deep insight to see that the blessing of Jacob on the two sons of Joseph, Ephraim and Manasseh did not evaporate in the diaspora of the northern tribes of Israel. These blessings actually went out and manifested in the future nations of the earth. We shouldn’t be so short sighted to think that Yehovah forgot about these blessings or that they were canceled because of Israel’s unfaithfulness. Remember,

2 Timothy 2 12 if we endure, we will also reign with him; if we deny him, he also will deny us;
13 if we are faithless, he remains faithful— for he cannot deny himself.

Jacob blesses Ephraim and Manasseh

Genesis 41: 51 Joseph called the name of the firstborn Manasseh. “For,” he said, “God has made me forget all my hardship and all my father’s house.” 52 The name of the second he called Ephraim, “For God has made me fruitful in the land of my affliction.”

Ephraim, meaning doubly fruitful, will become-

Genesis 48: 9 … “Nevertheless, his younger brother shall be greater than he, and his offspring shall become a multitude of nations.”

This blessing manifested as Great Britain. For we know that Great Britain had become the largest empire in history, being “the empire of which the sun never sets.”

Then, for Manasseh, which means “you have made me forget my father’s house.” We have become the nation who has forgotten who we are has manifested in the United States of America. We indeed have become a great nation. We, indeed, have also forgotten who we are in the spiritual prophetic sense of our identity.

So, we like to pride ourselves for becoming a great nation, yet we need to humble ourselves and realize it was not by our own ingenuity but by the sovereign blessing and purposes of Yehovah through Jacob for this time in history.

Its time to remember WHO we are and WHOSE we are.

The United States of America is the Manasseh Blessing. That is who we are.