Experience: (Jesus is LORD, Messiah)
Husband of a beautiful wife (41-years and counting); Father of three-beautiful children and a handsome grandson
Professional Experience:
---United States Marine Corps 1/1 - 0311 - NCO
---Retired 31-year veteran of the Houston Police Department (Uniformed Patrol/Motorcycle Officer/Commercial Helicopter Police Patrol Pilot
---Education: Master's Degree/University of Houston at Clear Lake
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Concerning “Children” who pass into Eternity via death of the body – are they secure in Elohim?
Discussion,
Children who pass into Eternity before having attained an age of reason sufficient to discern right from wrong, good from evil, lacking the cognitive ability to discern our Creator’s sovereignty over their life, these are secure in Jesus as “where there is no law, there is no sin” (Romans 4:15; 5:13); in other words, if one lacks the cognitive maturity or ability to discern the consequences of the law, they are not culpable before Elohim. This same eternal security extends to the mentally deficient, handicapped, as Elohim’s compassion finds no culpability in those unable to discern His spiritual law written upon the heart.
This same truism extends to man’s criminal and civil laws as adjudicatory standards categorize “juvenile law” as wholly distinct from laws that pertain to adults. Man’s law also considers mental illness, contingent upon severity, as an affirmative “defense to prosecution.”
Jesus confirms the eternal security of children in Matthew 19:14 as Jesus tells us that the Kingdom of Heaven belongs to the child and that unless we humble ourselves and come to the Father as a little child by faith, we will not enter the Kingdom (Matthew 18:4).
Also, King David made an interesting confession subsequent the death of his infant son. David testified that the child would not return to him but that he would go to the child upon death of his body indicating David’s knowledge through the Holy Spirit that the child was in the presence of Elohim and when David exhaled his last, he would be with his son in the Kingdom (2 Samuel 12:19-23).
It is interesting to note that in Numbers 14:29, Elohim warned the unfaithful of Israel that those 20-years of age and older, according to the census, would perish in the wilderness due their unfaithfulness. We do NOT know what the “age of accountability” is for our youth today but the Father knows the cognitive ability of each, He alone discerns this and judges accordingly.
Elohim warned,
28 So tell them: As surely as I live, declares the LORD, I will do to you exactly as I heard you say. 29 Your bodies will fall in this wilderness— all who were numbered in the census, everyone twenty years of age or older— because you have grumbled against Me. 30 Surely none of you will enter the land in which I swore to settle you, except Caleb son of Jephunneh and Joshua son of Nun.… (Numbers 14).
Is the Hebrew Roots Movement permissible in the New Covenant?
Hebrew Roots is certainly a permissible movement if the participant does not pursue days, diets, traditions, in a manner that “supplements” or “completes” FAITH as the divine, eternal, element of salvation.
If one chooses to consume only kosher meats and observes a Sabbath and festivals and traditions in order to honor Torah…that is beautiful and certainly acceptable in the New Covenant, but in the life of the Christian, there is NO obligation to honor Torah’s edicts, its traditions, its days and diets as these things foreshadowed the Messiah but Messiah has come (Colossians 2:16; Romans 14) and we are free to eat or refrain according to our own conscience via the indwelling Holy Spirit and we’re free to chose whatever day or everyday to honor our Lord; therefore, in the New Covenant, it’s NOT about what we DO but in Whom we believe and the Spirit is our Arbiter of free will and the Christian honors the Spirit though obedience to Him (Galatians 5:16) which results in the production of divine fruit (Galatians 5:22-23) while in Torah, the old sin-nature sought subjugation to Torah Law, an obedience that could NEVER be fully achieved as the Adamic sin-nature had no arbiter but the flesh and a weakened conscience subject to that flesh.
My personal concerns for Hebrew Roots participants,
My primary concern for those who confess Yeshua as Messiah by faith and simultaneously place an emphasis on Torah observance is the inclination of the sin-nature to slip into theological compromise with works and thereby nullify the purity of faith and thereby fall into a state of apostasy and ultimately condemnation.
I have personally witnessed this in the Messianic Jewish converts who struggle having placed one foot in grace through faith in Yeshua while placing the other in Torah in Temple and the Torah as an Icon of worship. I have witnessed this in my own family.
In private, these people are miserable…they are torn…they are divided…they are compromised…they are lost…they have strayed…some become addicted…others are angry and hateful toward Christianity…it is tragic (Galatians 3).
Why is the Spiritual Law written upon the heart (the New Covenant) infinitely superior to Torah Law – Sinai – Moses – Codification?
First of all,
The codified law given Israel at Sinai and through Moses is but a mere fragment of the comprehensive Spiritual Law written into the human genome on Day-6 by Elohim. The codified law is wholly inadequate as a comprehensive arbiter of free will as it does NOT and CANNOT adequately address every moral decision encountered by the Christian 24/7/365.
Second,
The “fruit of the Spirit” does NOT conflict with the codified law provided Israel at Sinai and through Moses; but again, the relevant point is this…the codified law is fragmented, it’s incomplete, it was given Israel specifically for eschatological and sanctification purposes; the codified law cannot engender righteousness (Romans 3:20); the codified law only curses by defining one’s culpability void atonement (James 2:10; Galatians 3:10); the codified law was given Israel as a roadmap pointing them to Messiah by faith (Galatians 3:24). Christians are NOT under the codified Law given Israel (Romans 6:14) but serve through the Spirit via the production of divine fruit that fulfills ALL LAW (Romans 7:6; 8:2; Galatians 2:16; 5:22-23).
Discussion,
It is the comprehensive, spiritual law written upon the heart (Hebrews 10;16; 8:10; Jeremiah 31:33; Ezekiel 36; 26) and arbitrated by the indwelling Holy Spirit in the New Covenant during daily sanctification (Galatians 5:16; Romans 8:2; 2:14-15) that is INFINITELY superior to Sinai and Moses as the spiritual law, written into the human genome on Day-6, arbitrated by the redeemed conscience of the Christian through the indwelling Holy Spirit (2 Corinthians 5:17) that methodically addresses every moral decision encountered by the redeemed in Messiah, daily. It is the comprehensive spiritual law that is the law of obedience in the New Covenant as the Spirit produces divine fruit through the redeemed, fruit that actually pleases the Father and fulfills ALL LAW (Galatians 5:16-23; John 15:8).
In closing,
A true Christian does not live their daily life cognitively engaged with Sinai or Moses, they live their daily life in peace with the Father through faith in Jesus as Messiah (Romans 5:1) and their intimacy with the Father is maintained methodically by the work of the Spirit in daily sanctification (Galatians 5:16) who does the work of obedience through the Christian by producing “fruits of the Spirit” that pleases the Father; divine fruit that honors Jesus’ commands and fulfills the Moral Law while furthering the intent of the Great Commission.
Why is Jesus infinitely superior to the god of Atheism, Satan, concerning societal sustainability?
Subsequent 31-years serving in Houston’s Police Department in uniform, having policed some of the most violent and perverse neighborhoods in the United States, I can honestly say that 99% of the horror I interceded in, incarcerated, charged, testified against, were NOT those who possessed an abiding faith in Jesus Christ and conducted their life and raised their family respecting Christian principles/Biblical edicts.
Having to intercede in the lives of the demonically possessed/mentally-spiritually ill, being forced to use deadly force against the unfathomable evil in American society while struggling with same in vomit and bloodshed and being required injections with vaccines against disease due bites and fights with these demonic hoards, diseases ranging from hepatitis to the Bubonic Plague, handling the death and horror and unconscionable filth …I can testify that our American society would be an infinitely healthier society if the overwhelming majority honored our Creator, Jesus Christ, by faith and lived and walked by the indwelling Holy Spirit (Ephesians 1:13-14) and we trained our children in the ways of Biblical precepts and infused mores, norms, values, that under girded a sustainable and profitable and loving society through the Biblical family and neighbors and a government that loved each other and honored our Nation founded upon Biblical values and laws patterned after those Biblical values.
It is true that America’s Founders desired a Nation governed by “We the People” and they intuitively knew that in order for the great experiment known as a Constitutional Republic to be successful; in order for a very limited form of Federal Government to be instituted that maximized the personal freedoms of the individual; a Federal Government with limited, fragmented, authority over the States and the people so governed, there must exist a viable form of behavioral-moral restraint over the Adamic sin-nature of mankind (Romans 5:12); therefore, our Founder’s relied solely upon the indwelling Holy Spirit of Elohim, the Holy Spirit given all who have an abiding faith in Jesus as Messiah (Ephesians 1:13-14), the Holy Spirit as the restrainer of destructive human narcissism (2 Thessalonians 2:7) that left unchecked would culminate in societal implosion; furthermore, our Founder’s knew that the Adamic sin-nature, left unchecked and unrestrained by the Holy Spirit, while existing under a very limited Government, there would be insufficient numbers of police, prosecutors, judges, jails, prisons, to maintain peace, law and order. This is why early sketches of American Townships and Municipalities depict a Christian Church, a Steeple, on almost every street corner as the cornerstone of a sustainable and viable and honorable United States of America.
America has lost its way, its Founding Principles; these, having been surrendered to the demonic Atheist, the Secular Humanist; this, via Progressive idiots represented by men like radical Progressive John Dewey, the father of modern education, and Darwin, the proselytizer of atheism via evolutionary theory forced upon America’s students in the classroom as a “biological science.” America’s youth have been spiritually and psychologically destroyed through an educational system inundated with Progressive idiocy and secular humanists, Marxist, philosophies via radical atheists like Madalyn Murray O’Hair, Engel v. Vitale (1962) – the extrication of Jesus from the classroom; Darwin (1963) and we have no one to blame but ourselves. Jesus has walked away from our abortions, America’s murder of babies in the womb; Jesus has walked away from America’s advocacy of LGBTQ perversion…Marxists-Socialists have been victorious…this is Biblical eschatological fruition.
Elohim is not honored by Torah observance in the New Covenant but by faith in Jesus as one’s Messiah (John 6:29). Jesus entered the Realm of Time under Law…He came to those under Law to proselytize them in the Gospel of Grace as per a New Covenant based on faith, not codified laws, not Torah (Galatians 4:4-5).
If you desire to devote your time and efforts to a bygone covenant or the elements of that covenant, that is your business and there is absolutely nothing “wrong” with Hebrew Roots motives as long as you’re fully aware that it is by faith, not works of the law, that one establishes New Covenant promises with the Father and receives eternal life through the forgiveness of sin via the shed blood of Jesus at Golgotha; this, by faith in Jesus as your Messiah, NOT Torah observance (Galatians 2:16; Romans 3:2-21).
If Christians are not obligated to Sinai-the Law Covenant (Romans 6:14; 2 Corinthians 3), is it permissible to murder in the New Covenant?
Discussion,
No…murder has been prohibited from Day-6 of Creation forward concerning humanity; this, via the spiritual law written upon the heart by Elohim (Romans 2:14-15; 8:2) as humanity is created in the spiritual image of Elohim possessing certain divine communicable attributes of Elohim; this, for His eschatological purposes going forward (Genesis 1:26-28). The spiritual law written upon the heart has been an arbiter of free will subsequent the creation of the angels and Jesus reiterated murder as prohibited conduct in His New Covenant ministry and Jesus added mens rea (the thought life) as enhanced culpability (Matthew 5:21-22).
Sinai is nothing but a fragmented reiteration of the comprehensive spiritual law and Sinai was given specifically to Israel’s children for sanctification and eschatological purposes going forward; primarily, to thwart Israel’s compromise with Baal and Molech which would have stymied Israel’s ordination as progenitors of the Messiah, the Gospel, the Great Commission; Sinai was Elohim’s attempt to prevent a repeat of the failures of the Adamic/Noahic generations who rejected their divine ordination via a compromise with the demonic (Genesis 6:5).
Sinai, Torah, Moses, are elements of a bygone covenant that Israel broke, rejected, failed (Hebrews 8:7).
Christians are NOT under the old Law Covenant (Romans 6:14) but they live by the Spirit and the Spirit produces divine fruit through them via daily sanctification; divine fruit that fulfills all law as the Father is glorified by that fruit (Galatians 5:16-23; John 15:9). Different covenants, vastly different implementation of law and obedience. It’s past time that Christians understand their place in the New Covenant and STOP compromising their faith by an alliance with the old (2 Corinthians 3:6).
The Spiritual Law (Romans 2:14-15; Romans 8:2) has been written upon the human heart subsequent Day-6 as Human Kind is created in the spiritual image of Elohim (Genesis 1:26-28) possessing certain divine communicable attributes of Elohim, one such attribute being the Spiritual Law which acts as a bulwark against unrestrained narcissism that would culminate in societal implosion.
Torah Law is but a fragmented, segmented, portion of the comprehensive Spiritual Law and Torah Law was given specifically to Israel for sanctification and eschatological purposes concerning thwarting Israel’s compromise with Baal and Molech which would have negated their eschatological purpose concerning the Messiah, the Gospel, the Great Commission, going forward.
Torah is a bygone covenant of no true relevance in the New Covenant (Hebrews 8:7); with that said, Torah does offers me historical and eschatological knowledge that is very profitable in my walk with the Holy Spirit but other than that, Torah demonstrates through Israel’s failures what NOT TO DO concerning the establishment of righteousness with Elohim (Romans 9-10).
Subjugating the flesh, Adam’s sin nature,
The Christian walks by the Spirit (Galatians 5:16) and the flesh is brought under control through obedience to the Spirit and the production of divine fruit (Galatians 5:2-23), NOT TORAH LAW!
Shame on those who abuse Pine Island, FL residents with illegal motor vehicle NOISE; Shame on the Lee County Sheriff’s Department for failing to enforce Florida’s motor vehicle noise laws…
Shame on the selfish BULLIES who abuse the children, the elderly, the families, on Pine Island, FL by operating an illegally LOUD, illegally equipped, motorcycle – automobile – truck on the public roadways that service Pine Island – Bokeelia – City Center – Saint James.
Shame on Lee County’s Sheriff Department, the Deputies, for their misfeasance – malfeasance – their refusal to enforce the factory-installed muffler requirements of the Florida State Motor Vehicle Code.
Shame on Lee County’s Sheriff Department for their refusal to protect and serve the citizens of Lee County, Florida who are daily and nightly subject to motor vehicle noise abuse; especially relevant, the abuse our children, our elderly, the handicapped, our families.
Sec. 316.293. Motor vehicle noise (Florida)
[…] No person shall operate or be permitted to operate a vehicle at any time or under any condition of roadway grade, load, acceleration, or deceleration in such a manner as to generate a sound level in excess of the following limit for the category of motor vehicle and applicable speed limit at a distance of 50 feet from the center of the lane of travel under measurement procedures […]
This following paragraph from Section 293 is very important as it restricts using any non-original equipment which can increase noise limits on cars or other vehicles:
(5) NOISE ABATEMENT EQUIPMENT MODIFICATIONS.— (a) No person shall modify the exhaust system of a motor vehicle or any other noise-abatement device of a motor vehicle operated or to be operated upon the highways of this state in such a manner that the noise emitted by the motor vehicle is above that emitted by the vehicle as originally manufactured.
This makes it illegal to use any aftermarket modifications louder than ones your vehicle is manufactured with. All devices producing excessive exhaust noise are not legal. There are exceptions which include emergency vehicles, vehicles used in races or similar events, agricultural equipment, and test vehicles.
Torah Law v. Spiritual Fruit? What is relevant in the New Covenant concerning law and obedience?
Jesus preached “fruit” (Matthew 7:15-20; John 15) as obedience to His commandments and Jesus told us that the Father is honored by the fruit produced through the Spirit via those who love Him and have trusted in Him for salvation by faith (John 15:8). Jesus said that those who produce much fruit honor the Father and this fruit honors all commandments, both those of His New Covenant Ministry and those etched in stone on Sinai.
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Jesus said,
8 By this my Father is glorified, that you bear much fruit and so prove to be my disciples. 9 As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Abide in my love. 10 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. 11 These things I have spoken to you, that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be full.
16 You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit and that your fruit should abide, so that whatever you ask the Father in my name, he may give it to you. 17 These things I command you, so that you will love one another. John 15 (ESV)
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Concerning Divine Fruit as the fulfillment of “law” in the New Covenant,
When one is born again by faith in Jesus (John 3), they receive the indwelling Holy Spirit via New Covenant promise (Ezekiel 36:27) as the Holy Spirit is the Guarantor and Seal of New Covenant relationship with the Father (Ephesians 1:13-14; 4:30) .
It is the indwelling Holy Spirit, during daily sanctification in the New Covenant (Galatians 5:16), that employs the spiritual law written upon the human heart (Romans 2:14-15; Hebrews 10:16; 2 Corinthians 3:3; Jeremiah 31:33; Ezekiel 11:19) and mates that spiritual law with the redeemed conscience of the “new creation” in Jesus (2 Corinthians 5:17) and the Spirit produces divine fruit through the faithful in Jesus and this fruit fulfills all law, codified/Sinai and Spiritual (Galatians 5:16:23).
This New Covenant promise has NOTHING to do with Torah or Torah Law other than the fulfillment of New Covenant eschatology expressed through the prophets Jeremiah and Ezekiel and the fulfillment of all the Levitical blood sacrifices foreshadowed, but the spiritual law, the new creation (redeemed conscience), the Spirit producing divine fruit through the redeemed, are unique divine elements of the New Covenant and the Gospel of Grace actuated by faith in Jesus as Messiah and the blood He shed as atonement for our sin on Mount Golgotha (Matthew 26:28). The New Covenant’s fruit is NOT a reiteration of the Old Covenant’s Torah (2 Corinthians 3).
Why did Elohim create the Heavens and the Earth? A brief explanation…
Why did Elohim create the Heavens and the Earth?
When students of Scripture and history reflect upon the wars and death and suffering and calamity that manifests throughout the Torah and subsequently to this very day, they wonder why a loving and compassionate Creator would permit such chaos. What most do NOT understand is the causation and purposes under girding our creation and this temporary Realm of Time constrained by physics.
You and I are in this cosmic vacuum due to an unfathomable war that was initiated in the Kingdom of Elohim before Time was created and all that we perceive with our senses and beyond is the resultant of that war and Elohim’s endeavor to restore order and peace to His Kingdom while simultaneously maintaining volitional love with His angelic creation; an angelic creation that Elohim loves and cherishes beyond human comprehension.
It is critical to understanding causation for the creation narrative that the previous 6000-years of horror are a bulwark against future rebellion in the Kingdom where free will exists by necessity; this, as Elohim is allowing the evil introduced by a rebellious anointed cherub angel to play-out within the constraints of Time and physics for all to see and the conclusion of the matter will be that obedience and loyalty to Elohim and His sovereignty is the only sustainable path to a life (both spiritual and physical) worth living and that rebellion, selfishness, covetousness, self-righteousness, are unsustainable pathways to horror, sorrow, death, nihilism.
All that we confront with our senses in this temporary life within a temporary World and Heaven is an eschatological bulwark against future rebellion in the Kingdom where free will remains extant by necessity concerning intimacy with Elohim. The primary reason Messiah Jesus entered the Realm of Time was to defeat, destroy, the works of that rebellious anointed cherub and the one-third of the angelic creation that followed him in the Great Kingdom War (1 John 3:8b); this, with the precarious strategy of maintaining volitional love with His cherished angelic creation.
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Elohim explains causation, reasoning, for the creation narrative from the Genesis to the Revelation; in fact, we see the introduction of the major players, the war, the battle strategy, introduced within the first-three chapters of the Genesis narrative.
— In Genesis 1:1, “Elohim” introduces Himself via a plural noun with a singular verb.
— In Genesis 1:2, The Holy Spirit introduces Himself as the Logistical Overseer of all things created.
— In Genesis 1:26-28, we see the collaboration of Elohim as “Us” and “Our” – Father-Son-Spirit creating the complex human genome in the spiritual image of Elohim thereby imparting certain divine communicable attributes into the human genome specifically for Elohim’s eschatological purposes going forward.
— In Genesis 3, we’re introduced to the rebellious cherub angel that initiated the Kingdom War and that angel has been extricated from the Kingdom and placed partially within the constraints of Time and physics and allowed access to human kind (Ezekiel 28:11+); this, as Jesus tells us that He watched Satan fall from Heaven like lightening (Luke 10:18).
— In Genesis 3:15, we see the declaration of war between Satan and Jesus (Jesus, born of the virgin seed of the woman to circumvent the Adamic sin-nature) and the prophecy that Messiah would be victorious over Satan as crushing the head of Satan but that Jesus would not be unscathed but receive a “bruised heal”…a death suffered on the Cross.
— In Genesis 3:21, we see the divine battle strategy, the Gospel, that Elohim would employ to defeat the works of the Devil (death-Hell-the grave) through the imputation of righteousness, a gifting of righteousness that Elohim, Himself, would provide via the shedding of innocent blood to clothe sinful humanity in an imputed “robe of righteousness” that mankind could not earn, did not deserve; this, as Elohim rejected the works of mankind to cover his own sin and shame by the works of his hands exemplified by the “fig leaves” Adam used to cover his own shame and nakedness. This is the Gospel of Jesus Christ which was ordained “before Time began” (2 Timothy 1:8-10).
Conclusion,
From the Genesis forward, we see Elohim’s eschatological plan working through and around human kind’s free will choices; this, through the Adamic and Noahic generations, through Noah, Shem, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Judah, Messiah…this eschatological plan can be followed through the Scriptures as the Holy Spirit methodically explains the who, what, where, when, why, how, concerning the Realm of Time, our purpose within it, and the closure of Time and physics, the New Heaven and the New Earth, the New Jerusalem. All one must do is possess a heart that is willing to receive and believe and seek and study via our Divine Teacher, the precious indwelling Holy Spirit given to all who “believe” Jesus is Messiah (Ephesians 1:13-14; 1 John 2:27).
"RickeyD" Holtsclaw 