Is Obeying God's Law Really Too Difficult?

My brother Michel Lankford
July 20, 2011 (12:31 AM) 
One of the most common beliefs in modern-day Christendom is that God got rid of His Law through the death of His Son Jesus Christ, because we could not keep it. The belief is that obeying God's law is just too difficult, no one could really keep it, so Jesus then fulfilled it and got it Out of the way, so that we could be justified before God without us even having to concern ourselves with respecting God's Law at all. I tell you the truth, modern- and postmodern day Christianity; (which is largely based on a mixture of beliefs from Emperor Constantine, Babylonian theology and Roman Catholic theology with a sprinkling of twisted Scripture added for good measure), which the Protestant churches now carry forward by habit and tradition, absolutely depends on that belief system being true in order to justify what it believes, teaches, and habitually practices.
Please know that I understand and am fully aware that I am attacking a sacred idol here. I know that I'm challenging a belief system that people absolutely believe at their core to be true.
My question is no matter how near and dear to our hearts a widely held doctrine might be, is it true? Is it supported by the Whole Testament of Scripture? Is it confirmed when measured against the "Weight of Biblical Evidence Test" (which is one of the eight biblical tests that a thriving disciple must use to correctly interpret Scripture and judge truth)?
Remember, absolute truth cannot by definition contradict absolute truth. Since God's word is absolutely true, then if there appears to be a contradiction, the problem is with my understanding, and not with the Scriptures. If my conclusions contradict other rightly divided Scriptures, then my conclusions about the Scriptures must be in error, so if I love the truth, and my long-held beliefs contradict rightly divided Scripture, then I must re-examine what I believe and teach if I am to remain faithful and loyal to the truth. Whenever it is correctly read, rightly divided, faithfully interpreted and rightly applied, Scripture does not contradict itself.
If there appears to be a contradiction, then I must be reading, interpreting or applying Scripture incorrectly in some fashion. This axiom is absolutely imperative to proper Scripture interpretation. It is also the cornerstone of Whole Testament theology, which I now believe, and humbly attempt to impart to others, because I love the truth, even knowing full well that I constantly fall short of it, and that God's strength must constantly be made manifest and more evident in my weakness.
So, may Almighty God give us eyes that see, ears that will hear, hearts that will receive and believe, and wills that will obey and persevere in the truth, so that God will rejoice and delight over us as His children, and we can rightly be unashamed in the judgment that is sure to come. Amen.



Is it Scripture?
Before we begin exploring our question in earnest, we must establish some basic facts. Which books of Scripture were written first? Was it the books of Genesis to Malachi or the books of Matthew to Revelation? Of course, we know this to be true historically. The books of Genesis to Malachi were written long before the New Testament books of Matthew through Revelation. We know this to be true historically and factually. Therefore, the New Testament must be read through the filter of the Old Testament, not the other way around, because the so-called Old Testament was God's revealed Word first. It was the dictionary and the mindset that people were using to judge what the apostles were originally teaching in the day that they were teaching.
Remember, the faithful Gentile is grafted into the Olive tree of Israel. Nowhere in God's word was the faithful Israel to be grafted into the sinful world. So the foundation holds us up, we do not hold up the foundation (Romans 11:13-24).
Remember and do not forget that whenever the apostles referred to Scripture in the apostolic writings, they were referring exclusively to the books of Genesis to Malachi, so the New Testament must be filtered and interpreted through those eyes in order to get a complete and balanced picture of the truth from the writer's point of view. (Deuteronomy 8:3; Acts 17:11; 2 Timothy 3:16-17).
So is the Bible Scripture? That question is a matter of faith. There are some people who absolutely believe as I do, that the Holy Bible is God's written Word, that it is anointed and breathed out by the Holy Spirit of God and given to over 40 writers who copied down what God wanted them to write. There are others who will refuse to believe this no matter how much evidence one was to provide. This is what most biblically observing believers who base their faith on the Scriptures believe. Our faith is not blind faith. Despite the fact that there have been countless concerted efforts and attempts throughout the centuries to actively disprove God's word, it cannot be done successfully. Over and over again God's word has been confirmed archaeologically. The things which the Bible said were there exactly where God's word said they are. God's word has repeatedly been confirmed archaeologically, mathematically, astronomically and even biochemically but despite all these repeated confirmations through science, there are those who will absolutely refuse to believe in God and they desperately want to reject His Word. The reality is that God's word has never been empirically disproved by any science known to man.
The only thing that is ever in dispute between the believing scientist, and the atheistic scientist is not the facts. The scientist who is a believer in Almighty God and His Son Jesus Christ believes and even understands the same empirical facts which the atheistic scientist possesses. They both look at the same fossils, the same bones, the same astronomical charts, and the same biochemical data. A great many of the actual facts are almost never in dispute. The great divide that occurs between scientists who believe in God and the atheistic scientists, who refuse to believe God, is in the interpretation and conclusions that each one draws from the same set of facts.
Each of us would like to believe that we are sincerely impartial, unbiased students whose only interest is arriving at the truth. Ideally that is how we would function. All of us would love to rightly be able to say that our only pursuit is the discovery of unvarnished truth, and that we vigorously examine and analyze all our evidence on its own merit. All of us would like to believe that we draw our conclusions exclusively on where the evidence leads. Unfortunately this is not the truth. The conclusions that scientists draw from their various experiments are very often colored by what they already previously believed and accepted to be fact before their experiments began. That’s why the atheistic scientist and a God-fearing scientist can in each look at the exact same set of facts and draws a completely different conclusion from their studies.
The exact same principle holds true when one considers the differences between the Whole Testament believers and the traditional Constantinian model of Christianity that most in modern-day Christendom observe. If one truly believes that the entire Bible from the book of Genesis to Revelation is God's written Word, that all of Scripture is completely relevant and applicable to the believer's life today, the student will study and draw conclusions that are colored by that belief.
If on the other hand, a student starts off their study with the belief that the Old Testament has been done away with, and therefore is not directly applicable to the believer's life today, then that student will quite naturally look at the exact same Scripture and draw a completely different conclusion based on what they read into the text because of what they already believe. It's an inconvenient truth, but it is the truth. Like it or not, our conclusions and beliefs about what Scripture actually says is often greatly colored by what we already believed to be true when our study began. What we draw out from studying the Scripture is greatly influenced by what we already believe and read into the Scriptures in the first place.
With rare exceptions, both groups believe that Yahweh, the God of Isaac, Abraham, and Jacob, is the One True God, who made heaven and earth, Who promised and later sent His Son Jesus to be the Messiah. Most believers believe that Yeshua who is the Messiah physically died on the cross for our sins, and he became the atoning sacrifice who died in our place. With rare exceptions, most believers who claim Christianity as their faith believe that Almighty God physically and bodily resurrected Jesus Christ the Messiah from the dead. Virtually every Christian believes that Jesus ascended into heaven and is now seated at the right hand of the MAJESTY, and now functions as the Eternal High Priest who intercedes on behalf of the saints. If you were to ask the majority of Christians, most of them would tell you that they believe that the Bible is the written word of God and that it is true. If you ask them, most of them would tell you that they believe the entire Bible is true. Many might even go so far as to tell you that they believe in obeying all of Scripture wherever possible. The only major divisions between those who hold to the Whole Testament theology, versus those who cling to the traditional Christianity built on the Constantinian model is that each group views, interprets, and applies, the exact same facts which they both believe to be true very differently.
In addition, the Constantinian model of traditional Christianity adds or subtracts many things into their traditions and practices which run directly contrary to what Scripture requires. They do all of this while claiming to be biblically obedient, which makes them in error or false to their own claims by definition. That is the key bone of contention.
So, while it is true that absolutely no one will be saved and counted as righteous before God by way of obeying God's Law, since we all break God's law and are guilty of sin, then is it also true that God's law is simply too difficult to keep? While that is a very popular idea, widely held in traditional Christianity, such a belief is simply not agreeable to the Scriptures. As it is written:
Deuteronomy 30:11-14 "For this commandment which I command you today is not too difficult for you, nor is it out of reach. 12 "It is not in heaven, that you should say, 'Who will go up to heaven for us to get it for us and make us hear it, that we may observe it?' 13 "Nor is it beyond the sea, that you should say, 'Who will cross the sea for us to get it for us and make us hear it, that we may observe it?' 14 "But the word is very near you, in your mouth and in your heart, that you may observe it. (Deuteronomy 30:11-14 NASB; cf. Deuteronomy 30:9-16).
I know what many of you out there will say. "Well, that's in the Old Testament." (Or more accurately, the 1st writings of the Whole Testament). To that observation I say you are correct, how very observant of you. At the same time I also must ask do you understand what such a truth implies? Beloved, please allow Almighty God to train you to think biblically, not traditionally.
If Almighty God did not allow His people to claim that obeying His Commands was too difficult for Them before Jesus died and paid the atonement for our sins, then how much less would the Almighty accept such an excuse after the cross?! If God did not accept the convenient excuse that obeying His Law was too difficult for us before He unleashed the anointing of the Holy Spirit upon all flesh at the fulfillment of Pentecost, then is there any conceivable way that he would accept such a claim after He empowers us with the Holy Spirit? If Almighty God did not allow his people to claim that obeying Him was too hard before the fulfillment of Ezekiel 36:25-27 was fully manifested, then how much less would He accept such an excuse after the fulfillment of that promise through Messiah and the coming of the Holy Spirit?
No beloved, if I sin by violating, transgressing or living outside of God's Laws (1 John 3:4), that is not evidence that obeying the Laws of God is too hard. No, instead, it is evidence that I am still too hard, and I am not yet malleable and pliable enough in God's hands. Beloved, if I sin by violating, transgressing or living outside of God's Laws, that is a sign of exactly what Messiah said it was. Whenever I sin and violate God's Laws, I am demonstrating in living color that in that area at least, I'm still a slave to my sin, and not truly completely set free, (John 8:31-36).
If I continue to sin and violate God's Holy Laws, Then it should stand as evidence to me that in that area of my life, God's love is still not perfected within me yet. If it was, I would have no problem agreeing with and obeying God’s Laws, and I would not even consider it to be burdensome
1 John 5:3 For this is the love of God, that we keep His commandments; and His commandments are not burdensome. (1 John 5:3 NASB) Beloved, that's in the New Testament.
Closing Prayer: Almighty God Yahweh, Lord Jesus (Yeshua), and precious Lord Holy Spirit, blessed be Your name forevermore. Have mercy upon me, and save me, because as much as I hate it, I am a sinner.
As much as I love You, as much as I need You, and desire to please You, I still sin and come short of Your glory, on an all too frequent basis. I transgress against your good, perfect and Holy Laws, and I am therefore guilty of sin, because I miss the mark of Your highest standard.
The problem does not rest with Your Laws, because they are good and perfect (Psalm 19:7-14; Romans 7:7-16). The problem rests with me. It's not on Your end, it's on my side of the equation. I acknowledge this truth to You, because by Your grace, I believe Your Word which tells me that obeying Your Commandments is not too hard. I used to believe that it is too hard because that's what I was told, and it seemed agreeable and comfortable to me, so I did not challenge it by searching this out for myself as I should have.
The only reason that Your Laws and Commands seem difficult to me, when You say they are not is because I am weakened and enslaved by bondage and sin. I am in bondage and need to be set free from the lies and from the worthless and unprofitable things which I was taught to believe by my ancestors (Jeremiah 16:19).
I am in bondage and need to be set free from the habit of obeying the traditions of men, instead of obeying the Commands of God (Mark 7:9; Acts 5:29).
I am in bondage and need to be set free from the slavery of obeying my own sinful passions and desires (Galatians 5:19-25). All too frequently I do what I desire, instead of doing what I know Your Word tells me that You desire. All too often, I make my decisions based on how I think and feel, instead of obeying You, so that shows that I'm still in bondage to my own selfishness.
All too often I find that I settle for what I believe God will accept, instead of continually pushing myself toward greater and greater perfection as I should, (Leviticus 19:2; Deuteronomy 18:13; Matthew 5:48; 2 Corinthians 6:14-7:1; James 1:19-27).
As painful as it is sometimes, I thank You for Your Perfect Word. As unpleasant as it feels to my flesh, I thank You that Your Law and Word is doing exactly what it's supposed to do, (Hebrews 4:12-13). It is revealing my own heart to me. It shows me where my heart truly is when I compare it to Your Righteous Standards. When I try to obey Your Word, and I find that I can't, or when I find that I even lack the want to, then it reveals the truth to me that in each of those areas, in reality, I'm still in bondage, and not truly free. If I am not regularly confronted by Your Words and its requirements, if I don't encounter the real condition of my heart and weaknesses when I try to obey Your Words and fail, then I would become complacent, I would assume I was fine, even though in reality I would be in bondage, and I would be carried away by the deceitfulness of my own sin (Hebrews 3:13). That's why your children should obey Your Laws. Obeying your laws cannot save us, but it does show us in living color where we are still in bondage (and in some cases where we are progressing out of bondage), but we still need Your Salvation to be fully worked out and made manifest in those areas. It is also a rehearsal that prepares us to live in Your Eternal Kingdom, and under the authority of Your Kingship. Messiah buys our citizenship. No one and nothing else can do that, but obeying Your Laws and precepts gives us a rehearsal for how we will be living in Your Kingdom.
Thank You for giving me grace to respect Your training ground. Help me to more fully submit to You and cooperate with You on an ongoing basis, so that You can complete this work, and mature me into a full-grown son of God, and a productive citizen of Your Kingdom. Help me to abide in and faithfully apply Your Word so that I will be truly counted as one of Your disciples, so that I will honestly know the truth, and will be set free from every bondage that hinders me from glorifying You. Have mercy upon me, and save me through what Yeshua already did. Help me to ever more faithfully walk in the freedom and salvation that You so graciously provide, but help me never to use my freedom in such a way that I use it as an occasion to transgress Your Law (Galatians 5:13), which is sin (1 John 3:4).
Lord Yeshua, have mercy upon me, a sinner, and transform me into a son that brings exceeding joy and gladness to Your heart. Amen.