Are You Following Jesus or the Church?

By Donald Werner

Are You Following Jesus or the Church? There is a difference between what Jesus taught and what the Church is teaching. The Church tells us that we are free from the Law, Jesus told us to keep the law. The church tells us that we must worship the Trinity, Jesus told us to worship Yahoveh alone. The church has decided to create its doctrines based on Paul’s letters to the exclusion of Jesus’ words. The church claims it loves Jesus, but it ignores much of what Jesus said, especially in regards to the keeping of God’s law and worship Yahoveh alone. These differences are irreconcilable
How do we solve these differences? We don't. We must simply look at the facts and choose for ourselves. We must choose to follow Jesus’ teachings or choose to follow the Church’s teachings. And if we choose to follow Jesus’ teachings we will separate ourselves from Christianity. But the reward makes it well worth the cost.
Read this book and you will see that we don’t have a choice if we want to gain eternal life.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu.com
• Release date: Jan 27, 2020
• ISBN: 9781678101817

Book preview

Are You Following Jesus or the Church?

Are You Following Jesus or the Church?

Donald Werner

2/4/2020

© 2020 Donald Werner. All rights reserved.

ISBN #: 978-1-67810-181-7

Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.  All Scriptures, unless otherwise marked are from the NKJV.

Scriptures taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.™ Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved

Scriptures taken from the Holy Bible, English Standard Version® ESV® Bible (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version®), copyright © 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Scriptures taken from the New American Standard Bible (NASB)

Copyright © 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977, 1995 by The Lockman Foundation

Scriptures taken from the New Revised Standard Version (NRSV)

Copyright © 1989 the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

All Scripture emphasis is mine.

THE PREFACE

The Premise for this Book; It is my understanding that the Bible is God’s word, and its authority supersede all other authority, including religious instruction, doctrines, creeds and teachings.  All ‘truth seekers’ must be willing to honestly compare what your church teachings to the teachings of Bible.  If you are willing to do that, this book is for you, but be ready for truth that will change you.

THE INTRODUCTION

Are you following Jesus or the Church?  That may sound like a strange title, or a redundant question, for some people.  But that idea will change after you read this book.  Many people think Jesus’ teachings and the Church’s teachings are the same.  They believe that the Church teaches what Jesus wanted taught, and to conform to the Church’s teachings is to conform to Jesus’ teachings.  But that is far from the truth. 

Have you ever wondered why we as Christians are told that it was OK to ignore God’s Sabbath day and worship on Sunday instead, while we are commanded to keep the Sabbath day in the Ten Commandments, and Jesus told us to keep the Ten Commandment?  Have you ever wondered why Christians don’t keep God’s Passover Feast as God told us to keep it for all generation (Exodus 12:14), and Jesus is even regarded as a Passover Lamb and he kept the Passover, even as his last supper and said ‘do this in memory of me’?  Have you ever wondered why the Scriptures tell us to not eat pig, but the church tells us that it’s OK to do that now and they even serve us Easter Sunday Ham dinners?  Have you ever wondered why we are told we don’t need to keep God’s Old Testament laws and Prophets when Jesus explicitly told us to keep every jot and tittle until heaven and earth pass away (Matthew 5:17-20)? Have you ever wondered why we worship a Trinity, when there is no Trinity in the Bible, and Jesus told us to worship Yahoveh God alone (Matthew 4:10), and he told us that God was one (Mark 12:29) and he himself worshiped Yahoveh (John 4:22-23)? 

And let me first clear up a misconception, even thought the Church will use Jesus as an excuse to do violate God’s laws, Jesus told us he did not come to abolish the law or change the law, he told us to keep God’s law until heaven and earth pass away.  It was the church that abolished God’s law.  The Catholic Church claims it has authority to do that, and the Protestant Churches do what the Catholic Church does.

As we will read, the Christian church’s teachings (doctrines) are not based on Jesus’ words, but rather they are based on Paul’s words.    And as we will see, that is the problem.

And that’s the issue we will study in this book.

Through this series of books, I will share with you truths that have been set aside in favor of church creeds, doctrines and traditions.

In this book I will examine the Scriptures to see what it alone says about the following the church vs. following Jesus.  I will draw on many of scriptures from the New and Old Testaments.  By the time you are done with this book, the answers you are seeking will be obvious.

I pray that God will be your Teacher and your Guide as you study the material in this book.  I pray that you will not just informed, but that you, and your relationship with God, will be transformed by what you read.  

Blessings as you study.

Donald Werner, [e-mail]

ARE YOU FOLLOWING JESUS OR THE CHURCH?

WHAT IS JESUS’ FORM OF CHRISTIANITY?

The problem with the Christian Church is, it’s not Christian.  What do I mean by that?  To be Christian means to follow the teachings or Christ.  The Christian Church doesn’t do that.  It did centuries ago, but it doesn’t any more.  They have abandon Jesus’ instructions and commands with regard to keeping God’s law and who they worship.  And these are major problems.

The earliest churches, which were started by Jesus’ Apostles and his personally trained disciples, did and believed as Jesus instructed.  We read about the earliest believes, they were called ‘The Way’, in Acts 24:14. But this I confess to you, that according to ‘the Way’ which they call a sect, so I worship the God of my fathers, believing all things which are written in the Law and in the Prophets.  They did exactly as Jesus commanded, and in compliance with God’s Old Testament law.  They acknowledged Jesus as the Messiah and kept the ‘law and the prophets’ and worship the God of ancient Israel, Yahoveh, alone.  That is what I will call ‘Messianic Judaism’, practiced by Messianic Jews.

So, why does the Christian Church tells us that it is OK to ignore God’s 4th Commandment and violate His holy Sabbath day, and violate the 1st Commandment which tells us to worship Yahoveh alone?  Didn’t Jesus tell us to keep the Ten Commandment?  He did.

And I suspect some people are now saying, I didn’t know the First Commandment told us to worship Yahoveh alone.  And most Christians don’t know that, because the Christian Church like to print the First Commandment as found in Exodus 20:3, You shall have no other gods before Me.  And if that is all you have for the First Commandment, I guess you can define who God is.  But the First Commandment needs to include verse 2, so it reads as found in Exodus 20:2-3, "I am Yahoveh your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. 3 You shall have no other gods before Me."  Now we understand who God is, Yahoveh.  And Yahoveh says He’s the only God, there are no more.  And that’s what Jesus said: Matthew 4:10, Mark 12:29, Luke 4:8, John 17:3.  But the church ignores that and worships a Trinity.

And why does the Christian Church tell us to celebrate Easter, and it ignores God’s Passover which He told us to celebrate forever?  Jesus is even regarded as a Passover Lamb, and his last supper was a Passover meal, that’s when he said, ‘do this in memory of me’ – so why don’t we?  Have you ever wondered why the Scriptures tell us to not eat pig, but the Christian church tells us that it’s OK to eat pig now, and they even serve us Easter Sunday Ham dinners?  Have you ever wondered why we are told by the Church that we don’t need to keep God’s Old Testament ‘laws and the Prophets’ when Jesus explicitly told us to do so until heaven and earth pass away? Have you ever wondered why the church insist that we worship a Trinity, when there is no Trinity in the Bible, and Jesus told us to worship Yahoveh God alone, and he did so himself? 

And let me first clear up a misconception, even thought the Christian Church will use Jesus as an excuse to set aside God’s laws, Jesus told us that he did not come to abolish the law or change the law, he told us that God’s law stands forever, every jot and tittle, and we are to keep them all.  It was the Christian Church that abolished God’s law, in defiance of Jesus’ instructions.

The Christian Church today is not what it originally was, and it is not what Jesus meant it to be. Jesus told his followers to keep the commandments of God (Matthew 5:17-20) and to worship Yahoveh God alone (Matthew 4:10).  And Jesus said it was by obeying his words that we would