Did you all enjoy your meal? The following exegesis probes into the origin of heresy in the Bible plus how the Word does meet the inquiry and resolves human reasoning.

It is recorded in the Bible in 1 Kings 12 that Jeroboam in fulfillment of the prophecy of God became king of ten tribes, excluding the tribes of Judah and Benjamin. While he was a subordinate to King Solomon he fled to Egypt for fear of his life and persecution at that time and according to that prophecy. After the passing of Solomon, King of Israel, Solomon`s son, Rehoboam, became king in Judah. King Rehoboam chastised his people even more and made their yoke even heavier by neglecting the pleas from Jeroboam and the advice from the elders of the court of King Rehoboam`s late father, Solomon, to lift off the yoke placed on the people. Instead of to lighten the burden, Rehoboam rather chose the devious advice of his friends, and deciding to become oppressively toward the people, he told them, "My father made your yoke heavy, but I will add to your yoke; my father chastised you with whips, but I will chastise you with scourges" (1 Kings 12:14). Upon the return of Jeroboam back to Israel he became king of eleven tribes of Israel as the people of Israel gathered and crowned him king following the rule as a dictator imposed by Rehoboam the son of Solomon. Ten out of the twelve tribes of Israel turned against the house of David and made Jeroboam their king and founded another kingdom—the northern kingdom with capital city Samaria. It was also known as the Kingdom of Samaria or Israel. The tribes of Judah and Benjamin belonged to the southern kingdom also known as the Kingdom of Judah where Judah maintained the throne until 586 BC when it disappeared. This was how Israel became divided into Judah and Samaria.

While Jeroboam was serving as king, as part of his cunning tricks, being aware of the fact that he wasn`t lawfully from the tribe of Judah so he changed the sacrificial system of his own kind. He moved the date of the Day of Atonement from the tenth day of the seventh month to the fifteenth day of the eight month. In ancient Israel the seventh month in the Jewish calendar is the month of October. So he made two golden calves and placed one in Bethel and the other one as far as in Dan and asked the people to worship them there. Not only that, King Jeroboam also appointed priests from ordinary people outside of the household of Aaron which was of Levites with he himself being one of the priests, as such it was a terrible sin for lawlessness prevailed in Israel. This was the origin of biblical heresy. God abhorred this sin of Jeroboam the most. Because of that God put Jeroboam to death. His son too was put to death after succeeding his father`s throne and continuing in the same sinful ways. In fact all of the kings of Israel who followed suit were brought to the same end as the wrath in the household of Jeroboam.

Shifting gear, in the Pentateuch (from Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers to Deuteronomy) the Five Books of Moses also known as the Torah God gave us 613 clauses of the Law and the Ten Commandments. Now, to denounce ladies with permed hairstyles according to the Law even though they are saved and born again it leads us to a misconstrued judgment from the standpoint of the Law which was given to us for the knowledge of our sins (Romans 3:20). For trying to live according to the Law, though it is impossible with man, is to mock God and eventually living as such is in vain, with sin in your heart. What is sin? It is not to live by the Law of God and according to His will. Sin means to miss the mark. In Hellenic it is "ἁμαρτία (hamartia)" and its verbal form `to sin` is `ἁμαρτάνω (hamartano).` The foremost precondition for one to be saved and to inherit eternal life in the Kingdom of Christ is to be a sinner at least once in your lifetime. Then you believe in the Lord Jesus` water baptism at the Jordan River as one Man`s righteous act for our perfect salvation from sin and His sacrifice on the vile Cross in our place to constitute our atoning grace and the saving word of the truth for all eternity. Do you believe in this? We need to definitely empty all our hearts and take in this gospel to our hearts` content and not through and with our own volition, for mankind`s will and righteousness is like a used and filthy rug worse than excrement. Put it easier, at the crossroads, the everlasting remission of sin is for those who are poor in spirit and who possess the gift of the indwelling of the Holy Spirit and inherit the Kingdom of God whereas unbelievers are doomed as sinners who are to be seasoned with unquenchable fire in hell (Mark 9:49). The former remain the lighthouse in this darkening world illuminating the lost generation with the truth of Jesus` flesh and blood as the true spiritual food and drink to satisfy our thirsts. To state summarily here what the content of the gospel I am talking all about is, it is what comes out of the heart of man that defiles a man (all what goes inside of a man exits the body as waste, this is a moral lesson taught even in the secular world) and not artificial nails and a permed hair. It`s one`s spirit that is born again out of the heart and not out of the flesh. Do you grasp this? For our Holy God looks at the heart not at the outward appearance of man. And when you and I stand at the crossroads that will be what is most important to determine, on the one hand, to be salted with fire in the abyss forever or a life of splendor, enjoyment and glory with God the Father who is the Master of our lives.

The Bible talks about the three types or kinds of lusts in the First Epistle of John chapter 2 and verse 16. So what does all these lusts profit us? Absolutely the price to be paid is death for the wages of sin is death and life eternal in the fire of hell. The beautiful news is that these sinful passions exhibited with the flesh and the heart have been taken care of through Jesus` baptism and vicarious shedding of His blood on the Cross. Though from time to time we may feel gloomy in this depraved world due to our infirm nature, lack, weaknesses, insufficiencies and shortcomings. The flesh after all remains deficient. Don`t put confidence in the flesh. The flesh does not change. It would remain imperfect and weak even after the heart is being cleansed from sin. To believe in God and praise Him with the heart then the flesh would follow the heart after one is being saved but that is never 100 percent. My fellow believers and me included, God has solved away all our transgressions. His Son Jesus the only begotten Son of God fulfilled His Father`s will by abandoning the glory and splendor at the right hand of the throne in the Kingdom of God in Heaven to come here on earth in the form and likeness of a sinful man though He was without sin and accepted all the sins of the world once and for all including yours and mine to be transferred on to Him during His baptism by John the Baptist at the Jordan and shed all His blood on the Cross on your and my behalf. The Holy Spirit now indwelling in us who believe in this bears witness of this to us. As God`s servants let`s defend our hearts and spread this gospel of the Lord—the gospel of the water and the Spirit—remotely against the untruth and heretics, those followers of the sins of Jeroboam. Jeroboam worshiped calves of gold, built shrines in the high places, appointed priests from outside of the household of Aaron with he himself becoming one of them and changed the Day of Atonement, flawlessly provoking the wrath of Jehovah God. So, to put it differently, it is critically important for you to believe the spiritual things of the Scriptures and likewise ascertain your faith objectively in the gospel of the water and the Spirit.

In conclusion, to disclose yet again the key point to my life I conscientiously give my unbounded thanks upon thanks to the Savior Jesus the Master of life. As a righteous servant in Christ Jesus I am duty bound to preach His beautiful gospel of the water and the Spirit to every lost soul so that they too may come into the fold of His righteousness and be forgiven of their sin. That is to say, you believe in the baptism that Jesus Christ received on His shoulders by John the Baptist at the Jordan River as well as His shedding of all His precious blood on the Cross together as the only atoning sacrifice which remits your sins once and for all. This is life. And the destiny chosen. You cannot be exempted from this calling. Never. Except you deny to believe in this series of events to constitute the fundamentals of your faith. The Bible says, "Do not go into the way of the Gentiles, and do not enter a city of the Samaritans. But go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel" (Matthew 10:5-6). I pray to come into contact with someone like you, to lead the person into His fold of righteousness as well as teach this person the upright life. So, I, too, share in your joy for us to be united in His church. Let`s together go, see and enter the Kingdom of God. May God`s great blessings of the gospel of the water and the Spirit be with you all. I pray and hope for you to have a complete understanding of every word of the Lord as well as those of the righteous servants of the Lord in Christ Jesus. Let`s finish it here today. ✉️