What constitutes a righteous nation? Surely, a nation is a sum total of its people, what they are, what they do. Then what makes them sufficiently righteous to influence their nation’s character, how many does it take for this purpose? Where do we, in the United States, stand as measured on this scale?

Never at any time, has there been a nation composed entirely of righteous people, not even Yahweh’s own people Israel. Even during the exodus, when the people had witnessed many miracles by the hand of Yahweh, and they saw His presence in the pillar of cloud and fire every day, the great mass of the people were either actively or passively unrighteous. While Moses was on Mt. Sinai, receiving the laws of Yahweh, part of the nation of Israel was actively wicked, demanding that Aaron make them an idol god, the golden calf. Most of the nation passively followed them into wickedness, only Moses and the tribe of Levi remained faithful to Yahweh.

So it is and always has been, the people are divided into three classes. The few good people, who are Yahweh’s righteous remnant, the somewhat larger group who are especially evil, and the huge middle group, neither very good nor especially evil. The especially evil group would completely and permanently ruin and destroy the whole nation, if they were allowed to live very long. Therefore Yahweh has had to wipe them out many times, in order to save anything of the nation. Remember the heavy loss of life on many occasions.

It is an historically and biblically verified fact that what is called Christianity today in many ways is very dissimilar, and in many respects, outright antagonistic to the religion of the first-century, Book of Acts believers. How did this come to be?

Many a modern Christian church prides itself on being a “New Testament” church, but how could this be? First the “New Testament” church was not known as a church — a pagan word derived from the pagan sun god Circes. Second, the apostolic believers met in their synagogues on the Sabbath, the seventh day of the week following the example and command of YHWH, not on Sunday, the first day of the week. The early believers did not celebrate holidays originating straight from paganism such as Easter, Christmas, Halloween, Lent, and the rest. The Book of Acts record is clear that they kept the Bible Holy Days of Passover, Unleavened Bread, Pentecost, Feast of Trumpets, Day of Atonement, Feast of Tabernacles, and the Eighth Day. Furthermore, there were no such things as ham dinners at church potlucks. They did not teach that the “Old Testament” “laws of Moses” were “done away” with.

Both Stephen and Paul were falsely accused of teaching that the laws and customs of Moses were nullified and both lost their lives defending themselves against these slanderers and liars.

A hundred other examples could easily be given showing how the Christian church as veered away from its roots, but hopefully, the reader gets the point. Many books have been written which deal exhaustively with this subject. The honest inquirer and truth-seeker would avail themselves well to procure and read these books with an open and prayerful heart before YHWH Elohim, the one Holy Scripture declares before whom all must stand to give account for the works done in the flesh.

So what happened to cause Christianity to veer so widely from the roots of its faith to arrive at the place where it hardly resembles that from which it sprang? This is not an easy question to answer since one must look back nearly 2000 years and attempt to reconstruct the times in which our spiritual forefathers lived. We must  understand what was transpiring politically, religiously, and socially to answer this question. It is imperative that we understand the contextual fabric, the backdrop of history, and the parade of events which happened one after another between the years of 70 AD and 135 AD. Then and only then can we understand how the church became divorced from its Hebraic roots and became Greco-Roman and Western in nature with a thick veneer of paganistic practices, traditions and beliefs.

Sheri drummed her fingers nervously on the heavy wooden table. Her knees were rigid, her heels arched upward inside her stylish leather shoes. For the third time in the past five minutes, her pale blue eyes searched the windows hoping to see Joe’s familiar gait shadowing up the walk. She had been here nearly an hour already and was just finishing a second bowl of chips, “the best in town,” or so the crooked sign on the restaurant’s wall said, especially when dipped in “the salsa that’s so addicting it should require a prescription.”

But a person could only eat so many before etiquette demanded a real order, one from the menu, one that actually cost money.

She snapped the last chip in half and stirred the remaining salsa, then dropped both pieces haphazardly into the bowl.

A light drizzle peppered the windshield of the ’68 Ford pickup as it rolled nonchalantly into the parking lot of Shop Right’s Grocery in Springdale.

As the truck crept slowly over the asphalt, the old man wrestled the transmission into first gear and manuevered the vehice forward to a gentle rest against the railroad-tie bumper. Nobody seemed to notice as Joe slid from the truck bed and made his way through the parked vehicles, to the east wall of the country store and a canopy of unkept hedges. Joe was familiar with the hideout. He’d seen local kids playing inside and around the bushes before.

It had been two weeks since he first met Buck and Tater. During that time he had grown to respect the old man, and, though he hated to admit it, attached to the guardian fur ball too. Together, they decided he would conceal himself beside the country store until Buck’s bimonthly shopping event was concluded. If the gossipy clerk who stood behind the counter repeating every rumor he ever heard asked no probing questions, Joe would assume Buck and Tater were in the clear and that he could move on, that he had not endangered them.

Having instructed Garth to find his sisters Allie and Sheri and to assemble them for his arrival, Joe pretended to be biting his nails as he shielded his face from public view. He inserted several coins into Shop Right’s pay phone, then dialed his home number and listened to the machine’s familiar recording.

“You’ve reached the home of Joe Ryback. You know what to do, so do it.”

After waiting for the ensuing beep, he punched the two-digit code that allowed remote playback.

“You have twenty-three new messages,” the digital voice said.

There were calls from his mom and sisters: frantic, heartfelt inquiries concerning his whereabouts; a contact from a credit card company wanting to know why his bill hadn’t been paid; and a different kind of message, one that sounded synthetic. A salivic hiss dominated each slowly enunciated syllable as the unusual voice in the recording said, “Mr. Ryback. My name is Apol Leon. I work for the United States Government. I need to meet with you, to discussss the item in your possession. We are willing to pay a substantial finder’s fee, and I can guarantee your safety. Please return my call as soon as pos-s-s-ible….”