A message from Matsayah and Roeben...

Our world, as we know, is filled with innumerable creeds. People from all walks of life entrench themselves in one or more of these political, intellectual, philosophical or religious creeds. Especially in the religious arena do we find what appears to be a zeal for Biblical warfare. People defend to the dying breath their long-held beliefs, right or wrong. But what we believe may not always be in harmony with the written Word of the Almighty. Of course, everyone knows that to be the case with everyone else. The authoritative statement of so many is that until all others come up to their level of Scriptural understanding, darkness will continue to cover the earth. Such is the humble conclusion of nearly everyone about nearly everyone else. However, not until we are prepared to rightly divide the Scripture of Truth (Daniel 10:21) from human interpretation shall we be riveted to that mighty Rock of Truth; only then shall we be safe in the Stronghold of the Almighty. But alas! It seems that the majority would rather sink in the quicksand of traditions and private enlightenment rather than seek refuge in the secret place of the Most High; under the shadow of the Almighty.

Because the Scriptures must be our final word, when it cuts across the grain of independent ideas, many have resorted to abandoning great portions of the Scriptures. Rather than conform our ideas to the written Word, many endeavor to making the Word conform to their ideas. And when they don’t, it is the written Word that must be at fault.

It is for the benefit of those who sincerely desire to walk in harmony with their Maker that these writings have come forth. Two cannot walk together unless they be agreed. (Amos 3:3). We may rest assured, the Almighty is not seeking negotiation with us in order to come to an agreement; we are the ones who must humble ourselves in His sight that He may lift us up to see things His way. For His ways and thoughts are far above ours, and we shall never find that spiritual peace that our soul longs for until we do conform to His ways and thoughts. Only for those whose yearning desire to know and walk in the light of His Truth, shall these writings be of any value. All who worship the idols of their own opinion, or their leader’s views, will only scoff and ridicule such a work as this. We know this in advance and we accept it. In fact, we bless them to pursue their own course and glean all the joy they can in this present life, and we have no burden to try to persuade them to change any of the great teachings they so love. Their burden is to convert others to their creed, and they are positive that they are the ones with the Truth. Such have little desire to listen to what others have to say. What may start out as a respectful dialogue winds up as an aggressive monologue.

We (Matsayah and Roeben Shalom), have been on each of their lists of hopeful converts. Our policy has always been to never answer a matter until we have given it a thorough investigation. In this spirit of fairness to all, we have been equally adamant on putting every doctrine to the test of the Torah and the Tehodah (Isaiah 8:20) witness of the Prophecy writings, or in other words, the Scriptures of Truth. And by this we mean the Hebrew Scriptures: the Tanakh. We remind all who are interested in eternal life that the Hebrew Messiah affirmed this solitary criterion as the basis for finding the truth (Matthew 5:17-19).

Some of these philosophical doctrines were so involved in Scriptural manipulation; it took us months and sometimes a couple of years to work through them. But we did. And we still are. We kept a close account of every conversation with the proponents of these manifold doctrines, and we virtually made a library of their writings as evidence of what they teach. They were eager to fill our hands and arms with reams of written material. We did not toss it aside. We knew the limitations of our own comprehension and how easily one can entrench himself in what he is sure must be the truth. We found elements of truth in many of these writings that were a necessary challenge to our thinking, and gladly, we had to abandon some wrong concepts that we held dear up to that point. But by the same token, whenever we encountered statements that were in contradiction to the Scriptures of Truth, we had to challenge them. And thus we would do; sometimes in written correspondence, sometimes in open conversation with the teachers of those doctrines. To our astonishment, without exception, every one of the teachers openly expressed their resentment of our scrutinizing eyes in putting their statements to the acid test, as though they would teach contrary to the Scriptures. How insulting! But we can honestly say, we never intended to insult anyone’s integrity: we were merely on a quest to survive the hurricane, so to speak. For as it says in Ephesians 4:14, in the last days, people will be tossed to and fro with every wind of doctrine (as on a troubled sea); and again, in 2 Timothy 4:3, the time will come when they will not be able to endure sound doctrine.

Through the years of such confrontation, as we kept a faithful log of our findings, these written documents of the Stronghold emerged. We do not claim infallibility; we claim relentless pursuit of the truth—truth that must be firmly grounded on the evidence of the tenor of Scripture. As Martin Luther said before his papal inquisition in 1521,

Our Library

Notice: Our site is still under construction and all of our books are not yet available. In the meantime, we invite you to access the ones that have been reformatted.